Visual Novels — General Thread

My first visual novel from Japanese developers is School Days. I want to go through all 20+ endings and then watch the anime adaptation. I think it will be an interesting experience. I also have plans for Clannad and Euphoria (this is violence and porn)

@Swyzen I wish you so much luck with School Days, even with a guide, trying to get through everything can be a pain, that game is a little janky, lol. I gave up, and moved onto Shiny days instead, it was a little more polished.

Euphoria was... a trip.

@Swyzen I wish you so much luck with School Days, even with a guide, trying to get through everything can be a pain, that game is a little janky, lol. I gave up, and moved onto Shiny days instead, it was a little more polished.

Euphoria was... a trip.

I suppose if you are ONLY trying to get all the endings, it's not too bad, it's trying to completely fill out the flow chart that things become a problem.


I mean, in School days, Makoto basically has two options, Kotonoha, and Sekai, sure there are a couple others he can hook up with on the side, but it's many just those two. In Shiny Days (which is a alternate version, not a sequel) Makoto hooks up with literally every other girl in the series but Kotonoha and Sekai, lol. Their moms, their little sisters, his other classmates, his other classmates' little sisters, His other classmates' little sisters' friends, some random chick that just shows up one day... The only one who is safe is his own little sister, he may be a degenerate, but at least he draws the line somewhere, lol. so yeah, I can see there being 40 endings.

I haven't seen them all, I couldn't even find a guide that showed you how to get them all, so I'm not even sure if anyone has seen them all. And the guides I could find were super janky as well. I would think I was following one guide to get a spefific ending, then suddenly a question would pop up that wasn't in the guide, or it would suddenly skip questions that were supposed to come up, and I never knew what the heck was going on. So good luck trying to figure that one out.

These games have the most convoluted flow chart systems in any game I've ever seen. It's not as simple as just going to the point before a split and picking a different option, sometimes you have to go way back several points, but hell If I could ever figure out what I did wrong, lol. This is one of those games that I don't try to 100% before moving on, like I would with most VN's. I play a route, then take a break for a few months, and when I'm in the mood, I come back, and play again, and hope I make enough different choices to get another ending. I doubt I will ever manage to 100% this monster.

I've seen some Fate videos and I watched playthroughs of Katawa Shoujo and Saya no Uta, but only played and watched Danganronpa.

Besides Xenogears and perhaps the Suikoden VN, I don't really care for that medium.

@CaptainKenshiro
"xenogears and suikoden"
Imagine thinking those are VNs, lol.

@Z6890 That one from 2021 looks really nice. Actually, I think I've already used one of its artworks when I made this picture of characters I like from various games (Fourth row, fifth column)

I'd rather discuss JRPGs. Thats where my interest in anime began. Most visual novels are porn. Even the ones that arent explicit, its almost always about dating some girls.

The stories and characters of JRPGs tend to be way more classy than anything VNs have to offer. And they're actually fun to play.

I've been wanting to get into VNs, are there any "essentials" you'd recommend for someone who's never played the genre before? I tend to like mystery or horror, in fact the only VN I've played currently is Higurashi.

@CinnamonTwirls
Corpse Party is a horror essential.
Song of Saya and Umineko are extremely popular, though I think the former sucks.
Fata Morgana too is critically acclaimed albeit not horror.
Perhaps the Tsukihime remake, but I haven't played it yet.
I highly recommend Chaos;Head. It may not be as popular as Steins;Gate, but it has more of a horror bent.

Other popular mysteries are sci-fi rather than horror.

I've been wanting to get into VNs, are there any "essentials" you'd recommend for someone who's never played the genre before? I tend to like mystery or horror, in fact the only VN I've played currently is Higurashi.

I've been wanting to get into VNs, are there any "essentials" you'd recommend for someone who's never played the genre before? I tend to like mystery or horror, in fact the only VN I've played currently is Higurashi.

@CinnamonTwirls
Id recommend the Danganronpa series, and The Nonary Games series, both are mysteries, and have some lite horror elements too them. And for someone who is new to VN's they have some gameplay elements, so it's not pure reading, which is what I find keeps most people away. These are a lot of peoples first experience with VN's. They were mine as well.


Just a warning about Song of Saya, this is originally an 18+ game, so there will be erotic scenes. I believe the steam version cuts them though, so if you don't enjoy graphic sex, then I would recommend the steam version. Though, the sex may still be referenced, I'm not sure, as I haven't played that version.

If however, you are fine with 18+ titles, then that does open up a lot of VN's to recommend.

@Jackson1333

Ooooo, I've been meaning to pick up Danganronpa and I played 999 on DS a while back but didn't manage to finish it...lost my copy of 999, curious if there's a PC port of The Nonary Games?

Also I'm totally fine with 18+ lol, definitely don't mind if there are erotic scenes!

There is! It's on Steam and seems to have a pretty solid reception, so it wasn't a botched port.

@Timeline_man OOO, definitely going straight on my buy list! Absolutely loved what I played of 999, so can't wait to finish it :)

Only VN I played to the end (and also fully completed) was Yume Miru Kusuri. Thought it was fantastic though. That was quite a long time ago but I never forgot it.

Others I've played the prologues for: Kana ~Imouto~, Fate/Stay Night, ATRI -My Dear Moments-, Adabana Itan

@SawronZXZ
Your profile pic looks like a girl from Yume Miru Kusuri. But she's actually from Tonari no Seki-kun, right?
I notice 2 of those games you played were written by Romeo Tanaka. Have you watched any of his anime?
https://myanimelist.net/anime/10357/Jinrui_wa_Suitai_Shimashita

I like the pairing of a heavily introspective story with emotive art and music. Like anime and JRPGs, the casts tend to be heroic and likeable which makes VNs attractive to read as opposed to a lot of Western dreck. The consistently biggest failing with VNs, however, is that they tend to be far too long winded. I am thinking of the Utawarerumono and Muv-Luv trilogies right now. Padded on both the macro and micro level. On the macro level, you have entire filler arcs that don't meaningfully contribute to the experience, and then on the micro level, the moment to moment experience of reading the VN is that you have a lot of repetitive dialogues. Ultimately Uta and Muv-Luv could have told their story in half the time and would have been better for it, not only better respecting my time but also tightening up the pacing and keeping the tension overall higher and thus keeping me more engaged. You would think that the expense of full Japanese voice acting would cause these VN writers to cut the fat, but that's not the case. That might be part of the reason why the VN industry is in the gutter right now. (Falcom games such as Trails also suffer from incredible bloat). Meanwhile, there are VNs with no voice acting such as World End Economica (written by Isuno Hasekura, the author of Spice & Wolf) which is very tight and has little padding.

1st Utawarerumono is paced perfectly. VNDB says the 2nd and 3rd games are a combined 90 hours, however. That's INSANE! Why did the sequels need to be so much longer? And they have higher scores???

I'd rather discuss JRPGs. Thats where my interest in anime began. Most visual novels are porn. Even the ones that arent explicit, its almost always about dating some girls.

The stories and characters of JRPGs tend to be way more classy than anything VNs have to offer. And they're actually fun to play.