When someone brings up the genre of visual novels these days it’s hard not to think “Objection!” due to the immense popularity of the Ace Attorney series. However, in actuality there are more visual novels released and in the making then you’d think! While Japan has the majority of them, the U.S. and other countries continue to get more and more of these types of games, and it‘s about time!

The history of the visual novel series can be traced back to the “Choose Your Own Adventure” type of books. In these books you’d read until you came to a choice such as:

“If you decide to start back home, turn to page 4.
If you decide to wait, turn to page 5.” (taken from The Cave of Time)

You’d then make your choice, and turn to that page, depending on what happened the book would either end there with a bad ending, or you’d continue onward. The only flaw with this system in a book is that most of the fun is in not knowing, and turning another page on accident would more then likely spoil the surprise.

When computers and game systems became a norm in society, the combination of technology and the choose your own adventure novels was only a matter of time. Though most of these games fall under a romantic theme, which is the most popular of the visual novel series in Japan, there are others that fall under sci-fi, fantasy, horror, or other genres.

With the introduction of the DS started other countries have been getting more and more visual novels released to them, again the most popular of these being the Ace Attorney series. There are others however that take elements from the visual novel genre and add more to it. The most recent of those being Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Touch Detective, Trace Memory, and the newly announced “Turnabout Prosecutor” series starring Miles Edgeworth.

The increasing popularity of games that make you think before you act has brough those who never thought they’d get into video games, to love them. People who abandoned the notion of games back when Pong and Pacman were popular are coming back. On top of all this, with these sort of games being released, the medium of video games is becoming more universally accepted for both fun and learning. However, don’t be expecting to learn how to actually become a lawyer from Phoenix Wright any time soon, there’s still a ways to go!