Visual Novels

[Eden]

Visual Novels are a really great way to interact while reading a great story. Has anyone ever read a visual novel? I really love the way I can immerse myself into the story by interacting with the novel's characters with sounds, choices (or minimal/no choices), and music. I like all sorts of story telling whether it's non-linear, the story branches off, lots of different endings, etc. Some even play out a little like dating sims, but even those sometimes have magnificent novel-esque stories behind them such as Katawa Shoujo.

I highly recommend Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Umineko no Naku Koro ni, School Days, Katawa Shoujo, 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, and the Ace Attorney games are novels as your choices and investigations in the game reveal more of the story and have a prompt ending for the player if you do it correctly. :)

If you haven't read a visual novel, maybe try it out? They're a great experience. :) There are lots of free ones and some are being released on the DS and such.

[Mikari]

Hakuoki had some really nice art. Though I expected more choices and more interaction between reading, so I was a big disappointed in that. It would have been better with voices, as I actually hate reading, but love stories and sound is a good way to get stories without having to actually read them.

I liked how Ace Attorney had more interactivity. I still got impatient at times, but really like the fun characters. I thought about getting... um... I forget it's name... it was a PSP retro sprite style visual novel about zombies or something like that, in a school. I didn't get it after my Hakuoki gameplay disappointment (though I still love the art!). Does anyone know which one I mean? Does it have lots of choices like Ace Attorney or tons of text between choices like Hakuoki?

[dragoneyes]

I love visual novels of almost every kind, the only one I don't seem to get hooked to are the ones that are focused too much on the dating sim aspect. Usually I don't mind it, but I'd rather have some comedy and plot to go with it too.

I'm currently playing/reading Dengeki Stryker, which is a sort of superhero parody + interesting plot, and I can't recomend enough both Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Umineko no Naku Koro ni like Eden said in the first post. Every __ no Naku Koro ni series is just amazing in terms of plot and need to be spread to the whole world <3

[Juhi]

[Hmm, I feel this thread would be better in videogames, though most games are very linear in terms of gameplay. Oh well.]

I've read my fair share of visual novels. I'm a big fan of works from TYPE-MOON, Akabeisoft2, and Key. KID's works are pretty good too. Fate/stay night is my favorite, even with its flaws. I tend to like games with fantasy and supernatural elements, but I'll play anything as long as it isn't nukige or heavily focused on dating. Or School Days... *shrugs*

I went through Little Busters! not too long ago, and I can say it's my favorite Key work. Yes, I liked it even more than CLANNAD. Refrain was so incredibly good. The little mini-games were nice touches too (loved the baseball one!). I gave Mahoutsukai no Yoru a spin recently too. It has some of the best visual effects I've seen in any game in the genre. I hope it becomes a standard in their future projects, like the Tsukihime remake!

On the otome games side, I haven't played too many of them. I liked Second Reproduction for its characters and art. The Starry Sky titles are pretty boring IMO. I hear Quin Rose has churned out some good titles, so I'd like to play their titles someday.

If you're wanting to get into visual novels, here are some good titles to try out (besides the ones I mentioned above):
- Narcissu and Narcissu 2 - free kinetic novel, all-ages
- True Remembrance - free kinetic novel, all-ages
- Boku no Shokora - free short otome game, all-ages
- Ever17 and the infinity series - commercial title but out-of-print, all-ages (Remember11 in particular is hella trippy, if you're into that sorta thing)
- Kanon - commercial title, all-ages available
- G-senjou no Maou - commercial title, 18+ (H-scenes + mature topics)

[earthy]

I don't know much about this format, but it sounds intriguing!

The only visual novel I've read is a fan production for BBC!Sherlock called The Pendant Soldiers (available on DeviantArt: http://y0do.deviantart.com/art/Sherlock ... -203366010). It's FANTASTIC. Lots of fun ways to get bad endings. ^_^

Have any of you actually made a visual novel before? That seems like it'd be a super neat-o project....

[Eden]

Have any of you actually made a visual novel before? That seems like it'd be a super neat-o project....

I've got two I'm working on and off (I got characters, a swiss-cheese-like plot swimming around in my head) but they won't really see any further development unless I can get more people (writers, artists, animators, musicians) onboard my development team.

[Varen]

I love visual novels! But I admit that I don't play too much because I rarely had enough space to play them. I've seen the anime adaptions of Fate/Stay Night and School Days, though I'm totally aware that they are considered inferior to the actual games themselves.

From what I have played, I've played a bit of Fate/Stay Night, Katawa Shoujo, all the Ace Attorney games, a few BL games like Togainu no Chi, and maybe a few others that I can't remember right now. I've been intrigued in trying out 999 and Umineko (especially Umineko recently - I admit to poking around with the game files and liking what I saw). My sadistic self also wants to try the horrific Nitro Games like Saya no Uta. I'm a sucker for crazy, catastrophic endings, forgive me.

I've also recently bought Long Live the Queen (which is also made in Ren'Py) because I am a rather huge fan of Princess Maker. LLTQ might be considered more of a simulation game, but unlike Princess Maker, it does have plot; a plot that is really in-depth with political history and characters.

I'm currently working on a visual novel right now using Ren'Py, but as it's not exactly what I would want to show publicly, as I am no great coder, artist, or musician. Although I admit that I have some ideas would be nice to see online one day~ I'm actually considering one day hiring someone to work with me for something public... one day, anyway.

I am actually not too much a fan of kinetic novels (though I'm willing to try something that does interest me). I think what I like about VN is the ability to immerse the player into the main protagonist, and having choices is one of the my favorite ways of having some sort of control in the events. Plus, I love having branches and running into good or bad endings, and having choices pretty much gives you those options.

@Mikari You're probably talking about Corspe Party, a recently popular downloadable game. I haven't tried it yet, but I definitely want to! Especially if it's horror hehe.

@Juhi I feel like maybe it should be moved into Video Games forum perhaps? If only because I'm rather tired of the arguments that they aren't considered video games as well, although I do think they fall somewhere in the middle. I'll make the changes now.

[Eden]

Hi, I was wondering why this was moved to video games? I put this specifically in literature for the October Literature month thing since I did read in the announcement of "visual novel" somewhere in there. Visual novels are highly invested in reading so while they are a *little* like a game, they aren't specifically a video game. They lean more toward reading material, just in a different form, I felt like it was the best place for it to go for the month of October. Could it please be moved back for this month at least and then moved if you guys feel differently than I do?

[Varen]

Topic moved back and will remain here for at least the end of October upon the topic creator's request. Mods are free to move it to where they feel it should be after that.

[Kibumie]

My favorite is the Amnesia series. Sometimes I just play visual novels for the sake of the art and if Fukuyama Jun or Kishow Taniyama are included in the voicing department.

Nowadays I just play visual novels from my phone because of the lack of time.