Hopeless Romantics have an entire genre that was basically made for them: Love Sims. Himawari is another example of this with a sci-fi twist. Ef, A Fairy Tale of the Two is a slice-of-life that’s at times sweet and other times heartbreaking. Some VNs mean to put a smile on your face, others try their hardest to make you cry, and then there are those that are somewhere in-between. There are slice-of-life VN that just want to tell you a story. If mystery and murder don’t intrigue you, don’t worry. It doesn’t help, though, that some people in your group are going stir crazy and a dead body or two start to appear. Similarly, 999 (or 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors), the first in the Zero Escape series, places you and eight other people inside a sinking ship, and the only way to escape is to solve all the craziest escape room puzzles you’ve ever seen. The catch? If you’re caught, you die if you get away with it, everyone else dies. In Danganronpa, you and your fellow classmates are stuck inside your school and the only way to escape is to successfully murder someone without anyone learning it was you. As the protagonist, you must try to find a way out of your crazy situation while avoiding being the next one on the butcher’s block.įor the mystery fans, there’s the Danganronpa and Zero Escape trilogies. Both games involve young children and murder galore. If you’re the type of person that enjoys a good scare, check out Corpse Party or Higurashi. Is it a First-Person Shooter, Hack-and-Slasher, JRPG? Is the book Non-Fiction, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical? Any massive form of media will have genres and branching sub-genres, and Visual Novels are no exception. Like with any new game or book, the first thing a player or reader looks into is what genre their potential purchase falls under. Each dialogue choice you make can change the entire course of the story, and you might be surprised at how dark a ‘bad end’ can be if you make the wrong choice too many times. While there are games and books that have some branching storylines depending on character/reader choices, no genre does it quite as well as Visual Novels. You prefer the tan guy instead of the pasty one in a love triangle? You can go for him! Maybe you have a good idea who the killer is and want to pursue that route. Have you ever watched a movie, played a game, or read a book where you’re facepalming because the protagonist is making a stupid decision, or went the wrong way? In VN, you are the one making the choices. Despite the story and plot itself being the main focus point in the genre, many VN still have game mechanics ranging from simplistic to decently difficult, even for the average gamer, but we’ll get into that later.Įach VN is different in a lot of ways, but the one thing basically all of them have in common is their branching storylines. Visual Novels (or VN) are games that prioritize telling great and unique narratives, and are accompanied by some wonderful artwork and music.
And, as an avid reader and gamer, am I glad I was wrong. “You can’t play books or read video games!” I thought the same thing when I first discovered the genre. “What kind of witchcraft is this?!” you may be asking.
Luckily, the two genres came together to birth a love child they called Visual Novels that people on both sides of the aisle can adore. A beginners guide to the world of Visual Novels.Īre you the type of gamer that loves good stories in games but just doesn’t have the patience to sit down with a book? Or maybe you love to curl up with a good novel, but you’re weary of jumping into the gaming industry.