recently, i saw this twitter discourse where people were debating whether visual novels can live up to classical literature and perhaps even surpass them in terms of writing. obviously, i gained interest in it since i love reading both books and visual novels.
there were two sides to this: one claimed that its ludicrous to even suggest such a thing while the other side agreed that visual novels can be on par with classical literature (the most notable example this side uses is umineko)
however, while thinking about it i feel a bit conflicted. visual novels and books are entirely separate mediums. books rely on your ability to imagine the scenes, to see beyond just the wall of text it presents you meanwhile visual novels have visuals, obviously. they have voice acting (well, most of the time), CGs that fit the corresponding scene, sound tracks and most notably choices and routes.
i feel like both sides say their claims so definitively. however, i do also personally believe that visual novels can't live up to classical literature because to me, the medium is not literature! visual novels are its own separate thing, it's a bit idiotic to me to compare two entirely different mediums that don't have anything in common with one another.
that's just my opinion, though. i think this discourse is pretty interesting!
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lesbrutas
I agree with your take, because I think visual novels are more like films/interactive series with user participation, you progressing on your own terms and interacting more one-on-one with the story being the main, if not the only, differences. You can't compare it to full-blown text only literature because it uses an inherently different skillset for analysis. It's like you said, you have to analyse the artwork in front of you, the audio, maybe even the colour choices and blocking in the artwork, alongside the text through what characters say and what the narration is. Because you have to take into account multiple elements that are just simply not there when it comes to text-only literature, it's very much like analysing a movie.
You're analysing the composition through artwork and cinematography, you're analysing the usage of music, and you're analysing the writing through mostly spoken dialogue or through non-diegetic dialogue like a character's inner monologue, and that already puts it closer to films and tv series than it does to text-only literature :p