Visual Novel Writers You Hate?

[fun2novel]

I think it's pretty much obvious that a story is what makes or breaks a visual novel. Pretty graphics, or your favorite seiyuu can only get you so far. Without a good compelling story with interesting plot and characters it's probably safe to say you're not going to keep reading it to the end. At least not all the routes.

 

So it all falls on the writers to keep the reader interested in their VNs. Unfortunately the writing craft is easy to understand but hard to master and combine that with the fact that each reader has their own individual tastes in the kind of stories they like to read, the pressure on the write gets quite heavy.

 

Share what are some writers that you dislike, hate, have a certain pet peeve with or just plain don't like his or her stories. This is not a place to cuss and hate a particular writer so please keep the discussion fair and intelligent. No flame/hate wars.

 

Also, please avoid spoilers.

 

Looseboy

Credited - A Profile, Sharin no Kuni, G-Senjou no Maou

 

Authored some of the most adored visual novels by western fans in history. You'll probably die before you finish counting on how many top 10 lists G-Senojou climbs to No.1. Both SnK and G-Senjou quickly became the must visual novels to read for any vn fan. There is no counting how much these two are praised.

 

But this is where my problem with Looseboy comes into surface. It's kind of hard to explain but basically I can't stand his style. Every scene overstays its welcome, every dialogue feels like he's trying to buy time to make the story longer. It takes too long to get to the point. I know, visual novels are long, and they take a long time to set things up, I'm not a newbie to visual novels but Looseboy just rubs me the wrong way.

 

It's too bad really because he can write some great characters and G-Senjoy has an awesome cast. It's just that he is in desperate need of an editor. I could not finish SnK and G-Senjou and I played them almost to the end, but I could not finish them. Maybe some day I'll give them another chance but I never want to reading anything else by this guy.

 

 

Hiroyuki Kanno

Credited - Desire, Eve: Burst Error, Yu-No, Exodus Guilty

 

The late Kanno is one of the most beloved and respected visual novel writers in Japan to date. Each of his stories has some kind interesting and unique approach to storytelling, philosophy and religious overtones. At a time where most visual novels where nothing more than a fapping material Kanno wrote VNs that have a strong focus on a story.

 

The thing is that coming up with great ideas and actually writing a good story with those ideas are entirely different things. Writing craft is not easy to master no matter how creative you are. That is the main problem with Kanno, awesome ideas plagued by problems.

 

Desire's main selling point was that it had two protagonists that you can choose and play the story for that character's perspective. After finishing that you can choose the other character and play the story from his perspective. But Desire never uses this idea to the best of it's abilities, it never really takes advantage of it. So you end up with two stories that cross very little with each other that they might as well have been different stories entirely. What's more Desire wants to be a sci-fi story but since it had to also be hentai we end up with an unlikeable protagonist who throughout the story gets to sleep with every woman he meets. There is basically no sci-fi story here, its' just you wandering about and having fun times. Once in a while the story will stop to give some characters some depth or to make the story more interesting but in the end it's just a waste of time. There are a few surprises if you finish both stories but I'll leave that to those who are interested in playing this vn.

 

Eve: Burst Error quickly became one of C's Ware's best selling visual novels of all time. Its main selling point is that you play the story from two perspectives but unlike Desire where you just choose and side and read the story from that character's perspective, this time to finish the game you have to change between the two characters all the time. So you're seeing the story from two perspectives at the same time. You gotta admit this is an awesome idea! Kanno has a very carefully plotted mystery story here and this time both characters influence each others progress. This creates an interesting dynamic and give a great chance to tell a thrilling story. To some extend it is a good story but just like Desire it's plagued with the usual abrupt dialogue scenes that sometimes don't connect from one scene to another. The other problem and it's not really the writers fault is the horrible game design. You are expected to make the same choices over and over without any kind of hint of what you are supposed to do next or if what you're doing has any kind of result on advancing in the game.

 

Unfortunately Eve: Burst Error was such a hit that in desperate attempt to stay afloat C's Ware started churning more and more sequels for the Sega Saturn and the PSX and none of them were any good (according to what I hear.) Eve: Burst Error was also remade a few times including with fresh new graphical style and probably new script. There was the pc and ps2 remake (with pc having h-scenes) and another remake with another change in the graphical style for the PSP. Interesting fact, the last game in the series (not remake) was written by none other than Kotarou Uchikoshi, the man behind the Zero Escape series and the scenario writer on the infinity series. I also need to mention that due to some technical problems I was never able to finish Eve: Burst Error so this is not a review of the game.

 

Exodus Guilty had another great idea. This time you are playing three characters through three different ages spanning a 1000 years of history between the ages. There are three chapters, past, present and future. One of the themes of this game is history and religion, how things change with times and how some things don't. It's a fascinating idea for a storytelling. One example is in the past chapter there is a puzzle you need to solve but if you go into the present and visit the same place and since the puzzle has been already solved a 1000 years ago you see the solution, then you go back to the past and solve the puzzle. How awesome is that? Well it happens maybe once through the story. And the story is nothing interesting either. Again Kanno just doesn't know what to do with his ideas and how to write interesting scenarios. The past chapter starts very interestingly with a story about a man rebelling against the gods but quickly turns into a typical jrpg story and a really cliche one at that, complete with the 4 elements and making friends on the way to adventure. The present chapter is just plain not interesting about some young guy who is a treasure hunter and he has the swag so certain women love him and others just want him. The future chapter... that's it I stopped playing this game at this point, it's basically a post apocalyptic wasteland and I had better things to do than keep reading this.

 

In conclusion, Kanno deserves all the greatest respects and respect he gets and maybe I'm just not the person for whom his stories are written for. It's not doubt that he influenced quite a few well known Japanes visual novels. The Multi-Sight Adventure system was used in one of the most popular visual novels in Japan Machi which has influenced in some way Remember11 (if you go by some people who say this is what the main man behind the Infinity series says) although Remember11 uses the Desire's technique than E:BE's system.

 

So share what's your pet peeves with some writers, or which ones you just can't stand.

[solidbatman]

Jun Maeda. Read one of his works, you've read them all. 

[fun2novel]

Can you explain a bit more in detail what you mean?

[Zhiroo]

Interesting topic but personally I don't care about who wrote the story since I either like that story or not. So I don't hate any writers even though I hated some stories or disliked the pacing or whatever.

[GetterEmperor]

Can you explain a bit more in detail what you mean?

Jun Maeda is the guy who works on Key visual novels.

[fun2novel]

I think pretty much everyone know who's Jun Maeda is. What I meant is can you tell more about what is it that you don't like about him?

[solidbatman]

I think pretty much everyone know who's Jun Maeda is. What I meant is can you tell more about what is it that you don't like about him?

He just kind of does the same exact thing everytime and you know generally how all of his stories will end (hint: its typically a happy miracle)

[fun2novel]

Ok, I see now what you mean. I read very few of his stories so I wasn't sure what you meant.

[Kaguya]

Rewrite aside (which is kind of a second-rate chuuni game with Key heroines), stuff from Jun will generally be the exact same, not only the ending (which would be more acceptable). Hell, I don't even know if Jun wrote Rewrite, I'm just assuming he did.

That said, while I do dislike a lot of VNs, I hardly know who wrote them. Much rather remember the company who did it than it's individual writers.

 

Guess I just hate any moege work, no matter the writer and dislike most of the charage ones. That seems legit enough. My major complaint about VNs is generally "why should I care about person X anyway?" so character-oriented drama and romance tend to fail miserably.

[Nerathim]

Jun hasn't wrote anything in Rewrite, it's mostly a Romeo's VN with Ryukishi07 and Tonokawa. (and it works better, imo)

[fun2novel]

Wish I knew what you guys are talking about but it will be so long until I get to play Rewrite, lol. So many vns to play :/

[Rockmandash12]

I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for this one, but Urobuchi. I know he's more known for anime, but he did write a few vn's for nitro plus, so he counts as a VN writer. He has great ideas, but he sucks at writing characters. What's the point in making an epic plot if you don't care about what's happening because you have characters more boring than cardboard? I did like saya no uta, but other than that, meh...

[Satsuki]

None.

Because I never care about writer's name...

As long as the vn is good, then I'm fine with it.

[fun2novel]

I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for this one, but Urobuchi. I know he's more known for anime, but he did write a few vn's for nitro plus, so he counts as a VN writer. He has great ideas, but he sucks at writing characters. What's the point in making an epic plot if you don't care about what's happening because you have characters more boring than cardboard? I did like saya no uta, but other than that, meh...

 

Agree. I should have talked about him than Kanno. Urobushi is a great writer, but his stories just don't do it for me.

[Zakamutt]

I usually find the routes not written by Maeda the bad ones in Key VNs, partly because of meh integration with maingirl. Tonokawa kinda sucks, writing the weakest routes in like everything (Shizuru and Chihaya in Rewrite, Komari in LB (though Kurugaya is -ok-)). That said, Mio's route in LB is pro so kudos to whomever did that.

 

I don't really have any writers I dislike other than Tonokawa at the moment, because I've never found a VN I actually cared about to be all that bad.

 

Apparently Tonokawa's the only official hired writer in Key now. May the lord have mercy on us all.

 

Hate is a strong word though. It's probably not at that level.

[Pabloc]

Oh yesss, Looseboy. I hate impossible coincidences and retarded asspulls, so his plot twists really rubbed me the wrong way. Not that Sharin or G-Sen were bad, and I wouldn't say I hate him. I just dislike his style, that's all.

 

That aside, how is Urobuchi more known from anime? He was originally a VN-writer, he started dealing with anime relatively recently.

And how are his characters boring? I found the cast form Saya no Uta and Kikokugai very original and interesting. There was nothing wrong with those from Jouka no Monshou too. He writes rather original characters. Various twisted antiheroes, villains, psychopatchs and such. Those are infinitely more interesting than your average VN cast made of painfully generic high school students.

[Nerathim]

Apparently Tonokawa's the only official hired writer in Key now. May the lord have mercy on us all.

 

Seriously ? A bland future awaits Key then ...

Though if we could have more "writers mix" like Rewrite, I wouldn't say no.

[fun2novel]

That aside, how is Urobuchi more known from anime? He was originally a VN-writer, he started dealing with anime relatively recently.

And how are his characters boring? I found the cast form Saya no Uta and Kikokugai very original and interesting. There was nothing wrong with those from Jouka no Monshou too. He writes rather original characters. Various twisted antiheroes, villains, psychopatchs and such. Those are infinitely more interesting than your average VN cast made of painfully generic high school students.

 

I just don't feel like his stories are that interesting. He is a great writer, not a single one of his vns that I read felt like they are full of filler, the story was always moving on non stop. It's just that they didn't make a lasting impression on me.

[Clephas]

I don't see the point in even paying attention to VN authors.  To be blunt, with most commercial VNs, what the writer is going to do is decided well in advance by the producer, rather than the actual team.  This is especially true if an author has a 'signature' type of VN he does.   Cases where the writer is allowed significant freedom are rare (Otome ga Tsumugu, Koi no Canvas is an example of a case where the writer was allowed his freedom, as is Cross Channel).  So, I honestly don't see why I should care who is writing.  Rather, I decide whether each VN is interesting on a one on one basis, not going in with any expectations (outside of the company tendencies).  Also... I don't think those playing only translated VNs have a case for evaluating the writers in the first place, lol.  

[Nerathim]

  Also... I don't think those playing only translated VNs have a case for evaluating the writers in the first place, lol.  

 

It may be true for some VN, Type-Moon in particular but I disagree with you overall, Grisaia is very well translated and we easily see the quality gap between Fujisaki and the writer of Yumiko's route for example (or others VN, to be blunt) , same goes for Umineko and Higurashi (the french version of Higurashi at least, the english translation seems to have a bad reputation) Ryukishi07's writing style is well preserved to the point I recognized his style in Rewrite although I didn't know he had a role in this VN.

[Zakamutt]

I think the french version of higurashi was just a tl from MG's english translation though

[Nerathim]

The french version of Higurashi is amazingly good, it was done alone by a professional translator directly from the japanese script (like any good translation after all) during several years and he even released a boxed edition (here : http://www.amazon.fr/sanglot-cigales-~cycle-%C3%A9nigmes~/dp/2953723501/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1406065613&sr=1-1&keywords=le+sanglot+des+cigales http://www.amazon.fr/Le-sanglot-cigales-~cycle-r%C3%A9solutions~/dp/2953723528/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350993513&sr=8-1 ). Easily one of the best translation ever, as good as Grisaia's, at the very least, it's unthinkable to compare it to MG's translation (if it's bad).

[Clephas]

I don't like Ryukishi... though I don't hate him either.  The Japanese version of Higu wasn't all that well-written, so I found it hard to get excited with each new VN like most people...

[Wahfuu]

Sadly, most people actually haven't seen the original writers work considering most translations are.. rather lacking.

Writers I hate? Tonokawa and all the other bum crap key writers. I don't care MUCH for Maeda, but he's leagues above the rest of the trash Key hires. R07 is a goofball, not sure if that counts as hate.

[Nerathim]

Did you try Umineko ? Ryukishi has gained experience and it shows, except some pacing problems everything is better and the VN itself is really original (adult cast, a bunch of messages about the notion of reality, family relationships, the truth in all its forms, differents forms of love, the work of fiction...). The risk taking is admirable imo, being a bookworm myself it's the only VN who made me remember some products from this media, and even if you don't like Umineko, you will love the soundtrack, it's worth it in any case.