Video Game genres are classified completely differently then Genres in other mediums. Genre titles for movies, TV Shows, Novels, Comics and Anime are descriptors of the kind of Story it is, the Emotions it conveys, or the setting or something like that. Video Game Genre titles however refer to how they are played. That's why no one refers to Comedy Games or Puzzle Films.
Video Games that have stories will also get referred to by their story telling genres. And I feel like when something is called a Horror Game that's fairly understood how that isn't the same thing. Resident Evil 4 (the only RE I ever played) is a Stealth Game in terms of it's actual gaming genre, it's just a Stealth Games that evokes the atmosphere of a Horror film in addition to that Game genre's more typical Spy movie trappings.
However it seems "Adventure Game" is an official gaming genre title, even though the word Adventure makes much more sense when used as a Storytelling genre. What gets called Adventure Games doesn't include Platformers and RPGs which are almsot always about a person or group going on an adventure. What does get called Adventure Games include Zelda style games, Castlevania style games, Point and Click Games, and Games that look a lot like Visual Novels except they actually manage to qualify as Games.
Bowl of Lentils has a YouTube Video called The Origins of Visual Novels, it's a video I highly recommend for the knowledge it passes on about the roots of this form of story telling still very new to us Westerners. The revelation that the term "Sound Novel" actually predates "Visual Novel" for example blew my mind, and is something many people talking abut Higurashi on YT need to be brought up to speed on. But I disagree with their conclusions a bit.
The video's conclusion is mostly a statement of fact, in Japan Visual Novels are classified as a Sub-Genre of Adventure Games and it's only we dumb Americans who get pedantic about what counts as a Game. But Japan isn't special, they are allowed to be wrong in how they classify things. A work isn't automatically the same genre as what influenced it, or else Star Wars would be a historical Samurai Film, and a Spaghetti Western, and a 60s student film all at the same time. And a Sub-Genre ceases to be a Sub-Genre when in it's evolution it has abandoned what were the defining traits of the Mother Genre.
This is besides the fact that even the original form of this Adventure Game genre included stories that were not the story telling definition of an Adventure at all, they were often mysteries. And look I am willing to define what counts as an Adventure fairly broadly, I know they don't always have to be as epic as LOTR, a movie about a group of kids traveling probably less then a mile to see a dead body in the woods is an adventure. But helping navigate a generic Harem protagonist's Love Life isn't an adventure, especially not ones that only give me input over a small percentage of the decisions he makes.
I already expressed on this blog the opinion that Visual Novels don't count as Games, some Visual Novel fans on YT see that sentiment as an expression of narrow Mindedness, it isn't, and it also isn't meant to denigrate them. Not being Games isn't why I rarely play them because lately I rarely play my damn Mario games. Of course "Visual Novel" and "Sound Novel" are not the best descriptors either, the former at it's literal definition could apply to Comic Books and the latter to Audio Books.
Some like Higurashi don't even have branching narratives. So the only argument for them being Video Games is that you "play" them on Video Game Consoles (or in Japan you would, we Americans are usually stuck with fan translated PC ports and emulator roms). But TV and Movies are still sperate mediums even though you can use the same Blue Ray Player to watch both The Godfather and The Sopranos. And in 2021 I can watch Hulu on the same Switch I will be playing DDLC+ on.
Let me explain to you why classifying Visual Novels as Games actually does a disservice to them. I enjoy experiencing the School Days Visual Novel (which I consider better written then the Anime for which I'm also an apologist) and it's "sequel" Shiny Days as essentially Anime that can play out differently. But when you judge them as Games where Makoto is my Avatar who I'm controlling for the purpose of achieving some goal, they are the worst Games I've ever played. My goal in my first School Days play through was to not have sex with anyone but Sekai, and to preferably not do Sekai till I formally broke up with Kotonoha, if I actually had the same kind of control over Makoto as I do a Link or a Mario then the only way to fail at that should have been to be raped, but that's not what happened. Makoto wasn't someone I controlled so much as someone I advise when he can't immediately make up his mind on his own. When he's offered Sex my consultation is almsot never sought. One episode ended when it had felt like an hour since I'd last made any input at all. And in Shiny Days it's still Makoto who's decisions you sometimes assist even though he's not the main POV Protagonist this time. And these are VNs that even have a Status Bar.
In short Visual Novels and Sound Novels in the vain of To Heart and Higurashi aren't Games even at their most interactive. And the "Adventure Games" that look like them while actually feeling like a Game to play, shouldn't be called Adventures when they are really just Detective Stories or Court Room Dramas or Dating Sims.
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