I bumped into this video in another site, and since according to @[email protected] I’m the community’s “unofficial head of VNs” I figured I should post it here. :D
I’ve played most of these so I’m adding my comments below.
Status: Finished.
I think this one is more of a point-and-click adventure game than a VN, but it’s a really interesting and quirky one.
You play as a futuristic detective investigating cases with the help of an AI partner residing in a prosthetic eye. Gameplay is split between investigations and “Somnium” sections where you dive into people’s subconscious minds to find things they are trying to hide from you.
There’s also a sequel which I liked even more than the original game.
Status: Finished.
An amazingly comfy game. You play as a bartender in a dystopian cyberpunk future just trying to make it through the month without being evicted.
I love how much worldbuilding you get from just hearing the news on the TV and chatting to people.
It’s also hilarious how you can actually affect some characters’ storylines by getting them too drunk. :D
Status: Finished.
This one is a classic. Play as a very unlucky defense lawyer who gets the worst possible cases and have to somehow prove your client is innocent.
Personally I think 3 > 1 > 2, but all three games are great.
There’s also a newly-released pack with the second trilogy, featuring new main characters, and a bundle with a prequel duology starring an ancestor of the main character on Victorian ages.
Status: Finished.
A very dark story, and it takes a while to pick up steam (I only started truly enjoying the game during the third “door”), but the payoff is amazing and the game is definitely worth playing.
You play as an amnesiac who after awakening in a mysterious mansion starts exploring “doors” that show you tragic events that happened in that house over the centuries, while you slowly try to figure out who you are.
The Switch version has a lot of content - besides the main game there’s a prequel (“A Requiem for Innocence”), a sequel (“Reincarnation”) and a bunch of side-stories.
While I think the sequel is significantly weaker than the rest of the game (and has a far less interesting artstyle), all the content was worth going through IMO.
Status: Finished.
Weird, quirky and dark - you play as students trapped by a crazy murderous bear who tries to pit them against each other with promises of freedom to whoever manages to commit murder while avoiding being caught.
In some ways it resembles the Phoenix Wright games, mixing investigation sections and courtroom sections, but it’s much darker and has a very unique style featuring a lot of minigames during the courtroom sections - as an example, in Phoenix Wright you simply choose the statement that contains a lie and the evidence that proves it, while in this game the statements keep flying non-stop around the screen and you have to manage shooting the lie with a “Truth Bullet” created from evidence you collected.
Status: Finished the original version on a PSVita, played a bit of Elite.
This is my favorite VN ever, and while I do prefer the original art this is still absolutely worth playing. A crazy story about a group of nerds accidentally bumping into time travel, and all the mess that comes up from this.
If you’ve seen the anime then you already know all the main story (the adaptation was excellent), but the VN has additional routes for other characters and extra worldbuilding, so I still think it’s worth reading through.
One warning though: The true ending flags are kinda annoying, so don’t be afraid of using a guide if you get stuck. This tends to a be a problem with most games in the Science Adventure series. :/
Status: Finished.
This is one of my biggest VN surprises. A game by Kemco, the company that keeps pushing all those budget RPGs? With an atypical art style? This can’t be good, right?
Well, this one turned out amazing, and it’s probably my #1 recommendation for someone who wants to experiment a more traditional VN.
The story starts with the MC getting stuck in a village in the middle of nowhere with a broken bike, while strange murders start to happen which the villagers claim to have been commited by “wolves” infiltrated among them.
It’s heavily inspired in the Werewolf party game, with a branching storyline and a fantastic cast - the MC in particular is one of the my favorite VN leads ever.
Status: Playing.
I’ve played the first chapter, and plan on continuing it soon. Amazing presentation, I’ve described it before as a “non-stop stream of beautiful artwork”.
It’s part of the “Nasuverse” where the Tsukihime and Fate games happen.
Status: Playing.
I heard this is more of a romance story, but so far the things that caught my attention the most were the sports sections.
The concept of this game is “someone created flying shoes, so obviously people came up with a competitive sport using it”, and the story revolves around a group of newbie players that the MC ends up having to train.
I really enjoyed the lore and worldbuilding around this - the game designer really put some effort into trying to make the sport interesting, including background details such as how the rules for it evolved over time.
I also like how the OST for the sport scenes feel like they could be battle themes for a JRPG. :D
Haven’t played these two, so can’t comment much about them.
This is a great write up - thank you!
I’m not a big fan of anime as an art form or storytelling style, but I’m going to be looking into these titles.
Since VNs are mainly a Japanese media this makes recommendations a bit trickier, but from this list I’d say you may want to look into “The House in Fata Morgana”. Fairly dark and mature with minimal-to-none anime tropes.
Both the main game and the prequel story also have a very interesting gothic-inspired artstyle, but sadly the bundled sequel goes back to a more generic anime artstyle.
Thank you!
I was thinking that VNs were more like “walking simulators,” where most of the action that takes place is pretty scripted but you explore the world and the story being presented by the devs. Games like Life is Strange and Firewatch were my introduction to the genre, and I found that I really enjoyed playing them. Fire watch was my first and, not having read anything about it or the genre, I kept being afraid of dying. It took me a ridiculously long time to figure out it was just telling you a story with some interactive elements. There was also a company that was publishing comics that had audio and (minimal) animation, which I thought was a fantastic innovation. I had some really good horror comics from them, but I don’t know if they got acquired or are still in business.
Anyway, I’m going to look into that one. I do like gothic horror and period work.
Understandable, there’s a thin line between all the story-driven subgenres like VNs, “walking simulators” and point-and-click adventures. I just tend to group them together as well.
Generally we use the term VN for games where the ratio of reading vs interaction leans heavily towards the “reading” side. There’s even a type of VN called “Kinetic Novel” that has no interaction at all, it’s essentially a book with added visuals, sound and voices.