Idiots and Visual Novels

[hasteroth]

Well I was cruising around the web when I came across some comments made by some people on VNs. They say things like "Don't get it, it's just a bunch of static images and text!" or "So boring, I spent 3 hours reading when I should have been gaming," or "This is a piece of shit, you don't do anything, you just read!"

Any thoughts?

[mirkosp]

If you buy a book and expect to be firing lazors at aliens, well, you are an idiot.
If you buy a visual novel and expect to read a romantic story that allows some decision to choose how the story should evolve, then you are not.

[Chez]

The word Visual Novel does not seem to mean anything but a visual story, not an intense game that will allow you button mash your way to carpel tunnel. Its a story that you follow through and depending on the type pick the way it ends based on choices. If you expect Halo from Visual Novels you need to be castrated so your idiocy wont spread. /rant

[Minimoto]

Visual NOVEL I don't know about you but a novel is something I READ so idiots who cannot figure out that you READ a Visual NOVEL then they should go back to kindergarten.

[hasteroth]

Most of these comments popped up on download sites for these games. It's quite funny really. Usually on Eroge, (Do you like Horny Bunnies?, The Sagara Family, etc.) they seem to expect that you get to do what you can do in games like Rapelay and Schoolmate (Schoolmate actually has a half-decent story) it's really quite sad. Though most Eroge are just fap material anyways it's quite funny to see what some people think VNs are. On Hongfire somebody thought that Chaos;HEAd was an FPS. It was really funny to read his freakout.

[BasharOfTheAges]

The referring to it as a "game" is the problem i'd wager. If they weren't sold as or referred to as games there wouldn't be any sort of confusion.

[LivingFlame]

I agree with Someday Soon. Somebody out there needs to learn a little reading comprehension. Visual Novel should be self-explanatory. It's a novel...with visuals. Not an anime. Not a video game.

Even I didn't make that mistake when I picked up Katawa Shoujo (my first VN).

[hasteroth]

The referring to it as a "game" is the problem i'd wager. If they weren't sold as or referred to as games there wouldn't be any sort of confusion.

But they technically are games.

[

I just found this out.

When you google Visual Novel you get Clannad as one of the first results.

[hasteroth]

Visual novels are distinguished from other game types by their extremely minimal gameplay. Typically the majority of player interaction is limited to clicking to keep the text, graphics and sound moving (most recent games offer 'play' or 'fast-forward' toggles that make even this unnecessary).

Most visual novels have multiple storylines and many endings; the gameplay mechanic in these cases typically consists of intermittent multiple-choice decision points, where the player selects a direction in which to take the game. This style of gameplay has been compared to the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Most, however, strive for a higher level of plot and character depth than the aforementioned series of interactive children's books. These can be more closely compared to story-driven interactive fiction. While the plots and storytelling of mainstream video games is often criticized, many fans of visual novels hold them up as exceptions and identify this as a strong point of the genre.

Some visual novels do not limit themselves into merely interactive fictions, but also incorporate other elements into them. An example of this is Symphonic Rain, where the player is required to play a musical instrument of some sort, and attain a good score in order to advance. Usually such an element is related as a plot device in the game.

Some shorter works do not contain any decision points at all. Most examples of this sort are fan-created. Fan-created novel games are reasonably popular; there are a number of free game engines and construction kits aimed at making them easy to construct, most notably NScripter, KiriKiri and Ren'Py.

Many visual novels use voice actors to provide voices for the characters in the game. Often, the protagonist is left unvoiced, even when the rest of the characters are fully voiced.

[Vivaldi]

If the people are hardcore gamers, I can usually explain it to them by saying it's like Heavy Rain lite. It's more about the story and the way it evolves than the way the gameplay itself is. A huge understatement, but at least they get it then.