qolelis on 15/11/2019 at 17:58
I'm going through games now like there's no tomorrow, and right now I'm playing Eliza, one of the best visual novels I've played in a while. I remember trying out the Eliza bot, that the game is named after, at uni, because it was included in the most common text editor. Luckily, the game's fictional namesake does have better grammar... So, the game is basically about the therapy tech industry and the people in it. Lots of social commentary. Good voice acting. Competent writing. Slightly stereotypical characters maybe. Might be meant as satire or for emphasis, though; I haven't yet decided what I think about it. I mean, those characters do exist in the real world, but maybe too much generalizations about the superficial groups they happen to belong to. Maybe. The characters do feel more real and multi-faceted than in many other visual novels. The writing is a lot better too.
One character is actually on the asexual spectrum (without being described as broken), which is a first; nice to see some representation. I cannot help thinking that the devs took the easy way out, though, but I shouldn't complain. Still, it would have been even more impressive to see an asexual male character. We do face some of the same issues or attitudes regardless of gender, but there are also a few more gender-specific things to deal with. Also, I still have to see how that sidestory develops; the writers may still have an ace or two up their sleeve (pun intended).
I don't yet know how much my choices matter, but, well, there are choices to be made every once in a while, although not very often. There's also some interactivity besides the reading, including a game of solitaire on your phone.
Edit:
I forgot to follow up on Whispers of a Machine. I'm still enjoying it, although I have stopped playing for a while and am yet to finish it. There are some issues common to many adventure games, namely linearity; things have to be done in a specific order even if any other order is just as reasonable and quite possible. This means that some items will appear to be just part of the background until you have done something else first, which means you might overlook them later. There are reminders, as you can hilight all interactable items in a scene -- which also takes care of the otherwise oh so common problem of pixel hunting -- but I still prefer it when things are consistent throughout. Also, things always requiring one extra step is part of the genre (turning a valve is never just turning a valve; it's always rusted shut, broken, or missing). It's almost an in-joke by now, and the puzzle solving, which is also part of the genre, wouldn't be what it is without it, and I play these games just as much for the puzzles as for the stories being told. The story in this one is a take on the, now kind of age-old, subject of "AI taking over the world".
I also got started on Memorrha, a puzzler based on binary logic, but lost interest as it got too tedious after a while (the game froze once, which means I have to redo one of the most tedious parts, which, in a way was sort of unique and fun, but preferable only once). I might finish it later, but there are other games I'd rather play. One thing to note is that the puzzles start out very simplistic, but later in the game, more complex variations are added, so don't judge the game only by how it starts.
Edit 2:
The one thing I really dislike with Whispers of a Machine is the comic relief character. It's said in-game that all kids love him, but I know I would have disliked him even as a kid; he's just annoying. I have always disliked that kind of character in any piece. Overall, though, it's not a bad game.
Anarchic Fox on 17/11/2019 at 16:10
Eliza was already on my wishlist, but that description is intriguing enough to make it a priority.
All my consoles and some of my games were stolen a few months ago, and my main PC runs Linux, so gaming has been sparse as of late.
I did quite enjoy Knytt Underground, an exploration platformer in the tradition of... well, Knytt and Knytt Stories (both free). The controls are, as usual for Nifflas, precise and satisfying. You switch between two characters: one a humanoid who can climb any vertical surface, in a world entirely free of spikes, the other the spheroid from Within a Deep Forest (also quite good, and free), whose movement is based on momentum and ricochets. A great deal of thought has been put into the races and characters, but the overall plot is merely decorative, a fact the game itself notes. The protagonist is explicitly mute, but has two close friends (fairies, following her around) who can speak for her. Instead of dialogue options, you have the choice of whether to send the fulsome or the cynical friend to represent you. I thought this was a clever spin on the lack of agency players have in game conversations. The art is nice, although occasionally tending towards the "assets from an asset shop" problem; the music and sound design is superb, entirely based on atmosphere and mood rather than distinct melodies.
I also played a big custom hold for DROD RPG. You know how a big aspect of RPG battles is resource management? This is an entire game about that resource management. The amount of health, gold, keys and monsters in the world is fixed, and there is no such thing as grinding. Every monster you face offers at least two options, whether to kill it right away and reap an immediate reward, or come back later when you can kill it using fewer resources. Some offer additional choices; for example, two monsters may block different paths, one of them easier to fight with an offensive build, the other with a defensive build; for another example, you might choose between fighting a gauntlet of monsters to get to a juicy prize, or spending a key to skip most of them. Every weapon and armor upgrade is a big deal, and the accessories have a variety of effects. Intelligent play requires thoughtfulness and the ability to weigh disparate options, while optimal play often requires crazy plunges into dangerous territory on a razor-thin margin of resources, in order to grab a big prize and then trounce the earlier sections you skipped.
...And then there were other games I didn't enjoy as much.
qolelis on 18/11/2019 at 20:05
I have tried a couple of visual novels. Some have definitely been better than others, but it's still hard to find the good ones. Most are about empowerment: all endings are good endings in some way or another and everything revolves around the player character. All characters are often slightly exaggerated, supposedly to make things more direct and easier to quickly get into. Even the "slice of life" ones get a little cheesy in this regard. Eliza is no different, except that it also tries to say something about the world around us, about technology and human connection, and I think it does it well enough to stand out. The characters have lives of their own and are not just vehicles for the player's success and/or happiness. Eliza also doesn't share that flowery writing style that is otherwise so common for visual novels, which helps making the characters and events feel real, especially the dialogues.
During my first playthrough, some characters were more developed than others, who instead felt more like caricatures to some degree, but there are a couple of scenes I never triggered and I guess those will help you learn more about each character. I would have to replay the full game to know for sure.
Anarchic Fox on 18/11/2019 at 22:53
It's very strange. There are many types of stories that can be told in novels, yet it seems like there are rather few types of stories that can be (effectively) told in visual novels. Maybe the term "novel" was a misstep for the genre, and they should have been called "dialogue games" or something.
qolelis on 19/11/2019 at 16:37
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
It's very strange. There are many types of stories that can be told in novels, yet it seems like there are rather few types of stories that can be (effectively) told in
visual novels.
I don't know if that's a limitation of the genre or if it's because the genre isn't attracting the best writers!? Visual novels are seldom great literature and it might have gained a bit of reputation(?), so those that could make a difference are dissuaded even more. There's also the whole "games as art versus entertainment" debate.
Eliza, on the other hand, is, I think, a big step in the right direction, and could perhaps inject some quality into the genre. It's made by people who have already established themselves as quality devs and who have the resources to find and hire good writers, good voice actors, and so on. If they continued to make more visual novels, they could perhaps give the genre a new life. Looking at their other games, though, this might be a one time thing.
Starker on 19/11/2019 at 20:39
I might have a skewed perspective on visual novels, because I'm an avid reader and have been somewhat into IF as well, but the few I have tried have been pretty great: The Zero Escape series, Steins;Gate, Doki Doki Literature Club, Cinders, Phoenix Wright games, The Silver Case (love me some Suda51), etc.
Tony_Tarantula on 19/11/2019 at 20:45
Is fallen order actually good or are the reviewers blowing smoke up my ass?
Anarchic Fox on 19/11/2019 at 23:31
Quote Posted by qolelis
I don't know if that's a limitation of the genre or if it's because the genre isn't attracting the best writers!?
Hopefully the latter! I've encountered two very good visual novels now (999, Doki Doki), and know a few more by reputation (namely Christine Love's early stuff, which sounds offputting) and I would be happy to encounter more. Starker's list gives me a couple more names to keep in mind.
Sulphur on 20/11/2019 at 07:07
I've got Eliza and I'm hoping to give it a whirl soon. The VNs I've enjoyed were generally entertaining - Hatoful Boyfriend, Stein;s Gate, and so on, but I wouldn't call the writing particularly quality unless we're talking about plot structure, which for instance Stein;s Gate is pretty good at. Character writing has been a mixed bag so far, but I'm hoping to find a game that does it properly and isn't some relatively obscure sakurafied shojo thing like Clannad.
AI: The Somnium Files is from the writer of Zero Escape (999, etc.), and it's been very entertaining in the few hours I've put in so far, snappily written and well-paced. It's also breezily insensitive about women (Date, the guy you play, is a dipwad), but that's what you get for pulling things out from the 'Japan, what the fuck' shelf.
Starker on 20/11/2019 at 07:59
Even the best written video games still fall in some murky depths of genre fiction / mere entertainment. By video game standards, though, I didn't feel the visual novels I've played were all that bad. For example, I don't think that Steins;Gate did much worse than Gone Home or other games meant for young adults.