In general, I want Key to emphasize a three dimensional space more in their visuals and audio. It kinda bugs me how characters almost always face the screen and by extension the narrator. If two characters are having a conversation, they would logically face each other, but the presentation makes it look like they’re next to each other facing the narrator. One VN I always liked for it’s presentation and blocking is a little thing called Juniper’s Knot. It’s a short first person narrative, yet it’s almost entirely presented laterally like this. The character look at each other, away from each other and also move around along the X-axis. Key have done stuff like inserting characters into backgrounds and having the characters look away from the screen, but I just want them to do it more because a 3D space is cooler than flat sprites on flat BGs. In term of the audio, you can do some really cool stuff with 3D sound. This video is kinda lewd, but it’s a good example. With headphones you can hear how the girl’s voice comes from behind you, and she also switches which ear she talks into all the time. Sounds in VNs are pretty much always normal speech from straight ahead: there is so much room to innovate here. If the narrator walks up to some characters talking, the voice lines can fade in as if they’re getting closer, or you can have one character talking in each ear. Not playing around with this stuff is just restrictive for no real reason.
