What are some things you hate about romantic Visual Novels??

[Imbion]

This is in part due to the fact I dislike love triangles in regular media, but I dislike how they're always set up in that "A bunch of people like a person who will they chose" way. Because that's boring and very shallow, and it's been done at least a few thousand times and - Please do something different for once.

Have some of the romantic interests like each other so it's an actual line, not a triangle. Maybe let them decide that they're all chill with both dating someone, because some people do relationships that way. And that's just the ones that could be applied to the fantastical dating sim. You want to add some spice with someone deciding that they aren't date material? Plenty of other variations to pull from, such as deciding that they can't handle the rivalry going on, because it's not exactly fun to be treated as a target of pure affection by people who are your friends but cause a whole bunch of drama over it. Or maybe someone gets creeped out by the fact they're being treated only as a potential romance option, not in their existence as someone you can be friends with. Plenty of useful variations to use if your goal is to deconstruct romantic visual novels.

Love triangles aren't bad, but they're utilized horribly in most media. And this includes when visual novels use them.

[SelLi]

To be honest I'm not super bothered by a lot of things in romantic visual novels but that could be because I don't play many VNs. But what does bug me is when a character is depicted by a side-image and a sprite in the same shot? I feel like side-images should be reserved for when a character's talking and their sprite is off-screen. It's weird and distracting. Where do I look? They both change expressions, even. I don't get it - what's the point? Especially if it's the main character. Like, it feels self-centered to look at myself twice at the same time? You know what I mean?

Edit: This seems to be more common in otome games than in games with male main characters. In games with male main characters, developers seem more likely to not depict the MC at all.

Edit 2: Well, to be honest, a lot of tropes bug me. Like, characters acting quirky and random and overly cheeky or overly hard to get or overly dumb for no reason. Most of the visual novels I enjoy are OEVNs. In my experience they seem to just have more real-feeling characters in general. Proportionally, I mean. A lot of that is probably due to the fact that VNs aren't nearly as huge of an industry outside of Japan, so a lot of original English projects are passion projects that people love and actually want to make. Also, I don't read Japanese. There are probably a lot of real-feeling Japanese passion projects that I'm simply not aware of because only corporate OJVNs tend to get translated into English due to costs and such. That just makes sense. There are still OJVNs I like though, of course.

[papillon]

I don't get it - what's the point?

It's so you can see the character's expression and read the text at the same time. Particularly in games that have a lot of facial expressions but not a lot of body poses, and/or games that have zoomed the sprites so far out (to show more of the body) that the head is small and far away from the text.

If the text and the expression are far away from each other, then either you miss the expression changes completely or you have to constantly shift your eyes back and forth, back and forth, which can cause eyestrain.

This isn't a problem if the sprites are super close-up or dynamic so you can easily see them change even if you're not looking directly at them, or if the game is fully voice-acted so you can just look at the characters and not have to look down at the words, or if the text is moved to be closer to the character's head like a speech bubble, or if the player is a very slow reader so they don't mind looking up between every line.

I've seen some games where the big onscreen sprite never changes expression at all and only the little head next to the text does, so you can look up at the character when they enter the screen, then bring your eyes back to the text where they'll stay most of the time.

[Chiagirl]

I dislike how the plot always seems to go common route - character route - good or bad end, with choices making little difference except accumulating hidden points to determine your character route and then ending respectively. I guess I'm too spoiled by the old "choose your own adventure" books where the plot branched wildly at each decision. I realize it's probably a nightmare to implement in terms of efficient use of time and resources, but when the plot stays fairly linear regardless of what I do it's hard to feel like my choices matter.

[DoubleProlix]

Bugs me when characters with the emotional intelligence of a toddler are treated like they're perfectly normal. Or characters who are unrealistically inexperienced in general. Whatever, you have the internet, you've seen a romcom.

I mean yes there are people who are emotionally stunted or whatever, but the narrative has to treat them like they are. Maybe the other characters let them get away with it, but that's also an opportunity for plot and character development.

[SelLi]

I don't get it - what's the point?

It's so you can see the character's expression and read the text at the same time. Particularly in games that have a lot of facial expressions but not a lot of body poses, and/or games that have zoomed the sprites so far out (to show more of the body) that the head is small and far away from the text.

If the text and the expression are far away from each other, then either you miss the expression changes completely or you have to constantly shift your eyes back and forth, back and forth, which can cause eyestrain.

This isn't a problem if the sprites are super close-up or dynamic so you can easily see them change even if you're not looking directly at them, or if the game is fully voice-acted so you can just look at the characters and not have to look down at the words, or if the text is moved to be closer to the character's head like a speech bubble, or if the player is a very slow reader so they don't mind looking up between every line.

I've seen some games where the big onscreen sprite never changes expression at all and only the little head next to the text does, so you can look up at the character when they enter the screen, then bring your eyes back to the text where they'll stay most of the time.

I appreciate this. I never thought of it simply making for easier reading. It's somewhat like having a game with left-aligned text rather than centered text. You can always rest your eyes at the top left of the text box between text changes without having to look in different places. I can appreciate that.
Also, I never thought of using a large sprite for a character and then let them emote exclusively through their side-images. That's interesting.

[tier]

Most stories end as soon as the relationship starts. When I am really enjoying the character dynamics, I often think "...but I wanted to see more!"

I would like to see more stories about "being in a relationship" vs "entering a relationship".

The reason why many stories in visual novels focus on entering a relationship is because this allows the reader to (A) choose a love interest and (B) develop a relationship with them throughout the story. Even if that is the case, it would be nice to have the story continue beyond the point where two characters admit to liking each other. Perhaps it could be a few weeks or months into the relationship.

There is a lot of untapped potential in storytelling. Reading about how two people learn to live together, share life experiences, pick up new hobbies, support each other while pursuing dreams, handle difficult situations, etc. could be interesting.