One thing that really ticks me off about the visual novel is

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>visual novel
>novel
Does it fucking say game?
You fell for a classic trick. VN's aren't games, nor or they darting sims. They're choose your own adventure books in digital form. Learn from this experience. If you want to read a VN, just grab a guide off of google and save time.

>>137344321
Well it can kinda be a game if you are trying to dodge bad ends.

OVA of all 40 fate/stay night bad ends when?

Too many choices reduces the quality of the story since they have to account for all the possibilities

also
>>>/v/

>>137344321
Fuck I had that book, also Shipwrecked on Mystery Island

>>137344228
Stop speaking generally when you've read only FSN. The novel part is the most important one, and in some games the choices very much matter.

It ain't a game, bub.

>>137344462
That explains Life Is Strange.

>>137344228
The function of the choice system in FSN isn't to allow for freedom for you, it's more of a test.

Shirou is very much his own character, with his own traits, his own opinions, and his own way of doing things. The game punishes you for not understanding him, and not doing things as he would.

Shirou wouldn't back out of the grail war, so you get a bad end for that.

>>137344462
>Too many choices reduces the quality of the story since they have to write good material for all variations, and nobody can be expected to do that

I'd rather there be far fewer choices (like only one or two, clear choices per route that directly determine a particular ending) than all this frivolous BS they've piled on top of the basic story structure to achieve the veneer that anon mentioned
>>137344321

>>137344531
>The game punishes you for not understanding him, and not doing things as he would.

This is immensely apparent in Fate route. It defeats the premiss of "having choices" in the game.

>>137344566
No it doesn't. They can have more than one way to be used, and that's a good thing.

>>137344585
Please. You're being a weeb apologist.

If it was intended as a test, and not a choice, it should be presented to the user as a test, and not a choice. I.e.

>Given your knowledge of Shirou, what would he do in this situation?
>a) Action that results in certain death
>b) Random shit so we don't only have two choices
>c) Something a little more sensible and reasonable

>You picked c. Now let's see what obvious, nonsensical plot device Nasu's going to use to kill Shirou in the next few scenes because you picked the wrong answer

Seems a little stupid that way, doesn't it?

>>137344687
People don't like tests. That's what school is for. It's more fun to present them as choices.

And there are instances where there are multiple valid answers. Like in UBW, there's a choice that has Shirou meeting up with Rin, going to the market, or just heading home. Each one leads to a different scene, and each aren't any less "Shirou-like" than the last.

There's also the hidden point system in the background where seemingly nonchalant choices add up and alter potential bad ends. Like, in the choice I mentioned above, going to meet up with Rin nets you two points with her, and is often seen as the more "correct" one to pick, but choosing the other two doesn't ruin the game.

To me it feels like a valid explanation for why a weak-ass schoolboy is able to find on par with servants.

Nothing short of a whole bunch of random coincidences and miracles.

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>>137344809
Shirou is Mega Man.

>>137344687
It doesn't.

>>137344757
>It's more fun to present them as choices.
It rather just gives people the wrong impression, and leads them to being disappointed.

> Like in UBW, there's a choice that has Shirou meeting up with Rin, going to the market, or just heading home. Each one leads to a different scene, and each aren't any less "Shirou-like" than the last.
There are a few choices like that. Can't say I mind those.

>seemingly nonchalant choices add up and alter potential bad ends.
I don't really see the point of doing this. It just catches you by surprise and makes you replay for no meaningful purpose

>>137344228
>Oftentimes your choices are literally irrelevant, and only change one insignificant line of narration.

Not every VN has the same system, fate just uses the most common one.
Muramasa did a clever twist where the heroine with the most points gets killed.

I remember some Butch VNs have more drastic choices, but they are way shorter than the average VN.

>>137344834
It does.

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>>137344757
>when a VN has no choices for 70 something hours then throws you a surprise test

>>137344531
>Shirou is very much his own character, with his own traits, his own opinions, and his own way of doing things. The game punishes you for not understanding him, and not doing things as he would.

It is a terrible idea to have the choice system designed around forcing the player to second guess the author's intentions. Especially with an archetype-deconstruction character like Shirou. You can quite easily play through the entire Fate route and just think the game is forcing you to play out a poorly written shounen protagonist.

>>137344867
>I don't really see the point of doing this. It just catches you by surprise and makes you replay for no meaningful purpose

It's all to see if you're paying attention, and to test you more.

The choices really are the closest thing to the gameplay aspect in FSN, and they actually kind of work like in that they spike in difficulty as things go on.

In Fate, all you really have to do is get a basic understanding of Shirou, and not piss Saber off to the point of looking like a retard. Seriously, I think you need just three points to get past that bad end.

In UBW, you balance between Rin and Saber points. Rin requires more points overall, and there are fewer Saber points to garner. Balancing them out correctly gets you past a bad end wall, plus lets you have multiple endings.

In HF, you have to balance Sakura and Ilya points, and now there are multiple bad end walls that can fuck you over. It has multiple endings like UBW, but there are also hidden triggers and branches, likw SLH, or other weird stuff. Like, did you know it's possible for the Kirei fight to be skipped entirely if you make the wrong move?

It gets somewhat instricate.

>>137344914
>a close to impossible test

>>137345004
It isn't.

>>137345015
>In Fate, all you really have to do is get a basic understanding of Shirou
Granted, but this should be done through character interactions, not through arbitrary testing and repeating the fire trauma scene 10 times.

>UBW and Heaven's feel
Like I said, the "pick a girl" is extremely straightforward. But beyond that, in these routes, choices generally have either no impact on the story, or accumulate girl/end points almost randomly. In this way, the choices serve a largely different purpose, if it's true that their intended use in the Fate route is to force the reader to consider Shirou's character.

You know what I liked? That there was basically no choices at or around the Archer fight.

I mean even the Gil fight has that one choice that leads you to that dumb bad end.

I could easily see Nasu writing in a choice where Shirou could just give up, or he could kill himself, as Archer suggested, but narrative-wise, and I think thematically, it was much stronger to hammer in that there were no other options for him there.

>>137345169
IIRC, the narration at that point was even written in such a way as to suggest to the reader that a choice was incoming