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Has Your Relationship With VNs Changed Over Time?


Zalor

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A couple of days ago, I pretty abruptly starting thinking about my relationship to this medium and how its changed over time. Which inspired a blog post looking back on the first VN that truly gripped me and why it so effectively drew me to this medium. Over the years however, my interest in VNs (and otaku related things in general) have waned pretty significantly. I will still read and quite enjoy them on occasion, but not with any frequency. For me , I think it is mostly that the evolution of my tastes for storytelling have taken me to other places. Notably literature and film. 

But for those of you who have been into VNs and Otaku stuff for multiple years (maybe even decades) now. Has your relationship to the medium changed in any noticeable ways. Or do the habits/interests you held early on still predominantly persist after years?

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I've allways been into literature, film, video games, pretty much any medium for story telling. VNs are just another one of these for me and my interest in any of them can wane for a while and suddenly return with a vengeance or vice versa.

Maybe I'm easily influenced, but when I stumble across a work that is exemplary for why I grew to like that medium to begin with, it reignites a passion of sorts and I'll start to crack down on the respective backlog I have for that medium. 

For example, most recently that would have been return of the obra dinn for video games, while movies are currently on the backburner, except for maybe a marvel movie here or there.

Otaku related material may often come with inferior story telling and I can understand growing out of them. It still allows for a different kind of experience than other media and sometimes that's exactly what you want/need.

Edited by Ruberick
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I think I appreciate story VN's much more nowadays than in my early years when I was focused more on moege. I still like moege, but I'm definitely more spoiled and demanding now in that regard.

Though there are still some things that didn't change. I'm still a fanboy of some VN franchises like Kohime, Unionism Quartet or Walkure Romanze and I've still Ai from Tick Tack as my avatar. :rolleyes:

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I suppose in a few ways.

To start with, I have, in general, less time. Whereas before I actively looked for long VNs as the only way to get immersed in the VN world, these days I haven't found a VN I'd call 'short' for years. I take ages, no matter the length.

Before I was also both more and less picky. I used to only play all the big and famous VNs (Like Muv-Luv: Alternative, which I wouldn't play today), but then transitioned into playing all the romance ones, and now those really are all I play, aside from gameplay or mystery ones.

I enjoy the writing much more. The reason VNs are my medium of choice are because I prefer dialogue and character interaction over all other sorts of writing. That said, before I'd consume things just to say I finished them, even when I didn't understand what I was reading or had to filter out a bunch of sentences for being unable to parse them or understand their meaning (due to wrong grammar, for instance).

I'm also worse at finishing things before starting something else. More new things are coming out these days than they were previously, which is very good. I'm at a point where even if the industry implodes tomorrow, as long as all announcements we currently have are released I will never lack for reading material.

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I started in the Peach Princess days - more than 15 years ago.  The biggest difference for me has been quantity.  Good years for me at the beginning had three visual novels released in English that I wanted to play.  There have been several WEEKS this year when three visual novels were released in English that I wanted to play.  I didn't have a backlog at all until a few years ago.  Now I have more than ten purchased visual novels that I haven't played yet.  Just when I think I'll start catching up, there will be a big release week or something I didn't even know I wanted will get released and look so good that I have to play it immediately.  I used to be much more forgiving with what I played.  The visual novel could have some very obvious flaws.  It could be in genres that I didn't like very much.  But I played a wide variety and was sometimes positively surprised how much I liked something that I wasn't expecting to like as much.  Now if a visual novel isn't one of my favorite genres, or it has a single obvious flaw, it *might* make my backlog.  If I generally don't like that particular genre at all or it has multiple obvious flaws, I ignore it and don't even think about it again.  There are too many good ones to even consider ones that I don't think I'll like.

 

Beyond that, art has become much more important to me.  I look back at the art of some of the early games I liked and I wouldn't ever think of playing them now because of the art.  Developer loyalty has become more important to me.  If I like a visual novel by a particular developer, I'll buy their next visual novel.  If I like two visual novels by a particular developer, I'll pre-order their releases or buy them day one.

 

One thing that has stayed the same is that I do go through phases where I prefer playing certain types of games.  Visual novels, RPGs, strategy games, etc.  So there are times when I haven't played a visual novel for a little bit, but then I go back to playing them for months in a row.

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Other goals like writing, game dev, blogging, friends, work skills, etc. have become more concrete and important to me, such that I am no longer fine with centering my life around reading VN's. Actually my mind is so much on those things (regardless of progress or not) that I find it hard to immerse in VN's and keep reading regularly. Reading progress slows to a crawl.

Reading lots of VN's used to be a goal in itself to me. Now, I just chip away at 1-2 titles while stalling the rest. I also play some short interesting works from time to time, those are good fun too. Overall, I've dropped from 12 full-length VN's a year to reading 3-4 full-length VN's per year. I definitely could do better, with this mystical thing called time management, lol.

I still enjoy the medium a lot, but I think I like that familiar reading feeling just as much as the story. For discovering new kinds of titles, I rather do that for anime nowadays, as they are much shorter and -- everything is new to me in a way -- I haven't watched that many types of anime. (You could say I'm familiar with about 50% of VN genres, but only 20% of anime genres).

 

Edited by Chronopolis
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Definitely. I read VNs a lot less frequently now, but still get very hyped about the ones I do read. I think starting to work in the visual novel translation industry made me a little less excited about the idea of then also spending all my free time reading VNs. In a way I "read" VNs all day when I translate, after all. So, it's still a hobby I love, but I definitely spend less time reading VNs now compared to when I first got introduced to the medium.

 

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50 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

Definitely. I read VNs a lot less frequently now, but still get very hyped about the ones I do read. I think starting to work in the visual novel translation industry made me a little less excited about the idea of then also spending all my free time reading VNs. In a way I "read" VNs all day when I translate, after all. So, it's still a hobby I love, but I definitely spend less time reading VNs now compared to when I first got introduced to the medium.

 

Sounds like you might be reading VNs more than before if you are doing it for work. ;p It makes sense you wouldn't want to do something during your free time as much if its your job.

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Well I haven't read as many VNs as the veterans here, but so far what has changes is mostly being more critical about which title I should read since I have learned about pretty much all relevant official english releases and can read VNs in japanese as well and I have a really large backlog. At the start most things seemed interesting, but now I just go for the titles that I think I am really going to like.

Edited by bakauchuujin
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I used to read about 10 very long VNs a year. The amount of VNs I finish mostly didn't change, maybe even grew a bit, but VNs got a lot shorter on average. I still read giants from time to time (I finished Seinarukana this year), but also read a lot more short and very short VNs.

I also find it a lot more difficult to finish things I read recently. I start reading a VN and often even like it a lot, but then my attention just shifts to something else and I just stop caring at some point.

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19 hours ago, Chronopolis said:

Other goals like writing, game dev, blogging, friends, work skills, etc. have become more concrete and important to me, such that I am no longer fine with centering my life around reading VN's. Actually my mind is so much on those things (regardless of progress or not) that I find it hard to immerse in VN's and keep reading regularly. Reading progress slows to a crawl.

Reading lots of VN's used to be a goal in itself to me. Now, I just chip away at 1-2 titles while stalling the rest. I also play some short interesting works from time to time, those are good fun too. Overall, I've dropped from 12 full-length VN's a year to reading 3-4 full-length VN's per year. I definitely could do better, with this mystical thing called time management, lol.

Similar to chrono here. Wondered how and when it would be that I stopped reading vns. I haven't really do that yet. But after 8 years or so now. I can't really get into it anymore. At the very least, before I also think my goal of reading vns was a goal in itself. Because just reading vns just felt that good and enjoyable. Now. Its fun. But I can't get into it.

Haven't really turned away from otaku culture though. Reading like 50+ vols of Light Novel's each year. Just having text honestly feels more comfortable than the game-computer elements, which I find in the way. I find that hilarious tbh. Because I remember I found books the reverse when I started with vns.

Knowing myself though. I will prbly come back to vns again when I am bored of LN's. No idea when I'll totally stop though, 10 more years? haha.

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for sure. ive barely read any vns this year despite some decent vns coming out and what i do start i rarely finish. ive finished 167 visual novels in the like 8 years ive been reading vns. maybe a bit more cause there might be a few i dont remember. and i guess im just burnt out. ive read a fair amount of various vns from psychological horror, to nukige, to stories that just brought joy to my heart and ones that made me laugh hysterically.

 

BUT that being said, there are still ones id like to read. the future rance vns coming out and.... maggot baits. :rize:

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12 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

Right, because as we all know, the prophecy states: Once The Dorg stops reading VNs, the world shall perish.

So let's hope VNs continue keeping me interested, for the sake of the world and all the anime tiddies in it :tears:

There are anime tiddies in your world?  How did you transfer them past the screen?

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