/vng/ - Visual Novel General

[Amlux]

There was a really good post a while back on this forum about "summer media," and I thought it would be nice to extend the concept. What VNs do you think are most emblematic and appropriate for fall, winter, or spring? Any additional summer ones should probably go in the original thread

Maybe it'd be better to make individual threads for each season when they roll around, but I'm impatient

I think whoever made that thread said SubaHibi which is obvious and I suggested Period (2007) for summery VNs. I dunno about many others but Swan Song (2005) is set during an endless winter post-apocalyptic hellscape and would be good for winter I think.

[Thricegreat]

There was a really good post a while back on this forum about "summer media," and I thought it would be nice to extend the concept. What VNs do you think are most emblematic and appropriate for fall, winter, or spring? Any additional summer ones should probably go in the original thread :happy:

Maybe it'd be better to make individual threads for each season when they roll around, but I'm impatient :devil:

I asked an AI chatbot about this for fun. :) Personally Yosuga no Sora for autumn feels so right.


Spring (fresh starts, romance blooming, pastel vibes)
* Kanon (late-90s/early-2000s springtime tone, bittersweet warmth)
* Clannad (especially because of how it leans into school-year beginnings)
* Kizuato (less bright, but very “awakening/coming-of-age” seasonal energy)

Summer (heat, festivals, swimsuits, fireworks, “the days that stick”)
* Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (summer setting + dread, extremely seasonal)
* Umineko (island/summer atmosphere; “long hot days” feeling)
* Majikoi / any “coastal summer romance” vibe in that lane (for lighter, festival-type summer mood)

Autumn (melancholy, loss-of-innocence, harvest calm, falling leaves)
* Fate/stay night (autumnal tone and many routes/themes feel seasonal)
* Sayonara wo Oshiete / Yosuga no Sora-adjacent vibes (not always strictly autumn, but the “late-year melancholy” feel fits well)
* Kanon (yes, again—because it’s one of the best “autumn in your chest” feelings in VN-land)

Winter (silence, intimacy, snow, “cold air + warmth” contrast)
* Katawa Shoujo (winter-leaning arcs; reflective, intimate pacing)
* Steins;Gate (not an eroge, but the cold season mood and “frozen tension” fit)
* Clannad (the winter episodes/arcs land hard emotionally)

Quick rule of thumb (so you can pick more easily)
* Spring: school beginnings + gentle romance + “new wind” music
* Summer: festivals/fireworks + oppressive heat + supernatural slips in the background
* Autumn: nostalgia + bittersweet endings + “things are ending” mood
* Winter: isolation + warmth-from-within + reflective pacing

[2hufriend]

* Kanon (late-90s/early-2000s springtime tone, bittersweet warmth)

* Kanon (yes, again—because it’s one of the best “autumn in your chest” feelings in VN-land)

I would highly recommend you to avoid consulting AI because they will frequently hallucinate (with 100% confident tone, to boot) and in this case it's also pulling from a highly narrow range of titles because VNs are too niché for it. Notice how your interaction is strictly bound to reddit-core VNs (bigger names) and places completely random seasons alongside them.

Case in point regarding hallucinations, Kanon is one of the most explicitly seasonal VNs I can think of, and since your AI use responded with Kanon for TWO whole seaons, there's a 50/50 shot that it would it pick the right season if it were to simply guess, and it STILL avoided Winter. How is this even possible when Kanon is one of the quintessential Winter VNs?

If I just google "Kanon Visual Novel Winter" the obligatory AI overview that pops up:
"Kanon is a classic emotional visual novel defined by its permanent winter setting, featuring branching character routes, a snowy northern town, and a nostalgic soundtrack.
Setting and Atmosphere
Takes place entirely in a quiet, deep-snow-covered Japanese city.
Follows protagonist Yuuichi Aizawa returning to town after seven years.
Features an atmospheric, winter-themed ambient soundtrack (including tracks like Fuyu no Hanabi) that captures a cold yet magical tone."

So which AI was right here? Even though my google gave a better response I think the answer is that you should simply never consult AI for something like this. I've experimented a few times at asking an AI bot a question about something I know that is a bit more niché, and it just makes shit up! There's plenty of humans you can ask instead about visual novels, you can start a thread on a discussion forum or in a chat group for example, you can also go to VNDB and use their amazing tag system. Even if you say it's just for fun, you did actually post it here and now I can also tear it to shreds also just for fun, and I think since I'm a human and I'm conscious and I'm interested in the subject, it's also constructive for me to do so ^^

My recommendation would be to go to VNDB and check their tagging systems. The most open ones here are seasonal: https://vndb.org/g758 but of course that doesn't necessarily have to mean the VN evokes the "feeling" of that season. There are other handy tags you can use to try to find this though, an obvious one being Snow: https://vndb.org/g4039
Speaking of which I had 3 Winter ones in mind, those being Remember11 (The most seriously winter-y of all games I've played to be frank) Swan Song (Also winter) and Kanon (also winter)

Also, your bizarre AI interaction thought that Steins;Gate is a winter VN... I'm highly familiar with Steins;Gate and I just don't see how that could possibly be a Winter VN, in fact, I never considered it to be particularly. If anything, the only scenes I can remember that gave me the impression of a season, gave me the impression of SUMMER, not winter. Steins;gate hat some hot and sweaty scenes, didn't it? It took place in the summer... the music is also not cold, like Remember11's for example by the same composer, the music in steins;gate is warm.

Another summer's VN I remember, Yotsunoha.

[Thricegreat]

* Kanon (late-90s/early-2000s springtime tone, bittersweet warmth)

* Kanon (yes, again—because it’s one of the best “autumn in your chest” feelings in VN-land)

I would highly recommend you to avoid consulting AI because they will frequently hallucinate (with 100% confident tone, to boot) and in this case it's also pulling from a highly narrow range of titles because VNs are too niché for it. Notice how your interaction is strictly bound to reddit-core VNs (bigger names) and places completely random seasons alongside them.

Case in point regarding hallucinations, Kanon is one of the most explicitly seasonal VNs I can think of, and since your AI use responded with Kanon for TWO whole seaons, there's a 50/50 shot that it would it pick the right season if it were to simply guess, and it STILL avoided Winter. How is this even possible when Kanon is one of the quintessential Winter VNs?

If I just google "Kanon Visual Novel Winter" the obligatory AI overview that pops up:
"Kanon is a classic emotional visual novel defined by its permanent winter setting, featuring branching character routes, a snowy northern town, and a nostalgic soundtrack.
Setting and Atmosphere
Takes place entirely in a quiet, deep-snow-covered Japanese city.
Follows protagonist Yuuichi Aizawa returning to town after seven years.
Features an atmospheric, winter-themed ambient soundtrack (including tracks like Fuyu no Hanabi) that captures a cold yet magical tone."

So which AI was right here? Even though my google gave a better response I think the answer is that you should simply never consult AI for something like this. I've experimented a few times at asking an AI bot a question about something I know that is a bit more niché, and it just makes shit up! There's plenty of humans you can ask instead about visual novels, you can start a thread on a discussion forum or in a chat group for example, you can also go to VNDB and use their amazing tag system. Even if you say it's just for fun, you did actually post it here and now I can also tear it to shreds also just for fun, and I think since I'm a human and I'm conscious and I'm interested in the subject, it's also constructive for me to do so ^^

My recommendation would be to go to VNDB and check their tagging systems. The most open ones here are seasonal: https://vndb.org/g758 but of course that doesn't necessarily have to mean the VN evokes the "feeling" of that season. There are other handy tags you can use to try to find this though, an obvious one being Snow: https://vndb.org/g4039
Speaking of which I had 3 Winter ones in mind, those being Remember11 (The most seriously winter-y of all games I've played to be frank) Swan Song (Also winter) and Kanon (also winter)

Also, your bizarre AI interaction thought that Steins;Gate is a winter VN... I'm highly familiar with Steins;Gate and I just don't see how that could possibly be a Winter VN, in fact, I never considered it to be particularly. If anything, the only scenes I can remember that gave me the impression of a season, gave me the impression of SUMMER, not winter. Steins;gate hat some hot and sweaty scenes, didn't it? It took place in the summer... the music is also not cold, like Remember11's for example by the same composer, the music in steins;gate is warm.

Another summer's VN I remember, Yotsunoha.

I don't consult an AI. :) I treat it as a search engine in which people say ridiculous things. And I think that is the point of an AI. It always gives me normie answers so that I can guess how normies think. I have become a weirdo so that I need to intentionally understand them.

So my reaction to the AI answer is "Would normies think like that? Interesting." Also I simply copy-pasted "What VNs do you think are most emblematic and appropriate for each season?" to DuckAI with the default setting (the weakest model). Because why should I waste electricity for better models?

Honestly your reply is what I expected and wanted. I don't know why there are people who are strongly intrigued by AIs. But it is quite funny to watch them being intrigued anyway. :)

For me an AI is just another tool. I don't think technology (and money) should be a purpose rather than just a means. Also I don't understand why people identify themselves with what they use. You are not what you use.

[YeeYee]

What is the first visual novel you ever played, and what were your initial impressions of the medium?

I've only just recently gotten interested in visual novels and as such I am VERY late to the whole medium in general. One I'm currently reading is Katawa Shoujo and I've just gotten done with Hanako's route. I've heard that it was one of the visual novels which started popularizing the medium in the western side of the world, but my GOSH sometimes you can just tell the writing wasn't exactly the best. If you've played Katawa Shoujo, I'll just say that Hisao is genuinely a pervert. Which isn't a bad thing CUZ IM LOWK THINKING THE SAME SHIT, but sometimes it's at a point of the story where it just doesn't fit the character after what he's already explicitly mentioned he had already learned. I'll give an example in just a bit with a spoiler tag for specifically Hanako's route down this reply. The reason for this mismatch of character though, I'd say, is a result of the fact that the teams were communicating via a 4chan thread and perhaps they didn't exactly have the freedom to nitpick certain aspects in real time and decided to just leave them be. I saw an interview with Hanako's writer done on YouTube (well, FreeTube) and it does seem to be the case that I mentioned; rushed writing and just IRL matters also contributed to it.

Moving aside from my small bit of criticism from someone who hasn't even completed the entirety of the game, I personally found it genuinely charming. If you don't know what Katawa Shoujo is/what it's about, the visual novel contains multiple characters who live with disabilities, both easily seen and unseen, and some less obvious than others. It deals with these disabilities in such a delicate manner that I can't help but enjoy the game for its genuine, heartfelt portrayal of what it feels like to live with these disabilities. But it doesn't victimize them in a way. Hisao (the MC of the game) learns over the course of the game that these people with disabilities shouldn't be treated like literal children just because they "suffer" from their disabilities. You learn to trust and see these people for who they are, just regular people who live their own lives just like yourself. Yeah sure, they have a disability, but just like you, they were born and grew up with it and learned to live with the disabilities. There are choices in the game, and to get a good ending for Hanako's route, you had to both trust her and spend time with her just like any other friend. Perhaps even some of these flaws aren't meant to be changed by YOU, but by them only, and you should trust them to overcome it. We don't have to force change for these people; we can just be there for them and help them when they want it in the first place. These people shouldn't be defined by their disabilities either; they're just as normal as you, but that doesn't mean you have to feign kindness towards them. If you feel as if you like them, then that's THAT. Like them for who they are as people and respect them just like any other. I don't know if I got my message across effectively because I do coach to ramble on about the things I read/interpret, so sorry if that felt jumbled.
Overall, Katawa Shoujo so far for me, after having just played one route, has been a cute experience as a first-time visual novel, containing not only funny, cute, KAWAII girls but also being emotional enough to make my eyes water up just a bit. BUT YOU CAN DEFINITELY FEEL ITS AGE SOMETIMES!

Anyways, here's the one moment I was talking about and I'll rant a little about it if you have played the game (Hanako good route cutscene):

Spoiler

https://media.discordapp.net/attachment ... height=936

Spoiler

LIKE THIS IS SUCH A DOGSHIT LINE, hisao ahs not only already learned to not objectify disabilities and then he just immediately objectifies both her scars AND body, which is fucking INSANE! imagine this he already learns that he should treat people for who they are and to respect hanako as a person and then he just gets all sexual about the scars and starts calling her EXACTLY LIKE A WOMAN, it just feels like such a bad taste line but whatever

One more funny thing i saw in a line of the same route

Spoiler

https://media.discordapp.net/attachment ... height=602

Spoiler

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=ht ... frame><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/jaysamra" title="JaySamra" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">JaySamra</a> · <a href="" title="Crush 40 - I Am All Of Me" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Crush 40 - I Am All Of Me</a></div>

As for what I plan to read next ive gotten a hold of a fully uncencored and packed with everything subarashiki hibi patch so very much looking forward to that, esp since im VERY into german philosophy and personally "believe" it myself

aright thanks for reading my rambles if ya did, anyways kenji's my goat. Have a nice day for those reading this and smile a little harder than yesterday peace

heres a shoegaze album to listen to if ya have time :

[Amlux]

Anyways, here's the one moment I was talking about and I'll rant a little about it if you have played the game (Hanako good route cutscene):

Spoiler

https://media.discordapp.net/attachment ... height=936

Spoiler

LIKE THIS IS SUCH A DOGSHIT LINE, hisao ahs not only already learned to not objectify disabilities and then he just immediately objectifies both her scars AND body, which is fucking INSANE! imagine this he already learns that he should treat people for who they are and to respect hanako as a person and then he just gets all sexual about the scars and starts calling her EXACTLY LIKE A WOMAN, it just feels like such a bad taste line but whatever

I don't really get the issue.

Spoiler

There's this weird idea which seems very western to me that the moment you appreciate someone in physical terms (i.e. "objectify" them), you suddenly have no respect for them or can't also appreciate their non-physical qualities. I have no idea where this comes from but it seems like dogma at this point. Could it not be the case that Hisao just thinks she is an awesome, deep, wonderful person but also has a smoking hot bod? What's the problem with that? It just seems like an outgrowth of a very puritanical, fundamentalist Judeo-Christian worldview. All I can say is that this is a pretty pro-"objectification" board lmao.

That said, it is common in VNs to have a kind of clunky shift in tone sometimes between the "normal" parts of the route and the sex scenes. Katawa Shoujo is no exception to this I suppose... and like you said, the decentralized writing for a lot of it probably exacerbated this problem.

Also I am giving you a friendly warning not to spam embeds like this in an unrelated fashion to the thread topic.

[YeeYee]

Spoiler

Okay so my general gripe about the dialogue itself is that when the whole game builds up hisaos character and the player itself to realize that objectifying disabilities and defining people by them completely reduces them to just an "ide" that would then be seen as a weakness and interpreted in the persons own perspective. So when the character starts talking about what makes them a woman it feels incredulous to the point that was being build up if that make sense. And to respond to your input on the matter I didnt mean to immediately say it was a bad thing, perhaps i didnt communicate myself very well, i moreso meant that in terms of how the story had progressed it felt as if it was a regression in this weird sense that he suddenly talks about it in a diffrent light outside of the disability aspect of it, and so it feels like hes overlooking what hes learned and applying it to a diffrent part

Also sorry about that! I was trying to think of a way to drop music recommendations and I liked doing this on some discord threads I was apart of, ill keep that in mind thanks!

[Thricegreat]

There's this weird idea which seems very western to me that the moment you appreciate someone in physical terms (i.e. "objectify" them), you suddenly have no respect for them or can't also appreciate their non-physical qualities. I have no idea where this comes from but it seems like dogma at this point. Could it not be the case that Hisao just thinks she is an awesome, deep, wonderful person but also has a smoking hot bod? What's the problem with that?

I think it depends on whether one uses another person as a mere means and disrespects the dignity of that person. For example,

He/She is beautiful and sexually attractive. -- Fine.
He/She is fappable. -- NO.

It just seems like an outgrowth of a very puritanical, fundamentalist Judeo-Christian worldview.

Confucianism is also very puritanical on sexuality.

[Thricegreat]

By the way "Japan" in Katawa Shoujo is not really Japan. It is at most somewhere like Taiwan if you take it generously.

[Amlux]

Confucianism is also very puritanical on sexuality.

This is why China and Korea are worse than Japan.

(I also don't think the fear over it seems as extreme or intrinsic to me but more like an outgrowth of just having a sense of "propriety" about it but I'm not an expert.)