For me, aesthetics play a huge role in VNs, so the artstyle would be the first dealbreaker. I’m honestly not much of a fan of the typical Otome game artstyle/character designs and often find them generic. On the other hand, once I stumble over a VN with a unique, strong art direction I’ll instantly check it out.
I think the game I mainly thought of when I wrote the comment was To Eat A God (which is more or less a yandere dating-sim) It’s changed now but the game’s original thumbnail was bright yellow and showed stylized art of one of the love interests and I was instantly like “Yoooo what’s this? Looks sick”. The dev is mainly an artist and this is their first vn but you can see that they went all out with the visuals.
Another I game I had this reaction to lately was The Phantom of The Black Rose revue, since it looks exactly like an 80s shojo manga a la Rose of Versailles, but it’s Yuri so that probably doesnt count :/
For me, aesthetics play a huge role in VNs, so the artstyle would be the first dealbreaker. I’m honestly not much of a fan of the typical Otome game artstyle/character designs and often find them generic. On the other hand, once I stumble over a VN with a unique, strong art direction I’ll instantly check it out.
Can I know some games that you think have strong art direction? I’m wondering if we have the same definition of “generic.”
I think the game I mainly thought of when I wrote the comment was To Eat A God (which is more or less a yandere dating-sim) It’s changed now but the game’s original thumbnail was bright yellow and showed stylized art of one of the love interests and I was instantly like “Yoooo what’s this? Looks sick”. The dev is mainly an artist and this is their first vn but you can see that they went all out with the visuals.
Another I game I had this reaction to lately was The Phantom of The Black Rose revue, since it looks exactly like an 80s shojo manga a la Rose of Versailles, but it’s Yuri so that probably doesnt count :/