Are visual novels actually worth looking at for their genuine storytelling capabilities and literary merit...

That's a fucking lie, VN threads are relatively common on Yea Forums.

I was referring to /jp/.

I really would not recommend Subahibi as anyone's first VN. Jesus, the first chapter alone would probably put them off from VNs forever. And I say that as somebody who quite likes Subahibi.

I would recommend Narcissu to anyone that has never read a VN before and is curious about the medium. What's nice about Narcissu is that it's not very anime either, so it can also appeal to people who aren't into typical anime stuff. On that note I would also recommend Juniper's Knot, as it's short and its story is also divorced from typical anime cliches.

they're visual novels not literature. no point in trying to make them into something they're not. film fags do this shit too
"what movies are the closest to literature?" it just kinda defeats the purpose of those mediums and makes the consumers seem insecure that they don't stand up to the old western canon

There's nothing wrong with the first chapter. If you can't handle cliche VN conventions then you shouldn't bother reading them at all.

not him but the first chapter put me off for a while cause i had no idea what it was trying to do. it wasn't until some user explained it was trying to poke at lucky star which i had never seen and was the rage at the time that i got through it. it was pretty worth it though.

That's like saying people shouldn't bother with the entire genre of horror movies if they say they don't enjoy slasher films. Just because dull, monotonous slice-of-life scenes infest many VNs, doesn't mean that's all the medium is about. And until you read the entire work and reread Subahibi, that's all the first chapter is. Boring slice-of-life that won't appeal to people who aren't already into that stuff.

On the other hand, just like there are different flavors of horror. There are many different stories that can be told in the VN medium. Saying that people shouldn't bother just because they might not enjoy slice-of-life is being fairly dismissive

Did you understand what the first chapter was? It's not a parody specifically but has a role in the story, it's just out of chronological order with everything else. When Takuji suppresses Yuki's personality and replaces her with the second Yuki (the one you play as in DtRH2), the original Yuki is in the fake DtRH1 world, and Zakuro (as a ghost) comes there to bring Yuki back (since she was in love with the Yuki personality), which is why the original Yuki comes back during Jabberwocky (with knowledge on manipulating lucid dreams).
This stuff is such a central part of the medium that if you truly dislike it, the amount of games you'll be able to enjoy will be severely limited. The game is aimed at people who enjoy that stuff you know? Do you think that hindered its popularity in Japan?

Back when I was into VNs I fell in love with them as a medium, since their perspective of experiencing the world through another person's vision and thoughts seriously pulls you into the story and works as escapism par excellence. I also love that it's all paced through one mouse click at a time. Plotge also tend to have some of the most captivating settings in fiction - the level of inventiveness is seriously stellar.

What I dislike is that most VNs are very poorly paced. I dislike the lack of good plotge, and the fact a lot of good plotge have weak endings is also a bummer. But overall it's a great medium.

For me the best part of SubaHibi was the mindfuck at the start of Jabberwocky. It's also a really cool demonstration of Plato's cave allegory at play. I have to admit I missed the other analytic phil references though

Yeah, I get what you're saying. But since this topic is on Yea Forums, and not Yea Forums (or Yea Forums or /jp/), I thought the point was to discuss the literary potential of VNs. Some, such as Narcissu or (especially) Sayonara wo Oshiete definitely scratch that surface. But the typical VN doesn't, partly because of the bad writing of repeating slice-of-life interactions.

Everything you mentioned in the spoiler is stuff that requires a rereading to understand. The first time you read Down The Rabbit Hole 1, you won't get any of that. That said, as an entire work Subahibi does achieve a literary accomplishment in the sense that it creates this loop cycle where the beginning and end conjoin together. So don't get me wrong, I quite like Subahibi. But I think a lot of people can get filtered by its first chapter without ever getting to the real meat of the experience.

This guy has all the answers for you my nig youtube.com/watch?v=_BKoKMWOFrM

What are your favorite plotge VNs? And which did you find the most immersive?

why are visual novels called novels when they're more akin to plays

Unfeeling protag is aware of his condition and lack of meaningful relationships and tries to find meaning in life anyway

Because "gameplay" is mostly press x to advance text, so you actually spend more time reading than anything else.

Read Muramasa, user.

i meant theatrical plays
you've got plot mostly conveyed through dialogue, a scenography, an exaggerated acting language...

Dialogue you have to read. Plays have actors speak, an average VN doesn't.

>he fell for the actually watching plays meme
oh no no no no no

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Glad to bring a little light in misery of your days.

>What are your favorite plotge VNs? And which did you find the most immersive?
Steins;Gate hit me the hardest by far, but in terms of setting, it's a split between Ever17 and Swan Song, and in terms of the work as a whole, it would be Saya no Uta. It seems that the number of great plotge out there is relatively small, but I still have Umineko and Mu-Luv to check out as well which look promising.

Swan Song and Saya no Uta are favorites of mine as well. Unfortunately I never finished Ever17, but that was because irl stuff got in the way and by the time I was ready to return I had lost the flow. Will definitely return to it again at some point.

I would highly recommend Symphonic Rain. It might seem like a cozy music themed VN with a comfy rainy ambiance at first. But let's just say, as nice as that already is, there's a lot more to the work.

If you're stuggling between choosing between Umineko or Muv-Luv specifically though, I'd recommend Umineko. It does demand your patience though, but when it's good it's really good. But as I mentioned before, I'd personally recommend at least looking into Symphonic Rain first

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Katawa shoujo

VNs peak at the level of decent genre fiction but really, there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you're just looking for entertainment.

All terrible. No exceptions. No, I'm not impressed by your tranny murder mystery, fuck off.

>All terrible. No exceptions.
Wrong

based. you tell 'em king!

umineko is dog shit
yes there are good vns
if you want to read them you need to be able to read japanese
there is no point in discussing this topic here since english-speaking people often have read the same 3 vns and are unable to properly judge or experience the medium
also yasu will never be a woman

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Most of the best VNs are translated already. This excuse might have worked a decade ago but not now.

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you are lying and you know it.

no work of shumon yuu ever got translated
no work of mareni ever got translated
no work of jackson ever got translated
no work of romeo ever got (properly) translated
no work of setoguchi ever got (properly) translated
no work of nasu ever got (properly) translated
no work of maruto ever got (properly) translated
no work of sakurai ever got (properly) translated
no sakura no uta
none of the qruoppo vns
any many more...

you are either baiting or coping

the only good translated vns are:
subahibi
mememasa
seabed

maybe also dies irae, raging loop, saya and some rance

>inbf4 "muh translation"
enjoy reading translation by machines or highschool chinks which are neither fluent in japanese or english

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Irrelevant. If you look at a list of the highest ranked VNs in Japan you can see see that the majority of them are translated.

>enjoy reading translation by machines or highschool chinks which are neither fluent in japanese or english
*translations
*who are

wrong.
show me those lists and i will prove you wrong
almost none of them got properly translated

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also the rankings don't matter much
just look at goodreads

erogamescape.dyndns.org/~ap2/ero/toukei_kaiseki/toukei_avg.php?count=200&year=1900

Started from the top, the ones in green-text aren't translated

Muv-Luv Alternative
>Rance 10
White Album 2
Steins;Gate
Subahibi
YU-NO
Ever17
>Hentai Prison
Utawarerumono
Baldr Sky 2
Kara no Shoujo
Summer Pockets
>Sakura no Uta
Muramasa
Sengoku Rance
Symphonic Rain
Clannad
Fata Morgana
Kichikou Rance
>Nukitashi
>Parfait
Dies Irae
Fate
Baldr Force
Cyanotype
Air

Also out of these I personally don't care about Rance or Qruppo.

wa2 tl is bad, the other ones are mostly mediocre and most of the games aren‘t worth reading either way
i admit that most of the highest-ranked games are translated, but not a majority of the good ones

>book has a foreword by the translator

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I've read it and the TL is good enough. It's not incredible and there are some rough spots, but it's nothing worse than what you usually get.

have you read it in japanese too?

No. The problems I had with the game did not have anything to do with the prose, coincidentally.

They say Ever17's translation is bad, but apart from a few funny lines I didn't much notice it. These are really not works you experience for the prose, it's about the other elements, and unless the writing is bad enough to break your immersion it generally does not matter. My moment to moment experience suffers a lot more from bad pacing really.

>My moment to moment experience suffers a lot more from bad pacing really.
This is really the worst and most common problem that VNs have.

Umineko has merit, but you could cut at least half a million words from the story. Such a wild ride accompanied by a great soundtrack, but the pacing and rambling just simply kills it.

What, you dont like reading a 2000-3000 page murder mystery-turned-autism simulator?

They're poor written, objectively speaking, but somehow /cozy/ at times - provided you have tolerance for otakushit. I think enjoying that sort of thing requires a certain personality type that's over-represented on Yea Forums.

I think the music is what really makes or breaks the experience, really.

It's funny because "Editor-san" is such a meme in the manga industry but they are desperately needed in VNs. R07 in particular badly needs one.

I don't find VNs particularly compelling storytelling wise, but I enjoyed Dies Irea simply for the spectacle of it. The length is ludicrous and some of the references to German history and culture are baffling
youtu.be/jmr_stgRjz0

It's every week the same visual novel thread.

For me it's naming Marie after a short story in an 19th century English literary journal. How do the Japs find this shit