Your gateway VN?

With Katawa Shoujo garnering attention in unlikely corners of the internet I was curious what turned other people onto the small world of visual novels. For me, I was searching for a new RPG to play when I found an article at RPG Fan on the best 20 RP Gs of the last decade. Ever17 was on that list, which prompted me to try it and I loved it. I branched out from there and was converted into a fan of visual novels.

I have no idea.

I'm not sure exactly which one but Clannad was one of my firsts after watching the anime. FSN, and Shuffle were soon after.

Like many people, it was Fate Stay Night. It was back when the tvtropes page for it bragged that it was F***ing awesome.

Thank you Tvtropes.

I did play Ace Attorney before that but I didn't realize it was a Visual Novel.

Full Battle Mode

For me, it was Clannad, which is still a favourite thanks to great music and plot. I just wanted a different ending, and VNs are good for that. It was really more a transition, though, since before that I've played lots of similar games and stuff. Choose Your Own Adventure books for instance.

edited 12th Feb '12 10:28:07 PM by Feather7603

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

Back in Mayish of 2009 (I think) I was hanging around tvtropes and kept running across the Tsukihime and Fate Stay Night pages. They looked really cool, but the Tsukihime anime was apparently terrible and the FSN anime only told a third of the story. But uuuugh to actually get the full thing I have to install some patch on some Japanese game that requires me to use Daemon Tools?

So, long story short, I played these two. I actually can't remember which came first, but I'm betting Tsukihime. Before these, I'd played a few things that I can't remember the names of, but they were basically blatant porn and the stories of course weren't very good.

Pretty sure Tsukihime was my first. It was before FSN was translated.

Kinda Katawa Shoujo, but more accurately I'd say Shuffle. It was KS which made me aware of the medium, but Shuffle was the first one I actually read (since I didn't want to read KS' Act 1 without being able to read the rest, but being aware of the medium made me want to read something).

The first VN I played was Narcissu. What made me see what VN was capable of, however, was Katawa Shoujo.

edited 13th Feb '12 4:15:37 AM by dRoy

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

FSN. I intended to download the anime, but picked the wrong torrent. When I saw that it's an exe, I thought "what the hell, let's check out this game-thing".

Ace Attorney introduced me to the medium, but the first game I consciously recognized as a VN was Tsukihime, thanks to the TV Tropes page. I was aware of the Fate/stay night anime and watched a couple of episodes of it, but never beyond that, so when I saw that Tsukihime's part of the same multiverse as FSN, I decided to give it a try. Didn't end up completely finishing it until much later though. That was around 2010, I think.

edited 13th Feb '12 5:22:16 AM by LiberatedLiberater

MAL || vndb || Blog

Not a Visual Novel, but a Dating Sim. The starting point was Tokimeki Memorial for me (which I discovered in 2005 via a webpage talking about Sakura Taisen, of which I've heard about back in 1998 in a gaming magazine). From there and later Mitsumete Knight, I discovered the Visual Novel genre.

My first VN was the Ace Attorney series, followed by Policenauts, Snatcher, Princess Holiday, Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro Na, and the Yarudora series: but for now, the Visual Novel genre is still new to me, since I really discovered it during 2009.

edited 13th Feb '12 6:11:18 AM by AceNoctali

"Your kindness gives me the presentiment I can be reborn. Now, I want to believe at least in you." - Kaori Yae

Huh, if you think it's new to you... I've only seriously played two visual novels so you seem like an expert to me.

Fate Stay Nigh was first of course, the extensive backstory already well set-up but under-utilized in the anime, and at the moment I'm playing Clannad, since I really liked the anime that much (although frankly I do like how the protagonist helps everyone in the anime).

So anime first both times for me I guess.

I wouldn't have tried romance games if not for Thousand Arms and Harvest Moon Back to Nature. Around the same era, I played Rhapsody A Musical Adventure and realized that I liked cute games.

My specific interest in visual novels began with Three Sisters Story. While I didn't especially like it (frustrating interface, and an unpleasant scene near the end that made me wonder about the main character's morality), it helped me realize that I was Not So Above It All in regards to NSFW content. Over the next few months, I got to play Season of the Sakura (not bad, despite being basically a fangame full of expies), True Love 95 (which, for years, was the only complex harem game in English), and Kana Little Sister. The last one was the clincher.

Around 2005, I was close to giving up on the visual novel scene. That's when I found the first round of freeware visual novels that had been translated by the now-dormant site insani.org. And around the same time, I stumbled into the western visual novel scene, and got to experience some pretty good freeware such as Black Pencil and When I Rule the World.

Ace Noctali mentioned how video game magazines used to discuss import games. Yeah, I remember seeing discussions about Sakura Wars and Tokimemo in issues of Gamefan (sometimes also Gamepro), or Tokyopop's short-lived magazines. It seems so long ago that 1) it was easy to find more than two monthly game magazines in print format, 2) the import scene was more than a few 2D shooters and multi-crossover fighting games, and 3) journalists would discuss the import scene.

That's an impressive amount of history with the genre. I feel small now.
I'm mildly surprised no one has mentioned When They Cry yet since that seems to have people interested in it who aren't familiar with visual novels.

edited 13th Feb '12 4:53:34 PM by adaira

I have no idea.

Because they watched Higurashi which was an enjoyable anime in and of itself.

After Clannad/FSN/Shuffle, I went through a ton of other stuff. Ef, Kira Kira, Umineko, Planetarian, etc, etc. Most of them have their own individual appeal to them. A few ones are crap but in general, the ones I've read are great.

The anime version of To Heart was my gateway to the world of visual novels. If I could get a hold of the PS 1 version...

How far will your 20 pesos go?

It was actually Katawa Shoujo: The Demo, come to think of it. Through it I found Ren'py and consequently games made by the OEVLN community. Didn't start reading Japanese V Ns until much later. And of course, the first one I read was Saya No Uta. Blown away. Never looked back.

edited 13th Feb '12 10:04:17 PM by Anarchy

My first VN was Act 1 of Katawa Shoujo, which I enjoyed a lot. But what really got me into V Ns was Umineko; I had been reading and thoroughly enjoying Higurashi, so when the TV Tropes page of Umineko seemed to imply the Umineko VN was much better, I chose that route and never looked back.

My first visual novel was Princess Waltz, I mistaked it for a RPG game. I also found Tvtropes while looking for more information about this game, it was probably my luckiest mistake.

My hatoful Monster Girlfriend is the President Ecstasy: Higurashi After in Summer (All ages memorial edition)

Kana Imouto for me. I'd heard that it was a good story*

, and played it because I figured that it probably wouldn't be receiving an anime or manga adaptation*

It had been the better part of a decade since its initial release at the time I played it, and at the time I severely underestimated the number of Visual Novel anime adaptations

. At the time, I couldn't really see why I'd ever bother playing a Visual Novel that had been adapted into another medium (an attitude that changed after watching Kanon and wanting to see what the original work was like).

re:Higurashi not being much of a gateway series: I know at least a few people who have been turned off by the art. That, and "complete" anime adaptations tend not to make as many new visual novel players as "incomplete" ones, because if the series looks like it adapted the entire story, why bother to just see the entire thing again in a different medium?*

Now Bloggier than ever before!

Clannad. Fortunately and unfortunately.

I think it was Seasons of Sakura, many years ago. It's not the first I tried, but the first that wasn't just porn and showed me that VNs can be actually quite interesting.

My actual first was Three Sisters Story, which was nice but not very interesting.

edited 16th Feb '12 10:33:04 AM by Nyarly

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

Fate Stay Night. Then Tsukihime. And...that's the ones I've played. Plan to do the Higurashi ones after I finish the anime.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

Tvtropes' Fate Stay Night page introduced me to the genre, but the first I read and finished was Kanon.

Would you like to know more?

Ever17.

Thanks for response guys, keep them coming. This data is useful for me

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