I get a strange, slightly disturbing feeling reading/playing old visual novels from the pre-internet or early internet days, such as YU-NO (from 1996) which I'm going through right now. I imagine the original players, isolated from the world, experiencing the game alone, and wonder what was going through their mind at that time. Were they happy or on a path into the abyss? I feel like there is a pervasive fear of the future in many VNs from that time period, where technology and its purveyors often took on an evil role as a menacing threat to the innocent lives of young people. VNs are much more optimistic and cheerful today. Worth a listen to get an idea of the mood I'm thinking of: youtube.com
This feeling enhances the experience, though - it makes it more otherworldly, and more archeological, like I'm digging into a past and being part of an audience that no longer exists.
Any thoughts on this - is there a term for this kind of feeling? What else evokes it?
I get a strange...
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CRINGE and mental illness pilled.
>vNS ArE mUch MOre oPTimIsTic aNd CHeErFuL tODay
VNs as a genre have always been the abyss of schizophrenia and depravity
i've never played a visual novel, what's a cool one to start with?
Tsukihime or Saya no Uta.
SubaHibi is loved by many people here on Yea Forums for its mountain of references to Western literature and philosophy, but is somewhat difficult to play, and relies strongly on eroge/chuunige cliches.
>tfw can't read any of these visual novels because i'm on mac
And that's a good thing.
That's what you can use Wine and PlayonMac for. It's a bit messy to set up at first, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be able to download and load any kind of Windows games on your computer.
saya no uta and house in fata morgana
I wonder a similar thing with lots of pre-internet media. It's like how Jonathan Blow can't stop paying homage to Brian Moriarty's Trinity. I don't think you can come away with a personal experience of anything while only experiencing it in the context of a shared hallucination.
Saya no Uta. It's one of the best VNs and also short, so it should give you an idea of the better aspects of the medium without requiring you to dump 50+ hours into a game.
The 2017 remake of YU-NO is getting released in English, if you didn't know.
Not him, but it just reeks of babby's first edgy story. The blowjob scene was hilarious, though.
youtube.com
got any more examples of this, im not quite familiar with the subculture?
anyways you should check out the works of
ウォルターベンジャミン(U~orutābenjamin) from the Furankufurutosukūru
I know were i have see this before, John Rafman's video art often appropriates japanese visual novels 90s. warning: disturbing content
vimeo.com
The pre-internet world is strange. I remember watching LA Confidential and The Usual Suspects back to back, and it's strange how they seem closer in time to each other than The Usual Suspects does even to ten years ago let alone now.
Then try Hanachirasu.
That's that Oneohtrix Point Never video, right? That video pretty much made me drop weeb shit for good back when it came out.
Play Amagami
Only VN I played is Steins Gate. They take too many times, just like Anime. I haven't watched or played any of these for a long time.
the bomb is everywhere. Japanese postwar culture is haunted by the spectre of hiroshima of absolute militarism and total mobilisation. moe and kawaii a desublimation of human sexuality, how does it compare with the virgin mary? What's with the horny stuff? a purely masturbatory, inhuman, sexuality completely detached from reproduction. How was it adopted by western subcultures? connecting at a deeper level with what any cultural histories of the weeb, yet to be written down and published in book form by western university presses? anime nazis actually make a lot of sense. don't want to sound like a moralistic weeb hater either. See Aby Warburg and the mnemosyne atlas, a study on the central themes of italian renaissance culture carried over from antiquity, god becomes man and man becomes god, transhumanism? you'll notice this is a running theme in weebshit, with the transhuman comes the inhuman.
>“For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed.”
I fucking love visual novels too, OP -- they're so moody, so ugly, so early nineties. Dark and nostalgic.
It's just after the eighties crash, and all the decadence and power of an ascendant Japan has faltered, leaving the people in the lurch. Like during any crisis of capitalism, people start looking for weirder answers. They feel like none of history to that point has been worth it. Even more than the weird porn and the goofy tiddy animes, VNs are Japan's dark doubtful underbelly.
I'd say you're feeling a special kind of nostalgia. Perhaps the feeling of living in another time and place, one that you could never reach without a document like this. (Student of history here.)
Did you never play video games when you were a kid? Or at least back when the internet wasn't so all-encompassing? That game only came out 23 years ago, it's not ancient history or something. Maybe it feels ancient if you're a zoomer.
How difficult would you say it is to read in Japanese?
Thats Keats, isn't it?
tbqh animu is pretty based and only ressentiment prevents the common Yea Forumsard from seeing it
I would recommend Ever17, it's a wonderful, intelligent story along with the usual romancing and a wild ride. Also has no lewd or deviant content aside from some playful joking and an implied sex scene. I played through it 7 years ago and it's stuck with me.
cool video lol
Great thread, I'm going to look into some good VNs tomorrow
today I am tired, stupid and hate everything
i'm divided between writing a novel and making a video game so maybe i should get into visual novels and make a visual novel instead
Learn Inform 6 or 7 and make a text adventure.
>interactive fiction
hey that'd be cool
Text adventures and interactive fiction are different. Text adventures are adventure games (exploration, items, puzzles, mysteries) in a medium of text, while interactive fiction is mostly a static navigation.
I'm not familiar with the references, but it seems like you're saying that the pre-internet experience of engaging with media alone was more authentic. It reminds me of playing games as a kid - just your normal Nintendo games and such - and how my reactions to them, my knowledge of the game, was mostly original and not dictated according to social media, intrusive always-there marketing by the game company, etc.
Ever17, although newer and a little more polished than YU-NO, covers some of the same themes I touched on in the OP, and as abandonware by a long-dead game company, it is in a way even more underground and distant from the present era than YU-NO, since the latter got a remake and has an anime adaptation coming next month. Also, the story of the game literally involves going deep under the sea, which shouldn't be lost on you for its value as analogy.
I read Benjamin in college but you'd have to expound on how his work relates to this as I don't remember much of it.
It is strange indeed. I associate it with my childhood, as puberty and the onset of adolescence coincided for me with getting Internet access at home for the first time.
That video made me laugh but treating it as legitimate social criticism beyond "haha WTF dude there is some weird shit on the internet" is silly.
You're hard to follow here, but
> purely masturbatory, inhuman, sexuality completely detached from reproduction
sounds like it makes sense in a way.
>anime nazis actually make a lot of sense
Further explanation needed
>I'd say you're feeling a special kind of nostalgia. Perhaps the feeling of living in another time and place, one that you could never reach without a document like this.
You hit the nail on the head. It does feel historical, and perhaps you see why I said "archaeological" in the OP. It's looking beyond the contemporary moe representations, which are much more commercialized, (often) sanitized, and disconnected from the social and historical conditions (which you mentioned) connected with its origins.
Almost all dating sims are brain dead simple. If you have a basic grasp on everyday conversation and access to a dictionary/texthooker you're golden.
>I'm not familiar with the references
Jonathan Blow made a game called The Witness. One of the ending videos has him walk past a pillar and place his hand on the map of the laboratory of the Manhattan Project that was packaged with the text adventure Trinity.
What's your opinion on Va-11 Hall-A?
There's something about these abandonware, relatively obscure japanese games, or just obscure media in general... a feeling not unlike entering a graveyard, knowing that it's just you and the game, not reddit and Yea Forums and whatever else + youtube let's plays + your dog playing it at the same time. I played Yume Nikki back when there wasn't a lot circulating about the game and it was quite the experience. I get the same feeling when I decide to watch some shitty obscure OVA from the 80s.
I don't know why, but the quietness and the solitude of playing or seeing or listening to something obscure makes it more magical for me, and not in the hipster way, but in a way that I feel like my experiences are a secret kept just between me and the game/film/show/book/song. I love it.
>Further explanation needed
i'm rambling, impressionistic collage logic, these sort of insights are hard to express in a scientific way because they are images, not logical propositions. playing a slideshow to see if something greater than the sum of the parts is glimpsed.
Sounds like Hauntology. The same thing behind that pseudo-80s retrowave music. I think people don't know how to deal with the world we live in.
This. I would recommend reading pic related. A short book that is great, especially if you are into music culture in the slightest. Starts off cliche, but every chapter is better than the last. There has been few times in which a book has given me nightmares, let alone a philosophy book.
Also, if you ever want to experience this feeling for yourself, then:
petittube.com
Takes you to a YouTube video with no views.
>zoomers dont know what text adventures are
its ok to be weird .. its ok .. to be .. wired
Fate/Stay Night
For me, its starless
I've fapped so many times to the mom's feet.
>not her shits
bro
>is there a term for this kind of feeling?
The closest I can think of is pic related.
iktf
Lovely post, and this is from someone who’s never played a VN.
The House in Fata Morgana is my all-time favorite
Some other good VNs are:
Kara no Shoujo (this one is my second favorite)
Katawa Shoujo (babby's first VN and not really as great as people say but it's a good entry point and Rin's route is GOAT)
Symphonic Rain
Tsukihime
Fate/Stay Night
Umineko
Higurashi
Saya no Uta
Kikokugai
Ever17
Swan Song
Yume Miru Kusuri
Subahibi
Rewrite
Cross Channel
Narcissu
These are just a few VNs that I've read and enjoyed but there are plenty more out there.
Remember 11 is pretty much the only vn of its genre that's actually good. Also I wouldn't recommend reading subahibi unless you're really into ridiculously contrived selfcest that involves misunderstanding middle school psychology, pointless literary references or reading a character lecture you about how the theme of the game is that if you ignore all of the shitty parts of life then all of it is good.
You are feeling the classical aesthetic of the sublime.
Something that is beautiful but also might destroy you.
Like mother nature
As a side note: why have we been having so many VN threads lately?
I'm not really complaining but in the past VN threads were pretty rare and most threads either got ignored or deleted whereas now it seems like there's always at least one thread in the catalog about VNs. I'm kind of curious as to why they're suddenly a more popular discussion topic than they were in the past.
We, as the observer, finally became aware. Reality can only be rendered by feedback. We, as a species, have been seeking for constant validation of our own existence. Living before the net-revolution was, in a pure sense, less-existing than today.
I think it makes sense that someone who posts on Yea Forums, and thus likely has or had some degree of interest in anime, and is also interested in literature, would take an interest in visual novels, since they're essentially a combination of the two. Add to that the fact that the only real place to discuss VNs is the general on /vg/, which is full of fucking retarded idiots who can't hold a conversation or do anything other than shitpost, and it makes sense they might post about it here instead. There's also /jp/ I guess, but aside from the translation status thread, discussion about translated VNs is pretty much dead there.
I agree. I think that VNs belong on Yea Forums and it makes sense that the users on here would take an interest in them.
What I'm mostly curious about is the recent interest in them. I've tried talking about VNs on Yea Forums in the past and was met with little or no response. I'm somewhat curious as to why people seem more interested in VNs now than they were a year or two ago.
I'm not sure why it is. I've also tried to discuss them here in the past and met with little interest. I try to keep up with the industry a bit (in the west), and I don't see any indication that VNs have become more popular recently. If anything, sales are lower, but of course that isn't a sole indicator of how many people are reading anything, given how rampant piracy is. Maybe it's just people getting fed up with /vg/, or some people are making a shift to reading books.
If you like the voice actor Norio Wakamoto, try the VN Sharin no Kuni. He voices your mentor in it.
He's in Muv-Luv as well as the base commander.
youtube.com
>I feel like there is a pervasive fear of the future in many VNs from that time period, where technology and its purveyors often took on an evil role as a menacing threat to the innocent lives of young people.
Well they were right to be afraid. The more our technology improves the worse our lives get.
>VNs are much more optimistic and cheerful today.
Because they're to compensate for the readers' extreme alienation by doping them up on moeblobs and porn. Underneath the cheery facade there's always some sort of message like, "Interacting with other people is good" or "Don't kill yourself."
Then you get the ones that somewhat sit in the middle like Blue Lacuna.
But yeah, the parser based text adventures are pretty much an entirely different medium than interactive fiction.
I generally hate animeshit but you made it sound really interesting.
>Rin's route is GOAT
This, and unironically. It's the only part of KS that is exactly as good as people say. Beautiful sentences, brilliant use of symbolism and metaphor, and delicately directed. Excepting the last episodes of Eva, it's the best description of overcoming depression that I know.
Because having these discussions on /vg/ is horrible. Really, really, really horrible. They aren't video games, and discussing them through that lens, with that crowd, is abominable.
Unfortunately the mods obliterate every one of these threads on Yea Forums, so you can't discuss them through that lens (which is shit, because it's the only one I want to). They're not popular enough to have their own board, and they don't really fit neatly into any category, so they get screwed over.
>Twine and Inform are literally the same thing as a Z-Machine despite the former being a chain of hyperlinks & the latter using a text parser
t. hasnt searched IFDB or Itch
Katawa Shoujo
I played a couple of VNs in my time and i liked them
Has anyone here played Muv Luv?
Im currently slogging through Extra in hopes of getting to Alternative
Its a real anime hell death march
I play Swans in the backround while i do it
It worth reading through Extra and Unlimited to get to Alternative. If you want to make it as quick as possible, I recommend doing this.
Extra - play Sumika's route then Meiya's, thus unlocks Unlimited; the other routes are not necessary
Unlimited - this doesn't have routes but ending variations; Meiya's ending is the most well-done so I recommend that; the other endings are not necessary
Alternative will occasionally make reference to something that happened in one of the other routes/endings of Extra/Unlimited but it's nothing that will render you unable to understand the story.
extra and unlimited are total shit. alternative has its moments (one arc is among the best in vns) but overall it's not a well told story if you think about it. I recommend reading alternative at least once. imo you can skip extra and unlimited, you'll probably miss some details but as I said, the story is full of holes, the experience/feels of alternative is why people like it
I don't think reading Alternative without Extra and Unlimited would make any sense. It would be better to just push through them playing them in the shortest way possible and not doing any of the unnecessary content.
Also I say this having gotten every ending in both games. I don't actually dislike Extra, it's a fairly standard moege, but that's not really good enough is it?
he could just read a summary to understand the context of extra -> unlimited. there's not much that cannot be implied while reading alternative. and he'll save 30h of bad/mediocre content
I don't know, man. I think all of it hits you harder, especially the ending, if you actually played through the games and experienced Takeru's normal universe before the BETA stuff starts. I feel like the emotional effect would have been decreased significantly if I'd just read a summary of that, even if it's not the most engrossing thing to play through.
Alright, let's do some actual lit analysis:
There's a recurring motif in the first part of Rin's path, where both she and Hisao (the protag) are basically stuck in their lives unable to move forward. It's strongly hinted that Hisao is, uh, "cripplingly" depressed:
HISAO: "It's like... yeah, it's exactly like being underwater. Like I can't even breathe."
That metaphor is bought up again in a later scene:
RIN: "It's like my mind is in some other place than the rest of me."
HISAO: "Underwater."
RIN: "Yeah. I wonder how it got there."
NARRATOR: "I have no answer, so a brief silence falls between us for a moment. I shift my gaze back to the sky above us. The last time I really paid much attention to the sky was... I guess it must've been at the hospital. I could only see a thin strip of sky from the window of my room. If I walked up to the windows and pressed my face against the cold glass, the strip became bigger, but not by much. That sky made me feel sad and lonely, a reminder of the world on the other side. I wonder if there's another world beyond the sky we see from up here on the school's roof, as well. I can't stop comparing life at Yamaku to my hospitalization, but I really should. I'm not there any more. The narrow sky from the window of my hospital room, the faces of the doctors, the faces of my parents. The off-white walls everywhere. Iwanako's letter, echoing the words she never said. They're things of the past now. I wish I could forget everything up until now and that time would stop completely. There would be only me, Rin, and the sky, an eternal lunch break on this rooftop. Perfect, unchanging, and forever."
At the end of that conversation, he finally breaks down and cries about the fact he's been left with about ten years to live. Much later, after both he and Rin have worked out how to move forward:
NARRATOR: "I close my eyes, and give in to the irresistible sensation that has been growing inside me all week long. I float up, towards the surface of my own life. The pressure of being underwater slowly diminishes, the weightless sensation becomes stronger. I break the surface of the water, lifting my head into the sunlight and inhale deeply, breathing in fresh air as if for the first time in a long, long while. My lungs fill with oxygen, and I open my eyes to see Rin's peaceful, determined face."
NARRATOR: "We walk down the slope carefully and slowly to avoid falling down, Rin in the lead and me a few steps behind. Rin surely can do this. Even if she can't, she's going to pull through. I'm sure that I can keep my head above water too, from now on. The sun sets behind our backs, setting the world ablaze in its orange glow. I keep watching the back of the red-headed girl descending the path a few steps ahead of me. If it's only this much... this distance between us is definitely within my reach."
There's a lot of neat examples like that, but to me it really captured the feeling of being depressed and beating it
>like I'm digging into a past and being part of an audience that no longer exists.
I know that feel quite well. Its the reason that I also really like 90s and early 00s Vns. Pic related is my absolute favorite (totally worth learning Japanese for)
>where technology and its purveyors often took on an evil role as a menacing threat to the innocent lives of young people.
They were absolutely right. The Internet was a mistake.
I've never felt like trying to read YU-NO since it's so old, but that song you posted was really good. I think I might give it a try.
>visual novel
no dude
I really wish that this had an english translation. I've wanted to read it for a while and everyone who's played it says that it's one of the best VNs out there.
I think its the opposite, I think back then it was much more normal, and when I picture an original player, I see some computer enthusiast with his cigarette after a long day of work.
>VNs are much more optimistic and cheerful today
imo this makes modern VNs much more creepy and isolating.
yes frog
> VNs are much more optimistic and cheerful today
Are they? The sprites and CGs are slicker, but there are still anxious stories. Chaos;Child, Root Double, and Dangan Ronpa all seem pessimistic.
You can say the same thing about reading regular old books though, no?
Comfy thread though, makes me want to play Heechee again.
Inform 6 is basically just ZIL but for fans, and so is Inform 7 under the hood.
Has anyone read Cosomology of Kyoto?
BASED Rin poster
I’ve never heard of it.
Have you read it?
I need to finish Muv-Luv.
I only played the school life part so far
Any thoughts on an evil role as YU-NO (from the game alone, and being part of an audiencing feeling of: youtube.com
This feeling? What no longer exists.
Any thoughts on this - is there a term for this kind at to the abyss? I feel like I'm thinking of: youtube.com
This kind of an audience that time period, where is a pervasive fear of the future in many VNs from that time pervasive fear of the mood I'm digging through their mind at that to the in many VNs from that else evokes it more archeological, like I'm going threat to the pre-internet days, such as YU-NO (from 1996) which I'm going through - it makes it?lse evokes it?ame alone, and wonder what was going through right now. I imagine there they happy or on a path into a path into there archeology and its purveyors often to get an idea of the world, experience, though - it makes it more optimistic and being part of an audience, thoughts on this kind of the future in many VNs from that time period, where technology and its purveyors often took on an evil role as a menacing threat to get a strange, slightly disturbing feeling enhances the experiencing the game alone, and cheerful today. Worth a listen to get a strange, slight now. I imagine the innocent lives of young people. VNs are much more optimistic and being people. VNs are much as YU-NO (from 1996) which I'm going threat to the innocent lives of young people. VNs are much as YU-NO (from 1996) which I'm going through - is the experience, though - is the experiencing through rightly disturbing feeling reading/playing old visual novels from that time. Were the innocent lives of young people. VNs are much more otherworldly, and more archeological, like the original players, isolated from thinking of: youtube.com
This feeling reading/playing old visual novels from the experience, thoughts on an evil role as YU-NO (from the pre-internet or early internet days, such as YU-NO (from the abyss? I feel like therworld, experience, thoughts on this - is the future in many VNs are much more otherworldly, and more optimistic and more optimistic and cheerful today. Worth a listen to get an idea of the game alone, and cheerful today.
Haven't played it.
>like my experiences are a secret kept just between me and the game/film/show/book/song. I love it.
The experience is intimidating but, as you said, there is a special magic, especially, in my mind, for media like this, which is meant to be emotionally involving (romancing anime girls, etc.)
I do feel there is a rootedness, and "at home-ness," to the lives of fictional characters in this kind of media in general which appeals to me. I think that anime and its related media cultivates a feeling that gives the viewer a sense of "coming home" when one dives into the 2D world.
>The more our technology improves the worse our lives get.
This is true on many levels, most of which go beyond the scope of this thread.
There are artists that attempt to create art through anime and related media, it could be worth looking into for you. Watch the fairly recent movie Maquia
>some computer enthusiast with his cigarette after a long day of work.
So this is my favorite thought in the thread so far. You're right in the sense that some of the moe and lewd tropes commonly seen today are largely or totally absent. Maybe I'm giving too much importance to the art style and voice acting - you seem to be saying that a relatively "normal" person could have picked up the game to have some fun adventure romancing virtual girls or whatever and you could be right. This just rouses my historical curiosity even more.
Pessimism isn't what I'm getting at here, nor is being "dark." Those all have a distinctly contemporary Internet-era aesthetic and feel to the story.
Nah, it's different with games like this. Different than movies too. Visual novels are supposed to be a much more intimate experience and I would say they generally are.
Where can I download YU-NO?
Ever17, Steins;Gate and 999 are all pretty good starting points, and are some of the highest rated VNs too. You should absolutely read Umineko if you enjoy VNs, it is probably the most Yea Forums VN, but I'd read Higurashi first. It's a big investment though, they're probably both around 80 hours each.
Read The House in Fata Morgana and Umineko and you should be done desu
Exactly what I'd recommend. It's American made (I believe), so it reads really well, unlike some translated VNs
what's a vn with this art style/atmosphere? Not talking specifically about what's going on here, just the style. I don't know the name of this, not even sure if it's a vn
I see you are a man of culture as well.
I can't speak to VNs, of that period or any other, but anxiety about technology is as old as technology itself. Of course certain times and certain subcultures may be more prone to it than others, and I guess that's what you're talking about. I do think with widespread internet access and the rise of all these internet companies there was for much of the past decade or two a lot of optimism surrounding technology. The pendulum is swinging the other way again with all this news about privacy and all, but I doubt that it will have much of a material effect on people's behavior. Most people are already too married to the convenience to stop using it even if they know it's bad. More and more I start to see how right Uncle Ted was about a lot of things.
As for that feeling you describe, I think I understand what you're talking about pretty well, but I can't put a name to it either. I also get it when thinking about old games such as early JRPGs and text adventures and imagine the original players. There's an interesting article I read a while ago and occasionally come back to regarding the development of the earliest text adventure that you might find interesting: juliandibbell.com
I've heard the documentary Get Lamp is also pretty good, but haven't gotten around to watching it yet. The director, Jason Scott, also chronicles a lot of early internet BBS stuff that also elicits something of that feeling for me, and coincidentally he's also friends with moot.
...And I'm digressing again. But I think that it does have something to do with the nostalgia that for whatever reason has become a big thing among those of our generation. For normies you see it more in all the remakes and shows and whatever that are obviously trying to co-opt media that were popular during millennials' childhoods and make money off of them, but for the average Yea Forums user I suspect it is channeled more toward things like the VNs you describe, even if they weren't things we actually experienced at the time. I would probably place the whole vaporwave thing as part of the same movement, with its 80s-90s aesthetics, retro-futuristic imagery, interest in Japanese sources, and concern with technology and capitalism.
I'm not sure I've said anything comprehensible here, let alone something that actually addresses what you are talking about, but I recognized enough of myself in what you wrote that I felt compelled to reply, for what that's worth.
What vns do you recommend senpai?
For me, its Pro Lesring!
tss.asenheim.org
>But I'm not a lesbian!
>You will be, honey.
This is gold. Thanks user.