BananaSplit²
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2022
Visual novels is a term that only gained popularity in the West to refer to titles that japanese players would otherwise classify as (text) adventure games a.k.a. ADV.
And VNs and books are inherently different experiences. The only thing they have in common is that the story is largely conveyed through text. But whereas text is everything a book is, a VN offers music, voice acting, and art to stimulate several senses at once. To that end, VNs don't need to be as descriptive as books with their text in order to sell the fictional setting, they can convey a story through both visual and auditory means simultaneously, and there is nothing essentially wrong with that method.
The format is also very present on other japanese games in general. So, while a westerner may argue about a full VN by pure traditional semantics of the word "game", by any other metric, they are more closely associated with video games than any other medium. Thanks to the influence the two mediums have on each other throughout the history in Japan.
The thing is that many interesting ADV titles often do not come out outside Japan, including the ones on Switch:
-Hayarigami (and the Shin reboots) are detective games where the player has to solve weird and gruesome cases often referring to japanese urban legends, and depending of your choices, they're either the work of a maniac or actual supernatural hijinks on each chapter. Shin Hayarigami 1 differs a bit on the story branches as there is only one main case in the first playthrough, and completing it unlocks different non-canon scenario routes (a rape dungeon below the local inn, a zombie apocalypse, the entire police force being corrupt bastards that won't back down on torturing suspects, etc). All games involve interrogation and self-reflection sequences, as well as making a relationship chart board to determine the roles of the characters within the cases. Certain prompt choices sometimes have to be unlocked with a Courage point, which are either necessary to advance through the plot or can lead to a Game Over.
-Killer Detective Jack the Ripper. Set in an alternate past London, Arthur, a private detective, was given a heart transplant following an accident where he saved a girl from being run over by a carriage. But said heart belonged to the recently executed Jack the Ripper, now reduced to a soul who can sometimes manage to take control over Arthur's body and murder shit for fun. Like the Hayarigami games, the game is divided into different chapters, and each one of them can be resolved by either the "Arthur" way or "Jack the Ripper" way depending of selected choice prompts (which may lead to game overs as well - followed by theatrical cartoons to tell the player how much they screwed up).
There are several more on the Nintendo hybrid system such as Doukoku Soushite, Eve Burst Error, Fuuraiki, Buddy Mission Bond, etc.
And this is obviously not getting into VN adaptations of anime series, that give freedom to the player which heroine the MC ends up with instead of the canon pairing.
It's not a game genre up for everyone's tastes obviously, and I like it because it does things different from other types of games I play and I do diversify my game backlog to keep my interest up. Although your last paragraph gives off the impression you haven't scratched the surface of things (including JP media overall) but still make general statements about them.
