Question about visual novels.

[amjzz]

Um...is visual novel same as a "date sim"? In other words...all the visual novels are basically "date sims"?

And...any recomendation of a good visual novel?.

[Potatochobit]

yes but date sims are usually rated PG and most visual novels have at least 1 R rated scene at the end. but most of the the time a VN is re-released on the PS2 or dreamcast so u can play the safe one, its pretty much the exact same thing except the one scene.

can you read any japanese at all? there are certain games u must stay away from if not.

[Nadeor]

Clannad would be fine
Since it's rated All-Ages

And no, Dating-Sims are not for all Visual Novels
for example, Higurashi/Umineko no Naku Koro ni, it's more of a thriller like Stephen King's works... except more brutal and disturbing

[amjzz]

Ok, i see. So, can anyone recomend me a visual novel translated to the english?.

(apart of kanon, air, clannad, planetarian and little busters....those basically all the visual novels titles i know that are translated in english).

[Klashikari]

The problem is that "dating sim" is a common term that is misused by the majority of the community.
This is actually solely a type of ADV/visual novel where choices and such lead to romance with one of the character (statistics etc).

Ironically, this term was interchanged too much with "bishoujo games" and thus was used mistakenly I believe. (fundamentally, they have similarities, but the latter base far more on the characters, instead of... "simulating dates" and such with a love meter and whatnot).

To expand a bit about Visual Novel, this is rather a category of game, solely based of the interface/structure criteria, not the genre of the story.
Visual novels are... well, basically a "game", where the player can read the story such like a light novel, with characters CG sprites, the BG, and often accompagnied with BGM, SFX and sometimes voiced.
From there, you have the sub categories, such like bishoujou, dating sim or genres, just like how nadeor described.

You can try nice commercial VN, such like Ever17, Phantom of Inferno, Hourglass of summer.
As for fantranslated game, there is Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night (though both contain explicit sexual content, they are eroge so).

[amjzz]

Ok thanks for the recomendations.

Um...might be an stupid questiond but what means ADV?.

[Klashikari]

This is the common abbreviation for "adventure game", which is the parent category for Visual novels (this term is not the same as the "adventure" genre for videos game on our side).

[cranston]

In terms of a "dating sim", I'd say Persona 3 & 4 fit the bill more than most visual novels

Originally Posted by amjzz

Ok, i see. So, can anyone recomend me a visual novel translated to the english?.

(apart of kanon, air, clannad, planetarian and little busters....those basically all the visual novels titles i know that are translated in english).

There are already quite a number of translated visual novels with explicit content available commercially. However, there aren't all that many recommendable ones. That said, I've only got 10-20 visual novels (including Jp), so I'm no expert.

The better ones I have are probably Crescendo and Yume Miru Kusuri. Anyone know what's the English title of the latter? A drug that makes you dream or something like that?

A fan-translated visual novel which I rather like in addition to those already mentioned is Utawarerumono. But it's kind of sad that there's no voice acting. Unless you have the PS2 version. That one has voice but no explicit scenes.

PS Fate/Stay Night's fan-translation patch isn't finished yet.

[Saber1993]

I think "visual novel" is one of media of expression.

Visual novels are the middle between movies and books.

They combine stories with graphics and musics.


So they are different from date sim.



However, it's true that they have developed with date sim in Japan.

This is the reason of most of them are date sim now.