SO YOU WANT TO PLAY A VISUAL NOVEL THAT'S NEVER BEEN OFFICIALLY RELEASED IN THE WEST
Med's guide that is neither quick nor simple, but should hopefully be of some help to some people
This guide might not get super technical or deep, but hopefully it can be a good starting point for someone without a whole lot of technical prowess. However, if you're starting from zero, here's some stuff you should know.
Most visual novels that people want to play in the West tend to be Japanese. Japanese visual novels get all wonky on non-Japanese locales for various reasons. Running it in Japanese locale is pretty much a pre-requisite for any unlocalized visual novel. However, there can be an added layer of difficulty with many visual novels being built for lower-end machines, especially a lot of kamige. If you run them on a modern system without any modifications other than a locale switch, you can run across a bunch of problems. It's possible in most cases, but it can be a right pain.
There's also the fact that a lot of the knowledge of how to get them to work tends to be scattered across the web. I learned all of this from when I was super young (too young to be playing most of them, in fact), but it took me a while to get the skills and technical know-how on running visual novels optimally without having a set guide.
With all of that in mind, I figured I may as well make a guide as to how I get so many visual novels to run on my computer. Why not? I'm hoping this will have a fairly low barrier of entry for any newer fans who might otherwise be put off by the amount of gatekeeping that can happen in these spaces.
Unfortunately, this is primarily a guide for Windows users. I personally dislike Apple and have never willingly used a Mac, so I can't give proper advice on it. Ditto for Linux sorry OTL
This guide will not include any instructions on how to obtain any visual novels. I trust you can do your own research on that.
Alright, so: many Japanese visual novels tend to be in Japanese, yeah? But if you have a non-Japanese locale, with the way the programs are built, your computer can't really handle the Japanese if you have it set to a non-Japanese locale. There's various technical reasons for that, but let's not dig too deep into it. My point is that running your visual novels in a non-Japanese locale can cause a bunch of technical difficulties, from it not booting, to not being able to save, to not being able to see the text on screen.
Before anything else, if you haven't yet, download the Japanese language pack for Windows.
Next, you need to choose: do you want to change your computer's locale, or do you want to use a program to run it in Japanese locale for you? Full disclosure: I always run my computer in Japanese locale at this point. I am biased. But I also play enough games that it makes more sense to just keep it like that, and I haven't run into any issues.
Since you're likely just starting off, I would recommend changing your system's locale to Japanese for any installation, and using Locale Emulator to actually play it.
To change your locale for non-unicode programs, you'll want to head to your Control Panel, go to Clock and Region settings, and click Region. Then, on the window that pops up, go to the Administrtative tab, and click "Change System Locale", then change it. It should look something like this when you're done!
Now, restart your computer to make the changes take effect.
The above instructions should be roughly the same across most versions of Windows. Follow the instructions again to change it back when you're done. It doesn't change the system language, so it's not a big deal if you don't, but although I haven't encountered any issues, it may cause issues with other programs you have if you don't switch it back. Better safe than sorry?
First things first: this section is assuming your program is for Windows and not, like, DOS or PC88/98. We can get to emulation later.
If it's an older game, you'll want to check compatibility and run it in compatibility mode for whatever version it's made for. I find that a lot of older kamige tend to work well set as Windows 7, but obviously this depends on the game. Usually, I just right click the install file, click "troubleshoot compatability", and go from there. I've almost never had to adjust settings to get it to run.
Assuming you're successful at opening it, the usual install wizard has a few pieces to it that can be difficult to get used to. If you know some Japanese, they're easy to navigate and I don't need to tell you how to get through them. If you don't, just keep clicking "はい" (hai, yes) and adjust the installation folder if you need to.
Basic troubleshooting: If all the text are blank squares or weird characters, try installing the Japanese language pack or running it with Japanese locale. If it won't load at all, check your compatability settings If you keep getting error messages where it hasn't fully installed, redownload the game or find a different source (or check your installation path). Some of them require you have your time set to Japanese time, so try that. Assuming you don't have a case of a game with DRM that will not let it install on non-Japanese hardware, congrats, you have a visual novel on your computer!
Don't delete the files you used to install it just yet, though! If something goes wrong, you'll need them to reinstall the game without having to redownload them.
Now, run the game before changing your computer locale back. Check compatability like you did with the installation. Click a little bit. Does it run? Any glaring issues?
If not, hooray! Still, don't delete your installation files yet.
If you do have issues, basic troubleshooting: try restarting your computer and try again. If it won't launch, launches and then immediately crashes, or anything like that, double-check your compatability settings. If your saves don't work, run as admin. If the text is weird, install any fonts in the folder with the game. If it's a game with a disc, make sure the disc is mounted. Make sure you have a speaker plugged in, sometimes that fucks with it. If that doesn't work, try running the installer again. If that doesn't work, redownload, uninstall, reinstall. 99% of the time, this has fixed most my issues with any VN I've ever downloaded.
The 1% is games that only work with Japanese-installations of Windows. I'll get more into that later in this guide.
You have some patches you need to install? Install them here. Follow the instructions given by the people who made the patches. Not much else to say here.
If the patch overwrites any files, or is installed using a .exe file, back up your actual installaton first before applying it.
See subheading for explanation and the first checkpoint for troubleshooting. Usually it will. If not, depending on the type of patch, you may need to uninstall the whole game and reinstall it, which sucks.
Sometimes, for games with multiple editions, a patch only works on certain editions. If that's the case, make sure you have the right version, and try downloading the game from a different source.
Exactly what it sounds like! You can now play your game.
... Wait, there's more in this guide??
So, let's say, hypothetically, your game is not for Windows. I am not an expert on emulation, full disclosure. However, I do have a bit of knowledge and hands-on experience with it. Here's some common non-Windows systems I've seen VNs for.
I'll admit, I'm not super familiar with a lot of PC88 stuff, but M88 seems to be the most popular emulator. Snake over at illusioncity has more information on PC88 here.
If you need a PC98 emulator, Moriya Shrine has a great guide on NekoProject.
For PSX, you'll probably want ePSXe, but there's a few different emulators. If it's for the PS2, you'll want to look into PCSX2. That said, PS2s can be pretty cheap and it is possible to jailbreak one fairly easily so you can run region-locked games and homebrew, and I personally prefer it over emulation. To each their own, though! For PSP, PPSSPP.
For the original Xbox, there's Xemu. For Xbox 360, there's Xenia.
For DS, Desmume is what I used for a while, but again, I prefer to use a modded 2DS for playing DS visual novels. (Note that this won't work if it's a visual novel converted to VNDS format, you'll need a DSi, because VNDS oftentimes won't launch your games on a 2DS/3DS.) There's others, like NO$GBA, but generally speaking, Desmume is the easiest to set up and run, so that's what I'd recommend for beginners.
For SNES, you probably want Snes9x.
For DOS, use DOSBox. (There's not many VNs for DOS, but there are some VN-aligned games that were for DOS, so it's going here anyways.)
This should cover most your bases and then some, honestly. Anything newer than these, you can do your own research on, because my specs aren't super amazing and I can't give very many recs aside from what I've already given.
So, let's say, hypothetically, your game is for Windows, but only Japanese Windows. Locale switching isn't enough, you need to have a Japanese installation of Windows. I am not an expert on this, either, but the basic steps I've followed are to find a Japanese ISO of the version of Windows I need (usually XP or 7 works fine) and setting up a virtual machine with it.
I used VMWare for a while, but it kind of sucked and I don't like it that much, so I switched to VirtualBox. Here's a better explanation on how to do it. While the guide doesn't specify it needs to be Japanese, I'm going to say "please use a Japanese disc image." That guide also gets into text hooking, which is the next bit I'm gonna get into.
So, let's say, hypothetically, your game is only in Japanese, but you know zero Japanese, and you don't want to just look at pictures and guess what's going on. This is where text-hooking and OCR comes in.
Here's a text-hooking guide. Text-hooking can be super finnicky, though, and won't always work on emulators or some visual novels. So, let's talk about OCR. It's not as accurate as text-hooking, but it's a decent option for when you're playing a game you can't texthook. Here's the most common one I've seen floating around. You can also download an OCR app to your phone, but I'm much less familiar with that method.
Go forth, with your newfound VN knowledge, and play some VNs!
