by Exhuminator Tue Jan 05, 2016 3:00 pm
Random thought blurbs...
A lot of PC based visual novels have an option which progress through the dialogue boxes automatically. Removing the one actual interactive aspect of the "game" entirely. In that regard I don't consider a huge swath of visual novels to actually be games at all. Which is fine, I mean, if what you want is a big story with pretty pictures.
There are some visual novels that allow you to alter the story line, basically choose your own adventure type stuff. I think that's kinda cool.
Then there are visual novels that mix in actual gameplay between all the dialogue, such as strategic fights or real time combat. Now that's definitely a game.
I have collected a lot of PC visual novels of various types like I described above. I haven't played much of them because I don't know. I like the concept, but the time sink required isn't something I'm willing to doll out right now for so little actual gameplay. I guess I'm hoarding them for a rainy day, or retirement. Many of the most popular visual novels are absolutely massive and can take dozens of hours to read through entirely.
So if you're someone who really enjoys complex stories, especially stories padded with hours of excruciatingly detailed minutiae, visual novels have a lot to offer.
Also if you're a pervert like me there's a lot of really crazy eroge type ones that cater to all kinds of weird niche tastes. Not that I would know anything about that, or have tons of those archived on harddrives sleeping in a dark and cold closet. I especially think that the visual novel + ecchi + dungeon crawl genre is neato mosquito. I mean, in theory.
There've been VNs released on various handhelds over the years, some even officially translated. For example I've seen a lot of VNs released on Vita stateside, but I don't think the $40 price is worth what they actually are.
PLAY KING'S FIELD.