(I will be yabbering on for a pretty large chunk of text, so if you don't care for large chunks of text, well, skim, I guess?)
On the topic of choosing the route? Huh, I do agree that it is a bit annoying when you make choices that don't obviously point towards a route and accidentally end up on a character route that you don't want to play. (I'm looking at you, You-san, from Ever17...)
However, I think the biggest problem with accidentally dropping into a route is when the common route is long and has too many choices to keep track of. For the most part, there are walkthroughs, so I don't mind if the choices are a bit vague. However, when there are too many choices with too many repeating scenes, it gets frustrating going through and choosing the right ones.
I've played some games where the first choice you make decides which route you go on, but some of them did it well while others did them badly. Is a game where you can very simply enter a route--very straightforward, clearly your choice--what you mean that you want?
There's an SKE48 yuri fangame called Ai no Kazu (it's a Chinese fangame that I don't think is translated though). The first choice asks you where you want to go--ie. clubs, etc. And that is how your love interest is decided. It's very straightforward and sets you onto a route.
However, each route isn't just a kinetic novel to itself where you don't have any choices. Some visual novels do that--and I enjoy them very much, but I would say that for something with a straightforward way of route-deciding, it would seem like you don't have any choice in the story if it goes "kinetic" during the character route.
This particular game gave choices throughout the routes. There were small dialogue points where you could get easter egg type of jokes. There were choices that might get you a bad end. There were branches here and there, but it gave the player a feeling of choice and interaction, and that made the game fun.
It's clear that you're choosing what route you're going on. You're not forced to go through some maze of incoherent choices. But you also get to interact with the characters, the world, etc. and push your own decisions into the mix.
In comparison, there's a game called Shinigami no Kiss wa Wakare no Aji. As a note, it's an eroge that was kind of flimsy and the true route was a loli route (while I like lolis, well... eroge + loli is kind of meh), so I might have a slight bias against it.
There are two parts of it. The main story and the true story. For the main story, there's only one choice, and that choice decides what route you get on--the classmate or little sister route. Afterwards, it's just kinetic novel from there on. Not only that, it's basically the plot of any old eroge with fantasy aspects.
That wasn't too good. While a really great story might make a lack of choices okay, an average story isn't good. If it's originally marketed as a kinetic novel, that's fine. But, if it's an eroge with "choices," then the lack of choices besides the choice that puts you onto the route is kind of meh. There's a feeling of something lacking.
In addition, the true route was even flimsier about it. Basically, the only choice you get to make is to press a button that asks you if you want to play the loli route. Following that is all kinetic, eroge drama, which is fine and all if it was just marketed as a kinetic novel.
indoneko wrote:I wonder if anyone has made a game with two mode : easy/kinetic/automatic & normal/vn/manual mode.
That sounds like an interesting idea. I've seen quite a lot of games where there are two modes, but they're not usually like: easy mode and normal mode. It's usually more of part I to a story and then part II where part I is not kinetic and part II is.
Sometimes, it's that you clear all the routes in the normal visual novel format with all the choices and stuff. Then, when you're redirected to the home screen, a final "true" route-esque thing is unlocked, and the true route is completely kinetic, no choices, put separately from the visual novel part. (ie. on the menu: [Start] [Refrain/al Fine/True Route/etc.] two different buttons]
An example would be Shinigami no Kiss (mentioned above), but I don't consider it a good example.
Amaranto (a Japanese yuri indie game) was originally just a normal visual novel--choose em choices and get onto the route. However, a year or so (maybe) after its release, the creators released a patch. The patch was basically a "true" route type of thing that didn't focus much on the romance and was completely kinetic (though the choices from the original game were still there, but they didn't do anything to decide the route, so I would call it kinetic). After patching the game, whether or not you played through the original routes, you could still play the "true" kinetic part.
The main thing about both of the things I brought up is that: the kinetic routes are the "true" routes, but they're not really a default ending that could be gotten by choosing choices in the visual novel part. Rather, they're the finisher "true" routes to all the branches of the visual novel--they are the overarching explanation that takes in everything from all the 'timelines' you could have gone through in your visual novel choices to explain the story.
...Ah, I yabbered on for too long. Well, I hope someone understands? This is just my two-cents.