Spoken like a true person with no clue what they're talking about. You should go into politics.ninja666 said:
Visual Novels; their place in the gaming world?
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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?
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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.
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I've played Saya no Uta, Katawa Shoujo, and a bit of Clannad. I haven't played much visual novels, mostly because I can't really find the time and most of the really good ones are 50 hours long. I've enjoyed the ones I've played. I love Saya no Uta, and I like Katawa Shoujo. The Clannad VN bored me, though, so I'll just stick with the anime, but it has less to do with it being bad and more that I don't have the time to invest in a VN that long and slow.
Whether or not visual novels are games is certainly debatable. This is simply another case of "My definition of *blank* is different from your definition of *blank*." It's like "Are Video Games art?" or "Are Anime cartoons?" Everyone is gonna have a different answer. With that said, though, going in with the same expectations you would other types of games is certainly wrong.
For me, they're skin to old interactive adventure / puzzle games, or a choose-your-own adventure type of game. While ultimately for most of these games you're simply picking out of a handful of branching choices, you need a clear end goal to pick the ones you want. Whether you want to get a certain ending or to romance a certain character, your aiming to achieve a specific goal, and you achieve that by picking the right choices. That, to me anyway, makes them "games."
Whether or not visual novels are games is certainly debatable. This is simply another case of "My definition of *blank* is different from your definition of *blank*." It's like "Are Video Games art?" or "Are Anime cartoons?" Everyone is gonna have a different answer. With that said, though, going in with the same expectations you would other types of games is certainly wrong.
For me, they're skin to old interactive adventure / puzzle games, or a choose-your-own adventure type of game. While ultimately for most of these games you're simply picking out of a handful of branching choices, you need a clear end goal to pick the ones you want. Whether you want to get a certain ending or to romance a certain character, your aiming to achieve a specific goal, and you achieve that by picking the right choices. That, to me anyway, makes them "games."
I think visual novels are also videogames,especially when games are starting to combine different genres together. For example, Ace Attorney series were classified as both adventure and visual novel. At the end of the day it is the same abstract train of thought where we all give our own interpretation of the definition of a game. But to me it is a game since majority of the visual novels are dating sims where your objective of the game is to date a character you wanted to which have a failure state despite having barely to any gameplay.
pssst if people are interested in Visual Novels there is totally a group you can join
Just sayin'
Just sayin'
Eh, there are some VNs I would consider pretty good, though from what I have seen they are sadly not the norm. Games like Hotel Dusk or the 999 series, for example, make good use of the genre (though it helps that those games are decently well written). Too bad most of the ones that clog up steam and the like are dreck like Sakura Spirit or Katawa Shoujo. Ugh.
Also, if VNs count as games, so does Depression Quest, a game most people on here seem to despise with a firey passion. Just saying, guys.
Also, if VNs count as games, so does Depression Quest, a game most people on here seem to despise with a firey passion. Just saying, guys.
The Ace Attorney series is something we tried getting rid of over at VNDB for years now, but we can't because the official PR people (erroneously, partly due to a translation error) declared it so and if we removed them a thousand fans and well-meaning newbies would clamor to re-add it to the DB. Those are adventure games with the visual trappings of VNs, but they are only hybrids at best and they are still causing us frustration to this day by providing a bad example that people can refer to when they try to add even less VN-esque games.Timeless Lavender said:
As for your dating sim comment, sorry but you are just wrong in your terminology. Dating sims are a relatively scarce type of raising game (think of the Princess Maker series, except you are raising the protagonist instead of another character). It's a genre based on raising statistics and triggering events (usually related to love-interests) using said statistics. The term was for a long time synonymous with VNs as a whole, erroneously, because dating sims came first to the US market and so any actual VNs coming afterwards that happened to focus on romance and individual heroine routes (read: about 80% of all VNs) got automatically labeled "dating sims" as well whether they had any sim elements or not. As I said, that is simply not true. Most dating sims are not visual novels and the dating sim/visual novel hybrids (aka.: dating sims with extensive storylines and a consistent narration) are vanishingly rare to the point where we only list a handful of them over at VNDB.
Also, there is a bit of food for thought: Visual Novels didn't "evolve" form choose your own adventure books or dating sims. Their predecessors were text-heavy point-and-click adventure games, with map movement, puzzles and all the other trappings of the genre. With time, developers realized that their audience wasn't there for the gameplay but for the story they told, so the gameplay elements slowly got phased out, first by taking out the point-and-click aspect (which, to be fair, was usually only used to pad things out anyway), then the map-movement and then the rest of the interface until you got the modern VN medium which is closer to novels than games.
As for the quality of VNs, most of them are crap. The majority of VNs are like what harlequin romance books are to literature: they are simple, shallow, but entertaining if you are in the mood and fairly harmless. However, on the same token, saying that the entire medium is crap because of that is literally the same as declaring that all books are crap because of harlequin romance. It brings a certain idiom about babies and bathwater into mind, if you know what I mean...
This is a tough one. For every VN that I have played, there is zero gameplay. All you do is click... but all you do in a point-n-click game is click as well. Yes PnC games have puzzles, but you could argue getting a certain route in a VN is a puzzle all its own. I don't take an issue with calling them games, but they should completely have their own genre.
Anything can be good, and I've never been a fan of the claim 'That's not a "game", so it sucks', but I've never played a visual novel before and probably never will. What I've seen of it never evoked any sort of interest in me. It just looks like anime with flat camera angles... and not in motion.
As for it's place in gaming... The subgenre known as 'Visual Novel', I guess.
As for it's place in gaming... The subgenre known as 'Visual Novel', I guess.