Decay

Ahh, this is the part where you dismiss games with really vague and misleading generalizations just like in the tournament thread. Okay, I think we're done here, you don't want to argue in good faith. lmao at calling himawari a lolige.

Another bug probably unfixable by us, whenever you're making/editing a post where there's a quote box in it, pressing CTRL+A does not select all text, but instead moves the cursor to the end of the post.

I'm a moderate Da Capo fan but I'm looking at the staff behind this and eh... I'm not feeling it.

But for real, parfait looks good. I'll beat up any bullies who hate on you for that.

Fan demand may not be as strong on some of these titles as you may think. Koihime Musou wasn't a particularly large success. MangaGamer has maintained that Shin Koihime Musou would cost way too much to localize internally. There's a fan translation group currently working on SKM and MG has said that they're open to officially releasing that translation if it's any good, but they probably can't turn a profit if they do that game normally. At least, they believe they wouldn't. Also, keep in mind that MangaGamer is only one part of the equation here. The original developers and publishers of the Japanese games have a larger say in the matter than MG in a lot of cases. That's why MG is releasing Beat Blades Haruka this month instead of Rance, that came from AliceSoft who did not want to license out Rance, a very important property to them, as their first venture into the western market. I can only speculate, but I imagine Propeller wants the Steam money, so that's why Pygmalion and Tokyo Babel were licensed instead of Evolimit. These decisions aren't made randomly. It's very likely that Evolimit simply wouldn't make as much money as those two. Regarding Oretsuba, MangaGamer has already commented on this. Like SKM, it's too long, and it also has a higher skill requirement for translation if they want to do a decent job. This is another title MG has claimed would not be profitable to translate in the current environment. Well, they said that a year or two ago, so maybe things have changed since then, but they aren't pulling our leg on this. This is what they truly believe, and they're probably right. Regarding Tsuriotsu, I don't know if anyone at MG has ever commented on that directly, but my understanding is that it's a title they actually do want to work on but there's stupid business nonsense holding it back. With regards to Otoboku it's a sequel, and sequels rarely perform well, especially when the predecessor was pretty much panned and bombed. Otoboku 2 is by all accounts a FAR better VN, but it's also a very big risk because of the first one being shit. It's very important to have the correct perspective on these things. MG wields a lot less power and influence than you think they do and they can only do so much. edit: Also, same with SP. But SP probably pushes the all-ages/Steam angle a lot more aggressively and ropes in everyone who wants to cash in on the Steam market that way. Also I like how you mention positively stuff like g-senjou no maou, which is an easy, already translated title instead of something new because Akabei Soft won't let SP pick a newer title yet, and Purple Software/Chrono Clock which is identical to the Propeller situation (nobody wants that game over Hapymaher), and also they got one of Yuzusoft's least-liked titles from seven years ago because it's the one that can go on Steam. SP is hardly pulling in the fan-favorites or making nothing but power moves like you make them out to be. They've made a few good moves, but so has MangaGamer IMO. You conveniently left out how MG just recently released a title in the renowned Liarsoft Steampunk series, or are going to release one of the most popular doujin titles ever soon with Himawari.

The RPG gameplay in VN hybrids is typically pretty bad. If I want to play an RPG, I'll play a good RPG.

Maybe because "interesting" is an extremely relative and subjective term? BTW, stories like Dies irae may not be common in english-translated VNs (although there are a few), they are extremely common in anime and manga.

Seriously, Dies irae's setting is really generic. So is Senshinkan's. If you'd vote for those, then you're being hypocritical as hell, ChaosRaven. Anyways, I voted for Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai. I will make no apologies for my tastes.

F

30% is a perfectly ordinary cut, the other digital distribution services take the same, and you used to see a way lower percentage of sales when selling physical copies on retail shelves. 30% is also roughly what you see for digital sales of other media.

You should definitely vote for Saihate no Ima if Senshinkan is your #1, because that's winning no matter what. Saihate, though...

Rewrite essentially has two protagonists, one for the true route and one for the rest of the game. The true route's protagonist is capable. The protagonist for the rest of the game is a bumbling idiot who lucks into the solutions. Make no mistake, these two are entirely different characters, and to say that Rewrite has a capable protagonist is pretty misleading, because you're only talking about a character that's there for a small portion of the game.

Well, you COULD control your party members somewhat in original P3 and FES, with the AI orders system. You'd get more orders for party members as you s-linked with them, or something like that. Obviously, from a gameplay standpoint I'd prefer direct control, but I dunno, I didn't mind the AI system in P3 much. The way it was integrated into the story, the s-link mechanic, and the way the AIs sort of matched the character personalities, all felt pretty novel to me. I mean, Direct control is ultimately better, but still. Also, the fatigue system was nerfed in FES and nerfed even further in P3P. It's practically a non-issue now.

I want Saihate no Ima more than the others. It's from the writer for Cross Channel (and Rewrite), and I'd like a romance/friendship story that isn't so straightforward, because I've been reading lots of straightforward drivel lately. I like the straightforward drivel, but I need something good to spice things up.

There are plenty of good kickstarter games out there. Such as, oh hey, look, another indie EVN, but actually good! https://vndb.org/v18850 Or a slew of cool mainstream games like the Shadowrun series, Faster Than Light, Undertale, Shovel Knight, Chivalry, Darkest Dungeon, among many others. 90% of all media is total shit. That includes Kickstarter games, but also non-kickstarter games. And VNs, of course! That still leaves plenty of good stuff for us to appreciate. Just don't write off every single KS game.

Well, I'm not going to write up a lengthy counterpoint right now, but my feelings are 1) You can do better with $10 than NOBY, MUCH better, 2) there are also better EVNs than NOBY, like everything from ebi-hime (I'm aware she wrote a route for NOBY), christina love, and many Hanako Games products, 3) If you don't want us to compare your product to Japanese VNs, don't make your product exactly like them. If your budget and talents don't match up to those of the JVN creators, then you'll inevitably create something that's just one of those but worse. Is this really something we should be supporting? edit: Twitter is bad for responding to criticism. Maybe I should have used Twitlonger, too. My response on Twitter.

The all-ages version has enhanced combat mechanics. I don't really know the specifics, but that seems to be one of the biggest reasons they chose it.

Fan translators aren't professionals, they aren't bound to any rules of professionalism. Again, Aselia was a fan project first.

About Fairytale Requiem, I really enjoy Ooishi Ryuuko's art but I think someone should have reined him(her?) in a little for this one, lol. Something like Valusia looks way better, in my opinion.

The real answer is that the translation team didn't want to do that content. JAST has no problem with lolicon or tentacle rape, or loli tentacle rape, so ignore that speculation. Aselia started as a fan translation patch. The fan translators also only did the all-ages version, because that's what they wanted to do. At the time, that version was the best version from a gameplay standpoint, and several members on the team also expressed dislike for the removed content, (mainly the evil route), so they didn't feel inclined to try to merge that 18+ content into the superior all-ages release. JAST picked up that fan translation, and they just didn't think it was worthwhile to hire additional help to translate the content the fan translators didn't want to, or to overcome the technical challenges involved in "merging" the two releases. Now, it seems like they're finally considering it. Maybe it's been long enough that everyone who has already played Aselia can consider replaying it after purchasing the 18+ content, however they're going to handle that. Don't even start this shit.

Time to make good friends with Cheat Engine.

You won't. I get the feeling that it's not really designed to be 100%ed. You get the routes for the one or two characters you like most, and that's generally good enough. Is there even any story hidden behind getting all of the routes? I don't think so.

He writes about the route system as if it's some novel idea. He admits it has some rough storylines, and the way the review is written looks like it's for VN noobs, so he's basically saying "If you don't care about the story and just want to click on options and see words come out, this game is for you!" Which, I suppose is an entirely accurate and fair assessment for those who are content with just that.

Yeah, I suppose Chinatsu's route had very few face-palmy moments. Ebi-hime wrote that route and she's alright. But I still disliked the overall amnesia story enough to dislike that route. Oh, sorry, I missed it. Multiple times. My bad! So, I guess I had some enjoyment in expressing how bad it was, but really, it's just a painful and tedious experience. I don't usually find much entertainment value in bad media anyways, though, so maybe I'm not the best equipped to make that kind of judgement call.

I kept myself in a relative vacuum as I played the game, since I didn't want outside factors influencing me. I just read that blog post of yours and your thoughts on Megumi's route pretty much echo my own (see my spoiler post a few posts up).