solidbatman

What in the hell does "We always keep minority spirit" even mean?

Oooh this is a tough one. Despite their narrative problems, Key generally has done well to craft some good characters even if their character arcs left something to be desired. I think I'd have to go for Nagisa just because not enough VNs carry the high school romances into adulthood and show the challenges of a new couple starting out, but she is such a good anchor for After Story and perfect for giving a measure of agency and realism to the issues that plague our MC while also maintaining herself as a strong character in her own right, even if she does become a little plot "devicey" by the end.

i got grumpier

So a VN is a VN because it doesn't assume you're low IQ and are not politically correct, unlike the thousands of other books, tv shows, magazines, manga, anime, etc etc that are just like that? My first question, that you are so hung up on, was rhetorical. If you are a non-native English speaker, I apologize as I realize the nuance of that might be lost on you or perhaps your response is getting tangled up in a language barrier between us in which case I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I'll pose the question again in slightly different terms to hopefully help clear this up. The main question, once again, was why are VNs VNs? Why do creators, not readers make VNs over other forms? Why do VNs exist? If your answer is that the creators are given more freedom in content when compared to other forms of media, then your previous responses make slightly more sense even if I feel their is plenty of evidence to the contrary that shows authors in other forms of media are no less hindered by content, especially in an age of self-publishing.

"So my main question isn't so much what is a VN but why is a VN a VN? Yes I know, stupid question but it is something I'm curious about." End of the post. I can see how it might be confusing if you only read the first couple of sentences while ignoring the context of those first few sentences. I asked that rhetorical question and answered it in my own post to highlight the main question.

I'm asking why do people write VNs. Why are VNs created over other forms of media?

I see that you are a gamer™ of culture. If you are of such high intellect, then surely you could have read the question I was asking properly.

I always liked how Macross handles its shared universe, treating each previous entry as a dramatization of what actually happened. A VN could certainly do something similar to tell the story they want within a universe without being held back by a previous entry.

Maybe it was covered in this thread (I'm lazy and don't feel like reading 4 pages), but I'd be very interested to see some sort of sales data on a steam release w/ uncut store release and compare that to downloads on nyaa or other pirating websites. I'd imagine steam releases proportionally sell better but I've no way of really looking at that sort of data unless a company wants to divulge it.

Congrats on finishing it, but I think I'm more impressed that you changed your avatar tbh

I'd been curious about this one for a while because the premise was somewhat unique and ebi-hime is a pretty good writer. Glad to see you enjoyed it!

I mean yeah you could pay to import them, rely on some random ass JAST USA releases when they felt like doing something, and maybe Mangagamer for ef and random ass nukige. I kept an eye on things starting around 2010ish and there was very very little outside of crazy nukige being released officially in the west. For most people, piracy + fan patch was just about the only way to get anything. I'm not demonizing it, just pointing out my observation of the market starting around 2010. If there was some unknown to me VN renaissance before then, my mistake. I welcome any explanation showing otherwise, though, since like I said, I simply am unaware of releases happening anywhere close to the frequency and with the ease of purchase we have today.

Switch Restoration Project when?

Piracy is ingrained in the VN market due to the fact that originally, the only way to acquire virtually all VNs was to pirate them and apply a fan patch. Steam and Kickstarter really changed the market. Old habits die hard.

Wargirl Games is making an actual strategy-esque VN called My Little Dictator which might be more along these lines. It's been in development since 1945 anyway it feels like.

Well this most certainly was a surprise. Store page says: "EDITED FOR EVERYONE This version of Saya no Uta ~ The Song of Saya has been edited for release on Steam." Not sure what that will entail.

In terms of self-inflicted, I'm talking both formula and market. The formula will change based on the market, resulting in very few localized VNs being experimental or genre defying reads. Typically, the experimental VNs either don't get localized and thus I'm not aware of them (most of my baseless conjecture ignores unlocalized VNs) and are put together by EVN developers who still in many cases are held back by the medium itself. Let's take Heart of the Woods for example, a VN I think is very good. It suffered from being a VN, however, because everything felt so static in its magical world, along with a struggle to properly convey the passage of time. A case could be made that this is a weakness of writing and not of the medium itself, but I think no matter how good the writing in that VN, the weakness of it feeling static at the very least, would remain. Without full fledged animation, properly conveying to the reader the wonders of that world is extremely difficult. If it becomes a fully animated VN, it might as well just be an animated film as the story still works even as an animated film. There was no reason, other than resources for HotW to be a Visual Novel (and don't get me started on how pointless the 18+ scenes were). Hence why VNs are a great medium for aspiring story tellers but poor for actually telling the full story. They typically, and keep in mind I am heavily generalizing here, are very static. Just about every single VN I have read, I feel like the story would exist better in a different form of media. Clannad already does exist in a better version as an anime series. There are very few exceptions to this in my opinion. Hell, even my VN is only being made because I lack the resources, skill, and motivation to try to tell the story in a different form of media, though a novel might be easier but I also just like seeing artwork. I'm not saying that visual novels should not exist, just that by default, I feel that by and large, they are a weak media of story telling as it is very hard to get lost in the worlds of the stories. This might just be because I haven't read the truly great ones, but when I look over the lists of the must reads, I see a lot of the same type of story, over and over and over and having read a few of them, I am left with a generally unimpressed attitude. That isn't to say I don't like VNs. I like good stories, and personally I feel most VNs do not tell a good story because they stick to what the tiny market demands, very trope filled narratives that follow similar story beats. All forms of media suffer from this, though, but the VN market is so small, that this problem is amplified by a lack of titles being localized. I am confident that in Japan, many experimental or unique VNs fly under the radar and never see the light of day in the West because they sell like crap. I have no clue if anything I just typed makes sense but it does in my benedryl smothered brain. This is something I actually didn't even consider. Very solid point.

I'm curious on what other people think, hence the thread. I already said what I think in the post right above yours but my answer and views are not the only opinion on this.

Once again, I'm not asking why people play VNs, so I really don't think insulting VN players was really necessary nor was I looking to hear bitterness about how people change after entering a relationship. You make it sound as if you lost a friend in battle. In regards to the branching reasoning I've seen brought up, such as character routes, if a VN has a true route, why bother with the branching narrative with routes, especially with how many games ignore character route developments in true routes? Would you consider that resources wasted that could have been sunk into a new title, or more resources allocated to the true route narrative? Personally, I think visual novels are a poor form of story telling medium with a huge caveat to my position being that I think they are wonderfully accessible, especially in the West where various engines make it very easy for people to create them. I feel that visual novels in both East and West, due to the lower production costs over a video game, higher interactivity than a book, are a great way for aspiring story tellers to experiment with ideas and techniques for story telling. Visual novels have many weaknesses (most of them self-inflicted in my opinion) but I think the points raised in this thread are solid but miss just how great a VN can be for new story tellers to hone their craft.

I like it but you should go for making a VN even if people didn't like it. Make what you want to make and do what you want to do.

While these are some good answers as to why you read visual novels, the core of my question was more along the lines of asking why do visual novels exist? Why do creators choose visual novels over other forms of media to express their stories?

I was wondering today, during my daily complain about how I hate VNs time, why do people read VNs? What do VNs offer that other entertainment mediums do not? For example, some visual novels are able to play with perspective in a unique way that other mediums cannot match to mess with how one interprets the story. Personally, I think many visual novels, if not nearly every single VN, fails to actually do anything with the medium itself and instead relies on tradition (for example, "VNs have always had X or Y so this VN has X in it too!") to push copies. Sometimes I see stories being pushed as a huge selling point for a VN, but that has me wondering often, why does it have to be a VN for the story to exist? Could the story work just as well as a novel/LN/manga? So my main question isn't so much what is a VN but why is a VN a VN? Yes I know, stupid question but it is something I'm curious about.

Started Ys: Origin and Caligula Effect Overdose in between raiding in ffxiv.

man i had hyped it up on the fuwanovel facebook page back when i was doing that if memory serves. same thing with noby on other avenues. And yeah, people were pretty excited for Sakura Spirit based on those early screenshots.

There are two english visual novels that are seared into my brain from their announcements. Sakura Spirit and NOBY. Both looked super promising with really nice art and what not. But alas...