dating sims on Steam

[Don]

I recently noticed a lot of dating sims (er, visual novels) show up recommended on Steam, though it seems like Steam only takes reject games with graphics that looks like it's from 15 years ago or something. I mean, the point of these games is supposed to be the girls, so I do care if the game looks remotely pleasing. Yes Japan is not exactly good at making computer games, but even they're a bit more advanced than that. I'm really trying to figure out who they're trying to sell here, because the game doesn't look good and it's not even any of the major ones (which would all be illegal anyway, at least I don't think Steam carries 18+ stuff). Is anyone even remotely interested in these games? I wouldn't mind if they get something like Evangelion: Steel Girlfriend even though I literally have no idea what it's about except it's Evangelion, but that's about it.

[Eric]

Yeah that's a current phenomenon going on in the West via Stream lotta Japanese games that would never see the light of day in the West getting localized, though I find it funny that it would never have happened if not for the fact that steam's current policies let anything and everything on steam.

That being said they are still censored visual novels, no nudity! Because sex = bad here lol.

[Shrinweck]

I love visual novels, especially the ones that aren't about manipulating your way into sleeping with high school girls. The ones that are specifically more "dating sim" than "novel" though, no I'm probably not interested in them.

The one that I'm aware of with sexual content already has a patch that puts translated scenes into the game. AFAIK no decent translated visual novels have really made their way to Steam yet. Stuff like Neko Paradise getting released first is like throwing a party, hearing it's going to have gamers, and putting up a cardboard cut out of Lara Croft. I just brought up Steam and flipped through the entire catalog and it turns out that there's a couple more that were originally in Japanese, but one I'm not interested in (Planetaran) and the other is literally set in a high school (If My Heart Had Wings), so I'm not going to be purchasing either of those :D

[Don]

Virtually every dating sim takes place in an unspecified educational institute that looks strangely like a high school. I don't particularly care too much about the underyling premise, but this stuff seems like pretty much bottom of the barrel. I know there's supposed to be cleaned version of a lot of bigger games when they port them to a console that often makes even less sense than the original. From what I can tell the good story stuff all involves stories everyone including the protagonist is either terminally ill, already dead, or both, because that's supposed to be err.. deep. Honestly, it's not like anyone's getting this for the story. I can certainly see why people like the Kanon style and Typemoon's stuff looks very good artisiticlaly and it's like a freak accident some of the plot was actually good that didn't last because all the 10 later spinoffs had a dumb story. If you look at something like Langrisser, which isn't a dating sim but was drawn by a guy who dealt with that stuff, it's a good example of something with art that at least looked like the creator tried (whether you like it or not depends on taste) and that should be a prerequisite. It'd be good if the game that goes along happens to be good.