The Visual Novel Thread

Here we talk about Visual Novel games like Phoenix Wright, Steins Gate, The Nonary Game Series, Hotel Dusk, Silver Case... and about eleventy bijillion dating sim games.

Myself, I first got into visual novel games after watching some kind of parody video of the Phoenix Wright games on Newgrounds years ago. Love the series. Back when I used to watch some of Channel Awesome, I remember JewWario strongly recommending Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, which essentially became my life for a week. I've also really liked the Hotel Dusk and the Eurasia release of Last Window (actually had to import that title), but it is decidedly an acquired taste.

Honestly never got interested into the whole date sim visual novels, mostly because while I like the anime style in theory, I really do not like the whole moe style, sorry Travis Touchdown.

 

The series is called Zero Escape you filthy casual

I hope the bombs in your stomach explode

 

Filthy ca... I got the fucking limited edition Zero Time Dilemma with the fucking bomb watch REEEEEEEEEE--

But yeah, you're right. I just knew they were re-releasing both 999 and Virtue's Last Reward under The Nonary Games so I figured that must be the new American name... like Phoenix Wright is actually Gyakuten Saiban and Dead or Alive is actually called Jiggle McWiggle Tits.

 

Personally, I've kind of been thinking about creating a visual novel creation studio that doesn't require any programming, which is what most of the visual novel creator things require. I don't think it would be too hard (basically just a simplified version of Flash, only just for making visual novels), and the ease of use would mean that many more would appear. Granted, that would mean that a lot more dating sims would appear, but maybe they would be more interesting if weirdos and intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals were making them, instead of guys on Newgrounds and Comdotgame making them for their followers and Patreon supporters.

One of my favourites is actually an adult game that was never finished called Robozou, which has a bit of a cult following and a mod culture which is trying to finish the game and improve the visuals (sometimes with kind of funny results, like the one where if you zoom out you can see that the female characters are all missing parts of their legs, and the one version where the guy's penis is replaced with a banana). On the surface it is a porn game where you control your teacher and family members and make them have sex with you. Beneath the surface, there actually is kind of a cool, albeit very short, story and a few secrets to discover. The game was never finished, or translated properly, but it's still cool nonetheless and definitely worth a look at least.

One of my favourite parts of the game is that it will literally kill the main character if you're not playing the game properly and make you start over.

 

I just finished playing Professor Layon Vs. Phoenix Wright and it was pretty good, if a little crazy at times(par for the course for these series.)

The first PL and PW games are really great games but I think there has been a lot of diminishing returns when it comes to their sequels.

 

I am going to resurrect this thread to say I love otome games. It is a guilty pleasure of mine. It is kind of like women in your mother's generation liking Harlequin romance novels.

Some of my favorites include Piofiore, Olympia Soiree, Cupid Parasite, Code: Realize, and Nightshade

I will say my least favorite is CollarxMalice, it is so confusing keeping track of everything not to mention TRIGGER MODE! Seriously, fuck trigger mode, I don't want quick time events when I am playing a visual novel.

Another I played was Cafe Enchante which I will say is interesting, but once you get to Il's and Mystere's routes, it starts getting really trippy. Definitely not what I was expecting from a cute game about a cafe.

 

"i tap the button and candy appears"

anyway:

 

Oh yeah, I have played the first Ace Attorney game and half of the second one, well, not really. See, there is this series on Youtube called Ace Attorney with an Actual Lawyer where a lawyer and his two friends play the Ace Attorney series and the lawyer talks about how it is different from real life. It basically made me realize that most of the cases, the defendant would have been proven "not guilty" very quickly especially if a jury was involved (which I don't think Japan has which is a reason why they shouldn't have set it in America for the English version especially since they have the "not guilty until proven otherwise" rather than Japan which is the opposite). Also, the Von Karmas would probably be held in contempt of court rather than you really quickly and they wouldn't get away with any of that stuff.

Not to mention, most of the plot mostly works because everyone is retarded. Like, if you knew Von Karma was in the evidence room, why did Phoenix and Maya go to see him and show him the evidence against him? They deserved to get tased since that would be an obvious thing not to do and it would have been best to leave him alone until he sees them in court again (in real life of course, they would review the evidence used and keep everything up to date so there is no "gotcha" moments like that one autopsy report). Also, there is no statue of limitations for murder.

I mostly watch that series while I crochet, I kind of stopped right now because it is hotter than hell out right now and I hate how my hands get all sweaty from crocheting which I don't like.

 

Finished reading Robotics;Notes Elite, and it was exactly what I was expecting: high schoolers building a giant robot in order to save the world. Now it's time to play the sequel, but maybe I'll do it next year, it was quite an exhaustive read, to be honest.

 

I ordered Lover Pretend with another Amazon gift card I got. Right now I am trying to catch up with the games I have. I still desperately need to play Bustafellows. Right now I am playing Variable Barricade. I also have Dairoku and Birushana as far as Switch titles go. I just haven't been motivated to play my Switch until recently, but as the weather warms up, I would much rather do that than crochet

 

READ UMINEKO NOW

 

"sea cat"?

 

Yes, read When the Seacats Cry now

 

Got back to playing some more of my otome games. I finished one historical romance called Butterfly Poison which has a lesbian option that is trippy as hell because it is like, you hallucinate getting attacked by a giant spider while snooping around the storage shed and then all the sudden you can't stand men and you are a lesbian. The woman of the route is a middle aged bisexual woman and while it follows the cliche of her being promiscuous, it does do her bisexuality a little bit differently in that she is only really interested in casual sex with men and deep romantic relationships with women as opposed to the cliche 50/50 you tend to see (she hates that she was forced to marry her husband which is a clue that she isn't completely straight). You could say she is bisexual homoromantic.

Still, the spider thing turning you lesbian was kind of strange.

I am finally getting around to playing Lover Pretend and I like it so far. It is a romantic comedy where you are an intern for a screenwriter and you are working on a movie. There are times where you have to either pretend to be someone else or that you are in a relationship or tell lies to people where there is this thing called Pretend mode where each question is timed and you have to select the right one to uncover the picture and if you select the wrong was the picture gets covered more and if you cover all the picture you get a bad end. I have had a few laughs from the game. The plot is that you are looking for your dad.

Also, I did play Birushana and I will be honest, some of the routes are pretty repetitive since it covers the same historical events since it is based on historical events and legends. They did make Benkei a total himbo which I think is funny.

Also, Bustafellows, I HATED that game and couldn't finish it at all. The common route lasted way too long and the romance felt tacked on and there wasn't that balance of plot and romance and when I replayed the game, the skip feature was SLOOOOOOOW. Seriously, it took me like an hour to get through the common route with skip mode on and making the choices necessary to get the routes I want. After the second route I gave up.

 

Finished Lover Pretend today and I think overall the game was good. I wish the final route was longer though, that's the thing with final route guys, they tend to get swallowed up by the big plot reveal. That's why I prefer finale routes.

I am currently playing Crimson Flower and I like it so far. I got interested in it due to its aesthetic, but it is interesting that the guy you were arranged to marry isn't a love interest. I will say the military commander Suren is even more emotionally immature than Yang in Piofiore which... damn... I have heard his route was censored a bit in the console release though because it gets rapey

 

@ATM played Higurashi and Umineko offsite and Umineko is one of the greatest games I've ever witnessed. I can't wait to see what the writer does with Silent Hill f.

I've been planning on doing a playthrough of Tsukihime, but I just can't get around to it for some reason. As far as other VNs go, my top recommendation is still OMGWTFOTL. It's a life changing experience in many ways.