About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article entitled “Goodbye Volcano High – Proving Visual Novels Don’t Have to Suck.” And, to date, I am very glad nobody noticed when I released it because it is one of my worst articles. With an unfounded distaste for a genre (and arguably entire medium) that I hadn’t ever earnestly explored, I went through explaining why this new game I found is “different” from those around it. I was at least correct that Goodbye Volcano High did end up being a good game, and told a good story, but my reasoning for liking it — that what it did was so revolutionary in the Visual Novel space — was ridiculous. I have since learned that what Goodbye Volcano High was doing was not so out-of-line; Visual Novels have, actually, always had some very good titles.
In the time since, I have played a good deal of VNs. Fate/stay night REMASTERED has me exploring its world of magic and romance, Sucker for Love: A Date to Die For was one of my highest reviewed games in the last year, I played through a half-dozen newer VNs as they came out and, yes,...