First VN you ever played and what did you think?

[beastcarving]

 

 

This is the first VN I've ever played. I choose Masa (the one in the back with no forehead w/ brown hair lol.) He was so mean. I loved it! That's probably why I like writing mean VN guys now. I NEVER choose the nice prince type. I did end up playing this twice and choosing Hero (the one in the hat.) Please tell me about your first VN experience. I'm very curious in what type you usually choose as well.  

[GXOALMD]

The DS release of the original Ace Attorney.  I didn't have many thoughts about it at the time, I was just completely shocked that there existed a game about being a lawyer and even more shocked that it was actually good.

[nihilloligasan]

My first was Saya no Uta. I thought it was pretty cool and interesting, but over time my positive opinions towards it gradually decreased.

[r0xm2n]

Grisaia no Kajitsu . It was ...... an experience and a half! I felt pretty much every emotion possible, from joy to despair. I even teared up ..... twice.

[Dreamysyu]

Some random 20-minute long VN on a Russian RPG Maker forum. It doesn't even have a vndb page.

My second VN was Rewrite.

[Fred the Barber]

Edit: I somehow completely misread the OP o_O, so I'm basically rewriting this post, lol

Clannad, because I loved the anime. Which soon led to Little Busters, and then down a very deep rabbit hole...

Edited September 8, 2019 by Fred the Barber

[Formlose Gestalt]

My first VN was Season of the Sakura but that was before I ever heard the term VN. Back then I would have called it a Dating Sim because well it involved dating a girl. In any case I only played one route and thought it was fun, only to proceed to ignore/forget VNs for a good while (i.e. years) after that.

The next contact with VNs was probably the Clannad anime. After that I thought man you should have read the VN, that way I wouldn't have to deal with Nagisa who I really didn't like. Well jokes on me, later I found out that Nagisa is the true route and I ended up never reading Clannad.

Edited September 8, 2019 by Formlose Gestalt

[Stormwolf]

Mine was rewrite. I liked it, but i had this annoying thought about the MC being just an open book for the heroines to write his personality. It annoyed me greatly. But overall it was awesome.

[Seraphim]

I had my first VN experience sometime in the late '90s. I just considered it some random porn game at the time, and it wasn't until in recent years that I looked back and realized that was actually my first VN. I didn't play it for long though, since it was all in Japanese and I couldn't understand a word of it. I think the VN in question was True Love, but I can't be entirely sure since it was so long ago.
The first VNs I actually completed were Phoenix Wright and then Danganronpa, but I was still ignorant of visual novels at that time. Grisaia was what finally opened my eyes and made me fall in love with the medium.

[onorub]

G-Senjou no Maou. At the time the experience blew me away, so much so that it sat at my top 5 for about 3 years before i eventually reflected on it and was like "it's not THAT good". Not it's not even on my top 10.

[adamstan]

4 hours ago, Seraphim88 said:

I just considered it some random porn game at the time, and it wasn't until in recent years that I looked back and realized that was actually my first VN. I didn't play it for long though, since it was all in Japanese and I couldn't understand a word of it. I think the VN in question was True Love,

Same for me. Fortunately, the version I stumbled upon was translated I'll quote myself from  similar thread we had some time ago:

On 28.05.2018 at 1:14 PM, adamstan said:

For me it was True Love Jun'ai Monogatari - somewhere around 2001 I think. I managed to finish it using walkthrough. I didn't know back then the term "VN" - that was, as Frullo NDE pointed out - "dating sim" or "hentai game". I also remember Nocturnal Illusion, Three sisters story and Fatal Relations from that time, but never finished them - they were too convoluted or too long for horny teenager .

Then, last year, "one thing led to another" (flash h-games >> some rather bad OELVNs like "No One but You", some Dharker titles or - heaven forbid! - Sakura Swim Club >>) and I landed on  Dal Segno, which I consider first "proper" VN I read - and I got hooked.

True Love might be partially responsible for my soft spot for osananajimi heroines, because of Mikae

[tahu157]

Time Hollow on the DS was my first VN. It’s a time travel VN where you can cut and paste things in and out of time . . . but the story is still completely linear. That was kinda disappointing tbh.

Edited September 8, 2019 by tahu157

[littleshogun]

Like I said several times, technically Jewel Knight Crusaders in which I only remember that the pink haired girl have sex with the MC in nurse uniform, and after see that CG I immediately uninstall it because my sibling saw it a glance (Back then I just thought to get a game to be played in new PC (Back at 2003) together, so Jewel Knight Crusader is a big no seeing that my brother was at 8 yo. I also tried to replay it back at 2010, but after have a slight hard time to install it on laptop I figure that was not worth the effort and give up on that.

For the first VN that I finished thoroughly, there's Succubuss Soon (Which Mangagamer thought that Shera My Witch is a really good translation for the title) back at 2009 in which I thought that the sex scene is very hot. Although if I look at it today, I would say that there's many VN that have better CG and not to mention that the MC's voice is very annoying with him always talking about his being horny and all. Granted that it's the part of the setting, but it still come off as annoying (And we have the narration being voiced as well).

As for my first non-nukige VN? it's Shuffle in which back then I thought that I can quickly see the sex scene with the girl (I guess that's what happen when you play nukige first). Turned out that there's a lot of non sex part and those of the times are spent with the date and all, and in face we only have two sex scenes per heroine totaling 10 sex scenes. As for Kira Kira, it's the reverse in that I thought there'll be no sex scene until suddenly I'm very surprised to see a sex scene which to say shocked me very hard. After that, I tried a lot of VNs such as Tsukihime, Hinatabokko, and so on (I even completed Virgin Roster which is a dark nukige, although it's more tame compared to the like of euphoria though sex scenes wise). The rest is history.

I guess that's all for my story about first VNs here.

Edited July 15, 2020 by littleshogun

[Black99]

Little Busters, oh boi, I remember the time I spent reading this novel. I can't tell so much because I don't remember about I felt in that then, but I have plans to re-read some routes. Also, I never played Kanata and Sasasegawa routes, only Saya's route with translator (because wasn't in English). 

Edited September 9, 2019 by Black99

[Happiness+]

Galaxy Sim Date. I know it’s a flash dating sim, but lol  it was released during a time when visual novels as a medium weren’t strictly defined.  I played that dating sim,  when I was five years old on newgrounds.com.  What did I think of it?   Well, looking back on it it’s surprisingly in depth for a flash game made back then.  Go as far to say that is one of the more advanced RPG‘s during that time.  From exploration, to character customization, romantic options, etc.  The weird thing about it is that before a galaxy sim date,  i’m not sure if there were dating Sims before then. Well,  to the level of popularity that they are now. ( obviously, someone will correct me and say a certain hentai dating sim predated it.)  however, it’s still pretty revolutionary and it’s own way. Because it got me into the visual novel scene and  inspired many many many other visual novels and dating Sims.  When it comes to original English language visual novels,  this thing predated the VNDB by four years and was released the same year as RenPy.

 Reception and cultural context aside,  it’s not really spectacular.  I would even go as far as to say that it’s pretty much obscure.  The gameplay is OK.  There is no strong narrative.  Character designs are pretty much serviceable. On it’s  own,  it’s pretty good but if you were to compare with the newer dating sims it kinda sucks lol.  My friends and I  still play this every blue moon because of how cringey the dialogue is and because of nostalgia.  However, with Adobe’s Flash dying in 2020, this gem of dating sim/OELVN history will be deprecated, unable to run on any modern browser. Play it now before nothing can play it: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/203189

[Ranzo]

7 minutes ago, Happiness+ said:

Galaxy Sim Date. I know it’s a flash dating sim, but lol  it was released during a time when visual novels as a medium weren’t strictly defined.  I played that dating sim,  when I was five years old on newgrounds.com.  What did I think of it?   Well, looking back on it it’s surprisingly in depth for a flash game made back then.  Go as far to say that is one of the more advanced RPG‘s during that time.  From exploration, to character customization, romantic options, etc.  The weird thing about it is that before a galaxy sim date,  i’m not sure if there were dating Sims before then. Well,  to the level of popularity that they are now. ( obviously, someone will correct me and say a certain hentai dating sim predated it.)  however, it’s still pretty revolutionary and it’s own way. Because it got me into the visual novel scene and  inspired many many many other visual novels and dating Sims.  When it comes to original English language visual novels,  this thing predated the VNDB by four years and was released the same year as RenPy.

 Reception and cultural context aside,  it’s not really spectacular.  I would even go as far as to say that it’s pretty much obscure.  The gameplay is OK.  There is no strong narrative.  Character designs are pretty much serviceable. On it’s  own,  it’s pretty good but if you were to compare with the newer dating sims it kinda sucks lol.  My friends and I  still play this every blue moon because of how cringey the dialogue is and because of nostalgia.  However, with Adobe’s Flash dying in 2020, this gem of dating sim/OELVN history will be deprecated, unable to run on any modern browser. Play it now before nothing can play it: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/203189

Does that even count? If it did I guess my first would be the Love Hina dating sim made by the same people. My second would be the Galaxy Angel one. I stumbled upon it while exploring the adult games on newgrounds like any good middle schooler would do(or maybe I was a freshman) I liked the game so much that I decided to read the Love Hina series and I really loved it at the time. Of course with Galaxy Angel that love never faded.

 

Of course, my first vn was Galaxy Angel proper and I loved it absolutely loved it. My favorite character was finally given the chance for her to shine and it was just really sweet.

[Happiness+]

20 minutes ago, Ranzo said:

Does that even count? If it did I guess my first would be the Love Hina dating sim made by the same people. My second would be the Galaxy Angel one. I stumbled upon it while exploring the adult games on newgrounds like any good middle schooler would do(or maybe I was a freshman) I liked the game so much that I decided to read the Love Hina series and I really loved it at the time. Of course with Galaxy Angel that love never faded.

 

Of course, my first vn was Galaxy Angel proper and I loved it absolutely loved it. My favorite character was finally given the chance for her to shine and it was just really sweet.

The reason why I count it is because during that time EVNs as we know them today didn’t exist. But if you really want an example of a more proper EVN by design as we know it today, there’s Air Pressure: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/529708

That’s the second VN I’ve ever read.

(However, I did not use Air Pressure because oddly enough, I knew what a visual novel was prior to reading Air Pressure. How? Because Newgrounds classified galaxy sim angel as a visual novel themselves.) 

[MIUUZICK]

Danganronpa series. Used to be a huge fan, I was obsessed by the series and its characters for years, then I read other things and I don't like it much anymore...

[dwaif]

I started out with Heartache 101
https://rpgmaker.net/games/3229/

it's a free-ware RPG maker dating sim. Doesn't have any voice-acting or CGs, but has an addicting gameplay loop. The scenes and conversations with the characters always felt rewarding since you could miss characters completely if you didn't trigger certain flags or have the right stats. I've been through the game a dozen times by now, and there's still some interesting scenes to be seen. It also helps that you can read through all the character lines and choices in the game's install folder in case you miss anything. The game has a custom content feature that you can use to import characters of your own, which I found really interesting. I like to think that Family Project is a spiritual successor to this game, minus some interactivity and the school setting. Looking back at it now after everything I read, I find it average at best, but still entertaining enough to experience at least once.

[JJ!]

Mine was Little My Maid, shortly after it was released in English - so probably 2005 or so.  I thought a few of the plot points were interesting.  The majority of the game and the girls weren't too memorable.  But the number of endings blew my mind.  I was used to RPGs that would sometimes give you up to three endings.  I was very impressed with all the endings in Wing Commander 4 and I was talking to a friend about that.  He asked if I had ever played visual novels and I hadn't heard the term before.  So he made me buy some.  After playing through Little My Maid the first time, I thought it was okay, but then I was looking at the screen (like a gallery) and it was clear that there were a ton of other endings.  That screen showing the blank spots for the other endings is what got me hooked on visual novels.

[Clephas]

Tsukihime. 

Mmm... there are a lot of reasons why this got me hooked on VNs, but the biggest ones were the depth of the setting and the fascinating nature of the story.  There were aspects of the writing that were leftover even in Mirror Moon's translation that showed me a style that didn't exist in modern Western literature. 

Honestly, if Tsukihime had been the only chuunige translated, I probably wouldn't have bothered playing any more VNs after that, but, as anyone who plays Tsukihime first knows, you can't play Tsukihime without wanting to play FSN.  After playing FSN, I was completely hooked on VNs as a media, and I devoured every english-translated VN within two months.  Soon after that, out of frustration, I branched out into untranslated, and I never looked back.

[Ariurotl]

First VN I ever played: Pro Lesring Ring-Out!!

What I thought about it: I didn't.

[Freestyle80]

First ever read was Da Capo because I think I didnt like the direction the anime went and I really liked Kotori's character and was bummed she barely got any screentime. Nemu was also a terrible character 

 

 

[Saosin]

My first was Katawa Shoujo.

I've read about it in PC gaming magazine called CD-Action (04/2012) in section talking about controversy, and it was quite different to see any anime out there back in the days. Mentioning eroge in top european magazine was like... wth. It was covered as an side stuff but it really picked up my interest. I did one route it was Emi and I was charmed, the game really crushed me. Back in the days when I had no money for games. Here is how it looked like everything is in polish, so much memories 

[adamstan]

8 hours ago, Saosin said:

My first was Katawa Shoujo.

I've read about it in PC gaming magazine called CD-Action (04/2012) in section talking about controversy, and it was quite different to see any anime out there back in the days. Mentioning eroge in top european magazine was like... wth. It was covered as an side stuff but it really picked up my interest. I did one route it was Emi and I was charmed, the game really crushed me. Back in the days when I had no money for games. Here is how it looked like everything is in polish, so much memories 

Wow, I'm really surprised that they covered it. And that review is pretty good.