Visual Novels

[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.

[Kula]

/late to the party, like a boss

Ohhh Visual Novels, I really got into them to the point I've read/played a lot xD;

I think the first one I played tho was Lamento -beyond the void- which is a boys love one by nitro+chiral. To be honest I'm a pretty big fan/nerd of all the nitro+ and nitro+chiral works (chaos;head, steins;gate, lamento -beyond the void-, togainu no chi, dramatical murder) but I'm also a sucker for TYPEMOON and Key stuff ;; I got into FSN just because of Tsukihime---and I don't want to start with Key because I LOVE THEM ALL UGH, but little busters! and clannad have a special spot in my heart.

Well, there are also otome games which are a part of my life now lol. I have a list with the titles I've played this year on my listography (yes, pretty addicted lol)

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.

That's Corpse Party! I highly rec. it and play it with headphones on! They used dummy mic so the voices/screams echo in your ears lmfao, super creepy

[anon]

I've kind of been interested in getting into visual novels recently. I like the choose your adventure aspect (since it reminds me of those awesome choose your adventure books, which I always get the crappiest ending) but it seems like all the titles I've come upon are pornographic. o_O

My first visual novel is Galaxy Angel since my brother was into that whole phase that one time. I've never gotten that far into it to start picking up chicks from the Angel Team but what I enjoy about it the most are the missions you have to go on, since it's strategy-based. The missions involve blowing up aircraft ships that threaten your main base and each Angel has a special technique for her frame. It's really cool.

I've also played Kao no Nai Tsuki/No Surface Moon (NSFW) and it always scared the crap out of me whenever I head towards the bad endings because there are tons of creepy fetishes and some jump scares, which probably explains why it's a supernatural horror game. The art is pretty, though, and I'm only interested in the yaoi game Messiah (also NSFW) because Carnelian did the art for it too. Adult visual novels tend to make me LOL because the voice acting in the sex scenes are so ridiculously and annoyingly over-the-top. Also, SMH whenever rape gets fetishized/romanticized.

I did look at the Starry Sky series like everyone else and their mom but I've been told it's nothing but voice actor fan service, especially since the companies have capitalized on making CDs where it's nothing but the voice actor whispering sweet things into your ear.

I guess what I don't like about visual novels is actually having to install the program if you run it on PC. I hate installing stuff on my computer, especially if it's something I might delete later on, haha. I like to run my computer light.

[Juhi]

@Joe - I'm not one for piracy, but Fuwanovel might be a good place to look. You do have to download a torrent and use BitTorrent or whatever, but the file you get is ready to go (no major installation needed). Also, you should look at the stuff I recc'd. :P

I've been out of touch on visual novels recently, though I started slowly inching through Never7 and finished Amaranto (all-ages GxG game).

[Varen]

Looking forward to the English patch of Dramatical Murder because I peeked into the game and holy shit it's actually a decent quality for a BL game.

I'm tempting to play some recs Jo made, and one day going through Saya no Uta because I think I like Nitro's gritty stuff very much.