User:CalantheMary3533 - Glorz's Hope!

Visual Novels - A Beginner's Help guide to a Genre of Game

In the Western World, we have been familiar to videogame genres like first-person shooters, console role-playing, and puzzle games -- games like Halo as well as the Final Fantasy series dominate the Western gaming market. However, there is certainly one genre of game which is relatively obscure in the West -- the visual novel.

The visual novel (VN) can be a popular genre of game in Japan, dominating asia gaming market with its a huge number of available titles. As its name implies, the primary focus of a VN is its story. They are usually characterized through its vivid anime-style artwork, juxtaposed with text, static backgrounds, music, sounds, and voice acting. Gameplay is minimalistic -- most of the interaction is achieved through clicking the screen to advance the storyline. A VN may or may not have decision points, from which your decisions may customize the upshot of the storyplot.

Virtually all VNs are renai, or having romantic themes, usually in the school setting. In these VNs, you are taking about the role of your male character with more than one female romantic prospects. The "otome game" reverses this role -- a female character with a number of free hentai male romantic prospects. However, there are numerous VNs where romance is not the primary focus; an example includes the Phoenix Wright series. The VN genre has a variety of themes, including, and not restricted to: mecha, yaoi and yuri (gay and lesbian relationships, respectively), magical girl, and medieval themes.

A lot of VNs contain hentai, or adult scenes. A VN containing them simply bad; in a romantic-themed story, it can increase the relationship between two characters. However, you'll find VNs where the primary focus is in the hentai, having an "excuse plot" to justify it. Alternatively, you will find VNs with no such content. Whether where you will play an adult or all-ages VN, they can have equally great stories.

There is VNs for PCs and videogame consoles. If you play a Japanese VN on your computer, you may have to change your system's locale to Japanese, or use AppLocale if you use Windows; otherwise, you'll get garbled text. However, you'll find translation groups that have translated numerous Japanese VNs to English.

A sensible way to get the feet wet inside VN scene would be to play some homebrewed ones; there are several free English VNs containing Ren'Py, a free VN creation software. When you're ready, you can try several Japanese professional VNs on the Visual Novel Database; demos from the games is available at their respective developer's sites.

Visual novels is a rest from today's action-oriented games. Try one today -- engaging plots, vivid anime-style art, and captivating characters can keep you looking to play more.

Source: http://wk.glorz.com/index.php/User%3ACalantheMary3533

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