Visual Novels

[Archangel]

A visual novel (ビジュアルノベル, bijuaru noberu) is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art. As the name might suggest, they resemble mixed-media novels or tableau vivant stage plays. Visual novels are commonly called dating sims in English, a misnomer as visual novels are classified as a sub-genre of adventure games and not simulation games. This has led to confusion with the other genre known as dating sims, which often shares a similar visual format with visual novels, but has gameplay based on statistics.

In Japanese, a distinction is often made between visual novels proper (abbreviated NVL) and adventure games (abbreviated AVG or ADV). This distinction is normally lost in English, where adventure game refers to a different genre. Visual novels and ADVs are especially prevalent in Japan, where they make up nearly 70% of PC games released. They are rarely produced for video game consoles, but the more popular games are sometimes ported to systems such as the Sega Dreamcast or the Playstation 2. The market for visual novels outside of Japan, however, is small.

Do you play them? If so, what are your favorites?

Personally the only one i've ever played was fate/stay night and i enjoyed it so much that i was thinking about picking up another one, and as such this thread came to pass

[shinta|hikari]

Tsukihime is a fantastic visual novel made by the same company as FSN.

I've played quite a number of visual novels, but a lot of them were simply dating sims without a decent plot and are not worth mentioning.

The ones I really liked are the following:

Tsukihime
Kagetsu Tohya (Tsukihime sequel)
Fate Stay Night
Kanon
Clannad
Saya no Uta
Yume Miru Kusuri
Phantom of the Inferno
Kana: Little Sister

I can give a brief description of each if you want, but it would be better to simply look it up at wikipedia. Just be careful of spoilers.

[Archangel]

But another problem is that many of those aren't translated to english right?

[shinta|hikari]

They are all translated (unofficially I believe). You just have to find them.

I don't really read visual novels in Japanese, since the Kanji can sometimes be too difficult for my level.

[Archangel]

This is a weird question, but what about the position in which you play them?

I really get into these games and after like 2 hours i feel sore everywhere from clicking all that time

Like i said, weird question.

[Xrlderek]

I've played:

Saya no Uta
Umineko no Naku Koro ni
Utawarerumono
Fate/Stay Night
Chaos Head ( halfway through, lost interest)
Ever17

Ever 17 is awesome, you should definitely pick that up. It is among the top visual novels for sure. Be very careful of spoilers though, you should just dive right in instead . It is officially translated to English, so it doesn't need a patch.

Saya no Uta is great too.. Utawarerumono was decent. Didn't like Chaos Head that much.
They all have English patches.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni is very good ( already made a thread about it ). The art is "original" but if you get past that it is definitely one of the best VNs that is translated to English.

I've played a few more but I can't remember their names at the moment so I doubt they were that good.

[David75]

They are all translated (unofficially I believe). You just have to find them.

I don't really read visual novels in Japanese, since the Kanji can sometimes be too difficult for my level.

I thought the Clannad project wasn't finished due to the massive hours of gaming (like 300?)
If you have a good source, I'd be very pleased, thanks

[Marik]

David, if you know how to use mirc, go to irc.rizon.net and go to #/jp/. You can view their packlist at this url.. http://gilheney.com/VNs/index.php?bot= click [jp]VNs-English.

For Clannad type /msg [jp]VNs-English xdcc send #30

[Xrlderek]

David, if you know how to use mirc, go to irc.rizon.net and go to #/jp/. You can view their packlist at this url.. http://gilheney.com/VNs/index.php?bot= click [jp]VNs-English.

For Clannad type /msg [jp]VNs-English xdcc send #30

Wow, just checked out the site, great stuff, thanks for posting it. They even have Touhou games 6-12

[Kraco]

David, if you know how to use mirc, go to irc.rizon.net and go to #/jp/.

Thanks for the info. Downloading!

I've played a bunch of VNs, most of them of the ecchi nature. Though I've not actually played through all of them (yet or never will).

FSN, Tsukihime, Ever17, Kanon, Shuffle, Wind a breath of heart, Wanko to Kurasou, Crescendo, Come See Me Tonight 2, Kana: Little Sister, Family Project, Snow Sakura, Yume Miru Kusuri, Sagara Family, Let's Meow Meow, Snow Drop, Cosplay Academy...

I know a few are missing from the list but I can't recall their names.

[Archangel]

Wow kraco... that is a lot

And you say you haven't finished them? Isn't that kinda like reading half a book?

[Buffalobiian]

This is a weird question, but what about the position in which you play them?

I really get into these games and after like 2 hours i feel sore everywhere from clicking all that time

Like i said, weird question.

Depending on where I am, I sit in different positions.

Then again, I use Auto-read for F/S N, still my first and current game.

[Kraco]

Wow kraco... that is a lot

And you say you haven't finished them? Isn't that kinda like reading half a book?

I rarely read more than one novel at a time, but I do have a few visual novels on parallel processing. Other than that, with some of those games I've only cleared one route. Some, like Cosplay Academy, are technically nice but somewhat boring when you have already seen a bunch of eroges. So, it's on hold at the moment.

This is a weird question, but what about the position in which you play them?

I usually just periodically switch the hand I'm using to press enter. I'm right-handed but I can press one button consistenty even with the left hand... In addition to that, it's good to change your sitting position as well. I like to lay my legs on the table like a punk when playing VNs.

[David75]

I like to lay my legs on the table like a punk when playing VNs.

/Is in that position while reading this, and writing the comment

Thanks Marik, dl is in progress, not full bandwidth, but nice.

[Marik]

I only started playing VNs about 2 months ago, and so far I'd have to say that Cross†Channel is my favorite out of the ones I've played. It has a really good story.

[Archangel]

It just came to me but playing a VN in a portable console is probably awesome

Maybe someone will on day be able to emulate fsn on the psp or something, who knows.

[Xrlderek]

It just came to me but playing a VN in a portable console is probably awesome

Maybe someone will on day be able to emulate fsn on the psp or something, who knows.

Already made for DS, http://digital-haze.net/vnds.php

[Archangel]

Bastards!

Omg i want that for the psp

[David75]

Whoops, just dled the Clannad one, and it seems like I need the japanese version.
I guess I can have it with the same irc chan... just thought about it while writing it.
If not, will have to search for the right version

[Archangel]

Translations rarely come together with the actual game
Usually you have to download it on the side and then mount it with daemon tools or something. That, or buy the original i guess

I'm finding Tsukihime very enjoyable so far, with the exception of this god awful interface. I liked the one for fsn a whole lot more, and i found its art to be slightly better as well