I like them, though most are a form of interactive fiction than gameplay/challenge based gaming as we have known it.
Visual Novels; their place in the gaming world?
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Visual Novels are their own medium and to call them games does them a disservice. Certainly ,there are VNs that border on being games and some games have VN leanings but in general VNs are different and should be treated as such.
Examples of games with VN leanings:
-Persona
-BlazeBlue
-The Atelier series
Examples of VNs with a bit of gameplay:
-Kamidori: Alchemy Meister
-Phoenix Wright
Examples of straight VNs:
-Fate/Stay Night
-Steins;Gate
-Hoshizora no Memoria: Wish upon a Star
The reason why I make this distinction is because while VNs do mix well with games, they don't always mix with gamers. If you're going into a VN, which literally stands for "Visual Novel" and aren't expecting at least a small novel's worth of text then I really wonder what exactly you were expecting. Do you go into Novels expecting a comic strip? Of course not. So why would you go into a Visual Novel and expect something other than a Novel?
Now that I've made that distinction, some "pure" VNs if you would, that I recommend for their excellence are as follows, listed in order of ease of access:
-Steins;Gate
-Any KEY VN (Clannad, Air, Kanon, Little Busters)
-Fate/Stay Night
-Hoshizora no Memoria: Wish upon a Star
-Yume Miru Kusuri (A drug that makes you dream)
-MajiKoi: Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai
Some pure VNs for people wishing to delve deeper into the medium:
-Umineko
-Saya no Uta
-Sengoku Rance
You know what, here's an infographic with a bunch of great translated VNs that aren't too hard to find. It even has ranking for things like writing and how much erotic material is in them. Right click > view image to see the full sized chart.
Examples of games with VN leanings:
-Persona
-BlazeBlue
-The Atelier series
Examples of VNs with a bit of gameplay:
-Kamidori: Alchemy Meister
-Phoenix Wright
Examples of straight VNs:
-Fate/Stay Night
-Steins;Gate
-Hoshizora no Memoria: Wish upon a Star
The reason why I make this distinction is because while VNs do mix well with games, they don't always mix with gamers. If you're going into a VN, which literally stands for "Visual Novel" and aren't expecting at least a small novel's worth of text then I really wonder what exactly you were expecting. Do you go into Novels expecting a comic strip? Of course not. So why would you go into a Visual Novel and expect something other than a Novel?
_____
Now that I've made that distinction, some "pure" VNs if you would, that I recommend for their excellence are as follows, listed in order of ease of access:
-Steins;Gate
-Any KEY VN (Clannad, Air, Kanon, Little Busters)
-Fate/Stay Night
-Hoshizora no Memoria: Wish upon a Star
-Yume Miru Kusuri (A drug that makes you dream)
-MajiKoi: Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai
Some pure VNs for people wishing to delve deeper into the medium:
-Umineko
-Saya no Uta
-Sengoku Rance
You know what, here's an infographic with a bunch of great translated VNs that aren't too hard to find. It even has ranking for things like writing and how much erotic material is in them. Right click > view image to see the full sized chart.
QFT. I love this post so much.VanQ said:
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OT: Honestly deep down, I don't want VNs to be on the same "side" as mainstream gaming and I don't really mind that some people don't think of it as a game. (although ironically some people say Gone Home is a game just because it has "interactivity"...meh)
I just want people to not generalize VNs into one trope and respect the medium as it's own thing.
Personal stuff about my experience with VNs.
Heck, My first VN was solely to satiate my Puberty needs. "Gibo" (A VN/nukige about doing "bad things" to your step mother) being the first, followed by "Brave Soul" (Standard Fantasy RPG VN with sex in between the plot) and then "Kango Shichyauzo" (A VN/Nukige about Nurses....hmmm nurses...).
As time went on, my taste become better (although I still indulge on the usual ones), and found many VNs that I really enjoyed for it's stories and characters. (I self-learned Japanese in the process)
Now I've played more than 500 Titles Good and bad, and these are some my favorites:
-White Album 2 (Do not play this if you have anger issues)
-Steins;Gate (time traveling done right)
-Baldr Sky (Awesome Isometric mech action)
-To Heart 2 (I'm super weak for generic love stories)
As time went on, my taste become better (although I still indulge on the usual ones), and found many VNs that I really enjoyed for it's stories and characters. (I self-learned Japanese in the process)
Now I've played more than 500 Titles Good and bad, and these are some my favorites:
-White Album 2 (Do not play this if you have anger issues)
-Steins;Gate (time traveling done right)
-Baldr Sky (Awesome Isometric mech action)
-To Heart 2 (I'm super weak for generic love stories)
Allow me to my two cents in if you will. I agree with what some of the other people have said about Visual novels being their own medium I think its true.
I would also contend that the majority of visual novels are really awful sex games. But to dismiss all VNs as such is just being ignorant. Visual novels can have deep rich storylines and incredibly complex characters.In fact the best ones have better writing and story than most video games that I have played.(If you look past some of the at times annoying anime tropes)
I personally got into the genre by playing Galaxy angel because I was obsessed with the anime and the manga at the time and Ever17 and I played Fate/Stay night and never looked back
I would also contend that the majority of visual novels are really awful sex games. But to dismiss all VNs as such is just being ignorant. Visual novels can have deep rich storylines and incredibly complex characters.In fact the best ones have better writing and story than most video games that I have played.(If you look past some of the at times annoying anime tropes)
I personally got into the genre by playing Galaxy angel because I was obsessed with the anime and the manga at the time and Ever17 and I played Fate/Stay night and never looked back
I don't consider VNs games. They are books with added pictures, music and possible voice-acting. But I think that makes them so great. Written words are one of the best way to tell a story which books are good at doing. But what's the best way to form atmosphere? Music. VN has both of these which makes them excellent medium to create stories. As a game they are very lacking most of the time. So I don't think they have a place in gaming.
And to those who dismiss all VNs as shit, consider this. Every medium is 90% shit. Most of the games are shit. Most of the books are shit. Most of the movies are shit. But small portion of the medium is good. This applies to VNs as well.
So saying VNs are shit is like saying "all movies are shit". Ridiculous, right?
And to those who dismiss all VNs as shit, consider this. Every medium is 90% shit. Most of the games are shit. Most of the books are shit. Most of the movies are shit. But small portion of the medium is good. This applies to VNs as well.
So saying VNs are shit is like saying "all movies are shit". Ridiculous, right?
Spoken like a true person with no clue what they're talking about. You should go into politics.ninja666 said:
That one's actually a weird (and pretty damn good) Strategy/VN/RPG hybrid, and at least I consider the "Strategy" part to be primary, not the VN or RPG part.VanQ said:
To the topic as a whole: Visual Novels are basically Interactive Fiction with pictures (and sometimes animation). That's it. They can be as game-y or as non-interactive as any other IF type.
Hell, you could probably take a MUD core and turn it into a multiplayer VN rather easily ...
Visual novels definitely have a very, very niche appeal. I really don't think that they should be tossed in the metaphorical trash can; I happen to really enjoy the format. I do admit, however, that there is a lot of shitty visual novels, but that's because Sturgeon's law is in full effect. I also think that there's a very significant prejudice against visual novels as "porn games", which I understand because it's really easy to get cheap appeal with these "porn games", especially when marketed to those Otaku-types, so a lot of them are made really cheaply. However, I do not think that there being a few sex scenes in a visual novel (i.e. Katawa Shoujo, Fate/stay Night and Grisaia no Kajitsu) makes it inherently worse. As for the writing, I tend to attribute a lot of minor awkward stuff to quirks of the localization, since there are a lot of differences between North America and Japan in terms of speech patterns and conventions. Oddly enough, the worst visual novel that I've ever experienced was Sakura Spirit, which wasn't actually written in Japan.
So the first example you pulled out to prove your point was a game $10 lower then your stated minimal price.ninja666 said:
As for looking up more examples, let's look at 4 recommendations on that very same page you linked...
I'm guessing the other points you made are of equal caliber...
Just go ahead and tell us the prices you paid for the VNs you've played and we can compare from that.
Almost all of those covers are of (teenage?) girls in skimpy school uniforms. They also all have "ero" ratings placed right along with writing and visuals. I'm not against VNs in concept, I actually think new types of story telling are very interesting, but this list doesn't make me want to rush out and jump into the medium.VanQ said:Visual Novels are their own medium and to call them games does them a disservice. Certainly ,there are VNs that border on being games and some games have VN leanings but in general VNs are different and should be treated as such.
Examples of games with VN leanings:
-Persona
-BlazeBlue
-The Atelier series
Examples of VNs with a bit of gameplay:
-Kamidori: Alchemy Meister
-Phoenix Wright
Examples of straight VNs:
-Fate/Stay Night
-Steins;Gate
-Hoshizora no Memoria: Wish upon a Star
The reason why I make this distinction is because while VNs do mix well with games, they don't always mix with gamers. If you're going into a VN, which literally stands for "Visual Novel" and aren't expecting at least a small novel's worth of text then I really wonder what exactly you were expecting. Do you go into Novels expecting a comic strip? Of course not. So why would you go into a Visual Novel and expect something other than a Novel?
_____
Now that I've made that distinction, some "pure" VNs if you would, that I recommend for their excellence are as follows, listed in order of ease of access:
-Steins;Gate
-Any KEY VN (Clannad, Air, Kanon, Little Busters)
-Fate/Stay Night
-Hoshizora no Memoria: Wish upon a Star
-Yume Miru Kusuri (A drug that makes you dream)
-MajiKoi: Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai
Some pure VNs for people wishing to delve deeper into the medium:
-Umineko
-Saya no Uta
-Sengoku Rance
You know what, here's an infographic with a bunch of great translated VNs that aren't too hard to find. It even has ranking for things like writing and how much erotic material is in them. Right click > view image to see the full sized chart.
That might be it, I was looking for downloads of it and it probably was the english patchAsita said:
sorry about that but I think the point sitll stands about the general price of VNs.
They're "interactive dramas" that already offer scarce gameplay. Visual novels have even less (i.e. none). A game without gameplay isn't a game at all. What can I tell you. They bore me to tears.Gundam GP01 said:
*sigh*
I try to get out, but they just keep pulling me back in. (Well alright, I didn't try too hard. I DO come to this website many times a day).
)
Did I say anything about needing to play X amount of whatever for X amount of hours each before being allowed to have an opinion of it? No... pretty sure I was more talking about... well, what I said in my first post- people who play one or two of a genre/medium, didn't like them, and proceed to make an incredibly hasty generalization and conclude that since all the ones they've played they personally didn't like, they *obviously* wouldn't like EVERYTHING in said genre/medium and therefore since they are the most important person in the world, since they don't like *all* of it, it must all be shit that no one but unsophisticated, probably mentally handicapped boors could possibly enjoy.
That's the kind of person I was talking about.
You're in a different camp... well maybe not a totally different camp so much as a different section of the same camp, since you seem to be taking largely the same attitude of "I personally didn't like the ones I've tried therefore they're all shit."
You can criticize the ones you've played all you like, say you didn't like X feature of Y Visual Novel or whatever, that's fine. But don't make the hasty generalization that I've mentioned above.
Not all VNs have poor quality writing, not all VNs have sexual content, not all VNs have a male protagonist who is intended to be a self-insert for the player/reader, and not all VNs have little to no gameplay. These are facts. If you seriously can't find a Visual novel that doesn't have one or all of these things then you're not looking very hard, in which case your 'informed' opinion is sadly... quite uninformed.
It's not all shit just because you personally don't like the handful you've played!
That is literally the whole point I've been trying to get across in this way too long of a post. You don't like a genre/medium of artistic works? That's fine, play/read/whatever something else, but don't disrespect people that DO like the genre/medium that you don't like by calling it shit. Have some respect for other people, dood, plain and simple.
I try to get out, but they just keep pulling me back in. (Well alright, I didn't try too hard. I DO come to this website many times a day).
(Note, I'm going to be arguing against points you and perhaps others have made in aggregate throughout this post, but I'm not going to be quoting them all for post length reasons, I'm just choosing to quote you in particular because you quoted me!Johnny Novgorod said:
)Did I say anything about needing to play X amount of whatever for X amount of hours each before being allowed to have an opinion of it? No... pretty sure I was more talking about... well, what I said in my first post- people who play one or two of a genre/medium, didn't like them, and proceed to make an incredibly hasty generalization and conclude that since all the ones they've played they personally didn't like, they *obviously* wouldn't like EVERYTHING in said genre/medium and therefore since they are the most important person in the world, since they don't like *all* of it, it must all be shit that no one but unsophisticated, probably mentally handicapped boors could possibly enjoy.
That's the kind of person I was talking about.
You're in a different camp... well maybe not a totally different camp so much as a different section of the same camp, since you seem to be taking largely the same attitude of "I personally didn't like the ones I've tried therefore they're all shit."
You can criticize the ones you've played all you like, say you didn't like X feature of Y Visual Novel or whatever, that's fine. But don't make the hasty generalization that I've mentioned above.
Not all VNs have poor quality writing, not all VNs have sexual content, not all VNs have a male protagonist who is intended to be a self-insert for the player/reader, and not all VNs have little to no gameplay. These are facts. If you seriously can't find a Visual novel that doesn't have one or all of these things then you're not looking very hard, in which case your 'informed' opinion is sadly... quite uninformed.
And that's FINE. It's fine to not like a certain genre/medium of storytelling because it just doesn't 'click' with you. I don't like horror games, most first person shooters or sports games, they're just not my cup of tea. Do I think they're all shit because I don't like them or I've played some of them and didn't like those few I've played? Certainly not, because I'm sure someone else who does like those sorts of games will enjoy it, and hey, someday something in those genres might surprise me and I'll try it out and enjoy it.Johnny Novgorod said:
It's not all shit just because you personally don't like the handful you've played!
That is literally the whole point I've been trying to get across in this way too long of a post. You don't like a genre/medium of artistic works? That's fine, play/read/whatever something else, but don't disrespect people that DO like the genre/medium that you don't like by calling it shit. Have some respect for other people, dood, plain and simple.