I definitely agree with the video. VNs as a game genre seem to be declining for the past years now, but I think that VNs still thrive "hidden" in other genres, such as Gacha. I think it's simply moving on from being standalone game to being a narrative tool. Games like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa have already done that in the past, where, while obviously having a lot of written story, it still has actual gameplay and fail mechanics, other than getting killed by a Yandere for choosing the wrong girl. Generally it seems to me that "pure" VNs will continue going down into obscurity and mostly being made and enjoyed by enthusiasts. But hey, I'm one of them so I hope this genre still keeps producing indie gems every now and again.
Traditional VN is dying but VN can be slapped onto actual games and genre like Neptunia and Persona. RPGs made with like RPGmaker can also have VN slapped onto I, making the traditional text with some pretty artwork type of VN obsolete.
I want to pinpoint that VN are not a genre, but a medium. And as a medium they can evolve (see how TV shows evolved during the years, becoming more and more closer to cinematographic productions). You have pretty good points, I agree that VN should evolve, and I think that to do this we need to break down the popular thought that they are "only porn games", when exceptional VNs without porn elements are out there (higurashi or Umineko) To this I'm more incline to consider VNs a medium closer to books than games, since they are basically books with moving pictures, music and - many times - dubbing. Even in length, consider how many readers are accustomed in reading long books, and how many VNs are indeed long: as you pointed out Fate S/N is longer than LotR, while Umineko is like 2 times LotR, but consider that they are about the same length of long series such as harry potter, and way shorter than the really loved fantasy series "Wheel of Time". I think that one should start disclosing the fact that also many "porn" VNs have indeed a good plot and one can also play non-porn versions of those (Fate S/N on the PSP, or many steam releases censored porn scenes), just to take into account that this type of medium (again, not genre) has a lot of potential in story development and in exploring literary genres in a new sauce.
Indeed, I quite agree that VNs are a medium rather than a genre. Once they are understood as that, it will help attract people to experiment with them in ways that should help them unlock their potential. If you're interested, I did a video about this on my channel where I carefully go through the strengths of the VN medium.
your timing with all the background stuff is great. I nearly spit out my drink at the Achilles heel bit with the fgo back drop. VN's have had to turn into games/RPGs with visual novel elements. I think that it happened because it is easier for them to sell a game as opposed to a story.
Seeing the entertainment environment nowadays, reading is frowned upon by the newer generation which is probably a key factor that keeps VNs as a niche. Being a niche entertainment, I have more meaningful conversations and discussions with my friends who are also into VNs (although just a nostalgia trip now) and LNs/books rather than talking with those who only watch anime etc. A funny? story though, me and my bff we're heavily into VNs (fate, shuffle and clannad are the only ones I can remember quickly) during the early 2010's. He wasn't a bookish person like I was so I was very surprised that after our VN phase, he transitioned into reading real books and LNs, VNs became his gateway to becoming a bookworm.
I think the history section of the video hit the topic directly on its head. Visual Novels at the advent of Video Games of a form of media existed as an easy entrypoint for people who were unsure how well they'd do in another game. However, as time has passed and so has gaming, many genres have already changed the scope of what they can do. Platformers became 3D, and games like Super Mario Galaxy are now heralded as one of the greatest platformers of all time. I don't think Visual Novels are going to die. I think, at the end of the day, what we once knew as Visual Novels is going to change. Unfortunately, this means that we're not going to see VNs like Steins;Gate again. However, it does mean that developers with fresh new ideas on how to take the VN Genre in a new and interesting direction will rise (DDLC and even Hades are good examples of this). The genre won't die at all, I think; it'll just change its form into something more befitting of today's audience, for better or worse. In my opinion, that likely means they'll become more interactive and be more like a game than a novel. Good vid, though. Thanks for telling me to watch it in the Harmacists Discord lmao
I actually thought Visual Novels were getting more popular recently. Or well, at least the communities around them have been getting bigger. As far as the releases are concerned, yeah, that's probably an issue. Although to be fair, you can hardly blame people for thinking badly of visual novels, especially considering the amount of really weird VNs on Steam that seem more like a parody of the medium rather than a serious attempt at making a good VN. By now I'm pretty deep into VNs and have read quite a bunch of them. However, I remember a time where I basically dismissed VNs as either porn games or dating sims. Sure, in some cases that may be exactly what they aim to be, but I've since realized that VNs can be a whole lot more than that. Although a lot of what gave me that impression are those really strange dating sim parodies. As far as the porn game thing is concerned, I've noticed even within VN communities there seems to be a good bit of debate about that. While some VN fans really like the kinds of VNs that can basically be summed up as porn games, some others seem to really hate them. Some of those who don't like them also suggest splitting up communities into one about porn VNs and non-porn VNs, which may help. I mean, to be fair, it can be a bit off-putting when you join a community about a medium that you're relatively new to and see people talking about porn games all the time. To be honest, I don't mind H-scenes, although I can see why some people wouldn't want scenes like that, especially if they don't live by themselves. Then again, I've at least seen a couple of VNs where you can actually toggle wether or not you want to see those scenes, so that seems like a solid option for VNs that aren't purely porn games but rather romance VNs with some H-scenes. Anyways, one last thing you didn't mention in your video which might be relevant to it, Steins;Gate is actually part of a larger series called Science Adventure, which is supposed to get another release this year called Anonymous;Code, so it's not all bad news. There's apparently some new Steins;Gate entry planned as well which is referred to as Steins;??? right now although who knows when that will be released. I have seen a whole bunch of interest for those on the internet, but that might just be my biased perspective from someone hanging around in VN communities. Never really noticed anyone talking about VNs before I got into them myself.
I think it’s really interesting how traditional anime style VNs have become less popular as anime itself has become more mainstream. There are much more appealing options now for the average person but VNs will always be around. In smaller communities like the furry fandom, VNs are actually thriving extremely well and are at the height of their popularity. They are much easier to make compared to other kinds of games and can be made by a single person, so I think they’ll always do well in communities that don’t have access to big budget productions.
Here I was trying a VN for the first time for free... and then it struck me... I had an interactive story idéa and perhaps it could work in a VN format. So I've looked around for engines to build it upon... perhaps VNs haven't been used in the right ways really?
I still remember what the first visual novel I've played and I've considered it as a gateway for visual novels and that game is Katawa Shoujo. If you know this game, praise be and remember that everyone is special 💚 Also, I recommend playing Dies Irae and Umineko. Though, they are not the best first experience for new comers, but if you have the time and dedication to sit through it all, I assure you, your time is not wasted and you'd be blessed 💚
There's such a large backlog that I could be reading good or at least decent VN's for the next 20 years, so while I do of course hope they attain even a shred of the popularity of say, anime, it's not the end of the world to me. I think the "it will always be niche" conclusion is the correct one. So yeah, as long as Japan keeps producing and fans here keep translating, even if it's at a snail's pace, i think we will be fine. Fortunately we thrive just fine around here even with our limited numbers. However long it will last, I hope to be around until the end of it.
Well one consequence is that it's so niche you start getting amazing works like Tsukihime Remake being Japanese only and you have to pray some people will work on a fan translation.
Games need to be "sociable" today, shared with others and talked over which is bad for creativity because being sucked into another world is an inner experience you have with your own psyche as far as I've experienced. The more movies and games are meant to be watched and played alone, the more deep and emotional they can be, while the more something is to be public and sociable, the more shallow and surface oriented it becomes. Genshin Impact, something you play with friends and stream, is all about how you'd want to "fahk that milf", and "her hair color is cute" vs FF8, which is a deep emotional experience very akin to reading a book. Something you enjoy, a personal experience.
I think the visual novel is a fantastic medium. It mixes the strengths of so many other media, visuals, writing, music, video games. The strength of video games being able to be the protagonist, make choices. The provocative strength of written storytelling. The power of visual storytelling. The deep emotional chords of music. If they could just stop throwing titties and butts in my face. VNs being know as “porn games” is the bane of my existence. The titles that lean into side that side of the medium for quick cash is the bane of all my past existences.
The visual novel as a 'game' is like those idle clicker and mobile 'games' that have auto-battle features. It depends on how you define what a game is, personally I look at games in general as a piece of art and entertainment.
interestingly though, we've only just gotten the rise of companies actually providing official english translation for VNs so there's a happy note Jast USA, Mangagamer, and Sekai Project are like the big 3 right? sidenote still waiting for the full Rance series translated Jast USA.... also here's to hoping Softhouse Chara and Eushully games will one day have an official translation(as hard as it may be especially for Eushully games)
Linear narratives have always been a niche brand of video games, games that really blend a sort of long TV series with a video game. They're popular in Japan still and will remain so because Japanese love writing and stories I all of their media. I mean Super Sentai, japanese power rangers, is a kids show but if you've watched one through they sometime have these long complex character driven and often dramatic stories. The Japanese love dramas, tv dramas, games that are like dramas, and comics and novels. This is just how the Japanese are, and I personally love that.
And I'll add that is the 90s, there was more experimentation, before games went mainstream, with merging movies and games, particularly in the adventure genre. Games like the Titanic adventure game, The Dig, lots of point and click adventures, very linear character driven movie/games and I loved that. It wasn't until the early 2000s when Halo and Madden Football entered the scene into mainstream popularity that shooters really started to take over the markets. Half Life was still semi niche, but everyone I knew as a teenager played Halo.
Tbh, it can be seen as dying, although it's mostly due to the lack of creativity and innovation as most of VNs seem to be copy-pasting the styles. Afraid not, that's what we at Roomah Gaming trying to "fix", we will try to bring something new and refreshing for this genre.
Visual Novels are not really dying well... it used to be but now it's getting revived and kinda popular again mainly because of DDLC, Higurashi, Umineko, and Corpse Party
As you said, i think Horror is pretty much keeping VNs alive on the mainstream, desguised as horror survival games. If you think about, VNs/"walking sims" are a quite immersive media to tell a horror story, and that is more attractive to the general public than romcoms xD
Visual Novels is one of the most hidden, infamous genre of Japanese Otaku Culture and also the hardest to grasp literally if you're not a Japanese; as a casual fan of VN; It takes time for me to discovered "Shuffle!?" not until I watched it's Anime Adaptation. Another example are Da Capo, Ef a tale of memories, Tears to Tiara; an Anime fan can recognise them as an Anime but they actually a popular Visual Novel in Japan in their previous days. For me ; they are Hidden Gems. Of course Kusoge and Eroge are another story..
Thanks for making this! Great video short and to the point, I love that you included all of the music used for this video as well giving yet more value to experience after. The last one was especially amazing, I had never heard of that game. Have a nice one :)
Visual Novel is never a commercial game now. Let me try Ren'Py now to try to make game. (I know i am terrible at art and have no one to help but trying is never problem.)
Great video. Very informative. I've only ever read one VN outside of gacha VNs (Arknights, FGO), and that's Fate/SN, but, boy, did I ever love the hell out it. Absolutely brilliant piece of work. As a lover of all things with stories, it's pretty exciting to hear about a whole new subset of storytelling that I've been missing out on. It's too bad that it might be 'dying', but I guess I have all those classics from the 2000-2010 era to dig into. Good stuff, Dio. Guess I've got some catch up reading to do!
I suppose it depends on the perspective you take on it, really. Essay length opinion incoming lmao. TLDR at the top. TLDR; I think Pure VNs are going out of style due to the shorter attention span and less free time of people these days, unless they're shorter, like Nekopara, VA-11 Hall-A, or DDLC, each for their own reasons. The evolution of the genre has (at least in my opinion) taken the genre to new heights, with games that use pure VNs as the foundation, like Danganronpa, or use it to break up the primary gameplay of a game, like Persona. Is the Genre itself dying? No. is it evolving past its roots of just "book with constant pretty pictures"? Yes, in many different ways, for different genres of games. Also I wouldn't call Hades a visual novel; If you wanna use an example of a supergiant games title being a visual novel, I'd use Pyre as an example, as frankly, it keeps the VN style alive in a much more pure state, though it was unpopular, and not nearly as many people played it. (I say, though i haven't played, nor watched any of Pyre's story, despite having played every other supergiant game [to completion, in Bastion and Transistor's cases, and to the end of one of the betas, before Elysium was added in hades' case]) Kay TLDR ends there, HF with the essay lmao. Are pure visual novels like Fruits of Grisaia, Clannad, Kannon, FSN and other such classic VNs dying? What about the newer releases like Nekopara, VA-11 HALL-A, and DDLC? I'd say, partially. In the case of Classic VNs like Clannad and FSN, the 100 hour visual novels that require you to get every ending to get the "true" ending, or other similar, long time investment VNs? Yeah. It's not even a debate that the genre, at least in the west, never really took off due to the localisations just... never happening. Not to mention how it seems that no one (at least of the current generation) has time or the will to read such a long book, just due to the time investment required to finish some of these things, or the level of engagement being too low to keep the reader/player invested. I mean, case and point, myself. I've mentioned in the FSN streams that I've just not got the will to read FSN, even though I have it installed, I have plenty of time to waste, and I personally believe I could be done with it in 3 days, if I wasn't so stuck into games that have massive time investments, like gacha games, FFXIV, or other MMOs. I spend basically from when i wake up to when i go to sleep playing FGO (Both NA and JP), Alchemy stars, and FFXIV, just because of the sheer time investment required for the games, yet, even when I'm bored/tired of these games, I can't put them down to read FSN? Frankly, its the lack of engagement making me unable to even have the will to open it, and I'd assume its largely the same for many people these days, many of these classic VNs generally have a low level of engagement, precisely because they're largely just books with pictures, and no other investing factors other than the music and (potentially) voice acting. Yet at the same time, people do repeat playthroughs of Persona 3, 4 and 5, re-experiencing the same story multiple times because the mash between the social aspect (Which I'd largely call a visual novel) and RPG aspect (the dungeon crawling, making new personas, etc) can actually take *more* time to finish than a visual novel, obviously dependent on the player. Which leaves a question of "Is the VN genre dying" in a weirder spot, as Its clear that it's not so much "dying" as its been taken by other genres to either serve as the foundations of the game to build upon, like with Danganronpa, or serve as a break to give the player a chance to slow down, or provide exposition (primarily using persona as an example, though I believe fire emblem is similar, though I wouldn't know, due to never having played fire emblem.) Can it really be called "dying" if its one of the reasons that made Persona 5/Royal one of the most popular JRPGs to ever release in recent times? I'd largely say no. Are Pure VNs dying out? I suppose it depends on whether you still count 4-10 hour classic style VNs as "Pure" VNs. It's still a niche genre, just like it's always been. It always has, and always will be (in my opinion) a niche that doesn't mesh well unless there's a unique gimmick to the VN, like in DDLC, or it's a very short VN that you can finish in a couple hours for some light reading, if you can withstand your impulses to play something more engaging. VNs nowadays need to have something else to them, in order to gain a larger audience, however, by doing that, it's also changing the VN genre to be a genre that you can latch onto whatever genre you need to. At least, that's my opinion on the matter. I know its long, but given that I'm someone who went from downloading classic VNs and finishing them within days of downloading them with all endings/CGs to someone dreading even starting FSN, even though I love the Fate Extra and FGO stories, its as good of a time as ever to express my opinions on the topic. - An essay by some twat on the internet named Daniel, Phoenix Sepharim, Seraph, Variel, whatever the fuck you wanna call me.
Jeez, thanks for the essay. I agree with everything you say, especially with VN's being in a "weird spot" right now. There are so many popular games right now that, as you pointed out, take a lot from Visual Novels (Persona, Hades, Most Gacha games) so it's more evolving than dying. Also, I heavily thought about using Pyre as an example, but Hades was more popular so I thought more people would understand the analogy.
@@diosopinions7692 tbh VNs are in an a even weirder predicament then "cross between anime and novels", as the media that's doing that is actually manga, manga is like an anime, without movement, and like a novel with movement, and i think the most common way weebs and people in general are getting into light novels is through watching an anime/ manga that is not finished and then searching the source material. I've seen more people reading books then visual novels tbh, and that's saying a lot since it goes against the argument that "it's because of the attention spam of people"... VNs feel like that weird in-between from a good driven narrative and a simpler plot-driven game like the witcher, actually the Witcher is a great example of how VNs don't have that niche anymore, imagine how less popular it would be if it was a VN with the same story and same source material? Most stories that would become a VN or JRPGS (basically vn + rpg) are now games with multiple choice dialogue, like even skyrim as you mentioned.
I think that shorter titles may show the potential of the medium to the public, as Danganronpa already did (even if it's hard to pass from danganronpa to more classic VNs). To this DDLC made even a higher damaging, increasing the stereotype that VNs are "only dating sims with cute girls" that many have. But if a shorter VN revolutions the genre, it may encourage people to read longer and more classic VNs, such as Umineko, Higurashi, Steins;Gate, Fate S/N It's like something like Harry Potter that made a lot of kids start reading, making them discover classic fantasy titles. So I think the medium will evolve, we only need to wait the good boom as DDLC was, but that doesn't become only a meme. And when the medium will boom in the west, we will see a lot of people also reading older titles, because they are engaged into reading. Even know, thanks to the latest higurashi anime (which isnt an adaptation but a sequel), the WTC community totally revived. I'm seeing a lot of people starting reading umineko and higurashi in the last year, taking them more like books just look at the umineko page on Goodreads and not VNDb, in the last year it exploded
Ok so check this out: I am a grizzled veteran of video games with over 30 years experience. Just over a year ago now, I got out of my comfort zone and tried playing JRPGs for more or less the first time ever. Turned out I likey alot, so much that JRPGs we're my gateway into the Japanese anime culture. Always heard about the Fate series, but with myself being a completionist/originalist, I had to dig to the very beginning with the fate/stay night VN. That was all it took really for myself fall down the visual novel rabbit hole. I'm so terribly sorry for writing so much, but this needed context, and I wanted to say my opinion on this subject. I feel I'm in a unique position to give a comment, as I have years of gaming in myself, but a little over a year of experience in the Vn genre. First i wanted to give what I believe to be a wonderful example of the combination of video game and visual novel, and that game (s) is Falcom's Trails series, particularly Trails in the Sky or Sora no Kiseki. I'll try to keep this short, it's a JRPG that is very text heavy, uses still frame character portraits with many different facial expressions, and many beautiful CGs to tell it's ongoing story. Ppl who played any Trails game knows exactly what I'm talking about. And finally, what is up with VNs in the west? I speak from an American perspective, but I kinda get the feeling that VNs carry a stigma that might never be able to wash away. This stigma comes from the R18 content that many VNs have. Tbh I really don't understand. I'm a millennial degenerate and aren't all us millennials supposed to be lewd? If we are like they say we are, then VNs should have tons of western support. But even so, a lot of the R18 content contains many Western taboos that westerners aren't accustomed to. Maybe it's the difference in culture? I know I love VNs. If not for VNs, I'd never known that I had a little sister fetish lol. Bless anyone who actually read this cursed madness if a comment..all hail Cthulhu!!!?
it is so damn lame that i have to reply to my own comment. I wanted to add something. It's that I hear so much about the R18 content in VNs, it's always getting dunked on by many content creators on youtube. I sometimes hear them recommend skipping said content outright. It really makes me wonder if these guys are actually serious or if they're saying it to keep the woke at bay. Me thinks that VNs like Aokana and well, any game published by Neko Nyn, are really good reads. you can find a lot of wholesome scenes and characters you just can't help to fall in love with. These VNs COULD do fine without that lewd content, but it's there and if you get in a spicy mood you could see some of the best H scenes out there. Aokana have some pretty hot scenes IMO. I refer to best girl Misaki of course. Dat orange shirt/black short skirt makes for a very nice FCMC scene.
I am currently making one. With AI tools for visuals and my brain alone, learning renpy :) don't mind my Channel music is a second hobby in wich I am far worse haha. This video kind of reminds me "you can't give up on this VN because you know how good it will be and the genre is disappearing" so .. yea as crazy as it sounds I am trying to be the next Big thing. Prototyping... Then hiring Real people if it raise interests.
Question is was it even popular genre. Popular is defined by Elder scrolls Halo CoD BF. The standar for popular is redefined It hardly even takes off outside Japan. Sure DDLC NEKOPR are good but Idk anyone in my closed gaming circle that plays it
>VN genre dies Muramasa(top 5 vndb) translated few months ago with a good sales. SCA-JI made a sequel to sakura no uta and remake of tsui no sora. Ciconia exists, rykishi07 already wrote loopers. AI somnium files sequel announced. Robotics;notes DaSH released and other new projects as in kagaku adventures announced. And i dont speak about western games like Life and suffering of sir Brante, Suzerain.
This was a great video. I did a video defending VNs as a medium incidentally only a couple weeks before this one. If you ever give it a watch, I would be really curious about your thoughts. I think you are spot on that as far as the audience of gamers and anime fans are concerned, VNs do have a bit of a grim future. But I believe that as the traditional novel itself is in decline, VNs have serious potential to take its place. To an extent at least. There is a lot of creative potential for visual novels, and for that potential alone I think they are a medium (for me VNs aren't a genre, but a medium) that can eventually flourish. At the very least, there is potential for truly profound stories to be told in this medium. And while younger generations are seemingly allergic to traditional books, VNs by having audio and visuals (and sometimes interactive elements) can be a lot more appealing to people who were raised with the screen. This is a short summary of what my video is about, and if you ever have the time to watch it I would be very curious about your thoughts.
A sixth of my Steam 350+ game steam library are visual novels. If you include "point and click adventure games" with VNs, about one third of my library are these unique story telling genres. I grew up on games like Monkey Island, Full Throttle, and many others. And enjoyed the transition to stuff like The Nonary Games, Ace Attorney, and like like. But what really made me look at visual novels as art, are series like Umineko and Higurashi. Those are masterpieces! I feel like the genre isn't dying. But what was said 09:56 , visual novels have been evolving. Would I prefer more straight up novel stories like Umineko? Sure. But I'm not complaining as long as we keep getting great stories that take advantage of the medium it's put on. Even series like Persona can be played like a VN when put on easy mode. Honestly, one of the main reasons I liked JRPGs growing up was not the gameplay in battles. But I always enjoyed how the story was told. Visual Novels took out the "boring parts" and gave me the story and character development I wanted. I still have a large backlog of stuff I want to read. I still have MuvLuv and The House in the Fata Morgana in my queue. While I agree there may not be as much quality in future releases. People new to the genre have so many options. It's not like when I was a kid and I spent $35 on a subtitled VHS Ranma 1/2 movie because that's what I could afford and what was available locally (yeah, I dated myself). Clannad, planetarian, Doki Doki Literature Club, Root Double......SO MANY OPTIONS!
Visual novels are a great resource for Japanese learners too. I agree with you Visual Novels popularity has been decreasing and steam is NOT helping with that with those kinda wierds vn covers that they are selling. VIsual Novels is a good alternatives from books, I you don't feel like reading it, you can try witn a vn. I feel that vns can sometimes be more enjoyable.
Last VN I finished is Amayui Castle Meister and that one isn't just a VN. It can be arguably called a JRPG with VN elements. I've read quite a lot of normal VNs in the past but ever since I got exposed to Rance 7(Sengoku Rance), I really can't enjoy a story without some gameplay. Last typical VN I finished(did not really finish it coz loli routes bored me, not really my thing) was Konosora(If My Heart Had Wings). I'm trying to play Summer Memories but we're still in quarantine so kinda hard to play it with people in the house and with all the gacha games I'm playing lol. Edit: Also, I think the reason it's not popular is that a lot of VNs that come out are 18+(by that I mean quite uhh degenerate) and with the west(by that I mean America) being woke AF, a lot of people are going to just bury it in unnecessary "criticism".
Yeah, I think you hit the nail in the head. Baby StormTAG consumed everything that vaguely looked like it could maybe be on Toonami. Modern StormTAG is so spoilt for choice, that he’s gone full hipster and finds himself rewatching older anime while grinding Gacha games.
I love the genre,i just wished more vn,s were more like actual novels,like umineko,steins gate and rewrite,an actually great novel and the weeb stuff is just a good sprinkle on top
as a female who loved Visual novel of all type i feel sad that visual novel are always left out of anime/manga sites ,and anime manga groups like they wanna pretend it does not excist even though alot anime are also adapted from visual novels like clannad,little buster, island,nekopara,aokana,amnesia memories,dramatical murder ,stien gate ,hakouki,code realize
To be fair the visual novels you mentioned near begining were stand alone series, there not ment to have sequels and IMO the problem with western shows is it tries to stretch out series for as long as possible.
well to be fair telltale success was carried by walking dead as a franchaise, and their death was the lack of innovation. Proving their formula wasnt enough to sell. you also didnt mention about quantic dream games, especially deteroit become human its the closest thing to telltale success afterall
I'm not a big VN, I've only done a few of the most popular, but I feel like one of the biggest problem with pure VN is that the format doesn't really add much to the experience, quite the opposite. For example Fate Apocryphe and Strange Fake were way better reading experience than Stay Night VN. Choosing how Shiro dies from time to time and having to deal with the text display really didn't add anything to the experience and I definitely would have enjoyed it more as a LN. Maybe it's just me, but for VN with few to no gameplay, the game aspect end up just getting in the way.
I disagree. I loved being able to fail. Got all the bad endings just to see what would happen to Shiro. Kinda cemented he was incompetent and one bad choice away from death.
@@ThatGuy-en2nn True it's not completely useless, but it isn't necessary to show that MC is in danger (plenty of novel do the same without choices) nor is it worth sacrificing the quality of the reading experience for.
IMO they've always been kinda dead in the West, but in Japan... looking at the Switch games, it seems that there are still quite a few of them. The thing is, that medium just doesn't change much, really, and it is mostly niche - with some notable exceptions, like Sakura Wars, Tokimeki Memorial, Tantei Jingūji Saburō or J.B. Harold games. Of course, in the West there's the popularity of Ace Attorney and Professor Layton or Danganronpa... in Japan - hundreds more, but yeah, it just isn't a genre that's popular in the West all things considered.
I think people will always gravitate to visual novels. It'd be difficult to write a book with multiple endings. That's where visual novels come in. They're like interactive choose your own adventure books. If you don't like an ending to a book, there's not much you can do about it. Thankfully in a visual novel you can just try a different route. Granted to write a visual novel you also have to find someone who can make music and an artist.
The problem with VN is the expectation 1 a good story 2 good art 3 regular updates 4 convincing characters that you can live with If you dondt have one of these then you wont get any traction on the visual novel becaus people like story and choise The other problem is income if a VN is behind a paywal then it gains even harder tracktion The best way to gain traction is to have an early release layers where people pay for on patreon but the problem here is that you are totally surendering the story based on people intressed and that sounds good but it also means you cant be risky or make any hard choices
VNs have nothing exclusive to show compared to movies, animation, comics or books. It's a mix of everything with a intrusive UI on top and always delivers too little interactivity to compete with games. Writing for interactive media is not the same as writing linear stories, its not focused on conflict moving characters but having a consistent world for the player to poke at and see the reaction. Having branching paths don't make it a game . The problem is not exclusive to Visual Novels, though, since some popular game titles also can't do it right either. The rule of thumb is letting the player explore and decide with conflicts to care about instead of just pushing them down your story like that was the fun. games are about agency from the player and Visual Novels are the most limited in this regard.
I don't know, but i just played Dohna Dohna. That is a visual novel with great story, music, visuals the RPG and "talent" simulator part have great gameplay have great (not sound cheap) Japanese voice over for every line, i enjoyed as much as a persona/danganronpa game (not just the adult part, the gameplay and the story) but because the steam don't like it, it only released in Johren, so despite of the japanese/chinese version's success almost nobody know about that game in English, because "most English people don't want to create an account in adult places" (is this true? ) So i think the problem is the English publishers, every one of them created they own store if they game banned from steam, so in English i have to check out jast usa, mangagamer, steam, johren, dl site english, solpress store (probably more) if i want to follow every english VN store, in Japanese language every VN are on dm m and dl site's japanese side so in Japanese i can follow them in one comfortable place, meanwhile most English localiser just giving up, if they partner's VN are not steam compatible.
VN's while niche, have in my opinion gone strong lately. You mentioned a few of the popular ones being over a decade old and still holding the genre together. Well VN's have an aspect of them that is harder to compare to other games which is since many are story focused, the best ones have the best story and its hard to age something like higurashi when it comes to horror, lore and a great story for example. We have gotten extremely popular VN's lately like sayu no uta, raging loop and subahibi that are similar to it to give some examples. We have mad popular VN's break the mold, like danganronpa and doki doki literature club, as well as grisia kinda going to mainstream stardom and of course nekopara. The genre is not dying, its just not breaking mainstream as much as it can. This is due to people probably not wanting to read 99% for a lot of VN's, its either you really like it or its not your cup of tea for most people. The genre is in no way dying its just while we have good VN"s coming out, we can get more if more visual novels would be able to get translated leading to more hits and you really never know which VN is gonna be the next lets play hit as well(Seriously I would of never guessed what would become mainstream after 2005). Steam also gives us a lot quick eroge\trash VN's so it seems like people have more clutter to go through if thats how you find a lot of your VN's. Now I wanna talk a bit about nekopara more, and how people take "one good look at hentai game and say no", I know many people who love the sci fi, mystery VN genre but got introduced by eroges like rance and of course nekopara. Now I think Nekopara by itself gave a big boom to VN's because I know a lot of people where since it was one of the first higher quality moe eroge VN's on steam that was one of their first games into the genre, and that eventually got them into the scene with some branching out and going into your steins gate\higurashis. I think the anime community as well promotes VN's since its easily still a genre that sells even physicals copies at conventions, and word of mouth recommendations. Now the strawman of people look at say nekopara and go yea im not gonna get into this genre is a bit harsh on nekopara since the genre has existed for a long time before this game, and the one look at nekopara would be a different eroge, basically any popular eroges, which there are literally hundreds. Eroge and visual novels while separate, are also at times 2 sides of the same coin seeing how the genre thrived on hentai especially earlier, or at least aspects of it.
Getting VN's out of the dating sim/ niche anime/ porn universe would help. To flourish It needs an influx of fresh interest that sees VNs differently - as a medium with untapped creative possibilities and new audiences
Visual Novels are evolving I mean if you consider any Softhouse Chara or Eushully games as "Visual Novels" you can also say they have been evolving for a long time now
That's probably due to it being the easiest 'game' to be developed and many indies started with this genre before going on 3D field; to learn the basic of gaming industry, like myself.
I don't think you will feel that way if you know enough jp to play raw vns, there are almost 3 times more vns than animes iirc, this medium is an ocean... Also every year comes up with a bunch of kamiges, just look at yonagi (Hakuchuumu no Aojashin, released last year) by example. I'm personally dying to play Qruppo's next title "Hentai Prison", I have read its fat ass trial 3 times and I still don't get bored lol, it will be a masterpiece. Anybody can ofc get tired of this genre, and it is impossible to really get deep inside of it playing only translated games, but is too early to say that the medium itself is dying or even near from dying, I think. Japos on the web still calls the medium like this: Eroge Bunka(Culture) hahaha I would get somewhat worried if Alice Soft really dies tho, personally :(
Man, visual novels are games if you try to play them without guide. It's a freaking maze of choices. And dating sims can also be raising sims (like tokimemo) and that is a "real" video game where strategy is needed. "Turn your brain on and try to get those numbers high" gameplay.
First of all , why is aristotle have your avatar on his head and why diogenes is denis de vito ? why alexander the great is a character from arknight ? we want answer ^^ ! Good video , i agree that the genre is declining but his eroge part is still here , especialy since after years , some VN are now translated more than ever. To be honest , i don't understand japanese well enough to read them in japanese (reading VN was one of my main goal when i try to learn japanese ) , so instead , i rely on my english and my mother language , french . And i gotta say that translation seems to increase a little these day , so quality VN is on demand i hope . PS: the use of some music in your video gave my nostalgic vibes , i wasn't prepare for it : )
Visual novels are a media, not a genre as first person shooters, CRPG or plataformers. It's a way of telling an interactive story such as gamebooks, interactive novels, computer text adventures, etc. Interactive story telling is a genre and Visual Novels are a media to present this genre for a target audience.
Ok. It's complex, but let's go. Visual Novels are actually the strange offspring of the game books. They get a different power shifting from word heavy to picture heavy, so they use Visual tricks to convey information instead of using clever ways to use words conveying information. The first main problem abou Visual Novels lies on the fact they use very few choices and decisions points, as when you go on visuals, branching stories becomes expensive. About the porn part, it's not a problem itself. The bad point is that as porn, it gets depreciated and as the developers predicts the depreciation, they make a lesser job. Now comes the funny part, that fixes both Visual Novels in general as the porn side too. We got used to consume games with good storytelling. There are screenwriters working for big game companies. But Visual Novels (porn included) refuses doing the homework and keep repeating formats, same use of tropes and above all, same general mood. Almost every Visual Novels have a slow pacing setup with tons of info dumping, predictable lines and poorly written dialogs. When authors adds elements, a Visual Novel stands from the crowd, be it by interesting writing or a game mechanic or relevant and compelling choices. The genre or media still work very well. What is needed are designers interested on putting more effort and new skills to the challenge.
Why "especially after Awakening" ? Fire Emblem does have VN like dialogues since forever. And with Awakening it's even less à VN with the lack of story (there was a lot more interesting and developped story before, Awakening is like 5 minutes dialogues before the chapter start. Radiant Dawn was 10 before, after and even in the headquarters. Maybe Three Houses have more dialogues than Awakening, Fates and Échoes but it has this hub too that makes it even further from a VN. I think they were more VN's like beford Awakening. If you've played Utawarerumono old FE are closer to it than news. But "normally" you played FE for gameplay and Utawarerumono for the story and that's the biggest difference when you launch those games haha. (Even if some People does not)
Jesus. Some dialogue doesn't make something "Like a VN". What the video references are the increased length of narrative sections and the expanded importance and focus of support-scenes. If you can't see a difference in FE predentation before and after Awakening you need to replay some games
@@lorenzomeulli750 Increase ? Wtf are you saying ? There is almost no dialogues before and after the chapter if we compare to previous games. The story is pretty bad also because it's underdevelopped. Some chapters doesn't even have dialogues when there is no human ennemies. So nope it's a big decrease and it was really disappointing to me. There is a lot of support tho I agree. They are probably the worse support of the series (except RD&New Mystery) but they is a lot of them you're right. Still it wasn't needed. It would have been better with more logical interactions but that wasn't the point here. "Like a VN" is mostly for the way it's présented, I know that doesnt make FE or Persona VNs.
I'm not sure how japanese visual novels are doing. However western "adult visual novels" are starting to increase in popularity quite incredibly. With Being a DIK, Leap of Faith, and City of Broken Dreamers leading the forefront on steam. Covid has increased the amount of consumers and developers. Games like these above would still be good even without the porn.
I thought if anything VNs are seeing a resurgence in the West since there’s so many VNs getting English translations now both officially and unofficially. Proves there’s a market there. Granted it’s only barely scratched the surface but we’re finally seeing some decade olds VNs getting translated.
Yeah, like I think the concept about it is like just cutscenes and dialogues involved in games, but the genre is just about that, cutscenes and dialogues, with the cutscenes mostly just still images rather than animated ones, even though VNs involving animations exist; Ace Attorney for, example.
I noticed you mentioned the big visual novels, but you aren't mentioning the hundreds if not thousands on steam. Sure none of them are breaking into the mainstream but they aren't dying. Its just been a while since a visual novel was popular and many times, it's anime that made visual novels popular. Steins gate wouldn't even be in your zeitgeist if not for the break out success of the anime. They're niche. They will most likely stay niche but that's okay. We aren't saying manga is dying just because there's no new hst or say korean mangas are dying just because it's a much smaller fan base in the west So don't go assuming something Is dead because you don't know it exists. Because as I've said, you would not know fate if not for it's shitty anime in 2004 lol
novels them self take time to make its a rat juts like roagame or daerwing or painting thay all take some time to be good at even if one has in in them from birther
I definitely agree with the video. VNs as a game genre seem to be declining for the past years now, but I think that VNs still thrive "hidden" in other genres, such as Gacha. I think it's simply moving on from being standalone game to being a narrative tool. Games like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa have already done that in the past, where, while obviously having a lot of written story, it still has actual gameplay and fail mechanics, other than getting killed by a Yandere for choosing the wrong girl.
Generally it seems to me that "pure" VNs will continue going down into obscurity and mostly being made and enjoyed by enthusiasts. But hey, I'm one of them so I hope this genre still keeps producing indie gems every now and again.
Agreed,you can say "The VN as a game genre is dying,but it still lives on in the heart of other games"
Traditional VN is dying but VN can be slapped onto actual games and genre like Neptunia and Persona. RPGs made with like RPGmaker can also have VN slapped onto I, making the traditional text with some pretty artwork type of VN obsolete.
Ngl I‘ve been wanting to get into Visual Novels for the past couple of weeks now, glad to have found the perfect timing for it
Welcome to hell, i'll expect your full lore breakdown of Fate Stay/Night by next week
Try danganronpa and ace attorney series great entry point for me personally
What genre r you looking for
I want to pinpoint that VN are not a genre, but a medium. And as a medium they can evolve (see how TV shows evolved during the years, becoming more and more closer to cinematographic productions).
You have pretty good points, I agree that VN should evolve, and I think that to do this we need to break down the popular thought that they are "only porn games", when exceptional VNs without porn elements are out there (higurashi or Umineko)
To this I'm more incline to consider VNs a medium closer to books than games, since they are basically books with moving pictures, music and - many times - dubbing. Even in length, consider how many readers are accustomed in reading long books, and how many VNs are indeed long: as you pointed out Fate S/N is longer than LotR, while Umineko is like 2 times LotR, but consider that they are about the same length of long series such as harry potter, and way shorter than the really loved fantasy series "Wheel of Time".
I think that one should start disclosing the fact that also many "porn" VNs have indeed a good plot and one can also play non-porn versions of those (Fate S/N on the PSP, or many steam releases censored porn scenes), just to take into account that this type of medium (again, not genre) has a lot of potential in story development and in exploring literary genres in a new sauce.
Indeed, I quite agree that VNs are a medium rather than a genre. Once they are understood as that, it will help attract people to experiment with them in ways that should help them unlock their potential. If you're interested, I did a video about this on my channel where I carefully go through the strengths of the VN medium.
your timing with all the background stuff is great. I nearly spit out my drink at the Achilles heel bit with the fgo back drop.
VN's have had to turn into games/RPGs with visual novel elements. I think that it happened because it is easier for them to sell a game as opposed to a story.
I have come across this video as of recently and can tell you that fate finally got a remaster and localization for the switch 😭
3:45
*Occultic;nine, Amnesia, Idolish7,Danganronpa,Dramatical murder, ect.*
"Guess I'll die then."
Seeing the entertainment environment nowadays, reading is frowned upon by the newer generation which is probably a key factor that keeps VNs as a niche. Being a niche entertainment, I have more meaningful conversations and discussions with my friends who are also into VNs (although just a nostalgia trip now) and LNs/books rather than talking with those who only watch anime etc.
A funny? story though, me and my bff we're heavily into VNs (fate, shuffle and clannad are the only ones I can remember quickly) during the early 2010's. He wasn't a bookish person like I was so I was very surprised that after our VN phase, he transitioned into reading real books and LNs, VNs became his gateway to becoming a bookworm.
Damn Dio, I feel you with all my heart in 13:50, been there.
I would make a visual novel if I knew how to code. That's why I'm making a visual novel animation instead, since at least I know how to do that
I think the history section of the video hit the topic directly on its head. Visual Novels at the advent of Video Games of a form of media existed as an easy entrypoint for people who were unsure how well they'd do in another game. However, as time has passed and so has gaming, many genres have already changed the scope of what they can do. Platformers became 3D, and games like Super Mario Galaxy are now heralded as one of the greatest platformers of all time.
I don't think Visual Novels are going to die. I think, at the end of the day, what we once knew as Visual Novels is going to change. Unfortunately, this means that we're not going to see VNs like Steins;Gate again. However, it does mean that developers with fresh new ideas on how to take the VN Genre in a new and interesting direction will rise (DDLC and even Hades are good examples of this). The genre won't die at all, I think; it'll just change its form into something more befitting of today's audience, for better or worse. In my opinion, that likely means they'll become more interactive and be more like a game than a novel.
Good vid, though. Thanks for telling me to watch it in the Harmacists Discord lmao
Horribly under researched. You might as well rename the video to "are English localizations of visual novels dying."
Nah. Even eroge is steadily declining in jp.
This is actually the best period to vn translations, but in Japan is pretty much dead, there have been nothing but rereleases or remakes of classics.
I actually thought Visual Novels were getting more popular recently. Or well, at least the communities around them have been getting bigger. As far as the releases are concerned, yeah, that's probably an issue. Although to be fair, you can hardly blame people for thinking badly of visual novels, especially considering the amount of really weird VNs on Steam that seem more like a parody of the medium rather than a serious attempt at making a good VN.
By now I'm pretty deep into VNs and have read quite a bunch of them. However, I remember a time where I basically dismissed VNs as either porn games or dating sims. Sure, in some cases that may be exactly what they aim to be, but I've since realized that VNs can be a whole lot more than that. Although a lot of what gave me that impression are those really strange dating sim parodies.
As far as the porn game thing is concerned, I've noticed even within VN communities there seems to be a good bit of debate about that. While some VN fans really like the kinds of VNs that can basically be summed up as porn games, some others seem to really hate them. Some of those who don't like them also suggest splitting up communities into one about porn VNs and non-porn VNs, which may help. I mean, to be fair, it can be a bit off-putting when you join a community about a medium that you're relatively new to and see people talking about porn games all the time.
To be honest, I don't mind H-scenes, although I can see why some people wouldn't want scenes like that, especially if they don't live by themselves. Then again, I've at least seen a couple of VNs where you can actually toggle wether or not you want to see those scenes, so that seems like a solid option for VNs that aren't purely porn games but rather romance VNs with some H-scenes.
Anyways, one last thing you didn't mention in your video which might be relevant to it, Steins;Gate is actually part of a larger series called Science Adventure, which is supposed to get another release this year called Anonymous;Code, so it's not all bad news. There's apparently some new Steins;Gate entry planned as well which is referred to as Steins;??? right now although who knows when that will be released. I have seen a whole bunch of interest for those on the internet, but that might just be my biased perspective from someone hanging around in VN communities. Never really noticed anyone talking about VNs before I got into them myself.
I think it’s really interesting how traditional anime style VNs have become less popular as anime itself has become more mainstream. There are much more appealing options now for the average person but VNs will always be around. In smaller communities like the furry fandom, VNs are actually thriving extremely well and are at the height of their popularity. They are much easier to make compared to other kinds of games and can be made by a single person, so I think they’ll always do well in communities that don’t have access to big budget productions.
Dude, hearing that Vall-halla soundtrack at the beginning of the video really brings some good memories, great video
Can't wait for the sequel, glad you enjoyed the vid
Glad to see that much culture bro
Here I was trying a VN for the first time for free... and then it struck me... I had an interactive story idéa and perhaps it could work in a VN format. So I've looked around for engines to build it upon... perhaps VNs haven't been used in the right ways really?
I still remember what the first visual novel I've played and I've considered it as a gateway for visual novels and that game is Katawa Shoujo.
If you know this game, praise be and remember that everyone is special 💚
Also, I recommend playing Dies Irae and Umineko. Though, they are not the best first experience for new comers, but if you have the time and dedication to sit through it all, I assure you, your time is not wasted and you'd be blessed 💚
There's such a large backlog that I could be reading good or at least decent VN's for the next 20 years, so while I do of course hope they attain even a shred of the popularity of say, anime, it's not the end of the world to me. I think the "it will always be niche" conclusion is the correct one. So yeah, as long as Japan keeps producing and fans here keep translating, even if it's at a snail's pace, i think we will be fine. Fortunately we thrive just fine around here even with our limited numbers.
However long it will last, I hope to be around until the end of it.
All I want for Chrismas is for Typemoon to finally translate a single one of their god damn VN's and i'll be happy.
Well one consequence is that it's so niche you start getting amazing works like Tsukihime Remake being Japanese only and you have to pray some people will work on a fan translation.
I think it just depends how fresh it is. Look at Slay the Princess. That game is going crazy right now.
Games need to be "sociable" today, shared with others and talked over which is bad for creativity because being sucked into another world is an inner experience you have with your own psyche as far as I've experienced.
The more movies and games are meant to be watched and played alone, the more deep and emotional they can be, while the more something is to be public and sociable, the more shallow and surface oriented it becomes. Genshin Impact, something you play with friends and stream, is all about how you'd want to "fahk that milf", and "her hair color is cute" vs FF8, which is a deep emotional experience very akin to reading a book. Something you enjoy, a personal experience.
I think the visual novel is a fantastic medium. It mixes the strengths of so many other media, visuals, writing, music, video games.
The strength of video games being able to be the protagonist, make choices. The provocative strength of written storytelling. The power of visual storytelling. The deep emotional chords of music.
If they could just stop throwing titties and butts in my face. VNs being know as “porn games” is the bane of my existence. The titles that lean into side that side of the medium for quick cash is the bane of all my past existences.
The visual novel as a 'game' is like those idle clicker and mobile 'games' that have auto-battle features.
It depends on how you define what a game is, personally I look at games in general as a piece of art and entertainment.
I like horror visual novel games because when we're being chase, we don't need to run and got lost easily or else like 3d horror games.
interestingly though, we've only just gotten the rise of companies actually providing official english translation for VNs so there's a happy note
Jast USA, Mangagamer, and Sekai Project are like the big 3 right?
sidenote still waiting for the full Rance series translated Jast USA.... also here's to hoping Softhouse Chara and Eushully games will one day have an official translation(as hard as it may be especially for Eushully games)
Cries in Tsukihime Remake
@@ThatGuy-en2nn Nasu!!! do it!!! xD
Linear narratives have always been a niche brand of video games, games that really blend a sort of long TV series with a video game. They're popular in Japan still and will remain so because Japanese love writing and stories I all of their media. I mean Super Sentai, japanese power rangers, is a kids show but if you've watched one through they sometime have these long complex character driven and often dramatic stories. The Japanese love dramas, tv dramas, games that are like dramas, and comics and novels. This is just how the Japanese are, and I personally love that.
And I'll add that is the 90s, there was more experimentation, before games went mainstream, with merging movies and games, particularly in the adventure genre. Games like the Titanic adventure game, The Dig, lots of point and click adventures, very linear character driven movie/games and I loved that. It wasn't until the early 2000s when Halo and Madden Football entered the scene into mainstream popularity that shooters really started to take over the markets. Half Life was still semi niche, but everyone I knew as a teenager played Halo.
Look into the Arcane City Game Studios VNs. They're more played by horror game enthusiasts and fans of Lovecraft. The writer is lovecraft's cousin.
Tbh, it can be seen as dying, although it's mostly due to the lack of creativity and innovation as most of VNs seem to be copy-pasting the styles.
Afraid not, that's what we at Roomah Gaming trying to "fix", we will try to bring something new and refreshing for this genre.
@Ony ! Hello! Hahah yeah the video got recommended to me.
Visual Novels are not really dying well... it used to be but now it's getting revived and kinda popular again mainly because of DDLC, Higurashi, Umineko, and Corpse Party
As you said, i think Horror is pretty much keeping VNs alive on the mainstream, desguised as horror survival games. If you think about, VNs/"walking sims" are a quite immersive media to tell a horror story, and that is more attractive to the general public than romcoms xD
Visual Novels is one of the most hidden, infamous genre of Japanese Otaku Culture and also the hardest to grasp literally if you're not a Japanese; as a casual fan of VN; It takes time for me to discovered "Shuffle!?" not until I watched it's Anime Adaptation. Another example are Da Capo, Ef a tale of memories, Tears to Tiara; an Anime fan can recognise them as an Anime but they actually a popular Visual Novel in Japan in their previous days. For me ; they are Hidden Gems. Of course Kusoge and Eroge are another story..
Wait, Tears to Tiara has a anime??
Thanks for making this! Great video short and to the point, I love that you included all of the music used for this video as well giving yet more value to experience after. The last one was especially amazing, I had never heard of that game. Have a nice one :)
Visual Novel is never a commercial game now. Let me try Ren'Py now to try to make game. (I know i am terrible at art and have no one to help but trying is never problem.)
Great video. Very informative.
I've only ever read one VN outside of gacha VNs (Arknights, FGO), and that's Fate/SN, but, boy, did I ever love the hell out it. Absolutely brilliant piece of work. As a lover of all things with stories, it's pretty exciting to hear about a whole new subset of storytelling that I've been missing out on. It's too bad that it might be 'dying', but I guess I have all those classics from the 2000-2010 era to dig into. Good stuff, Dio. Guess I've got some catch up reading to do!
I suppose it depends on the perspective you take on it, really.
Essay length opinion incoming lmao. TLDR at the top.
TLDR; I think Pure VNs are going out of style due to the shorter attention span and less free time of people these days, unless they're shorter, like Nekopara, VA-11 Hall-A, or DDLC, each for their own reasons. The evolution of the genre has (at least in my opinion) taken the genre to new heights, with games that use pure VNs as the foundation, like Danganronpa, or use it to break up the primary gameplay of a game, like Persona.
Is the Genre itself dying? No. is it evolving past its roots of just "book with constant pretty pictures"? Yes, in many different ways, for different genres of games.
Also I wouldn't call Hades a visual novel; If you wanna use an example of a supergiant games title being a visual novel, I'd use Pyre as an example, as frankly, it keeps the VN style alive in a much more pure state, though it was unpopular, and not nearly as many people played it. (I say, though i haven't played, nor watched any of Pyre's story, despite having played every other supergiant game [to completion, in Bastion and Transistor's cases, and to the end of one of the betas, before Elysium was added in hades' case])
Kay TLDR ends there, HF with the essay lmao.
Are pure visual novels like Fruits of Grisaia, Clannad, Kannon, FSN and other such classic VNs dying? What about the newer releases like Nekopara, VA-11 HALL-A, and DDLC? I'd say, partially.
In the case of Classic VNs like Clannad and FSN, the 100 hour visual novels that require you to get every ending to get the "true" ending, or other similar, long time investment VNs? Yeah. It's not even a debate that the genre, at least in the west, never really took off due to the localisations just... never happening. Not to mention how it seems that no one (at least of the current generation) has time or the will to read such a long book, just due to the time investment required to finish some of these things, or the level of engagement being too low to keep the reader/player invested.
I mean, case and point, myself.
I've mentioned in the FSN streams that I've just not got the will to read FSN, even though I have it installed, I have plenty of time to waste, and I personally believe I could be done with it in 3 days, if I wasn't so stuck into games that have massive time investments, like gacha games, FFXIV, or other MMOs. I spend basically from when i wake up to when i go to sleep playing FGO (Both NA and JP), Alchemy stars, and FFXIV, just because of the sheer time investment required for the games, yet, even when I'm bored/tired of these games, I can't put them down to read FSN? Frankly, its the lack of engagement making me unable to even have the will to open it, and I'd assume its largely the same for many people these days, many of these classic VNs generally have a low level of engagement, precisely because they're largely just books with pictures, and no other investing factors other than the music and (potentially) voice acting.
Yet at the same time, people do repeat playthroughs of Persona 3, 4 and 5, re-experiencing the same story multiple times because the mash between the social aspect (Which I'd largely call a visual novel) and RPG aspect (the dungeon crawling, making new personas, etc) can actually take *more* time to finish than a visual novel, obviously dependent on the player. Which leaves a question of "Is the VN genre dying" in a weirder spot, as Its clear that it's not so much "dying" as its been taken by other genres to either serve as the foundations of the game to build upon, like with Danganronpa, or serve as a break to give the player a chance to slow down, or provide exposition (primarily using persona as an example, though I believe fire emblem is similar, though I wouldn't know, due to never having played fire emblem.)
Can it really be called "dying" if its one of the reasons that made Persona 5/Royal one of the most popular JRPGs to ever release in recent times? I'd largely say no. Are Pure VNs dying out? I suppose it depends on whether you still count 4-10 hour classic style VNs as "Pure" VNs. It's still a niche genre, just like it's always been. It always has, and always will be (in my opinion) a niche that doesn't mesh well unless there's a unique gimmick to the VN, like in DDLC, or it's a very short VN that you can finish in a couple hours for some light reading, if you can withstand your impulses to play something more engaging.
VNs nowadays need to have something else to them, in order to gain a larger audience, however, by doing that, it's also changing the VN genre to be a genre that you can latch onto whatever genre you need to.
At least, that's my opinion on the matter. I know its long, but given that I'm someone who went from downloading classic VNs and finishing them within days of downloading them with all endings/CGs to someone dreading even starting FSN, even though I love the Fate Extra and FGO stories, its as good of a time as ever to express my opinions on the topic.
- An essay by some twat on the internet named Daniel, Phoenix Sepharim, Seraph, Variel, whatever the fuck you wanna call me.
Jeez, thanks for the essay. I agree with everything you say, especially with VN's being in a "weird spot" right now. There are so many popular games right now that, as you pointed out, take a lot from Visual Novels (Persona, Hades, Most Gacha games) so it's more evolving than dying. Also, I heavily thought about using Pyre as an example, but Hades was more popular so I thought more people would understand the analogy.
@@diosopinions7692 tbh VNs are in an a even weirder predicament then "cross between anime and novels", as the media that's doing that is actually manga, manga is like an anime, without movement, and like a novel with movement, and i think the most common way weebs and people in general are getting into light novels is through watching an anime/ manga that is not finished and then searching the source material. I've seen more people reading books then visual novels tbh, and that's saying a lot since it goes against the argument that "it's because of the attention spam of people"...
VNs feel like that weird in-between from a good driven narrative and a simpler plot-driven game like the witcher, actually the Witcher is a great example of how VNs don't have that niche anymore, imagine how less popular it would be if it was a VN with the same story and same source material? Most stories that would become a VN or JRPGS (basically vn + rpg) are now games with multiple choice dialogue, like even skyrim as you mentioned.
I think that shorter titles may show the potential of the medium to the public, as Danganronpa already did (even if it's hard to pass from danganronpa to more classic VNs).
To this DDLC made even a higher damaging, increasing the stereotype that VNs are "only dating sims with cute girls" that many have.
But if a shorter VN revolutions the genre, it may encourage people to read longer and more classic VNs, such as Umineko, Higurashi, Steins;Gate, Fate S/N
It's like something like Harry Potter that made a lot of kids start reading, making them discover classic fantasy titles.
So I think the medium will evolve, we only need to wait the good boom as DDLC was, but that doesn't become only a meme. And when the medium will boom in the west, we will see a lot of people also reading older titles, because they are engaged into reading.
Even know, thanks to the latest higurashi anime (which isnt an adaptation but a sequel), the WTC community totally revived. I'm seeing a lot of people starting reading umineko and higurashi in the last year, taking them more like books
just look at the umineko page on Goodreads and not VNDb, in the last year it exploded
Ok so check this out:
I am a grizzled veteran of video games with over 30 years experience. Just over a year ago now, I got out of my comfort zone and tried playing JRPGs for more or less the first time ever.
Turned out I likey alot, so much that JRPGs we're my gateway into the Japanese anime culture. Always heard about the Fate series, but with myself being a completionist/originalist, I had to dig to the very beginning with the fate/stay night VN. That was all it took really for myself fall down the visual novel rabbit hole.
I'm so terribly sorry for writing so much, but this needed context, and I wanted to say my opinion on this subject. I feel I'm in a unique position to give a comment, as I have years of gaming in myself, but a little over a year of experience in the Vn genre.
First i wanted to give what I believe to be a wonderful example of the combination of video game and visual novel, and that game (s) is Falcom's Trails series, particularly Trails in the Sky or Sora no Kiseki.
I'll try to keep this short, it's a JRPG that is very text heavy, uses still frame character portraits with many different facial expressions, and many beautiful CGs to tell it's ongoing story. Ppl who played any Trails game knows exactly what I'm talking about.
And finally, what is up with VNs in the west?
I speak from an American perspective, but I kinda get the feeling that VNs carry a stigma that might never be able to wash away. This stigma comes from the R18 content that many VNs have. Tbh I really don't understand. I'm a millennial degenerate and aren't all us millennials supposed to be lewd? If we are like they say we are, then VNs should have tons of western support. But even so, a lot of the R18 content contains many Western taboos that westerners aren't accustomed to. Maybe it's the difference in culture? I know I love VNs. If not for VNs, I'd never known that I had a little sister fetish lol.
Bless anyone who actually read this cursed madness if a comment..all hail Cthulhu!!!?
it is so damn lame that i have to reply to my own comment. I wanted to add something. It's that I hear so much about the R18 content in VNs, it's always getting dunked on by many content creators on youtube. I sometimes hear them recommend skipping said content outright. It really makes me wonder if these guys are actually serious or if they're saying it to keep the woke at bay. Me thinks that VNs like Aokana and well, any game published by Neko Nyn, are really good reads. you can find a lot of wholesome scenes and characters you just can't help to fall in love with. These VNs COULD do fine without that lewd content, but it's there and if you get in a spicy mood you could see some of the best H scenes out there. Aokana have some pretty hot scenes IMO.
I refer to best girl Misaki of course. Dat orange shirt/black short skirt makes for a very nice FCMC scene.
I officially got into Visual Novels and finished watching a walk through of the second one, now I will continue for the 3rd and 4th one
I am currently making one. With AI tools for visuals and my brain alone, learning renpy :) don't mind my Channel music is a second hobby in wich I am far worse haha. This video kind of reminds me "you can't give up on this VN because you know how good it will be and the genre is disappearing" so .. yea as crazy as it sounds I am trying to be the next Big thing. Prototyping... Then hiring Real people if it raise interests.
Question is was it even popular genre. Popular is defined by Elder scrolls Halo CoD BF. The standar for popular is redefined
It hardly even takes off outside Japan. Sure DDLC NEKOPR are good but Idk anyone in my closed gaming circle that plays it
Psycholonials is the best non-anime aesthetic VN.
It's written by Homestuck author Andrew Hussie.
>VN genre dies
Muramasa(top 5 vndb) translated few months ago with a good sales. SCA-JI made a sequel to sakura no uta and remake of tsui no sora. Ciconia exists, rykishi07 already wrote loopers. AI somnium files sequel announced. Robotics;notes DaSH released and other new projects as in kagaku adventures announced.
And i dont speak about western games like Life and suffering of sir Brante, Suzerain.
This was a great video. I did a video defending VNs as a medium incidentally only a couple weeks before this one. If you ever give it a watch, I would be really curious about your thoughts. I think you are spot on that as far as the audience of gamers and anime fans are concerned, VNs do have a bit of a grim future. But I believe that as the traditional novel itself is in decline, VNs have serious potential to take its place. To an extent at least.
There is a lot of creative potential for visual novels, and for that potential alone I think they are a medium (for me VNs aren't a genre, but a medium) that can eventually flourish. At the very least, there is potential for truly profound stories to be told in this medium. And while younger generations are seemingly allergic to traditional books, VNs by having audio and visuals (and sometimes interactive elements) can be a lot more appealing to people who were raised with the screen. This is a short summary of what my video is about, and if you ever have the time to watch it I would be very curious about your thoughts.
A sixth of my Steam 350+ game steam library are visual novels. If you include "point and click adventure games" with VNs, about one third of my library are these unique story telling genres. I grew up on games like Monkey Island, Full Throttle, and many others. And enjoyed the transition to stuff like The Nonary Games, Ace Attorney, and like like. But what really made me look at visual novels as art, are series like Umineko and Higurashi. Those are masterpieces!
I feel like the genre isn't dying. But what was said 09:56 , visual novels have been evolving. Would I prefer more straight up novel stories like Umineko? Sure. But I'm not complaining as long as we keep getting great stories that take advantage of the medium it's put on. Even series like Persona can be played like a VN when put on easy mode. Honestly, one of the main reasons I liked JRPGs growing up was not the gameplay in battles. But I always enjoyed how the story was told. Visual Novels took out the "boring parts" and gave me the story and character development I wanted.
I still have a large backlog of stuff I want to read. I still have MuvLuv and The House in the Fata Morgana in my queue. While I agree there may not be as much quality in future releases. People new to the genre have so many options. It's not like when I was a kid and I spent $35 on a subtitled VHS Ranma 1/2 movie because that's what I could afford and what was available locally (yeah, I dated myself). Clannad, planetarian, Doki Doki Literature Club, Root Double......SO MANY OPTIONS!
It's strange nobody is talking about otome.. We got plenty english localisation on switch
I got into visual novels recently after playing the Echo_Project
Visual novel horror is really great when done right
I love Adastra and i think i have to give Echo a go.
Visual novels are a great resource for Japanese learners too. I agree with you Visual Novels popularity has been decreasing and steam is NOT helping with that with those kinda wierds vn covers that they are selling. VIsual Novels is a good alternatives from books, I you don't feel like reading it, you can try witn a vn. I feel that vns can sometimes be more enjoyable.
Last VN I finished is Amayui Castle Meister and that one isn't just a VN. It can be arguably called a JRPG with VN elements. I've read quite a lot of normal VNs in the past but ever since I got exposed to Rance 7(Sengoku Rance), I really can't enjoy a story without some gameplay.
Last typical VN I finished(did not really finish it coz loli routes bored me, not really my thing) was Konosora(If My Heart Had Wings). I'm trying to play Summer Memories but we're still in quarantine so kinda hard to play it with people in the house and with all the gacha games I'm playing lol.
Edit: Also, I think the reason it's not popular is that a lot of VNs that come out are 18+(by that I mean quite uhh degenerate) and with the west(by that I mean America) being woke AF, a lot of people are going to just bury it in unnecessary "criticism".
Yeah, I think you hit the nail in the head. Baby StormTAG consumed everything that vaguely looked like it could maybe be on Toonami. Modern StormTAG is so spoilt for choice, that he’s gone full hipster and finds himself rewatching older anime while grinding Gacha games.
This video made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions thank you so much for turning my day around
I love the genre,i just wished more vn,s were more like actual novels,like umineko,steins gate and rewrite,an actually great novel and the weeb stuff is just a good sprinkle on top
as a female who loved Visual novel of all type i feel sad that visual novel are always left out of anime/manga sites ,and anime manga groups like they wanna pretend it does not excist even though alot anime are also adapted from visual novels like clannad,little buster, island,nekopara,aokana,amnesia memories,dramatical murder ,stien gate ,hakouki,code realize
To be fair the visual novels you mentioned near begining were stand alone series, there not ment to have sequels and IMO the problem with western shows is it tries to stretch out series for as long as possible.
I would love to hear your take on the western-produced visual novel "Slay the Princess."
well to be fair telltale success was carried by walking dead as a franchaise, and their death was the lack of innovation. Proving their formula wasnt enough to sell.
you also didnt mention about quantic dream games, especially deteroit become human its the closest thing to telltale success afterall
Yeah, I had Become Human / Heavy Rain on the list but forgot to mention them as one of the recent rare hits.
I'm not a big VN, I've only done a few of the most popular, but I feel like one of the biggest problem with pure VN is that the format doesn't really add much to the experience, quite the opposite.
For example Fate Apocryphe and Strange Fake were way better reading experience than Stay Night VN. Choosing how Shiro dies from time to time and having to deal with the text display really didn't add anything to the experience and I definitely would have enjoyed it more as a LN.
Maybe it's just me, but for VN with few to no gameplay, the game aspect end up just getting in the way.
I disagree. I loved being able to fail. Got all the bad endings just to see what would happen to Shiro. Kinda cemented he was incompetent and one bad choice away from death.
@@ThatGuy-en2nn True it's not completely useless, but it isn't necessary to show that MC is in danger (plenty of novel do the same without choices) nor is it worth sacrificing the quality of the reading experience for.
IMO they've always been kinda dead in the West, but in Japan... looking at the Switch games, it seems that there are still quite a few of them. The thing is, that medium just doesn't change much, really, and it is mostly niche - with some notable exceptions, like Sakura Wars, Tokimeki Memorial, Tantei Jingūji Saburō or J.B. Harold games. Of course, in the West there's the popularity of Ace Attorney and Professor Layton or Danganronpa... in Japan - hundreds more, but yeah, it just isn't a genre that's popular in the West all things considered.
I think people will always gravitate to visual novels. It'd be difficult to write a book with multiple endings. That's where visual novels come in. They're like interactive choose your own adventure books. If you don't like an ending to a book, there's not much you can do about it. Thankfully in a visual novel you can just try a different route.
Granted to write a visual novel you also have to find someone who can make music and an artist.
The problem with VN is the expectation
1 a good story
2 good art
3 regular updates
4 convincing characters that you can live with
If you dondt have one of these then you wont get any traction on the visual novel becaus people like story and choise
The other problem is income if a VN is behind a paywal then it gains even harder tracktion
The best way to gain traction is to have an early release layers where people pay for on patreon but the problem here is that you are totally surendering the story based on people intressed and that sounds good but it also means you cant be risky or make any hard choices
I like VNs but it is so hard to find good VNs that aren't just dating sims.
Oh hey I'm reading through World End Economica right now Very stonks of you Dio
It's free real estate
The NSFW vn's are on the rise, at last that's my experience.
VNs have nothing exclusive to show compared to movies, animation, comics or books. It's a mix of everything with a intrusive UI on top and always delivers too little interactivity to compete with games.
Writing for interactive media is not the same as writing linear stories, its not focused on conflict moving characters but having a consistent world for the player to poke at and see the reaction. Having branching paths don't make it a game . The problem is not exclusive to Visual Novels, though, since some popular game titles also can't do it right either. The rule of thumb is letting the player explore and decide with conflicts to care about instead of just pushing them down your story like that was the fun. games are about agency from the player and Visual Novels are the most limited in this regard.
I don't know, but i just played Dohna Dohna. That is a visual novel with great story, music, visuals the RPG and "talent" simulator part have great gameplay have great (not sound cheap) Japanese voice over for every line, i enjoyed as much as a persona/danganronpa game (not just the adult part, the gameplay and the story) but because the steam don't like it, it only released in Johren, so despite of the japanese/chinese version's success almost nobody know about that game in English, because "most English people don't want to create an account in adult places" (is this true? )
So i think the problem is the English publishers, every one of them created they own store if they game banned from steam, so in English i have to check out jast usa, mangagamer, steam, johren, dl site english, solpress store (probably more) if i want to follow every english VN store, in Japanese language every VN are on dm m and dl site's japanese side so in Japanese i can follow them in one comfortable place, meanwhile most English localiser just giving up, if they partner's VN are not steam compatible.
"just watch the anime"
well anime tend to cut parts off from the VN so there's that
VN's while niche, have in my opinion gone strong lately. You mentioned a few of the popular ones being over a decade old and still holding the genre together. Well VN's have an aspect of them that is harder to compare to other games which is since many are story focused, the best ones have the best story and its hard to age something like higurashi when it comes to horror, lore and a great story for example. We have gotten extremely popular VN's lately like sayu no uta, raging loop and subahibi that are similar to it to give some examples.
We have mad popular VN's break the mold, like danganronpa and doki doki literature club, as well as grisia kinda going to mainstream stardom and of course nekopara.
The genre is not dying, its just not breaking mainstream as much as it can. This is due to people probably not wanting to read 99% for a lot of VN's, its either you really like it or its not your cup of tea for most people. The genre is in no way dying its just while we have good VN"s coming out, we can get more if more visual novels would be able to get translated leading to more hits and you really never know which VN is gonna be the next lets play hit as well(Seriously I would of never guessed what would become mainstream after 2005). Steam also gives us a lot quick eroge\trash VN's so it seems like people have more clutter to go through if thats how you find a lot of your VN's.
Now I wanna talk a bit about nekopara more, and how people take "one good look at hentai game and say no", I know many people who love the sci fi, mystery VN genre but got introduced by eroges like rance and of course nekopara. Now I think Nekopara by itself gave a big boom to VN's because I know a lot of people where since it was one of the first higher quality moe eroge VN's on steam that was one of their first games into the genre, and that eventually got them into the scene with some branching out and going into your steins gate\higurashis. I think the anime community as well promotes VN's since its easily still a genre that sells even physicals copies at conventions, and word of mouth recommendations.
Now the strawman of people look at say nekopara and go yea im not gonna get into this genre is a bit harsh on nekopara since the genre has existed for a long time before this game, and the one look at nekopara would be a different eroge, basically any popular eroges, which there are literally hundreds. Eroge and visual novels while separate, are also at times 2 sides of the same coin seeing how the genre thrived on hentai especially earlier, or at least aspects of it.
umineko is better than higurashi with characters
Getting VN's out of the dating sim/ niche anime/ porn universe would help. To flourish It needs an influx of fresh interest that sees VNs differently - as a medium with untapped creative possibilities and new audiences
Japan likes to read
Visual Novels are evolving
I mean if you consider any Softhouse Chara or Eushully games as "Visual Novels" you can also say they have been evolving for a long time now
weird, I swear I see more VNs now than ever
That's probably due to it being the easiest 'game' to be developed and many indies started with this genre before going on 3D field; to learn the basic of gaming industry, like myself.
I gotcha fam, we da real homies
Otomes are still going strong tho, so good for them.
I don't think you will feel that way if you know enough jp to play raw vns, there are almost 3 times more vns than animes iirc, this medium is an ocean... Also every year comes up with a bunch of kamiges, just look at yonagi (Hakuchuumu no Aojashin, released last year) by example. I'm personally dying to play Qruppo's next title "Hentai Prison", I have read its fat ass trial 3 times and I still don't get bored lol, it will be a masterpiece.
Anybody can ofc get tired of this genre, and it is impossible to really get deep inside of it playing only translated games, but is too early to say that the medium itself is dying or even near from dying, I think.
Japos on the web still calls the medium like this: Eroge Bunka(Culture) hahaha
I would get somewhat worried if Alice Soft really dies tho, personally :(
I want to get into visual novels so bad but I just don’t have the time, man.
Man, visual novels are games if you try to play them without guide. It's a freaking maze of choices.
And dating sims can also be raising sims (like tokimemo) and that is a "real" video game where strategy is needed. "Turn your brain on and try to get those numbers high" gameplay.
Why does the cost of these games stay up? I rarely see them go on sale.
Most of the switch games are actually visual novels, for sure and also they are kinda evolving, I think they're also being incorporated at rpg games
6:51 Oye pero tampoco tan así
I'd like to make visual novels when I grow up
i was just talking about this-
your voice is dying faster than visual novels
Song at 2:53 ?
I don’t know what I don’t know
What are you, a Monogatari character?
@@Keima_Katsuragi. Maybe
First of all , why is aristotle have your avatar on his head and why diogenes is denis de vito ? why alexander the great is a character from arknight ? we want answer ^^ !
Good video , i agree that the genre is declining but his eroge part is still here , especialy since after years , some VN are now translated more than ever. To be honest , i don't understand japanese well enough to read them in japanese (reading VN was one of my main goal when i try to learn japanese ) , so instead , i rely on my english and my mother language , french . And i gotta say that translation seems to increase a little these day , so quality VN is on demand i hope .
PS: the use of some music in your video gave my nostalgic vibes , i wasn't prepare for it : )
Dio is that you
Visual novels are a media, not a genre as first person shooters, CRPG or plataformers. It's a way of telling an interactive story such as gamebooks, interactive novels, computer text adventures, etc. Interactive story telling is a genre and Visual Novels are a media to present this genre for a target audience.
Ok. It's complex, but let's go. Visual Novels are actually the strange offspring of the game books. They get a different power shifting from word heavy to picture heavy, so they use Visual tricks to convey information instead of using clever ways to use words conveying information. The first main problem abou Visual Novels lies on the fact they use very few choices and decisions points, as when you go on visuals, branching stories becomes expensive.
About the porn part, it's not a problem itself. The bad point is that as porn, it gets depreciated and as the developers predicts the depreciation, they make a lesser job.
Now comes the funny part, that fixes both Visual Novels in general as the porn side too. We got used to consume games with good storytelling. There are screenwriters working for big game companies. But Visual Novels (porn included) refuses doing the homework and keep repeating formats, same use of tropes and above all, same general mood. Almost every Visual Novels have a slow pacing setup with tons of info dumping, predictable lines and poorly written dialogs. When authors adds elements, a Visual Novel stands from the crowd, be it by interesting writing or a game mechanic or relevant and compelling choices. The genre or media still work very well. What is needed are designers interested on putting more effort and new skills to the challenge.
For some reason, i’d rather read through a 500 chapters web novel than a 10+ hours visual novels.
Why "especially after Awakening" ?
Fire Emblem does have VN like dialogues since forever.
And with Awakening it's even less à VN with the lack of story (there was a lot more interesting and developped story before, Awakening is like 5 minutes dialogues before the chapter start. Radiant Dawn was 10 before, after and even in the headquarters.
Maybe Three Houses have more dialogues than Awakening, Fates and Échoes but it has this hub too that makes it even further from a VN.
I think they were more VN's like beford Awakening. If you've played Utawarerumono old FE are closer to it than news.
But "normally" you played FE for gameplay and Utawarerumono for the story and that's the biggest difference when you launch those games haha.
(Even if some People does not)
Jesus.
Some dialogue doesn't make something "Like a VN". What the video references are the increased length of narrative sections and the expanded importance and focus of support-scenes.
If you can't see a difference in FE predentation before and after Awakening you need to replay some games
@@lorenzomeulli750 Increase ? Wtf are you saying ?
There is almost no dialogues before and after the chapter if we compare to previous games.
The story is pretty bad also because it's underdevelopped. Some chapters doesn't even have dialogues when there is no human ennemies.
So nope it's a big decrease and it was really disappointing to me.
There is a lot of support tho I agree. They are probably the worse support of the series (except RD&New Mystery) but they is a lot of them you're right. Still it wasn't needed. It would have been better with more logical interactions but that wasn't the point here.
"Like a VN" is mostly for the way it's présented, I know that doesnt make FE or Persona VNs.
Choose an visual novel
A. normal yet boring
B. Horror that will give you ptsd for months on end
C. H*ntai
Visual novel have an potential hope it got revive soon
Would you considered monster prom a visual novel
I'm not sure how japanese visual novels are doing. However western "adult visual novels" are starting to increase in popularity quite incredibly. With Being a DIK, Leap of Faith, and City of Broken Dreamers leading the forefront on steam. Covid has increased the amount of consumers and developers. Games like these above would still be good even without the porn.
Hmm, I feel like the correct title for this video would be "Are Visual Novels Dying in the West?". I think VNs are going as strong as ever in Japan.
I thought if anything VNs are seeing a resurgence in the West since there’s so many VNs getting English translations now both officially and unofficially. Proves there’s a market there. Granted it’s only barely scratched the surface but we’re finally seeing some decade olds VNs getting translated.
the maien thing with them is that thers thos how wet to ready them and not juts play them as juts a ther videogame hav a nices day
Its dying because peoples attention span are too low they just want those pee peew games
Yeah, like I think the concept about it is like just cutscenes and dialogues involved in games, but the genre is just about that, cutscenes and dialogues, with the cutscenes mostly just still images rather than animated ones, even though VNs involving animations exist; Ace Attorney for, example.
Visual Novels are the reason I started learning japaneese
I noticed you mentioned the big visual novels, but you aren't mentioning the hundreds if not thousands on steam. Sure none of them are breaking into the mainstream but they aren't dying.
Its just been a while since a visual novel was popular and many times, it's anime that made visual novels popular. Steins gate wouldn't even be in your zeitgeist if not for the break out success of the anime.
They're niche. They will most likely stay niche but that's okay. We aren't saying manga is dying just because there's no new hst or say korean mangas are dying just because it's a much smaller fan base in the west
So don't go assuming something Is dead because you don't know it exists. Because as I've said, you would not know fate if not for it's shitty anime in 2004 lol
2:05 can you tell me the name of this vn?
World End Economica, made by the author of Spice and wolf
Clip from 11:29?
Oh I see
novels them self take time to make its a rat juts like roagame or daerwing or painting thay all take some time to be good at even if one has in in them from birther
yes hades is a volet and its a videogame to so its both like you saydid hav a nices day
I have news about fate
Hades is actually my favorite VN of all time. ^^
Well, I don't really know what to say so...
JUST MONIKA, homie