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What VN genres have you read that aren't focused on romance?

Same! Big fan of horror and mystery although I can get impatient, haha
 
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Horror, mysteries usually also theres this one vn called gothic murder which focuses more on mystery and puzzles.
 
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I like other mystery visual novels, horror, battle royale, survival genres are interesting for me. I have played games from Spike Chunsoft, and other companies games such as The Letter, Raging Loop, Paranormasight, Ace Attorney, Gnosia, Slay the princess and more. Sometimes I play visual novels for males too, it is a bit embarrassing to admit...
 
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I consume almost every genre that involves visual novels. From horror, investigation, puzzles, I genuinely love the genre. From Princess Maker to games in the style of Zero Escape, there are plenty of games in this area to enjoy at least. It's not an Otome, but if you like the genre that involves a bit of management, I would recommend you take a look at Tristia Legacy, I love it and always go back to replay it.
 
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I do orbit around romance oriented vns (being romance a favorite genre of mine). But what i do enjoy most, is when vns make you forget that the game do have a romance in it. When a story is so well done, sometimes i overlook pursuing a LI and focus wholely on the story itself, some of my favorites in that sphere are:

—Scarlet Hollow. (Horror, Cursed town)
—Chronicles of Tal'Dun: The Remainder. (Horror, Dark fantasy, confined space)
—The Lion's song (not a vn perse or in the usual category sense, but words can meaningfully change the story of the characters). (Slice of life, historical)
—Love the guard, be the king. (Royalty, Corruption/Corrupted morals, War)
—Analogue: A Hate story and Hate Plus (it sequel). (Dystopic future/Utopia, Space fiction, Political)
—Amarantus. (Political, Roadtrip, Revolution).
 
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my favourite vn of all time is umineko, so i love giant stories with a focus on mystery. i love vn hybrids like ai the somnium files and zero escape too. a vn that gets my mind thinking is a good vn
 
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Mystery and/horror visual novels for me! A lot of the Spike Chunsoft visual novels! I loved the Zero Escape series and AI: Somnium Files!

Urban Myth Dissolution Center came out last year and I enjoyed it (and the promotional oneshot they had, which is how I found out about the game!)
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Visual novels containing horror, drama, death game, psychological, mystery, sci-fi, or historical themes are pretty great even if they don't have romance.
 
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I rarely play visual novels of other genres, but when I do, it's only horror games
 
Mystery vns are a big one! (´∇｀) I have a friend who got me really into Uchikoshi's games (both typically they have visual novels segments & puzzles. not all the games are pure vns) and I've really enjoyed how they wrap up into nice little bows by the end.
 
It's also mystery/horror for me. Though I dont end up playing them all that often. I've got such back log of romance vn's that whenever I get the time to play, that's the list I pull from.
 
Mostly horror, mystery or gothic, but I also like action (like Hanachirasu), fantasy and scifi. Galge and eroge are nice as well.
I will play almost anything if it's a VN, to be honest 😶
 
Lots of horror and mystery games! (and a few sad ones but usually those have a bit of romance elements)

At the top of my head I can think of danganronpa, Zero Escape The Nonary Games, Shutuen order, higarashi, death mark, ace attorney and your turn to die! Though between all consoles and pc I probably own hundreds of VN's even if I haven't gotten around to playing them all yet😂
 
Mystery and horror, mostly. I think they lend themselves to VNs the best, pitting the protagonist against situations where they have to make clever choices to get out of their jam or find out the truth. Mystery especially, with the idea of different actions leading to different aspects of truth. I also play adventure games in this vein. VN/adventure is also one of the few ways to make compelling horror without resorting to jump scares or chase sequences (I....don't like chase sequences, despite loving horror).

Though come to think of it: are there non-romance VN genres that aren't mystery or horror? I can think of a few slice of life drama, but not enough of them to call a genre. The rest of the subgenre that I can think of are just mystery or horror....
 
Daganropa was fantastic, as was fata Morgana.
Im bad at remembering how to spell them, but very sinister, gothic horror or crime like novels always interest me.
 
At first I was like "Naaaah, I don't play that many vns that aren't focused in romance". But I decided to check my VNDB and I actually played quite a lot. Horror, psychological, mystery... Even gore... I read whatever that picks my curiosity, even if it's something will make me feeling bad later lol
 
ishibashi said:
Mystery and horror, mostly. I think they lend themselves to VNs the best, pitting the protagonist against situations where they have to make clever choices to get out of their jam or find out the truth. Mystery especially, with the idea of different actions leading to different aspects of truth. I also play adventure games in this vein. VN/adventure is also one of the few ways to make compelling horror without resorting to jump scares or chase sequences (I....don't like chase sequences, despite loving horror).

Though come to think of it: are there non-romance VN genres that aren't mystery or horror? I can think of a few slice of life drama, but not enough of them to call a genre. The rest of the subgenre that I can think of are just mystery or horror....
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There are a few sci fi ones but then they also kinda then lead into mystery or horror XD (like steins gate or gnosia) There are also a few I would kinda call like "management" VNs where it has gameplay elements around managing and advancing character stats kinda like in games like long live the queen, volcano princess, mushroom musune or honesly even something like lobotomy corporation or library of ruina. (though I feel like those could also be classified as life sims or just stratergy games perhaps). But yeah most seem to be mystery or horror, dont fix whats not broke I guess XD
 
Fishish said:
There are a few sci fi ones but then they also kinda then lead into mystery or horror XD (like steins gate or gnosia) There are also a few I would kinda call like "management" VNs where it has gameplay elements around managing and advancing character stats kinda like in games like long live the queen, volcano princess, mushroom musune or honesly even something like lobotomy corporation or library of ruina. (though I feel like those could also be classified as life sims or just stratergy games perhaps). But yeah most seem to be mystery or horror, dont fix whats not broke I guess XD
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When you think about it, VNs as a genre got its start from mystery and horror adventure games (think stuff like Famicom Detective Club, though even older than that) and romance VNs as we know them today only got popular later, so it kind of tracks that the rest of the genre that aren't romance would be mystery and horror lol...

I guess if you want to make a fantasy adventure road trip with NO ROMANCE and you actually have a budget, you'd probably make an RPG rather than a VN. But mystery games lend themselves especially well to VNs (mystery adventure games in Japan are just VNs with extra steps) and horror is like.....if the horror story you want to tell doesn't fit the survival horror model and you're targeting folks who don't like survival horror gameplay, then VN will become your go to. XD
 
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