Visual novels on Android¶
The Google Play Store¶
There are native Android visual novels but most of these are gacha cash grab trash. There are a few Android ports of Windows visual novels which you can buy at the Japanese Play Store or... wink wink by "other means". You can switch to the Japanese Play Store by putting on a Japanese VPN and then clearing your Play Store data & cache.
Using PPSSSPP Emulator¶
While they are a couple of native Android visual novels but these are usually spin-offs and gacha trash, and no one wants to play them.
The best option is to use PPSSPP emulator and download PSP ROMs.
PSP games are probably the best quality visual novels you can get on a mobile device.
Kirikiroid2¶
Any games that use the Kirikiri2 engine (e.g. has .xp3 files) can be loaded and played natively without any virtualization on Android.
This is very easy, I got this working in a matter of minutes.
You will need:
- Kirikiroid2 APK [Download]
- Kirikiri2 Engine-compatible visual novel. (Look for .xp3 files)
- Kirikiroid2 patch for YOUR VN! [Repository here]
Now follow the steps below.
- Install the APK of Kirikiroid2. You may need to allow install unknown apps for this source.
- On your computer, copy the patch files into the same folder as the game files.
- Now copy all these files over to your phone.
- Launch Kirikiroid2 and navigate to the folder and select the .exe of the VN, just like you'd launch it on your PC.
ONScripter¶
Any games that use the NScripter engine (e.g. has an nscript.dat file) can be loaded and played natively without any virtualization on Android.
TBA
QEMU/Limbo/Bochs PC Emulator¶
This way is dreadfully slow and I recommend you stay FAR away from this. If you want a portable PC visual novel experience, I recommend you pick up a GPD Win. The first model equipped with an Intel Atom will be fine for VNs, the second model with an Intel Core m3 is more likely to be in stock though.