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knokelmaat @beehaw.org

Let's discuss: Visual Novels

The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!

Let's discuss the Visual Novel genre of videogames. What are your favorites? What aspects do you like about it? What doesn't work for you? Feel free to share any thoughts that come up, or react to other peoples comments. Let's get the conversation going!

If you have any recommendations for games or series for the next post(s), please feel free to DM me or add it in a comment here (no guarantees of course).

Previous entries: Hollow Knight, Nintendo DS, Monster Hunter, Persona, Monkey Island, 8 Bit Era, Animal Crossing, Age of Empires, Super Mario, Deus Ex, Stardew Valley, The Sims, Half-Life, Earthbound / Mother, Mass Effect, Metroid, Journey, Resident Evil, Polybius, Tetris, Telltale Games, Kirby, LEGO Games, DOOM, Ori, Metal Gear, Slay the Spire

32 comments

  • I was unsure if choosing a specific visual novel would make the discussion too limited, so I decided to go with the genre as a whole for this thread.

    Still, I sneakily used my favorite visual novel as the image: Steins;Gate! It was my first game in the genre. I bought it on a whim for PS Vita, after seeing the glowing review headlines that applauded it for its great story and music. Little did I know that this meant only story and music: there was barely any gameplay! This together with the fact that some of the tropes felt really strange to me at the time (I was not really into anime culture) made me regret my purchase and almost stop playing.

    But somehow the story got its hooks in me. Only a tiny bit at first, but day after day I became more engrossed and looking forward to my play session. I read it mostly during the night while in bed, and it really took over my life for some time. Eventually I finished all routes and achieved the true ending, which is one of my favorite endings and stories in videogames as a whole.

    Since then I've played lots of others. Some quick thoughts:

    -999: a bit disappointing, the story felt very contrived and not as great as others experienced it.

    -Virtue's last reward: a real step up from the previous game, complex and satisfying story with a very meta twist to it!

    -Zero Time Dilemma: often described as the worst in the series, but somehow this story really grabbed me from start to finish. The stakes were extremely high and while the story was very convoluted, the payoff worked for me.

    -Danganronpa 1 and 2: very strange and over the top, but extremely well written mysteries with great presentation and soundtrack

    -Ace Attorney: the first game in the series. I played it on switch and liked it, but didn't love it. The humor felt to childlike for me at times.

    -Planetarian: fantastic little gem of a game. Most visual novels will demand dozens of hours of your time, but this can be finished in less than 5 hours. Absolutely amazing.

    -Muv-Luv Extra: I am currently finishing all routes for the first game in this trilogy, as I have heard multiple times that the 3rd one is incredible. I liked it most when it was just funny nonsense (it can be quite hilarious at times). The serious parts really didn't hit home for me and a lot of the content feels a bit problematic and strange. I suppose some of this is culture, some of it satire and it was originally an erotic game so that might have something to do with it.

    • 999's DS version—the original—had superb dialogue. Sadly they made it absorb all the narration way more rigmarolously than VLR's.

      (Fun fact: Makoto Naegi has a specific pattern on his hoodie.)

    • A little surprised to hear Zero Time Dilemma is seen as the weakest game of the trilogy. I played them all in a vacuum, never really engaging with the communities around the franchise, and I would never have said that myself.

      If I had to pick, I'd argue that Virtue's Last Reward was the "worst" one, but I am not happy about writing that. It was a great game that I enjoyed start to end, but ending on a "this will only make sense when the 3rd game releases in X years!" note leaves a really sour taste in my mouth. The other two games are complete experiences, and when I am playing a visual novel, the last thing I want is a cliffhanger "join us next time to find out!"

      That said I think I enjoyed puzzles and philosophical musings of it the most out of the three? So my opinion is more about what was bad than what was good and should probably be discarded anyway.

      • It was a great game that I enjoyed start to end, but ending on a "this will only make sense when the 3rd game releases in X years!" note leaves a really sour taste in my mouth.

        Well, one problem with ZTD is that it completely ignored the teaser in VLR's epilogue. Actively contradicted it even.

        I don't think the teaser made VLR feel incomplete though, since it was also completely disconnected from VLR's otherwise self-contained story.

  • I've gotta put this one out there because it will largely get overlooked every time the topic of "Visual Novel" gets brought up, but Digimon: Survive.

    As a tactics RPG, it's pretty mid. Character growth and customization exists, but isn't quite as expansive as I'd like for that kind of game. It's no Final Fantasy Tactics, for example, but comparing it to other tactics games doesn't do it justice, because it's one of the better-to-best written visual novels I have ever played.

    Each of the endings explores the way small changes in circumstance can heavily impact people's decisions, each of the characters and their partner monsters are oozing with personality, and some of the potential outcomes for each character represents some of the most wild, fucked up, and human emotional responses possible. Your decisions as the main character have minor impacts in the lines of which characters reach their end of their growth arcs, and which evolutions are available to your partner and some of your companions partners, and the collective value system limits which of the main branches you're permitted to explore for your ending. Which it doesn't boast the wide assortment of branching narrative paths that some visual novels take, it does still succeed in making your decisions feel like they matter.

    And this is completely aside from the fact that it's a Digimon game. A franchise widely viewed as "for children", yet it engages with heavy existential themes and doesn't shy from letting horrible things happen to good, and bad, people. People die, on screen, in ways I would not want small children to see. In a lot of ways, the game is a functional "reboot" of the franchise, sharing a lot of commonalities with Digimon Adventure, but using older characters, more serious mature themes, and never referencing the monsters as "digimon". In fact, the term is only used once, during the epilogue of one of the endings, otherwise they're referred to as Kemonogami, and treated like Yokai. They're engrained in the history and legendsof the world, and it's an amazing take on the franchise.

    I'm gushing at this point, but what really matters is it's an extremely well-written visual novel with competent enough Tactical RPG gameplay, and also currently on a rather deep Steam Sale. Cannot recommend it enough.

  • While Visual Novels are not my favourite genre, there are a few entries that I would like to highlight, because I enjoyed playing them quite a lot:

    • Pyre: While it isn't marketed as Visual Novel, it pretty much is one. To be precise, it is a Visual Novel with sports-game elements. The world-building in this one is excellent, as is the art. The visuals alone would make this game worth playing, but there is also the soundtrack, and the gameplay of the sports events is pretty fun too. Oh, and the story. This game really requires tough choices. It's from the same studio that made Hades, Transistor and Bastion, and it shows.
    • Griftlands: Again, not marketed as Visual Novel, despite very clearly being one. This one is a Visual Novel with card battles and deck-building. Just as with Pyre, the world-building in this one is outstanding. The card battles are well done. It's no Slay the Spire, but it's still pretty good. Also, it has some of the best jokes I have seen in games recently.
    • Loren the Amazon Princess: Again a Visual Novel that is primarily marketed as something else - this time Role Playing Game. And to be honest, it has everything you would expect from an RPG: inventory management, character stats, JRPG-style turn-based battles, trading, a world map,... But it's still pretty much a Visual Novel with RPG elements. It has a massive scope for an indie game, and is overall pretty well done. To be blatantly honest, I played this mainly for the RPG parts, but the story isn't bad either, once one gets past the initial "I see your party has no rogue, mind if I join?" part. The setting is still being actively developed by the studio behind it, who have released several other visual novels (with and without RPG elements) set in the same world, with recurring characters.

  • Huge chunk of "visual novel" standard by Western-based site are not actually considered visual novel in Japan (and visual novel fandom).

    For example, Danganronpa and Phoenix Wright are not visual novel, but "adventure games/ADV."

    Even Nintendo's Emio English promotional call it adventure games.

  • The gameplay of VNs doesn't particularly appeal to me, though it's not offensive either, so I can be won over by a particularly good story. So far, the best VN I've played is Snatcher for the Sega CD.

    Snatcher (nice use of negative space on that cover) is one of Hideo Kojima's earlier titles, and his insatiable desire for long cutscenes/story lends itself to VNs. As with many of Kojima's works, it's heavily inspired by whatever western movies he would've seen at the time. In this case, Snatcher is heavily inspired by Blade Runner.

    You play as Gillian Seed, an ex-scientist with amnesia that's now working as a Junker (the equivalent of a blade runner) in Neo-Kobe, a cyberpunk metropolis that's not quite as dark and dreary as Bladerunner's, feeling more like something out of Akira.

    The game features a lot of voice acting, some of it actually surprisingly good for a game of that time (early 90's), and it has a particularly fantastic FM soundtrack courtesy of the Genesis' soundchip, and even some redbook audio for the intro. I'd recommend listening to the soundtrack even if you have no intention of playing the game.

    The story for the game can get surprisingly dark and gruesome at times, though overall has a more 90's anime up-beat vibe, and is one of Kojima's more linear and coherent tales. The characters are pretty fun to talk to, and the writing was compelling enough to make me push through some of the more dated design decisions (you sometimes will have to click the same action/dialog 3 times or more, with no additional feedback, before something unlocks to progress the story).

    The gameplay is a bit more involved than a standard VN, sharing some attributes with an Adventure game. In addition to being able to move around the city and various buildings (skillfully drawn with some of the finest pixel art of the era), the player has access to an inventory and can investigate various parts of a scene. There's a small combat mini-game that will sometimes spring up that was designed for use with a lightgun (The Konami Justifer) but thankfully works just fine with a standard controller), and is used sparingly enough that doesn't overstays its welcome. In fact, I'd say the combat is surprisingly well integrated into the story, and helps add a bit of tension, since you never know when it'll pop up (I imagine it would've been quite immersive back in the day with the lightgun, since you'd have to quickly drop your controller and physically 'draw' it to defend yourself).

    Snatcher is a short game, usually averaging about 4 or 5 hours for most people, but that's all it really needs to tell its tale, and by the end I was thoroughly satisfied.

    The Sega CD version is the only one that was translated for the English market, and AFAIK is no longer legally available to purchase anywhere. With physical copies being rare and demanding a premium ($200 or more), I'd recommend emulation to experience it.

    If any of that sounds appealing to you, I'd certainly recommend giving it a try! And if you do, good luck, Junker!

32 comments