I've been playing VNs for most of this century, and other adult games for longer (starting with Leisure Suit Larry on an Apple Macintosh when I was -far- too young).
So here are my long-winded two cents:
Japan is a bit stuck in youth worship and the kawaii thing. The stock characters that are used are also getting tiresome.
I'll explain. Japanese games are very often centered around a high-schooler MC and a slice-of-life approach with a bunch of trope characters with a “role”, like the tsundere (often twin-pigtailed, often blonde), the riskily young-looking “little sister”, the childhood friend who is suddenly on the radar (often a "Yamato Nadeshiko"-type), the mature teacher (or mom, or aunt), the really shy girl (usually with glasses), the very outgoing girl (often an “idol” or a tomboy), and the ultra-responsible student council president. These are only some of the cookie-cutter characters, there are many more.
This lack of originality is not necessarily bad, but the problem is far too often compounded by a distinct lack of individual characterisation. Often, it feels like European
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where the stock characters are a shortcut: a fallback the creator can use to skip any serious work developing and writing distinct personalities.
Japanese VN MCs are usually also lacking personality. This is probably deliberate, and meant to make it easier to self-insert and immerse yourself, but it often becomes jarring. In a VN, you are supposed to be within the MC's head, reading his innermost thoughts. In a typical Japanese VN, that is an unspeakably dull place, offensively bland. It makes you feel bad, to saddle the poor LI with the uninteresting, stone-faced loser that the average JP VN MC is.
As you may gather from this, I have been a bit bored by Japanese games of late. I have the feeling that they are stuck in a rut. Obviously, there are games that break from the norm (like
Majikoi, which was bloody good and poked fun at a lot of Japanese culture), but I think the Japanese game companies are generally too risk-averse. Of course, the industry was badly burned by the
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and has typically been unwilling to engage with western audiences since. They are usually only looking at their domestic market, and I guess they know their target customers.
Regarding EN VNs, non-Japanese games have come such a long way in just a few years.
Katawa Shoujo was in many ways a watershed moment: a serious VN made by non-Japanese devs. There was some negative reaction to it in Japan, as while the story was set in Japan, it didn’t "properly" adhere to Japanese cultural traditions, and the title itself was provocative (the use of the word “katawa” which is an offensive term for disabled people).
(There is no pleasing some people, it seems. Katawa Shoujo even had a
boring MC!).
English-language VNs are nowadays not as dependent on Japan, and they are much more varied and dynamic than the insular Japanese offerings, as is fitting, considering the variety of culture and experience in the rest of the world. And I'll second that they generally have a greater emphasis on the visual aspect of a VN. They are also meant for the entire world, not just Japan.
But the drawback of English-language VNs is all the milking. Some games have no skeleton, no plan, no proper direction. A lot of them seem to be a vehicle to keep a Patreon going, while keeping story development to a minimum and squeezing out a procession of tiered sexual content as gradually as possible (first a handjob, then a BJ, then either first sex or another BJ, another position, then get bored and introduce yet another girl, and so on). It is like the devs publish a 0.1 or a 0.2 with a good idea, feel out the audience, and then commence the never-ending milking without ever seemingly intending to finish the damn thing.
When does a thirst-trap become an actual scam?
Depends on what your reasonable expectations are, I suppose.
Sorry if I've been rambling.
