~Beyond the Border~ > Sara's Audio-Visual Import-Overflow Retail

Touhou Visual Novels

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HartWurst:

--- Quote from: WitheringFlowerCrown on January 11, 2024, 07:15:11 PM ---But to answer your question, Touhou Visual Novels may be rare because most Touhou Fans and Fangames usually focus on other types of game genres. Danmaku (Touhou's home genre), RPGs, Rogue-lites, and even Card games/Tabletop games are common. It doesn't help that Visual Novels, as CyberAngel said, are not a prolific genre and there isn't much of a hook that one can bring. It's a shame, really.

--- End quote ---
That makes enough sense, but it definitely is a shame. Most of the Touhou VNs I saw were all pretty short, so I hope that one day we get some large scale Touhou VN which makes them more popular. Kinda like how Sakuya Izayoi Gives you Advice and Dabs helped popularise similar VNS like Seiga Kaku uses her Amazing Taoist Arts and Gives you Life Advice. Though there hasn't been any big (as in length and production) VNs in a while, the only one really coming to mind is the Tsukihime remake, and that took over a decade.

CyberAngel:

--- Quote from: moons1de_ on January 11, 2024, 08:16:31 PM ---I don't play visual novels other than series that were started by visual novels like Tsukihime or the Fate Series, but I have to ask... How long are visual novels usually? I could understand 166 is quite a lot but how many hours of content would even one of those 166 visual novels provide?

--- End quote ---

Hours of reading, dozens for a decent one.

That said, yeah, it might not look like a big category compared to other Touhou fangames, but that's because VNs are a different beast. We're talking a serious novel volume level of writing, and quite an amount of artwork. A huge effort compared to your usual doujin manga. Other genres require a lot of work too, but VNs are all about lots of detailed writing, and few think of that when wanting to make a fangame.

WitheringFlowerCrown:

--- Quote from: HartWurst on January 11, 2024, 08:24:02 PM ---That makes enough sense, but it definitely is a shame. Most of the Touhou VNs I saw were all pretty short, so I hope that one day we get some large scale Touhou VN which makes them more popular. Kinda like how Sakuya Izayoi Gives you Advice and Dabs helped popularise similar VNS like Seiga Kaku uses her Amazing Taoist Arts and Gives you Life Advice. Though there hasn't been any big (as in length and production) VNs in a while, the only one really coming to mind is the Tsukihime remake, and that took over a decade.

--- End quote ---

All of this is true.
Imagine: We could have lived in a world where "Eirin Gives you Medicine and Tells you Health Advice" or "Akyuu Gives you Historical Fun-facts and Writing Advice" exists, alas, it was not meant to be. Maybe it is in the Land of Fantasy.

And yes, large VNs haven't come out in a while. Once again, CyberAngel reads the situation perfectly. It requires a lot of writing expertise and art. An actual novel's worth. That's a lot of time and effort for anyone, let alone Doujin circles.


--- Quote from: moons1de_ on January 11, 2024, 08:16:31 PM ---I don't play visual novels other than series that were started by visual novels like Tsukihime or the Fate Series, but I have to ask... How long are visual novels usually? I could understand 166 is quite a lot but how many hours of content would even one of those 166 visual novels provide?

--- End quote ---

Hours. Days sometimes. And this is for the more basic Visual Novels. For ones with extremely intricate alternative pathways and choices with obscure requirements, months.
166? It would probably take years to get through that backlog. Your Steam Library/Hard Drive would be bloated.

CyberAngel:
To be fair, there probably are a bunch of short under-hour ones there, I've seen a few Touhou VNs like that.

degradingwindow:

--- Quote from: WitheringFlowerCrown on January 11, 2024, 07:15:11 PM ---I will repeat CyberAngel's statement and implication that "Only" 166 is not exactly a little. Even the Fate/ series, which started as a Visual Novel, has less. Though you may be talking about the amount of Touhou Visual Novels compared to other genres of fangames, which makes much more sense. 166 compared to the who-knows-how-many other Touhou fangames is small, especially for how long Touhou has existed and how many Doujin circles are specifically around for Touhou.

But to answer your question, Touhou Visual Novels may be rare because most Touhou Fans and Fangames usually focus on other types of game genres. Danmaku (Touhou's home genre), RPGs, Rogue-lites, and even Card games/Tabletop games are common. It doesn't help that Visual Novels, as CyberAngel said, are not a prolific genre and there isn't much of a hook that one can bring. It's a shame, really.

--- End quote ---
I think this sums it up pretty well on why they aren't as popular. VNs are pretty niche as people prefer an action or adventure game rather than a more laid back chill game.

Another thing to note is that most of these aren't actually in English. Only 61 out of 166 VNs have a version in English, the rest are in Japanese. We westerners are really starved of Touhou content overall, There really aren't that many big name western Touhou fangames, we rely a lot on Japanese content that have fan translations into English (An underlying problem that I hope improves in the future).

There are probably many more Touhou VNs in Japan that we probably don't know about as a lot of them have fallen into obscurity or haven't been digitalised.

I've played a handful of Touhou VNs and I can assure you that 90% of the ones available in English fall into these two categories:
• The itch.io indie VNs which are normally really short, you can blast through one in like an hour but it isn't something that will really impact your life. A lot of them are jam games (especially the Touhou PrideJam) so don't get your hopes up on them feeling complete. But they're free so I can't complain.

• The DLsite VNs that have English Patches. Translation work on VNs is extensive and you really need passion for the game in order to go that far. If you want a deeper VN experience I recommend these.


It's a tough life being a Touhou yuri fan and having little access to yuri VNs outside of DLsite and short indie games.

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