Visual Novels are a legitimate sub-genre of gaming, and as such, has both good games and bad ones. I for one am glad to see them on GOG, especially since the Valve-related issues in the last few days.
eden* was recommended to me by a close friend. The fault* VNs also come highly recommended, and I bought them for myself on Steam a while ago (though I have yet to play them). And I hope the STEINS;GATE series finds its way to GOG too.
I don’t own any, so I have no experience with them, but if (based on that review) there are no choices and all you’re doing is clicking a Next button the entire time, does that qualify as gaming?
There’s a lot of debate around that. Most VNs do have choices or even “minigames” within them (for instance, some of the Sunrider games have a turn-based tactical space combat game in them), but some are basically interactive books in a way.
I personally don’t care about classifying them. I like good books, I like good movies, and I like good games. If a good VN is a good game or a good book or a good movie is not relevant to me in the slightest, as long as I know what I’m getting - and most VNs are very clear in their “feature list” as to what to expect, in order to avoid misplaced expectations.
I never understood the point of these really. Might as well read a book.
I’m working on a Visual Novel now, but it certainly has branches and choices. To me otherwise, it isn’t really a “game”. Hey, maybe GOG will even consider publishing this one from me!
I mean, the idea is that you have video and audio, particularly music. A lot of kinetic novels (and visual novels in general) are driven by their soundtracks.
The spouse and I watched this documentary last night while we ate dinner. It was really well done, and gives you a greater appreciation for what they have to do at GoG to bring us all those old games. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes GoG and what they do.
Almost more hyped for the fact that SWAT 4 is currently 50% in the sale occurring along with the NoClip GOG documentary debut. Unless I’ve missed a previous sale somewhere, I swear that is the best discount it has had so far on GOG. Either way, insta-buy time.