Recently I've been reading/playing Fate/stay night, a Japanese visual novel. (A "visual novel" is basically an illustrated choose-your-own-adventure, albeit with a much higher ratio of plot to choices). It's interesting from an LW perspective because Eliezer is a fan (eg quoting it here, and apparently there's a reference in HPMOR) and there are philosophical similarities with HPMOR and Eliezer's work in general on topics like heroism and making an extraordinary effort, the notion of "something to protect", etc. Plot-wise, it's an urban-fantasy-slash-romance story where ancient heroes are summoned to help mages like our reluctant hero fight a battle for the Holy Grail, which promises unlimited power. Like apparently a lot of VNs there are 3 "routes" where the main plot works out differently depending on an early choice. I'm halfway through the 2nd one right now. Positives: * Fun setting. * Fun characters and interactions, good comedy at times. * Good art. * Excellent voice acting in the patched version. * Often gripping during the dramatic parts. * The secret identity of one of the main characters is pretty much maximally absurd and maximally awesome at the same time. Edit: having gotten further into Unlimited Blade Works, make that two of the main characters. * Good character development for the main character who starts out a bit chumpy and annoying in some aspects ("surely this woman who is 10x more powerful than me needs my protection") but grows well. Negatives: * Extremely long and long-winded. The narrative style during scenes is often repetitive, as is the overall story - you get similar exposition multiple times and I've gone through at least 15 breakfast scenes already. * The sex scenes (2 in the first route) were overly pornographic for my taste. * Some combat scenes are overly drawn out - plus the main character has been beaten/chopped half to death probably 10 times at least so far. * The background music is bad (but can be turned off).

Katawa Shouju. It's a visual novel about a guy with a heart condition transferring to a school for the disabled. I'm not the biggest fan of the genre, but made an exception for this one. I should probably plaster a gigantic trigger warning for this one, since, well, the big redeeming quality of this one is the ability to hit a lot of your emotions. I had a lonely childhood and adolescence, and I managed to mostly repress it until Hanako's story arc triggered me pretty badly. If you're particularly empathetic or have a history of loneliness, I wouldn't dive into this one unless you're willing to spend some time processing your emotions and having a good cathartic crying session.