For example, a character that might have stood up for you in the first loop could be wanting to kill you in the second one. “The feeling of going through a world in which the law of cause and effect doesn’t matter – that is the core idea of a roguelike adventure game, and it’s a brand-new territory that most adventure games until now haven’t stepped into yet.”
Jiro Ishii explaining how a "roguelike adventure" works as a visual novel.
On the other hand, “roguelike adventures” are a subgenre that was pioneered by Petit Depotto’s Gnosia. What makes “roguelike adventures” significantly different from “open world” ones are, as Ishii states, the element of randomness and the way the world of the game branches out. While in “open world adventures” there are no changes in the story despite the order in which the player decides to experience it, in “roguelike adventures” the story randomly changes with each replay – kind of like in a “parallel world” scenario, Ishii explains.
Jiro Ishii praises the concept of "roguelike adventures" in the context of visual novels, where there is an "element of randomness" in how the game-world branches out.
As examples of “open-world type adventures,” Ishii brings up Vanillaware and Atlus’ 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim and Spike Chunsoft’s Zero Escape series. He once more emphasizes that, in this case, “open world” doesn’t mean a 3D space that you can roam freely. To him, it signifies a non-linear narrative, not bound by time or laws of cause and effect. The player is able to experience the narrative freely (by “picking up fragments”) in any order they like, which ultimately leads them to completing the “big picture” and finding out the true story.
Jiro Ishii praises what he calls "open world" visual novels where the player is not bound by time or cause and effect.
If you’re aiming to write a truly interesting story, according to Kodaka, that means you’re up against giants like Keigo Higashino (known for his mystery novels). And in order to beat them as a developer, you’ll have to leverage the systems and means of expression that are unique to the video game medium and evoke emotion in players through the story.
Kazutaka Kodaka opining that in order for a visual novel to "beat" a great novel, it must "leverage the systems and means of expression that are unique to the video game medium and evoke emotion in players through the story."
“To be honest, I haven’t played that many adventure games. I play a variety of different genres of games, and I also read novels. That being said, I believe outstanding adventure games are the ones that use game mechanics in their favor. When it comes to story-driven adventure games, I honestly think novels are much higher quality reading material. After all, works written by famous authors are simply a more interesting read,” Kodaka says.
Kazutaka Kodaka opining that in terms of telling a story, novels are superior to visual novels. Visual novels can distinguish themselves through some sort of interactive element (or perhaps audio-visual).