Visual Novels

My favourite aspect of visual novels is how much they play with video games as a genre, and the innovations that are created from the restraint necessitated by their structure. It seems somewhat backwards that a text-based medium could be more innovative than a full-blown 3d adventure game, but I have really found that visual novels present the most compelling presentations of video games that are self aware and seriously grapple with their place in the canon of art.

Umineko is, of course, the ultimate example of this: the game took me more than a year to finish, and yet the entire time I was rapt in its bizarre layers and intriguing concepts. The game has absolutely zero points where you can influence the outcome - no choices, no action beyond moving forward - and yet you the reader are totally involved in the story, as you are forced to mull over the facts presented and interpret multiple perspectives on the same event. Only after being presented with absolutely everything can the overall story be fully understood.

Another example of this I loved was 428: Shibuya Scramble. In Shibuya Scramble you follow multiple protagonists' stories, but their stories are all connected and certain events are temporal bottlenecks, preventing you from moving forward until all perspectives align into the 'correct' timeline. This method of following the same story from different views hour by hour creates a multidimensional view of one city on one day, yet is incredibly intimate.

I think the text-based, longform format of visual novels also gives them the opportunity to confront topics that might seem trivialised if they were 'gameified'. For example, The House in Fata Morgana's storyline involves intersex characters and instances of extreme abuse. Through nonlinear storytelling and the ability to spend as much time as the game wants exploring subjects instead of being at the whim of the player's discretion, the game can really spend the time it needs to approach subjects like that appropriately. A far cry from 'press F to pay respects'.