That said, the whole visual novel thing is something I've been trying to get into for a while now as I've been told there do exist really good ones. You see, my view on visual novels is a little skewed since all I ever see from the genre on store shelves for the PS3/PSP are stupid, semi dating sim love stories set in high schools. Either that, or stupid shit like Milky Holmes which looks so insufferably annoying I couldn't bare to sit down and translate the damn thing.
So I've been making careful picks and I'm actually quite impressed with the results I've had so far. I've played 2 in Japanese and 2 in English and I've enjoyed them enough to be arsed to seek out more. The two English visual novels that I played were 999 and Lux-Pain both on the DS. 999 is pretty well known for it's quality and Lux-Pain, while having a terrible English translation still had quite an interesting premise. The two Japanese games that I've had a crack at are Silent Hill: Play Novel and Kamaitachi no Yoru which are both extremely interesting if a little difficult for me sometimes, Mainly due to lack of Kanji ability
I've also heard good things about Dunamis 15 and Steins Gate which are titles I really want to try. The problem is that if you want to play the really good ones then quite a good command of the Japanese language is required.
I want to go into more detail about these games in individual posts but the game play across the board is basically the same. You have a story with choose your own adventure style choices at certain points along with minor puzzling so that you're really not just reading a book on your PSP or DS.
So to anyone who may dismiss the VN because of it's lack of game elements, I'd urge you to give them a try. The good ones are actually really interesting and I would easily recommend 999 to anyone as it's one of the best ones with an English version.
Watch this space for more detailed articles on individual titles.
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