I’m as annoyed as the next VN nerd about Japanese VNs getting wholesale ignored by the English-speaking press, but the notion that there are *no* sincere or earnest attempts at the genre by English developers is both untrue and unhelpful to any point you might be trying to make.
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Like I see you all dunking on Dream Daddy, and sure there have been plenty of extremely dumbass takes on the game in the EN press, but that’s not an insincere irony game. And as much as I didn’t care for DDLC I think it’s unfair to characterize it like that too.
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(Now dumb shit devs say is a whole other can of worms ofc)
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And let’s not forget the smaller English VN developers who are absolutely trying to make sincere games but get very little attention (shamefully, I still haven’t gotten around to reading any of her work yet but just look at ebihime’s expansive library of titles for one!)
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it's like 10% sincere, 45% meme/joke games, and 45% poorly copying japanese games with a japanese setting, japanese names/characters, etc.
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I think a lot of it is because of the way many streamers and members of the gaming press present VNs. Choosing to only focus on the overly sexual or overly ironic ones. Even DDLC, with its sincerity, is still only focused on because of the "gimmick."
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That said, I think there's something that captivates people about the whole "LOL it's anime but [X THING]." It grabs people. As a developer, I think that's something that can be used to grab readers, only for them to realize they've been roped into something genuine.
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I’m over here with every visual novel hanako games has put out and going “wtf do people mean that western ones are sincere or earnest attempts.”
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on a positive note Aviary Attorney was amazing, and I'm looking forward to Heaven Will Be Minw
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