A visual novel, often abbreviated as VN, is an interactive fiction video game genre, featuring text-based story with narrative style of literature and interactivity aided by static or sprite-based visuals, most often using anime-style art or occasionally live-action stills. As the name suggests, they resemble mixed-media novels.
The Last Express is an adventure video game designed by Jordan Mechner and published by Broderbund in 1997 for PC. Players take on the role of an American who accepts an invite by a friend to join them on the Orient Express, days before the start of World War I, only to become involved in a maelstrom of treachery, lies, political conspiracies, personal interests, romance and murder, upon boarding the train. The game is unique in how it was created, its non-linear story, and in how events in the game are conducted within real-time.
Star Ocean is a franchise of action role-playing video games developed by the Japanese company tri-Ace and published and owned by Square Enix.
Star Ocean: The Second Story is an action role-playing video game developed by tri-Ace and published by Enix for the PlayStation. It is the second game in the Star Ocean series and the first game in the series to be released outside Japan, arriving in North America in May 1999 and Europe in April 2000, by Sony Computer Entertainment. Taking place in a science fantasy universe, the story centers around a young man named Claude Kenni, a cadet from a space-faring Earth organization who is stranded on an undeveloped, medieval-level planet. There, he meets several companions and must stop a plot from an evil organization that spans multiple worlds before finding his way home. The game was the basis of manga and anime adaptations.
An interactive film is a video game or other interactive media that has characteristics of a cinematic film. In the video game industry, the term refers to a movie game, a video game that presents its gameplay in a cinematic, scripted manner, often through the use of full-motion video of either animated or live-action footage.
Psychic Detective is a 1995 interactive movie video game that uses extensive amounts of live-action footage and features dozens of professional character actors. It was written by Michael Kaplan and directed by John Sanborn.
Ripper is a 1996 interactive movie point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Take-Two Interactive for DOS and Macintosh. The game has a cast that includes celebrities such as Christopher Walken, Paul Giamatti, Karen Allen, Burgess Meredith and John Rhys-Davies. It also featured the Blue Öyster Cult song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper".
Another Mind is an adventure game created by Square for the PlayStation and released on November 12, 1998, in Japan.
Clock Tower, known in Japan as Clock Tower 2, is a survival horror point-and-click adventure game developed by Human Entertainment and released for the PlayStation in 1996. It is the second game in the Clock Tower series after the original Clock Tower, which was released exclusively in Japan for the Super Famicom one year prior. The story takes place in Norway and follows a variety of characters as they attempt to survive the return of Scissorman and uncover the mystery of his seemingly immortal state. The scenarios encountered and endings vary widely based upon the player's actions.
Love Story, stylized as Ø Story, is a Japanese exclusive adventure interactive movie video game developed by General Entertainment and published by Enix on April 27, 2000. It was the first Enix game published on the PlayStation 2, and was part of the campaign to promote the release of the console in Japan.
Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, often translated to The Portopia Serial Murder Case in English, is an adventure game designed by Yuji Horii and published by Enix. It was first released on the NEC PC-6001 in June 1983, and has since been ported to other personal computers, the Nintendo Famicom, and mobile phone services.
Jake Hunter, known in Japan as Tantei Jingūji Saburō, is a mystery adventure game series originally developed and published by Data East in 1987. The property would later transfer to WorkJam, and has most recently been acquired by Arc System Works, who are its current owners.
Yuji Horii is a Japanese video game designer and scenario writer best known as the creator of the Dragon Quest series of role-playing games, supervising and writing the scenario for Chrono Trigger, as well as the first visual novel adventure game Portopia Serial Murder Case.
Sleeping Dogs is an action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games and published by Square Enix's European subsidiary. It was originally released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows in 2012. Set in contemporary Hong Kong, the story follows Wei Shen, an undercover Chinese-American police officer on assignment to infiltrate the Sun On Yee Triad organization. Gameplay focuses on Shen's fighting, shooting and parkour abilities, and on gadgets that can be used for combat and exploration. Players must complete missions to unlock content and continue the story, but they may instead freely roam the game's open world environment and engage in both legal and criminal activities. The latter may incite a police response, the intensity of which is controlled by a "heat" system. Actions such as fighting, driving and racing grant Shen statistical rewards and earn the player achievements.
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of literary genres. Many adventure games are designed for a single player, since this emphasis on story and character makes multiplayer design difficult. Colossal Cave Adventure is identified as the first such adventure game, first released in 1976, while other notable adventure game series include Zork, King's Quest, The Secret of Monkey Island, and Myst.
Meitantei Holmes: M-Kara no Chousenjou is a modern first-person adventure video game for the Family Computer that is based on the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the sequel to Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijō Yūkai Jiken and Meitantei Holmes: Kiri no London Satsujin Jiken, the latter having been released on May 13, 1988. In Kiri no London Satsujin Jiken, the player takes control of Holmes and Watson in the streets of London. The player can collect clues and also shillings in order to pay for things such as a coach fare, which allows them to travel London faster. All of these video games were released exclusively in Japan.
Chiharu Niiyama is a Japanese actress and former gravure idol.
A cutscene or event scene is a sequence in a video game that is not interactive, interrupting the gameplay. Such scenes are used to show conversations between characters, set the mood, reward the player, introduce newer models and gameplay elements, show the effects of a player's actions, create emotional connections, improve pacing or foreshadow future events.
