Who runs VN Review sites?

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Morhighan
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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#16 Post by Morhighan »

Hazel-Bun wrote:Plus, being that the community is small, I assume both reviewers are more favorable to their friends and see that reflected in the scoring (more so on VNsNow though).
Just going to say this is a bad assumption. I'm chummy with Winter Wolves but I managed to rip Nicole a new asshole--and I worked on the sequel! It's very important to me to overcome biases as a writer. :)

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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#17 Post by Hazel-Bun »

Of course haha but I can't honestly say that I can get rid of my bias, so wanted to be honest with the person who asked the question xD Like I said, more often than not they're wonderful games or are truly bad ones, but looking through I just see the shift in wording the faults etc. so dependent on the relation between people. And, being a indie writer might have poisoned my well from all the obvious friend reviews on novels that were just "meh". (not saying I'm above this in any way, just so noticeable I just shake my head like you could have tried to make it more real sounding!)

Also, I really like LRPe's distinction between new and veterans. That's all I really ask for! It boggles my mind when something that was obviously a first time creation is judged against a JVN standard, seeing as they sink thousands of dollars into their creations. Helping them improve their writing etc., I'm all for it, but ripping them apart just seems counterproductive to me.
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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#18 Post by ketskari »

You know, I realized that I never read reviews before I started getting involved in VNs. Not for books, movies, or anything. Reviews have never factored in my decisions, unless you count glancing at Amazon's to see whether or not an item is likely to turn up broken. Most of the things I've enjoyed have been recommended to me or I found and took a risk on myself.

And I think it may be helpful for creators who want to improve their own work to start a critique group instead of reviewing others--and then it goes both ways.

While feedback is great, people who don't have experience with making something themselves can't always tell you exactly what needs to be done to fix that something. Art is a good example. A friend who isn't an artist may be able to tell me that an arm looks wrong, but an experienced artist can tell me exactly how I got that arm wrong. Both are useful and valuable, but the latter is quicker.

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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#19 Post by Barzini »

I think a group of VN creators reviewing one another's work can be productive - However, the main issue here is that when someone types up "English visual novel reviews" - We won't see a lot, which is sad, because there ARE a lot of OELVNs that are good.
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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#20 Post by Aviala »

Honestly I've never had the opinion that japanese vns are better than english ones. I'm sure some people think so but I'm pretty sure that nowadays there are a lot of people who have never even played Japanese vns but who enjoy vns on this forum. So I don't think the idea of reviewing evns is doomed to fail. Of course there will always be people who don't want to read the reviews but that's always the case with everything.

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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#21 Post by Mad Harlequin »

Aviala wrote:I'm pretty sure that nowadays there are a lot of people who have never even played Japanese vns but who enjoy vns on this forum.
Yup. I'm one of them.
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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#22 Post by trooper6 »

Mad Harlequin wrote:
Aviala wrote:I'm pretty sure that nowadays there are a lot of people who have never even played Japanese vns but who enjoy vns on this forum.
Yup. I'm one of them.
I'm Another. The only JVN I've played was 999 and Phoenix Wright...but I don't think those exactly count as what people think of when they think of VNs, and I played them way after I played all the EVNs that got me interested in the genre.
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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#23 Post by Mad Harlequin »

I should add that I do want to play some JVNs when I get the chance, but I don't have much money to risk on impulse buys, so I'm compiling a list of visual novels that interest me.
I'm an aspiring writer and voice talent with a passion for literature and an unhealthy attachment to video games. I am also a seasoned typo-sniper. Inquiries are encouraged. Friendly chats are welcome.
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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#24 Post by Godline »

I'm like you guys. And I don't think that JVNs are better. I've played only a couple and I thought they were eh. The problem with Japan VNs is that they're in a mold, and they rarely break that mold. Usually the same art style, cliche stories and a bit of ecchi. EVNs get a chance to be more edgy - we have different influences than just anime culture.
(Which is why it bugs me seeing the same old Japanese names/settings in stuff coming out of America/Western countries).
Of course there are exceptions to both rules. I'm sure there are some more unique JVNs out there too.

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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#25 Post by Anne »

I haven't played that many Japanese VNs but from what I see the quality difference is pretty much obvious, especially when it comes to visuals (that doesn't mean any Japanese game is better than any English one). I'm yet to see animated sprites like the ones in Ace Attorney in any English VN. I'd really love to see a sim even close to TokiMeki with the amount of features these games have. One would expect English VNs to win when it comes to writing (Japan has certain cultural trends that are not that popular with English audience like that doormat otome protagonist for example) but - with very rare exceptions - that doesn't seem to be the case (VNsNow nominated Uncle Mugen for Best Writer 2014)

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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#26 Post by philat »

For me, the main difference in JVNs and EVNs is that there aren't really "AAA" EVNs, except perhaps Telltale games. Even Telltale games aren't super-AAA though. I tend to define VNs broadly, so that if the main focus of the game is the story it counts as a VN in my book and I would lump most adventure games into VN broadly as well, unless the gameplay is significantly skill-based (e.g., Uncharted has enough shooty and traversal bits not to be a VN in my book, but Telltale games don't).

Japan has a number of studios that are committed to doing VNs at a high budget, AAA production level -- like Phoenix Wright, 999/VLR, and Dangan Ronpa on the non-romance side and then a bunch of them on the romance side. I also remember my childhood playing Japanese raising sim games (obvs Princess Maker, but also more minor stuff like Eberouge and stuff, man those were the days), which also tend to get lumped in with VNs. Those were freaking cutting edge games at the time. Which is not to say that AAA is necessarily better, but it's more or less nonexistent on the EVN side as far as I can tell. EVNs generally feel and play like indie games, which again, is not meant as a slight necessarily. There are a lot of things that indie games do better than AAA games. But there's something to be said for AAA level production values, which I haven't really seen in EVNs much. I would say that the most interesting EVNs I've played are outside what most people consider VNs -- Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, the story bits of The Talos Principle, some of the Choice Of games -- and looking back on it, it's probably at least partially because these games feel very polished production-wise (or in the case of the Choice Of games, are actually just text-based and only have to pull off strong writing and none of the other bits).

I will also say, as a Korean who rarely plays JVNs in English unless absolutely necessary (unfortunately, 999/VLR was not translated into Korean sigh), it's really, really difficult to pull off translating JVNs to English well. Phoenix Wright and the Persona games are both held up as very good translations, but they're still not as good as the same games translated into Korean, in my experience. There's just such a different cultural backdrop and different styles of writing in general that I always prefer to play a Japanese game in Korean if I can. (Or I could learn Japanese, but I'm lazy. ;) )

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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#27 Post by qirien »

I don't do reviews, but I sometimes give recommendations on this gaming blog:
http://thepretentiousgamer.blogspot.com/

I only recommend VNs that I really like (the one's I didn't really love, I just don't write about).
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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#28 Post by bluedragon77 »

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... es#p376560

Please, I really need the feedback. It's my first game. And I am not confident in the graphics and actual text. However since it is an incomplete product could any potential reviewer analyze the story summary?

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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#29 Post by TheKiwi »

I run one, but it's a tumblr and not really a dedicated site. It's still early on but I'll be doing reviews along with a lot of other VN related things, like running events.

I also take submissions so if anyone wants to submit their game or demo, any VN related things they want to share, etc. I like to think I'm able to push my bias away during my reviews and write as objectively as I can, and even when I think I succeed I add end notes to reviews if I knew any of the creators personally

It'shere if you're interested!

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Re: Who runs VN Review sites?

#30 Post by somestrangecircus »

I do reviews as a side thing, sort of to keep up my writing skills and also because I do like recommending games to people. A full list is here on my always-in-progress website.

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