Has this ever happened to you when playing a VN?

[VaroOP]

So I am playing DRACU-RIOT! and right now and I am on Rio's route. 

 

Um, well in real life when I was 16 and dated someone for the first time, on my first date I went as far as only talking to her and after a month I kissed her...
Now, in Rio's route I was getting the same vibes until on the very first date they get down to sex and that killed the whole thing for me. I played Miu's route before this and didn't feel this way. Perhaps because Miu was so different from any chick I know. 
I feel like I can't enjoy this route anymore. Most stories make you a part of the story and make you believe it. You live the story in a way and if you can't do that it keeps on becoming less and less enjoyable. 

Has anyone else experienced the same thing ? One scene and bam you are out of it. You can't enjoy it anymore.

 

Edited April 2, 2017 by VaroOP
Better format

[Soulless Watcher]

People seem to have a tendency to try and associate their own life experiences to the visual novel they are reading, which I never fully understood. I have never encountered a route or heroine that I would associate with a real world counterpart. The appeal of visual novels to me is their unrealism, situations that could never happen in real life and characters that are often tailor made for the reader to like or at least sympathize with. Reality is often the opposite of fiction, boring and it is usually harder to sympathize with or even achieve basic understanding of other people. 

 

[mitchhamilton]

14 minutes ago, Soulless Watcher said:

People seem to have a tendency to try and associate their own life experiences to the visual novel they are reading, which I never fully understood. I have never encountered a route or heroine that I would associate with a real world counterpart. The appeal of visual novels to me is their unrealism, situations that could never happen in real life and characters that are often tailor made for the reader to like or at least sympathize with. Reality is often the opposite of fiction, boring and it is usually harder to sympathize with or even achieve basic understanding of other people. 

 

youve never been in a situation where youre surrounded by 5 girls on a daily basis who all are experts in various fighting styles and weapons while attending a school where its acceptable to challenge someone to a duel with no repercussions at all from the officials? your life is weird, dude.

[Soulless Watcher]

Just now, mitchhamilton said:

youve never been in a situation where youre surrounded by 5 girls on a daily basis who all are experts in various fighting styles and weapons while attending a school where its acceptable to challenge someone to a duel with no repercussions at all from the officials? your life is weird, dude.

I know right? Apparently, I have lived a very sheltered life. 

[Clephas]

Understand, it depends on the game... and I need to say this.  'Don't compare game romances to your romances.'  For that matter, don't compare game dating, game sex-friends, or game anything to rl. 

Yes, I've been jarred out of an experience before... but never by romantic aspects.  Sex and romance are so varied irl and in fiction that there is no meaning in comparing a real or imagined experience to your own in the first place. 

I've mostly been jarred by setting discrepancies too blatant to ignore, such as in Eustia.

[EdwardWongHPTIV]

I'm not sure what the OP's example was because I don't want to spoil myself but from everyone else's response it seems to be a general unwillingness to suspend disbelief. I too have a problem with this at times and in general I tend to be overly critical. Yet, I find it hard not to when I've read such a great many works of Japanese fiction. Though truth be told my biggest gripe is plot holes/inconsistencies. I've long accepted that Japanese character behavior is typically bizarre or simply wish fulfillment. Still, it depends. There are some stories I find engaging enough that I can overlook these sorts of things. It's the vanilla setups with characters I find uninteresting that turn into a unsurprising slog for me.

Though at the end of the day sometimes the best advice is to just put down the story and return to it later. Sometimes it's simple genre fatigue. Always good to mix things up when you can.

[Mr Poltroon]

Absolutely. So I was reading a VN the other day, and this girl went and talked to the protagonist! Can you believe that? Broke my imersion right there, such a thing would never happen to me.

[Vorathiel]

5 hours ago, VaroOP said:

So I am playing DRACU-RIOT! and right now and I am on Rio's route. 

  Hide contents

Um, well in real life when I was 16 and dated someone for the first time, on my first date I went as far as only talking to her and after a month I kissed her...
Now, in Rio's route I was getting the same vibes until on the very first date they get down to sex and that killed the whole thing for me. I played Miu's route before this and didn't feel this way. Perhaps because Miu was so different from any chick I know. 
I feel like I can't enjoy this route anymore. Most stories make you a part of the story and make you believe it. You live the story in a way and if you can't do that it keeps on becoming less and less enjoyable. 

Has anyone else experienced the same thing ? One scene and bam you are out of it. You can't enjoy it anymore.

Yeah, I had that on the beginning of my 'VN journey'. I was engrossed with romance and then BAM, sudden h scene destroyed everything. It's typical for shitty charage. It was jarring first few times, then I stopped reading those.
But still - it's ridiculous, stupid, off putting, immersion breaking, cringe worthy and lazy writting. I could count good written romances with believable buildups for sex scenes in VNs that I read on my fingers. Of one hand.
Visual Novels are really an awesome medium to tell stories and/or romances, but this medium is criminally underused.

But well, who cares about believability and good writting, when you have moe/cute/tsundere/fap-fodder/great prose-no substance/unfunny comedies/pissing lolis/head pats/retarded and-or mentally deranged characters posing as cute and list of what people tend to like in VNs goes on and on. Sigh.

[Guilty of Seeing Red]

I'm not really the best authority on this topic as I'm still quite new to weebdom (and I didn't look at the spoiler tag) but just chiming in with with my opinions in regards to what others have been discussing:

For me, realistic characters or situations have never been important in otaku media. Starting from their looks, with almost every girl drawn as asthetically pleasing as possible, a realistic approach isn't what most authors in this subculture seem to have in mind (with a few exceptions, such as Evangelion. Interestingly enough Shinji seems to be quite a controversial character precisely because of his realistic portrayal). From what I've heard, the speech patterns are also quite distinct from what you'd hear in RL Japanese and oh god, those voices and mannerisms would be absolutely obnoxious in real life. Like someone else above mentioned, I'm drawn to anime/manga/visual novels as a means of escapism, to be engrossed with quirky characters, teenagers saving the world, and life-defining highschool crushes.

 These are works made by otakus for otakus and influenced by other works of otakus rather than the real world. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, it's just how these tropes are presented what matters. In fact I think one of the strengths of this medium is how they can present deeply engaing stories with characters and relationships I actually care about and can emphasize with despite their unrealistic nature. So if you come with the expectations of finding  a realistic portralyal of interpersonal relationships, Japanese school life, or teenage drama, you will probably end up disappointed. But that's not how these media were intended to be enjoyed in my opinion, and if I wanted realism I'd just pick up a book.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Guilty of Seeing Red

[Okarin]

I think that being shy (both sides) in a first date at 16 is pretty normal.

Sex can happen on a first date, but at 16? Come on. Maybe in Brave New World.

This is one of the famous instances of fan-pandering and fantasy-appealing commonly found in eroge. Take it or leave it.

[littleshogun]

Since you just ask the question here, I would just said not at all. The reason was a secret, but I would say that I agree with majority of the users here that VN was usually quite unrealistic in the first place. So of course there's bound to be some scenes that needed some suspension of disbelief. That's all that I could say.

[EdwardWongHPTIV]

Wait... now that I think about it...

Spoiler

Isn't the setting of this VN on a island turned red light district? At least that's what I recall from reading a little of the manga a long time ago. Anyways given that setting is it really that surprising? In the manga I believe the MC only visited with his friend so they could lose their virginity. It's like expecting a heart warming coming of age romance from a porn isn't it? Or am I getting stories mixed up?

 

[Kuma]

NEVER try to compare a media that caters to socially awkward shut-in otakus whoose only female contacts are their mothers with reality. That's like killing yourself because you think you will respawn as seen in MMORPGs

[mitchhamilton]

4 minutes ago, Prinny said:

NEVER try to compare a media that caters to socially awkward shut-in otakus whoose only female contacts are their mothers with reality. That's like killing yourself because you think you will respawn as seen in MMORPGs

pointing gun at head.

 

wait, we wont? o.O

 

also, nice alliteration there mitch. you nailed it.

[VaroOP]

16 hours ago, Soulless Watcher said:

People seem to have a tendency to try and associate their own life experiences to the visual novel they are reading, which I never fully understood. I have never encountered a route or heroine that I would associate with a real world counterpart. The appeal of visual novels to me is their unrealism, situations that could never happen in real life and characters that are often tailor made for the reader to like or at least sympathize with. Reality is often the opposite of fiction, boring and it is usually harder to sympathize with or even achieve basic understanding of other people. 

 

Exactly man. This is why I liked Miu's route. No association to real life whatsoever and an enjoyable route. I mostly enjoy anime/manga/VN as a form of entertainment and never associate with/affect my real life. 
This is was a very rare case and the minute i started associating the route to my real life experience, I probably killed the route for myself. 
 

15 hours ago, Clephas said:

Understand, it depends on the game... and I need to say this.  'Don't compare game romances to your romances.'  For that matter, don't compare game dating, game sex-friends, or game anything to rl. 

Yes, I've been jarred out of an experience before... but never by romantic aspects.  Sex and romance are so varied irl and in fiction that there is no meaning in comparing a real or imagined experience to your own in the first place. 

I've mostly been jarred by setting discrepancies too blatant to ignore, such as in Eustia.

I have taken your advice to my heart. 

 

 

11 hours ago, Vorathiel said:

Yeah, I had that on the beginning of my 'VN journey'. I was engrossed with romance and then BAM, sudden h scene destroyed everything. It's typical for shitty charage. It was jarring first few times, then I stopped reading those.
But still - it's ridiculous, stupid, off putting, immersion breaking, cringe worthy and lazy writting. I could count good written romances with believable buildups for sex scenes in VNs that I read on my fingers. Of one hand.
Visual Novels are really an awesome medium to tell stories and/or romances, but this medium is criminally underused.

But well, who cares about believability and good writting, when you have moe/cute/tsundere/fap-fodder/great prose-no substance/unfunny comedies/pissing lolis/head pats/retarded and-or mentally deranged characters posing as cute and list of what people tend to like in VNs goes on and on. Sigh.

Ya man I am perfectly fine with playing some Nukige. They are even less likely to happen in real life and thats good. Got a problem with this particular route because it first made me think about my real life experience. Then I kept comparing it as the route progressed and when something eroge like thing happened, it wasn't fun anymore..

 

 

6 hours ago, Okarin said:

I think that being shy (both sides) in a first date at 16 is pretty normal.

Sex can happen on a first date, but at 16? Come on. Maybe in Brave New World.

This is one of the famous instances of fan-pandering and fantasy-appealing commonly found in eroge. Take it or leave it.

Yo okarin! (S;G fan) I'll buy some Dr.Pepper for you later !   I just turned 18 today. I usually take it. This was a very rare occurrence for me and that is why I made this thread!
 

 

5 hours ago, EdwardWongHPTIV said:

Wait... now that I think about it...

  Reveal hidden contents

Isn't the setting of this VN on a island turned red light district? At least that's what I recall from reading a little of the manga a long time ago. Anyways given that setting is it really that surprising? In the manga I believe the MC only visited with his friend so they could lose their virginity. It's like expecting a heart warming coming of age romance from a porn isn't it? Or am I getting stories mixed up?

 

You are right but not exactly. Can't spoil for you or anyone else. Play the VN to know it. 
 

51 minutes ago, Prinny said:

NEVER try to compare a media that caters to socially awkward shut-in otakus whoose only female contacts are their mothers with reality. That's like killing yourself because you think you will respawn as seen in MMORPGs

A 100% agreed. Made a mistake here which I haven't made so far. Well, I think the fault lies with the VN too. I never compare my real life experiences with VNs that I am planning but I happened to do it naturally in this one route. 
 

Thanks for the various opinions guys! 

[Dergonu]

13 hours ago, Prinny said:

NEVER try to compare a media that caters to socially awkward shut-in otakus whoose only female contacts are their mothers with reality. That's like killing yourself because you think you will respawn as seen in MMORPGs

HEY! ... My teacher is female! Get your facts straight! 

[Okarin]

2 hours ago, Dergonu said:

HEY! ... My teacher is female! Get your facts straight! 

[Daru mode:]

Hmmm... fantasizing with teachers is also very moe...