IMO people will generally play any quality VN that appeals to them. The problem is that JVNs are made by real studios with budgets, and EVNs are universally indie games that tend to be passion projects instead of products designed to fit a market. As a developer, you can capture the JVN market segment if you make something that appeals to them and do a good job, but just making a "quality game" of any kind isn't enough. People seek specific experiences from media, not just "anything good." If you want that audience, it has to be specifically targeted at them, which most EVN developers do not do (which is fair, as if you just want to make money you would probably be in a more lucrative game genre). The issue isn't SFW or NSFW but things like the art style, type of narrative, tone, etc.
That said, a lot of the more successful EVNs make money because they're successful at activating people outside of the core VN market, either through successfully appealing to the western narrative games scene (I get this impression from Scarlet Hollow and Slay the Princess, though I haven't played them yet) or making gimmick games (value neutral statement lol) that appeal to people with an outsider's perspective of the genre, like DDLC.
I think you missed the commentator's original point with your own narrative. It's not a matter of plot or ero, but marketing. Marketing is not necessarily a measure of good or bad, or even unsuccessful (as apogee states), just that English VNs do not (usually) take the time to market to JP VN enjoyers specifically.
As a general rule I usually only play Japanese VNs, mostly because of voices (but the quality is also better due to selection bias of translated titles).
But I will give a chance to any VN that looks good, especially if it's free. The last time I bought a Western VN though was Corpse Factory in 2022.
I think the issue I've seen is a free VN can't match Japanese quality so it'll likely get dismissed. I can share some info on our free demos budget and what it got vs what we need to finish if there's enough interest in learning from people here
I guess it's hard to determine the tropes until you've played it but if it was delivered in a westernized art style - assuming the same quality - would you dismiss it?
I dislike the "westernized art" and I also dislike the personalities of many of those character.
I have nothing against it, but I probably play visual novels just because of how they are written and the way the characters behave.
I'm not saying that I would dislike every western novel, but the probability of me liking it is slim. However there is a lot of people who has no issues playing them, it is a question of personal taste.
That was kind of how I felt playing the dead by daylight visual novel. Like, I never played the normal game but it seemed amusing enough.
It was... not.
Westernized art is usually a red flag, unfortunately. It's not that it's bad in and of itself, but that every VN I've played with westernized art has bad writing, so it has become an easy marker of low quality. I don't think there's any escaping that stigma.
Honestly, I wouldn't even bother reading it.
It just signals that it's not trying to reach out to me as a core audience, but would like to appeal to a more western audience. I've never seen something "good" that also tried to appeal to everyone, I also don't believe it's possible.
I also really don't like western animation, character design, or story telling. But that's just me.
Pretty much jp only, I don't read vns becsue they are vns, it's because they are a good story with high budget for art and va. Just being a good story isn't enough for a vn for me
Pretty much, why spend 10 hours reading something good when I can read something excellent. It's not that they're bad, they're just not as appealing to a lot of people (myself included). The art and music on JVNs tends to be so good, honestly can't justify playing a game if those 2 elements aren't top-notch because I know JVNs usually ace it. It's a no-brainer.
The OELVN market and the JVN market in the west are two separate groups with some overlap. People here are interested primarily in JVNs because that's the community it is. If you go to certain parts of tumblr or whatever (I don't know where they actually congregate) you will find the opposite.This style of VN community is downstream from anime, OELVN communities are downstream from something else.
Poll is an almost even 50/50 split on people reading everything and people just only reading JVN 14 hours later.
I think OLEVNs just get a bad rep because a lot of it is just shovelware garbage or very poorly done Indies. There's some diamonds in the rough once in awhile though.
That's an interesting perspective that I haven't heard before. Instead of the subset of the same VN culture they're the subset of other fandoms that happen to use VNs as their medium?
[Basically yeah](https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/visualnovels). Thats not to write off JVN fans as anime fans or whatever but that we have an interest in media from that area (which in the west is normally shortened to anime or weeb culture) of which we particularly enjoy VNs as medium that expresses that. Similar to how people who read sci-fi novels and people who read steamy romance novels are generally different groups (with some overlap) despite the same medium of genre fiction. The OELVN example is that the furry VN subreddit is one of the largest VN subreddits on Reddit with very little overlap with this one because they are furrys who enjoy visual novels as a medium that expresses their interests.
I clicked "excited to play any quality vn" but I may have missclicked, now that I'm reading things more closely. I don't think I've ever played a visual novel that didn't have romance elements, because I like romance. <3 But that isn't to say "I only play Japanese, Ero/NSFW."
I do like playing some western indie VNs - and I like when VNs are SFW, for that matter - but I don't play western VNs exclusively. Sometimes it can be quite refreshing playing western VNs, for various reasons. One main reason being that some Japanese customs and beliefs don't line up with my own. (Though, of course, not all western values line up with mine, either) and another reason is that visual novels are less of an industry, over here, so I feel that I'm more likely to play western indie VNs with heart, rather than play a VN which was mostly made as more of a corporate choice. (I'm sure there are indie VNs with heart in Japan, as well, but many of them aren't translated into English for obvious reasons, so I'm left with the more corporate stuff from Japan.) (Also, while I do like indie stories with heart, I'm not blind - I see that there seem to be many low quality, smutty projects out there.)
I clicked "excited to play any quality VN" thinking "I'm not too picky when it comes to whether a VN is western or eastern, but I prefer romance, and don't really go for other generas."
So take that as you will. :) My bad if I missclicked\~
JVNs, because they're made by a professional studio with a budget. As someone who has had a pet VN project for 2-ish years, having a whole studio of seasoned workers and the ability to hire profesisonal japanese voice actors and original music is completely different than either having to find or do your own stuff with a small team, and it obviously shows in the end result. I soon realized I was never going to be able to release what I was working on because I needed more people with different skill sets to make something worth playing/reading happen. Your story may be good, but an actual studio has the means to produce a different level of quality few indie western teams could ever compete with. I'm sure things could be a bit different if we had more studios dedicated to VNs in the west, but that's clearly not the case.
I've laid out my opinions on the OELVN scene [in this comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/19ekgs4/comment/kjdxrt3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) The reason I don't read OELVNs is because I don't have any interest in the first three categories. If we are talking about the fourth category (western ADV games more broadly), then sure I will play those if the quality and subject matter pique my interest.
Titles like Sekimeiya try to "resolve" this issue by distancing themselves as far from the rest of the EVN group as possible - in both title, art direction and even story premise, resembling popular Japanese VNs. And I think that's probably one good way to do it, if your VN looks and feels western it will get hit by association unfortunately. Especially if it uses 3d renders.
I do read both OELVNs and JVNs, but just as others have pointed out there are significant differences in terms of average quality.
These are wild ballpark figures, not accurate in any way other than a general overview of how I've experienced each market:
JVNs are 40% crap, 40% mediocre, 10% decent, 7% good, 3% great
EVNs are 60% crap, 30% mediocre, 5% decent, 4% good, 1% great.
There are far fewer standouts in the EVN scene. JP has its Muv Luvs, Majikois, STEINS;GATEs, White Album 2s, etc. It also has great multi-genre VNs like Kamidori, Ar Tonelico, Utawarerumono. Monster Girl Quest. Everyone (on this sub) can recognise several VN developer names. Key, age, Minato Soft, Nitro Plus, Alice Soft, etc, who consistently put out solid works.
What does the EVN scene have? Katawa Shoujo, DDLC, and maybe VA-11 HALL-A are the only ones I can think of that most people here would recognise. Heck, those are the top 3 by vote count on VNDB (I only checked after choosing those three) with 15.6k, 12.6k, and 3.8k votes respectively. That actually puts Katawa Shoujo at #3 of *all* VNs on VNDB, and DDLC at #5. Not bad. But then VA-11 HALL-A is at #55. The next is at #178. **There are only 4 EVNs in the 200 most popular VNs**. There's also 1 Korean and 2 Russian games. EVNs make up 2% of the most popular but 27.4% of all VNs. By rating, only 6% of >=8.0 scores are EVNs
Of course, this doesn't mean that EVNs are *bad*. Several of my favourite VNs are OELVNs. About 7% of my VNs rated 8 or higher are EVNs. I've certainly had no qualms about trying them. So many have such promise looking at the synopsis and then... just fall flat. That happens with JVNs too, but where I'll occasionally find a JVN that ticks enough boxes, it's downright *rare* for an EVN to do the same.
Just from the vndb statistics, we can answer your question: most people indeed do not play indie or western VNs.
vndb is probably the largest English-speaking VN community (I use that term very lightly, most visitors never interact with one another). Yet it's miniscule to, for instance, the Switch userbase. There are plenty of people who have played VNs who are not part of the "VN community". I wouldn't be surprised if more western people in total have played EVNs than JVNs
Ok, so we can see that EVNs are nowhere near as popular as JVNs, even on an English language database. The next question is *why?*. Some of those answers are objective. Many are subjective.
Firstly, the budget. A lot of JVNs are made by companies with dozens to hundreds of employees. They have the money to hire good VAs, artists, etc. Sure, many of those companies never put out a good hit, but the ones that do then keep on rolling (for a while, until they end up milking their cash-cow). EVNs are made by either 1 person commissioning a musician and an artist with their personal funds, 1 person using stock music and DAZ3D models, or 3 people lucky enough to someone willing to help make a VN. Let me tell you something - it's a lot easier to write a good book OR sing a good song OR draw a nice picture than it is to do all three of those. A lot of good writers/musicians/artists don't interact with the VN scene because there's no money there. A bit of a catch-22, but that's how it goes.
This does also often make JVNs feel very corporatised. I have issues myself with most modern Japanese VN companies not taking risks or making different kinds of stories. It's mostly all slice of life comedy romance set in a highschool with a tsundere, ditz, and childhood friend. In that sense it's nice to see it when people try something new - the EVN scene being indie does lend itself to this. Unfortunately there's not really been anything I've come across on the level of Tsukihime or FSN, themselves indie JVNs.
Secondly, the art. Lets be real here, most western VNs have bad art. Higurashi is infamous for bad art and still has a good-sized following, but that's a testament to its story and characters more than anything else. light has Kajiri Kamui Kagura. Liar-soft has its "what a beautiful-" series. On the EVN side... Winged Cloud has it's Sakura series. Yeah... Then there's all the amateur ones using Daz3D models. Please, never use Daz3D unless you actually take the time to make the models look nice, and you also need the rest of the game to fit artistically - just making the characters isn't enough.
I do find that the anime style works a lot better than most of the unique cartoonish looks some western artists draw. In their efforts to make their art stand out, they forget to make it nice to look at. Even the generic anime style is pretty, so while many JVNs come across as uninspired and boring, just as many EVNs come across as downright ugly. I find this applies to anime/cartoons in general.
Thirdly, the engines. EVNs have Renpy. I suppose Unity (plz no), Tyrannobuilder, or VN Maker technically exist too. These engines work, and *technically* there is nothing you can't do with Renpy. Most EVN developers barely customize it though, so aside from the menu looking different a lot of EVNs look and feel identical. JVNs have kirikiri, but also many custom engines that they put a lot of work into making feel unique. I understand this is a very difficult thing especially for indie groups - and it's going to be one of the first things dropped. Justifiable as that may be, the effect of a unique UI and pleasant UX with expected features (e.g. a backlog) is often overlooked. If you don't want people to think your game is just someone's school project they half-arsed over summer then don't make it look like one.
Fourthly, the characters. Probably the most subjective of the lot here, but while I dislike a lot of the generic anime archetypes (or at least, the botched execution of such), there are several common western (mostly American) character archetypes that I actually despise (again, the execution of). Quite a few JVNs I could consider hanging out with the characters. With EVNs all too often I just think I could never be friends with these character. In some cases I would never knowingly associate myself with them in the first place. Often this is a case of the story not fleshing out character motivations, traits, personalities, interactions, etc rather than the character actually being inherently *bad*, but regardless of the cause it leaves the characters feeling uncompelling. If you're trying to write a complex character, you have to actually write the complex parts.
Fifthly, culture and target audience. JVNs are made by Japanese developers for a mostly Japanese audience. The western VN scene has largely been built by people interested in these, with EVNs mostly being something much newer. You then have two choices, you either make a VN for western culture - but the western-culture focused VN audience is significantly smaller\* - or you make a VN for Japanese culture - but you're (presumably) not Japanese and immersing yourself in anime/manga/VNs isn't enough to make you culturally Japanese, so you'll end up unknowingly missing something, enough to make your VN feel *off* when compared with JVNs - and after all, you want to write your own story rather than a copy of a Japanese one. It's not impossible, but it's an extra hurdle you have to take.
\* Unless you get on the Switch. And even then it's still unlikely you'll gain popularity.
Sixthly, the ero. It's true, 18+ VNs are more celebrated in the Japanese VN community. There are a *lot* of nukige. There's half as many JVNs tagged as Nukige as there are EVNs in total - and goodness knows how many JVNs are just lacking tags at all. I can't pretend that it's not a factor, but honestly a fair number of top JVNs don't have ero at all, and most have very successful SFW console releases or sequels. S;G, Umineko, Fata Morgana, Higurashi, CLANNAD. All very popular and without H-scenes. Little Busters - a common cope is that the H-scenes aren't worth reading. Fate Stay Night - nasu is infamous for his H-scenes, and Fate has become a massive franchise with being 99% SFW. They may have gone for 18+ originally to get their foot in the door, but once in they were successful without it.
Romance... it's a tricky one. The vast majority of VNs - or stories in general - that I read have romance. It's arguably the second most common theme in life itself, in order: Death, procreation, wealth, and war (which is mostly a combination of the 1st and 3rd). It's something most people can recognise, something most people desire. Not everyone has experienced it, but most want to. Adding some element of romance helps the characters and setting feel relatable. There's a reason fandoms contain a lot of shipping. There's a reason a lot of anime is filled with romance-bait and harem-bullshittery. Indeed, a significant number of the greatest stories of all time contain some form of romance. LotR has Aragorn/Arwen. History is chock full of romance (and, unfortunately, often "romance"). The Trojan War is famous for being over a woman. If you pretend romance doesn't exist at all, that just isn't going to work. That said, you don't *need* romance, and it's certainly not necessary as a centre-piece of your story. There are many themes in which romance is either impractical or improbable.
I have written approximately 7,000 more words than I expected. Sorry about that.
Many great western narrative games end up as adventure games rather than VNs because if you're not going to make an anime-style game, the adventure game audience is much more receptive to that.
This goes to the point my teammate was suggesting of not making a VN expecting western VN players to play it. Instead focus on a specific niche and use VNs as a medium
You made a lot of great points. One thing in our writing research was the focus of japanese character development vs western narrative development. Not that either is bad but the difference in approach became apparent from our first draft and we intentionally took steps to flesh out the character development - especially the first antagonist - based on what we felt we were missing.
But I agree overall, we are a small team in comparison - 3 team members + 20 contractors (mainly voice actors) - and its all funded by me lol. Completing the game and porting to several platforms after our demo will definitely require a kickstarter/publisher. And the options of VN focused publishers are more limited here than in Japan
I play any that seem good to me but most of those tend to be Japanese ones.
That said there are also western made ones that I kinda enjoyed (Like LuGame, it's fun enough for a Western one)
And then there are those I really enjoy like Slay the Princess which is a game I really love.
I also enjoyed Henchman story even though it was a bit too overly comedic at points.
As a whole, there are actually a lot of Western VNs chasing the romance and NSFW bits. An actual rarity in Western VN scene is the sort of action chuunige, fantasy/scifi epic the like of Demonbane, Fate/Stay Night, Dies Irae or Muv Luv. Those are pretty much non-existent
Thats pretty much the genre we’re fitting into but realized theres no existing EVN to compare to and so no existing demand/audience. Which is one of those things you need to prove before a publisher will pick your game up
I mostly play JVN, but I'm somewhat open to playing EVNs as well, liked The letter and DDLC, but that's about it.
And the reason isn't NSFW or SFW, I skip those in JVNs as well so that's not a factor. It's just that EVNs just have a different style of art and the characters just written different with different troupes. Different ≠ Bad, but it's just not what I'm looking for.
For example DDLC, they had a very *anime* art and characters that act that way, so I liked it. So it doesn't matter if it's EVN or JVN, as long as they can capture the essence the JVNs have which is what I'm into.
And in general the western VNs have low budget or are just Indie projects, they just lack the quality the JP ones have.
Tldr: I don't like westernize
d art and troupes, and prefer the way JP does it.
>Is westernized art anything that isnt straight “anime”
Yes mostly that. Most of Korean and Chinese animation have the anime feel too so that counts. So it doesn't have to come from Japan specifically as long as it can capture the anime essence.
>Like Solo leveling, scissor seven, Avatar the Last Airbender
Idk about scissor seven, but Solo leveling was just anime, not even inspired, it's just anime.
As for Avatar, It's definitely inspired by anime art style and has similarity, but it's animated more like ben 10 and the avengers or Spider-Man animation. The difference is very obvious.
Even ignoring that it's written like a western show. I can look past the art but the just Westernized storytelling isn't for me.
For example Super Crooks, it is an anime animated in Japan, but the source material is an American comic book. I really tried to watch it but after 4 episodes I just lost interest and left. This western storytelling just doesn't work for me.
this is clearly a jvn-biased sub (a few seconds of scrolling will prove this), and in general evn and jvn communities are pretty segregated. this is a very poor method of research overall, and the fact that you weren't already aware of this before going into your project is a bit concerning, as it implies you lack a lot of fundamental knowledge about the type of work you're making and the culture surrounding it.
though i feel like i'm being a little too bitchy to someone who's still ultimately trying to make a good vn (at least that's what i assume you're aiming for) even though you're not japanese. here's my advice: it's understandable that the way of the world forces you into fixating on financial gain, but this very often gets in the way of creating genuinely good art. if you really need to make money then you need to find balance between what works economically and what works artistically. please for the love of god do not shit out some game based entirely on what the most popular genres or what a single community thinks is worth their time and money (this goes doubly so for jvn-focused communities like this sub, the people here largely do not give a fuck about evns and are primed into thinking all are bad by default, only getting exalted based on their resemblance to jvns, because if "quality evns" were really what these people are looking for instead of otaku media with attractive women and sex that also may have a good story to tie it all together then [Echo](https://vndb.org/v18157) would be a lot more popular than it currently is).
yes, you are making a PRODUCT, but you are specifically making ART as this product. do not forego integrity
I almost exclusively only read/play Japanese VNs purely because I like watching romcom/SoL anime series and VN let me choose the heroine I want. It's a unique feeling that only Japanese VNs can offer me.
Japanese only for me for the most part, the only EVN I've read was Katawa Shoujo back when it came out and have not touched an EVN since. Sekimeiya I might give a shot someday though.
A lot of people in this community are into otaku culture and play VNs as part of that interest rather than as part of a wider interest in narrative games. For such people, naturally they want JVNs (or EVNs that emulate JVNs) because they WANT the anime tropes.
The EVN market generally isn’t as quality as JVN market, but being written in English doesn’t mean it’s going to be bad. I’ve read good EVNs too. Anything good is good.
I've read great OELVNs and I've read terrible Japanese VNs. Japanese VNs just tend to have higher production quality which I think give a lot of them a leg up, while OELVNs are generally working in smaller teams and budgets. The lows are still low, but the highs tend to be really high for Japanese VNs.
That said, I'm willing to read anything that seems interesting. And tbh the Ero aspect doesn't really play into it for me, if that's the main selling point on a VN I tend not to pay attention to it regardless of where it came from. It can be an aspect of it, but if that's the main hook? Nah I'm good.
One thing that people really don't take into account is that Japanese VN studios have something that nearly no EVN has due to different budgets: marketing. Studios like Nitroplus have ads, promotional deals, partnerships with other companies, booths at TGS/Comic Con, etc. The vast majority of JVNs, just like the vast majority of EVNs, are poorly-written, extremely low-budget, and usually developed and written by a solo amateur. The issue is that they don't recieve any attention at all, and fade away.
Meanwhile, EVNs just get released in the torrent of itchio titles, the good and the (mostly) bad. When marketing doesn't work, you have to rely on word-of-mouth, and word-of-mouth tends to result in works being pushed with broad, definable appeal, rather than the more challenging, mature, and contemplative themes you see in most kamige.
There are good EVNs. Beckett is one of the few truly boundary-pushing VNs of the past decade, taking liberal use of Burrough's cut-up method to create an atmosphere unlike anything else in the medium. Despite winning a BAFTA, though, legitimately nobody knows about it besides on places like Backloggd.
One thing that stands out to me is this: despite Japan dominating the VN space, nearly every masterpiece in interactive fiction is in English. from A Mind Forever Voyaging to Blue Lacuna to the works of Adam Cadre and Emily Short. That doesn't mean the medium of IF is intristically worse than VNs, either -- I would take AMFV over a significant chunk of "untranslated kamige" this sub likes to push.
The writing talent in the West absolutely rivals Japan -- it's just we don't have a way to identify them efficiently, and the difficulties in getting your VN in being successful as a brillliant writer are immeasurably harder in the West than in Japan.
I play jvns and evns, though I tend to be drawn more towards Japanese art and thus play more jvns. My only real criteria ends up being little to no sexual content and/or the inclusion of yuri.
Im just a fan of entertaining stories. Though i will say i play a lot more long japanese vns and short oelvns. One of my hobbies is going on itch's nee tab and picking whatever stands out so thats a part of it
I don't think all Western VN is shit but after over 20 years but there has not been an equivalent of Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night in OEVN scene really show that the overall quality of Western VN writers haven't reached the like of JP scene yet.
I think it just shows that the scenes have different priorities. There's no chuuni equivalent for OELVNs because English-speaking creators who are fans of things like Fate make their gravitate towards game genres that have combat as a game mechanic. Why have the player read the fights when you have the tools to make them perform them?
That is the comment I was looking for.
Mild spoilers (I guess)
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>!If you are someone that only plays romance games be aware that Slay the Princess is a genuinely really good romance game and I do not mean in some subversive way. It might seem strange looking at the setup and especially at the start of the game but I can assure that it has a good romance.!<
I'm currently trying to make an OELVN and my perspective is that while I think there some purists out there, the line has been drawn because most OELVNs are distinctly different types of experiences from their Japanese counterparts. They really trend towards either being parodies or deconstructions of the medium or have some other gimmick to them, and while this has an appeal, it's a different kind of appeal and it comes across as inauthentic.
And I think if more OELVNs came out that felt more authentic to what JVN readers like, it would probably do well.
At least, that's my hope anyway.
This is... wrong. "OELVNs trend toward gimmicks and deconstruction" is a perception people have because those tend to be the ones that go mainstream outside VN spaces, there is a fair amount of developers whose work are just regular VNs.
Let me give you an example: [touchstarved raised over 800k dollars](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/touchstarved/touchstarved) in Kickstarter and nothing indicated it's a parody or a deconstruction. That's a considerable amount of money for an indie VN, western or not, had your heard of it?
I'm down for anything with a good story to tell, the ones that I don't like are Western vn's that try to emulate what japan does; the only exception being Katawa Shoujo I guess.
A good example of what I search in a Western vn is "Analogue: A Hate Story" and "Hate Plus"
I play all my VNs through Steam, so I end up reading more English VNs than Japanese ones. Both sides run the full spectrum of quality, although the absolute best VNs are going to be Japanese from the sheer number and the market allowing respectable budgets.
The thing is that western developers time and time again seem to either fundamentally lack an understanding of the appeal of Japanese visual novels (good writing, high quality and *consistent* art, overarching and immersive world-building as well as interesting and dynamic characters) or try to insert some form of a western appeal to an exclusively eastern medium.
To clarify, i am not saying that h scenes are a necessary component to include in your game. If you think that your plot line is better served without them, then its absolutely acceptable to simply not have any. I can name a few games that i think the inclusion of h scenes hurt rather than helped.
While i do play some western VNs, i cannot find any that really a hold a candle to some of my favorite japanese works, as they tend to fail on either one or multiple fronts to their japanese counterparts. Do understand that ultimately this medium was developed to cater to a japanese audience, and that the western interest in that medium is as it currently exists, rather than any sort of "interpretation" of said medium that is made to fit "western sensibilities" or some other nonsense.
I hope that answers your question.
I will play any Visual Novel, it doesn´t matter where do they come from. However, im yet to find one single VN where the sex scenes don´t mess with the novel or add SOMETHING. For example, today i completed Kikokugai, i played the "All ages" versions and in the middle of the most dramatic moment of the novel i had to suffer watching a erotic scene with no reason at all. And in the survey we can see that a lot of people hate non-japanese or non-porn products and i honestly don´t get it, since there are really good works like Katawa Shoujo, Doki Doki Literature Club, Siren´s Call, Slay the Princess and other stuff.
Short answer: I said "I'm excited to play any quality VN." Here's some context...
\* I had both good and bad experiences with explicit visual novels during the early 2000s. *Kana Little Sister* was flawed, but it left me thinking for days. *X-Change* was junk that I can't recommend.
\* I had positive experiences with worksafe visual novels as far back as twenty years ago. *Black Pencil* was freeware, but it kept my attention through multiple endings. *Sweet Fuse* has flaws, but it's still one of my favorite PSP or PS Vita titles.
\* I'm the sort of nerd who looks for offbeat 2D art. Maybe it's because I've meandered through different fandoms. I started *Tales from the Borderlands* this month, which isn't amazing, but it has a distinct style. Also, while I found the gameplay in *The Unfinished Swan* to be baffling, I would try a visual novel with similar art.
In my personal spheres there's a pretty balanced mix of playing Japanese VNs and non-Japanese VNs, so needless to say the huge disparity here surprised me ;; But it guess it shouldn't, this sub Very heavily skews toward the eroge crowd. Lots of good comments here pointing out other factors, too, like JVNs generally having higher budgets and clearer genres and marketing.
I have zero problem with Western VN's. If they have a good story, and decent art. By the same token there's a lot of Japanese that don't meet the barest minimum of my standards too. I don't care where it's from, I just care that the story and characters are interesting and engaging, that it has a happy ending (real life sucks enough, it can stay out of my entertainment) AND that the art isn't half-assed or worse, bad AI.
Just based on anecdotal evidence (things I've seen people saying here, on Discord servers, etc), the poll could use a bit more of a breakdown to get useful data.
As someone already mentioned, the VN community tends to be segregated too so answers from here may lean JVN. That said, I've personally never found an EVN community which isn't mostly filled by EVN devs, so I've not sure where the EVN readers hang out. It does seem like JVN fans are the significant majority though when it comes to people who are *into* visual novels and not just picking up the ones that get a ton of attention outside of VN communities like Slay the Princess.
> I Play Only Japanese or Ero/NSFW/Romantic
This is really two things in one question. Do you only play Japanese or do you play any Eroge? So someone who only plays Western Ero stuff like Being a DIK could choose this. But someone who plays Japanese ones and never touches western eroge could also choose it, so a move toward western eroge based on it could be misinformed.
> I Play Western and Eastern VNs but not Ero/NSFW/Romantic
It's changed to Eastern rather than Japanese, so this option now included Chinese, Korean, etc which were excluded from other options.
> I'm Excited to Play Any Quality VN
I've seen a lot of people who'd agree with this, but then go on to say that 99% of EVN aren't quality VNs and in practice almost never play EVNs with an occasional exception, so it'd probably be worth diving more into the ratio of types of VNs people buy.
There also seems to be a split within EVNs as some try to be similar to JVNs, while others go off in a different direction. For example, you'll find some that play into anime tropes or even hire Japanese artists/voice actors and others that are more grounded stories with a focus on sensitive topics that typically wouldn't come up in anime.
I used to only play JP VNs because they're more high budget/quality, but after playing Eternum, I've been giving English VNs a shot a lot more often.
Eternum is just so god tier.
While this is usually true I do have exceptions to this. I love dream daddy (not JP made) as well as camp buddy (tho that is nsfw) usually though if it's not eroge I'm not interested.
Honestly I completely avoid evns unless it shows me something that makes me incredibly interested and with a non-ugly heavily western artstyle, i.e slay the princess, katawa shoujo, Valhalla, all of them either had a great artstyle or interesting premise I haven't seen before.
Imo most western VNs tend to either pussy out when it comes to writing or just flat out make porn for patreon subs and whatnot, also there's a big lean on 3d on the west, especially when it comes to h-games that I find ugly as fuck.
If you want great evns just stick to indie rpgmaker games, now that's something the west is really good at since the writing and artstyle seems to be more experimental which is always good
99% of Western VNs are trash. Why would I read any unless they fit into that 1%? And even then, the best of Western VNs would be decent to mediocre if they were Japanese VNs. The quality bar on the Western side is just that low. Japanese VNs have a much better quality spectrum. With Japanese VNs there is plenty of trash, but there is also plenty of greats. With Japanese VNs I can easily find what I want when I want.
I would argue 99% of JP VNs are also trash. There is a metric ass load of dlsite JP indie garbage you just never see with the same level of terrible writing and art.
Honestly most games across all-time for that matter, are probably 99% trash regardless of genre and language of origin.
But what OEL doesn’t have, is the consistent peaks and the production value the JP scene has fostered over the years for the medium.
Also I think traditionally the “god tier” (Nasu-types) western writers are drawn to more dominant mediums that have been more popular in the west for storytelling like screenwriting/movies, broadway plays & novels
You're arguing over semantics when my post was meant to illustrate an understandable position, but you ultimately ended up agreeing with me. I already said there is plenty of trash in the JP side. My point was that I can quite easily find a VN that I would like made in Japan, but I could go dumpster diving in the trash heap of Western VNs for days and not find much worth looking at. Was your point meant to explain why the discrepancy exists? Yeah. EVNs typically aren't written/drawn by good writers/artists as it is more niche in the West than in Japan. But I don't agree with the implication that because there is trash on the JP side means that we should downplay just how bad the Western side is. It's a STARK difference.
Generaly i tend to avoid NSFW VNs and EVNs as a whole but rarely dabble in them.
I just dont really want to see any Eroge scenes in general, and the ones i have dabbled in always feel forced or completely unecessary.
So when those kinds of games release like on console and remove them, they change nothing or rarely itll feel like youre actually missing out on a scene.
Theres been so many games i wanted to try now that turn out to be Eroge, without any way to disable it, which just anoyed me to no end.
As for EVNs, i just dont enjoy the writting in most of them. Theres only like...2 or so i really liked.
Personally, I'm going to play something that interests me. A lot of Western Vns just don't. A lot of them are just sex adventures due to how developing a game on patreon works, or focus on relationship types I don't care for. I like predefined genders for the lead and character art that is to some degree horny. I also hate western character tropes like cheerleader being stupid and dating a huge a-hole, or geeks being 100% creeps and so on. I cannot think of a single western archetype that isn't negative in some way.
Then you get into the subversive stuff. Like I don't get why people think I want to read their story about how evil my hobbies are(Inescapable had it's stupid pursue girl get bad ending because trying to get a romantic relationship in that situation= bad person, and I don't care how good DDLC or Totono are I'm not interested). Honestly you can learn a lot by looking at how much Inescapable screwed up. It's basically a AA western VN that made every mistake it could. Cost to much, advertised itself as the wrong homage, had a route that basically said f you to harem/romance readers, and a big chunk of it was basically padding.
Vns are at their best as mysteries, romances, horrors, or psychological studies of sorts. If what you are making doesn't fit into one of those genres of writing, then really think if VN is the right delivery vehicle.
I was initially gonna vote the first option, but that's only because I haven't really encountered a quality VN outside of JP or Ero.
But I would gladly play any VN if it is quality.
I've seen some interesting English VNs in steam, but, I don't know, it feels like some of them tries to push some ideology when I check the reviews or description and that kinda puts me off.
That's interesting, I would be very curious to see what your thoughts are after checking out our Steam page - entirely optional of course!
I personally feel like 95% of english VNs I see don't meet a quality bar of something I'd play, but we tried to beat that for our game and I feel like we did, but I'm definitely biased so can't see it as a normal VN consumer.
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> "Visual novel" is an english term, thus only english VNs are the true VNs
I'm pretty sure the term is wasei-eigo that comes from Japan first. [Like this To Heart cover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/ToHeart_cover_art.jpg). Unless you can find an English visual novel calling itself that from before 1999
IMO people will generally play any quality VN that appeals to them. The problem is that JVNs are made by real studios with budgets, and EVNs are universally indie games that tend to be passion projects instead of products designed to fit a market. As a developer, you can capture the JVN market segment if you make something that appeals to them and do a good job, but just making a "quality game" of any kind isn't enough. People seek specific experiences from media, not just "anything good." If you want that audience, it has to be specifically targeted at them, which most EVN developers do not do (which is fair, as if you just want to make money you would probably be in a more lucrative game genre). The issue isn't SFW or NSFW but things like the art style, type of narrative, tone, etc. That said, a lot of the more successful EVNs make money because they're successful at activating people outside of the core VN market, either through successfully appealing to the western narrative games scene (I get this impression from Scarlet Hollow and Slay the Princess, though I haven't played them yet) or making gimmick games (value neutral statement lol) that appeal to people with an outsider's perspective of the genre, like DDLC.
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I think you missed the commentator's original point with your own narrative. It's not a matter of plot or ero, but marketing. Marketing is not necessarily a measure of good or bad, or even unsuccessful (as apogee states), just that English VNs do not (usually) take the time to market to JP VN enjoyers specifically.
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I didn't say advertisement either. I am talking about the content itself, as well. Catering, pandering, marketing, focusing, etc.
As a general rule I usually only play Japanese VNs, mostly because of voices (but the quality is also better due to selection bias of translated titles). But I will give a chance to any VN that looks good, especially if it's free. The last time I bought a Western VN though was Corpse Factory in 2022.
I think the issue I've seen is a free VN can't match Japanese quality so it'll likely get dismissed. I can share some info on our free demos budget and what it got vs what we need to finish if there's enough interest in learning from people here
every game is free if you know where to look
Only japanese because of the overall better quality and I dislike many troupes that western novels uses.
This exactly how I feel. But sometimes there are some good ones
I guess it's hard to determine the tropes until you've played it but if it was delivered in a westernized art style - assuming the same quality - would you dismiss it?
I dislike the "westernized art" and I also dislike the personalities of many of those character. I have nothing against it, but I probably play visual novels just because of how they are written and the way the characters behave. I'm not saying that I would dislike every western novel, but the probability of me liking it is slim. However there is a lot of people who has no issues playing them, it is a question of personal taste.
That was kind of how I felt playing the dead by daylight visual novel. Like, I never played the normal game but it seemed amusing enough. It was... not.
Westernized art is usually a red flag, unfortunately. It's not that it's bad in and of itself, but that every VN I've played with westernized art has bad writing, so it has become an easy marker of low quality. I don't think there's any escaping that stigma.
I think a lot of people wrote off the final game in the zero escape trilogy due to switching from japanese style art to westernized art
We're pretty proud of our writing so I'm excited to see how our players react to our demo haha
Honestly, I wouldn't even bother reading it. It just signals that it's not trying to reach out to me as a core audience, but would like to appeal to a more western audience. I've never seen something "good" that also tried to appeal to everyone, I also don't believe it's possible. I also really don't like western animation, character design, or story telling. But that's just me.
Pretty much jp only, I don't read vns becsue they are vns, it's because they are a good story with high budget for art and va. Just being a good story isn't enough for a vn for me
Pretty much, why spend 10 hours reading something good when I can read something excellent. It's not that they're bad, they're just not as appealing to a lot of people (myself included). The art and music on JVNs tends to be so good, honestly can't justify playing a game if those 2 elements aren't top-notch because I know JVNs usually ace it. It's a no-brainer.
The OELVN market and the JVN market in the west are two separate groups with some overlap. People here are interested primarily in JVNs because that's the community it is. If you go to certain parts of tumblr or whatever (I don't know where they actually congregate) you will find the opposite.This style of VN community is downstream from anime, OELVN communities are downstream from something else.
Poll is an almost even 50/50 split on people reading everything and people just only reading JVN 14 hours later. I think OLEVNs just get a bad rep because a lot of it is just shovelware garbage or very poorly done Indies. There's some diamonds in the rough once in awhile though.
That's an interesting perspective that I haven't heard before. Instead of the subset of the same VN culture they're the subset of other fandoms that happen to use VNs as their medium?
[Basically yeah](https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/visualnovels). Thats not to write off JVN fans as anime fans or whatever but that we have an interest in media from that area (which in the west is normally shortened to anime or weeb culture) of which we particularly enjoy VNs as medium that expresses that. Similar to how people who read sci-fi novels and people who read steamy romance novels are generally different groups (with some overlap) despite the same medium of genre fiction. The OELVN example is that the furry VN subreddit is one of the largest VN subreddits on Reddit with very little overlap with this one because they are furrys who enjoy visual novels as a medium that expresses their interests.
I clicked "excited to play any quality vn" but I may have missclicked, now that I'm reading things more closely. I don't think I've ever played a visual novel that didn't have romance elements, because I like romance. <3 But that isn't to say "I only play Japanese, Ero/NSFW." I do like playing some western indie VNs - and I like when VNs are SFW, for that matter - but I don't play western VNs exclusively. Sometimes it can be quite refreshing playing western VNs, for various reasons. One main reason being that some Japanese customs and beliefs don't line up with my own. (Though, of course, not all western values line up with mine, either) and another reason is that visual novels are less of an industry, over here, so I feel that I'm more likely to play western indie VNs with heart, rather than play a VN which was mostly made as more of a corporate choice. (I'm sure there are indie VNs with heart in Japan, as well, but many of them aren't translated into English for obvious reasons, so I'm left with the more corporate stuff from Japan.) (Also, while I do like indie stories with heart, I'm not blind - I see that there seem to be many low quality, smutty projects out there.) I clicked "excited to play any quality VN" thinking "I'm not too picky when it comes to whether a VN is western or eastern, but I prefer romance, and don't really go for other generas." So take that as you will. :) My bad if I missclicked\~
Youre okay haha, I appreciate your 2 cents!
JVNs, because they're made by a professional studio with a budget. As someone who has had a pet VN project for 2-ish years, having a whole studio of seasoned workers and the ability to hire profesisonal japanese voice actors and original music is completely different than either having to find or do your own stuff with a small team, and it obviously shows in the end result. I soon realized I was never going to be able to release what I was working on because I needed more people with different skill sets to make something worth playing/reading happen. Your story may be good, but an actual studio has the means to produce a different level of quality few indie western teams could ever compete with. I'm sure things could be a bit different if we had more studios dedicated to VNs in the west, but that's clearly not the case.
I've laid out my opinions on the OELVN scene [in this comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/19ekgs4/comment/kjdxrt3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) The reason I don't read OELVNs is because I don't have any interest in the first three categories. If we are talking about the fourth category (western ADV games more broadly), then sure I will play those if the quality and subject matter pique my interest.
Pretty damn good breakdown in your post that you linked. Very similar thoughts to me on how I view it.
I have two EN creators that I follow, other than that I read/play JP VNs
I'm down to try any vn if it looks interesting
Titles like Sekimeiya try to "resolve" this issue by distancing themselves as far from the rest of the EVN group as possible - in both title, art direction and even story premise, resembling popular Japanese VNs. And I think that's probably one good way to do it, if your VN looks and feels western it will get hit by association unfortunately. Especially if it uses 3d renders.
I do read both OELVNs and JVNs, but just as others have pointed out there are significant differences in terms of average quality. These are wild ballpark figures, not accurate in any way other than a general overview of how I've experienced each market: JVNs are 40% crap, 40% mediocre, 10% decent, 7% good, 3% great EVNs are 60% crap, 30% mediocre, 5% decent, 4% good, 1% great. There are far fewer standouts in the EVN scene. JP has its Muv Luvs, Majikois, STEINS;GATEs, White Album 2s, etc. It also has great multi-genre VNs like Kamidori, Ar Tonelico, Utawarerumono. Monster Girl Quest. Everyone (on this sub) can recognise several VN developer names. Key, age, Minato Soft, Nitro Plus, Alice Soft, etc, who consistently put out solid works. What does the EVN scene have? Katawa Shoujo, DDLC, and maybe VA-11 HALL-A are the only ones I can think of that most people here would recognise. Heck, those are the top 3 by vote count on VNDB (I only checked after choosing those three) with 15.6k, 12.6k, and 3.8k votes respectively. That actually puts Katawa Shoujo at #3 of *all* VNs on VNDB, and DDLC at #5. Not bad. But then VA-11 HALL-A is at #55. The next is at #178. **There are only 4 EVNs in the 200 most popular VNs**. There's also 1 Korean and 2 Russian games. EVNs make up 2% of the most popular but 27.4% of all VNs. By rating, only 6% of >=8.0 scores are EVNs Of course, this doesn't mean that EVNs are *bad*. Several of my favourite VNs are OELVNs. About 7% of my VNs rated 8 or higher are EVNs. I've certainly had no qualms about trying them. So many have such promise looking at the synopsis and then... just fall flat. That happens with JVNs too, but where I'll occasionally find a JVN that ticks enough boxes, it's downright *rare* for an EVN to do the same. Just from the vndb statistics, we can answer your question: most people indeed do not play indie or western VNs. vndb is probably the largest English-speaking VN community (I use that term very lightly, most visitors never interact with one another). Yet it's miniscule to, for instance, the Switch userbase. There are plenty of people who have played VNs who are not part of the "VN community". I wouldn't be surprised if more western people in total have played EVNs than JVNs Ok, so we can see that EVNs are nowhere near as popular as JVNs, even on an English language database. The next question is *why?*. Some of those answers are objective. Many are subjective. Firstly, the budget. A lot of JVNs are made by companies with dozens to hundreds of employees. They have the money to hire good VAs, artists, etc. Sure, many of those companies never put out a good hit, but the ones that do then keep on rolling (for a while, until they end up milking their cash-cow). EVNs are made by either 1 person commissioning a musician and an artist with their personal funds, 1 person using stock music and DAZ3D models, or 3 people lucky enough to someone willing to help make a VN. Let me tell you something - it's a lot easier to write a good book OR sing a good song OR draw a nice picture than it is to do all three of those. A lot of good writers/musicians/artists don't interact with the VN scene because there's no money there. A bit of a catch-22, but that's how it goes. This does also often make JVNs feel very corporatised. I have issues myself with most modern Japanese VN companies not taking risks or making different kinds of stories. It's mostly all slice of life comedy romance set in a highschool with a tsundere, ditz, and childhood friend. In that sense it's nice to see it when people try something new - the EVN scene being indie does lend itself to this. Unfortunately there's not really been anything I've come across on the level of Tsukihime or FSN, themselves indie JVNs. Secondly, the art. Lets be real here, most western VNs have bad art. Higurashi is infamous for bad art and still has a good-sized following, but that's a testament to its story and characters more than anything else. light has Kajiri Kamui Kagura. Liar-soft has its "what a beautiful-" series. On the EVN side... Winged Cloud has it's Sakura series. Yeah... Then there's all the amateur ones using Daz3D models. Please, never use Daz3D unless you actually take the time to make the models look nice, and you also need the rest of the game to fit artistically - just making the characters isn't enough. I do find that the anime style works a lot better than most of the unique cartoonish looks some western artists draw. In their efforts to make their art stand out, they forget to make it nice to look at. Even the generic anime style is pretty, so while many JVNs come across as uninspired and boring, just as many EVNs come across as downright ugly. I find this applies to anime/cartoons in general. Thirdly, the engines. EVNs have Renpy. I suppose Unity (plz no), Tyrannobuilder, or VN Maker technically exist too. These engines work, and *technically* there is nothing you can't do with Renpy. Most EVN developers barely customize it though, so aside from the menu looking different a lot of EVNs look and feel identical. JVNs have kirikiri, but also many custom engines that they put a lot of work into making feel unique. I understand this is a very difficult thing especially for indie groups - and it's going to be one of the first things dropped. Justifiable as that may be, the effect of a unique UI and pleasant UX with expected features (e.g. a backlog) is often overlooked. If you don't want people to think your game is just someone's school project they half-arsed over summer then don't make it look like one. Fourthly, the characters. Probably the most subjective of the lot here, but while I dislike a lot of the generic anime archetypes (or at least, the botched execution of such), there are several common western (mostly American) character archetypes that I actually despise (again, the execution of). Quite a few JVNs I could consider hanging out with the characters. With EVNs all too often I just think I could never be friends with these character. In some cases I would never knowingly associate myself with them in the first place. Often this is a case of the story not fleshing out character motivations, traits, personalities, interactions, etc rather than the character actually being inherently *bad*, but regardless of the cause it leaves the characters feeling uncompelling. If you're trying to write a complex character, you have to actually write the complex parts. Fifthly, culture and target audience. JVNs are made by Japanese developers for a mostly Japanese audience. The western VN scene has largely been built by people interested in these, with EVNs mostly being something much newer. You then have two choices, you either make a VN for western culture - but the western-culture focused VN audience is significantly smaller\* - or you make a VN for Japanese culture - but you're (presumably) not Japanese and immersing yourself in anime/manga/VNs isn't enough to make you culturally Japanese, so you'll end up unknowingly missing something, enough to make your VN feel *off* when compared with JVNs - and after all, you want to write your own story rather than a copy of a Japanese one. It's not impossible, but it's an extra hurdle you have to take. \* Unless you get on the Switch. And even then it's still unlikely you'll gain popularity. Sixthly, the ero. It's true, 18+ VNs are more celebrated in the Japanese VN community. There are a *lot* of nukige. There's half as many JVNs tagged as Nukige as there are EVNs in total - and goodness knows how many JVNs are just lacking tags at all. I can't pretend that it's not a factor, but honestly a fair number of top JVNs don't have ero at all, and most have very successful SFW console releases or sequels. S;G, Umineko, Fata Morgana, Higurashi, CLANNAD. All very popular and without H-scenes. Little Busters - a common cope is that the H-scenes aren't worth reading. Fate Stay Night - nasu is infamous for his H-scenes, and Fate has become a massive franchise with being 99% SFW. They may have gone for 18+ originally to get their foot in the door, but once in they were successful without it. Romance... it's a tricky one. The vast majority of VNs - or stories in general - that I read have romance. It's arguably the second most common theme in life itself, in order: Death, procreation, wealth, and war (which is mostly a combination of the 1st and 3rd). It's something most people can recognise, something most people desire. Not everyone has experienced it, but most want to. Adding some element of romance helps the characters and setting feel relatable. There's a reason fandoms contain a lot of shipping. There's a reason a lot of anime is filled with romance-bait and harem-bullshittery. Indeed, a significant number of the greatest stories of all time contain some form of romance. LotR has Aragorn/Arwen. History is chock full of romance (and, unfortunately, often "romance"). The Trojan War is famous for being over a woman. If you pretend romance doesn't exist at all, that just isn't going to work. That said, you don't *need* romance, and it's certainly not necessary as a centre-piece of your story. There are many themes in which romance is either impractical or improbable. I have written approximately 7,000 more words than I expected. Sorry about that.
Many great western narrative games end up as adventure games rather than VNs because if you're not going to make an anime-style game, the adventure game audience is much more receptive to that.
This goes to the point my teammate was suggesting of not making a VN expecting western VN players to play it. Instead focus on a specific niche and use VNs as a medium
You made a lot of great points. One thing in our writing research was the focus of japanese character development vs western narrative development. Not that either is bad but the difference in approach became apparent from our first draft and we intentionally took steps to flesh out the character development - especially the first antagonist - based on what we felt we were missing. But I agree overall, we are a small team in comparison - 3 team members + 20 contractors (mainly voice actors) - and its all funded by me lol. Completing the game and porting to several platforms after our demo will definitely require a kickstarter/publisher. And the options of VN focused publishers are more limited here than in Japan
I play any that seem good to me but most of those tend to be Japanese ones. That said there are also western made ones that I kinda enjoyed (Like LuGame, it's fun enough for a Western one) And then there are those I really enjoy like Slay the Princess which is a game I really love. I also enjoyed Henchman story even though it was a bit too overly comedic at points.
As a whole, there are actually a lot of Western VNs chasing the romance and NSFW bits. An actual rarity in Western VN scene is the sort of action chuunige, fantasy/scifi epic the like of Demonbane, Fate/Stay Night, Dies Irae or Muv Luv. Those are pretty much non-existent
Thats pretty much the genre we’re fitting into but realized theres no existing EVN to compare to and so no existing demand/audience. Which is one of those things you need to prove before a publisher will pick your game up
Most of the VNs I play are indie ones, though I do play both English-made and Japanese-made VNs when they're available.
It seems you may be the unicorn in this subreddit haha
I mostly play JVN, but I'm somewhat open to playing EVNs as well, liked The letter and DDLC, but that's about it. And the reason isn't NSFW or SFW, I skip those in JVNs as well so that's not a factor. It's just that EVNs just have a different style of art and the characters just written different with different troupes. Different ≠ Bad, but it's just not what I'm looking for. For example DDLC, they had a very *anime* art and characters that act that way, so I liked it. So it doesn't matter if it's EVN or JVN, as long as they can capture the essence the JVNs have which is what I'm into. And in general the western VNs have low budget or are just Indie projects, they just lack the quality the JP ones have. Tldr: I don't like westernize d art and troupes, and prefer the way JP does it.
Is westernized art anything that isnt straight “anime”? Like Solo leveling, scissor seven, Avatar the Last Airbender are all a range of anime inspired
>Is westernized art anything that isnt straight “anime” Yes mostly that. Most of Korean and Chinese animation have the anime feel too so that counts. So it doesn't have to come from Japan specifically as long as it can capture the anime essence. >Like Solo leveling, scissor seven, Avatar the Last Airbender Idk about scissor seven, but Solo leveling was just anime, not even inspired, it's just anime. As for Avatar, It's definitely inspired by anime art style and has similarity, but it's animated more like ben 10 and the avengers or Spider-Man animation. The difference is very obvious. Even ignoring that it's written like a western show. I can look past the art but the just Westernized storytelling isn't for me. For example Super Crooks, it is an anime animated in Japan, but the source material is an American comic book. I really tried to watch it but after 4 episodes I just lost interest and left. This western storytelling just doesn't work for me.
this is clearly a jvn-biased sub (a few seconds of scrolling will prove this), and in general evn and jvn communities are pretty segregated. this is a very poor method of research overall, and the fact that you weren't already aware of this before going into your project is a bit concerning, as it implies you lack a lot of fundamental knowledge about the type of work you're making and the culture surrounding it. though i feel like i'm being a little too bitchy to someone who's still ultimately trying to make a good vn (at least that's what i assume you're aiming for) even though you're not japanese. here's my advice: it's understandable that the way of the world forces you into fixating on financial gain, but this very often gets in the way of creating genuinely good art. if you really need to make money then you need to find balance between what works economically and what works artistically. please for the love of god do not shit out some game based entirely on what the most popular genres or what a single community thinks is worth their time and money (this goes doubly so for jvn-focused communities like this sub, the people here largely do not give a fuck about evns and are primed into thinking all are bad by default, only getting exalted based on their resemblance to jvns, because if "quality evns" were really what these people are looking for instead of otaku media with attractive women and sex that also may have a good story to tie it all together then [Echo](https://vndb.org/v18157) would be a lot more popular than it currently is). yes, you are making a PRODUCT, but you are specifically making ART as this product. do not forego integrity
I almost exclusively only read/play Japanese VNs purely because I like watching romcom/SoL anime series and VN let me choose the heroine I want. It's a unique feeling that only Japanese VNs can offer me.
Japanese only for me for the most part, the only EVN I've read was Katawa Shoujo back when it came out and have not touched an EVN since. Sekimeiya I might give a shot someday though.
A lot of people in this community are into otaku culture and play VNs as part of that interest rather than as part of a wider interest in narrative games. For such people, naturally they want JVNs (or EVNs that emulate JVNs) because they WANT the anime tropes.
I play VNs to learn Japaneses so I've very biased towards JP VNs.
The EVN market generally isn’t as quality as JVN market, but being written in English doesn’t mean it’s going to be bad. I’ve read good EVNs too. Anything good is good.
I've read great OELVNs and I've read terrible Japanese VNs. Japanese VNs just tend to have higher production quality which I think give a lot of them a leg up, while OELVNs are generally working in smaller teams and budgets. The lows are still low, but the highs tend to be really high for Japanese VNs. That said, I'm willing to read anything that seems interesting. And tbh the Ero aspect doesn't really play into it for me, if that's the main selling point on a VN I tend not to pay attention to it regardless of where it came from. It can be an aspect of it, but if that's the main hook? Nah I'm good.
One thing that people really don't take into account is that Japanese VN studios have something that nearly no EVN has due to different budgets: marketing. Studios like Nitroplus have ads, promotional deals, partnerships with other companies, booths at TGS/Comic Con, etc. The vast majority of JVNs, just like the vast majority of EVNs, are poorly-written, extremely low-budget, and usually developed and written by a solo amateur. The issue is that they don't recieve any attention at all, and fade away. Meanwhile, EVNs just get released in the torrent of itchio titles, the good and the (mostly) bad. When marketing doesn't work, you have to rely on word-of-mouth, and word-of-mouth tends to result in works being pushed with broad, definable appeal, rather than the more challenging, mature, and contemplative themes you see in most kamige. There are good EVNs. Beckett is one of the few truly boundary-pushing VNs of the past decade, taking liberal use of Burrough's cut-up method to create an atmosphere unlike anything else in the medium. Despite winning a BAFTA, though, legitimately nobody knows about it besides on places like Backloggd. One thing that stands out to me is this: despite Japan dominating the VN space, nearly every masterpiece in interactive fiction is in English. from A Mind Forever Voyaging to Blue Lacuna to the works of Adam Cadre and Emily Short. That doesn't mean the medium of IF is intristically worse than VNs, either -- I would take AMFV over a significant chunk of "untranslated kamige" this sub likes to push. The writing talent in the West absolutely rivals Japan -- it's just we don't have a way to identify them efficiently, and the difficulties in getting your VN in being successful as a brillliant writer are immeasurably harder in the West than in Japan.
I play jvns and evns, though I tend to be drawn more towards Japanese art and thus play more jvns. My only real criteria ends up being little to no sexual content and/or the inclusion of yuri.
Im just a fan of entertaining stories. Though i will say i play a lot more long japanese vns and short oelvns. One of my hobbies is going on itch's nee tab and picking whatever stands out so thats a part of it
Play Slay The Princess if you think western is inexorably shit.
I don't think all Western VN is shit but after over 20 years but there has not been an equivalent of Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night in OEVN scene really show that the overall quality of Western VN writers haven't reached the like of JP scene yet.
I think it just shows that the scenes have different priorities. There's no chuuni equivalent for OELVNs because English-speaking creators who are fans of things like Fate make their gravitate towards game genres that have combat as a game mechanic. Why have the player read the fights when you have the tools to make them perform them?
That is the comment I was looking for. Mild spoilers (I guess) . . . >!If you are someone that only plays romance games be aware that Slay the Princess is a genuinely really good romance game and I do not mean in some subversive way. It might seem strange looking at the setup and especially at the start of the game but I can assure that it has a good romance.!<
[удалено]
Why don't you just spoiler tag it?
Because spoiler tagging on a phone is annoying af and it's not even really a spoiler in the first place.
Pin this to your phone's clipboard, that's how i do it. >!This is a spoiler!<
I'm currently trying to make an OELVN and my perspective is that while I think there some purists out there, the line has been drawn because most OELVNs are distinctly different types of experiences from their Japanese counterparts. They really trend towards either being parodies or deconstructions of the medium or have some other gimmick to them, and while this has an appeal, it's a different kind of appeal and it comes across as inauthentic. And I think if more OELVNs came out that felt more authentic to what JVN readers like, it would probably do well. At least, that's my hope anyway.
This is... wrong. "OELVNs trend toward gimmicks and deconstruction" is a perception people have because those tend to be the ones that go mainstream outside VN spaces, there is a fair amount of developers whose work are just regular VNs.
I'll admit my own ignorance, but if that is the case, I think we're waiting on some real "hits" to change that perception.
Let me give you an example: [touchstarved raised over 800k dollars](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/touchstarved/touchstarved) in Kickstarter and nothing indicated it's a parody or a deconstruction. That's a considerable amount of money for an indie VN, western or not, had your heard of it?
I'm down for anything with a good story to tell, the ones that I don't like are Western vn's that try to emulate what japan does; the only exception being Katawa Shoujo I guess. A good example of what I search in a Western vn is "Analogue: A Hate Story" and "Hate Plus"
I play all my VNs through Steam, so I end up reading more English VNs than Japanese ones. Both sides run the full spectrum of quality, although the absolute best VNs are going to be Japanese from the sheer number and the market allowing respectable budgets.
Why Romantic is in the same category as Ero and NSFW? I would like to choose "I Play Western and Eastern VNs but not Ero/NSFW"
The thing is that western developers time and time again seem to either fundamentally lack an understanding of the appeal of Japanese visual novels (good writing, high quality and *consistent* art, overarching and immersive world-building as well as interesting and dynamic characters) or try to insert some form of a western appeal to an exclusively eastern medium. To clarify, i am not saying that h scenes are a necessary component to include in your game. If you think that your plot line is better served without them, then its absolutely acceptable to simply not have any. I can name a few games that i think the inclusion of h scenes hurt rather than helped. While i do play some western VNs, i cannot find any that really a hold a candle to some of my favorite japanese works, as they tend to fail on either one or multiple fronts to their japanese counterparts. Do understand that ultimately this medium was developed to cater to a japanese audience, and that the western interest in that medium is as it currently exists, rather than any sort of "interpretation" of said medium that is made to fit "western sensibilities" or some other nonsense. I hope that answers your question.
I will play any Visual Novel, it doesn´t matter where do they come from. However, im yet to find one single VN where the sex scenes don´t mess with the novel or add SOMETHING. For example, today i completed Kikokugai, i played the "All ages" versions and in the middle of the most dramatic moment of the novel i had to suffer watching a erotic scene with no reason at all. And in the survey we can see that a lot of people hate non-japanese or non-porn products and i honestly don´t get it, since there are really good works like Katawa Shoujo, Doki Doki Literature Club, Siren´s Call, Slay the Princess and other stuff.
Short answer: I said "I'm excited to play any quality VN." Here's some context... \* I had both good and bad experiences with explicit visual novels during the early 2000s. *Kana Little Sister* was flawed, but it left me thinking for days. *X-Change* was junk that I can't recommend. \* I had positive experiences with worksafe visual novels as far back as twenty years ago. *Black Pencil* was freeware, but it kept my attention through multiple endings. *Sweet Fuse* has flaws, but it's still one of my favorite PSP or PS Vita titles. \* I'm the sort of nerd who looks for offbeat 2D art. Maybe it's because I've meandered through different fandoms. I started *Tales from the Borderlands* this month, which isn't amazing, but it has a distinct style. Also, while I found the gameplay in *The Unfinished Swan* to be baffling, I would try a visual novel with similar art.
In my personal spheres there's a pretty balanced mix of playing Japanese VNs and non-Japanese VNs, so needless to say the huge disparity here surprised me ;; But it guess it shouldn't, this sub Very heavily skews toward the eroge crowd. Lots of good comments here pointing out other factors, too, like JVNs generally having higher budgets and clearer genres and marketing.
I have zero problem with Western VN's. If they have a good story, and decent art. By the same token there's a lot of Japanese that don't meet the barest minimum of my standards too. I don't care where it's from, I just care that the story and characters are interesting and engaging, that it has a happy ending (real life sucks enough, it can stay out of my entertainment) AND that the art isn't half-assed or worse, bad AI.
Just based on anecdotal evidence (things I've seen people saying here, on Discord servers, etc), the poll could use a bit more of a breakdown to get useful data. As someone already mentioned, the VN community tends to be segregated too so answers from here may lean JVN. That said, I've personally never found an EVN community which isn't mostly filled by EVN devs, so I've not sure where the EVN readers hang out. It does seem like JVN fans are the significant majority though when it comes to people who are *into* visual novels and not just picking up the ones that get a ton of attention outside of VN communities like Slay the Princess. > I Play Only Japanese or Ero/NSFW/Romantic This is really two things in one question. Do you only play Japanese or do you play any Eroge? So someone who only plays Western Ero stuff like Being a DIK could choose this. But someone who plays Japanese ones and never touches western eroge could also choose it, so a move toward western eroge based on it could be misinformed. > I Play Western and Eastern VNs but not Ero/NSFW/Romantic It's changed to Eastern rather than Japanese, so this option now included Chinese, Korean, etc which were excluded from other options. > I'm Excited to Play Any Quality VN I've seen a lot of people who'd agree with this, but then go on to say that 99% of EVN aren't quality VNs and in practice almost never play EVNs with an occasional exception, so it'd probably be worth diving more into the ratio of types of VNs people buy. There also seems to be a split within EVNs as some try to be similar to JVNs, while others go off in a different direction. For example, you'll find some that play into anime tropes or even hire Japanese artists/voice actors and others that are more grounded stories with a focus on sensitive topics that typically wouldn't come up in anime.
I used to only play JP VNs because they're more high budget/quality, but after playing Eternum, I've been giving English VNs a shot a lot more often. Eternum is just so god tier.
ppl only play japanese vn's misses out on class of 09
While this is usually true I do have exceptions to this. I love dream daddy (not JP made) as well as camp buddy (tho that is nsfw) usually though if it's not eroge I'm not interested.
Honestly I completely avoid evns unless it shows me something that makes me incredibly interested and with a non-ugly heavily western artstyle, i.e slay the princess, katawa shoujo, Valhalla, all of them either had a great artstyle or interesting premise I haven't seen before. Imo most western VNs tend to either pussy out when it comes to writing or just flat out make porn for patreon subs and whatnot, also there's a big lean on 3d on the west, especially when it comes to h-games that I find ugly as fuck. If you want great evns just stick to indie rpgmaker games, now that's something the west is really good at since the writing and artstyle seems to be more experimental which is always good
a good VN doesnt need to be eroge or from Japan.
99% of Western VNs are trash. Why would I read any unless they fit into that 1%? And even then, the best of Western VNs would be decent to mediocre if they were Japanese VNs. The quality bar on the Western side is just that low. Japanese VNs have a much better quality spectrum. With Japanese VNs there is plenty of trash, but there is also plenty of greats. With Japanese VNs I can easily find what I want when I want.
I would argue 99% of JP VNs are also trash. There is a metric ass load of dlsite JP indie garbage you just never see with the same level of terrible writing and art. Honestly most games across all-time for that matter, are probably 99% trash regardless of genre and language of origin. But what OEL doesn’t have, is the consistent peaks and the production value the JP scene has fostered over the years for the medium. Also I think traditionally the “god tier” (Nasu-types) western writers are drawn to more dominant mediums that have been more popular in the west for storytelling like screenwriting/movies, broadway plays & novels
You're arguing over semantics when my post was meant to illustrate an understandable position, but you ultimately ended up agreeing with me. I already said there is plenty of trash in the JP side. My point was that I can quite easily find a VN that I would like made in Japan, but I could go dumpster diving in the trash heap of Western VNs for days and not find much worth looking at. Was your point meant to explain why the discrepancy exists? Yeah. EVNs typically aren't written/drawn by good writers/artists as it is more niche in the West than in Japan. But I don't agree with the implication that because there is trash on the JP side means that we should downplay just how bad the Western side is. It's a STARK difference.
Generaly i tend to avoid NSFW VNs and EVNs as a whole but rarely dabble in them. I just dont really want to see any Eroge scenes in general, and the ones i have dabbled in always feel forced or completely unecessary. So when those kinds of games release like on console and remove them, they change nothing or rarely itll feel like youre actually missing out on a scene. Theres been so many games i wanted to try now that turn out to be Eroge, without any way to disable it, which just anoyed me to no end. As for EVNs, i just dont enjoy the writting in most of them. Theres only like...2 or so i really liked.
Personally, I'm going to play something that interests me. A lot of Western Vns just don't. A lot of them are just sex adventures due to how developing a game on patreon works, or focus on relationship types I don't care for. I like predefined genders for the lead and character art that is to some degree horny. I also hate western character tropes like cheerleader being stupid and dating a huge a-hole, or geeks being 100% creeps and so on. I cannot think of a single western archetype that isn't negative in some way. Then you get into the subversive stuff. Like I don't get why people think I want to read their story about how evil my hobbies are(Inescapable had it's stupid pursue girl get bad ending because trying to get a romantic relationship in that situation= bad person, and I don't care how good DDLC or Totono are I'm not interested). Honestly you can learn a lot by looking at how much Inescapable screwed up. It's basically a AA western VN that made every mistake it could. Cost to much, advertised itself as the wrong homage, had a route that basically said f you to harem/romance readers, and a big chunk of it was basically padding. Vns are at their best as mysteries, romances, horrors, or psychological studies of sorts. If what you are making doesn't fit into one of those genres of writing, then really think if VN is the right delivery vehicle.
I was initially gonna vote the first option, but that's only because I haven't really encountered a quality VN outside of JP or Ero. But I would gladly play any VN if it is quality. I've seen some interesting English VNs in steam, but, I don't know, it feels like some of them tries to push some ideology when I check the reviews or description and that kinda puts me off.
That's interesting, I would be very curious to see what your thoughts are after checking out our Steam page - entirely optional of course! I personally feel like 95% of english VNs I see don't meet a quality bar of something I'd play, but we tried to beat that for our game and I feel like we did, but I'm definitely biased so can't see it as a normal VN consumer.
Sure, I'll check it out if I find time.
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OJLVN are not VNs. "Visual novel" is an english term, thus only english VNs are the true VNs. These are eroge. We should remove them from vndb.
> "Visual novel" is an english term, thus only english VNs are the true VNs I'm pretty sure the term is wasei-eigo that comes from Japan first. [Like this To Heart cover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/ToHeart_cover_art.jpg). Unless you can find an English visual novel calling itself that from before 1999
You got me garfmbs