Visual novels that focus on theme "from zero to hero" and "strangers that find their way to different worlds" or otherwise find their turned upside down go here.
The Adastra and Khemia series are very book-like in nature while the others here are more adventurous. I've also included the smoke room which is basically a horror story set in fictional wild west.
Please do read to the end before you jump into conclusions. This is one of my VN favorites because of the likeable and well written characters and because of the humor - and the use of music.
This is more of a dating sim than adventuring game currently, and despite its name and the backstory, there's actually not much sex at all!
You are forced to pick one of the three main NPCs very early on and you can't even flirt with the others. I believe there's some bisexual content in Dallan's route, but I didn't choose to pursue it. There are also a few random sex scenes and one *grr* ... well, not spoiling it... but I want to smash that "#%¤% face for... NoT SPoiLinG It!
There's absolutely no fighting mechanics but I'm still going to push it into "hero's journey" category of VNs because the MC has the "chosen by higher powers to become something great" backstory. The current iteration covers only a few days of game time - which is actually pretty substantial amount of dialogue BUT there's a lot of stuff that happens within that timeframe.
It has a lot of funny dialogue (albeit at times bad spelling), and very good use of music to set the mood. I'm not much into the twink types like the MC, but despite this I very much enjoyed being in his shoes, and I actually got emotional over a few things which is rare. The excellent use of music helps here...
NSFW obviously.
