How old is "old" for a VN?

[Dreamysyu]

During my involvement with the visual novel community, I noticed quite a lot of VN fans mentioning that they avoid reading older titles. This made me want to discuss a few questions about old VN's and how people around here see them.

1. How old must a VN be for you to consider it "old"?
2. Do you have some age limit so that you will never read a VN older than that, or are highly unlikely to do so?
3. Approximately how many VN's from before 2001 did you read? Did you like them?
4. Do VN's generally age well, technically and story-wise?

[Andromis]

Well, in my opinion I don't mind if a VN is old or not,  the age VN that I am reading does not bother me in the slightest bit. If its enjoyable, why should I care about how old it is?

[Plk_Lesiak]

This is slightly beside the point, but I consider any OELVN published before 2014 as pretty much "prehistoric". It was around that year, with Sekai going official and games such as Sunrider and Sakura Spirit coming out that the western VN scene become something more than just a small circle of fan-producers.

With VN in general, I guess I always thought of stuff from before 2010 as "old stuff". After all, it was Key in early 2000s that cemented the formula with Kanon and Air, so everything from before 1999/2000 would be basically a proto-VN, and I think those games from the 90s are often heavily dated, while those made between 2000 and 2010 just have different feel to them.

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[MaggieROBOT]

I loooove old games aesthetics, but I play more games emulating those old 8bit stuff than actual old games, since compatibility problems...... But then again, what I usually consider old is "released before I was born" meaning before '93. Soooo yeah.

And I hate the "it didn't age well" argument with a passion. A good game is a good game, regardless of graphics. Blame the art style or the plot if you didn't find the game appealing, not how old it is!!!

Edited March 11, 2018 by MaggieROBOT

[Okarin]

VNs don't age well in my opinion, because engines are progressively better and so are ideas, concepts, tropes and stories overall. Maybe art too. 90's art was very particular and easily recognisable. I guess the guidelines for designing characters back then where tighter.

So, you can't really compare a 2016 VN to a 1996 one, even if the step is 20 years, and the tech difference is obvious, but that's just the thing when digging old VNs, VN history is huge, man.

For the lulz, consider that when I plugged or unplugged the earphones to the PC, "Evangelion Girlfriend of Steel" (late 90s) crashed XD

[Plk_Lesiak]

4 minutes ago, MaggieROBOT said:

And I hate the "it didn't age well" argument with a passion. A good game is a good game, regardless of graphics. Blame the art style or the plot if you didn't find the game appealing, not how old it is!!!

Well, graphics are graphics, but you also have things like the UI and just game mechanics being refined over time. I know some games that felt pretty impressive at their time but now seem clunky to the point of being barely aproachable, just because you expect better. It's less of an issue with adventure/story-driven games, but still... 

Edited March 11, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[MaggieROBOT]

1 minute ago, Okarin said:

I guess the guidelines for designing characters back then where tighter.

Is it any different now? Throw a moege character my way and I'll definitely take 50 tries before I can guess the VN.

[Okarin]

More than that, I guess if we spent a time playing games from the 90s we would see that back then the scene was completely different... more silly erotic games with no polish at all (cough cough Cobra Mission), very few plot-driven games (fewer than now), more boring simulators overall, and the H scenes more vanilla and oriented to classic hentai, without the fetishes now present... the community was effectively smaller.

[MaggieROBOT]

21 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Well, graphics are graphics, but you also have things like the UI and just game mechanics being refined over time. I know some games that felt pretty impressive at their time but now seem clunky to the point of being barely aproachable, just because you expect better. It's less of an issue with adventure/story-driven games, but still... 

Well, then it's a problem that you're judging a say '80 game by today's standard and that's just wrong imo

There's tons of games with clunky UIs even today. Can't say much about game mechanics because I'm biased towards RPGs with turn based system, that was invented pretty much due to technical limitations, and I know that this system pisses some people off now.

Edited March 11, 2018 by MaggieROBOT

[Codesterz]

1. Old to me is a VN that doesn't use a widescreen aspect ratio and isn't running a resolution of at least 720p. Yes I realize that still happens in new VNs, but look at it this way. Modern day TV's or monitors are pretty much all 720p or higher and are widescreen. So making a VN with a lower resolution means you are targeting OLD outdated resolutions and aspect ratios that just need to die already. So in my book they can be considered old. Still waiting for VN's to start hitting a native 1080p resolution. Why is Japan so far behind when it comes to standards like this?

2. I don't have an age limit for VN's it mostly comes down to the visuals.

3. I've only read 1 VN from before 2001 which was Kana Little Sister. Loli and incest can you blame me for wanting to read it?

4. Story wise they can age well, technical though I would have to say no. That may change once we start reaching resolutions where the pixel density alone negates the need for anti aliasing which makes  going higher resolution becomes meaningless.

[Okarin]

4 minutes ago, MaggieROBOT said:

Is it any different now? Throw a moege character my way and I'll definitely take 50 tries before I can guess the VN.

Well, most of the time they want to design a cute character. What constitutes "cute" shifts over time, and each era has its own ideas about it. What's true is that a given time, most designers abide by that time's rules.

[arosia]

I think probably the biggest thing for me would be the UI and the native resolution of the VN.

[VirginSmasher]

I'd honestly consider VNs from before 2002 to be old. They just have that certain artstyle to them that makes their age obvious.

[Ranzo]

@MaggieROBOT Yas girl sing it!

I have no problem with old vn's in any particular way I think they are still worth checking out if you are a fan of the medium.

Tsukihime and Ever 17 are both what you might called old (2000 and 2002) and I would say they are definitely two of my most favorite Visual Novels.

Of course, the main problem with a lot of older Visual Novels is that they are hard to run on new computers but that is true of video games as well.

As far as the aging art style goes would you be reluctant to check out a highly praised anime just because it was made in the late 80's early 90's?

The oldest I ever went was when I played True Romance which was a dating sim that came out in 95. Even though it was bare bones in every respect it still had a stupid charm about it that I liked.

[Dreamysyu]

34 minutes ago, Ranzo said:

Of course, the main problem with a lot of older Visual Novels is that they are hard to run on new computers but that is true of video games as well.

Well, I usually just run VN's from before 2002 on Windows XP virtual machine. It's much simpler than trying to make them work on newer OS's.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Dreamysyu
>.<

[Overlord87]

A good story is a good story, so I really don't understand why a good VN should age badly. It's like saying a novel from 1800 is bad just because it's old. Nonsense.

If we're talking moege, then things are different of course. Increased graphic quality can definitely help there, along with other general improvements. Same should work for nukige. But those are title that most likely weren't really good to begin with, and you'd read them only for entertainment value, and then obviously if faced with a choice you'd pick a more modern title of the same kind.

[Yuuko]

stuff that isn't 1080p  

[Funyarinpa]

Honestly, at this point, it's mostly down to whether I find the graphics appreciably old. This means that almost any 4:3 VN will appear old to me, especially those with limited resolution options.

[Clephas]

Most people refer to a VN as 'old' by art style, first and foremost.  So, as a rule of thumb, the art bigots tend to want to avoid anything made more than seven years ago. 

1. I consider anything made before Tsukihime to be ancient/prehistoric.

2.  I'm sorry to say I just don't have an interest in VNs made before the year 2001

3.  0 that I know of. I'm not interested.  Most of the best from the pre-2000 era that weren't nukige were psychedelic, mystery, or horror from what people tell me... genres I'm not really interested in. 

4.  Mmm... the 'aging issue' with VNs has never been as bad as it has been with video games, because, after 2006, visual styles have only had incremental improvements.  However, the fact remains that stuff from the turn of the century mostly looks awful and/or unrefined by today's standards due to the limitations on available tools at the time.

[Okarin]

38 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

Well, I usually just ran VN's from before 2002 on Windows XP virtual machine. It's much simpler than trying to make them work on newer OS's.

Well it goes like this: at the turn of the millennium the most widespread processors were 16-bit. The software for those you can run in a 32-bit system. If your main system is 64-bit, you NEED to use a 32-bit system on a virtual machine, because your system doesn't natively run 16-bit.

For example, I've got some old magazine CDs meant for Windows 9X that I can only run in 32-bit Win 2008 Server (that's because it's the most readily system I've got). Those are from 22 years old and up. Is the trip down memory lane exciting? Well, NO. It feels cringey, but it's a good testimony to how tech improves dramatically over time.

I may cringe about shareware programs from 20 years ago, but I wouldn't shun old animes and VNs because, I was there and know how that art is. That said, they'd still look dated, even if a bit romantic.

It's like reviewing old chat sessions from your past self -it's true you didn't know better, but it's also cringey how silly you were and how small your world was.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Okarin

[Dreamysyu]

5 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Well it goes like this: at the turn of the millennium the most widespread processors were 16-bit. Those you can run in a 32-bit system. If your main system is 64-bit, you NEED to use a 32-bit system on a virtual machine, because your system doesn't natively run 16-bit.

Well, I know that, but my experience shows that even 32-bit apps from that time period often refuse to run for some reason, and compatibility doesn't help. Or, in some cases, there are problems with video codecs, or game-breaking bugs at unexpected places. I decided that it's easier to run them on a virtual machine than trying to solve all these problems when they arise.

Though for some reason VirtualBox doesn't work well on my new laptop. Just a piece of advice: don't buy 4K displays, they aren't worth it.

[Norleas]

In my opinion it's possible to separate the vn history in some periods:

Before 1990: Prehistoric age

1990 - 1997: Ancient age

1997 - 2000: First transitional period

2000 - 2007: Classical age

2007 - 2010: Second transitional period

2010 - nowadays: Modern age

I particularly consider everything launched before 2007 old to the actual standard, though until 2011 there some games aligned with the classical age. I only played a little more than a 5 or 6 games from before 2000 and i consider that year my age limit.

[Guest]

UGH y'know I hate VNs that don't run at a smooth 60 Fps, 1800p 4k resolution. So DISGUSTING!!!

Joking aside, I really don't care about age as long as the story is good. Even some "old" VNs have better art than some "new" ones.

Like I'll take YU-NO's art over a random modern moege anytime.

Also Tsukihime is better than Fate IMO. Kill me.

 

[Dreamysyu]

4 minutes ago, SeniorBlitz said:

Also Tsukihime is better than Fate IMO.

Actually, I agree. On the average, I like the characters and the world-building in Tsukihime more than in Fate. Though Fate is also great, of course.

[Darklord Rooke]

Anything before 2000 is old for me. I actually prefer the art style from back then and I don't know why. I get warm fuzzies every time I see art like this: