I don’t think Akiba Lost is the best name the development team could have come up with here. It’s accurate, in that it’s a game about people who got lost in Akihabara (pet name “Akiba”), but given the presence of Akiba’s Trip, this game is just asking for players to make assumptions. It is, of course, an entirely different game.…
Kodansha Creators’ Lab has announced that it will publish the Bon-developed visual novel Buzz or Die. In it, you compete in a new gruesome game show for viewer votes to avoid being sent to death row. Buzz or Die is in development for PC and is expected to launch this…
There was a time when visual novels were a rare thing in…
Six years after its original Japanese launch, Cupid Parasite is now coming…
Rain is a common motif in noir. Whether it be the grim, dank, and hostile urban decay of Se7en, or the neon-drenched dystopia of Blade Runner, water is so common to noir that there is, to quote Paul Schrader in his book Notes on Film Noir “an almost Freudian attachment…
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Have you ever played a game that feels like it was designed specifically for you? Jack Jeanne is just that to me. In fact, I’m working on a visual novel project myself, and I’m shocked at just how thematically and structurally similar it will be to Jack Jeanne (at least,…
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Who doesn’t like a freebie? Midnight Witch – the first project by Crimson Moon Studio – has released today, and the developers are giving it away for nothing. There’s no catch with that either. No DLC for characters or costumes. No microtransactions. It’s just a free game to add to…
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Kara no Shoujo (translated as The Shell) is a detective/mystery series of three very adult visual novels that have a reputation for being of immeasurably high quality. The first was originally released in English by MangaGamer back in 2011, and since then it and its sequel has quietly bubbled along…
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At first glance, it’s difficult to understand Ghostpia’s appeal. You place static screenshots, out of context, next to the breathtaking art of Otomate’s visual novels, the vivid energy of something like Danganronpa, or even independent efforts like Sweetest Monster or Corpse Factory, and it’s really hard to see why PQube…
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Game development crunch is bad. There’s literally no upside to it. Games get rushed, released with issues, and the staff suffers. So I take very little issue with games being delayed, despite being super impatient. I’d rather the people behind it stay healthy while creating the best product possible. So…
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Bad endings are an interesting example of convergent evolution in the history of the game narrative. It appears across various genres as an early example of player choice. In games such as Double Dragon or Dragon Quest for the NES, the player is provided with the end-game choice to join…
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I loved the original Coffee Talk. It was warm, despite being set in one of the more rainy places in North America. The characters felt real (mostly), the atmosphere was chill, and the music perfectly complimented the entire experience. So I was of two minds when Coffee Talk Episode 2:…
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Squint your eyes and Process of Elimination could be a Danganronpa spinoff. At least, in the way it works as a visual novel (and that is the bulk of the game). While both titles have very different art styles, the concepts are remarkably similar. And, like Danganronpa, this game is…
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Norn9: Var Commons is not a new visual novel by any means. It was originally a PSP title, and then localised into English for the first time for the PlayStation Vita version. Now it has landed on Switch to give players that missed it previously to catch up. They should…
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