Fate/Stay Night: First Impressions

The visual novel genre is the most story dependant genre out there. Its progression and flow are all dependant on the players interaction with the narrative, and its most common trait is how the players choices can affect the outcome of the story. The genre of visual novels is a genre that holds a significant amount of potential for anyone interested in games development, but lack the necessary programming knowledge needed to create a game. To see what the visual novel genre has to offer, I played through Fate Stay Night, one of the more popular examples of the genre , in order to see how this type of game works and just what opportunities it offers for both the writer and the player.

Of course, the most important part of a visual novel is in its story and its storytelling. For the most part, the game functions in the same way as a novel or more appropriately, a graphic novel. The early part of the game progresses in a linear narrative, accompanied by the use of a background image, static character portraits for highlighting conversations and minor interactions between the characters, and the occasional sound-bite used to highlight a critical interaction or important dialogue. For the most part, the player can go through most of the game with barely any interaction with the exception of pivotal scenes requiring the player to make a choice. For the first few hours of gameplay, I literally turned on the 'auto read' function and simply watched the story unfold. Understandably this is hardly a way to actually 'play' a game, but the game still offers enough interaction from the player to still be considered a playable experience.

Set in a Japanese town, The main story consists of a hidden war called the 'Holy-Grail War' in which several individuals and their 'servants' work together to defeat their opponents. The story is a traditional set-up in the style of popular Japanese anime and manga. The story is told through a traditional first person narrative

When it comes to the format of a visual novel, the primary focus is always on story. There is often little to no gameplay in this type of game format, so the main critical points when reviewing a game of this genre is in both are its story and design. However, from an aesthetic standpoint, the game is very well designed. The backgrounds are detailed and imaginative, the character's static portraits are colourful and deeply expressive, and the music is well-crafted and relevant for each scene, either as a subtle calm melody or an enthralling and exciting combat theme.

- Written by E. Bromage.