Is Phoenix Wright a visual novel?

Because I love these 'games'. However, they're so preset that I'm just the id solving random logic puzzles to move the story forward. Not sure I can call that a game.

I'd say they are. If you include Utawarerumono as a VN instead of an RPG, then Ace Attorney counts. It's just a more blurred example than something like Clannad is.

Well, it's not really a visual novel but it's like a subvariant.

After asking to split Visual Novels from Video Games on the wiki, I thought a lot about how to define the difference, and I came to the conclusion that Video Games are an irregular medium to begin with, and they can't be compared to the others:

Passive media are first defined by a basic channel through which a story can be told, (literature, comic book, film), but after that, they are described through their storytelling genres (western, romance, fantasy). It's like a "frame", with a "picture" in it.

Video Games are always described by more and more precise categories of the channel, and storytelling only gets a sidenote. No matter how original the channel is (e.g. First-person puzzle platformer shooter), or how basic the storytelling is, (e.g. sci-fi), they are always described by the former.

Their stories are not based on a basic channel, but they are like a picture made entirely out of various frames, some of which are passive media on their own (RPG elements, animation elements shooter elements, text elements, music elements, platformer elements)

In this sense, Visual Novels are a lot closer to the passive media: It's works are described only through their plot, the Visual Novel nature is just a single basic frame, like "comic book" or "Film" are.

So, I would say that something that uses Visual Novel frame as one of the more important ones besides the many others, is not a "visual novel" any more than Command & Conquer is a film for its live action cutscenes, or Max Payne a comic book for its panel-based sutscenes.

edited 30th Dec '10 3:33:05 PM by EternalSeptember

But your choices are not unlike choices you find in a dating sim, only with more frequent bad ends. I think if you put them on a spectrum from Visual Novel to Video Game, it would end up closer to the VN side. Ever17? Pure VN. Something like Portal? Pure game.

I consider it a game and just sort of lump visual novels in with games out of laziness and not really caring much about the distinction.

If there's much more reading than doing in a video game, it is likely a visual novel.

So Metal Gear Solid 4 is a movie, not a video game?

^I would say "yes."

But seriously, some works can switch back and forth between media. Media these days are flexible enough for that.

Not that much, actually. Even if there is a combination of two passive media, it is usually either a very quirky work, or a new media form's Trope Maker.

It is just video games that make things complicated, because at its core, it's not a storytelling medium, but an electronic form of toys, with passively told stories strapped on to them. So while 99% of other works can fit into a single media, video game stories are always based on a media mixup.

^Well, I'm not saying that any given story has to mix media. Just that it's easier to do these days. For example, a Web Original series can switch between game, comic, animation and live action in a way that used to be impossible.