Visual novel recommendations

a few of my picks, in roughly descending order of how must-play I think they are for VN fans:

  • 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (probably my favorite, the sequel Virtue's Last Reward is also great but I really didn't enjoy the third game in the series)
  • Hotel Dusk (and its sequel Last Window)
  • all Ace Attorney games (I do think the Switch collection was really well done, as loyal as I was to the DS versions)
  • Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo (if you pick up anything new from this list, please pick Paranormasight... SO underrated with amazing art, music, and characters. Story has horror elements but has a darkly imaginative mix of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Death Note, Phoenix Wright, and Virtue's Last Reward. Desperately want a sequel from these devs.View attachment 80257
  • All of the Famicom Detective Games on Switch
  • Policenauts (I liked the Sega Saturn version the most)
  • Gnosia (super underrated, lovely art style and a pretty nuts story albeit a sequel-bait ending)
  • Sakura Wars (awesome Sega Saturn VN, the sequel recently got a fan translation that I'll have to play through soon)
  • Digimon Survive (most of it is a VN, has some tactics-JRPG gameplay too though)
  • Time Travelers (recent fan translation is SWEET)
awesome recommendations, thank you so much!
 
Convince me that they exist. Literally. Looking for recommendations where I won't just start instinctively skipping everything. I think that the most VN-adjacent thing I've ever been into is the Persona games. Xenogears also got pretty wordy, but that's because the second half of it is like a summary of what would have been there if they'd been able to finish the game.

I MAY just not be into the genre, but I remember being on imageboards and IRC in the 2000s and seeing people talk about them. They sounded pretty fascinating. I'm open to the spicy ones, too.

To head off some possible interjections, I am not at all averse to reading, in games or in general. I'm a big fan of books, both fiction and non-fiction. My favorite author is David Foster Wallace, and if you know what his writing was like, you know. I also like dialogue-heavy RPGs like Planescape or, I guess, Disco Elysium more recently. Although I have some problems with that which I won't go into here. But I think it's a good game, and I played it before it was all voiced. I do find a lot of things about a lot of anime kind of sickening, but I can probably get past that.

Share your passion, if you want. I won't step on it too hard.
 
Digimon Survive is the closest I've ever come to playing visual novel, and I guess, maybe Persona 4 Arena. There's only so much dialogue one can take before your just reading a very bright book. There really needs to be a proper marriage between western Adventure games and Japanese visual novels, something where the story of the game really controls the pace of the gameplay but also has the player legitimately interacting with the characters and environment outside of 2 dialogue choices every 12 hours and somehow only the first one 6 minutes in actually had any plot significance.
ss_86c22c8f55ced8de9def881026b31db406dd0d45.1920x1080.jpg
Also, someone needs to put the majority of these VN creators in a psych ward, because anybody who could write Song of Saya has problems.
 
Well, I think you might like Scarlet Hollow then, since its well written and has some impressive RPG mechanics for the genre. I believe its still not fully finished, but each chapter has a self contained story with overarching plot, so its still worth playing.
 
Rance (7 is the best, but they're all good) NSFW
Steins Gate (The PSP version is in the repo here)
Kara no Shojo (Frustrating design but excellent story) NSFW
Subahibi (This one's pretty controversial) NSFW
Danganronpa and Ace Attorney are technically vns but you've probably already played them.
 
Probably this gonna be a hard one but if like it at the end of the day you gonna love it
So limbus company is some kind of rpg and vn hybrid good story the main characters are reimaginations from various books pretty memorable characters well written story interesting worldbuilding but the bad or worst thing about it is the gameplay that is some kind of unorthodox turn based rpg that not everybody could understand and they use a lot of words that you don't think exist in the english dictionary but exists anyway
 
They do exist, I think you just not into it but I dunno, I recommend Fate/Stay Night then start delving into other IPs from there.
 
I've always struggled to enjoy a straight-up VN tbh. Most of the time I want a VN to have some sort of Hybrid gameplay, like when they mix it was a detective/mystery game in things like Ace Attorney. Or the SRPG gameplay in 100 Line (tough fuck me I was bored of that game by the time I was done with it. There are literally 2 maps for the entire game's load of combat.)
Digimon Survive is the closest I've ever come to playing visual novel, and I guess, maybe Persona 4 Arena. There's only so much dialogue one can take before your just reading a very bright book. There really needs to be a proper marriage between western Adventure games and Japanese visual novels, something where the story of the game really controls the pace of the gameplay but also has the player legitimately interacting with the characters and environment outside of 2 dialogue choices every 12 hours and somehow only the first one 6 minutes in actually had any plot significance.
ss_86c22c8f55ced8de9def881026b31db406dd0d45.1920x1080.jpg
Also, someone needs to put the majority of these VN creators in a psych ward, because anybody who could write Song of Saya has problems.
Jesus Christ. I remember seeing Song of Saya recommended on one of Extra Credits' list of "Interesting Games you Probably Haven't Played" and gave it a whirl during Uni.

It was...an experience? Like, seriously, there's a fine line between "dark storyline that is pushing the boundaries of narrative expression" and "dark storyline that is disgusting and taboo-pushing for the sake of it" and I felt like this one fell firmly into that later category, much like "A Serbian Film" did.
 
For reading ONLY, I recommend this one, I liked it a lot.

Only other vns I played are the winter spin-off of "Code Realize" and "Hakuoki" on Vita (only one route here).

I usually prefer reading a book, when I play games I want to PLAY, literally, even if on Vita there are many visual novels in my backlogs.
 
We have a thread with a bunch of VN recommendations here so maybe one of those?
 
I do find a lot of things about a lot of anime kind of sickening, but I can probably get past that.
Don't waste your time then. Most of the noteworthy ones share a lot of common themes with anime.
Or you can name some of the shows you found the most sickening and we can work around that lol
 
I didn't really think of Ace Attorney as a VN for some reason.

SubaHibi sounds dark. My earliest exposure to anime was Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Katsuhiro Otomo, so I tend to like edgier anime. It's the stuff with high school students that weirds me out. Sometimes.

My point is, I like the dark stuff. I think I'll try it.

I see my thread got merged with this one. Wise. I should have lurked longer
 
For reading ONLY, I recommend this one, I liked it a lot.
Hell yeah, Planetarian is awesome. For other kinda similar short and sweet VNs I'd recommend the Narcissu series and True Remembrance.
My point is, I like the dark stuff. I think I'll try it.
May I recommend Full Metal Daemon Muramasa? It's pretty dark and one of my favorite Visual Novels ever.
 
SubaHibi sounds dark. My earliest exposure to anime was Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Katsuhiro Otomo, so I tend to like edgier anime. It's the stuff with high school students that weirds me out. Sometimes.

My point is, I like the dark stuff. I think I'll try it.
Oh, well, you should have started off by saying you're a man of culture and would like to avoid the slop!
You've probably heard of Snatcher; imo it counts as a visual novel, same with Policenauts. (both are available in english)

You can check out Dead of the Brain 1 and 2, both got english patches at this point.
90bd0f26c35685fdb8d3101ed10a6df6.gif

(just wanted to post this gif)

Jesus ~Kyoufu no Bio Monster~ is a VN for the NES; sci-fi space adventure.
Metal Slader Glory is another sci-fi adventure for the NES. This one is probably one of the most aesthetically pleasing games for the console. Both have english patches.
As they're both on the NES, don't expect the writing to change your life.

Demonbane is a fun one, but only if you like mecha and Lovecraft. Official english translation works fine. It's newer than most of the stuff I posted and even has voice acting, if you're into that.

The Silver Case counts as a visual novel. It's an early game by Suda51 (guy who made Killer7). It's about detectiving a series of murders. I won't go into greater detail though.

Yu-no is a VN and a bit of an adventure-quest (you have to figure out where to go next and what to interact with). It might be a bit hard to beat for some, but it's worth it. It's probably got the best story out of all the ones I listed so far (probably the only vn I could call 'an epic journey'). In terms of time-travel stories it completely blows Steins;gate out of the water. The timetravel mechanics also tie into the 'gameplay' pretty well. It's in the repo, get the windows version. Ignore the uncultured narrow-minded swine complaining about certain segments of the plot, you can tell these people have never set foot in a theater.

Eve burst error is by the same dudes who did Yu-no. Just as good, 'mystery' VN. Don't play the windows version, as it is censored and some of the translation is a bit off. An english patch is expected for the pc98 version. Save this one for later. (both yu-no and eve are the rare kind of visual novel where the censor-worthy content is plot-relevant; since yu-no never got an official release, it has a full fan-translation)
1774796764503761.png


Chaos;head is one of the last interesting vns to come out. You can kind of consider the entire genre almost dead after this game. If I recall correctly the original writer passed away half way into writing it, and it kind of shows. The issues with the initial release of the english translation patch also helped bury this game...
Also, Steins;gate is its spiritual sequel, but at that point Nitro Plus kind of lost their edge.

Wonderful Everyday (Subarashiki Hibi) came out two years later, it's part of the reason I said 'almost dead' in the previous paragraph. It's an interesting one, but kind of has that anime weirdness thing going on that you mentioned. If the first several hours of it don't turn you away, then you might enjoy it. (two of the girls are named Kagami and Tsukasa, if that doesn't mean anything to you, maybe you should avoid it) It also gets 'weird' in other ways that I'm not going to get into.

Possessioner for the PC98 looks to be fun, but the english patch isn't out yet. A little bit of something to look forward to...

There's a bunch of good looking ones that are japan only. They all look fun... maybe one day... Here's some examples:
97b56e4152c7fc64db674345d817ed83.png

iqrynodfu5mba.png

pure AESTHETIC...

THE SCREAMER (1986) (Yes, in ALL CAPS) is not 'purely' a VN, a little bit more of an RPG, but it's cool. It has an english translation, but it's a PC-88 game, with lots of bleep-bloops, you'll need to draw maps and generally isn't for the faint of heart.

edit:
You can always try the original Tsukihime. Somehow it is the most noteworthy vn out there. Try finishing one route. If you don't enjoy your time, visual novels probably aren't your thing.
Same goes for Fate/Stay Night (by the same dudes). Notice how they're both among the very first entries in vndb.
 
Last edited:
I didn't really think of Ace Attorney as a VN for some reason.

SubaHibi sounds dark. My earliest exposure to anime was Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Katsuhiro Otomo, so I tend to like edgier anime. It's the stuff with high school students that weirds me out. Sometimes.

My point is, I like the dark stuff. I think I'll try it.

I see my thread got merged with this one. Wise. I should have lurked longer
If you want a dark story but without the high school themes, the remake of Cartagra for Switch just got an English translation recently.
 
Oh, well, you should have started off by saying you're a man of culture and would like to avoid the slop!
You've probably heard of Snatcher; imo it counts as a visual novel, same with Policenauts. (both are available in english)

You can check out Dead of the Brain 1 and 2, both got english patches at this point.
View attachment 178532
(just wanted to post this gif)

Jesus ~Kyoufu no Bio Monster~ is a VN for the NES; sci-fi space adventure.
Metal Slader Glory is another sci-fi adventure for the NES. This one is probably one of the most aesthetically pleasing games for the console. Both have english patches.
As they're both on the NES, don't expect the writing to change your life.

Demonbane is a fun one, but only if you like mecha and Lovecraft. Official english translation works fine. It's newer than most of the stuff I posted and even has voice acting, if you're into that.

The Silver Case counts as a visual novel. It's an early game by Suda51 (guy who made Killer7). It's about detectiving a series of murders. I won't go into greater detail though.

Yu-no is a VN and a bit of an adventure-quest (you have to figure out where to go next and what to interact with). It might be a bit hard to beat for some, but it's worth it. It's probably got the best story out of all the ones I listed so far (probably the only vn I could call 'an epic journey'). In terms of time-travel stories it completely blows Steins;gate out of the water. The timetravel mechanics also tie into the 'gameplay' pretty well. It's in the repo, get the windows version. Ignore the uncultured narrow-minded swine complaining about certain segments of the plot, you can tell these people have never set foot in a theater.

Eve burst error is by the same dudes who did Yu-no. Just as good, 'mystery' VN. Don't play the windows version, as it is censored and some of the translation is a bit off. An english patch is expected for the pc98 version. Save this one for later. (both yu-no and eve are the rare kind of visual novel where the censor-worthy content is plot-relevant; since yu-no never got an official release, it has a full fan-translation)
View attachment 178540

Chaos;head is one of the last interesting vns to come out. You can kind of consider the entire genre almost dead after this game. If I recall correctly the original writer passed away half way into writing it, and it kind of shows. The issues with the initial release of the english translation patch also helped bury this game...
Also, Steins;gate is its spiritual sequel, but at that point Nitro Plus kind of lost their edge.

Wonderful Everyday (Subarashiki Hibi) came out two years later, it's part of the reason I said 'almost dead' in the previous paragraph. It's an interesting one, but kind of has that anime weirdness thing going on that you mentioned. If the first several hours of it don't turn you away, then you might enjoy it. (two of the girls are named Kagami and Tsukasa, if that doesn't mean anything to you, maybe you should avoid it) It also gets 'weird' in other ways that I'm not going to get into.

Possessioner for the PC98 looks to be fun, but the english patch isn't out yet. A little bit of something to look forward to...

There's a bunch of good looking ones that are japan only. They all look fun... maybe one day... Here's some examples:
View attachment 178539
View attachment 178541
pure AESTHETIC...

THE SCREAMER (1986) (Yes, in ALL CAPS) is not 'purely' a VN, a little bit more of an RPG, but it's cool. It has an english translation, but it's a PC-88 game, with lots of bleep-bloops, you'll need to draw maps and generally isn't for the faint of heart.

edit:
You can always try the original Tsukihime. Somehow it is the most noteworthy vn out there. Try finishing one route. If you don't enjoy your time, visual novels probably aren't your thing.
Same goes for Fate/Stay Night (by the same dudes). Notice how they're both among the very first entries in vndb.
Thanks Friend. I can definitely say THE SCREAMER will be my thing.
 
A few months ago, a forum I once frequented shut down but before that happened, I archived a list I created.

The list was intended to be updated over the course of years, but the forum shut down in only a few months, so evidently it’s pretty incomplete and I left it untouched as a virtual fingerprint of moi, feel free to have a look.

 

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