General Visual Novel Topic

I dont know for certain, since Ive yet to read it myself, but iirc it might not even have any choices.

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Nope, as @Yerian said, it doesnā€™t have any choices :slight_smile: itā€™s a pretty good VN, too, so I hope you enjoy it!

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Anybody here follow Vinesauce? I kind of want to bring up the goofiest VNs Iā€™ve ever seen someone play, as Vinny (and I think a few other YouTubers) had found a Renā€™py-made John Cena VN, where all the characters were photoshops of John Cena, and one called Butter Me Up, where Gordon Ramsay, curse words and all, interacts with a badly-photoshopped Paula Deen.

On a more serious note, a couple friends of mine are working on one of their own.

I have seen screenshots of the John Cena one, yeah. There are many joke Renā€™py novels since itā€™s a free engine. There are serious novels too made with that, so itā€™s not to take lightly.

About what your friends are makingā€¦ Good luck with that.

Yeah, wasnā€™t Analogue made with it?

I am a bit curious about the VN Moon., made by the studio Tactics and translated by Amaterasu Translation.
The game seems to be considered like the first game of future staff of Key and was described by the development team as a ā€œReaching the Heartā€ but the reviews Iā€™ve read are quite different.

Some consider it interesting while others see it not worthwhile.

Does anyone here have already played this game and can tell me what they thought of the story ?

Ive read a bit of it, and its definitely interesting to say the least. Letā€™s just sayā€¦ its not like what you might expect from ā€œthe future staff of Key,ā€ because its not necessarily a Key-esk game. Although, from reading reviews, you probably already know that.

I do plan to read more of it at some point. Iā€™d check it out at the very least. I think there are some Letā€™s Plays laying around somewhere too.

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Thank you, this is true the game is unattractive at first glance. It is almost 20 years old and it shows several rape scenes.

I mentioned this on Discord; but Iā€™ll carry it over here as well.

Idle curiosity; has anyone here read Phenomeno?

Itā€™s something that I never really hear anyone mention; despite being (what I think to be) a decent little 2-3 hour VN.

https://vndb.org/v10526
Itā€™s a VN adaptation of the first chapter in a longer series of short stories Itā€™s mostly horror/suspense themed.

The Visual Novel only covers the first ā€œcaseā€, which is in two parts (ā€œflowā€ and ā€œfallā€). The visual novel is an adaptation by Nitro+ from a Light Novel series of the same name; which does not appear currently to have any form of an English release.

Itā€™s been a few years since Iā€™ve read the VN, but I have fond memories of it as a late-night read; wherein the more supernatural elements really play into their roles.

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The only Visual Novels I really read anymore are the current Steam releases of 07th Expansion that are going on, mainly Higurashi at the moment. Iā€™m always hooked on a fun mystery and Iā€™m looking forward to getting around to the answer parts. Umineko is out soon too and that should be great.

I donā€™t honestly play a lot of VNs in general. Key got me in and it was only really LB and Rewrite because they didnt have animes yet. Iā€™m STILL WAITING for Harmonia, that coming out will actually push me into caring about whats going on at Key again.

Oh, and Type-Moon is the other thing worth noting. Witch on the Holy Night is phenominal, the partial translation thats out at the moment is a lot of content and its BEAUTIFUL, its one of the best visual directed VNs Iā€™ve ever seen. I remember showing Aspi and Bonecuss the first battle scene in the story over Skype in the trial version and they got super hype.

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Have I read Phenomeno? I QCā€™d the English translations lol. Or so I say to sound cool but it was just a spontaneous personal project a friend of mine did on a whim. He ended up doing the entire first volume in a weekend and I edited any typos I found as I read it right after he finished each chapter. It was definitely a memorable weekend several years ago when we did that. It probably makes my opinion of the story better than it might deserve to be.

Incidentally, I was just reminded of Phenomeno when a horror anime topic was brought up recently. I didnā€™t think it was all that great, but it was a good horror read, and I feel most horror are bad so it kind of shifts the average and makes Phenomeno above average for the genre despite not being amazing. Then again, sasuga Nitro+ I suppose. Iā€™ll say one distinct praise I have for it: Phenomeno does vomiting like no other. Just look at this beautiful excerpt

[quote]Suddenly, Yoishi vomited. She didnā€™t do anything cute like place a hand to her mouth in an effort to hold it back, but rather standing tall with her arms folded, she boldly vomited, which definitely made me take a step backā€¦
Dripping vomit.
Sparkling intestinal fluid, and the remnants of the orange juice sheā€™d been drinking.
ā€¦
There was vomit on the landing, but she resumed conversing as if nothing had ever happened.[/quote]
Yoishi is truly the greatest vomiting heroine.

Probably because it is likely the best visually directed VN ever. The standard art alone is breathtakingly beautiful, but the actual animated scenes are just levels above. IIRC the partial patch covers the amusement park, which is kind of the pinnacle of the VN imo, which isnā€™t to say the rest is bad at all but just some of those scenes are just that god-tier in quality. Iā€™ve reread the final confrontation with Flat Snark so many times. Combine that all with whatā€™s basically a perfect soundtrack and incredibly solid story writing, and thatā€™s what makes it tied for my favorite VN ever. Now just have to wait about 20 more years for Mahoyo2.

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I was told that I should play Katawa Shoujo since it was an amazing visual novel and I recently started reading it. Iā€™ll be frank: Iā€™m getting bored after reading for an hour or so and I feel like deleting that game from my computer to never touch it ever again. Is there something really interesting once I get inside one of the routes? I meanā€¦ Is Katawa Shoujo really a must play?

I chickened out halfway through. i may come back to it at some point purely out of love for Yoshitoshi Abeā€™s art, but there you are. Very effective

Personally, I consider it an entry-level VN. Itā€™s a decent galge, but the Key VNs outdo it in pretty much every way (though Katawa Shoujo does at least have a concept not found in Key VNs). So no, not a must-play. And I wouldnā€™t even recommend it to anyone whoā€™s already into VNs. But it has its good points.

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Definitely not. I dont know what your past experience with VNs is, but I definitely agree with @Karifean on the entry-level description. I would call itā€¦ pretty good for what it was, you know? It was made by an amateur team, and it wasnt terrible. Good for someone who previously had no idea what a VN was, but just an average story.

Anyways, if youre bored with it, Iā€™d definitely try something else, because there are tons of much better VNs out there. Although, I will point out that only an hour of many visual novels might not be enough to get to ā€œthe really good partsā€.

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I know that. Thatā€™s why I asked. I didnā€™t want to waste anymore time on something that isnā€™t worth it. And thanks for th opinions. I guess Iā€™ll stop and play something else in the end.

Iā€™ll back this up.

Katawa was the kind of VN that was a fun read at 10:30pm when I was too bored to really do anything else and not tired enough to sleep. It didnā€™t really have an exceptional points about it (except maybe the ability to write hilarious run-on sentences in one characterā€™s route), but it also didnā€™t really have anything that Iā€™d openly knock it for.

It just kind ofā€¦ is. Some routes are more well written and constructed that others, which is to be expected. The better routes arenā€™t really fantastic, and the worse routes arenā€™t really all that bad. Compared to the equivalent of a Triple-A VN, itā€™s going to look poorly designed, written, and executed. But considering it was an all amateur project, it turned out well enough.

It actually was one of the first VNā€™s I read, back when I just did whatever route I ended up with. But I am planning to replay it and see all of the routes now.

But I think an hour is long enough to recognize the quality of the VN. I doubt many VNs go from bad to great. Thereā€™s little of any storytelling that goes from bad to great.

Considering the slow pace of most VNs, I doubt it. Grisaia went from tragically horrible (common route) to nice (character routes), just to point out an example.