General Visual Novels Discussion

Off-Topic
#63

There’s been some discussion of it upthread, but I just want to restate that The House In Fata Morgana is an understated masterpiece. It is my favorite VN of all time.

It might not be extremely layered (a la Umineko), it might not be a saga like Fate, it might not be punching you around with plot twists (Zero Escape), but holy hell. It easily has one of the best-developed casts of any visual novel out there. The soundtrack is also sublime.

I have not seen many scenes more poignant than some of Fata’s hardest moments in any visual novel. The presentation is state of the art. The pacing is great (some might disagree with me on this account). Translation is remarkable. Story… lawd, don’t make me even vaguely describe it, but it has easily the best-delivered message I’ve perhaps ever seen in a story.

Literally the only flaw of this game is that it’s 4:3. There’s literally nothing else that bothers me about it.

I wrote about it on Reddit a while ago. Give that review a whirl if you still aren’t sold.

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#64

I completely agree.

I played Fata Morgana probably after Umineko and I was surprised at the amount of surprising elements that they have in common. The art is gorgeous, the music is sublime and the story is highly intriguing. It doesn’t surpass Umineko in terms of complexity, but it’s a solid mystery in its own right.

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#65

We actually have a discussion topic for it~ see The House in Fata Morgana Discussion

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#66

It’s surprising how there are many parallels between Fata and Umineko, but I feel that ultimately their message is altogether different. Umineko is about (vague general spoilers I guess?) finding a truth you can love, as well as a deconstruction of mystery as a genre. Fata is about something else altogether. (Vague but important spoiler!) Fata is about how you don’t need to forgive those who harm you, and need to move on instead for your own sake. By conveying this message it also deconstructs the glorification of forgiveness in literature. Their scope (in length and cast size) is also different but I find Fata to both be a tighter and more accessible experience (in the sense that it’s easier to fully experience Fata, whereas with Umineko you need to engage with the text quite a bit). Fata is so good at one point that in a 4-5 hour stretch you actually feel relieved when things drag for a brief while.

That said: the mansion setting, the sublime soundtrack, the beautiful art (:kinzo:), the poignancy of the main theme and the characters and the story- those things ARE parallels between the both. Oh, and Fata also has (spoiler I guess) eight Doors also.

Turns out I posted twice in it already, ahahaha.

I wrote this post to intrigue people who haven’t heard of Fata before, so it’s all good.

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#67

Let’s just say Higurashi and Umineko have brought me to Visual Novels, but funnily enough, I haven’t read both of them completely as of yet, because I found the Manga faster to read. I only got myself the Umineko Chiru VN for the obvious reason of the last manga volumes not being translated (but at least I avoided the clear answers of it this way, heh). But I’ve been on a snail’s pace read-through of the question arcs right now, currently at episode 2. Cool to revisit the story after only knowing the manga. Though I am using the original VN with the alchemist sprites patch, because… to be entirely frank, those pachinko sprites of the steam version freak me out and I will never, ever buy those…
I’m also re-reading Higurashi through the VN. The original with only the English patch and Ryukishi’s own artwork. I kinda like the steam version sprites there, but here the original art kinda grew on me. I’ll see whether I will get myself the steam version some time in the future.

Other VN’s I’ve read… well, my list won’t be all that interesting, because I have only the mainstream works.

Fate/Stay Night
The nicest thing I can say is that the prologue from Rin’s perspective is awesome and the character-building is great. It just fizzles out the moment Shirou opens his mouth. Or thinks something. Or god beware, does something. In the end, despite the awesome premise I found it offensively ‘meh’.

Fate/Hollow Ataraxia
Really fun stuff, I have to admit. Many of the scenes were awesome and funny, even though Shirou’s growing harem killed a lot of the interactions he has with any female human for me. For example I really loved how he and Medusa were just exchanging book recommendations like, you know, friends do. But obviously Nasu doesn’t know that men and women can be friends, or at least not that his inexplicably attractive harem dudes can. So OF COURSE it just turned out to have a sexual component. What a damn waste!
And then of course there is my biggest beef with the entire story: Surprise rape out of nowhere!
The hell? And with no repercussions whatsoever? What’s wrong with this dude?

Steins;Gate
Amazing story and I’m really looking forward to Steins;Gate 0. Only nitpick: As a completionist, that fucking phone, while a nice feature on the paper, drove me freaking crazy! XD
Well that, and I found the artstyle somewhat creepy. Those eyes…

Rewrite
I only read it because in one episode of the Anime, I believe it was episode 5, Ryukishi’s writing style shined through and I was interested in the real thing, not that haphazardly rushed OOC mess that was the adaptation. I read the Lucia route up until deep into the night, totally hooked by every mood swing and genre shift and of course Lucia’s characterization. It had its issues, the ending was clumsily dragged out and some characters (looking at you, Yoshino) were acting OOC, but even that was an improvement in my opinion. I found it absolutely amazing.
Though admittedly, aside from Kotouri’s route I can’t say things as nice as this about the rest of the routes. I wrote a long ass review back when I read it, so maybe I come around to translate that one some time in the future if anyone were interested in my ramblings.

And that’s it. I haven’t read any more so far…

#68

I feel the exact same way about Fate, its praised by so many but I have alot of problems with Shirou and the writing in general. The only really good thing coming out of the franchise to me is Fate/Zero (which isnt even written by nasu)

Anyway since I have read a fair share of VNs Im gonna share my opinion on ones which left a particulary striking impression on me.

Little Busters!
The one and only. I believe @Aspirety has already said everything there is to say about this work in his review on Steam and with the recent Steam release I found time to go back to- and relive my experience with it. My favorite VN second to Umineko and one that has truly influenced and moved me on a personal level only less than a handful of stories have achieved so far.
Key is a very inspiring developer with alot of great works behind their backs such as Clannad, Planetarian and Rewrite but none of those and probably any of their future work will have such a huge impact on me as this one (though Im not at all a fan of almost all of their anime shows, both original and adaptions of their VNs)

Narcissu
Probably alot less popular, but this one spoke to me on a more specific level. As someone plagued with depression for a very long time now, I kept seeing myself in the way the author portraid his characters in this short story.
Its setting is very simple but something I really havent seen anywhere else. The main character has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and it explores his thoughts and views about the world around him, what worth he sees in it with the little time he has left in his life.
Its hard to recommend this one to people because not many will be able to make much out of it. I recall the author himself saying that its hard to connect to the character and his views because in order to understand him, you would have had to see yourself in his kind of situation once in your life, and I totally agree. However if you feel in any way interested give it a try, its free on Steam. (This is not a very lighthearted story obviously so if you are sensitive to this kinda stuff you might wanna stay away from it)

kono oozora ni tsubasa wo hirogete (or If My Heart Had Wings)
Alot more typically VN’ish and basic but I cant deny the amount of fun I had reading it. It builds a fairly realistic world the kind I just love to lose myself in. Basically its just about a group of friends who due to different circumstances end up developing a hobby for- and working together in building their own air glider. Criminally innocent but similar to Little Busters its just the chemistry between the characters that makes you happy being part of their everyday life.
The art is also fantastic as I mentioned before its world is stunningly beautiful with a mix of natural landscapes and near-future style architecture.

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#69

That’s exactly my own opinion as well! Fate/Zero is a brilliant character-driven tragedy! And it even managed to salvage the character of Saber for me, because, you know, Gen Urobuchi actually treated her like a human being with her own history, ideals and regrets that isn’t constantly walked over by a bland idiot she is supposed to fall in love with for no reason… Everything else Type-Moon churns out is, at least to me, mostly mindless fanservice. And I am so frustrated because it could be so amazing if they’d only respect the historical characters they pull into the present time!

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#70

While not a fan of Type-Moon myself, Garden of Sinners is a work by said company I very highly respect. I dont know what to think of nasu as writer because he has something like Fate/stay Night, but then Garden of Sinners which respects itself alot more and shows what he is really capable of. I wanted to check out Tsukihime as well to get a better opinion on him but so far it seems one of his worst works (FSN) is his most popular one… Anyway I really recommend you to check out the Garden of Sinners Movies if you have not already.

#71

I have watched them after an acquaintance recommended them to me and they were the only reason why I finally gave the Fate/Franchise a chance. Because I agree, that story is really good. Though admittedly, I’m still not quite sure whether similarly troubling character-decisions are not just blurred by how plain weird everyone is acting. Due to my fanfic-activities I make it a point to completely understand all the motivations of a fictional character just in case I want to write them, but for example I’m still not quite sure what actually is in-character for Shiki. This balance between using her powers to protect Mikiya and not going down the deep end through them that is discussed in the final movie doesn’t quite apply to all of her actions, especially in the first movies. This still leaves me a little iffed. Well that and that her love interest has the same bloody harem aura like every fucking Type-Moon protagonist, it’s just less obtrusive because he isn’t the focus of the narrative.

#72

I would probably need to revisit the movies to give proper insight on your comment on shikis motivations,though to me Mikiya didnt come of as particulary harem MCish, typically dense sure but I felt it was kept in a realistic way. Then again I have only consumed FSN so I cant tell if all Type-Moon protagonists are really just like this guy.

#73

(not sure this needs a spoiler anymore)
Sure, Mikiya is not the protagonist, but all of Kinoko Nasu’s own works have in common that their male leads are inexplably attracting every single woman on this planet. In Mikiya’s case I just have to count all the characters that I can remember at the top of my head who have stated a sexual interest in him:

  • Shiki of course
  • the ghost girl from the first movie (because she grew envious of the woman he brought flowers to)
  • the bending rape victim
  • his sister…
  • the cannibal serial killer dude
  • the girl with the premonition power…
  • his freaking daughter…

For the most part Mikiya’s aura makes more sense than Shirou’s or Tsukihime’s Shiki’s because he actually talks to (most of) the women who fall for him and it is outright stated that he has this actual somewhat magical trait that allows him to show acceptance and compassion to just about everyone. Still doesn’t excuse why some of the more squick-inducing characters are in that list in the first place.

Edit: I also just remembered one specific example on why I found Shiki so hard to understand:

In her interactions with the rape victim who folded together her tormentors, she explicitly states that she only hunts down ‘monsters’ for the sake of not becoming one herself and she defines a monster as someone who kills indiscriminately. She also states that she regards it as her duty to do that. But in the very first movie, when that ghost woman kept making people commit suicide through her mind control… Shiki didn’t care at all and only intervened after Mikiya got involved and therefore she had a personal reason to do shit (and yeah, maybe I never forgot about that because I’ve spent half the movie yelling at the screen that she should just move her ass and do something…). And it can’t be character development, because the first movie takes place after the movie with that ‘monster’ definition.

I could chalk it up to ‘Early Installment Weirdness’ if I am being generous, but in a series of stories that want to be puzzled together, changing motivations like this do seem a little glaring.

#74

Its so true though.

I am actually am really obsessed with Fate, but it is impossible to deny that Shiro is a crappy lead character and I understand how that can weaken the main story for people to the point where it loses any shine for them. But probably because I had always loved historical fiction growing up, and since Fate is basically chuuni-fied Historical Fiction I fell in love with it very quickly despite it short comings. It works for me as a IP because its fun characters, good world building, and fun magic system. The extended cast is a really good mix of fun and large personalities that adapt well to humor or dramatic stories. I love that there has been so much new content for it since the success of the Zero anime.

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#75

I sincerely hope this is not derailing the thread.^^

Heh. I think him being a crappy character is the least of his problems. Of course he infuriates me, especially since Nasu apparently has that weird idea that being selfless makes you stupid. As someone who has had a pretty crappy life myself and devoted himself to help make it better for others, Shirou has some traits I would find admirable in a character, but it is thoroughly tarnished by how the narrative wants to say that he is so ludicrously gullible and suicidal because ‘he lacks a sense of self’, whatever that means.
But even then, I could live with this. What I could not live with is how he as a protagonist acts like some kind of narrative black hole who just forces the entire world to revolve around him simply by existing. There are so many good characters in Stay Night: I love Caster and Rider has a lot of potential and I am especially awed how Rin reads like she walked in from a far better story, but all of them get caught in that gravity well and dragged down because of course the story is only allowed to be about Shirou.

I totally understand you! I love history, I love delving into research or debating past events, their relevance to our lives or how things would have turned out differently. That’s why I want to love the Fate franchise with all my heart. And yet… it’s just frustrating to me. Apparently the difference is that I don’t want my history ‘chuuni-fied’. I want it as is. I want it… like Fate/Zero approached it. I don’t want my historical characters genderbent, stripped of all history and with wacky Anime tropes slapped onto them in its stead, I want Alexander the Great grabbing a world map to ask his summoner how far his empire stretched! Admittedly, when writing my own Holy Grail War the way I want to see it, I got kinda derailed with the extensive flashback chapters in which I explored the times of my characters, so there is that…

But what is there to watch or to read? So far Zero and Hollow Ataraxia are the only ones I genuinely liked. I am currently watching Apocrypha, it has decent world-building, but its protagonist is such a ridiculously bland Mary Sue whose simple presence leads to everyone around him breaking character, that it has become a chore. Then there’s that bizarre fanservice thing Grand Order… I am actually just playing it to gather the Fate/Zero cast… And don’t get me started on that disgusting Prisma Illya nonsense, though again, it could be funny if it weren’t for the ludicrous fanservice permeating every single writing decision.

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#76

Has anyone here read Doki Doki Literature Club?

I know it looks pretty shallow on the surface, but if you can get past the first hour or so it is actually really great IMO. It’s really short compared to most of the stories here, and it is completely free on Steam, so why not give it a try?

Fair warning: When the notice talks about graphic content that will upset people who are easily disturbed, they are not kidding.

#77

Yeah I’ve read it. It’s a cool ride and I definitely recommend giving it a read to anyone on the fence =P

#78

I have, and frankly I was not super impressed with it. It relies too much on its gimmick and doesn’t tell a particularly good story. It was a neat tech demo at best

#79

I’ll respectfully degree with you on Shirou at least. I think for me, it isn’t Nasu is saying Shirou is stupid or guillable for saving people- (after al in all three routes Shirou affirms his desire to save people- In Fate he accepts that he can’t save everyone, but he’ll try anyways, in UBW he realizes he can’t save everyone, but at the very least he can try to save the people closest to him, etc).

I think Nasu is saying “It is fine to save people and be a hero, but it has to be for a more human reason than the ideal of an hero. If you try to save everyone, you will just burn yourself out. Do what you can, but also remember you are human- it is okay for you to be a bit selfish. Surround yourself with people who care about you”.

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#80

I don’t think we are disagreeing here all that much, it’s just that I had a different trait of his in mind during my rant. Stay Night spends a tedious amount of time discussing how Shirou acquired his ideal by copypasting what he thought his saviour stood for and what to do with it and I guess that’s fine. What I’ve been thinking about however is how he copes with his survivor guilt before that: The story pretty flat out states that he has zero self-worth and only seeks to help others because he is convinced he lost the right to happiness of his own when he was the sole survivor of the big fire. I have to admit, that’s a line of thinking I can relate to more than it would be good for me.
That he tried to make the best of this disposition by adopting Kiritsugu’s childhood fantasy is one thing, but how he expresses his lack of self-worth in other situations is quite telling: The way he allows himself getting taken advantage of by the likes of Shinji, how he trusts his flimsy excuses despite him being so obviously evil or how he takes zero consideration for his own life when throwing himself into needless danger. That has little to do with him trying to be a hero, but everything with how he is framed as not regarding his own life as something that needs to be considered. Which is bullshit. When you know that you’d throw your life away for nothing or even in a way that it endangers others, then you just don’t do it! Even as someone with no self-worth! After all, as someone who devoted his life to become a hero, that ideal should take over his long-term-thinking if his life is not part of the equation anyway and I believe his ideal should by all means tell him ‘try to make the most of the situation’, not ‘do a stupid thing you know to be futile’.

#81

Sorry for the Double Post, but I just finished trudging through the Heaven’s Feel route in anticipitation of the movie hype. Now that I’ve finally read the whole story, I just need to get all the little things that rubbed me the wrong way off my mind. I try to start with the spoiler-free part and then hide everything that gives stuff for the movies away.

First of all, all things considered I did like Heaven’s Feel a bit more than the previous routes. At least it feels far more like a resolution to every character and that’s a big plus. Except for all those Servants that get murdered off-screen of course. It is also a big plus that the plot doesn’t rely as much on Shirou doing stupid things as in the previous routes, though there is still a jarring amount of Bond Villain Stupidity where the good guys by all means should be killed, but the bad guys just walk away and spare them for little reason. It’s even lampshaded by an increasingly frustrated Assassin who at one points laments that if he were asked, he would just kill Shirou and Rin right away and be done with it.
I also thought that the motive rants were not quite as exhausting as before, though admittedly, after the entire second half of UBW was just Archer and Shirou monologuing at each other, EVERYTHING sounds less exhausting and repetitive than that. Though I do have to admit, that the xth hour-long explanation of the Holy Grail War (plus stupidly detailed info about Angra Mainyu - makes you wonder how that Einzbern Master interviewed the dude during the Third Grail War) and then the two sudden motive rants coming out of nowhere after the finale, really annoyed me. They are only slightly salvaged by how amused I am that Kirei literally only lost because he spent his precious last moments monologuing instead of punching Shirou. What a fucking moron!

Then, however, comes the whole Sakura problem and the way they are dealing with it, I just cannot help but get irritated at Shirou and infuriated by Rin. Their odd behaviour and the even worse the constant insistence of the narration that everything they say is genuine just leaves me in a state of constant facepalming. In fact, I am getting more and more certain that the amazing Rin from the prologue is just a figment of my imagination and that the actual Rin Nasu had in mind is just as flat a stereotype as any character he created later on.

Let’s start with how Sakura is framed, which I actually found pretty decent, given the cultural background. Her constant self-loathing and attempts to reach out to the people around her were pretty heart-wrenching and I was especially fond of her meltdown during her final duel with Rin in which it comes apparent just how desperate she wanted her sister to recognize her plight and save her. That was the direction the story should have gone, because this was pure dramatic gold! And I am utterly baffled that even though the story did attempt to make the estranged sisters reconnecting a part of itself, it utterly refused to show or acknowledged any character development whatsoever. Rin constantly shit-talking Sakura and cornering her with every new outburst of annoyance was just incredibly grating and her random 180° right before stabbing Sakura came off as totally unearned due to it.

Fine. I could be generous and claim that Rin was just steeling her mind in order to carry out her duty of killing Sakura by completely blocking out her empathy and treating her as an enemy. Though even for that she was incredibly petty in her constant dog-kicking and at least from the narrative, there is no evidence whatsoever that she’s in any way conflicted about that. In fact, during her final confrontation when Sakura openly confronts her with all these years of torture and hope and she shrugs it off with a “So what, cry me a river!”, the narration literally points out that her lack of empathy was pure truth and her not being able to go through with killing Sakura was just a spontaneous ‘heat of the moment’ thing that wasn’t result of any development on Rin’s part. Rolling with the assumption that Rin is just putting on a cold mask is also hindered a lot by how dependant the story has proved to be on ‘tell’ instead of ‘show’. When the narrative struggles to characterize subtly and instead usually opts to use tirelessly long motive rants, then it is hard to interprete the stuff the narrative constantly tells you about her lack of empathy during the interludes as bald lies.

Heck, the only one who does indeed insist that Rin actually still cares about Sakura is freaking Shirou. The same guy who also with a ton of wishful denial insists that Shinji and Zouken cannot be that bad even if they raping Sakura was all but spelled out to him several times. It his hard to accept his hunch in regards to Rin as correct when the story beats us over the head with how horrible his judge of character is, especially when he forces himself to always regard people in the best possible light. It would be far, far easier to stomach Rin’s behavior if Shirou would be allowed to take note of cracks in her mask and make the reader see that there is actual conflict in her. But lacking this, Rin just remains painted as uncharacteristically callous.

Heck, all things considered, Shirou doesn’t fare much better when looking at how he reacts to Sakura’s self-loathing. When she goes on tirades about how she is ‘filthy’ because of that antiquated view that rape defiled her or that she is a nasty and manipulative person just because she has some faint thoughts of resentment, I always expected Shirou (assuming that he’s a decent person) to try to talk her out of these stupid notions and encourage her for her bravery in what fucking hell she had endured so far. Of course that never happened… of course his reaction always amounted to “You are right with all your self-loathing statements, but I don’t care and love your regardless”. What kind of spineless asshole is he? Heck, Sakura got more praise and encouragement from her fucking rapists! Who show themselves repeatedly impressed by her willpower. Not so Shirou… he’s too busy moping about his lost ideals or something…

Gah… like I said before, I don’t interact with the Fate-franchise because I want to raise my blood pressure, but because I am a history buff who sees a lot of potential in the premise and who keeps getting disappointed with what is finally done with it. In fact, I got so tired from it that I really just want to wrap up my fics and then leave this stupid franchise behind me forever…

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#82

Huge fan of Type-Moon, so I played most of their works that are translated. With the exception of maybe Prisma Illya I’ve enjoyed all their games (that’s on PC) and anime to varying degree (though I didn’t like Fate/Zero as much as most people seem to).

Other favorites are Steins;Gate, Katawa Shoujo and VA-11 Hall-A. There are tons more but most of them are either trashy or obscure as hell.

Recently played The Letter, and I would recommend people checking it out if you’re into horrors and stuffs. It’s cliche as hell but somehow presented in such a way that still makes it very enjoyable for me, making especially good use of the visual novel format to make the tropes feel fresh again. I wouldn’t say it’s amazing or interesting and the ending didn’t do it for me but I enjoyed it the whole way through.