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Why Visual Novels?


solidbatman

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I was wondering today, during my daily complain about how I hate VNs time, why do people read VNs? What do VNs offer that other entertainment mediums do not? For example, some visual novels are able to play with perspective in a unique way that other mediums cannot match to mess with how one interprets the story. Personally, I think many visual novels, if not nearly every single VN, fails to actually do anything with the medium itself and instead relies on tradition (for example, "VNs have always had X or Y so this VN has X in it too!") to push copies. Sometimes I see stories being pushed as a huge selling point for a VN, but that has me wondering often, why does it have to be a VN for the story to exist? Could the story work just as well as a novel/LN/manga? 

So my main question isn't so much what is a VN but why is a VN a VN? Yes I know, stupid question but it is something I'm curious about. 

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I think VNs have an advantage when it comes to harems, H-scenes and mystery.

When it comes to harems anime often don't have a proper ending and those that does tend to have it ending shortly after the main character gets together with one of the girls which means that you don't tend to get to see much of how they actually interact as a couple. Manga tend to have an ending where the main character chooses a girl, but again in these cases it seems like it tends to end shortly after they get together . As for light novels I am not certain since I haven't really read light novels and anime adaptions usually aren't complete but I would assume they are probably somewhat similar. As for VNs you get to choose which heroine you want the main character to get together with and due to most VNs having sex scenes you usually get to see their relationship develop for quite some time, then after you are done you can read the other girls routes as well. Because of this I think VNs tend to be able to handle harems much better than manga and anime.

 

H-scenes I think has an advantage over eroanime and eromanga due to the length of VNs. Eroanime tend to be quite short, have bad art and animation and pretty much just consist of sex scenes. Because of this I think it gets boring rather quickly, since it is so short and sex focuses the characters are almost never properly built up as anything you care about. Without any character to care about it pretty much just comes down to the scenario and how the character looks, since the art is generally quite poor that usually just leaves the scenario. For me at least this meant that once I had seen lots of different scenarios it just started feeling repetative and boring as they didn't have anything else of value to offer. Eromanga I think are better since the art usually is better and an artists style can keep things fresh, however a problem here is that they tend to be really short and as such I can't care about the characters and get bored rather quickly. As for eroge a lot of them are fairly long and does a good job making you like the character before the H-scenes which to me makes it more satisfying. Thinking about the popularity of Doujinshi based on characters from anime and manga I think this way of thinking is pretty common, but with VNs you get those scenes as an official part of the story rather than just some fanmade what if scenario.

 

As for mysteries I think the route system and choice system of VNs can be used really well to build up mysteries in ways other mediums can't really do. Choices can be used in a way to make you engaged by having you actually trying to figure out the best choices based on your knowledge and routes can be used to feed bits of information from different routes to build up a more complete story.

 

As for general story telling I think an apealing thing about VNs is that adding length does not neccessarily add a lot of cost for the developer. Due to sprites and backgrounds being used repeatedly a story can be expanded quite a lot just based on writing alone, this means that the author isn't as restricted as they are with manga or anime where new drawings need to be made for everything that happens. Also they are not restircted by weekly deadlines like manga and anime. Due to most of them having voice acting and the fact that they shouldn't have too long gaps without CGs there still is more of a cost to adding more text then there is for a light novel. An advantage they have over light novels however is their visuals and audio since I would imagine a lot of people want to see the characters drawn and hear them speak rather than just reading things like a normal book with a drawing here and there once in a while.

Btw I do not mean that VNs are better than the other mediums, I think each of them have their own advantages and things they excel at

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For me one major factor is the sexual content. I think it's cool to have a medium actually include proper H-scenes into the storytelling. It lets VNs do a lot of things with mature content other mediums can't, at least not in such detail. And, while it's not really a very deep reason, I have to be blunt, when I see a hot heroine it's nice knowing: I won't have to rely on fanart, I can probably bang her in the canon story. Wohoo.

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I can speak only for myself and my motivation to read VNs is a bit sketchy in the first place. At first, I simply kept them as an allowed exception while trying to limit my video game habits. It evolved to the current state of affairs, where I more or less stopped playing any other kind of games. The reason I find visual novel way less toxic for me is because they require some basic intellectual effort to follow the story and don't include endless gameplay loops I could burn countless hours on. They're stories to experience, and not autistic sandboxes that'll suck me in for a week and spit out with with bloodshot eyes and realisation of dozens of hours burned on something that didn't even left me an impression that would be worth sharing with anyone.

But, if course, if there wasn't something in VN that I really enjoyed, I wouldn't get so much into them. For me its:

1. Incredible variety of conclusive romance stories. I honestly didn't know I liked romance stories this much before I came back to watching anime regularly and started reading VNs. But anime quite too often means harem comedies and I happen to hate "romance" in those. Because they never commit and when they do, it's usually not the girl I was rooting for. This is why having a route for every heroine is an enormous perk. I identified the best girl? I can get the MC to romance her. I like some secondary ones? Also covered. The rest of them? I probably got enough connection to the whole cast by this point to enjoy them too in the end. No linear media will give me that.

2. Variety of romance stories once more. Yuri, otome, galge, BL. Fluffy love stories and serious drama. Tiny games for half an evening and novel-sized epics. VNs got you all covered. It might get stale if you just read moege, but, partially because of my weird blogging endeavours, I end up reading incredibly varied stuff and so far I didn't get bored of any of it.

3. Anime art. I love anime art over any other style. Give me anime girls kissing and you can take all the rest of my visual media away, I won't complain much. But aside from my personal deviancy, VN art is just that good in many cases.

4. And well, for someone like me, with pretty limited visual imagination, in many cases VNs are simply more compelling than literature. I like having at least some visual representation of what I'm reading to give my mind some point of reference/guide on how to interpret it all. For example, I'm not sure if I'd have enjoyed reading Dune as much as I did if I didn't have some vision of its world from the classic games I played. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, but from my experience, that's just how my brain is wired and I can't do much about it. VNs are a pretty good compromise between literary text and graphics, showing you a lot but still leaving a lot of gaps for your imagination to fill.

Curious what other people's motivations are. :3

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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4 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

I can speak only for myself and my motivation to read VNs is a bit sketchy in the first place. At first, I simply kept them as an allowed exception while trying to limit my video game habits. It evolved to the current state of affairs, where I more or less stopped playing any other kind of games. The reason I find visual novel way less toxic for me is because they require some basic intellectual effort to follow the story and don't include endless gameplay loops I could burn countless hours on. They're stories to experience, and not autistic sandboxes that'll suck me in for a week and spit out with with bloodshot eyes and realisation of dozens of hours burned on something that didn't even left me an impression that would be worth sharing with anyone.

But, if course, if there wasn't something in VN that I really enjoyed, I wouldn't get so much into them. For me its:

1. Incredible variety of conclusive romance stories. I honestly didn't know I liked romance stories this much before I came back to watching anime regularly and started reading VNs. But anime quite too often means harem comedies and I happen to hate "romance" in those. Because they never commit and when they do, it's usually not the girl I was rooting for. This is why having a route for every heroine is an enormous perk. I identified the best girl? I can get the MC to romance her. I like some secondary ones? Also covered. The rest of them? I probably got enough connection to the whole cast by this point to enjoy them too in the end. No linear media will give me that.

2. Variety of romance stories once more. Yuri, otome, galge, BL. Fluffy love stories and serious drama. Tiny games for half an evening and novel-sized epics. VNs got you all covered. It might get stale if you just read moege, but, partially because of my weird blogging endeavours, I end up reading incredibly varied stuff and so far I didn't get bored of any of it.

3. Anime art. I love anime art over any other style. Give me anime girls kissing and you can take all the rest of my visual media away, I won't complain much. But aside from my personal deviancy, VN art is just that good in many cases.

4. And well, for someone like me, with pretty limited visual imagination, in many cases VNs are simply more compelling than literature. I like having at least some visual representation of what I'm reading to give my mind some point of reference/guide on how to interpret it all. I'm not sure if I'd have enjoyed reading Dune as much as I did if I didn't have some vision of its world from the classic games I played. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, but from my experience, that's just how my brain is wired and I can't do much about it. VNs are a pretty good compromise between literary text and graphics, showing you a lot but still leaving a lot of gaps for your imagination to fill.

Curious what other people's motivations are. :3

I didn't understand the question to be "Why do you read VNs over doing other stuff?", but if it is, then the above accurately represents my opinion in almost all aspects. I find less need for variety, but am otherwise generally in agreement with the sentiments above.

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My two cents:

1. Perhaps it speaks something about the lack of truly great reading material that I have read (despite me being a lit major) but I find that some visual novel storytelling exceeds pretty much every other form of literature I have read. Stories such as Muv-Luv Alternative, G-senjou no Maou and Fate/Stay Night are in my own opinion, some of the pinnacle of the genre - at least those translated in English.

2. The art and sometimes animation that occurs in VNs treads the fine line between being able to visualise it, yet leaving out just enough to allow my imagination to fill in the gaps. Although books can portray scenes that allow vivid imagination of the entire scene, these scenes have to be grounded in some logic. However, I find that VNs allow you to imagine incredulous scenes that is otherwise nigh impossible, yet leaving out enough such that your imagination is allowed to enhance the scenes.

3. H-scenes and the ability to romance your favourite heroines. 'nuff said.

4. The sheer breadth and depth of VNs. I guess this applies to most of Japanese visual culture, but VNs, as a sub-genre of visual culture also has a dizzying array of themes and stories to tell, and they are sometimes beyond anything the western world has conceived. Stories such as Island, Wonderful Everyday, Ever17 and the Liarsoft games (The WAB series), are just some of the examples of prose that simply does not exist (at least as far as I know) in English literature.

There's much more to why I love VNs as a genre - such as the music, production values and even the psycho-social culture, but the above are some of my main reasons.

Edited by LAsuka
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39 minutes ago, solidbatman said:

While these are some good answers as to why you read visual novels, the core of my question was more along the lines of asking why do visual novels exist? Why do creators choose visual novels over other forms of media to express their stories?

Maybe some of the creators of VNs are like me in that they like their stories to have and end? My feeling when looking at manga/LN is often, that a lot of them operate under the principle "Oh the readers like your work; now write/draw it until they don't like it anymore and we can think of an ending then".

I at least feel that is one of the biggest advantages of VN, in that they can tell a complete story and be as long as they need to be. In other mediums you would have to split your story in parts. Even a romance VN with multiple heroines would be several books for example.

Edited by Formlose Gestalt
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1 hour ago, solidbatman said:

While these are some good answers as to why you read visual novels, the core of my question was more along the lines of asking why do visual novels exist? Why do creators choose visual novels over other forms of media to express their stories?

Good question to ask on Lemma where actual developers hang out. ;)

But IMO, the ability to tell multi-route, interactive stories is the obvious one. With VNs in which multi-route structure matters, it's not even a question why they are not in any other medium. They simply couldn't be. You could possibly ask why are they not other kinds of video games, but especially with SoL titles, that kind of framing makes little sense? There are of course ways to convey stories through gameplay, but if your number one goal is to present a complex, branching narrative, this kind of interactive fiction is just a logical and cost-effective choice.

With kinetic novels it's more of a legitimate question. but still, VNs offer a pretty unique multimedia experience. Would Eden* manga, Eden* LN or Eden* novel be as rich of an experience as the original is? Probably not, because they wouldn't offer that complete mix of high-quality visuals, music, VA and literary text. They could modify the original to create an excellent experience in their own formula, but they'd have to sacrifice some aspects of it in the process. Not to claim VNs are by default a superior medium, because that's always a dumb thing to say with how much taste and execution matters in this, but they definitely have their merits.

And in the end, there's VN being PC games that can include porn. I'm always a bit sceptical about claims of what porn can do for a story, but I have no doubts about how much story can do for porn. In the West, pornography with genuine, compelling context to it doesn't exist. It all operates in the Pornhub philosophy of fap-length videos with 30-second buildups. If you want to tell a genuine story combined with hentai you make a VN and for the players, it offers an experience that they pretty much can't find anywhere else.

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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VNs actually offer a lot in terms of what the creators can do that isn't really possible in other media. They can use the similar literary devices as in plays while having the possibility for a first person narrator, passages in prose and a branching narrative, while keeping full control over the visuals, soundtrack and acting choices and without having the same time restrictions which offers more options when it comes to story structure and pacing.

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I agree that vns (as they are now) aren't utilizing the full potential of the medium. I think that's why the appeal of vns isn't readily apparent to most people. If I remember correctly, some of the earliest vns were erotic dating sims made in anime art styles, which paved the road for the conventions seen in vns today. Since vns are still a relatively new medium, I don't think they've had enough time to blossom out of these conventions. For now, the appeal of vns relies on the appeal of the current conventions: character-driven stories based on romance and graphic sex.

I think there's some core aspects of vns that can appeal to people outside of the current conventions, and they're based on the structure of the medium rather than genres. They include the combination of text, sprite/bg/cg art, sound/music, and digital design. Each of these things express something unique on their own, but when combined, they have to adapt to each other to form a functional and well-crafted piece of art.

I've heard many people compare vns to digital books, but I think a more accurate comparison is with plays. When you have things like art and sound effects, descriptions can become redundant; when you cut them out, you're left with dialogue and internal monologues (with some descriptions if you don't have the assets you'd need to convey everything). Art can bring the text alive on its own merit, while books require readers to use descriptions as fuel for their imaginations. I think cgs are already used well as they are now, but vn creators tend to cut corners with sprites and bgs-they use the same images over and over again. Having these pieces changed to convey different things (for example, having a character's sprite set gaining dark circles under their eyes to convey their fall into depression, or having objects in bg art used as symbolism that reflects the POV character's state of mind) can enhance the story in a way the text can't. Music is often used as a tool to enhance the story, but music can also be used as a separate way of conveying the story. Instruments can be used as symbols for characters or certain ideas, and a bit of music theory can be applied to make the soundtrack itself a medium of storytelliing; maybe instruments that represent sounds from the story's setting could be used for tracks that represent everyday life, or maybe tracks could be written to represent specific scenes instead of general emotions. Sound effects and voice acting breathe life into the setting and characters, respectively. I think both could be used more liberally, as they can add or affirm details relevant to each scene of the vn. The technical design of the vn can do a lot, but it's often overlooked. For example, text boxes could be used to convey different ideas, fonts could establish tone/mood, and text size and color could be used to represent emotions or change the way something in the text is perceived by the reader. Vns are read by clicking to new blocks of text, which could be used to create a sort of rhythm to the narration, or it could allow certain lines to be emphasized when they would otherwise blend in with the rest of the paragraph. The inclusion of choices and routes can enhance storytelling in a way that can't be found in mediums where the consumer is otherwise passive, but kinetic vns can still use the other core aspects in a way that's still unique and interesting.

To sum it up, I agree with what everyone else has said-vns are appealing because they turn multiple mediums that form a unique amalgamation of mediums, and, as a result, they can't be divided into an already existing artistic platform. Vns essentially provide a strange experience that can't be pinned down in anything else.

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1 hour ago, Stormwolf said:

I think most who play eroge is playing it to fill an empty void in themselves. "I hate 3d girls etc" such bullshit. They want a gf but they have serious trouble getting one and go for the next best thing. Amazing how men change once a girl is into them.

Hey, I, for example, truly developed my obsession with 2D girls after being a few years years into a relationship.* I think you're confusing a loud, sad minority of VN with the community as whole, at least when it goes to incel-like attitudes to women. :P

* But maybe that's why I'd rather see anime girls hitting on each other than on some faceless, self-insert protagonist? Huh... :o

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10 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Hey, I, for example, truly developed my obsession with 2D girls after being a few years years into a relationship.* I think you're confusing a loud, sad minority of VN with the community as whole, at least when it goes to incel-like attitudes to women. :P

* But maybe that's why I'd rather see anime girls hitting on each other than on some faceless, self-insert protagonist? Huh... :o

But you're clearly an exception to the rule

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1 hour ago, Stormwolf said:

I think most who play eroge is playing it to fill an empty void in themselves. "I hate 3d girls etc" such bullshit. They want a gf but they have serious trouble getting one and go for the next best thing. Amazing how men change once a girl is into them.

:notlikemiya: 

Once again, I'm not asking why people play VNs, so I really don't think insulting VN players was really necessary nor was I looking to hear bitterness about how people change after entering a relationship. You make it sound as if you lost a friend in battle. 

In regards to the branching reasoning I've seen brought up, such as character routes, if a VN has a true route, why bother with the branching narrative with routes, especially with how many games ignore character route developments in true routes? Would you consider that resources wasted that could have been sunk into a new title, or more resources allocated to the true route narrative?  

Personally, I think visual novels are a poor form of story telling medium with a huge caveat to my position being that I think they are wonderfully accessible, especially in the West where various engines make it very easy for people to create them. I feel that visual novels in both East and West, due to the lower production costs over a video game, higher interactivity than a book, are a great way for aspiring story tellers to experiment with ideas and techniques for story telling. Visual novels have many weaknesses (most of them self-inflicted in my opinion) but I think the points raised in this thread are solid but miss just how great a VN can be for new story tellers to hone their craft. 

 

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Well if you wonder about why a VN is a VN, I'm more wonder on why you at VN forum when you stated that you always find a flaw in the VN. Although in that case, then perhaps you like the VN more than you realized (Because otherwise you wouldn't check the forum in the first place and just move on to manga/LN/novel). So I'll just say that perhaps you already find the answer within yourself there.

Edited by littleshogun
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40 minutes ago, littleshogun said:

Well if you wonder about why a VN is a VN, I'm more wonder on why you at VN forum when you stated that you always find a flaw in the VN. Although in that case, then perhaps you like the VN more than you realized (Because otherwise you wouldn't check the forum in the first place and just move on to manga/LN/novel). So I'll just say that perhaps you already find the answer within yourself there.

I'm curious on what other people think, hence the thread. I already said what I think in the post right above yours but my answer and views are not the only opinion on this. 

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Compared to say, Manga, VN's can have far longer length. And has music and voice acting.

Can you imagine Muv-Luv Alternative in Manga form? Quite a lot of content would have to be cut, so it wouldn't do it justice...

Can you imagine Grisaia no Kajitsu in Manga form? It would skimp out on a lot of sexual jokes (damn political correctness). The darker moments wouldn't be half as impactful either (without the music, and your imagination going over all the details).

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1º More plot than the anime (same as light novels?)

2º Censured...? no thanks, i want all of them, gore, h-scenes and everything.

3º First person, the epic moments, the fantastic plot with the music... even the anime cant do that.

4º Jesus, i want more to read, i want more plot, i dont want to see cutted scenes because they must cut them for the cost of the production.

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6 hours ago, solidbatman said:

In regards to the branching reasoning I've seen brought up, such as character routes, if a VN has a true route, why bother with the branching narrative with routes, especially with how many games ignore character route developments in true routes? Would you consider that resources wasted that could have been sunk into a new title, or more resources allocated to the true route narrative?  

Depends? But generally, hell no. I know my VN experience is different than yours, with how EVN and doujin-oriented it is, but I can think of maybe two games in which the true route really hurt my enjoyment of other arcs. It's, of course, best when all scenarios are very consistent with each other and create a believable set of "alternative universes", but in most cases I wouldn't trade the control that comes with choice-based, multi-route storytelling for anything else. Particularily in romance-oriented stories – I most of those I don't even see a reason to care much what the true route is and I love exploring different scenarios within that single setting. And I'm sure I'm not alone in that – it's not that those classic Bioware RPGs like KOTOR or first Mass Effect ever had amazing gameplay, people loved them for their stories and feeling of control they provided, ability to shape your personal story and make those various paths compelling. VNs are simply that in distilled form. Edit: I guess I went into "why we like VNs" topic again, but you can't REALLY separate that from why people make them. I think most people create the kind of stories they personally find compelling. Or they create stuff they think others will enjoy. In both cases, the idea of "choices that matters" and stories with substantial branching paths IS popular.

6 hours ago, solidbatman said:

Personally, I think visual novels are a poor form of story telling medium with a huge caveat to my position being that I think they are wonderfully accessible, especially in the West where various engines make it very easy for people to create them. I feel that visual novels in both East and West, due to the lower production costs over a video game, higher interactivity than a book, are a great way for aspiring story tellers to experiment with ideas and techniques for story telling. Visual novels have many weaknesses (most of them self-inflicted in my opinion) but I think the points raised in this thread are solid but miss just how great a VN can be for new story tellers to hone their craft. 

If the weaknesses are "self-inflicted", are we talking about VNs as a formula or the VN market? If you say they are a "poor storytelling medium" you're implying a lot more than just that the VN template is poorly utilized by developers. I'd like to hear your specific rationale behind that and what media are you actually comparing them to in that assessment, otherwise it's pretty hard to talk about it.

I fully agree with the accessibility part though. I guess it was mostly implied in other answers, including mine, how such narratives are hard to convey through gameplay-focused video games and some other forms of media, at least without massive resources.

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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12 hours ago, solidbatman said:

While these are some good answers as to why you read visual novels, the core of my question was more along the lines of asking why do visual novels exist? Why do creators choose visual novels over other forms of media to express their stories?

Huh. That's a lot harder to answer, lol. (Yet my answer is much longer than my first comment. :P )

One reason could be the interactive aspect. It's possible to create many different endings with choices left up to the reader. Books can't really do this properly with "serious" writing, as choose your own adventure books are often looked at as childish. Meanwhile, VNs are meant for a mature audience by default*, so they don't have that issue. Writers are given lots more freedom to tell several sides of the story with choices and branching.

The ability to add more personality to the characters and the game's world through art, music, and voices is also something normal books can't do. And since VNs aren't full-on games, but interactive stories, they don't have to compete with the AAA game industry, since VNs fit into their own little niche instead.

Lastly, this might be something limited to the Japanese side of things but: I think in Japan, it's common for people to have less than modern computers that might not be able to run high-end games. VNs, even modern ones, rarely require much power from your computer, so it's an accessible medium for most people in terms of being able to run them. Meanwhile, a new AAA game will most likely break any computer that's more than two years old, which means there's a lot of people who might not be able to play it even if they want to.

* (All-ages stories might be more common in VNs here in the west, but in Japan, 90% of new releases will be eroge. So, "mature by default" is based on the Japanese market and not the western one.) 

Edited by Dergonu
typo
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