Visual novels

Genres and themes

Visual novels sometimes break general common definitions of the genre, according to Uchikoshi at the 2013 conference. Japanese visual novels have segments that intersperse with other gameplay genres. These include but are not limited to puzzle games in 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (2009), fighting games with Melty Blood, role-playing video games with Princess Waltz  (2006), and rhythm games such as Symphonic Rain (2004), and Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (2010) which has action elements to its gameplay. A small portion of visual novels have no branching path choices at all and are completely linear. This style of game are known as kinetic novels, and are named after the KineticNovel series of linear visual novels from the game company Visual Arts. Kretzschmar and Raffel, authors of The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels (2023), described another form called the sound novel. They said the term was used to primarily define Japanese games that rely on graphics and sounds instead of puzzles to tell a story, while the term was still generally interchangeable with the term "visual novel."