What's the appeal of Visual Novels?

[CriticalGaming]

It's like I want to read a comic book, except I want to have everything read to me and I just want to look at the pictures. It's the video game version of an audiobook basically and that's only if you find one's with English VO. Mostly they are Japanese only and it's like having people chirp in your ear while you try to read. How is this enjoyable.

I suppose I should explain myself. Over the weekend I tried two Visual Novel games on Playstation 4. Date Alive: Rio Reincarnation and YU-NO: A girl who chants love at the bound of this world. Both games I never heard of but apparently are parts of their own series.

Yu-No is the more interesting game so let's talk about that one first. I manages to "play" for about three hours of this one before I threw in the towel. This game acts like a point and click adventure sort of, where you are given a still image (usually with a character to talk to on it) with a mulitude of options to click on and get some dialog. For example you can click on a flower in the room and your character will say "It's a flower in the room", really insightful stuff. Anyway in Yu-No you play a Japanese student who's father is an esteemed history professor, and is also history himself because he's dead. You live alone now with your enitrely too young step-mother who probably becomes a romance option later, and you find yourself going to school. That's it really. Until you get a mysterious package from your dead dad which contains a device that can teleport you to parallel worlds.

Turns out the principal of your school was researching this thing with your dad, and he wants it for some reason. Enough to threaten you at gun point, at which point you are blinded by a flash and it's strongly suggested your tablet sends you to another world which is exactly the same as your previous world except people don't hate you here. So I'll take that as the good ending and not play any further because I'm bored.


Rio Reincarnation is a visual novel with a much more interesting premise, but even worse execution and writing. I'm going to be honest I only got about ten minutes into this one until I deleted it from my hard drive.

Basically you are a normal high school guy because of course you are. In a world plagued by something call Space Quakes you alone have the ability to seal away these otherworldly riffs. How? Dunno?

The intro has you get knocked out by one of these Space Quakes and you awaken in your room with an anime girl whining at you.

She asks if you are ok.

You say yes you are.

She insists that you should stay in bed until you are sure.

You insist that you are fine.

She wants to lay against your body while naked to heal you

You say, WTF?

Your sister comes is and asks how are you

You say fine.

Your sister suggests you should lay down with the naked girl

You insist you are fine and just want to know whats going on.

The naked girl asks if you are sure you are alright.

And I turned this trash off.

Seriously what fucking kind of writing is this? It's like anime filler before episode one of the plot can even happen. Why all the extra dialog?

Some visual novel style games I perfectly understand. Games like Conception (which I didn't end up liking)have the visual novel style storytelling but it's broken up by real gameplay. Yu-No and Rio-Reincarnation don't, the visual novel is all you get. Which means they aren't games, they can't be games, they are just comics that read themselves too you. Where is the enjoyment in these things? The engagement?

So the question for the forums is this.
Do you like Visual Novels? If so, why? What am I missing that makes these "games" clearly popular?

 

[SupahEwok]

Porn, usually.

 

[BrawlMan]

If it ain't the story it's usually this:

 

[CriticalGaming]

Porn, usually.

If it ain't the story it's usually this:

Yeah but these aren't porn games. There is little more than sexual enuendos, and certainly no explicit nudity or sex with them. I feel like if you wanted porn.....just go watch porn. Why add a bunch of reading to your fapping?

 

[SupahEwok]

Yeah but these aren't porn games. There is little more than sexual enuendos, and certainly no explicit nudity or sex with them. I feel like if you wanted porn.....just go watch porn. Why add a bunch of reading to your fapping?

Weebs are degenerate creatures.

 

[Dreiko]

Visual novels are like a mix of manga anime and books all into one. You have some visuals (but not as much as manga), you have voice acting (but not animation like in anime) and you have a lot of text, way more than manga or anime, but not as much as a book.

The key difference between audiobooks is that an audiobook is just someone READING the book, not ACTING it out. In visual novels, when the chars speak, they are voiceacted like in an actual anime, with full passion and emotion. It is 100% completely different from just hearing an audiobook being read. Visual novels have dozens of voice actors reading all these lines and their personalities are way more expressed through this depth of acting.



Finally, visual novels are just this bit, not the gameplay bits. Those are visual novel HYBRIDS. Stuff like Danganronpa for example. A usual visual novel is just static images with text and voice lines and maybe a choice here and there.


The reason you play them is, of course, the story and characters. Some of them have really gorgeous art too of course but the main thing usually is wanting to see what goes on in the plot, not unlike reading a book. There really is not anything more to explain about that.



As for if I like them, sure, I love them. I'm playing Utawarerumono right now (posted a bit about it in the what are you playing topic). Some of them are more into the dating sim aspect (the thing persona 3 aped, but the whole game is just various social link events basically) and due to being pc games originally they are not held back by console censorship standards. The reason I like them is the same reason I like books or anime, I like the plot and chars, not averse to sexual situations (quite the opposite in fact) and I enjoy crazy trippy plots like Steins;Gate for example. I think, based on your description, you may more like something like that since you seem averse to the sexual gags that are just normal in some visual novels. Also if you like crying a lot try Clannad.

 

[CriticalGaming]

The key difference between audiobooks is that an audiobook is just someone READING the book, not ACTING it out.

You listen to shitty audiobooks then buster. I drive a lot and i listen to a lot of books and the good readers will do voices and act out all the dialog for the entire book and it's wonderfull.

 

[Dreiko]

You listen to shitty audiobooks then buster. I drive a lot and i listen to a lot of books and the good readers will do voices and act out all the dialog for the entire book and it's wonderfull.

It's really really not the same thing. Here you have big name anime voice actors each assigned to one char voicing it as though it's an actual anime, not like your grandmother reading you a fairytale in a funny voice lol.


Anime voice actors are basically selling points in the visual novel. They write the names of the actors voicing the chars in the back of the game box. If you're a fan of anime this is very important to you basically.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It's really really not the same thing. Here you have big name anime voice actors each assigned to one char voicing it as though it's an actual anime, not like your grandmother reading you a fairytale in a funny voice lol.


Anime voice actors are basically selling points in the visual novel. They write the names of the actors voicing the chars in the back of the game box. If you're a fan of anime this is very important to you basically.

If I'm honest. I can't tell one japanese voice actor from another. So listening to these games sounds like gibberish to me and I can't tell one character from another.

I know some people are so into Japanese VO that they can tell the difference even if they don't understand the language itself, but for me it's just noise.

So I don't get any of that in regards to VN games. I don't mind them when there is gameplay attached, but pure VN games just don't make sense because you aren't playing anything, they can't be games because there isn't any interactivity right? At least you can walk around in a walking sim. But the only input you have in these VN's is basically the same thing as turning the page and sometimes you don't even have to do that with auto-forward enabled.

 

[Gordon_4]

Porn, usually.

Yep. Though I have often considered that the visual novel format would lend itself to less expensive RPG games as a way of doing party conversation, pursuing romance (and in some cases fucking), doing detective work etc. in fact I think there’s a game called Sunrider that’s actually a space combat RPG but it handles all the talky talky that way as opposed to walking a 3D model around the ship.

But you’re right, it’s mainly the porn.

 

[Asita]

Yep. Though I have often considered that the visual novel format would lend itself to less expensive RPG games as a way of doing party conversation, pursuing romance (and in some cases fucking), doing detective work etc.

*CoughCough* Ace Attorney *Cough Cough*

 

[Dreiko]

Yep. Though I have often considered that the visual novel format would lend itself to less expensive RPG games as a way of doing party conversation, pursuing romance (and in some cases fucking), doing detective work etc. in fact I think there’s a game called Sunrider that’s actually a space combat RPG but it handles all the talky talky that way as opposed to walking a 3D model around the ship.

But you’re right, it’s mainly the porn.

There's tons of visual novel rpg hybrids actually. Utawarerumono which I brought up above is one such game in fact. Also has no porn since it's on ps4/vita lol.

And see, even those with the sex scenes, they really aren't porn either generally speaking. You have the same ratio of sex scenes to other scenes as you do in a hollywood movie that has a sex scene or two in it. Or like in something like game of thrones. Point is, it's really not about the sex scenes and there's tons of other things to like in most visual novels. They just have sex scenes on top, cause they're good too.

If I'm honest. I can't tell one japanese voice actor from another. So listening to these games sounds like gibberish to me and I can't tell one character from another.

I know some people are so into Japanese VO that they can tell the difference even if they don't understand the language itself, but for me it's just noise.

So I don't get any of that in regards to VN games. I don't mind them when there is gameplay attached, but pure VN games just don't make sense because you aren't playing anything, they can't be games because there isn't any interactivity right? At least you can walk around in a walking sim. But the only input you have in these VN's is basically the same thing as turning the page and sometimes you don't even have to do that with auto-forward enabled.

You are playing as the protagonist usually. You're meant to identify as them. Usually VN protags have very high level VAs. Your input is the choices I guess but see, in most Jrpgs you make way fewer choices than in most VNs as the protag, so if you can identify with Cloud surely you can identify with someone who you choose how they act in story segments more than you get to with Cloud during his cutscenes. Visual Novels generally don't do the "do you want to save the town? >no "come on really, you'll save the town right?" >no "really now, the town needs you!" >no loop until you reply yes, usually you do get to just not save the town and see how things unfold (and get a bad end). So while you don't have "gameplay" you have way more narrative control about how things unfold which lets you express yourself and identify with the chars more.

But yeah utlimately, visual novels are tied to anime fandom (oftentimes you MUST speak Japanese cause a ton of amazing ones are not out in english, Soukou Akki Muramasa is incredible but nobody has deigned to translate it yet for example) so your mileage will vary based on how into it you are. For example, why I like Cloud's VA so much is that he's Sasuke/Haseo in JP and Aeris is Aigis from p3/Janne from fate/Aura from .hack. So when Aeris and Cloud speak I hear Haseo and Aura. It's kinda like that with visual novels too. It lends a lot of fandom depth to things.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Finally, visual novels are just this bit, not the gameplay bits. Those are visual novel HYBRIDS. Stuff like Danganronpa for example. A usual visual novel is just static images with text and voice lines and maybe a choice here and there.

If Danganronpa is the example of quality to be expect from visual novels and whatnot, then its massive shitty-ness is a rather big sign to stay the fuck away.

 

[BrawlMan]

If Danganronpa is the example of quality to be expect from visual novels and whatnot, then its massive shitty-ness is a rather big sign to stay the fuck away.

I know the original is usually considered the best, while the sequels to most fans are love it or hate it. The hate it side see the sequels eithers as pale imations far up their own ass. More so the 3rd game. I can't judge personally, as I don't care for the series.

 

[Dreiko]

If Danganronpa is the example of quality to be expect from visual novels and whatnot, then its massive shitty-ness is a rather big sign to stay the fuck away.

Nah, it's just a known example of a visual novel HYBRID that people can picture without needing to google stuff.

An actual visual novel is something like Steins;Gate, Fate/stay night, Clannad, Muv-Luv, Fruit of Grisaia, World End Economica (this one is by the author of spice and wolf!), Harvest December and the list goes on. Danganronpa is fine but it's more wacky and crazy, doesn't hit you in the feels nearly as much as the above.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I know the original is usually considered the best, while the sequels to most fans are love it or hate it. The hate it side see the sequels eithers as pale imations far up their own ass. More so the 3rd game. I can't judge personally, as I don't care for the series.

Oh, I played the 1st one, it is literally one of the worst things I've ever seen. I don't know how the sequels could be worse.

Nah, it's just a known example of a visual novel HYBRID that people can picture without needing to google stuff.

An actual visual novel is something like Steins;Gate, Fate/stay night, Clannad, Muv-Luv, Fruit of Grisaia, World End Economica (this one is by the author of spice and wolf!), Harvest December and the list goes on. Danganronpa is fine but it's more wacky and crazy, doesn't hit you in the feels nearly as much as the above.

I fully understand the minor differences as it's not like Danganronpa has a lot of gameplay by any means, it's basically a visual novel. The extreme lack of quality of the writing of Danganronpa is a major turn off in looking to try more of them.

 

[happyninja42]

Why add a bunch of reading to your fapping?

You just summed up the entire Romance Novel industry in one question. Because some people enjoy the story part of it. The soap opera level stupidity of the people meeting and getting into each other.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Books are too boring for me to get into. Even with some background music of my choosing something about pages upon pages of text doesn't do it for me. Manga helps by filling the visual side of things. Visual novels give me a little more to work with above that, having more detailed art and backgrounds, custom made soundtracks that change as events happen or you go to different locations, and some minor level of interactivity as well. The ones with alternate endings/routes makes me feel more invested in experiencing all of the content, and even if they don't have alternate endings, it's fun to see what unique dialogue can come from my own choices. I also like seeing the character portraits change as the dialogue happens, and the characters reacting to the actions/responses I choose. I know it doesn't mean a lot, but... It's enough to pull me into the story more

 

[Dreiko]

Oh, I played the 1st one, it is literally one of the worst things I've ever seen. I don't know how the sequels could be worse.


I fully understand the minor differences as it's not like Danganronpa has a lot of gameplay by any means, it's basically a visual novel. The extreme lack of quality of the writing of Danganronpa is a major turn off in looking to try more of them.

That's an insane stance to take though. Do you also not read books because Twilight exists and not watch movies because db evolution is a thing?

Clearly you disliking one game out of the thousands out there isn't an indication of anything lol. To somehow generalize it to everything doesn't make rational sense.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

That's an insane stance to take though. Do you also not read books because Twilight exists and not watch movies because db evolution is a thing?

Clearly you disliking one game out of the thousands out there isn't an indication of anything lol. To somehow generalize it to everything doesn't make rational sense.

It's that I can't trust any reviews with regards to a lot of Japanese things and I get burned hardcore on them. Nobody is telling me the Twilight books or DB Evolution were masterpieces that I can't miss. Danganronpa was worse than DB Evolution. I've seen my share of student killing movies too from Battle Royale to Lesson of Evil to Assassination Classroom, and Danganronpa was unfathomly bad, I'm guessing the whole killing kids is a genre in Japan. Funny thing is I've rarely if ever gotten majorly burned on live-action Asian stuff like Infernal Affairs is like 10x better than The Departed. I was going to play Zero Escape after Danganronpa but I was fearful of the same thing happening plus I heard the last game's ending was pretty fucking stupid so I moved onto other things that I figured had better chances of being good.