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The 10 best visual novels on PCRecommended reading
Recommended reading
For those of us who love gamingandreading, visual novels represent the best of both worlds, which is why we’ve put together this list of the 10 best visual novels you can play on PC right now. The term “visual novel” is a broad church. You can tell almost any story in this medium, which means most visual novels are a lot like regular novels in that sense. Romance and mystery are among the more popular genres, but search for “visual novel” on your favourite PC gaming storefront and you’ll find a bit of everything, really (especially once you’ve filtered out all the adult games). So sit back and relax with one of our best visual novel recommendations. The only critical damage you’re likely to take from these games are to your emotions — but that can be painful too, so don’t say I didn’t warn you!
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles Review | A Great Standalone Ace AttorneyWatch on YouTube
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles Review | A Great Standalone Ace Attorney
The best visual novels on PC
Ace Attorney Turnabout Collection
Developer:CapcomRelease date on PC:2021Where can I play it?Steam, Humble (PW:AA,GAA)
What else should I be playing if I like this?Check out Aviary Attorney and Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle for a pair of fresh takes on the courtroom setting that, somehow, both manage to be even more surreal than the series that inspired them. Or if you don’t mind being edutained, Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher takes liberal cues from Ace Attorney for its philosophical debate showdowns.
Capcom’s long-running courtroom dramedy franchise has 11 major entries under its belt, though only five are thus far available on PC. Still, the good news is that you can nab all of those in the bundle known as the Ace Attorney Turnabout Collection. Bringing together the 2019 remaster of the originalPhoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogywith 2021’s long-awaited two-part localisation ofThe Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, this bumper collection might actually be the most delightful recommendation I could possibly make.
Newbie defence lawyer Phoenix Wright has a lot to contend with in his eponymous trilogy: the judge doesn’t respect him, his assistant is a spirit medium rather than a qualified paralegal, and it seems like everyone he’s ever met keeps getting accused of murder. Not to mention that a new law demands all trials must be completed within three days of the crime, and the defence team needs to investigate on behalf of their client if there’s to be any hope of a “not guilty” verdict. Oh, and the childhood best friend he’s desperate to reconnect with is now his nemesis as the district’s hot-shot prosecutor.
Rewinding 120 years into the past, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles sees Phoenix’s ancestor Ryunosuke Naruhodo facing a similar set of hardships. Ryunosuke arrives in Victorian London as an exchange student from his native Japan, but with the added wrinkle that a barmy Sherlock Holmes expy won’t stop “helping” him in his investigations. In both timelines, the result is hijinks aplenty with non-stop puns, lightly point-and-click inspired logic puzzles, a maze of pop culture references, yet more puns, and one of the hands-down campest settings ever committed to fiction.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
A scholarship student at an elite high school is about to have a very bad first day.Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havocfollows Makoto Naegi as he embarks on his educational journey at Hope’s Peak Academy, a school which only admits students who are already at the very top of their chosen field. Makoto, however, is a painfully average guy who just won a luck-based lottery for admission.
But no sooner does Makoto step through the front door than he passes out, and wakes up in a garish nightmare version of the academy with no hope of escape. At which point the “new headmaster” — a two-faced Care Bear named Monokuma — informs Makoto and his classmates that they can either accept their fate to live out their lives right there in the school, or begin a brutal yet stealthy killing game to earn the right to “graduate” and re-enter the world.
Doki Doki Literature Club Plus
What else should I be playing if I like this?Hatoful Boyfriend (a.k.a. “the pigeon game”) is another affectionate spoof of dōjin-soft dating sims, and can even pull its own shift into horror if you play your cards wrong in one of its many routes. You And Me And Her, meanwhile, is a classic meta horror visual novel disguised as a throwaway teen romance often spoken of in the same breath as DDLC.
Let’s be clear: 2017’sDoki Doki Literature Club!is a great visual novel — not to mention a notorious one — but not a title I’d necessarily consider an all-time top 10 candidate on its own. But we’re talking about Doki Doki Literature Club Plus, the expanded re-release from 2021, and clearly I do consider this version worthy of inclusion, because… well… I’ve included it.
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries Of Honjo
What else should I be playing if I like this?If you can’t get enough of genuinely scary visual novels, The House In Fata Morgana and The Letter make perfect follow-ups to Paranormasight, as well as being an oft-recommended pair. Both hefty sagas tackle the gothic horror trope of the haunted mansion, complete with all the torrid love affairs, creepy visuals, and darkly tense atmosphere you’d expect from the genre.
I’m usually reluctant to include brand-new games on a bestest-best list, recency bias being what it is. But so help me, Paranormasight has won over so many hearts and minds in the RPS Treehouse that to leave it out feels criminal! Many of the best horror visual novels have a tendency to run long, so if you’re new to the genre, Paranormasight is a perfect starting point. Clocking in at what I promise is a comparatively svelte 12 hours, nothing is wasted in this eerie tale of the obsessive lengths people will go to in the name of love, or else in search of power.
Yoko is particularly eager to investigate rumours doing the rounds of a so-called Rite of Resurrection. But there are more ghost stories connected to the case: those of the Seven Mysteries of Honjo, which may be some kind of prerequisite to perform the rite. Naturally, there are those who desperately want to unravel the mysteries, and others who are just as eager to control access to the rite — and aren’t afraid to sling a few curses around to keep their secrets safe. Soon our naïve spooky sweethearts are in over their heads, and asking themselves the question: “How far would you go to bring someone back from the dead?”
Extreme Meatpunks Forever
What else should I be playing if I like this?If you want the intersection of “sci-fi dystopian future” and “queer resistance”, you’re in the right medium! Heaven Will Be Mine is about space colonialism and flirting during mech battles, 2064: Read Only Memories is about sapient AI going all noir detective, and VA11 HALL-A is about bartending away the blues of waifus after the breakdown of society.
A second season of Extreme Meatpunks Forever debuted in 2020, with our heroes on a new quest: to steal back the sun from wherever it’s disappeared to. Treated as a continuous duology, it’s a story of hope, anger, victories, and setbacks, all revolving around a dual core of punk idealism and meat mechs tenderising each other. Here’s to a season three.
A Year Of Springs
What else should I be playing if I like this?For more uplifting trans coming-of-age stories, this time with a hefty added helping of ’90s nostalgia, check out both If Found… and Secret Little Haven. Further relaxed musings on friendship, romance, and LGBTQ+ identities - but with a greater emphasis on player choice - can be found in Our Life: Beginnings & Always.
Despite its emotive subject matter, One Night, Hot Springs is also noteworthy for its adorable art style, relaxing atmosphere, and the uplifting relationship between Haru, her old friend Manami, and new acquaintance Erika. The two follow-up stories in the trilogy — Last Day Of Spring and Spring Leaves No Flowers — switch perspectives to each of the other women in turn as they learn more about themselves and each other. All three protagonists are queer women, although their individual identities and perspectives are very different, and the trilogy as a whole focuses on the challenges that LGBTQ+ people face living in modern day Japan.
It bears repeating that A Year Of Springs is anything but a downer. Haru, Erika, and Manami all find affirmation as they come to better understand their individual identities, as well as in the strength of their friendship. You can play the first game for free or nab the whole trilogy for a fiver, and each chapter can be completed in well under an hour. It really is one of those “you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn” situations, and one nobody should miss.
Butterfly Soup
Butterfly Soupfollows the lives of four Asian-American teenage girls — Diya, Noelle, Akarsha, and Min-Seo — living in the California Bay Area in 2008, during the vote on Proposition 8 which sought to ban same-sex marriage in the state. While not strictly autobiographical, developer Brianna Lei drew on many of her own experiences in writing the story, and it shows in the undeniable authenticity of the girls' voices, and of the community that surrounds them.
Despite the direct impact the surrounding events could have on their futures — as Lei puts it “Harold, they’re lesbians” (except for Akarsha, who’s bisexual) — our protagonists remain resolutely concerned with being teenagers first and foremost. All four end up joining their high school baseball team, and that’s what occupies most of their energy. Well, that and the blossoming romance between Diya and Min which provides the central plot, even as each of the girls stars in her own chapter.
It’s hard to find a game that has as much personality as Butterfly Soup. The characters are completely gawky teen girls who get into absurd shenanigans, with layered story arcs that intertwine with one another. They’re finding themselves, and figuring out ways to express themselves as they awkwardly grow into adults. Everyone should play Butterfly Soup. Its pay-what-you-want on Itch.io, so there’s no excuse not to.
Monster Prom
What else should I be playing if I like this?For more dating sims that make you go “I thought this game was just going to be sexy but it’s actually very heartwarming too”, be sure to give Dream Daddy a try next. If your takeaway was more “I wanna fuck monsters now and I don’t care how scary that gets”, then I direct you to the in-progress Sucker For Love trilogy (and don’t say I didn’t warn you).
Some visual novels go in for obliqueness in their titles, others go for a pun.Monster Prom, on the other hand, does exactly what it says on the tin. Transporting you to Spooky High School three weeks before the end-of-year dance, your cool-loser protagonist has set their heart on asking out one of the popular kids at the last minute. The twist (and you might have seen this coming) is that everyone is both a high school archetypeanda monster. It’s like the Breakfast Club got run through a golden age horror filter at Universal Studios.
What elevates Monster Prom from a fun diversion to one of the best visual novels out there is the quality of the writing. Across multiple free base game updates, a chunky story DLC, and now several sequels, it’s become apparent that the creative team love their characters, and take utter delight in expanding their lore. It might have begun life as a story about horny young adults trying to get their chosen love interest’s best ending in order to unlock a tastefully nude CG, but Monster Prom very quickly became a character-driven coming-of-age urban fantasy comedy telling a much broader range of stories. Furthermore, Monster Prom is the only game on this list to officially support multiplayer, which is quite the rarity in visual novels, allowing up to four players to wingman or sabotage each other.
Clannad
What else should I be playing if I like this?For more 00s VNs that helped bring the medium to a wider audience, readour Jai’s good words about Muv-Luv, or start with the Fate and Science Adventure series (good entry points on PC are, respectively, Fate/Extella and Steins;Gate). If you want to stick with acclaimed romantic dramas, you’ll find the right mix of sweetness and sentiment in If My Heart Had Wings or Highway Blossoms.
From a purely objective standpoint, this list would be incomplete withoutClannad. Lauded as one of the best visual novels ever made, Clannad isn’t quite the oldest game on this list — the original Ace Attorney trilogy predates it — but that its popularity is still going strong after nearly 20 years is a testament to how much it resonates with players. Although the visual novel itself wasn’t officially localised outside of Japan until 2015, the popularity of Clannad’s anime adaptation helped the genre to catch on in the west, so it really can be considered a foundational text for many of the newer games featured here.
The core story of Clannad follows Tomoya Okazaki, a troubled high school student with a difficult home life, who finds renewed enthusiasm and purpose in helping a chronically ill classmate revive their school’s drama club. What seems at first like a fairly straightforward harem game (Tomoya solves a girl’s problem, they grow closer, the girl joins the ranks of the drama club) takes an unexpected turn when the action jumps forward several years. The story now centres on Tomoya’s struggles as a bereaved single parent to a young child, as he desperately tries to avoid repeating his own father’s mistakes. It’s quite the tonal shift, and there’s more to come if you want to unlock the game’s true ending.
Ukraine War Stories
What else should I be playing if I like this?Bury Me, My Love is another contemporary visual novel unafraid to tackle heavy real-world themes, telling the story of a married couple forced to separate when the wife must flee Syria as a refugee. A work of “documented fiction” told through the medium of text messages, it was one of the inaugural nominees in the Games Beyond Entertainment category at 2017’s BAFTA game awards.
Given its short turnaround time and the circumstances under which it was produced, Ukraine War Stories is bare-bones as a piece of interactive fiction. But with a beautiful art style and vital message to convey, it’s a timely and important story; given that it’s free to play on Steam, it’s well worth investing three hours of your time, especially if you feel that you could stand to learn more about the war in Ukraine.
Off the list
Here’s every game that has featured on past iterations of this list, with links to all our coverage of them elsewhere on the site:
This doesn’t mean that we don’t still love these games, mind you, or that they won’t be featured here again in the future! But there are loads of great visual novels out there, and it’s more fun to change things up, as well as to highlight the ones we’re really into right now.
