Let's talk about Visual Novels

chris

chris

Lately I'm a little fed up with big budget games. Right know the only big budget games I'm interested in are the Final Fantasy remake and Cyberpunk 2077.
None of the other recent releases interest me and the constant coverage about the bullshit going on in the big companies doesn't really help either.
I decided for myself to stick with niche games for a while. Games most people don't really care or talk about. And what is more niche than Visual Novels?

So over the last few month I got in various sales some Visual Novels that looked interesting for a low price on various platforms.

Here are the Visual Novels I got:

Steins;Gate (PC)
Steins;Gate Elite (Switch, PS4)
Steins;Gate 0 (PC)
Steins;Gate My Darlings Embrace (Switch)
Steins;Gate Linear Bounded Phenogram (PS4)
Chaos;Child (PS4)
428 Shibuya Scramble (PS4)
Punch Line (PS4)
The Nonary Games (PS4) (First one already finished, with all endings)
Zero Time Dilemma (PS4)
Our World is Ended (Switch)
Worldend Syndrome (Switch)
Root Letter: Last Answer (Switch)
AI: The Somnium Files (Switch)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (PC)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (PC)
PSYCHO-PASS: Mandatory Happiness (PC)
Higurashi Chapter 1-5 (PC)
Ace Attorny (Switch) (replay, I already played the games)
Raging Loop (Switch)
YU-NO A girl who chants love at the bound of this world (Switch)

I guess this will entertain me for a while. I will post my experience with the games later. And if anybody played a Visual Novel, want to recommend or just talk about Visual Novels in general they can leave a post here. But please put spoilers behind the tags.
 
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Dei

Dei

Somnium Files in a nutshell



(This is easily one of my favorite VNs, and isn't actually about porn, sorry)
 
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Denbrought

Denbrought

If you enjoy HigurashiNNK, I recommend checking UminekoNNK afterwards.

I keep meaning to check out Helltaker, it's free on Steam and supposedly very good (if nothing else, the fanart is excellent).

Starfighter: Eclipse is pretty fun.

+1 on Corpse Party. There's also a lot of associated media worth checking out after playing through them (e.g. the OVAs).
"I'm gonna go butter up my pooper" was a household meme at my place for yeeeaaaars.

Dei said:
Somnium Files in a nutshell



(This is easily one of my favorite VNs, and isn't actually about porn, sorry)
Click to expand...
Everything Uchikoshi puts out is ridiculous, but enjoyable enough.
 
Shawn

Shawn

I tried Coffee Talk a while back since it was on sale. Honestly I think the fact that it turned out to be a visual novel game was the reason I stopped playing. But maybe you'll enjoy it.
It takes place in Seattle but with supernatural creatures living in harmony with humans as part of modern society. You run a coffee shop that's only open at night because you like talking with the few people that trickle in and tell your their stories. You can interact a bit for the most part their stories play on normally. There are also mini games where you try to make every customer the perfect drink based on their tastes.

 
chris

chris

Root Letter Last Answer



Genre: Mystery "Thriller"

Endings: 5
Finished with: 5 endings plus answer arcs

What's special about it: The tourist board off the Shimane Prefecture helped with the development making sure Matsue is represented correctly
The Last Answer edition has an additional Drama Mode changing the art with life action photos of the enviroment and characters.

How long: Less than 30 hours with all five endings. Depending on your reading speed

Story: During the last year of highschool you were penpal with a girl named Aya Fumino exchanging letters. 15 years too late you receive her last letter, in which she confesses to a murder. You travel to her hometown of Matsue to figure out what this letter is all about only to find out that her house burned down 15 years ago. But none of the neighbors remembers her. The only Aya Fumino they know about died 25 years ago. Now you try to solve the mystery of Aya Fumino, finding the seven friends and put together the puzzle who Aya really was.

Art: Instead for an anime style like most visual novels the developers went for a more realistic art direction. None of the characters looks over the top, well most of them anyway. Sorry, the big titty anime girl is nowhere to be found in this one. The only time I was caught of guard was the design of the characters with the name Morita and Sugita. They are clearly caricatures of two characters/actors of a tv show.


None of the other characters are caricatures like this.
The art itself has a nice watercolour feel and is really detailed. Expecially the different places in Matsue look really good and give you a good impression of the place. There is not much to say about the drama mode. It's the same story just with photos. But it's a nice addition and give a nice expirence.

Sound: Japanese voice acting, no english audio. The music fits the setting but is nothing spectacular.

Choices/Mechanics: The Visual Novel present itself like an "Ace Attorney" or "Famicon Detective Club" (expecially the interface) While the story itself is very linear you can freely move to different location on a map of Matsue. Every chapter new locations open up to investigate or meeting new people. You procede in the story when you present the right item or ask the right question at the right place. Sometime you enter something called "Max mode", a quick time event where you pick a sentence. But you can only proceed picking the right one. After collecting enough information you will interrogate a person you believe is one of Ayas' classmates. Again pretty straight foreward, the story lead you who the person may be. During the interrogation you present evidence to proof your claims. Even though you have a fail meter, the story won't suddenly end with a bad end. You just have to start from the beginning of the interrogation. It won't have any consequences either. How the story plays out depends on the answers and questions in the letters to Aya. In every letter from her Aya will ask something about you and you can follow this up with a question of your own. While this won't have any influence on the first 8 chapters the last two chapters will change drastically. While it's understandable that you can have an influence on Aya and her view at others, herself and you with your answers, how that have any impact on her own backstory is a little bit questionable. That's a bit of a headscratcher.

Overall: A good starting point for Visual Novel beginners. Not my personal top pick but it's an easy read and not frustating since there are no punishments or a sudden bad end. Thanks to the skip funktion after the first bad ending it never feels like tedious work to get to next ending and finally to the golden ending. The Visual Novel exist in two versions, "Root Letter" and "Root Letter Last Answer". Both versions are available on Switch, Steam and PS4. Often with a huge discount on Steam and PS4 during a sale. I recommend getting "Root Letter Last Answer" for the additional content. The answer arc for one of the endings is so bonkers it has to be seen to believe.
 
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