Top 5 Dark Visual Novel Games

Visual Novel Games have gotten extremely popular, with many more violent themes being added. The games on this list are all very easy to play through even for someone who's never played a game before. Some will have puzzles while others might have mini games! So let's get started with number 5:

Doki Doki Literature Club is a free game, that I personally discovered on Steam that has been out for a while and deserves some recognition. You will notice while viewing it in the store that there are many warnings about the intense nature of the game. You will play as a young boy who gets convinced that he needs to join a club and happens to join the Doki Doki Literature Club! It seems like a more common anime-styled dating simulator at first.. But eventually you'll see this game gets very emotional very quickly, and strange things start happening fast. I hate spoilers though, and since this game is free and rather short, I'll expect you to go figure this one out for yourself!

Corpse Party has extremely disturbing content that involves children being harmed- you have been warned! This story follows a group of students, who while staying late after school decide to do a friendship charm one of them found online. When the charm is complete disaster strikes, and an earthquake sends them into another dimension... several other dimensions, all mirror images of themselves, but separating the friends from eachother. Oh yeah, and there's dead bodies everywhere. Their objective is to find eachother and escape back to the real world, but will all survive?

There are many additions to this game, and even a 4 episode series which differs slightly from the game. It has recently been remade in English on the Nintendo 3ds console.

The Letter is another I found on Steam ($19.99) and it's one of my favorites by far for the vast amount of content it offers you. Unlike many games, your choices actually effect the outcome for the character, changing the story and leading to many alternate endings. To give you an idea of how vast the choices are, you will usually earn a Steam Achievement whenever you make an outcome altering decision. There are 172 Achievements for The Letter. I personally have completed 64, and I have played through the game once and have also invested more time changing my choices to see different results.

In this game you start off playing a girl named Isabella. There are multiple characters and as the story progresses you will rotate between them. The characters also have affection bars, so as you interact with them they may respond differently. The story itself revolves an old abandoned mansion, that a rich couple intends to move into. Our first main character is part of the real estate team who is selling it to them. Isabella finds a strange letter in the attic and well.. You'll just have to find out. The mini games in this were not very common, and very easy to beat for anyone.

Danganronpa starts off as a Visual Novel Game that was turned into an animated series. The first game is Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, followed by Danganronpa: Goodbye Despair. Both of these games are dark, mystery filled games with mini games during the "trials". So let me explain...

In Danganronpa, high school students from the most prestigious high school in the world, "Hopes Peak Academy" have been trapped inside the school by a psychotic teddy bear named Monokuma. He's apparently a robot with plenty of spares, and he's forcing the students to play a deadly game. If they want to escape, they have to kill someone, and get away with it. Whenever there is a death, there will be an investigation, and a trial. If the killer isn't caught, he gets to leave while the others are punished. If he is caught, then he is punished and the others get to continue on. Until the next death at least... While this game allows you choices, and offers you the ability to gain affection with the certain characters, these things do not effect the outcome of the story dramatically. It may change some dialogue here or there, or include a special scene, but it will not save someone from dying or being the "blackened".

This game series is incredibly addicting, in a you need to know what happens next sort of way. The creators have a wonderful way of warming you up to their characters so they can twist you up and break your heart. Expect many character reappearances as you progress through the series, the stories all tie in together so you will likely see some of your favorite survivors again!

Another Spike Chunsoft game series, Zero Escape: The Nonary Games and Zero Escape: Time Dilemma are both available on Steam. Zero Escape: The Nonary Games is actually two games, 999 being the first in the series, and Virtues Last Reward the second. Zero Escape: Time Dilemma is the final conclusion to the series.

In 999, a group of strangers are kidnapped and wake up on a sinking ship, each of them having a bracelet on their wrist with a number. they are forced to find the number 9 door by exploring and completing the escape rooms. This game has a flow chart so while your decisions do change your outcome, you can go back to get a good ending after completing a bad ending. Again though... I hate spoilers! This game is tons of fun to play through the puzzles, and although some of them did get me stuck sometimes it was easy enough to google the specific answers online without spoiling the story.

I hope you enjoyed my list! Feel free to let me know in the comments what you think of the games if you played them, or if you have other suggestions I should review!