Don't want to startle the golden goose so everything has to play it's safe lol I get why they do it but I'd like some more interesting things all the same
I agree the textbox not being transparent isn't really important as long as I can hide it. Games where you can and then the box hides half the image are very frustrating.
I think it depends on the game and genre. VNs I like to know more about it and corruption games I like to know the person before the corruption starts. Some stuff can stand on it's own without a backstory though.
Japanese games are commonly censored though these days there a lot more releases that also include an uncensored version. I don't really mind it though if the theme is good enough or the dialogue is good.
The ability to interact with the situations can help with immersion. VNs are a bit different since you are usually just reading a story but the ability to occasionally shape how it plays out is nice.
I'll give them up until the first H scene. By then I should have a pretty good idea if it's going to be something I'm interested it. That's not a hard rule just generally how it works for me.
I think that it has a lot of overlap. A lot of NTS series start as NTS then develop into NTR. I like both so it doesn't really matter to me how it develops.