Is Phoenix Wright a VN (KS related)

[ubergeneral]

In the KS powerpoint you had slides showing non-conventional VNs. I've always thought of Phoenix Wright as a VN. So I was surprised when no screenshots showed up, mainly because it's fairly well known and many people don't realize its a VN.

On the scale of what makes a game a VN where does it fall in comparison to KS?

[kapparomeo]

Most professional writing on Phoenix Wright that I've seen tends to drop it into the generic "adventure game" catch-all, although that may be because there's not much knowledge of VNs amongst the specialist press. I would call the games VNs myself - they're still entirely narrative-driven, and they combine the graphical presentation of the East with the object manipulation and puzzle solution element that was once found in Western text adventures.

The recent Miles Edgeworth Investigations game would be an entirely conventional point-and-click adventure(Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle et al).

[ContinualNaba]

It's not a VN if it generates more than a seven-digit level of sales.

[Xybaro]

Really?

A thread about this?

I thought this train of thought was dumped back in that one visual novels thread.

No, Phoenix Wright is not a VN.

I've played all of em.

If anything, you could call them "Court Simulators" if you wished.

[Guest]

If anything, you could call them "Court Simulators" if you wished.

The Phoenix Wright... let's call them 'games' for now, are in no way, shape or form "simulators". If they were indeed an accurate representation of a court system, Nick would have a very easy time since it wouldn't be a "guilty until proven innocent" system, and there wouldn't be as much over-the-top flair involved.

That said, I believe the PW 'games' (Investigations may be classed a bit differently) are two genres pasted together: 'Visual Novel' and 'Point And Click Adventure'. Court sessions are VNs, crime scenes are PACAs.

Court cases involve the narrative to drive them along, and have minimal gameplay sections to them (dialog choices much like in KS, choosing evidence to present, etc). The crime scene investigations still have the visual novel aspects to them (especially when talking to people at the scene) but are primarily PACAs for gathering up evidence and moving between locations.

I'm still trying to find a simple term to refer to the series by. 'PW novels' wouldn't cut it and 'PW games' is stretching the truth a bit too far.

[Suriko]

If anything, you could call them "Court Simulators" if you wished.

The Phoenix Wright... let's call them 'games' for now, are in no way, shape or form "simulators". If they were indeed an accurate representation of a court system, Nick would have a very easy time since it wouldn't be a "guilty until proven innocent" system, and there wouldn't be as much over-the-top flair involved.

Japan has a 99% conviction rate. If I'm remembering an old interview with the creators right, they specifically cast the player as helping the defence due to this to help highlight that accused people are not always guilty.

Back on topic, I didn't mention PW for a couple of reasons. One was that I was zipping through that section and wasn't trying to do an exhaustive rundown of them, the other is down to the fact that I don't consider PW to be a VN. It's important to remember that the nonclementure around this topic is a clusterfuck at best, so anyone's opinion is probably not going to be much better than anyone else's.

Edit: A rather timely article from CNN, which is kind of vaguely related to the topic. Interesting reading.

[Gerbil X]

What exactly /do/ you people consider a VN? Does it have to be 100% text and choices, like FS/N or Swan Song or Narcissu?

[Suriko]

Personally, yeah, that's pretty close to my definition of VN. The only real exception I can think of offhand is Shikkoku no Sharnoth which has a little minigame, but it gets a pass due to 1) being from a VN company, 2) in a series of VNs (Celenaria, Inganock, Sharnoth, Valcia, Sona-Nyl) and 3) the minigames are both skippable and a fraction of the game's content.

[ubergeneral]

alright I have wanted to reply but i haven't been able to come up with an arguement because I haven't played enough VN.

I do believe the PW is a VN. My question is what makes a game and VN and what would disqualify it? According to VNDB Pheniex wright is a VN and in normal discussions people refer it is as one.

I'm curious where to draw the line.

[Utumo]

There's a very large gray area when it comes to what is and isn't a VN.

Of course, KS is a VN.
I would say Phoenix Wright is a VN.
I would say Sengoku Rance is a VN.
I wouldn't say Persona 3 or 4 are VNs though.

Most of the time I go by what is listed on VNDB, because I'm sure they do the same type of arguing over there. I think that if the primary method of story telling is done in a Visual Novel style (ADV or NVL)(And isn't horribly tacked on), then it's a VN. Also seeing how it is marketed in Japan helps too.

Of course, you can argue about all of this until you get blue in the face.

[archon536]

Personally, yeah, that's pretty close to my definition of VN. The only real exception I can think of offhand is Shikkoku no Sharnoth which has a little minigame, but it gets a pass due to 1) being from a VN company, 2) in a series of VNs (Celenaria, Inganock, Sharnoth, Valcia, Sona-Nyl) and 3) the minigames are both skippable and a fraction of the game's content.

What about Tears to Tiara? or Utawarerumono? Yes, there's a gameplay element involved, but the story-telling is clearly VN-esque.
Of course by this logic, FIRE EMBLEM might also be able to be considered a VN.

Personally, I think "Visual Novel" just applies to the method of storytelling. I think PW can be considered one because all of the storytelling portions are in a clear VN-type format. The Tales series of games, for example, are clearly NOT VNs, because most of the storytelling is done through action-oriented cutscenes and 3-D rendered sprites, even though some of the time they look like VNs during certain events.

[trhvmn]

In the end, there is no true definition to the term "visual novel"; each person has their own, as seen in this very thread. For example, personally I wouldn't consider Phoenix Wright a visual novel, but rather, a point-and-click adventure. Same with the aforementioned Sengoku Rance, which I consider a strategy simulator, or something akin to that. This is because these parts of the gameplay are more proeminent than the 'visual novel' parts, which often are just used to tell the story.

...so I think that my definition of visual novel is something that focuses greatly on telling the story, and has few other instances of gameplay (like Persona's dungeon crawling or Phoenix Wright's investigating). Mini-games, like the ones in Fate/hollow ataraxia, would be an exception to this.

But I believe that this is a debate that has already happened many times in the past.

[ubergeneral]

In the end, there is no true definition to the term "visual novel"; each person has their own, as seen in this very thread. For example, personally I wouldn't consider Phoenix Wright a visual novel, but rather, a point-and-click adventure. Same with the aforementioned Sengoku Rance, which I consider a strategy simulator, or something akin to that. This is because these parts of the gameplay are more proeminent than the 'visual novel' parts, which often are just used to tell the story.

...so I think that my definition of visual novel is something that focuses greatly on telling the story, and has few other instances of gameplay (like Persona's dungeon crawling or Phoenix Wright's investigating). Mini-games, like the ones in Fate/hollow ataraxia, would be an exception to this.

But I believe that this is a debate that has already happened many times in the past.

which brings me back to orginal point. In that powerpoint presentation they gave examples of VN. While Suri doesn't think that PW is a VN many people do. And the people that don't know much about VNs could relate better if he just said the PW was a VN. It is close enough right?

[trhvmn]

And the people that don't know much about VNs could relate better if he just said the PW was a VN.

This would be possible, I suppose, but there would also be the chance of a person seeing PW as a visual novel, then going to read KS or something similar and thinking "hey, this is not what I expected".

So I assume that they chose to stick to things that we know for sure are visual novels (Fate/stay night etc.) in order to not confuse people.

Or maybe they didn't and I'm just saying meaningless things here.

[Totz the Plaid]

I agree with the majority here in that I feel that it is NOT a VN for one extremely simple reason: there are specific conditions for winning and losing.

Witn a VN, you get a complete story no matter what you do. Even if you get the bad ending, such as Kenji's "Manly Picnic" in the Act 1 release, it's still an ending, you still got a story, and there's no "Game Over" screen.

In the Ace Attourney games if you lose a case, you lose the game. Period. Retry and see if you can win this time. That's not what a visual novel is.

Some might also say that the fact that the AA games have only one correct plot, while VNs have multiple, but 4LS released pXt, so that pretty much blows that to shreds since it's a proper VN-style telling of Shakespeare's popular play-within-a-play.

I don't think the visual style is as important as others say either since there was that one blog post where they compared Homeworld's FMV scenes to what they hope VNs will become. I don't have a problem with that evolution, honestly.

So... yeah, I'd say that's the ultimate difference between a VN and a game: winning/losing vs. just telling a complete story.