What do you think is the best POV to write a VN in?

[pyopyon]

Yep. The topic name is pretty much my discussion question-- what do you think is the best point of view to write a VN from?

First Person? ("I" form)

Second Person? ("You" form)

Third Person? ("He/She/It" etc. form)

[Rozume]

It depends on what you're going for. First Person is more personal and intimate - you can easily get a connection with the audience. You also get a lot of unreliable narrators in 1POV. However, you are limited to character you're focusing on. Third person is impersonal, but it's also more versatile. Furthermore, there are different types of third person: Third person limited (focus on one character), third person omniscient (everything and everyone), third person objective (narrator acts as a camera). Second person is least commonly used because it's hard to pull off; you have to make the audience attempt to identify with a featureless protagonist.

[Sugar-Junkie]

I don't think there's a "best" POV it mostly depends of what you want to convey: for example, while I tend to feel more at my ease using "I", I'm currently working on an horror VN with three main characters and therefore use "he/she/they" instead

[Cith]

'Don't use first person unless you have an interesting main character' is the best advice I've heard given on the matter.

[Obscura]

Yep. The topic name is pretty much my discussion question-- what do you think is the best point of view to write a VN from?

First Person? ("I" form)

Second Person? ("You" form)

Third Person? ("He/She/It" etc. form)

I use second person namely because it's what I grew up with (CYOA, Fighting Fantasy, Infocom games.)

I do think because I use that POV, players tend to see the protagonist as a more malleable character, vs. a character with a clear personality.

That may or may not be what you want.

[Juneberry]

As others have said, there's no real 'best'. It really depends on the story and the way you find works for you. So far, I mostly use first person from a set character's point of view, but I've played plenty of games that were really well done with second-person. I don't see as many with third-person, but those aren't bad either when they are done. So...It really depends on the game and your comfort. If you find that writing second person is too difficult, don't. If you find it works well for you and your game, do so. It's all about personal preference and comfort.

[Cheratomo]

I think that first person is the best for a VN. This is because third person is very difficult. As someone pointed out, there are different types of third person (limited and omniscient) but there is another different type that people overlook: close vs. distant. It's similar to navigating the amount of space between narrator and protagonist.

There are generally three degrees of distance.
Far: Melissa hated vegetables. People were eating them, and she thought it was gross. "Why are you eating vegetables?" Melissa asked.
Medium: Melissa thought vegetables were like solid puke. She wondered how anyone could eat them.
Close: Solid puke, that's what vegetables were. People would have to be insane to shove the grotesque bunches into their filthy mouths. "What is wrong with you people...?" Melissa muttered under her breath.

All of these have their different uses in writing. But it seems to me that a lot of writers (skilled and novice) slip too easily into distant. The problem with that is that it's easy to forget who is telling the story. Is Melissa telling the story, or are we watching her go through the motions? And which is better for your VN, to feel Melissa's emotions or to watch her do things?

I personally have great difficulty trying to make my third-person writing close. It's just easy to slip into distance, and it's hard to connect with the characters. First-person bypasses that problem because there is no narrator other than the protagonist, so you don't have to spend time thinking "is the protagonist getting enough say, or are we removed but present like a camera above the characters' heads?"

[SundownKid]

There is no "best", but "most popular" is definitely first person as VN's are a type of adventure game. Third person is harder to do effectively. And second person is even rarer as it places the player as the main character.

[Bernardo]

I think first person is the most common. Second person is OK, but it can get tiring if the story is very long, and you can´t really develop a character if you are leaving it to the reader ("you") to decide everything... it's a complex question. I just think 3rd person is weird in Visual Novels - never seen it - and it work better in fiction in general.

[dreamy]

Well each POV has their upsides and downsides.
First person is the most frequently used POV for VNs and is more personal and players can understand the protagonist more. Downside is that the player will not be aware of information that the protagonist doesn't know (E.g. Bob is talking to Jane about something but protagonist wasn't there so player doesn't know what they were saying) but hey, this can be used as an advantage
Second person...works... but it's quite obvious that the player has to make choices and I haven't seen any of these so far.
Not many people use third person either but I think it is handy and can also turn out well, especially if the player is swapping perspective and character. Downside is that the character's feelings may not be so obvious and there may not be a "clear" protagonist.
Overall it depends on how the writer wants the story to turn out like

[soulmachina]

There isn't really a best POV, it's just whatever POV works best for the story you are telling and what the writer is most comfortable with. I like every POV, honestly. First person is intimate and helps you relate to the main character, second person works very well with niche genres, and third person is good for stories where you can't stick with the main character(s) the whole time.

[Shinoki]

Switching between third person and multiple first person depending on the situation or something is my favorite.
Recently, I've played an awesome game- Shikkoku no Sharnoth- that did that wonderfully.
It made it possible to get immersed in all important characters and such...
And the third person POV explained what was happening/did stuff nicely when used.

I dunno since it's not used that often. It might be easy or hard, but I'd think that it makes it the best POV in my point of view.

First-person is commonly used and well, there's nothing bad with it. Sadly, you can't really get to places that the protagonist can't see.
Third-person can sometimes be hard and make things a bit too distant feeling even though a lot of people love to read novels in that form.