What counts as a Video Game or a Visual Novel

In the "request page moves" thread, some VG pages have been moved to the Visual Novel/ namespace mostly citing VNDB as a source. However, it was pointed out that using the site isn't a good idea since a lot video games that aren't text heavy are also there.

To keep some notes; the Utawarerumono games are very text heavy and, speaking as someone who hasn't played them, I'm not sure how much gameplay and VN cutscenes are balanced out. It is also worth noting that other games (like the Neptunia) also have a lot of VN style cutscenes in between gameplay.

So I think we should discuss this very grey area in regards to this type of game style (for lack of a better term).

Edit: Added the link to Utawarerumono.

Edited by Ayumi-chan on Jan 30th 2024 at 7:59:22 PM

For the record, the current consensus last time it was asked is that visual novels aren't games.

This Reddit thread talks about the criteria and accuracy of VNBD, and may be of relevence.

Yes, we have the oddballs like Zero Time Dilemma, but for the most part the VG/VN distinction hasn't caused us too many problems.

Paging ~Arha here to see her stance on this.

I'm gonna say the distinction lies in now much it's an electronic gamebook with visuals vs other forms of gameplay or storytelling

So you mean if there's some interactivity besides scrolling through narration and choosing options, it's not a visual novel?

Edited by Amonimus on Feb 1st 2024 at 6:39:18 PM

Not really, most I can see being extended that still could count as a visual novel is walking around, maybe a shop but those already feel like stretching it

If a good part of the gameplay is fighting enemies, platforming, shooting, treating the ill, defending a tower or doing something that's not really option box involved I wouldn't consider it a visual novel, even if it has some elements of a visual novel like relying on text boxes and dialogue options for your story

Personally I don't get why Danganronpa is a visual novel but Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is a video game. They have the same style of gameplay, story to gameplay ratio, and exploration. One is just first person with 2d characters and the other is third person with 3d characters.

Edited by ninjamitsuki2 on Feb 2nd 2024 at 10:23:09 AM

My personal opinion (which isn't foolproof) is that if it's marketed as a visual novel (either in Japanese, if that's its original language; or in English), it counts as a visual novel. For most newer works this should be easy enough, but I know the term wouldn't have always been used.

Also, from what I know, VNDB are pretty strict about what does and doesn't count as a VN (apart from some historic examples and entries that have been grandfathered in). I use the site occasionally, and as someone who likes marking things I might one day check out (will read/won't read etc), I get frequent notifications saying that things (usually mobile games) have been removed from the database for not meeting the guidelines.

I mean marketing isn't gonna be the only factor

I'm pretty sure Plumbers Don't Wear Ties wasn't marketed as VN because the term wasn't that well known then, it but definitely is one.

Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Feb 3rd 2024 at 6:58:21 PM

Yeah, that's what I was getting at, sorry if it wasn't clear! I meant that in cases where things are marketed as visual novels and are officially considered as such, we should honour that and also consider them visual novels. Though I'm sure there are edge cases, as there are with everything.

l consider visual novels to be just a genre of video games rather than something to be a entirely separate category, especially since a variety tend to have actual gameplay elements. I also found this distinction unnecessary because I've seen lots of VNs referred to as video games regardless.

As far as I'm concerned, if it's on a computer, you can interact with it, and it's made for an entertainment, it's already a videogame.

To me it's more of a style format of dialogues (full portraits with a text box). Games that aren't called visual novels can still have "visual novel presentation", so some games have it only for dialogues and some are exclusively composed of dialogues.

But it is only a personal opinion, because last time it was brought up the common argument was that they should be treatedd like "electronic books with visuals".

I'm against treating visual novels as just video games, considering how they're a separate namespace and all. I would say how they differ from video games but I think I already covered it in this post https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=17065838350A85240000&page=1#comment-5

As well as this one https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=17065838350A85240000&page=1#comment-7

, I really struggle to see how something like Plumbers Don't Wear Ties is a video game.

You're not doing anything besides clicking options to choose scenarios

You're not playing it, you're just watching it

Yeah, PDWT doesn't qualify as a video game. (But not for the reasons James Rolfe claimed.)

Sorry totally forgot I was trying to get involved in this and I didn't get the message that was being pointed at me for whatever reason.

Okay, so, let's think of there being a gradient with Civilization on one end and Higurashi on the other. Civilization has no story and almost no text at all beyond tutorials, tooltips and other resources. Higurashi has basically no choices at all, just a bunch of text, though it's split into pieces. In the middle between these are two examples that I want to use to clarify the borderline between visual novels and video games and I'll use Utwarerumono and Shikkoku no Sharnoth to do so.

Shikkoku no Sharnoth is a visual novel with a linear narrative. There is no story branching like with Fate Stay Night or other more popular visual novels, but it does have a small minigame where you control the protagonist as she runs from monsters to reach various checkpoints. You can control how fast she moves on her turn and have to manage her stamina. However, this is not enough to elevate it to a video game because this minigame is very token and only shows up maybe a dozen times at most. More than that, it's also entirely skippable. You don't have to do it all: With the simple press of a button, the minigame goes away because the writers knew it was not the primary appeal. That is why no one considers it to be a video game.

Utawarerumono, meanwhile, is indeed a very long story with a great deal of text. There is no freely accessible overworld you can move through like you could in games like Final Fantasy or Disgaea. However, the gameplay in it is far more common, more complex and, more importantly, cannot be skipped. Each game in the series has dozens of levels with maybe a dozen playable characters each with leveling systems, manageable equipment, skills and a map that makes it a pretty clear example of a tactical RPG like the aforementioned Disgaea series. If you can't beat a level, you don't get to continue the story. The gameplay is frequent, well developed and unskippable. That is why it is a video game.

These two examples are both in the grayer area between Higurashi and Civilization as both do feature gameplay alongside much more text than you'd see in something like Final Fantasy. However, the dividing line between them is whether the gameplay is developed and whether you are required to do it to advance the story. Shikkoku no Sharnoth does not require you to play the token minigame, but Utawarerumono will not let you continue unless you can beat the prepared levels.

tldr: Utawarerumono and other games like Tears to Tiara, the Rance series, Kamidori Alchemy Meister, Eien no Aselia and so on have too much unskippable gameplay for me to feel comfortable putting them in the same category as the likes of Fate Stay Night or Steins Gate.

Edited by Arha on Feb 4th 2024 at 10:35:31 AM

So are we doing anything like moving stuff around to various namespaces or no?

We're trying to clarify the criteria of what counts as a Visual Novel first. Then maybe we could move stuff around.

Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Feb 13th 2024 at 9:58:36 PM

People already moved stuff around. I was hoping we'd get a bit more input on whether they should have, but over a week passed with no further input.

What pages have been moved?

Three games in the Utawarerumono series and two Galaxy Angel games. I've never played the latter two so I don't know if that's correct or not, but Utawarerumono definitely shouldn't have been moved.

Edited by Arha on Feb 14th 2024 at 4:19:21 AM

These count as unilateral changes and should be reverted.

I agree the moves should be reverted, but not because they were unilateral - they were not. For them to be unilateral, I would have to have moved them myself instead of requesting they be moved.

Edited by JHD0919 on Feb 14th 2024 at 7:25:39 AM

Okay, I mentioned it in the namespace moving thread. As for our working definition, tbh I think our Visual Novel article already pretty much lines up with what I said. Should we maybe trim the page down a little to make it more concise and obvious what the difference is so this doesn't come up again later?