{"id":50446,"date":"2025-07-26T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=50446"},"modified":"2025-07-26T06:37:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T21:37:18","slug":"482-shibuya-scramble-creator-says-visual-novel-games-have-reached-a-bit-of-an-evolutionary-dead-end-but-certain-masterpieces-have-created-potential-for-breakthroughs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/482-shibuya-scramble-creator-says-visual-novel-games-have-reached-a-bit-of-an-evolutionary-dead-end-but-certain-masterpieces-have-created-potential-for-breakthroughs\/","title":{"rendered":"428: Shibuya Scramble creator says visual novel games have reached a bit of an evolutionary \u201cdead end,\u201d but certain masterpieces have created potential for breakthroughs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Game designer Jiro Ishii\u2019s upcoming game, in the vein of his cult-classic 428: Shibuya Scramble<\/strong>, has just ended its crowdfunding campaign<\/a> with over 1030% of the original goal raised for the project<\/a>. As a veteran in the field of Japanese narrative adventure games (commonly referred to as visual novels in the West), Ishii talked to Denfaminicogame<\/a>r about the importance of innovation in the genre, as well as games as a whole. He highlighted two new \u201csubgenres\u201d that he feels have the potential to shake up what he perceives as stagnation of visual novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cMy honest impression is that the evolutionary tree of adventure games has reached more of a dead end than I thought it would. However, there are some new genres that evolved from there.\u201d Ishii pointed out two \u201cnew subgenres\u201d of adventure game that particularly stood out to him. He defines them as \u201copen-world type adventure\u201d and \u201croguelike adventure\u201d games. Note that Ishii only uses the terms open-world and roguelike conceptually, to describe certain ways stories progress in adventure games \u2013 they are not to be confused with actual open-world and roguelike game mechanics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As examples of \u201copen-world type adventures,\u201d Ishii brings up Vanillaware and Atlus\u2019 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim and Spike Chunsoft\u2019s Zero Escape series. He once more emphasizes that, in this case, \u201copen world\u201d doesn\u2019t 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 \u201cpicking up fragments\u201d) in any order they like, which ultimately leads them to completing the \u201cbig picture\u201d and finding out the true story. In 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, you switch between the perspectives of 13 characters, but the story unveils itself regardless of the order and timing at which you choose between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, \u201croguelike adventures\u201d are a subgenre that was pioneered by Petit Depotto\u2019s Gnosia. What makes \u201croguelike adventures\u201d significantly different from \u201copen world\u201d ones are, as Ishii states, the element of randomness and the way the world of the game branches out. While in \u201copen world adventures\u201d there are no changes in the story despite the order in which the player decides to experience it, in \u201croguelike adventures\u201d the story randomly changes with each replay \u2013 kind of like in a \u201cparallel world\u201d scenario, Ishii explains. Gnosia takes full advantage of this gimmick, letting the player go through \u201ctime loops\u201d of the same base story with different randomly altered relationships and swapped roles, making each playthrough a unique experience. 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. \u201cThe feeling of going through a world in which the law of cause and effect doesn\u2019t matter \u2013 that is the core idea of a roguelike adventure game, and it\u2019s a brand-new territory that most adventure games until now haven\u2019t stepped into yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ishii says that, while Gnosia is a roguelike adventure \u201cmasterpiece,\u201d no other games seem to be pursuing the subgenre. \u201cI also felt a huge amount of potential in this genre, and am currently trying it out with Depth Loop (provisional title), another title currently in development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever,\u201d Ishii goes on, \u201cEven with these examples of evolution, I\u2019m still not sure I can say that adventure games as a whole are making new breakthroughs. They haven\u2019t reached the level of explosiveness that could cause a stir in the game market like with Higurashi or Steins;Gate \u2013 the games that popularized \u201ctime-loop\u201d stories.\u201d Ishii thinks that there is still something that\u2019s missing that could make recent adventure games reach a wider audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ishii emphasizes that it is important for games as a whole to keep innovating and changing. \u201cGame design needs to be constantly evolving.\u201d Just like anime and other genres of media draw inspiration from video games to create hits, games should be doing the same thing, he explains. He fears that, if there aren\u2019t any innovations in the game medium, culture might end up stagnating as a whole. \u201cFor the past 10 years, I\u2019ve been exploring the worlds outside of games. And now that I\u2019ve accumulated all this experience, it is time to bring it back to the game world.\u201d While Ishii indeed hasn\u2019t been actively working on games for some time now, it seems like his goal for the upcoming releases is to bring something new into the medium and inspire its further evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jiro Ishii talks about the importance of innovation in the visual novel genre, stating that they may have reached an evolutionary “dead end.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":50452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-50446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\n428: Shibuya Scramble creator says visual novel games have reached a bit of an evolutionary \u201cdead end,\u201d but certain masterpieces have created potential for breakthroughs - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jiro Ishii talks about the importance of innovation in the visual novel genre, stating that they may have reached an evolutionary "dead end."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/482-shibuya-scramble-creator-says-visual-novel-games-have-reached-a-bit-of-an-evolutionary-dead-end-but-certain-masterpieces-have-created-potential-for-breakthroughs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"428: Shibuya Scramble creator says visual novel games have reached a bit of an evolutionary \u201cdead end,\u201d but certain masterpieces have created potential for breakthroughs - 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