Steins;Gate Elite
Steins;Gate is easily one of the greatest visual novels ever made, telling a harrowing time travel story that digs deep into the consequences and effect it might have on the human psyche. The story revolves around a young man named Rintaro Okabe, who’s proclaimed himself a “Mad Scientist” named Hououin Kyoma.
Together with his friends he accidentally discovers a way to send his consciousness to the past using his phone and a microwave.
Steins;Gate is filled with fantastic characters and storytelling, with multiple characters going through arcs that seriously change them. The story definitely take a while to get going, but once it does boy is it a relentless emotional roller coaster.
Steins;Gate Elite also puts a fantastic twist on the genre, by literally letting you play through the anime. Instead of the usual static visual novel scenes, you’re playing through scenes from the anime, with new animation introduced to fit the original game.
It’s hard to explain without actually playing it, but Steins;Gate Elite is a visual novel experience like no other.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
The Phoenix Wright series has been hugely influential in the development of the visual novel genre, and the original trilogy still remains some of the best out there.
If you’re unfamiliar, Phoenix Wright focuses on a young defense attorney of the same name, who has the uncanny ability of turning around cases that seem like done deals. Phoenix constantly proves his clients innocent, despite all odds being against him.
Each Phoenix Wright game is separated into four different cases that all follow the same structure; you start out by meeting the defendant, examing the crime scene, finding evidence, and talking to witnesses.
Then things get really interesting when you go to the courtroom and have to press witnesses, present evidence, and point out contradictions.
Part of what makes Phoenix Wright so great is its phenomenal writing and character animations, which both make it feel like some kind of absurd courtroom anime. There are some great character development and surprising twists, and you’ll quickly come to love Phoenix and his pals.
Subsurface Circular
Subsurface Circular may not visually fit the standard visual novel style, but make no mistake it is one. The entirety of the game takes place on a subway system, where sentient robots travel to their daily job.
The text-based game is a detective experience at its core, tasking you with talking to different robots and solving their problems or cases. Most of the time you’ll be following multiple dialogue trees and making choices, but at times you’ll also need to solve puzzles.
As you help robots you’ll learn more information that can lead to helping out other robots, and there’s a fascinating mystery at the game’s core that gets pieced together as you go.
Although Subsurface Circular plays out from a third-person perspective, it still follows many of the ideas and systems of visual novels, and it’s one of the best out there. If you can’t get enough, there’s also a second separate experience called Quarantine Circular.
Planetarian
Planetarian is a short visual novel experience from Key, the makers of other beloved visual novels like Clannad, Rewrite, and Little Busters. If you’ve played some of those, you might know what kind of emotional experience you’re in for.
Planetarian is a bit different from most visual novels as there actually aren’t any choices to be made, but you’ll be playing through one story with one definitive ending.
The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting where a man known only as “the junker” comes across a malfunctioning robot in a destroyed city. As the man tries to fix the projector of the planetarium where the robot resides, the tragic story slowly gets revealed piece by piece.
Despite not having any options, Planetarian is one of the finest examples of what a visual novel can be when combining strong visual presentation, music, and voice acting. For better or worse, it’s an experience that only a visual novel can give.
Cinders
Cinders is an incredibly unique visual novel, and one of the best out there that isn’t developed by a Japanese studio. The game is actually a retelling of the Cinderella story; a darker more mature take on the classic tale, with some surprising twists added into the mix.
The game’s fantastic visual aesthetic makes it look like a storybook in motion, and the soundtrack helps cement that fairy tale feeling even further.
There are a ton of different choices to make throughout the narrative, all of which can lead to four wildly different endings. Cinders puts a ton of effort into its main cast of characters, and their complexity is good enough to stand with the best visual novels out there.
If you’re looking for a visual novel that’s a bit different than the norm, Cinders is a great pick.
Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz
Jake Hunter is one of the longest-running visual novel franchises out there, dating all the way back to 1987. The franchise has had a bit of a muddled history in the West, never really hitting huge popularity here, however, it definitely has a cult following.
Daedulus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz might change that, as a prequel story that anyone and everyone can jump into. In Daedalus Saburo Jingjui, Jake Hunter in the west, travels to New York City after the death of his grandfather.
You need to alternate between two periods of Saburo’s life in order to learn the whole story and unravel its mystery. Daedalus is presented in a gorgeous watercolor aesthetic, and most of the gameplay is themed around detective work.
You can get a 360-degree view of crime scenes, searching for clues and evidence, while a stance system lets you read people’s expressions and emotions.
There’s a fantastic detective story to play through in Daedalus, and the game’s lovely sense of style only makes it even more enjoyable.
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