Visual Novel

Visual novels are a genre of video games that originated in Japan in the 1980s. Similar to a mixed-media novel, the games often revolve around a story told through static images and text boxes (with more modern novels including fully animated sequences and voice-acting) with gameplay largely consisting of clicking through text to advance the story with the occasional set of branching choices. While the genre has remained popular in Japan for decades, it was not well known in western countries until around 2005 with the English release of Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten/Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Many modern reviewers and players have noted that most of Purple Moon's titles can be classified as visual novels. Though given the obscurity of the genre in the West at the time they were developed, this was probably not intentional.