What is a Visual Novel

What is a Visual Novel?

            I feel compelled to explain, because so many people in everyday life ask me this if I ever mention that I play “visual novels”. I don’t pretend that I will be educating anyone here, because in all likelihood nobody will read this. I just like talking to myself, and acting as though I’m talking to someone else makes me feel more sane.

            First, there are two main styles in which most visual novels are presented. There’s the “novel style” in which text is displayed over the entire screen, and there is the “action/adventure style” in which text is displayed in a dialogue box like it would appear in most video games. The difference is a matter of personal preference.

            Second, there are two main levels of player interactivity. There are “kinetic novels” which are visual novels that require no input from the player whatsoever, and there are what most people consider normal visual novels that require the player to make occasional choices that influence the story. Visual Novels are not video games. It’s probably easier to think of them as books that were given a soundtrack and some pictures rather than a game, they are very text-heavy and story driven.

Here are some example pictures of different types of visual novels:

Action/Adventure Style:

Novel Style:

Choice point (also adventure style):

By the way, I’ve played all of those. In order they are: Clannad, Higurashi no naku koro ni, and RE:Alistair. The last one only took about two to three hours to finish all of the routes, Clannad is a 300+ hour visual novel if you want to see EVERYTHING (though very well written), and Higurashi is quite long too, though it’s a kinetic novel so there’s only one path. RE:Alistair can also be downloaded for free from Sakevisual, so you can play that one if you want to see what a visual novel is like.

Most people can figure out what they like and don’t like pretty quickly though. Now go, go and read!