From our other sites
The story
A thread on the Game/Hardware board set out to pick a third pillar to stand alongside “Higurashi” and “Steins;Gate” as the Big 3 visual novels. Candidates poured in one after another — Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Kamaitachi no Yoru, YU-NO, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim — and one point that drew particular attention was that while Umineko ranks highly on overseas streamers’ rankings, opinion in Japan is split due to the controversy surrounding its anime adaptation. The thread also branched into debate over the very definition of a “visual novel” and discussion of why the genre rarely sees new hits these days, growing into something bigger than a simple popularity poll.
What people said
Meanwhile in Japan it's controversial because of the whole backlash.
The manga version works.
Either the editor busted their ass or someone fixed up what was otherwise a garbage, dropped-plot-thread mess.
That's because the artist loved Umineko and begged Ryukishi07 (the writer) to let them adapt it.
Because of that though, the print volumes of Ep8 from vol. 6 onward now go for a premium.
Read it a while back — so in the end was it all just a dream/delusion story?
What bugs the people who dislike it is: in EP3, only the mastermind should know '07151127' — so why did Ikuko Yashiro know it too?
Double Cast
Kidou Senkan Gundog (mecha sim game)
Double Cast is a masterpiece, but can you really call that a 'visual novel' game lol
Especially since there's a lot of repetitive description and phrasing that makes it needlessly long.
Personally, I can't leave out Kamaitachi no Yoru (The Night of the Kamaitachi).
Especially with Higurashi — the daily-life parts are boring and a lot of people drop off there, but it turns out some of those scenes are actually duplicates.
all anyone's recommending is old, dusty games.
Well, it's a genre that's barely benefited from hardware upgrades for over a decade.
Even compared to old titles, about the only things that have improved are the UI and resolution.
Re: #31
As for recent hits, I'd say Raging Loop, Paranormasight, Gnosia, and Urban Myth Dissolution Center.
If we're talking the 2000s, Key (the visual novel studio) is a lock to be in there.
Turned out even more underwhelming, so quitting partway was the right call.
The Switch version of Umineko has gotten stupidly expensive.
Should've bought it back when it was cheap.
Even the Three Houses scenario writer — not that they wrote all of it — I believe came from Koei Tecmo's otome game team.
Isn't it true that romance stories are never actually interesting?
You need at least one dismemberment murder or you'll get bored.
Re: #45
I've only done two playthroughs so I didn't quite get it, but after watching an analysis video it all clicked perfectly.
Though for an idiot like me, I can't fully understand it without someone explaining it lol
Also I just couldn't get emotionally invested in the protagonist and main heroine.
Well, the protagonist and heroine are both psychopaths, so…
Making a psychopath duo the leads of a Werewolf (Mafia-style) game is quite a choice.
Haru-chan should just be the main heroine, right?
Chiemi and Rikako are way too problematic.
It wasn't brilliant at all — the previous game, Ihanashi no Majo, was way more polished.
The real, uncensored 18+ version of YU-NO
Kamaitachi no Yoru
Compared to these, Steins;Gate is honestly third-rate.
If you got hooked on AVGs (adventure games) through Steins;Gate, you owe it to yourself to experience YU-NO before you die.
I'll say it flat out: no AVG will ever top it.
The remake is a different beast entirely, so there's no need to bother with that one.
With YU-NO, the fact that there's a gap in awareness between the player and the protagonist regarding the timeline changes is just unacceptable.
Steins;Gate is contrived too, but at least it makes the effort to reconcile that gap.
YU-NO's opening drags on forever, it's rough.
Steins;Gate barely has any narrative prose either, yet people still call it a visual novel.
I'd say as long as it's in text format, it counts.
The YU-NO remake's no good? But that's the only version you can actually play properly on modern hardware…
Re: #119
Yeah, honestly even some of the titles named here make you go 'is this really a novel?' — I'd personally categorize Yarudora in particular as more of a 'playable anime'…
Though I guess since the protagonist's thoughts are all text, that makes it a novel lol
Systems get optimized to fit the times, so I think it's only natural that going back to play old titles now feels rough.
Ever17 and Steins;Gate being 'the same generation' feels off to me somehow.
A visual novel where nobody dies.
Winter Sonata ripped that off.
It's only after you go Google the truth afterward (basically checking your own theories against the answer) that you finally go 'well played!'
That said, looking back, I think it's asking a lot to expect people to enjoy it from the first half through the middle of the second half.
There are some genuinely interesting, appealing scenes scattered throughout at a small scale, but the big picture stays murky, and the question of 'where is this story actually going?' never really goes away.
Personally, what got me through it was my trust in Ryukishi07 and the attachment I developed to the characters.
Hard to recommend to today's short-attention-span kids.
But once you reach the truth, all those scenes that left you confused suddenly make sense, and you'll be impressed they managed to pull off a setup like that at all.
The mastermind has way too many titles/aliases going on.
Turning those blank two years into a 'Schrödinger's cat box' and saying 'go theorize about it yourself' is bound to get criticized — and that part only exists in the manga version anyway.
Though I guess it is technically Beatrice.
Though the Geha (console war) board is nothing but impatient old geezers.
'Illusions return to illusions… A corpse that cannot return to the earth returns to illusion instead.'
???…huh?
That's the memory I'm left with.
Even that part is easier to follow in the manga version than the original.
If I recall, that one was Sayo, by the way.
Otherwise it contradicts Kanon still being alive up to the boiler scene.
Also, by the way, the Eva couple had already been bought off.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The term “visual novel” refers to a format that tells its story through text and branching choices rather than gameplay, but because Steins;Gate itself is written in an unusual style with very little narrative prose, the thread was divided over the very definition of what counts as a “novel” game. Umineko no Naku Koro ni is a mystery originally created by Ryukishi07 as a doujin work, and its structure — which leaves the interpretation of its foreshadowing up to the reader — has long been divisive, especially given how its anime adaptation sparked backlash in Japan. On the other hand, the point that it’s rated highly by overseas streamers is one example of a gap between its reputation in Japan and how it’s received abroad. Meanwhile, the fact that 90s titles like YU-NO and Kamaitachi no Yoru keep coming up reflects a structural issue in the genre: it rarely benefits from hardware improvements, which also helps explain why recent hits have been so limited.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Let’s pick the Big 3 Visual Novels like we did the Big 3 RPGs — ‘Higurashi’ and ‘Steins;Gate’ are locks, so what’s the third?“.
Leave a Reply