Foreword: The culmination of the series and the biggest jewel Four-Nine ever produced. I'm late with the review since I wanted to finish video playthrough first.
There are no masterpieces this month. My subjective choice for VN of the Month January 1998 is Machi - maybe it's the impact of 428 sequel. I've very difficult history with Divi-Dead as both times I tried it I fell asleep. No true ending is worth such boring gameplay. And I just can't appreciate dating SIMs without impact on story to evaluate Sentimental Graffiti properly.
What a tiresome year. First Windows year had too many obscure games with tiny bits of information to get. Crude graphics, bland plotlines, typical dating sim gameplay. But all in due time.
Foreword: I've noted the series quite long ago, but only when approached 4th final work decided to play the prequel that's directly connected with 4th part.
Ryouki no Ori Dai 2 Shou and Rookies are the masterpieces of January. But Rookies is a more traditional story-focused visual novel with charming characters and lots of kind humor. Rookies is VN of January 1997.
The best year so far, actually. I really hope that I'll be able to say the same about every forthcoming year. 84 works during the year amounts for an average of 7 works each month - a very saturated year.
After starry October nothing really shines this month. If we narrow down the candidates I'd have to choose from Mashou no Kao, High School Days, Sotsugyou Shashin 2 ~Raspberry Dream~, Tsuioku and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Hihoushima Arata Naru Sangeki. Last one is out as PS1 exclusive (win version nowhere to be found). Sotsugyou Shashin 2 is out as a difficult type of game for modern players. Tsuioku is way too obscure. High School Days is a really nice game, but even warm vanilla school game can't really invoke much interest with poor graphics and no voicing. I can't believe myself, but I'm nominating Mink's Mashou no Kao as VN of November 1996. This crazy nymphet game has a strong personality and leaves a lasting impact through the years.
Foreword: I did not want to review it. But then I watched the hentai OVA of its preuel - Mystery of the Necronomicon (黒の断章 Kuro no Danshō) and it's a total blast. I highly recommend to watch it to everyone. A very memorable and bloody occult detective story. There was no anime version of the sequel, so I rushed in.
Foreword: I hate bakage. And yet I'm reviewing yet another bakage. Why? Mostly because together with YU-NO, these are the last two works of the Great Elf/Silky's team, after that Elf is going to loose too many staff members and is going to rerelease old works for Windows, stamp eroge works alongside with slice of life works. No more crazy adventure spirit afterwards. It's a historical moment to visual novels industry. Oh and I liked the two hentai OVAs of it immensely back then. I'll assume everyone seen them since I'm going to compare these works.