2007-12-10, 11:16 | Link #1 | |
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Classifying "Visual Novels"
(I moved this conversation to its own thread. It was originally part of the "What Ero-games are your favorites at the moment?" thread.)
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I guess the issue is that the gameplay style is so big/popular in Japan that it spawned distinct subgenres (ero/consumer, NVL/ADV, etc.). But for the rest of the world, it's so obscure that it's much more useful to have a global label so we can differentiate "Japanese story games" from everything else out there. In the context of the usual English fandom, p997tt's post (where he mixes everything together under the "Visual Novel" banner) makes perfect sense. |
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2007-12-10, 12:36 | Link #2 | ||
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According to JA wikipedia, it's actually the other way around. Visual novels are a subset of Adventure games.
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2007-12-10, 13:42 | Link #3 | ||
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Question: Would we be better off if this thread were "What Visual Novels are your favourites at the moment?" We've often talked about non-ero games and consumer adaptations in the thread anyway, and I don't think whether or not a game has ero content is really the deciding issue for most of the games we're discussing here. Does that make sense? |
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2007-12-10, 13:52 | Link #4 | |
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2007-12-10, 17:14 | Link #5 |
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Well, I'm somewhat keen on sticking to correct (meaning japanese) terms' usage conventions, but there are always exceptions that might entertain us from time to time. For example, minori called ef an "interactive novel". The term is somewhat puzzling because the scenario is read like a novel, it has an AVG-style text box at the bottom, storyline and endings are predetermined, and the only interactivity found is a few decission points which really don't influence anything because the outcome is the same.
I think English-speaking fans tend to label these types of adventure games as visual novels based on the characteristics of their stories. Similarly we tend to call them eroge or ero games if they include a "sufficient" number of ero scenes. But it's puzzling where to draw the line because some AVGs tend to have excellent scenarios but quite a few ero events. I think we should move away from this line of thinking and just stick to whatever their creators call them separately. We really don't need a term to label them all, we need a pool of standard (japanese) terms. |
2007-12-10, 17:37 | Link #6 |
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Fervently disagree. The purpose of a genre classification is to differentiate one thing from another. In the context of English fandom, it's much more important to distinguish this "family" of game (ADV/NVL/etc.) from other more familiar genres and classifications. It's one thing if we on the "inside" know the actual labels and distinctions, but we need a term to explain what this "mega-genre" is to the outside world. If you start confusing people with all the myriad Japanese terms (which, again, exist because there's such a large diversity in Japan), it'll only hurt understanding. If I call Da Capo an Adventure Game (for example), they'll think it's like Zelda (an "Adventure Game"). For all intents and purposes, we use "Visual Novel" as this banner label now (hence visualnews.net, visual-novels.net, etc...), which maybe incorrect, but I think we need something... Otherwise, we're just being overly-geeky by sticking to the Japanese terms just because they're Japanese -- IMO...
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2007-12-10, 18:21 | Link #7 | |
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At any rate, this is just another example of how silly the terms are. Japanese marketers love stretching definitions as far as possible (Gun Action RPG?), with adventure game being a prime example. |
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2007-12-10, 19:45 | Link #8 | ||
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2007-12-10, 21:27 | Link #9 | |||
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2007-12-10, 22:12 | Link #10 | |
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As far as I know, and in my opinion, "adventure game" (abbreviated as either ADV or AVG) is the main genre category. According to JA wikipedia, "they are games which involve the player choosing commands to select their actions. Many of them require solving a variety of puzzles. Adult games are often of this genre". So, the term ADV could really mean everything from just choosing dialogue options, to something like Zork, where the player has to make the commands themselves. Note that I would not consider where or how text is displayed as being any determining factor. The article also makes a distinction with "simulation games", with the difference being that the main character in a "simulation games" has various attributes, and the outcome of commands may change depending on said attributes. Visual novels would be a subcategory of ADV games, but the two terms are not interchangeable. All VNs are ADV games, but not the other way around. The main difference with VNs is that the game mostly follows a linear path, with only a few decision points. The player would not have the option of making their own commands, which is the norm for classic Western adventure games. How about terms like eroge? I'd consider this as just another tag which can be used to further describe a subgenre, and not really a subgenre in itself. Trying to make a distinction between this and VNs is like trying to make a difference between Sci-fi RTS and Fantasy RTS imho. Things like "dating sim" would also be merely another tag that could be added to an actual genre, and not a genre itself. A genre should define how a game is played, not what the content is. Kinda like describing Wasteland as a "post-apocalyptic adventure game". Post-apocalyptic isn't a genre, it's just a tag to describe it. And how about things like where text appears? I've seen that being used as the main argument for differentiation, but I really don't think that's an important factor at all. Continuing with my RTS analogy, it's like calling a system like C&C with a sidebar building system different from, say, Warcraft. It's just the interface, for crying out loud. The Japanese companies themselves don't help the matter with terms like kinetic novel, interactive novel, sound novel et cetera. A lot of it seems superfluous to me, and is just a marketing label to have a "different" product from their competitors. So, anyway, I've been rambling, and I doubt it's very well organized. How should the various categories and/or subcategories be defined?
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Last edited by selkirk; 2007-12-10 at 22:29. |
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2007-12-11, 06:57 | Link #11 |
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I've been "brought up" by KJ to call them erogames or eroge. But then I found out that many people also call them visual novels (the term used by LEAF in the good old To Heart days).
So now, I don't really care any more. As long as I can establish coversation, it doesn't matter which term I use. By the way, kinetic novel is a term made up by visual art's. Because the releases (many, including Planetarian) are VNs without decision points, some people reverse-define it to categorise games with no decision points. IMO just use VNs is fine.
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2007-12-11, 09:24 | Link #12 |
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Mwahaha, something I posted actually spawned into this.
How do we know what is the original genre as termed by the Japanese? Especially when some of you don't know Japanese and when you see several English sites using the term Visual Novels and you start to think that that's the right general term for all erotic games? To be honest, I admit that I don't really know. But the reason why I started this was because someone mentioned something about a Non-adult game (Symphonic Rain) in a thread specifically for Ero-games and termed it as a Visual Novel among a group of both Adult and Non-adult games. I mean, that's just plain confusing right? Normally I wouldn't give a damn, but I decided to post something to see what happens and viola, this happens. Well so I decided to do a little research on the Japanese wiki and I found this. And it just makes things more confusing. But what I did gather is that the term Adventure game is the main genre of all the games we discussed. But its' abbreviation ADV is normally used to term many Gal Games and Boys' Love games. Which doesn't help at all. So where does "Visual novel" come into my argument? Like I said, I wanted to clarify it because I feel strongly that "Visual novel" shouldn't be used to generalize all games (both non and adult) like what this guy was suggesting. I'm not blaming him or anything, after all he got his sources from some other guy. For me, Japanese games were always Erogames or non Erogames (why go into the technicality of whether "Ero" is rightfully a "genre" or "description"?). Visual Novels are the ones with text all over the background and it was immortalized when Leaf started using it for their games. ADV games are the ones with the dialogue boxes in the bottom half of the screen ala Da Capo, Shuffle etc. Come on, almost all Erogames I played had text only in this 2 forms. You can agree with me or not, but the best way to be sure is to go the the official game sites and look at the genres the companies give their products. You can't beat that. Sure there are more and more weird genres but so far the common "Above 18" games I bothered to check are ADV, AVG, Visual Novel, SLG, SRPG. Call me anal if you want, but tell me again, where did you get the idea that Visual Novels should be the main genre? Shouldn't we just stick to "Erogames"? I mean, we were talking about Adult games right? No actually, I just want to stir up things and see the reaction. This is a forum no? Good times. |
2007-12-11, 11:06 | Link #13 | ||||||
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One of the problems with just using the term "Erogame", is that there's a huge variety of games, with vastly different gameplay, which could all be grouped as such. Would you really consider Kanon, Schoolmate, and let's say, some strip Mahjong game the same thing? All three could be considered as an "Erogame", but few people would really consider them to be the same type of game. Quote:
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Does where the text appear really make enough of a difference to merit different genre labels? Quote:
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2007-12-11, 11:54 | Link #14 | |
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So, what... does that negate your opinion or something? Playing Devil's Advocate? You really don't care but just wanted to pick on a n00b for not being technically right? A comment like that confuses me about your motivation, so what is it? |
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2007-12-12, 09:05 | Link #19 | ||||||||
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And because of the above, I just cannot agree with your definition of "describing a story with text" as Visual Novel. Comics tell stories with text too, so are they novels too? Yeah, it's a shitty analogy but what you're trying to do is to completely ignore the original Japanese intention of the term and explain it along English terms. Don't forget that the term "Visual Novels" did not originate along with erogames. There were thousands of erotic games involving nudity during the PC-98 and Dos/V eras, years before Leaf created the word "visual novel" for their games. And yes, Leaf was the first to create the "whole page with text" games. Quote:
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If you're trying to generalize games, using general terms like Japanese Adventure Game, Japanese Bishoujo Game might be a better choice. For me, I just stick to Non-Adult, Erogames and the subgenres like Visual Novel, SRPG, Strip Mahjong etc. Of course I'd have to further explain myself most of the times... Quote:
I mean, it's not hard to guess from the names given right? Gun Action RPG? Probably an RPG about guns, and if I know erogames as well as I do, it's more likely just a normal ero ADV game about guns in a fantasy setting. Interactive Novel? Yeah, Visual Novel with more options. But maybe because I belong to the older group of erogamers, there were very few genres then. I agree that all this new labelling is just marketing gimmick to promote the same thing with a new word. Quote:
Yep, guess I'll go rant instead with unabashed smartass attitude. Hmm, I should have joined in that argument. Little Busters is NOT an erogame. In the official site, Little busters is an "ALL-AGES" Love Adventure game. There are 2 kinds of games in Japan. "ALL ages" and "Above 18" games. To me, "Above 18" games are Erogames and vice versa. There are no in-betweens except for the occasional panties-flashing console games like Dreamcast games and what happened to that? So it's either Nipples or No Nipples in the world of Japanese gaming. Unless I'm mistaken and Japan is rewriting its censorship categorizing laws. Look, point is there's no easy way for us English speakers to simplify the categories of Japanese games with just a word or two. You either go and make an effort to understand their way of terms or not at all. If you want, here's my formula in differentiating them: Number 1: Japanese games are either "ALL AGES" or "ABOVE 18 (I call them erogames)" Number 2: If they're Visual Novels, they must be full of text. Number 3: If they're ADV/AVG, they must be 2/3 picture and 1/3 dialogue. Number 4: If they're something else, they must be ADV style during dialogue and probably have "extra" gaming options like battle game modes etc. Number 5: If there's the word "Novel" somewhere, I'm probably looking at pages full of text. Number 6: If it's called Insult game and has both pages full of text and pages with partial text... hell do I even care anymore? Last edited by musashiken; 2007-12-12 at 09:45. |
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2007-12-12, 12:57 | Link #20 | ||
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That being said, I don't think it makes any sense to put "18+" or "all-ages" at the top of the classification pyramid. It's a descriptor, much like "PC or console" or "PS3, XBOX360, or Wii". The age descriptor describes the audience, not the genre. When an 18+ game gets ported to a console and the ero-scenes removed, the gameplay doesn't change, the target audience does. This is why I wonder if it makes any sense to have a "what ero-games are you playing at the moment?" thread -- is the fact that they have ero scenes really the defining factor for those of us discussing it in that thread? In any event, here's to hoping for some more diverse opinions on the matter. |
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