so in my visual novel should the player have a death animation or just "you died"
It depends on the tone your game has. Is it a more casual game? Then maybe a generic “Game Over” will get the message across. Is it a more adult-oriented violent title? Then a gory death animation would add to that.
Obviously this is not black and white, your game could be anywhere in between, so it’s hard for any user to tell without knowing more about your game.
Hope that helps :)
Well the great thing is you have the artistic choice over that.
im often surprised how well some games manage to pull off a non animated death.
its can be as dramatic as an animation if done right.
best case scenario: do both and let the user toggle between them out of choice.
if you have the time to do the animations, great. otherwise you might want to go with simple endings to give yourself more time to work on the game itself.
just my 2 cents worth. probably obvious stuff but just what came to mind.
good luck with it :)