Popular Western visual novels.

[beastcarving]

Does anyone like or read western visual novels? Let's talk about it. I've noticed that not many VNs that are western are discussed. Maybe they aren't yet as popular in the west just yet. "Make visual novels popular in the west" Is this slogan referring to anime VNs or western VNs? I personally love love love both. I started off reading only anime-style VNs, now I read both, and I make both, or a fusion of each style because overall I just like Visual Novels. But what do you think?

[NowItsAngeTime]

Katawa Shoujo and Doki Doki Literature Club are the only ones that have really taken off.

Mein Waifu is the Fuhrer may be next especially with how massively successful the kickstarter has been.

[Plk_Lesiak]

Most Western VNs are anime-style. Like, the vast majority of them, so it's not a good distinction. And they're not very popular in the way that most of them are very much limited to the niche Western VN community as its only audience. They're also low-budget, indie titles, while JP VNs come to the West as part of the huge eroge/visual novel industry and are considered higher quality. This means not even all VN fans will be interested in Western-produced VNs when they have tons of translated Japanese games to choose from. I read mostly Western VNs for the reason I'm writing about them and don't have time for much else, but they're definitely on the more indie/amateur side of things and niche pretty much by design, while Japanese stuff often has quite a broad appeal, with super-high-quality art and tons of sexual content.

When it goes to Fuwa's slogan? It was definitely thought of in reference to Japanese VNs, which were put on the site's torrents back in the day (the ol' good pirate days, yarr!). Nowadays, if it still means anything, it's about all VNs.

And just as a point of reference, Katawa Shoujo and DDLC achieved the kind of mass appeal no other EVN could replicate so far. But they're not the only notable ones. I'd mention Butterfly Soup, which got noticed by gaming media and I think circulated more within the LGBT+ community than in the VN spheres, and Sakura Spirit & its immediate sequels, which appealed to masses of horny otaku teenagers and not VN fans necessarily. Mein Waifu is the Furher might be a similar case to DDLC, as it exploded as a meme game rather than a VN. With "proper VNs", titles like Lucid9, Cinderella Phenomenon, Heart of the Woods, Analogue: A Hate Story or Cupid gathered decent notoriety and a lot of positive feedback. But still, it's all in the context of a niche within a niche – VN fans that are able to look past their biases, as for the longest time Western VNs were considered universally shit within the "core" VN community.

Edited September 7, 2019 by Plk_Lesiak

[Zakamutt]

nice ad links lmao

though indonesian is a weird pick

[littleshogun]

As for Western VN (Or OELVN), I think Crystalline may have a potential seeing that the production value is quite high, same goes with Ace Academy. Sakura Dungeon here is surprisingly show some potential in that it's the only Winged Cloud's gameplay VN. And Starnova here is really goes all out in that they even goes as far to hire Japanese VA, although the story in that it depict the cynical side of Japanese idol industry is help though. Other than that, I guess that's all for OELVN that I know show some interesting stuffs there.

Edited April 2, 2021 by littleshogun

[Nenor5VB]

I hope more would be made.....