I like Alice in Dissonance for the most part. Despite my well-earned reputation, I do love to see good art, ambitious use of technology and the group has consistently delivered on that end. Their artistic work alone can easily stand with other Japanese games, not just VNs, and the fact that they’re determined to improve […]
‘Why can’t you just enjoy [insert entertainment genre here]?’ More often than not, this is the last line of defense for a fan arguing against a critic over a piece of media. To be fair, critics have their emotional defenses against fans as well, but this one has more of an edge to it because […]
A question for you; why do so many visual novels start the same way? There have been many think-pieces and commentaries on how to start a narrative and for all the literary methods at a developer’s feet, VNs usually start one of two ways: either arriving in a new town OR waking up from a […]
One of the more interesting keystones of the visual novel genre that usually flies over my head is the protagonist. If you’re a long-time reader of this site, you know that a VN protagonist can easily make or break a game for me, but they rarely succeed in what the writer usually sets out for them to […]
Oh looks: it’s Pillow Fight. We’re starting to build a history with these folks. To date, they’ve been involved with three visual novels I’ve either reviewed or featured here on VNs Now and those pieces have a habit of ending…poorly. If you’ve read my feature on Who We Are Now, the mini-rant about groups using […]
Well, we couldn’t avoid this conversation forever, could we? Let’s start this one off by me putting myself on the record, shall we? Diversity in writing is good. Having more than one race, sexuality or gender in your cast of characters can often bring different dimensions to a narrative. I believe it also helps to […]
Okay, I named this feature ‘A Quick Look At’ for a reason. Originally, it was supposed to be a way for me to get my thoughts out about a demo and any possible notes for improvement within one thousand words. Now, because I’m long-winded, I pushed the limit to two-thousand words and that has been […]
Being creative is a difficult burden to bear. Regardless of how that creativity manifests itself once a person realizes they can create something unique and interesting they’re immediately put under the watchful eye of two critical forces: the public and themselves. The public is the most innocuous as it comes at creativity from the strict […]
Hello all! First and foremost, I want to thank everyone reading this and everyone who has enjoyed and supported VNs Now for six years running. It has been far from smooth sailing for us, but we have endured and done our best to keep up with this growing gaming medium. At the beginning of 2017, […]
I first heard about Mazjojo in 2009, I believe. Back then, he was just an artist with some potential, an interesting style and a lot of fandoms. He started just as the Indonesian market for original manga and visual novels got on its legs. Now, I can’t speak for their manga. But Indonesia, and the […]