Va11hall-a is a fantastic read fully recommend it

Depending your tolerance for the weird perv anime bullshit When They Cry also is great

@FunBus, that's been on my backlog for a while, but I'm hoping to play it this year

We'll see about that other game

I think Citizen Sleeper qualifies as a visual novel...? Either way, it's a great story and a pretty decent game too.

Obvious choice or not, I notice you haven't played any Ace Attorney games there...... you should get on that shit, cause it's pretty great

steins;gate (this is a pure VN mind you so basically all reading and no gameplay, idk if you're down for that)

@MegaTheRealOne, I should. It's been on my Steam backlog for quite a while, but I haven't played it yet. I'm getting a Steam Deck soon, so hopefully I can rectify that.

@NOWITSREYNTIME17, heard about Steins;Gate, but I assume I start with the first one correct? In release order?

yes, I'd also recommend the original and not steins;gate elite (which is a remade version that uses the anime artstyle and cutscenes and it honestly doesn't look as good)

The Zero Escape trilogy, Danganronpa trilogy and Great Ace Attorney duology are some top tier VNs

Forgot to mention this before, but Doki Doki Literature Club is also a nice free game, especially if you can mostly go in blind

@PhantomJack Steins;gate is part of a bigger series called sci;adv, the real place to start is Chaos;Head. I recommend the Higurashi series, and my 4th favorite game of all time: The Silver Case

When They Cry is great and the first Higurashi episode (Onikakushi) is free, I believe. You do have to deal with the occasional early 2000s otaku humor but it’s definitely worth putting up with.

As far as OEL VNs go Misericorde Volume One is amazing and I cannot wait to see where that goes.

Which on the Holy Night is a lot of fun, I definitely recommend it. It’s probably the Type-Moon VN I’d say is easiest to recommend to a newcomer.

@Lemonstrade, I do have Danganronpa 1.2 Reload, V3, Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, and both Zero Escape Nonary Games and Zero Dilemma on my PS5.

Doki Doki is the one I haven't gotten yet, but it's one that I've seen a few videos on. I don't think I've seen much of the big spoilers, so I should be good

@Oshha, I see, added Chaos;Head to the list. Didn't know The Silver Case was a visual novel till just now. All I knew was that it was directed by Suda51 and the first game to start in the Sudaverse as they call it.

yeah not all of suda's "kill the past" games are visual novels, just the the silver case and the 4th game, the 25th ward. IFY chaos;head NOAH is the steam port of the game but its essentially the same game. Visual novels have the tendency to be better off played with patches, since stuff like voice acting being exclusive to certain versions or bad official translations tend to be common. So i would recommend looking into those before starting any (like downloading the voice acting patch and original artwork for higurashi as an example)

Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is an amazing gem.
If VNs that double as puzzle games count, I'd like to throw in the Detective Grimoire series and Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective as well.

428 Shibuya Scramble. It's like a choose your own adventure game with live action pictures where you can go back and change choices to unlock new story branches and endings. It's a crazy game.

@Oshha, I have The Silver Case on PS5, so I can't do anything there, but I'll see what I can do with the others you've mentioned.

@iv1632, Hotel Dusk intrigued me with its art style, plus I like puzzle games, so I'll add the others in here because why not?

If you're playing Mahoyo, play Tsukihime too. Connected, but barely prequel/sequel. So enjoy at your leisure. Tsukihime is much more graphic than mahoyo.

a note if you decide to read higurashi. after finishing the 8 main arcs i strongly suggest reading the saikoroshi (part of higurashi rei on steam, canon epilogue to the 8 main arcs) and kotohogushi (console arc through 07th mod, can't say any more cuz of spoilers) arcs if you want more of the story. i also HIGLY recommend downloading 07th mod for higurashi which gives the steam versions the console artwork and voice acting, as well as numerous other QOL enhancements. and also i recommend umineko after reading higurashi as well if you haven't read it already