Locked routes

[wattstax]

After starting "If my heart had wings" I realized, that some routes are only playable when finishing other routes before. So my question: What is the reason behind it from the developers view point? Why not make every route free from the beginning?

And something on topic:

In general are you playing every route in the game or are you satisfied with your favourite heroines?

[Izuru]

Its The Way To Understand More The Story~

[JakeDPhil]

It's all about story progression. Some routes would make little to no sense without playing the route needed to unlock it.

[Nosebleed]

There can be plenty of reasons.

 

Most common is for the sake of making you want to play more because this route is locked therefore it's special (at least that's the train of thought they want).

Sometimes it's for the sake of the plot. Happens a lot with true routes because these are the ones that reveal everything and thus are locked until you gather all the information (or something along those lines). For example: Refrain in Little Busters and Yume's route in Hoshimemo.

Others are just pure fanservice like Harem routes and things like that since they're better than normal routes they're locked until you complete a certain amount of routes in order to be rewarded.

 

All of them are based on the keyword: Reward.

I think that's the jist of it at least. 

 

I usually tend to play in order to unlock everything to see if it's worth it. But i'll skip ones i dislike.

[cryofrzd]

I try to read all routes. For VNs without route-unlocking I give the VN a chance on the other routes after I've read the routes I initially wanted to read, sometimes they surprise me positively and if so, I read more routes. For VNs with unlock-able routes, I might be more patient just to get the final/true routes, but there's a limit even there.

 

In short with good story-writing I read all routes, in simple chara-games I just read the ones which appeal to me.

[fun2novel]

There are two main reasons for this.

One is it gives the writers more control over the story progression. If a vn's story is plot focused then controlling how much information the player has enables the writers to write a much tighter plot.

 

Two, sometimes it's just a way to keep your play the game. Kind of a challenge like in other video games.

[Shaward]

I guess your question have been answered, about the second one i usually play all routes, because they give you a different point of view on the story

[krill]

i pretty much agree with nosebleed, dudes on the ball with this one its a reward system meant to encourage more gameplay and add additional replay value to a game that often gets finished once and never touched again. also as far as your second question goes, i have only played a few visual novels so far (33 finished and one in progress). but i completed all the ones i play if i have a choice i'll play the heroines i am most intrigued by first but i never skip routes no matter how bad they are  (i'm looking at you cute but annoying loli from brass restoration!)

[Tom]

i dont like the idea behind unlockable routes, since u will do alot skipping just to get to there

replayability works great with gameplay visual novels, to unlock harder modes for example

[suikashoujo]

I never skip routes after finishing at least one-and even then, I can only think of a couple times I (purposely) dropped a game without seeing even one ending. This is mainly because of all the times where I end up playing a route I thought I would dislike, only to end up loving the heroine in question by the time the credits roll. And funnily enough, coming back to the topic, a lot of examples of that come from games where I could only see and/or understand the true route by playing through characters I initially disliked (like Touko from Cross Channel, Tsugumi from Ever17, and Mizuha from G-Senjou). So I don't know if that's the intended purpose of having locked routes (in fact, it probably isn't), but for me it's what gets me to play routes I normally wouldn't want to.

[Clephas]

I generally play every route, unless it is a straight-up moege.

[meru]

I think everyone's covered the unlockable routes question. I really like unlockable secret character routes (most recent one I played was in Enzai), it's exciting to not know what's coming and not have any opinions formed about a character yet.

I play every route because I'm a completionist. I really wish I wasn't sometimes >.<

[Freestyle80]

I play the routes that i actually like first and if i'm bored enough i complete the other ones too generally but not always

thats why i dont really like the format of Hoshimemo or Ever17 where u have to literally do every goddamn route to reach the conclusion

[Yukiru]

I think that's because the story needs to be built little by little, until every block of the story is in place.

You can take Little Busters! and Symphonic Rain where you unlock the true colors of the VN at the end as an example, or you can take Tsukihime where you finish the first route thinking, oh well this guy beats the bad guys and gets the girls, but then the next route flips whatever you had in mind and the next one does the same thing.

 

They do that pretty much for the surprise and the impact it gets.

[Bolverk]

I usually aim for the routes that I initally find interesting, then read all of the routes afterwards. When I read in english I read every route always one VN at a time.

Now I tend to jump around multiple VN and complete routes as I see fit. I find it a lot easier to lose interest in reading a VN because it's harder to read it in japanese. Though I can choose from whatever I want, so I guess also I am becoming slightly spoiled lol. So that might also be part of it.

[Kuky_nekoi]

When there are no blocked/hidden routes, I go first for the "My True route" (the route that your heart desire most) then, the other routes.

But if there are any blocked/hidden routes, if "my true route" isn't available at the beginning, I clear the routes in the order that the characters appear or by the first available...

[douggle]

To me I think having an enforced reading order is a good thing... if you were reading a book you wouldnt just start in the middle, you would go through gradually from beginning to the end. So the idea of unlockable routes imo is good.

[Vokoca]

After playing quite some VNs, I've come to realize that I almost rely on the locked-route format, since that's what keeps me interested in the story -- the promise of a mystery, if you will, or just the fact that there is a "true ending" that is better than the rest. Clannad and Little Busters would be the obvious examples, where the meat of the story really kicks in only in the true route, which makes them so enjoyable.

 

I've noticed this for the first time when I played Kanon. The fact that there was no unlockable route really confused me, and after finishing one route, I honestly felt kind of lost. I still finished all the routes, though something was missing, it just felt odd to have multiple endings with none standing out.

 

This just applies to true routes in general I suppose, since even with the aforementioned 'If My Heart Had Wings', I completely lost interest after finishing Ageha's route. The story felt complete, and I felt no motivation to read the rest... and I still need to get back to it.

 

So I'd say it's a good strategy. Maybe it's my fault for coming to expect it because of the VNs I played, but I really do miss it when it's not there.

 

 

... or you can take Tsukihime where you finish the first route thinking, oh well this guy beats the bad guys and gets the girls, but then the next route flips whatever you had in mind and the next one does the same thing.

Since you brought it up, I was really disappointed how all of the routes more or less relied on the same plot twist. It felt like that once you read one route, there was very little that could surprise you - and sure, while there were some nice details and plot points in the other routes, it really wasn't enough.