/jp/ - Otaku Culture

A good VN has a story or other quality of itself (ie, not the fandom) that transcends the sum of it's individual parts. For example, a game like Planetarian may be short with no H scenes with no brilliant twists, but it's such a masterpiece of mood, atmosphere, and emotional manipulation that it is able to go beyond the sum of it's parts and achieve greatness. Not all good VNs need to be masterpieces; there are some which are strong in most of the key elements of a VN (story, heroines, music, H, etc) are memorable as quality experiences.

However, games which do not have any transcending quality of greatness or even a net sum of quality cannot be considered "good" VNs. For example, FSN: poor art, convoluted story that is at the same time boring, very poor H, overall a large disapointment in all major areas -- the only area that it stands above the rest in, however, is the fact that it enjoys an association with a powerful celebrity in Japanese VN gamer's world, which was exported to the West via the online fandom here; in reality, no one likes the game per se, but they like fitting in with the "cool" crowd, and eventually it became a cultural underpinning on /jp/. This makes it popular, but it still cannot be called "good".

Please review this image for a guide.

/jp/ usually recommends garbage, but those who include Planetarian in their list usually have half of their lists with other good titles.

>>5125531