Visual novels have been around in Japan for a long time. For the uninformed, a visual novel is typically a game that contains a story told in first-person narrative with abundant amounts of text, making it akin to a novel that unfolds on your screen. They started on PCs with these bare essentials and slowly evolved to include voice acting, CG movies, and more user interaction. The basics still remain however, which is that your progress through the game is usually made by a list of choices that are presented to the player.

Most people associate visual novels with H-games/dating sims, but this is not always the case. It’s a major misconception that all visual novels contain hentai. There are a number of games that do not such as the popular handheld game series, Phoenix Wright. This lawyer simulation has you investigating crime scenes and participating in intense court battles to save your clients from going to the big house.

With the unexpected popularity of Phoenix Wright in North America, Capcom is going to give us the sequels to the franchise. While this may mean good things for visual novel enthusiasts, it looks like this genre with still remain a small niche for some years to come. At least it has its foot in the door for more visual novel games to head our way in the future. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.