RECOMMEND A VN TO READ

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SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

Besides playing video games, I really enjoy reading. And what happens when you combine these 2 hobbies together... Captain Planet, of course. I mean Visual Novels. I have read quite a few VNs, and here is my rec list. Please feel free to add VNs you think I should check out.

My favs

Nekopara Vol. 1
Sakura Fantasy Chapter 1
Chronoclock
G-senjou no Maou - The Devil on G-String
If My Heart Had Wings
The Fruit of Grisaia / The Labyrinth of Grisaia / The Eden of Grisaia
Muv-Luv Extra / Muv-Luv Unlimited / Muv-Luv Alternative

Dangan Ronpa series
VallHalla
Much more game-ish than most VNs, but the Ace Attorney series is excellent.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

I'm currently reading Steam Prison. (Seems okay so far.)

author=AubreyTheBard
Much more game-ish than most VNs, but the Ace Attorney series is excellent.

I think I have than on my Steam wishlist. looks like an interesting game. But does it have an interesting story?

author=Liberty
Dangan Ronpa series
VallHalla

A lot of people recommend Dangan Ronpa, but I couldn't find that other game.

Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Well, here's the Steam page for VallHallA. I've not played it, myself, though.

*Edit: I've not really paid many modern VNs. Like, I played Seasons of the Sakura and True Love ~Jun'ai Monogatari~ back in the day. I would mention Heartache 101, as it was a featured game on RMN a number of years back. The game's community has quieted down quite a bit from it's heyday, but, it still manages to be in the buzzing section every so often.
Ace Attorney is a series that revolves around Phoenix Wright, an up and coming attorney, who keeps finding himself in the middle of various murder cases. As Phoenix you have to help your clients be proven innocent. The draw of the game is the investigative aspects as well as the characters and story. Yes, the story is good - most cases lead into each other and build off each other in different ways. You run around gathering evidence by inspecting scenes, then deal with zany characters and try to logic your way through trials in order to save your clients. They're very good.


DanganRonpa is a series that revolves around groups of teens who are put into life and death games for various reasons. Each game has a new set of characters to fall in love with, though you control one of them in order to try and find out the reasons behind the 'killing game' and a way to put a stop to it - as well as figure out the mystery behind who is making these games occur and why. The games handle gameplay differently each time, but like Ace Attorney, there's two sections that it's broken in to - an investigation section and a trial section. You can also bond with your classmates to learn skills for use in trials and get to know them better. It's a really good series.


VALLHALLA is more of a VN than the other two, the gameplay focussing around making cocktails in a bar. You deal with a variety of customers who each have their own story as the main character slowly reveals her own over the course of the game. It's a pretty chill game but it has more sexual references than the previous two. The characters are all endearing and interesting and their designs are pretty great.


Another not mentioned is the Zero Escape series. They're a little like DanganRonpa, but their main shtick is multiple endings based on the decisions you make in the game - later games in the series making them very much a part of the story-telling process. You will likely break your brain a bit on the games as they touch on a lot of out-there concepts and will force you to think - not only due to the puzzles in them but also the themes present in them. You'll definitely have more than one 'Aha!' moment during playing. The games focus on a group of seemingly-random people who find themselves in a locked-room scenario where they have to work together to survive - among them is a killer who wants them to fail. They're pretty great, too.

All three games have great musical presence, characters and mystery, as well as being a little more engaging than your typical VN due to having some kind of gameplay.

Ace Attorney is pretty tame, content-wise - fitting for young teen audiences.
DanganRonpa has a lot of tongue-in-cheek moments but tends to err on the safer side of sexual content (though some of the stuff in it does toe the line sometimes), being safe for older teens.
Zero Escape is tame for the most part, but there are some violent scenes and the concepts touched in it would make it hard for younger audiences to understand, so is probably recommended for older teens.
VALLHALLA is, uh, not for kids. There's a loli robot prostitute who isn't shy about her line of work, so sexual talk exists within the game. Very much an older teen/adult game.


Ace Attorney is the closest to being a full VN of the lot, with VALLHALLA close behind. Zero Escape has a lot of puzzles and interacting with the environs, and DanganRonpa is more of a VN and RPG crossed together, having a lot of other gameplay but with a lot of story/character chatting. Needless to say it's a longer game than the others can be.
I like Marrend's recommendation =)

The best VN I've read is what the VN community considers to be the greatest of the classics: Ever 17: The Out of Infinity.

Though hard to get a hold of these days, and skipping through scenes you've already read is a test of patience at times--only after you have unlocked all other endings do you get the true ending which is where the payoff is--it is 100% worth it. What also makes it a must-read and worth of study from an academic standpoint is the way it was uniquely designed for the VN medium, for reasons that are not possible to go into without spoiling it.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

Ever 17: The Out of Infinity looks like a very hard game to come by. Looks like a game mainly main for console, but you can order the CD from different stores. Digital version???

You can basically only play E17 by torrenting the pc version ISO (and maybe some fan patches). Both the developer and the English distributor have been out of business forever, the IP has no clear owner, and the game was never released digitally. The physical CDs are collectors' items and you'll only find them at very high prices because the game's such a classic.

Anyway, I really like VNs, and my ratings are at https://vndb.org/u36097/ulist?vnlist=1 . My recommendations are basically:
Action?: Steins;Gate, or Fate/Stay Night if scifi's no good
Romance?: The House in Fata Morgana
Mystery/Horror?: Higurashi, or Rei-Jin-G-Lu-P if slice-of-life's no good
and don't let anyone tell you that you should read Saya no Uta

I/O's my personal favorite but I guess that's a weird opinion.

Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
Doki Doki Literature Club, it's a pretty cute tongue-in-cheek dating sim.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

Had a look at your ratings.
G-senjou no Maou and The Fruit of Grisaia are some of the best VNs I have ever read. Maybe only really outdone by Muv Luv Alternative.(There's quite a few VNs I have read and didn't bother to include on this list because the were very mediocre. I should open an account on that database and do a proper review of them sometime.)

I've had my eye on Fate/Stay Night and Steins;Gate for a while.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I should probably play a Fate game at some point. I am perfectly cognizant that it might be awkward for me to say this, considering that before my current avatar (which is inspired by, if not from, that series), I was using Medusa from Fate/Grand Order for what fells like years.
Most of what i would recommend is already here, so i'll add the following:

rewrite and little busters, both works from key, who have made a bunch of the same stuff: clannad is probably his more famous work, almost all of them can be found in anime adaptation, if you know 1, they all follow the same formula, great character interaction, fun and then hit you with the drama once you got the bait.

saya no uta (yes i'm gonna recomend it): a horror vn that is disturbing to read, because it was written by gen urobochi, this dude made madoka, expelled from paradise, gargantia on the verdurous planet, nowadays he get things started and then move on, someone else has to finish it. (concept behind anime: aldnoah.zero, some episodes,same with psycho pass), he is always doing things around sci-fi and i really like how he frame his work around concepts.

sharin no kuni is similar to G-senjou no Maou in terms of main character being smart and pro active.

another pick that is easy to recomend is katawa shoujo. its a free VN that is about girls with disabilities, hit hard on the feels.
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