Tag: games

My Opinions on Visual Novels

Tiberius1 Comment

Lots of engagement? Or hardly any?

I chose the topics for the year many months ago. In the case of visual novels, I didn’t think I’d have a lot to say about them, but when I got one for free this summer on Steam, it initially got me thinking about how I feel about them… for a bit. Then I stopped largely due to my play style. I do get absorbed in video game narratives — I felt compelled by MK: Shaolin Monks enough to try to fix the narrative like a weekly anime a la Dragon Ball — but my play style successfully blends dialogue with button pressing. Mortal Kombat, God of War, Call of Duty, the Naruto games, Midnight Club, Need for Speed; indicting myself here, the action is the selling point.

But I still decided to give that free VN a chance, specifically this one:

The goal of Find Love or Die Trying is to romance one of the five girls on a televised game show not dissimilar from The Bachelor/ette. If you fail to get even one of them to fall for you, you die. So specifically it’s a dating sim game. I recall tuning into DashieGames in the latter part of high school when he was playing that one dating sim puzzle match game HuniePop, where that game’s goal is to score with all the girls.

I know what visual novels are, and there’s a chance you’ve come across some yourself or even their most famous anime adaptations (Fate, Clannad, Danganronpa, etc.), and I was about to say that they’re not for me, but that’s just not true. I just forgot because I have way more memories of being very involved in other video games not limited to the ones listed above. The truth is more that I’m a bit torn on VNs somewhat. I’ve run into several in my childhood, especially on the practically defunct Stickpage, and while not VNs themselves, the Choose Your Own Adventure template of Telltale Games’ video game adaptations of popular properties as well as Don’t Nod Entertainment’s Life is Strange series served as something of an introduction to VNs or something close to a VN.

I still have my copies of Minecraft: Story Mode Seasons 1 and 2, I’ve watched gameplay of Life is Strange 1, Before the Storm, and 2, along with criticisms of each (for more information on LiS, see GCN, Dumbsville, or uricksaladbar on YouTube for more details), and if you’re familiar with games like these you might see the path I’m walking down here. Diet VNs or not, these tended to have more player involvement than something like Doki Doki Literature Club or literally Highschool Romance. Clearly, I’ve got a preference for one type of game over the other, but it’s not like I won’t give a VN the time of day. I did stick around Find Love long enough to reach at least one ending, and a few years ago I watched an old playthrough of The Anime Man playing Highschool Romance; I watched all the endings on his channel. This is what it looks like.

So why are VNs toward the middle of my tier list? Is the limited involvement that it comes with, prioritizing the reading and storytelling over the action? I doubt it… if that were the case I probably wouldn’t have seen the Telltale Games through to the end or bothered watching that Anime Man gameplay of it. I think it’s effort necessary to get through a VN. Don’t get me wrong, I think VNs can tell great stories with the right kind of writing, setup, and characters. The 4chan sponsored VN Katawa Shoujo about romancing girls with disabilities is said to be one such example of amazing storytelling, but I think part of what keeps me from exploring more further has to do with length.

This may sound weird for me since I’ve stuck around some long running anime and have several novels in my possession right now as well as a published novel out available for purchase, but part of the difference between a physical book or a graphic novel or even a webcomic would probably be the visible page count. With the exception of Choose Your Own Adventure, few books or other such media have branching paths. Sometimes what I do when looking at a book in Barnes and Noble or any other bookstore or even with books I own, I count the pages of the chapters. I don’t always have the time to just read for fun and in those instances I count how many pages a chapter has and whether there’s page breaks for me to stop on just in case I need to put it down and divert my attention elsewhere. They’ve become to me what most mobile games are for someone on public transit.

Visual novels on the other hand feel more deceptive. Because so many have branching paths and multiple choices affecting the narrative, a single run could theoretically take moments of your life away, especially if you plan on going back to unlock different endings. This might come from the side of me that wants to experience a lot of things at different moments or it might be something else, but seeing how long some VNs can be can get pretty daunting. I could do it, but seeing the progress bar move at the speed of sleep might motivate me to try another look for speedrun to watch on YouTube or try one myself to juxtapose.

More popular VNs like Fate also notoriously ridiculous launching points. Gigguk took the piss out of this a few years ago with his video on getting into Fate, but it touches on another problem with some VNs: starting point.

Channel: Gigguk

To be fair, I’ve heard from Fate fans that the memes of where to start getting into Fate take it overboard at times, and I like to believe there’s some truth to that, but other times VNs can run on for very long and seemingly have no clear path to walk on. From the outside looking in, they can look like they’re all over the place narratively. I don’t always like taking notes when I’m reading, but a labyrinthine writing style can make that look like a National Guard deployment to an approaching disaster.

I’ve called my own levels of patience into question before, but it looks like I draw the line at really long VNs, though more of a dotted line than a solid one. I could see myself getting into more VNs if I knew where to look for more, and ideally none that are years long or seconds short. The Highschool Romance dating sim gives me an idea and I may go back to Find Love in the future (especially since I started a second run and didn’t finish), but until then I’m probably gonna keep VNs towards the middle of my personal list. I recognize the appeal and I could see myself getting absorbed in them one day, but it’ll take a while for that to happen. For an in-depth look at what a visual novel is and what most of them consist of, see this video from Get in the Robot for more details:

Channel: Get in the Robot

This week’s channel recommendation is Company Man.

https://www.youtube.com/@companyman114

Company Man is a channel dedicated to exploring the businesses and markets that have since become household names in the U.S. and abroad. Restaurant chains, pizzerias, candy companies, grocers, and numerous others. Often in my writing, I’ll make obscure references to famous products or companies and whatnot and I like that Company Man offers a lot of insight on the history and success or sometimes failures of many of the brands we grew up with or heard about. It may not sound as ecstatic or exciting, but I think it’s interesting to explore these different brands.

GTA VI Launch Trailer Arrives Early

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A really long time coming

Citizens of the internet will know that fake trailers make the rounds several years or so after a popular franchise entry is on the market. I recall looking at fake videos of what GTA V would look like shortly after announcement in the middle of 2012. Me and my friends were hyped for the latter half of that year and 2013 waiting for the game to come out and when it did, in a nutshell it broke records back to back.

A few weeks after initial release, GTA Online debuted and despite an initial hiccup for those who were there (I was one of them), Online alone probably counted for lifetime revenue for the game. The most expensive piece of media in history made back all of its money and then some. If Rockstar was feeling philanthropic, every employee could probably retire and have enough savings for their descendants.

Over the years, critics have popped up questioning Rockstar’s design philosophy and direction. GTA V was said to have a DLC that was functionally stolen by GTA Online, which has enough DLC on its own to be released as a standalone semi-RPG (an idea that Rockstar could capitalize on if done more honestly), and even after the release of the phenomenally made, if overdone Red Dead Redemption 2, players often defaulted to GTA. Answering to the money (read: gold) found in the criminal funhouse that GTA Online was and still is, Red Dead Online suffered as a result and some haven’t forgiven Rockstar for it.

Nevertheless, Rockstar’s reputation as a more patient company has paid off. Gone are the days where they were a small team of British programmers asset flipping successful titles with only a year in difference. Projects have gotten bigger and bigger since at least 2007 coming to fruition with the following year’s GTA IV.

I think I have a theory on why the games have taken a more contemporary approach as opposed to the older unnumbered titles like Vice City or Liberty City Stories, and that theory starts with “it’s easier to capture what is than thumb through records looking at what was.” Maybe there’ll come a day when I elaborate further, but today we’re talking about a very long, very awaited installment in the GTA franchise.

On December 1, Rockstar announced the trailer would release on December 5, at 9:00 AM but the full trailer was leaked 15 hours ahead of schedule, racking up a record breaking view-count in minutes.

Channel: Rockstar Games

The internet has been demanding a follow-up to GTA V for a number of reasons, the most popular of them being criticism over the gluttonous mass that is GTA Online. I can’t say with certainty if these are the same people who default to GTA Online, but if there is some of that overlap, then it’s true what they say about a view from a glasshouse.

So following up on GTAs IV and V, GTA VI is yet another entry into the contemporary setting of modern-day Miami/South Florida. After looking myself, commenters who are from or have been to Florida have applauded the downright authentic portrayal of life as a Florida man or woman. Exploration of the Everglades and Keys, run ins with alligators, regular folks putting bizarre twists on normal activities and other easter eggs to the unpredictable nature of Florida man. Here’s a fun game you can play: google your birthday and put Florida man in and see what comes up.

Unlike the portrayal of South Florida from Vice City, where it takes home the allegations of a copy of 1983’s Scarface with a few references to Miami Vice, this time the game incorporates pretty much any given report on life in Florida. Much of the in-game footage captured seems to be recorded on Rockstar’s as of yet released parody of TikTok. Allow me to repeat a similar soundbite when I say that the graphics have never looked so amazing. YongYea recorded a video on this the previous night speaking similarly about the graphics and there’s no hyperbole when I say that minor things like hair and clothing affected by the wind, or facial rendering right down to the muscles, or even the local wildlife all come alive in just the trailer.

As for the plot, I’m personally saving my viewing eyes for later trailers to follow in 2024 and ’25, but from what we’ve heard and seen, it’s heavily inspired by the 1930s outlaw pairing of Bonnie and Clyde.

Also a first for GTA is a female protagonist. Rather than make your own in Online (as I have), the female lead is named Lucia and the male lead is named Jason. Plot details are obviously scarce and I intend to keep myself surprised until release even though select details have leaked yonks ago. From what I can gather from the trailer, it begins not dissimilar from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean.

Think about it: young Florida woman begins in the prison system; Lucia herself most likely dodging worse versions of what Jolyne was forced to share a detention complex with during her own incarceration; a boyfriend with an equally sketchy history… and again without anymore information from that, I can’t say where else the story goes, but it clearly doesn’t take place in a prison, though the prison is likely to play a role in the story in some capacity. By the way, the initial comparisons weren’t lost on the JoJo community.

Credit: u/klydex210, r/ShitPostCrusaders

I honestly thought, as did others, that the release window would be, say, Q4 2024, but the trailer ends with a vague 2025 release window. As of writing this, in-depth analyses of the trailer are releasing on YouTube and more will follow with more trailers in 2024. All that time cooking up a five-course meal, so many people have been waiting for the main dish and it looks like whatever trailers are releasing next year and after until release will hold us all over as appetizers. I’m excited, but all throughout this post, I’ve been keeping a level and realistic outlook on this. As exciting as this reveal trailer was, I’ve learned from past mistakes and disappointments to wait for as much information to be made available. Remember Kratos’s words:

Credit: u/Shaho99, r/GodofWar

Open your mind to the possibilities and all that. Now have some analysis videos to hold you over until the next trailer.

Channel: WatchMojo.com

You’ll have to watch this one on YouTube itself.

Channel: TheProfessional
Channel: YongYea