Talk:Visual novel

Redirect

Shibboleth, why did you redirect the page, despite the passionate comments by the previous anonymous contributor? Paranoid 10:41, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Re-writing

I am currently working on re-writing the page, so I'd appreciate it if my work's not overridden. Veyhola (talk) 22:14, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Andrzejbanas has already been preparing a rewrite at User:Andrzejbanas/VN.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 09:27, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

They can add new things to the article, I just prefer they wouldn't override all the info on this page, cause I worked hard to fix it. Veyhola (talk) 19:52, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello all. I've basically shared the new version of the article which has everything sourced and material is ready. I only saw now that @Veyhola: has been adding material to the article. I did a quick glance of their material and while some was fixing sources, others I don't think were improvements on what I have added, but am open to further changes obviously. I'll ping the editors who have been conversing on the talk page about it here (@LaukkuTheGreit:. Please discuss what else we require or what else can be cut or cut down to make it a better article. Thank you! Andrzejbanas (talk) 23:20, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

Peer review

Visual novel

I've listed this article for peer review because I've recently re-written most of the article. I've given my reason for doing so on the talk page where the older version had a lots of original research, some lower-quality sources applied across the article or no sources at all. Due to complex nature of the genre (i.e: In Japan where it originates, its viewed in a relatively different way than the majority of Western understanding of the genre), I've tried to expand on it on the complexity of genre in general and tried to give a history that did not just become hatnotes of "this game was popular!" or "this was a critically acclaimed series" as those read more of a guide to "great games" than where the genre stood at in particular moments in time. I think the article does that still in some cases, but I'm more curious if there's big portions I'm missing or what would make it better before trying to submit it for a Good Article review.

Thanks, Andrzejbanas (talk) 12:56, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Some miscellaneous notes:

• The phrase "character development" (in the section "Early adventure game influences") is ambiguous, especially after this edit which reduces context. One could understand it in the narrative sense or in the RPG attributes/stats sense. Probably "role-playing elements", "character advancement" or similar would work here.
• "Some descriptions of the genre suggest" in the lead I think unnecessarily avoids describing choices as common-but-not-required in wikivoice, which should be uncontroversial (the influential VNDB for example states them as "optional" in their stricter of the two definitions of allowed types). This additionally is inconsistent because the sentences immediately afterwards describe common-but-not-required elements in wikivoice. Some editor might eventually tag it as WP:WEASEL (despite that guideline allowing such phrasing in leads as long as the content is attributed in the body, which it is in this article).
• The opening phrase "A visual novel is a video game genre..." awkwardly conflates the wider concept of the genre and instantiations of the genre, I'd go with something like "Visual novels are a video game genre..." or possibly "The visual novel video game genre...", the latter of which however requires more rewriting of other parts for flow/grammar.--LaukkuTheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 09:28, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Kinetic novels

I think the page would improve if there was a separate dedicated section for kinetic novels. Kinetic novels are separate enough from the standard Visual Novel format with different fan-bases and sub-genres. So, I feel like it should warrant a section! Shaded-Abyssal-Memories (talk) 19:31, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

I didn't find much information about Kinetic novels when I started my re-write of the article late last year. They definitely exist but as visual novels are relatively fringe, I feel the brief summary of what they are sort of hits the key points. As for them having different fanbases and sub-genres, I found basically nothing about this. Could you provide some sources discussing it in this way? Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:41, 13 July 2026 (UTC)