This has been one of the weakest years for visual novels, so much so, that I actually struggled to collect twenty titles and had to include games that otherwise wouldn’t have met the vote quota (which is part the reason why I delayed this video for so long) and were installments of ongoing episodic series. For comparison, only about ten titles in this list would have made it to top 20 of any other year I did.
However, as ironic as that is, this year has also seen the release of the currently top rated game on egs, and with median of 99 I don’t see anything topping it ever. I’m, of course, talking about Rance 10, and I imagine it needs no introductions.
The other noteworthy releases this year include Key’s newest visual novel Summer Pockets, that from what I heard offers a similar experience to their other works, Nukitashi that has an incredibly unusual premise and has gained somewhat of a meme status in social media, and finally Amazing Grace which is an interesting mystery that’s surprisingly educating on classical and to an extent modern art. I’ll be publishing a review for this one soon.
Apart from that, I Walk Among Zombies has been finished, which is one of the episodic visual novels I’ve been very interested in. I might wait a bit and pick it up in English to see how the translation came along though.
This year also saw the release of the second installment of 9-nine- series which has gotten a far better reception than the first (that didn’t even make it to the list last year). It’s hard to tell if the rating is artificially exaggerated because whoever didn’t like the first simply didn’t read and rate the second one, or if it’s actually improved. I might check this series too, especially since it’s receiving an English localization too.
But that’s about it. Erewhon seems somewhat interesting if you’re into Clockup’s mix of nukige and story. And Butterfly Seeker sounds promising since it’s written by the guy responsible for Apeiria (my favorite last year), but looking at the ratings it would’ve barely made it to top 20 at any other year, so I dunno.
Anyway, it was a pretty bleak year, and I hope the following one is going to be better. At least it looks like it’s shaping up to be.
Visual novel & other stuff impressions 