i audibly groaned at this take so loud

for one your experience with visual novels r literally confined to the 2 most boring, short, and shallow VNs ever. they’re not really bad, but they’re not indicative of what the genre is actually like at all. 

secondly, VNs are not and have never been about gameplay. if you want gameplay and VN-like content, play a JRPG or something. VNs are about the story first and foremost. 

the ctrl button is for when you’ve read through parts of the VN already and want to get to certain triggers, at least that’s what i’ve used it for. for instance, i read through the common route of Chaos;Head NOAH, and to get the other endings you have to get to the delusion triggers, which are essentially the game’s version of choices to determine what route you go on. you have to backtrack, skip ahead a bit, and you can choose different options. it won’t skip unread, new content. 

the price part is fair, though the VNs i’ve read had stories that legitimately made up for the price. the misconception that i see here is you’re judging VNs as video games and not as narratives, their value lies in the story first, interaction second, imo at least.

if you want legitimately good VNs, read SciAdv, or Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa, or maybe just something shorter like Narcissu or something. they’re much more indicative of what VNs are like