Well I wasn't trying to talk down to the concept of visual novels, is just most of the ones I seen or consider didn't quite interest me too much, I could just be expecting too much from someone who normally consider a game something the player has more control and influence within the world and do more action orientated things like pressing more than one or two buttons or options. Also cause most of them are made with small teams and very little budget, compared to something like the Japanese Role Playing Game it just comes off as reading a book on a computer screen rather than playing a game. It wouldn't be a problem if they didn't conclude it as a game, just call it a visual novel.
As for one that has something I would find interesting.
- Full voiced lines in the localized language (I mean all of it, not just a few)
- More animations, not just static images
- More backgrounds to see, not revisiting the same few places that aren't even more than five in the entire game
- More interaction from the player allowing them to feel like their choices matter more and require thinking carefully or just more stuff to do in general
Games like the Ace Attorney series while mostly is a visual novel comes close to what I just listed. It plays like a game cause there is a way to lose and has more hostile reactions to mistakes the players make. They have lots of reactions and even animations, plenty of different places to see, but having more endings would help, such as continuing the game after a guilty verdict that can show unfavorable reliability in people you associate with, causing changes in what kind of clients you get for the path you take, maybe even turn bad or become prosecutor, who knows (just ideas) Other than that, it can use more voiced lines, not just from specifically produced anime video clips.
Source: GBAtemp Press Inbox
