For anyone who actually plays/played Originally English visual novels

[torbin12]

So, I have played a couple Originally English VNs, and I was wondering if any else who did had a similar feeling about a certain aspect as I do. Now, I am not talking about the ones that are set in Japan, or the ones that are centered around a Japanese family/set of friends/etc in another country, but the ones that are also actually set in America, England, *insert countries other than Japan here*, and also center around American, English, etc people, but they still use and put in various things such as honorifics (San, Kun, Sama, etc) or use family words (Oniichan, Oneechan, etc) even though the characters are ALL English, American, etc. and live in England, America, etc.

I kind of think this detracts from the story, and the overall quality of the Novel itself, personally, I don't mean to sound like I hate on it, but I don't like it. Anyone else have feelings on this?

[Mephisto]

Hm... could you give a few examples? The only visual novels I know that were produced in the west are..

Princess Waltz

Katawa Shoujo

but I don't think you are referring to VNs made in the west, but a specific type of VN that superimposes japanese customs on people that have no relation to japan.

[torbin12]

well, I dont have my VNDB open, and I don't have those ones saved, so I can't remember them right off the top of my head, but iirc the ones I am thinking of were generally kind of older, and closer to Dating Sims than Visual Novels, now that I think about it, but they would be set in like, American/English schools, with American/English students, but they would still drop 'Oniichans' and '-Sans/-Kuns' after peoples names. But besides that, Princess Waltz VN was produced in the West eh? I didnt know that, thats pretty cool.

[Beato]

I'm pretty sure Princess Waltz was originally Japanese.

[Ryoji]

Katawa Shoujo was amazing. I wish Four Leaf would make a couple more like that.

[Supah Kawaii Weeaboo]

Here's a good rule of thumb: your character should talk in a manner fitting their personality and upbringing. If you have a character who is an eccentric fan or an occidental otaku (to borrow a term from TVTropes), then they can incorporate some fan slang and borrowed words into their vocabulary. If your character is a first-generation immigrant, or a person learning a foreign language, then it would be in-character for them to make mistakes.

Having said this, I can name one WVN in which characters speak in fan slang, and it's meant to be ridiculous. If you like dark absurd comedy, check out ATASHINORIRI.

Katawa Shoujo was amazing. I wish Four Leaf would make a couple more like that.

The group has stated that they "...hope to to go public with some new 4LS projects that have been in the concept/early development stage in 2012 (and before)..." Also, I believe that some of the people who worked on Katawa Shoujo are currently part of Dischan Media.

[Mephisto]

Yeah sorry, my mistake. Princess waltz was originally made in japan and got localized here. Was misinformed.

[Snowtsuku]

Dandelion Girl is the only English one that I played. Since it's a short story adaptation I can't really say something about it

[InvertMouse]

I've actually made a few way back when I was in uni. They were horrible, though, so let's just pretend I never said that . I've also played a few English VNs back then for research, too. It is a little distracting when they try really hard to be Japanese. It's understandable, but yeah. I'd love to see an English VN that embraces the fact that it's Western. The thing is, in that case, I'm not sure if it'll be embraced, so the audience might be at fault here as well.

As mentioned in another post, I'm currently building a game that has heavy visual novel aspects. I've definitely excluded all honorifics from the script. It's not set in any particular country, either.

[Sieg]

I'm currently playing Shikkoku no Sharnoth, and while it's originally a Japanese VN, the background is London. It does, however, uses the Japanese honorifics, but the translator chose to show western prefixes and terms based on the context, like the relationship between the characters, their profesions and such. Thus, you can sometimes hear the typical "Ojou", "-sama" or "-sensei" translated as Miss/Lady, Sir or Doctor respectively. That said, I think it was a pretty good iniciative by the translation team, as it does not detach the VN from it's scenario/background and still mantains the animesque feel in it, so I'm quite satisfied in this aspect. This can be a simple yet good solution for Visual Novels that are Japanese made but located elsewhere. I've never played non japanese VN before though, so I can't quite say much in these other aspects you mentioned.

[Tief Blau]

I don't know if this belongs here, but Missing Stars?

[Tay]

... the ones that are also actually set in America, England, *insert countries other than Japan here*, ...but they still use and put in various things such as honorifics (San, Kun, Sama, etc) or use family words (Oniichan, Oneechan, etc) even though the characters are ALL English, American, etc. and live in England, America, etc.

I kind of think this detracts from the story, and the overall quality of the Novel itself, personally, I don't mean to sound like I hate on it, but I don't like it. Anyone else have feelings on this?

I've played a lot of OELVNs, and a TON of them use this. I agree that it's distracting and out of character. We both know it's catering to the audience, but...

In general, though, OELVNs are written as amateur projects, and very few of them have any editing done (which is a shame). It's amazing what a good editor can do for a story.