I consider myself (like most people here, I imagine), pretty versed with gaming. I've played many examples of every gaming genre over the years, and I imagine many of our experiences would be pretty universal - a 10-player session on Bomberman for the Saturn, staying up to 4am playing an MMO, trying to get the 10-in-a-row achievement on Street Fighter IV online, queueing up for a midnight console launch...
However, after seeing them referred to in a few animes recently (most notably the "otome games" in Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun), there's one videogame genre that I realise I have little to no experience with - visual novels. It's almost certainly because I can't read Japanese (other than the most basic stuff), but even so, I'm sure examples exist in English. I also know (from my own time in Japan, simply looking at the visual novel shelf in the shops) that the genre is pretty heavily linked with pornography, but also that there are games which thrive that have nothing to do with that.
I've played a few games which border the Visual Novel genre - Phoenix Wright, 999 and Time Hollow, but I believe even these have more gameplay than a true visual novel (is that even correct?).
Over the years, via various sources, I've seen games which I think started life as VN's - stuff like Fate Stay Night, Muv Luv, older games like Tokimeki Memorial, but I don't know a great deal about them.
Is there anyone here who would consider themselves an expert on these? What's available on English, and on what format?
However, after seeing them referred to in a few animes recently (most notably the "otome games" in Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun), there's one videogame genre that I realise I have little to no experience with - visual novels. It's almost certainly because I can't read Japanese (other than the most basic stuff), but even so, I'm sure examples exist in English. I also know (from my own time in Japan, simply looking at the visual novel shelf in the shops) that the genre is pretty heavily linked with pornography, but also that there are games which thrive that have nothing to do with that.
I've played a few games which border the Visual Novel genre - Phoenix Wright, 999 and Time Hollow, but I believe even these have more gameplay than a true visual novel (is that even correct?).
Over the years, via various sources, I've seen games which I think started life as VN's - stuff like Fate Stay Night, Muv Luv, older games like Tokimeki Memorial, but I don't know a great deal about them.
Is there anyone here who would consider themselves an expert on these? What's available on English, and on what format?
Comment