What do you look for in a visual novel?
Good artwork. To me, good art communicates a sense of the world the VN is trying to create. When done well, it allows me to imagine myself in that world, walking its streets, talking to its people, and taking part in the experience. So, in that sense, I’m not necessarily saying the art has to be stunningly beautiful, (although it certainly doesn’t hurt), but should have its own unique feel, whether that is striking colors, immersive backgrounds, intricate character designs, etc. The synopsis/plot overview descriptions do nothing for me, always the same buzzword filled generic drek you see everywhere and says basically nothing. You never know how the writing is going to turn out until you dive in anyway. People have been spinning variations on the same story structures that are older than the language it is written in. Any premise has promise. I guess I’m pretty easy on this front. Purely subjective, but I’ll also typically search by genre depending on my mood, and the only genre I dismiss outright is horror. (It bores me for some reason.) If I dig the art style, and the price tag doesn’t require a double take, I’ll give almost any VN a chance.
What’s the one thing you feel that visual novels need to have but most often don’t?
Better translations/localization. I know, most VNs are translated which presents its own host of problems, but typos and poorly phrased sentences are distracting. It’s bound to happen a few times in tens of thousands of lines of dialogue, but if the reader is constantly feeling like they could have done a better job than the writer did, then that’s a bad sign. Not exactly a rampant issue, but I’ve experienced it enough to warrant bringing it up.
Possibly also an over-reliance on stereotypical archetypes or tropes, which can be viewed as either a negative or simply a quirk of the genre. Nobody would argue against say, more varied and dynamic characters, but some VNs do the stereotypes in a way that makes that gives them more depth or makes them more relatable. Depends on how the VN is executed, I suppose.
What advice would you give to someone off starting their first visual novel or trying to make the best visual novel?
I ponder this question quite often as I’ve got my own writing projects going on. The piece of advice I feel like I run into the most is: Don’t try to do too much. Identify your strengths and weakness, as these will be apparent to the viewer if you try to juggle too many ideas. If you can execute one idea really well, as opposed to doing three ideas that are “meh,” then you should consider focusing on your strongest ideas, and fleshing them out as needed. It’s hard to cut out ideas that you become really attached to, but ultimately, if you force them in, then your message will come off as either clunky, bloated, or contradictory. Use the logic of the world you’ve created and account for the unique personalities of your characters when considering how they would likely respond to stimuli/plot events. Accept criticism, but don’t change the integrity of your vision solely to placate the audience. It’s your story, tell it how you want. It should come from a place of passion, so use it. Have fun with it.