Although I think 2017 was one of the weaker years as far as visual novels were concerned, it still offered a couple of pleasant surprises, namely Kamisama no Game and Hikari no Umi no Apeiria.

You definitely want to check the former if you’re into death games and thought that what Danganronpa lacked was lots and lots of fetishized sex, while the latter, with its entertaining mix of hard science fiction, mind games, and comedy is definitely my pick for the visual novel of the year.

I was really shocked to see Kin’iro Loveriche come into picture at the last moment (late December release, lol) and nick the top place on the list. I’m reading it right now, and I still can’t believe it, but I’ve heard that it’s a slow starter. I’ll probably update this post once I finish.

Edit: Okay, I finished it and it was complete garbage. I’m disappointed with the world.

I was also really looking forward to check Ouka Sabaki and Chronobox, but I got busy with real world matters at the end of the year and they kind of slipped by. Maybe I’ll still get around to them.

I also can barely believe to see the sequel to Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart take the 4th place. I feel like checking it out just to see how the hell that could have happened as the original released in 2016 was a pretty forgettable moege.

Among the other stuff I played, I feel that Silverio Trinity was a bit overrated by the chuuni obsessed crowd as it had fewer ratings than most other visual novels in the list and honestly wasn’t THAT good.

Suisou Ginka had the potential to make it into top ten if not top five, but it totally fell apart in the second half and had some of the worst individual routes I’ve ever seen in a VN.

And Tsukikage was just all right, so it’s just where I’d have expected it to be.

All in all, Apeiria made the year for me, and it would’ve been a pretty bleak one without it. Thank god for Silky’s Plus and I hope they continue publishing awesome visual novels.