The Visual Novel Thread

[lisianthus]

Never realized that there's no space to discuss VNs here.
My top 3 are:

1. Harvest December, a 3DS VN about a student, Masaki Konno, moving to a rural Japanese town where gods/kami still exist, and his misadventures there with his friends.
2. Little Busters!, a Key VN about (just like other Key VNs) friendship, youth, and high school. Basically, in an effort to preserve the memories of his group of friends, 3rd year Kyousuke decides to form a baseball team (for a basically random reason). Riki Naoe, the protagonist, ends up recruiting many people into the group. It's very comedy-based, andI love it as much as Harvest December. Kudryavka is so sweet!
3. The Fruits of Grisaia, a VN that I used to think was by Key, which is also about friendship, youth, and high school. The protag Yuuji is a former soldier, and wants to try to live a normal high school life. Fun things happen from there.

I've played a lot more (honorable mention to ToraDora Portable, I love that one as much as Grisaia~!) as well.

This is just a space to discuss Visual Novels, so feel free to join in, even if you don't know what they are, just ask!!

 

[Tactician Karina]

(Most VN's I play are pretty much otome, so yeah I'll be mostly talking about that, even if they're a bit niche around here.)

My Japanese import of Taishou x Alice: All in One for the Switch came in the other day, so I can happily replay this again on portable this time. I played it before on PC, then after that around 2017 or so I played an English translation of the first episode and it was so bad; iirc that was the only one even translated, and honestly I really don't want to see another attempt at it for a while.

Also going to chime in about Voltage Inc. as I actually really like their otome games; they're not super high quality, as they aim for the mobile market and later some get ported to Switch, but their games are fun guilty pleasures. Unfortunately it's an unpopular opinion within the otome community, but whatever I quite enjoy a lot of the aggressive LI's introduced in their stuff. I'd say some of my favorite games from them are: Enchanted in the Moonlight, Star-Crossed Myth, Love Letter from Thief X, Her Love in the Force, and Kissed by the Baddest Bidder.

Current otome I'm playing right now is BUSTAFELLOWS. Really enjoy it so far, I'd say my favorite guy is currently Limbo Fitzgerald as he has a good balance between mature and childish, definitely a good poster boy for the game. His route is also pretty good, with him acting confident yet hides a hidden trauma, I think it's done well; him being supportive and considerate for the MC is also a major plus. (also his Side B story is pretty spicy lol)

Some of my other favorites, and for a bit of a recommendation to people as well: AMNEƧIA, Collar x Malice, Cinderella Phenomenon, Code: Realize, Norn9, Bad Apple Wars, Forbidden Romance with Mysterious Spirit, Steam Prison, Nekopara-Catboys Paradise (yes, by the creators of that Nekopara), Café Enchante, Piofiore: Fated Memories, OZMAFIA!!, and Hakuoki. (I have more in mind, but for now I think that's enough)

For a non-otome VN I really enjoy, then that would definitely be The House in Fata Morgana. The story is just... well it's something you'd have to experience for yourself but it's done really well, and honestly the plot is just way too detailed to fully explain in a tl;dr. It's love, curses, and tragedy for a thousand years, it's the only way I can kind of try to explain why I love the story and think it's great. Seriously, people need to read this VN to really understand, and the OST is just great and really helps tell the story. Also the art is just amazing:

Spoiler

The artist is Moyataro, he's done some artwork for the FE Cipher cards as well. I quite like it since it reminds me of the Castlevania art.

 

[Tactician Karina]

I've heard about BUSTAFELLOWS before (I think it's on Switch IIRC), would you reccomend it? I've never really played an otome before.
Hashihime of the Old Book Town is a VN that I got for the Switch as well, it's a BL VN set in the Taisho (1920s) era of Japan, I have a huge VN backlog so I won't get to it in a while, but even so I'm excited to read it!!

I haven't finished it yet, but yes I'd say you should play it. And yes it's on Switch (the version I'm playing) and Steam, it has some angst though, so if you're alright with that it's worth the $40.

I've also played some of Hashihime on the Switch, got the Japanese physical release imported last month. It's pretty good and from what I've read the character writing is strong so far, but I haven't read too much of it cause of BUSTAFELLOWS and other games I've been playing.

 

[ZinnLav]

I usually play mystery Visual Novels, but I've been wanting to get into Otome, just haven't found many that caught my eye.
Haven't played VNs in awhile, I keep finding it hard to focus, I've been considering getting some on the Switch because it'll be easier than sitting at my PC for them, letting me relax more.

Highlights include:
AI: The Somnium Files (my all time favourite and a sequel coming out this year <3)
World's End Club (also one of my most favourites)
Danganronpa Series
Zero Escape Series
Steins;Gate

Spoiler: Steam List

I have a few others not on Steam like Steins;Gate, World's End Club, Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk and Mary Skelter.

 

[TwinklingCupcake]

I love visual novels and I've played a bunch of indie ones from steam and itch.io

I usually have to stick with shorter ones, because the really long ones can't hold my attention too long.
I can't mention some of the ones I've played though, due to some of the more somber subjects explored in them, but I've also played and enjoyed A Little Lily Princess, Time Hollow, Heart of the Woods, and a handful of horror novels.

 

[Tactician Karina]

I forgot to mention Nitro+chiral and their VN's, they specifically make BL VN's but they're fun. I should also mention they are a subsidiary of Nitroplus, so some might know them for their work on: Saya no Uta, Guilty Crown: Lost Christmas, SoniComi, Dra+Koi, and Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa. There are others but those are the only ones I really know of, with SoniComi, Full Metal Daemon, and Dra+Koi being the only ones I've personally played. They also helped work on some of the Science Adventure games with 5pb., though most might know of them as Chaos;Head and/or Steins;Gate, which is an okay series; they also worked with DMM which made Touken Ranbu, not a VN but a web browser game that I really, really love and still play to this day.

Anyway, back to Nitro+chiral. My favorite of theirs is a tie between Togainu no Chi and Dramatical Murder, though I like all of their work that I've played. Thinking of ordering their recent game Slow Damage that released last year, there was supposed to be an English translation late last year but the site still says coming soon unfortunately; so I'll just get the Japanese physical release sometime this week maybe. (the cover looks so good)

 

[Tactician Karina]

So, I just got all four of the Utawarerumono VN's after putting the anime on my PTW list a while back, then got around to starting it (and as an aside, I'm up to episode 4 so far and it's so good, but that's for another thread). Well, I say VN but they also have RPG mechanics as well, and from what I understand the fourth game seems to be mostly a fighting ARPG so not sure how much of the VN aspect this installment has.

Even though I still have other VN's I'm reading, I just had to start the series since the anime adaptation has me hooked! Started with the first game, called Prelude to the Fallen (not the original 2002 PC version, the remake). From what I know this one is 30+ hours long, so I'll have to take my time with this, but so far it's very fun. Though I feel combat is not as engaging and the chain attack system feels stiff, I guess, but the pacing of the story is just great from what I've read so far. Also, Eruruu is the best character so far and I love the Hakuoro x Eruruu pairing so much.

 

[Giri]

My first Visual Novel was Danganronpa and my second was Higurashi: When They Cry. I liked DR and enjoyed Higurashi thoroughly. I'm yet to complete the last part of it tho

 

[Tactician Karina]

(Reviving this thread since I finished a replay of an older VN I used to be obsessed with.)

So, I finished a "replay" of Fate/Stay Night, the [Realta Nua] version yesterday morning. I say replay even though I haven't played this specific one in full before; but it's just like the original but with the dialogue toned down, an option to turn off certain scenes, has a better OST, has voice acting, and with the addition of a secret ending. I went through this version because I was told the condensed dialogue is easier to digest, yet it's still pretty damn long. So like the original, it took me a few months to finish (too many other games I want to play in-between, plus I have a life outside of that), still has that older Type-Moon feel I generally like more. (that said, I might just go back to playing FGO again afterwards, I have a on-again off-again type relationship with it lol)

After finishing RN, I look back to how much I liked the UBW route the most. To me, that route was just consistently good throughout, and Rin was always my favorite of the three heroines. That and the exploration of the ideals Shirou seeks, and the conflict of his future self always did it for me. HF moved up as second favorite, before I didn't like it as much because of how dark it is, but now I appreciate it a lot more alongside the development it gives to characters that were more minor in importance in other routes.

"Last Episode" is the secret ending in RN, only unlocked after getting the main endings in each route (true end in Fate, true and good ends in UBW, and true and normal ends in HF). This one is just a new ending for the Fate route, showing what happens to Shirou and Saber after Fate's events, which is pretty much their happy ending. It's fine, but I'm not a big fan of Saber all that much, so the emotional pull it has doesn't really affect me lol.

Honestly, I've been getting back into Type-Moon stuff which is what got me to finally go through FSN again. Now I'm thinking of trying to go through Tsukihime, was unable to truly start it last year as it wouldn't work then for some reason, so I mostly made do with secondary info for it. Definitely got back into Melty Blood again, went back to it's remake/reboot again, Type Lumina, on the Switch after Neco-Arc finally came back; might also get around to replaying Actress Again Current Code at some point. Witch on the Holy Night is my favorite Type-Moon work though, almost up there with another of my favorite VN The House in Fata Morgana (which is amazing, seriously go read it), so I'm happy that the enhanced version will be released on the Switch in four months.

 

[Juliko]

I admittedly haven't played a whole lot of visual novels. I ought to rectify that though, because I found some really good ones. My favorites of them are the Ace Attorney series, A Little Lily Princess (my number one favorite), Digimon Survive, Katawa Shoujo, Code:Realize, and this 18+ indie one called Cute Demon Crashers that's surprisingly wholesome in terms of its sexual content. Seriously, if you want to play a 18+ game that doesn't have gratuitous rape in it and heavily values consent, I highly recommend Cute Demon Crashers.

 

[hanecco]

Most of my exposure to VNs has been from the anime associated with them. I'll start with the one VN I watched a playthrough of in its original format though: Yoake Mae Yori Ruri-iro na. (Known in English as Brighter than Dawning Blue - videos of the whole thing in English by 2Athimar7).

Otherwise, I've seen Clannad (flawed but I liked it), Kanon (flawed... so many flaws), Hakuoki (really fun!) and Toradora (I dislike this, though not as much as Kanon).