What are Visual Novels (aka VNs)?

As this blog is going to have a lot of it devoted to visual novels, I suppose I should clarify what visual novels actually are, since many people outside East Asia (primarily Japan where VNs are well known) may not have even heard of them.

A screenshot from the visual novel Rewrite

Classifying whether a game is a true 'visual novel' or only 'visual novel-esque' is pretty subjective, but, generally speaking, VNs are video games with large amounts of text. Usually the text is used in along with both music (sometimes called 'background music' or BGM) and 2D artwork. Newer visual novels often have voice acting included, too, and various degrees of animation (keep in mind as most VNs are Japanese in origin, the voice acting is also in Japanese, although that doesn't really detract anything for me). In this respect, reading a visual novel is much like reading a book but watching anime at the same time; it's pretty unique.

A CG, or 'computer graphic', taken from Muv Luv Alternative. CGs are like still
shots that you see occasionally in game that help to encapsulate what is happening in the story

The Spontaneous Begining

Well... I thought it was about time to start up a blog so I'd have somewhere to collate my ramblings in some sort of organised fashion. This blog will be where I review video games (or give my thoughts) with a primary focus on visual novels. I may review other things as well, if I feel like it, such as light novels, manga or anime. I'll also post an update or two now and again to tell you guys what I'm doing, what'll be coming up in the blog, as well as any general musings about the video game industry that happen to spew eloquently flow forth from my mind.

To give you an idea of what sort of games I'm into (and therefore what sort of content to expect), I like story heavy visual novels, various kinds of RPGs, as well as a good amount of strategy games, too. I'm not really into MMOs or Action games, though if a good one comes along that captures my attention (i.e. makes me waste a disproportionately large amount of my time), then you can expect to see some stuff on that. Additionally, I'm chiefly a PC gamer as I have to remain mobile. Consequently, besides the little bit of gaming I do on the DS/3DS, most of what you get from me will be PC based (or at least emulated on the PC) so...take that for what it's worth.

(That said, if a really great game comes along, I may just 'borrow' a friends console in order to play it).

That wraps up the general introductions for the blog. I suppose I need some catchphrase that exudes 'me' in some sort of way in order to say good bye...unfortunately most of the good ones are already taken. And the majority of the ones that aren't are a mixture of the really cheesy and the really terrible; often both. I suppose I'll settle for ja, nice and simple...and Japanese. An added bonus.

So, for now...

Ja~.