Discussion VisualNovel / Snatcher

I have yet to! ;__; I have a link for a variation on it here! http://junkerhq.net/Snatcher/neokobepizza.html

This has been answered before, but to clarify, it is considered a visual novel in many sites, including the Visual Novel Database. So we're going by that.

Yeah, I was the guy who (mistakenly) migrated it before. Sorry 'bout that.

I thought they could migrate our discussion in this part, but I guess they can't.

My apologies for the shoddy change-over. I had left a message in the article's discussion thread several months ago, and nobody replied. I admit I'm not incredibly familiar with the "process" of such things on this site; in the end, I just decided to emulate The Other Wiki's policy of "Be Bold" :)

That said, as a long-time fan of both visual novels and graphical adventure games, I have zero doubt that Snatcher falls squarely into the latter category, and bears only a passing resemblance to the former. Gameplay-wise, a visual novel is little more than a Choose Your Own Adventure book: you read the story, and every once in a while, maybe 20-30 times in the whole thing, you are asked which way the story should branch (and some V Ns, like Narcissu and Planetarian, don't even give you any choices; they're 100% reading). Snatcher, by contrast, involves gameplay elements such as investigation, exploring different locations at will, and action sequences. Visual novels don't typically involve such "skill" on the player's part; the decisions involved are more along the lines of "Talk to her/Don't talk to her" rather than "use Jean's note to figure out where Oleen Hospital is". Snatcher lacks the point-and-click interface typical of other adventure games, but that's about the only point of ambiguity. (I think Policenauts should also be moved for all the same reasons, but one step at a time).

Again, I sincerely apologize for jumping the gun on the namespace switch. I honestly thought a simple redirect was all that was needed.

Honestly, I've taken a look at this and a lot of sources, including the Visual Novel Database, Hardcore Gaming 101 and Wikipedia claim that it's definitely a visual novel. I think you definitely jumped the gun here.

I think I know where the sticking point is now. From the Wikipedia article:

"In Japanese terminology, a distinction is often made between visual novels proper (abbreviated NVL), which consist predominantly of narration and have very few interactive elements, and adventure games (abbreviated AVG or ADV), which may incorporate problem-solving and other types of gameplay. This distinction is normally lost outside Japan, where both NV Ls and AD Vs are commonly referred to as "visual novels" by international fans."

So under the stricter definitions as used in Japan, Snatcher would be regarded as an adventure game and not a visual novel; that's the context I was implicitly using, and I honestly was not aware that the English-speaking community didn't make the same distinction. While I personally believe the distinction is an important one that Western gamers would benefit from adopting (since Snatcher is obviously a very different sort of game from, say, Katawa Shoujo), that's neither here nor there. In the end, TV Tropes should follow mainstream (Western) usage where possible; and in this case, much as it rubs me the wrong way, that means Snatcher should probably go back in the Visual Novel namespace.

This site has kind of an ugly history when it comes East-West culture clashes in general, and far be it from me to add more fuel to that fire. :)

Yeah, it is very hard to distinguish between the two, I don't blame ya, but I think it's generally accepted to stick to western standards (which explains all those title translations and such). I'll make the move then.