Angepinion: 10 Visual Novels that are NOT Visual Novels

[NowItsAngeTime]

The term visual novel is thrown around, yet many people loosely decide fringe cases based on inconsistent metrics. In this video I'm going to be talking about 10 series that people consider visual novels that I do NOT consider visual novels. 

 

[Clephas]

Here's another: Raillore no Ryakudatsusha, Lamunation

 

reasons: No narration

[Zakamutt]

List for those who would rather not click to youtube:
Ace Attorney
DanganRonpa
Zero Escape
Huniepop
13 Sentinels Aegis Rim
VA-11 Hall-A
Persona 4 spinoffs
Blazblue series
Evenicle
Utawarerumono

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I'd say you're wrong about 999 (no I didn't watch the video so who knwos what your argument it), agree on ace attorney, huniepop, and evenicle, didn't play the rest

[wyldstrykr]

ill say that hes wrong about utawarerumono as well. well the one with the h-scene at least

[alpacaman]

To cite this post from a couple of years ago: 

Quote

VA-11 Hall-A is a VN-ass VN. The only gameplay present is actually just an elaborate choice system and makes up an extremely small part of the experience.

 

Anyway, wasn't this type of discussion about semantics kind of big a couple of years ago when the western VN community was still relatively young and trying to define who and what did and didn't belong? Darbury for example wrote an interesting blog on the topic on here a couple of years ago in case you're interested in reasoning that goes deeper than "has mandatory gameplay segments so it's not a VN". By this metric you could exclude something like Totono from the category since it has a stat raising/puzzle section you have to clear in order to see the true ending. The video even acknowledges that in Japan where the genre originated from the term visual novel isn't commonly used but then goes on to argue that games have to be novel-like to qualify because it's in the name of the genre.