In all but one of the visual novels I’ve read, I’ve just sped through H-scenes and waited for the plot to resume. Ironically, the only VN with relevant H-scenes in it was One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e, the predecessor to Kanon, written by Jun Maeda and Naoki Hisaya. One scene was plot-related, and another was so comedic I couldn’t stop laughing.
I didn’t know this topic existed!
I know many people have an adversion against everything H-themed for whatever mystical reason, but personally I don’t find H scenes or H images of bad taste inherently. Nevertheless, I understand most people don’t like talking about it, so I don’t talk too much about it if people don’t want to.
Back on topic, basically everyone on the Internet says that H scenes in Key VNs are done very poorly. The only Key VN I played is Little Busters, so I can only comment about H scenes in it. Moreover, I only read through Haruka, Kurugaya and Kud’s, and I skipped through Komari’s because it’s in a bad ending and I don’t like bad endings.
They were added later. They’re not essential. They don’t add much to the story. They are quite sudden and end a bit abrutply in some cases.
But hey, I still enjoyed them. While they don’t add to the story, they help building intimacy between the characters, and I personally found them to be very cute. I also got aroused by them.
I’m not very happy about the fact that H scenes were cut completely from newer editions of Little Busters, but unfortunately I can’t say I don’t understand the motivation behind it.
As much as I agree with you (in that the H-scenes do not improve the story in any way, but the translation was absolutely horrible), I also believe that its harshest critics never bothered to even try reading it 
So yes, it was very much a kneejerk reaction as @Odinbeard_McSparkles has stated
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It occurs to me though that it might not have been because the h-scenes were censored that caused this reaction, but rather, that the was any censorship at all. Some people, including myself to a certain extent, feel very strongly about censorship. If it hadn’t been there to begin with, it’s absence wouldn’t bother me at all.
But yes, there will always be some people who act badly because their h-scenes or whatever else were taken away, but it’s not like we can line up all the assholes on earth and summarily execute them. What we need to do as a community is make it clear to developers that their views don’t represent the wider community. It seriously wouldn’t be funny if Moenovel translated another game with the same quality, but thought they’d done their job to their fans just by leaving the h-scenes in.
Which scenes are you talking about? I just skipped all of them, so I’m now worried I missed something important.
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Specifically, (One spoilers) Mio’s and Nanase’s routes. I forget the exact details, but the scene directly before Kouhei begins undressing Mio had some interesting text before it, and in Nanase’s route she’s so awkward about it she starts watching TV during the scene and tries to distract herself by watching sumo wrestling.
I neglected to mention it, but this is actually the part of it that I wholeheartedly agree with you on. I would rather the original work be as untouched as possible during the localization/translation part of things. Again, I don’t personally enjoy H-Scenes, but if a skip option is there, I couldn’t care less. Even if there wasn’t, I can just click through really fast, and I’m not bothered by seeing some naughty bits for a few seconds. I subscribe two lines of thinking on this, which is that the author’s vision should remain intact and they should be able to create what they want and how they want to. However, I also strongly believe that the reader’s interpretation is ultimately king over the author’s intent, and the reader is not at fault for not jiving with what is presented.
Side note: There is a IMHHW thread that was created not long ago in the Off-Topic section. Not sure if you saw/posted in it yet, but it’d be fun to discuss the game more directly if you were interested in doing so.
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Because of the discusions of steam I have reached the conclussion that the only way to make Little Busters popular there is patching their horrible H-scenes in the steam version so… In a figurative situation where I, making a sacrifice and hurting my soul, was able to traslate then to english in a text file (the text only since I don’t know nothing about patching or developing) would be someone able to make a patch for steam?
I met the genre just because of H-scenes in 2004, playing True Love. My first visual novel without any kind of H-scenes was Rewrite, which ironically turned my favorite visual novel. Nowadays I do not care if the game has H-scenes or not. So far the only visual novels without H-scenes I’ve played was Rewrite, Clannad (Steam), Umineko (Steam) and Little Busters (Steam).
Sometimes it feels like people want H-Scenes for the sake of H-Scenes. If the H-Scenes are a significant part of the game, or part of the appeal of the game is the H-Content, I’d agree with them. But Little Busters! has never been any of these things. This situation also happened with Himawari. They didn’t have H-Scenes in the release and there was a bit of an uproar about it. The version that was being released was a port of the PS Vita version which had extra content added as well as redone art, meaning there was never any H-Scene art to begin with. But people heard the original version had H-Scenes so they got all riled up about it. Wanting sex in your games is fine, but don’t just demand it without knowing the full context of the reasoning behind the decision to exclude it, because sometimes the decision was for the best. It’s like if people got in Frontwing’s face for removing a sex scene from their release of Subahibi without knowing both the content of the scene and that it wasn’t that relevant to the plot.
Some visual novels are better with H-scenes, some are better without. It depends on the context and execution. Of course, nukige are all about them but that’s a separate genre.
From what I’ve seen, quality VNs that originally didn’t have H-scenes should just stick to not having them.
But when it comes to localizing VNs, the question of whether H-scenes that were originally present should be removed has become the topic of many frustrated discussions.
In this context, the best option is to make both an all-ages as well as an 18+ version of the VN available for purchase. Some games on Steam already have optional restoration patches. That shouldn’t be difficult for PC releases. PS Vita ports don’t really have that option, but not that many VNs are available for it as far as I’m aware.
From a business perspective, the companies have to keep the target audience in mind. Localizing popular VNs that originally had H-scenes and removing said scenes is a surefire way to lose potential customers. While the Japanese audience may have several versions of a VN from which to choose, the Western doesn’t have that luxury.
In my personal opinion the both extremes are the worse, the people who won’t try a non r-18 and the people who won’t ever play a r-18 no matter what. I heard someone say they won’t play air because it used to be a “porn game” they didn’t care if the content was gone even lol. But I do feel the ideal situation is having both. It is actually very simple the market is there then people want that version. They shouldn’t allow that to be their one checklist item that must be there, but they do. If that is your only reason to buying it why are you buying a game with such little amount of it? I can see if you are on the fence it can make you sway one way, but having that influence you entirely is puzzling.
The thing that makes me angry is when people start throwing the word “censored” around. In little busters case it is 5 vs 1 clearly EX is the “wild version” rather than the others being censored. Whats the reverse of “censored”? where they just slap some stuff in there so it sells to that market? It is like those guys want to be tricked into a marketing gimmick…
So just don’t be extreme on either side, don’t try to burn all r-18 games to the ground and don’t only buy games because they are r-18 just have it as one of your reasons.
But… lets be honest the devs are sort of at fault when they try to “reach too far” for that market. It is a grey line. How much can it be forced into one or the other before it is too forced?
I’m not in any of the extremes. I read both, with and without h-scenes. I’m only trying to Little Busters to get the level of popularity that deserves in steam and, even if I don’t like their h-scenes in special seems like is the only way to reach that popularity level in the actual market of VN in steam.
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I think i know they cannot post h-games on steam, but could the company create a official patch out of steam? for players who want to add the scenes? I do not know if there are any companies that have already done this. if steam somehow forbids the creator of the game to do this
I really don’t know if a company can post a patch by therselves. I’m talking about a fan made patch.
That implies successfully importing the RealLive assets over to LUCA (voices, CGs edited to fit the new ratio, etc…) which no one managed to even successfully extract anything from yet and somehow successfully patching in the new elements without entirely breaking the game.
It’s really not as simple as translating a bunch of text and inserting it. None of this “BUT MUH CENSORSHIP” nonsense would ever motivate anyone to do it TBH.
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Oh I didn’t really mean you, was talking about in general. But yeah when you let those extremist types in you suddenly get reviews like “r-18 patch ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” Which may actually drive some people away. Plus people can now complain about how bad the h content is too. I don’t think it is as reliable as you think. There are plenty of un popular games on steam that have bad h-content, after all EX is said to be “bad”. I doubt it was that simple. If it was a easy thing to put in they might of done it but making the engine better was a much better choice imo.
I agree with you that more options of patches is good but it just wasn’t that easy this time around.
A lot of that thread is just a few very loud people that is usually how it goes.
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@JmTrad There are a lot of +18 patches for STEAM VNs, most of them are DENPASOFT ( NEKOPARA 1-3, Sunrider Liberation Day, Sunrider Academy,etc). I have most of my VNs patched. Some Patches are free, other patches cost more then the STEAM game. MANGAGAMER has some patches too. Fanpatches exist too, but the installation is very difficult…it took me hours of install/deinstall for IF MY HEART HAD WINGS from MOENOVEL. Denpasoft patches are simple, unpack 3 folders in the game folder…thats it, VN is +18 in your STEAM collection. But STEAM is against it and i can’t post screenshots or stream the +18 VNs.
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@bunkertor7 wow. i knew that some visual novels on steam had fanpatchs, but knowing that there are official patches is a surprise. a pity that certain companies take advantage and charge for them… 
I don’t keep up with VNs much nowadays, but I know during the early transition to steam (when an audience was yet to be established) a lot of publishers were underselling the Visual Novel and using the adult patches as a tip jar. By pricing the VN lower than traditional they breed a fanbase, and then the fans who care enough and/or who want to support the publishers and developers will buy the patch.
Unfortunately a lot of the modern VN fanbase is made up of people who aren’t aware of the stark difference in pricing in the west, and they view these patches as additional costs rather than an optional subtraction… If it weren’t for the adult patches, a lot of great VNs would be a lot more expensive.
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@Takafumi I had not thought of it that way. really, if it is charged cheaper to be able to charge the rest in h-patch for the people who care, I do not see any problem.
