Visual Novel or Visual Romance are games that do not consist solely of actions or movements; they are basically games where you have to make choices that can bring consequences to the characters, through stories, music, and others. It is worth noting that there are many exceptions regarding the theme!
Table of Contents
Gameplay
The market for Visual Novels has grown significantly in recent times, bringing everything from a simple game to a complex one. Visual Novels are distinct from other types of games due to their minimal and peculiar gameplay, which boils down to needing to click to advance the text, accompanied by graphics related to the situations that occur and a soundtrack.
Most of them have a multiple story progression and consequently various endings that depend on the option selected by the player, and in some cases, choosing a “wrong” option results in a Game Over or Bad ending. Some exceptions do not have these options, being centered on just a single story, like in Planetarian.
Although some Visual Novels try to integrate other elements that require more interactivity from the player, such as in Symphonic Rain, requiring that musical instruments be played and only being able to advance by achieving a good grade, but as in the cited example, they are always related to the story of the game.
Style/Appearance
In general, Visual Novels are narrated by the protagonist (in the first person) and divided into days or chapters that follow them from the time they wake up until the end of the day. Although there are exceptions, such as Saya no Uta, in which there are no notable divisions of time and also changes of narrator.
In terms of graphic characteristics, they usually consist of a generic background, related to the scenario where a certain event occurs, along with the sprites of the characters that are from the narrator’s point of view and, at certain special moments, CGs: more detailed images that were drawn specifically to define the elements of the scene in question, which are normally stored and, in fact, some are unlockable, which motivates replaying it and trying to make different decisions.
Genres and Contents
Many Visual Novels are centered on romantic themes, although other themes such as science fiction, fantasy, and horror are not very rare.
Traditionally in PC games, especially those created by amateur groups, they tend to have erotic scenes and other fanservice. Although those for other consoles tend to be made for all ages. In some cases, such as in Little Busters!, there is an initial production without adult content and only later is another version released with it. And some never have it, like in Umineko no Naku Koro ni.
Animes Inspired by Visual Novels
Steins;Gate: Steins;Gate is set in the summer of 2010, approximately a year after the events that took place in Chaos; Head, in Akihabara. Steins;Gate is about a group of friends who customized their microwave into a device that can send text messages to the past. As they conduct different experiments, an organization called SERN, which has been conducting its own research on time travel, follows them, and now the characters must find a way to avoid being captured by them.
School Days: Makoto Itou is a high school student who has been admiring a girl named Katsura Kotonoha whom he sees on the subway on his way to school. Makoto managed to take a picture with his cellphone, but due to an unexpected change of seats in his class, he ends up sitting next to Sekai Saionji, who discovers Makoto’s crush on Kotonoha after looking at the photo of her on Makoto’s cellphone menu. Sekai promises to help him date Kotonoha.
When she finally gets the two together, Sekai begins to show her own feelings after discovering that the boy Kotonoha liked was, by coincidence, Makoto. While waiting for the next subway train with Makoto, who is waiting for Kotonoha, Sekai keeps talking about how Makoto could reward her for all the help she has given him. Before getting on the subway, Sekai kisses Makoto and cries on the way home. Kotonoha happily goes on a date with Makoto shortly after. With the three main characters showing different expressions on their faces, the story begins…
Grisaia no Kaijitsu: The story revolves around Mihama Academy, a school/prison made to preserve “the fruits that have fallen far from the tree.” It is home to five girls, all of whom have their reasons for being at that academy and living a normal life behind the walls of Mihama.
One day, Kazami Yuuji, the first male student of the institution, arrives and shakes up the balance and rhythm of the school. Yuuji ends up having what the girls need to cling to their lives once again, or will the walls formed by their pasts prove too high to overcome? Or will his past be even heavier than theirs?
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