For context I played the first one on NES when it came out. I liked how the different games each felt imaginative and a little different yet familiar due to certain common themes. I liked the games where the battles felt more tactical, like X, XII, and of course Tactics. I really like the setting of Ivalice, couldn’t say why but the setting is just appealing. I don’t like the turn the series has taken lately. XVI was a shallow action game and an even shallower RPG with paper-thin characters acting out a superficial imitation of A Game Of Thrones. I was way more invested in the character arcs of the cast of characters in VI than in the forgettable cast of XVI.
I actually really liked 16’s main storyline. Not sure where I rank it, exactly, but parts of it were extremely cool.
What I did not like were the barrel-bin jrpg-tier sidequests where characters show up out of the blue because they’re supposed to be in this scene and “you really thought I wouldn’t see the two of ya’s slinkin’ off” was all I guess the project had the budget for.
I can’t tell you how many times it felt like a character would tell me to go somewhere to do a thing because they can’t go, and so I’d go do it, only for them to show up anyway so they could thank me with sad music.
It was just exhausting how shallow and uninspired most of the side content was.
XVI looks like an Ivalice-setting game to me, but without the tactical approach of XII/Tactics. I enjoyed the story for what it was, but felt that the game tried too hard to be like one of the cool kids classic installations in the series. It didn’t have a new idea, a spark behind it, only a concept that it has to have all notable FF elements like familiar summons, moogles, enemies, weapons, etc. But it’s a good game overall, didn’t go through development hell like XV and sold well.
I’ve always liked FF. We had FF1 on the NES back when but the battery in it was dead so we had to the leave the console on. My brother got through it after a good number of afternoons.
I never got into it though. I like watching it. I remember the obsession around FFVII.
Then I picked up one of those SNES Mini things that came with… FFIV. That one got me. I wasn’t surprised to find out that loads of people love that one in particular.
Frankly fo my time, best gaming series ever. With a few exceptions each one stands alone as it’s own story, but there are the ever present threads that in some cases turned into almost easter-egg items in a given game. Where are Biggs and Wedge going to show up this time? Can I get my hands on a choccobo? Hey Cid, thanks for the airship…
The gameplay of VNs doesn’t particularly appeal to me, though it’s not offensive either, so I can be won over by a particularly good story. So far, the best VN I’ve played is Snatcher for the Sega CD.
Snatcher (nice use of negative space on that cover) is one of Hideo Kojima’s earlier titles, and his insatiable desire for long cutscenes/story lends itself to VNs. As with many of Kojima’s works, it’s heavily inspired by whatever western movies he would’ve seen at the time. In this case, Snatcher is heavily inspired by Blade Runner.
You play as Gillian Seed, an ex-scientist with amnesia that’s now working as a Junker (the equivalent of a blade runner) in Neo-Kobe, a cyberpunk metropolis that’s not quite as dark and dreary as Bladerunner’s, feeling more like something out of Akira.
The game features a lot of voice acting, some of it actually surprisingly good for a game of that time (early 90’s), and it has a particularly fantastic FM soundtrack courtesy of the Genesis’ soundchip, and even some redbook audio for the intro. I’d recommend listening to the soundtrack even if you have no intention of playing the game.
The story for the game can get surprisingly dark and gruesome at times, though overall has a more 90’s anime up-beat vibe, and is one of Kojima’s more linear and coherent tales. The characters are pretty fun to talk to, and the writing was compelling enough to make me push through some of the more dated design decisions (you sometimes will have to click the same action/dialog 3 times or more, with no additional feedback, before something unlocks to progress the story).
The gameplay is a bit more involved than a standard VN, sharing some attributes with an Adventure game. In addition to being able to move around the city and various buildings (skillfully drawn with some of the finest pixel art of the era), the player has access to an inventory and can investigate various parts of a scene. There’s a small combat mini-game that will sometimes spring up that was designed for use with a lightgun (The Konami Justifer) but thankfully works just fine with a standard controller), and is used sparingly enough that doesn’t overstays its welcome. In fact, I’d say the combat is surprisingly well integrated into the story, and helps add a bit of tension, since you never know when it’ll pop up (I imagine it would’ve been quite immersive back in the day with the lightgun, since you’d have to quickly drop your controller and physically ‘draw’ it to defend yourself).
Snatcher is a short game, usually averaging about 4 or 5 hours for most people, but that’s all it really needs to tell its tale, and by the end I was thoroughly satisfied.
The Sega CD version is the only one that was translated for the English market, and AFAIK is no longer legally available to purchase anywhere. With physical copies being rare and demanding a premium ($200 or more), I’d recommend emulation to experience it.
If any of that sounds appealing to you, I’d certainly recommend giving it a try! And if you do, good luck, Junker!
Elden Ring really got this right by playing the cool cut scene once and then every attempt after goes straight into the fight. Could’ve done with closer sites/shrines in a few of the fights, though
And the cool cutscenes are skippable even on your first time encountering the boss (great for multiple play throughs). The one run back I can remember being annoying is Rennala.
Me: You have wasted what little free time I have with a bad design choice that you could easily have avoided. Since I can’t skip your cut scenes, I will instead skip your games.
Doki Doki Literature Club is the GOAT. Can any VN gamers recommend something similar? Every other VN game I’ve tried had me wishing it was just a book and quitting before the end.
It’s definitely not exactly DDLC, but it’s so good and unique I put it in the same ‘greatest VNs of all time’ category. Slay the Princess is a masterpiece, and I’d urge you to bump it up on your backlog!
While Visual Novels are not my favourite genre, there are a few entries that I would like to highlight, because I enjoyed playing them quite a lot:
Pyre: While it isn’t marketed as Visual Novel, it pretty much is one. To be precise, it is a Visual Novel with sports-game elements. The world-building in this one is excellent, as is the art. The visuals alone would make this game worth playing, but there is also the soundtrack, and the gameplay of the sports events is pretty fun too. Oh, and the story. This game really requires tough choices. It’s from the same studio that made Hades, Transistor and Bastion, and it shows.
Griftlands: Again, not marketed as Visual Novel, despite very clearly being one. This one is a Visual Novel with card battles and deck-building. Just as with Pyre, the world-building in this one is outstanding. The card battles are well done. It’s no Slay the Spire, but it’s still pretty good. Also, it has some of the best jokes I have seen in games recently.
Loren the Amazon Princess: Again a Visual Novel that is primarily marketed as something else - this time Role Playing Game. And to be honest, it has everything you would expect from an RPG: inventory management, character stats, JRPG-style turn-based battles, trading, a world map,… But it’s still pretty much a Visual Novel with RPG elements. It has a massive scope for an indie game, and is overall pretty well done. To be blatantly honest, I played this mainly for the RPG parts, but the story isn’t bad either, once one gets past the initial “I see your party has no rogue, mind if I join?” part. The setting is still being actively developed by the studio behind it, who have released several other visual novels (with and without RPG elements) set in the same world, with recurring characters.
Pyre was the game that made me get into visual novels. Took me about 10 minutes to go from ‘When do I get to the game part’ to ‘Idgaf about soccer please just keep talking to me’ and I think it’s because it wasn’t marketed as a VN. All in all, everything supergiant touches is gold.
I’m a huge fan of otome visual novels, but I don’t think it’s something that many here would appreciate lol, so I’d rather talk about a different subgenre that I like, Danganronpa-esque VNs. Basically, these are crime novels involving a quickly shrinking group of characters with interactive elements. For me the entertaining part is that actually thinking about cases matters to progress the story. I love to guess “whodunit” based on clues and my own intuition.
Of these, there are 3 Danganronpa games (there’s a spin-off, but it has a vastly different gameplay). These are great to check out VNs in general if you don’t know if that’s your thing. They are very well-made, although their aesthetics may not be for everyone. The second one is my favourite, mainly because of its catchy tunes.
Zero Escape games - also a staple of this subgenre. They are half VN, half puzzle games. It’s a great sci-fi story involving time shenanigans, you’ll probably like it if you enjoyed Steins;Gate.
Kimi ga Shine - I really, really love this game! It’s a Japanese indie game made by one person, Nankidai. It’s available for free and also has a Steam version. It’s not complete yet, but it’s absolutely worth it to check out the content that already exists. What makes it stand out is that your choices have a great impact on the following story. An atmospheric, psychological game that feels very authentic. It has plenty of interaction, it’s not long and it’s fun to replay to make other choices.
I also love Ryukishi07’s VNs, “When They Cry” series. The art is admittedly ugly, but the stories are very intricate and convoluted in the best sense of the word.
Best way to fix that is to join in and post something!
Otome isn’t my personal interest (my sexuality goes the other way), so I don’t have much to say myself, but I’ve seen Elevator7009 trying to build a community first on kbin.social (before that site died) and then on kbin.run (before it died) and now there and I’d like to see her efforts succeed.
If you’re not interested, feel free to ignore it, but if you’d like a place on Lemmy for discussion, there are at least a few people there who’ve been trying their damnedest to get something going.
I also love Ryukishi07’s VNs, “When They Cry” series. The art is admittedly ugly, but the stories are very intricate and convoluted in the best sense of the word.
The first of the “When They Cry” series are the only VNs I have ever played clicked through and it was surprisingly good, even for someone like me who isn’t into anime and kept me hooked through all the episodes. I highly recommend it.
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