Decay

There's a whole world of brilliant written fiction across a ton of genres. I very much dispute that visual mediums are inherently better for the vast majority of genres.

I have no idea. It sounds like it probably won't ever happen but that would just be a total guess at this point.

They can, sure, but why should they pick Dracu-Riot over the million other VNs out there? However, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a group out there who actually picks this up and gives it a serious go, eventually.

What happened? Nothing. What will happen? Nothing.

Yeah, 10 hour VNs will have 150,000 to 200,000 words, easy. Tyrael's Kindred Spirits review published here just a couple days ago has over 2,000 words, I doubt Codesterz is taking 2 hours to read it. Something tells me his estimate is just a wee bit off. @Codesterz, you're entitled to your opinions, but I'll just say that your standards are pretty off. You make demands of SP then place completely arbitrary restrictions on those demands that only make sense for you and you alone. It's no wonder that they aren't able to reliably meet them. You can have your preferences of not liking shorter VNs, but don't be surprised when you continue to see large amounts of that stuff, and don't discount SP's efforts when they start making strides towards simultaneous AA/18+ releases just because you don't like some of the games.

Watanagashi took a long time, but it has also been 4.5 months since its release. Tatarigoroshi is poised to take as long or longer to come out than Watanagashi did. So basically, they haven't resolved jack with their translator issues. It's funny, MG has said multiple times that "Okay, everything is going to go super smoothly from now on!" and every time they have, it seems like they've actually slowed down instead. This retranslation effort needed a rapid release schedule in order to keep the interest of the non-hardcore fans on Steam. Now all hope of that is lost, at this rate this whole re-release plan will end up being a total failure.

If you don't like mystery, then you probably shouldn't even touch Umineko. It's an integral part of what that VN is. Some REALLY MAJOR Umineko spoilers, in case Deep Blue ever wants to just give up and read about out one of the key elements of the story. Which actually gets revealed (or at least made super obvious) in Chapter 4 (of 8). Eh, I think it's close to around 100 hours actually but it will vary based on read speed. I read it every single day for a month straight in order to finish it, but I didn't spend THAT many hours per day on it. I don't think. BTW, you've started reading Higurashi eh? Are you going to stick to the MangaGamer retranslations? I really wish those had a faster release schedule. 2 a year is so agonizingly slow, especially since they plan on translating the bonus chapters as well. They really should be releasing these every other month.

Do I? I guess none of my reviews are forums favorites but I've been basically just reviewing what's new. I'm not planning on playing or reviewing this anytime soon at least. It was supposed to release February 29th but they had to push it back a month for whatever reason. They set their new date before MangaGamer announced Tokyo Babel's release date. Since it's already late, I doubt they want to delay it any further.

The writing is about on par with your average fan translation. Maybe a bit better? Well, the fruitbat guys were all fan translators and not super spectacular ones at that. "Thankfully" I've grown used to this level of English. The VN actually does seem pretty interesting and this is the type of game that will fly under a lot of people's radar. There's not much fervor for doujin all-ages chuuni games. The biggest problem it will run into is that it's releasing on the same day as Tokyo Babel. Ouch.

Actually yes, Astraythem is the game from them I would want the most, but I imagine they'll start by selling their most recent product.

We don't expect you to be purely objective. It helps to be able to look at all of the qualities of any given game and to give it its dues where it deserves it, even if you don't like it. Or to be able to dissect the flaws in games you love. But ultimately, reviews are based on your personal opinions, and at least going by what Ryechu always told me, we actually prefer it if your own personal opinions and feelings on a game take the highest priority in your evaluation, as long as you justify it. That's how the GGN games got such high scores and Little Busters got such a low score. Ikikoi is a VN that is widely panned by the community. "Ikikoi is the greatest VN ever made, screw the haters," or something to that effect stretched out to 1000+ words, isn't particularly informative or interesting to read. "Ikikoi is a great game despite its flaws, here are its flaws and why I don't mind them, and here's why I especially love this game" is something we'd be interested in posting. "Ikikoi isn't even flawed, but misunderstood, allow me to explain that what people see as flaws are actually strengths for this brilliant masterpiece." You're some unholy abomination but fine, you can write that, too! If you like Ikikoi but your review is "Ikikoi is a bad game because of all of these flaws, I liked it but all of these qualities only make it a 4/10 game, objectively speaking," then that's just boring in my eyes. I personally don't want to see anything like that. Anyways, I hope that paragraph of nonsense makes sense. SolidBatman can feel free to tell me if I'm way off base here. I wasn't ever really briefed very thoroughly on the guidelines, however. I was just sort of brought in and started doing my thing, and apparently that's what they wanted? I don't really know what bats means when he says overly wordy for example. edit: And when we say "don't pull any punches" we mean "don't water down your words in fear of hurting people's feelings," not "tear into every game."

PSP is piss easy to emulate. Buuuut by all accounts Extra is pretty mediocre and Extra CCC is the game really worth caring about, which is JP-only.

Actually talking about Ley Line for a bit, the first game's translation has been practically in a finished state for pretty much a year now. I'd be surprised if it takes longer than a month or two from this point to make it onto Steam. What's left to be done with it? They also started progress on the sequel before they stopped tracking progress entirely, and by this point that may be almost done as well? Hopefully we actually see a fast release schedule for this series. And congrats to Kohaku for actually managing to get paid for this. ~~~ Gonna bump the thread to talk and speculate about the next major convention MangaGamer is attending, Anime Central. According to MangaGamer's announcements page, they've already slotted in two announcements, including a VN from a new partner. Since I was so good at predicting ImoPara 2 (what an amazing prophet I am), I will now bestow upon you all my next prediction: Watashi ga Suki nara "Suki" tte Itte! from ChuableSoft. Remember last July when the president of ChuableSoft was engaging english fans on twitter, asking us what we'd like to see from them? And we basically got him to get in touch with the major VN publishers here? Basically, I'd be surprised if nothing ever came of that, and it's about time for an announcement to be made. I suspect that it may be MG's new partner announcement at Anime Central. Let's wait and see. edit: Or I guess I'm NOT going to bump this thread. Thanks for nothing, nazi mods.

So with a new partnership with Unison Shift, that means SP can eventually pick up Flyable Heart and produce a real translation, right? Right?? I know that dumb game is just really dumb and not even close to kamige or anything, but it's still been at the top of my wishlist since I started reading VNs.

I feel good about my inability to get emotionally invested in pre-release games. I've got literally nothing riding on this. You should probably start lowering your expectations. Give Apathy A Try.

In this week's VNTS, I touch upon the social issue Maitetsu will face with Steam. Mainly, I wonder how many people will be afraid to buy and play Maitetsu on Steam purely out of shame? Another one of the problems this industry will end up running into with Steam is the inability to be discrete in the system, unless you choose to block yourself off from the community and your friends entirely. I guess people could always buy a secondary account for this purpose, but when you start introducing hurdles like that, you start bleeding potential customers. They'll start feeling like they're doing something wrong, having to have a secondary account no one knows about, and will stop themselves. It's a complex psychological and sociological issue, to be sure.

I guess I'll go on record and say that overall, I mainly feel amused and apathetic about this. I'm perfectly okay with SP trying to sell this on Steam, and I even don't care about the lack of an 18+ version, and I look forward to the chaos that will ensue. I don't actually care about the game, because I don't really like lolis.

I really don't think this is the case. There are definitely people who would split hairs. And there are also people who just wouldn't notice or care about a loli if they still look like a young teen or something (Romanesque), versus a small child. I definitely think the degree of youthfulness matters greatly in this kind of thing.

Lose's lolis are even younger in appearance than Romanesque. There were some characters with h-scenes in Monobeno who had the appearance of six year olds. They go that far.

So what are the actual odds of an 18+ version from Denpa? I'm shocked that SP picked up this title to begin with, I'd be utterly blown away if they had an 18+ release. The question is, do they need to do an 18+ version to generate a moral panic in the games press, or will one happen anyways?

Ahh, this is the level of disappointment we've been waiting for, take it in boys. edit: The least they could have done was make it a 1+2 bundle pack.

Anyone know of anyone liveblogging these? Last year's liveblogger I relied on doesn't seem to be at either con.

MG's and SP's panels are starting at the same time, on opposite ends of the country. an hour until both start.

Basically. As Tyr said, those H-OVAs are basically marketing material for Cartagra and Kara no Shoujo. They weren't trying to make a smash anime hit, they were trying to get eroge customers to pay attention to their games. And H-OVAs is often a good way to do that, even if it's not nukige. Standard romance titles can get away without the porn because it's pretty easy to create some bog standard romance drivel. A deep mystery thriller like Kara no Shoujo requires actual serious directing and screenwriting skills to make good on TV. So why even bother? Just make some hentai drivel that will hopefully get a few horney teens off and have them think "Okay, but what's the real story like?"

They are in the red because they are constantly expanding at a super rapid pace. Basically, all that means is that the owners of the companies aren't raking in loads of dough, because all of the revenue is being reinvested.