[Despised]

I like visual novels. They're good when looking for a break from the action based anime video games or simply being more of a reader. It's often possible to choose between choices during the story, which may lead to a different scenario/ending you had not seen before.

Some that I really liked are Kara no Shoujo and Saya no Uta on the PC. Also Corpse Party on the PSP, and 999 on the NDS.

Kara no Shoujo and Katawa Shoujo (another visual novel for the PC) were depressing for me to play at first as I was often led to the wrong endings due to making the false decisions or not looking out good enough and what not.

Do you play any visual novels? What do you think of them in general?

[BurritoBeans]

Oh jeez, I've got a couple big stacks of the things and there's only a small fraction of them that I've actually gone though. Overall it's not a horrible form of game to me, I mean I do like to play something that's more heavy on the story now and then as like you said, it's a nice break from more action-based stuff. I guess my whole issue is that well, since I like to collect for older computers including some of the big-name japanese ones (PC-88/98, FM Towns, Sharp X1/X68000, etc.) and on systems with no region lock I like to get random imports, I get piles of the things but either they're A: Just really dumb or B: Another damn eroge.

For ones I've actually played.... well I guess yeah the Corpse Party series, there was a Tales Translations port of Divi-Dead on Dreamcast, some Ace Attorney games, a PSP port of Saya no Uta, and one of the Zero Escape games (don't remember which one but I've got all three). So yeah, I don't mind the things, they can be alright, but 7/8ths of the time I either can't get into them, they're just eroges with no story to them, or I just can't read half the words.

[Despised]

Oh jeez, I've got a couple big stacks of the things and there's only a small fraction of them that I've actually gone though. Overall it's not a horrible form of game to me, I mean I do like to play something that's more heavy on the story now and then as like you said, it's a nice break from more action-based stuff.  I guess my whole issue is that well, since I like to collect for older computers including some of the big-name japanese ones (PC-88/98, FM Towns, Sharp X1/X68000, etc.) and on systems with no region lock I like to get random imports, I get piles of the things but either they're A: Just really dumb or B: Another damn eroge.  

For ones I've actually played.... well I guess yeah the Corpse Party series, there was a Tales Translations port of Divi-Dead on Dreamcast, some Ace Attorney games, a PSP port of Saya no Uta, and one of the Zero Escape games (don't remember which one but I've got all three). So yeah, I don't mind the things, they can be alright, but 7/8ths of the time I either can't get into them, they're just eroges with no story to them, or I just can't read half the words.

I think most VNs are produced for adults, they tend to have extreme gore or like you mentioned, adult content or usually both. I don't particulary mind as long as it's not eroge, really. With that being said, there are also adaptions of mainstream anime like Clannad and Steins Gate.

I played Divi-Dead but got stuck at some part then dropped it honestly. From what I've read it contains a lot of gore but I never really got that far. The Ace Attorney series is great just like Hotel Dusk and its sequel.

[Skullmeat]

I've got a copy of School Days HQ that I can share, if anyone is interested.