The evolution of visual novels

[-Flashback-]

How do you analyse the evolution of visual novels from their earliest releases in the late 1980s/early 1990s until now? How did plots evolve? How did characters and storylines evolve? How did the character personalities evolve as the industry started producing works that are more and more complex?

 

Is the quality of the novels overall improving over the years? Or do you think that the earlier visual novels had a unique charm that today's visual novels just don't have? 

 

Discuss that here. I would love to hear your thoughts.

[Clephas]

Dating-sims/just nukige(beginning-late nineties)>moege/nukige(1997-2002)>genre explosion (2001-2008)>stable period(2009-now)

[Eclipsed]

I only have like 5 visual novels under my belt so I can't comment quality wise on how they changed over the years, but visually:

 

 

[Fiddle]

I only have like 5 visual novels under my belt so I can't comment quality wise on how they changed over the years, but visually:

*snip*

That doesn't mention the sparkles. Ain't no 1999 VN gonna have madd sparkles like this:

[Zalor]

Dating-sims/just nukige(beginning-late nineties)>moege/nukige(1997-2002)>genre explosion (2001-2008)>stable period(2009-now)

 

1997-2002 should include nakige as well (To Heart, ONE~, Kanon, Dacapo, Air,etc.).

 

OP: If you haven't already, you should read this article: The History of Eroge

[-Flashback-]

Ah yes, I am familiar with the history of eroge. However, I opened this thread to know the opinions of others about it too.

I have quite a few visual novels for the PC-88 that I got in a collection from an abbandonware site a few years ago which included some doujins too. Unsurprisingly, they're all in Japanese but I could tell with the help of my brother who can speak Japanese what they are about.

The graphics were very anime-like. The storylines were very simple and straightforward. In most of the games, you just had to choose the actions to take from a bunch of options you were presented with, such as "look", "talk" or "touch" and you can easily get to the eroge cutscenes.

Others were less straightforward. I remember one where you were the manager of a cute blue haired anime girl and your goal was to make her a successful popstar. No eroge on that one. It was an interesting concept.

 

On the 16-bit era, I've heard (but never played) Doukyusei. It came out in 1992 and it is considered the grandfather of the date sim games. I'm guessing it was the first of its kind to get popular at least. It envolved love points and knowing what every girl likes, what times they show up, etc.

The graphics are okay. 16-bit visuals are alright and good enough to make decent looking colourful characters. Take a look:

Doukyusei 2 actually came out for the Super Nintendo (SNES) in 1997 so I am very curious to know whether or not it has some hentai scenes because if you remember back then, Nintendo had some of the most strict rules about the content of violence and sexuality in the games published for their systems. I wish someone would make a fan translation of Doukyusei 2 to English but I don't have much hope.

Another date sim that came out for the SNES was Tokimeki Memorial. I never played that one either but I heard that it's a classic of this genre. It seems to have better graphics than Doukyusei.

 

For the computer (MS-DOS), there are some classics that were released in English such as Three Sisters Story, True Love and Season of the Sakura, all released in the mid-1990s. I played all of these, and I can say, that the storylines of all of them were simple but pretty good overall. They also had enough interaction you get to choose who  you can do on dates with, events during the year and who to give gifts which is something I personally value.

It's also nice to look back at the 1990s culture and the way things were back then.

 

 

I feel like some of the most recent visual novels released in the last 5-10 years got a lot more complex storylines, much longer gameplay (which are not bad things, but I personally prefer simplicity) but something negative that I noticed is that they have less interaction with the player: They focused more on the graphics and visuals than on interaction. IT's no wonder some people on this forum say "read visual novels" instead of "playing visual novels". Everytime I see "read" instead of "play", I cringe.

 

 

What Ecliped posted is actually a pretty good way to summarize the changes in visuals that happened recently in a lot of VN games. (note that I said a lot, not all of them)

[Kosakyun]

!!!!

 

I've been interested in old eroges for a while now, but I lack the motivation to download one.

Simply because I might get disappointed or something.

But eh. The only old ones I've read were Rance I, III, and IV.

That was clearly biased.

 

I think the old ones were short and simple.

Just get the girl and that's it, I think.

But I'd really love to play more, since Comic Party's my only reference to old ones.

That's not that old too...

[-Flashback-]

!!!!

 

I've been interested in old eroges for a while now, but I lack the motivation to download one.

Simply because I might get disappointed or something.

But eh. The only old ones I've read were Rance I, III, and IV.

That was clearly biased.

 

I think the old ones were short and simple.

Just get the girl and that's it, I think.

But I'd really love to play more, since Comic Party's my only reference to old ones.

That's not that old too...

 

You should try one at least. Yes, they are usually shorter and more simple. You know back in the day, the hard discs had limited storage capacity so they couldn't really do a lot. But that doesn't make them bad either.

It's the same thing with anime. I mean, there are people out there who prefer to watch short anime series with 13-26 episodes while others would watch a series with 300+ episodes.

 

I agree with the explosion of the genre after around 2002, there was an increase mostly of quantity rather than quality.... The plots are getting crazier and darker and the characters sometimes don't have as much appeal anymore.

[Kosakyun]

You should try one at least. Yes, they are usually shorter and more simple. You know back in the day, the hard discs had limited storage capacity so they couldn't really do a lot. But that doesn't make them bad either.

 

Could you recommend one that's aged a little, say, 80's tier?

If possible, in English please~

[fun2novel]

There is Desire, Eve:Burst Error, Yu-No, Snatcher. These are some of the better ones.

[Kelebek1]

Could you recommend one that's aged a little, say, 80's tier?

If possible, in English please~

 

https://vndb.org/v/all?q=;fil=tagspoil-2;o=a;s=rel;p=2

[InvertMouse]

It might also be interesting to see when visual novels started to integrate elements of gameplay, or it could have been done since day one. For me, I discovered it with the first Sakura Taisen .

[-Flashback-]

Could you recommend one that's aged a little, say, 80's tier?

If possible, in English please~

 

Well, I haven't played any from the 80s. The ones that I played are mostly from the mid or late 1990s.

From that time, I liked Pia Carrot for the PC-FX ( it's in Japanese but there's an English patch out there), Season of the Sakura, One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e. All of those are in English.

 

I wouldn't really consider Snatcher a visual novel... it's a great game yes, but I'd say interactive movie is a more appropriate label.

 

It might also be interesting to see when visual novels started to integrate elements of gameplay, or it could have been done since day one. For me, I discovered it with the first Sakura Taisen .

That might be difficult... I have some PC-88 games that already have some (although very simple) elements of gameplay. Some are from as early as the mid-1980s. So I would say they have some elements of gameplay since day one, but they got better and more elaborate and complex as years went by.