Your Top 3 Visual Novels with Gameplay

[mitchhamilton]

Pretty much what the title says. They can be translated or not translated if you wish. Explain why the three you have chosen stand out among other vn with gameplay. Here are mine.

 

Number 3: Yumina The Ethereal

The gameplay for this is really unique. You and your enemy must share audience rating (which is basically SP or MP) to defeat on another. Theres certain colors each character can use before an attack or buff so you have to manage your moves carefully, otherwise you could end up doing nothing. This can also help since the enemy uses the same source of power as you and you can drain it so the enemy cant do certain attacks. But this also means that you yourself are limited to certain attacks as you try to limit theirs. It's a real interesting mechanic that I don't think I've seen in any other vn or game. Thats not all though. There's exploration quests, item management, a giant skill tree. Yumina the Ethereal is great, not just for its character but for its gameplay, writing, funny moments, and genuinely great experience it provides.

 

Number 2: Sengoku Rance

 

While the story is engaging, the main character Rance can rub some people the wrong way. He's arrogant, thickheaded, has a slave that he cares very little for, and he sleeps with mostly anything with a vagina, whether they are willing or not. But to some hes a fun loving, easygoing kind of guy. Of course this is not why it's not on this list. The gameplay is so addicting. You can do so much in 5 minutes and not even realize it. When starting out you have only two turn points to work with, and you realize how precious these are real quick. How will you use them? Go into a dungeon to level up all your non ko'ed generals? Attack an enemy territory? or just not attack at all and build up your defences. despite my limited amount of examples just then, there is a ton to do in Sengoku Rance and something for each game you complete. You can add to the experience in new games as you use points youve earned for completing goals or beating the game in a certain amount of time. While very dated, it still holds up very well.

 

Number 1: Kamidori Alchemy Meister

I really cant thank the people who translated this one enough. I can't imagine how long this must have taken to completed as this is not only a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong vn but it has a tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon of items to not only translate, but translate their descriptions. The gameplay can be long but at the same time very fulfilling. As I said, there are a lot of items in Kamidori such as armor, weapons, additional items, buffs, quests, selling, and restoration. Probably a few I forgot. I could go on and on about this one but trust me. Go play it if you haven't already.

[gijimu]

The only VN with gameplay I have played is Sengoku Rance so...

1. Sengoku Rance

2. Sengoku Rance

3. Sengoku Rance

[sanahtlig]

1. The Ikusa Megami series (Ikusa Megami Zero): A true fantasy epic in a highly developed setting that tells a captivating tale of human drama, with the sophistication and shock factor of a God-tier eroge.  Oh, and it has gameplay too.
2. Aselia the Eternal: Same praises as the Ikusa Megami series, just dialed down a bit.  The battle system is pretty unique, but wasn't polished to a shine until Seinarukana.
3. Sengoku Rance: Probably the best gameplay I've seen in an eroge next to Kamidori Alchemy Meister.  One of the few comedy eroge I could actually enjoy, as the comic dialogue manages to not repeat the same gags over and over.  100% better not machine-translated.

[littleshogun]

By the way, to OP first I need to nitpicking. The title should be visual, not visaul lol.

To be honest, I didn't know much gameplay vn (If you talk about untranslated one. Otherwise, I think I knew all translated gameplay VN), but I'll try to give my best impression about gameplay vn. Since you limiting it to 3, so I think I'll just give 3 gameplay vn that catch my attention recently, although my explanation might expanded though.

1. Soukoku no Arterial - I knew it was machine translated if you using Nekohen patch, I'd already state several time about this game in some of my post (My first post here was give tips to this game too by the way) and I think I'll try to explain it. So the gameplay was you using the card to fighting your opponent, or in Yu-Gi-Oh term duel. While you fighting using card, actually you fighting like a normal people would. So for easier term this is actually SRPG, only using card for the battle. Although it's only for describe the battle, the rule was quite complex actually, but still more simple than Yu-Gi-Oh. As for SRPG element you could craft item like in Kamidori, copying the monster card, interact with girl in order to get their more powerful card (Just thinking Persona 3 or 4), and battling in the arena. I think I must stop it here, otherwise I might end up explaining my trick to beat Soukoku lol. Oh Nekohen also provided MT patch for Madou Koukaku and Himegari too if some of you here didn't care about using MT.

2. Eiyuu Senki - Actually the story was quite weak until you conquered EU, but the story goes like our MC was trapped in the world where all historical figure were all woman. The gameplay was more like Kichikuou Rance than Sengoku Rance actually. The MC was more like Domino from Romanesque iirc (Or maybe just generic nice guy, and Romanesque comparison because it's from same company). The battle system were interesting with brave and hate system. Brave was something like shared mana that gained either by us hitting normally to enemy or enemy hitting attribute bonus (Weakness) to us, while hate was hidden stat that determined enemy targeting pattern. Oh, in here you could also do some quest to gain affection from the girls and help the girls to get the skill that will help them in the battle.

As of now, this game actually officially localized for PS3, but some nice man at Russian forum rutracker making the patch that add PS3 translation to PC version, with unnecessary addition (imo) that allow us to get the character from PS3 version and restore H-Scene (I think the art of new characters was unfit in original Eiyuu Senki (I knew they use Kojirou for GOLD) and restored H-Scenes were not translated anyway (Beside, I think PS3 replacement H-Scenes was enough imo and quite nice actually)). But to some people who want H-Scenes, that's nice addition I think. Anyway, I'd played it and it managed to translated everything in PC Version except H-Scenes, which once again not much important compared to H-Scenes in said Konosora imo. 

3. Sengoku Rance - My first gameplay VN too and quite good one. It's quite hard if you didn't know what to do, but once you could understand mechanic in this game, it's actually very easy. Although I saw that many newbie made major mistake in regard of attacking Iga though, since it was weak country and that made the new player think Sengoku Rance was unwinnable game. I was actually stuck at play this game until I'd found this LP and following his way to beat Sengoku Rance with minor modification. After that, I'd dared to said the hardest enemy to me would be Tokugawa (Even without 5 of his raccoon bodyguard (And to accomplished that need some high luck), Ieyasu still tough and hit very hard) and Miko Institute (Damn you Souma Hayate and Himiko, Also, you couldn't use usual nuke from Natori before conquered Miko) instead of Demon Army. Oh, speaking about route, the best route would be True Route (Interestingly also default route), then tied between Yamamoto and Kenshin Route, and finally Ran Route is the worst route imo, although if some of you like Ran Route, that's okay too.

That's all for now. Actually there's still more, but I think those 3 should be enough to presented.

[mitchhamilton]

1 minute ago, littleshogun said:

By the way, to OP first I need to nitpicking. The title should be visual, not visaul lol.

[Clephas]

#1- Ikusa Megami Zero- Both for gameplay balance and story depth, there are few gameplay VNs that even get close to this.

#2- Eien no Aselia- In this case, it is despite the gameplay the game is enjoyable, but the story is good enough to cover for a lot of flaws.

#3- Ikusa Megami Verita- Not as good as Zero, but it does have an expansive story covering centuries.

[Funyarinpa]

1- Virtue's Last Reward 

2- 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors 

 

These two are just god tier VNs, not much for their puzzles

3- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair 

Class Trials are the my favorite gameplay sequence. Mmmmm. 

 

Runner-ups are Danganronpa 1 and YU-NO. 

[Zenophilious]

40 minutes ago, littleshogun said:

By the way, to OP first I need to nitpicking. The title should be visual, not visaul lol.

Fixed that because it was starting to massively irritate me 

Other than that, I don't have much to say.  I've only played part of Sengoku Rance, and I have Kamidori, Yumina and Aselia sitting on my HDD, gathering virtual dust until I can get to them.  From what I played of it, Rance was pretty damn fun, but could have used a better explanation of how certain mechanics worked.  I had to look them up online to even get how to play the game without losing relatively quickly, although that may be because I suck at strategy games  hahaha

[Arcadeotic]

I  guess I'll throw in mine as well:

1. Soukoku no Arteliar

2. Eien no Aselia

3. Danganronpa

[sanahtlig]

1 hour ago, littleshogun said:

1. Soukoku no Arterial - I knew it was machine translated if you using Nekohen patch, I'd already state several time about this game in some of my post

Why would you use unedited machine translation patches?  They provide no value over text hooking and running the text through a machine translator in real time.

[yetisphere]

Haven't played much gameplay VN's.But I'm playing Madou Koukaku now and this seems to be the best of the gameplay VN's that I've played so far for sure. I actually like the RTS style/town management/building over Kamidori's style.

The Story seems to be better than most of the gameplay VN's too.  I liked that theorycrafting bit with Garmus after the council.

I also liked the exposition and insight on all the nations each turn. Orfan is definitely the best character for me so far (for various reasons) 

Also its good that he enemy nations react to how you move like when you invade deep into Yun-Gasol, Zafuha suddenly threaten to attack you. However I could fight on all fronts easily with like 40 commanders that I have XD. But well early expanding and ceasfiring when you have some terriotory to work with seemed to be the best tactic so far.

It was pretty funny when I conquered the elves then found out that i shoudn't have done so because they actually join you though....speaking of which that are a lot of cases of that in this game. Gotta tread carefully since this is not rance^^

 

[Dergonu]

I really haven't played that many VNs with gameplay, so I'm going to have to do this

 

1. Beat Blades Haruka

2. Beat Blades Haruka

3. Beat Blades Haruka

 

Like I said, I haven't played that many games with gameplay, so it wasn't exactly a hard choice

Some of the things I liked about the BBH gameplay was how it could be suprisingly difficult, especially vs bosses, and since you got a bad end if you lost against bosses, you actually had to put some thought into how you trained your heroine.

The actual training was also pretty "fun", as it all involved H-scenes

(Also, you can't not love a game that rewards you if you have a twisted mind, letting you sacrifice your own heroines to get raped by losing on purpose ... )

[mitchhamilton]

2 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

I really haven't played that many VNs with gameplay, so I'm going to have to do this

 

1. Beat Blades Haruka

2. Beat Blades Haruka

3. Beat Blades Haruka

 

Like I said, I haven't played that many games with gameplay, so it wasn't exactly a hard choice

Some of the things I liked about the BBH gameplay was how it could be suprisingly difficult, especially vs bosses, and since you got a bad end if you lost against bosses, you actually had to put some thought into how you trained your heroine.

The actual training was also pretty "fun", as it all involved H-scenes

(Also, you can't not love a game that rewards you if you have a twisted mind, letting you sacrifice your own heroines to get raped by losing on purpose ... )

.........................................................i hate you.

[NickFreja]

1. Baldr Sky Dive
nice action VN and the story also good. shounen shit

2. Soukoku no Arterial
nice gameplay and story. love the demon route ( I think I simply love Aoba Ringo in there lol). shounen shit

[Arkamondal]

though haven't played enough vn's with gameplay but those i hv played nd liked are....

1. Kamidori Alchemy Meister
2. Yumina The Ethereal
3. Princess Waltz

-------------since you asked best played 3 so i hv ranked those....Tears to Tiara is also one of my fav....

[littleshogun]

@sanahtlig About that, maybe because I couldn't activated it (Too much steps I think) and I kind prefer full screen to play VN. Anyway, I think with help of walkthrough from wiki at least I could understand main story enough. It also help that I used to hear voice in anime, so I could picked some understanding from girl's voice. And yes, I knew the MT was mess in that patch, but to me it's easier solution over text hooker (Just copy and paste the BIN inside rar file on Soukoku game folder). And since you mentioned Seinarukana, guess I'll looks forward to that one when JAST release it.

@NickFreja For next VN, how about you got Beat Blade Haruka and Noble Work, if only the reason that you just want to hear Ringorin voice. Oh, in Haruka Ringorin voicing Narika and in Noble Works she was voicing Maya. Although those 2 VN may not suited your taste though.

[Tyr]

@littleshogun Soukoku no Arterial has a perfectly fine interface patch translating everything related to gameplay. I think it's machine assisted translated. There are some little errors I noticed which are probably the result of the translator not knowing some deeper concepts of Japanese grammar, but nothing gamebreaking. It's perfectly fine and considering that they translated hundreds of card, I think it's quite a feat.
That's everything you need to play the game.

The nekohen patchs should never be used. Heck, they use Google Translate instead of good MT. Shame on everyone who supports this shit.

[sanahtlig]

8 hours ago, yetisphere said:

Haven't played much gameplay VN's.But I'm playing Madou Koukaku now and this seems to be the best of the gameplay VN's that I've played so far for sure. I actually like the RTS style/town management/building over Kamidori's style.

 

It's generally agreed that Madou Koukaku has one of the poorer gameplay systems in a Eushully game (for various reasons).  But if you liked it, you'll probably love Eushully's other games.  Not to mention their upcoming game features a real-time battle system that looks similar, but is hopefully more refined.

[FinalChaos]

My gameplay vn list is pretty short at the moment too.
I have my sights set on the Ikusa Megami series as my most anticipated gameplay vn, and seeing them mentioned here just strengthens the hype. 

My list right now is -

1. Sengoku Rance

2. Monster Girl Quest

3. Bunny Black

[Kelebek1]

17 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

It's generally agreed that Madou Koukaku has one of the poorer gameplay systems in a Eushully game (for various reasons).  But if you liked it, you'll probably love Eushully's other games.  Not to mention their upcoming game features a real-time battle system that looks similar, but is hopefully more refined.

 

Madou Koukaku was absolutely fine. Gameplay isn't just the combat and nothing else, you had the base-building, unit production (and creation) and resource balancing aspect to it as well, and a decent degree of open-ness in which way you proceeded through the countries and what you did with them. It had a branching story from that, which is great. The things Eushully games have been sorely fucking lacking which ruins them are a linear story with no alternatives. Arterial was pretty godlike in that respect because the routes branched early and were very very different.

 

As far as I can see, this thread is for best VNs with gameplay, not "best gameplay VNs." You need to rank the whole thing, and as a whole, Madou Koukaku was pretty good. Eushully's recent games have been very linear in their story. La DEA and Rhapsody both were, Rhapsody horribly so. Sankai no Yubiwa is looking like the same thing, and hate to break it to ya, but the combat is even less involved, less refined and gives you much less control than Madou Koukaku did. If you thought Madou Koukaku's combat was bad, enjoy their new game m8. This'll be 2 shit games in a row from Eushully, it's not boding well for them.

[sanahtlig]

Problems I encountered with Madou Koukaku's system:

1. Uneven difficulty.  The difficulty spikes when you face Yun-Gasol (I barely won a few of the scripted battles) and then drops off completely.
2. Battle requires extreme micromanagement of units' position for optimal results, particularly for ranged units.  This was a constant source of frustration.
3. Micromanaging city building once you control many territories becomes extremely tedious.

I liked Madou Koukaku overall (mostly for the characters, story, and setting) but the battle system was weak--although it still has the best real-time SRPG combat system I've seen in an eroge.

I couldn't even finish Rhapsody due to the fundamental design flaws--in that respect Madou Koukaku is far superior.  I'll hold my judgment on Sankai no Yubiwa until I play it, but linear story and restricted freedom are not always demerits.

[Nashetania]

1. MGQ series

2. Kamidori Alchemy Meister

3. Danganronpa

[ChaosRaven]

I list my top three gameplay VN's according to how much I liked them and not ranked by the quality of its gameplay system.

1.) Koihime Musou

One of the first VN's I played but it's still one of my absolute favorites. The gameplay parts are rather light though - it's certainly not a gameplay VN. But the short battle sections were still a nice distraction.

2.) Kamidori Alchemy Meister

Certainly the best gameplay VN I've played so far and I really liked the setting and the characters (mainly Serawi). My main gripes with it was that it was rather grindy and therefore very time consuming.

3.) Demonion

I played that mainly because of M&M's art, but the dungeon keeper gameplay was pretty fun. It had two gameplay modes, a tower defense part for the dungeon defense and an attack mode to conquer territories. I liked that they didn't make a grinding game out of it and the gameplay parts were short enough that they didn't completely dominate the story sections. Though the biggest problem of the title were the lack of story and character development - it's still a nukige at heart. Fortunately, the rapy parts weren't that much of an issue since the VN was rather light hearted.

[sanahtlig]

18 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

the gameplay parts were short enough that they didn't completely dominate the story sections. Though the biggest problem of the title were the lack of story and character development - it's still a nukige at heart. Fortunately, the rapy parts weren't that much of an issue since the VN was rather light hearted.

Gameplay didn't dominate the mostly nonexistent story.  A lighthearted rape game.  This is a mess of contradictions!

[Ainz]

It's hard to pick only 3 because there are many of the good ones.. But if I really had to choose.

1. Kamidori Alchemy Meister

2. Ace Attorney 3

3. Daibanchou