Tokyo Babel Released!

[Suzu Fanatic]

Preordered it the day sales went live - it's taken all my willpower not to d/l the demo.

[Ainz]

So full game will be 15GB? That's some high resolutions/plenty of artwork.. Anyway I really enjoyed Ayakashibito(from the same writer) so hype is real..

[Darklord Rooke]

2 hours ago, Ainz said:

So full game will be 15GB? That's some high resolutions/plenty of artwork.. Anyway I really enjoyed Ayakashibito(from the same writer) so hype is real..

Apparently, that's the size of the installed game + the compressed file. The installed game is 9GB.

[ChaosRaven]

I hope it didn't get that size just because all the images are saved as uncompressed bitmap files and the sounds files in uncompressed WAV format.

Looking forward to the title though I'll keep my expectations within reasonable limits. Ratings are solid but nothing to rave about either, at least for a story title.

[Decay]

I played a bit of the demo until they got out of the school from the introductory segment, and a bit after that. It seems pretty good! Apparently the demo is quite large, encompassing a quarter of the game, including the common route and like half of a character route? Yeah, I'm not going to read all of that weeks before I'll be able to read the rest. It may give some of you a good chunk of the game to enjoy in the meantime, though. And to give you a solid head start if you plan on reading it day 1. I plan on reading root double first, though.

Things I liked about the parts I have played: Very high CG density. Lots of unique art for all of the action sequences. I'm guessing they front-loaded the CGs but still, it was pretty impressive. The CG gallery I glimpsed through to select this week's VNTS header image had something like 530 images, including minor variations. That's a super large amount for a non-h-game! (edit: to put this into perspective a bit, Tokyo Babel has about three times the art density that Comyu has, outside of its h-scenes.) Even outside of the CGs, they do cool things with the sprites, making it feel a bit more dynamic than most VNs. You're rarely just looking at a lineup of boring sprites for extended periods of time like most VNs.

I liked Sorami a whole lot. VNDB marks Setsuna as the protagonist who seems really boring, but I really enjoyed the Sorami POV scenes so I hope there's lots of those. Or if not, I hope Setsuna loosens up at some point.

[Clephas]

To be honest, it always surprised me that Propeller didn't port the game to Vita, 3DS, or any other console... Chuunige tend to sell well on console (Examples: Dies Irae, Kajiri Kamui Kagura, Steins;Gate, Senshinkan)... even better than on PC, in some cases because most companies tend to add something to them when they port them.  Tokyo Babel would have been a perfect candidate for such a transition, considering that there wouldn't have been a need to edit out/replace sexual content.  My friend said he couldn't figure it out either, though he guessed that it was probably at least in part because of how cost-averse Will has become in recent years due to the contraction/stagnation of the market over in Japan. 

 

[littleshogun]

I finished the demo yesterday and let's just said that I had fun. And speaking about seiyuu, I think they play in usual range, although Miyuki Sawashiro here using different voice here compared to Mint in Galaxy Angel or Dlanor in Umineko (Although sometimes she back to her usual range though). As for Raziel, I'd sometimes hear Mayuri (Steins Gate) voice from her.

Okay, for the demo, I'd remember that the prologue make fun of usual spriteless character in VN (Schoolgirl A comes to mind, especially Lil...., I mean Yuuri (Nice joke there by the way) scold Sorami for calling her schoolgirl A lol), and the prologue was Sorami was about going home with her sister like in any moege until something happen. Oh Sorami 'sister' turned out to be very slightly off and she was actually fallen angel named Gethel. After Gethel played with Sorami a little bit, then our MC (Setsuna) come to interrupt sisters bonding time and fighting Gethel. After MC defeat Gethel, Sorami got Gethel's eye before killed by Lilith. From there they go to Pandora together with Raziel, and doing sol thing and also prepared for the journey in there. And the demo ended when Setsuna fighting at 3rd stratum (The journey was like Setsuna and friend must go through 7 stratum to reach heaven in order to prevent apocalypse). I could only write a few here, since the demo was surprisingly long.

A little nitpick from me, why the purgatory must be modeled after Tokyo and why the settlement must be high school instead of said resort or something like office lol. Although I understand the trope called Tokyo is Center of Universe though (But I prefer to use the world as the model and modeled purgatory stratum after major city in the world though, if you ask my opinion) and for school thing, let's just said that I also understand that they probably thinking the target market was high school student, so it's normal that they made school setting I think (But I understand if some people want to complained about school setting though). Anyway, it's not like major flaw anyway, so it's fine.

@Rooke At least it's not 15 GB lol, but 9 GB was still big size though. Hopefully Mangagamer could also compress Tokyo Babel here too, since I'd know that Mangagamer managed to compress Kara no Shoujo 2 from 4.6 GB to 3.5 GB. And speaking about compression, according to one staff in Alice Room it's quite amazing that they managed to compress Haruka from 3.5 GB to only 1 GB imo. And back to the size, about the demo it's quite hard and long wait to me for download lol (At least in certain site I knew that I could just download each part which only around 200 MB, not 2.1 GB for one download. Just my nitpick here, okay).

@Clephas It's quite interesting that they didn't release this and Pygmalion to console though. I mean with all star seiyuu, I think it'll draw much attention from anime lover who had console, especially those 2 games had all star seiyuu cast (HanaKana and Kitamura Eri also back in Pygmalion). Although if the problem was budget, it's understandable maybe. But the budget issue might be true though, considering you said that Sougeki only had short playtime, the sprite copied (Or resembled character) from old propeller game (One review said that the teacher was resemble Soushichi (Ayakashibito's MC) from Ayakashibito), the BGM was recycled, and the engine was bugged. Even with those issue, I think the writer couldn't made good chuunige, since his portfolio was according to VNDB was only nukige or sonething like that. And sorry to bring your bad memory of Sougeki.

One last thing, I think the character dynamic in Tokyo Babel was good, and to Decay, I think Setsuna was like Yuuji from Grisaia franchise, only Setsuna came from ruined world that caused by war.

I think that's all for now.

[Clephas]

13 minutes ago, littleshogun said:

I finished the demo yesterday and let's just said that I had fun. And speaking about seiyuu, I think they play in usual range, although Miyuki Sawashiro here using different voice here compared to Mint in Galaxy Angel or Dlanor in Umineko (Although sometimes she back to her usual range though). As for Raziel, I'd sometimes hear Mayuri (Steins Gate) voice from her.

Okay, for the demo, I'd remember that the prologue make fun of usual spriteless character in VN (Schoolgirl A comes to mind, especially Lil...., I mean Yuuri (Nice joke there by the way) scold Sorami for calling her schoolgirl A lol), and the prologue was usual MC (Sorami) was about going home with her sister in any moege until something happen. Oh Sorami 'sister' turned out to be very slightly off and she was actually fallen angel named Gethel. After Gethel played with Sorami a little bit, then our MC come to interrupt sisters bonding time and fighting Gethel. After MC defeat Gethel, Sorami got Gethel's eye before killed by Lilith. From there they go to Pandora together with Raziel, and doing sol thing and also prepared for the journey in there. And the demo ended when Setsuna fighting at 3rd stratum (The journey was like Setsuna and friend must go through 7 stratum to reach heaven in order to prevent apocalypse). I could only write a few here, since the demo was surprisingly long.

A little nitpick from me, why the purgatory must be modeled after Tokyo and why the settlement must be highschool instead of said resort or something like office lol. Although I understand the trope called Tokyo is Center of Universe though (But I prefer to use the world as the model and modeled purgatory stratum after major city in the world though, if you ask my opinion) and for school thing, let's just said that I also understand that they probably thinking the target market was high school student, so it's normal that they made school setting I think (But I understand if some people want to complained about school setting though). Anyway, it's not like major flaw anyway, so it's fine.

@Rooke At least it's not 15 GB lol, but 9 GB was still big size though. Hopefully Mangagamer could also compress Tokyo Babel here too, since I'd know that Mangagamer managed to compress Kara no Shoujo 2 from 4.6 GB to 3.5 GB. And speaking about compression, according to one staff in Alice Room it's quite amazing that they managed to compress Haruka from 3.5 GB to only 1 GB imo. And back to the size, about the demo it's quite hard and long wait to me for download lol (At least in certain site I knew that I could just download each part which only around 200 MB, not 2.1 GB for one download. Just my nitpick here, okay).

@Clephas It's quite interesting that they didn't release this and Pygmalion to console though. I mean with all star seiyuu, I think it'll draw much attention from anime lover who had console, especially those 2 games had all star seiyuu cast (HanaKana and Kitamura Eri also back in Pygmalion). Although if the problem was budget, it's understandable maybe. But the budget issue might be true though, considering you said that Sougeki only had short playtime, the sprite copied (Or resembled character) from old propeller game (One review said that the teacher was resemble Soushichi from Ayakashibito), the BGM was recycled, and the engine was bugged. Even with those issue, I think the writer couldn't made good chuunige, since his portfolio was according to VNDB was only nukige or sonething like that. And sorry to bring your bad memory of Sougeki.

One last thing, I think the character dynamic in Tokyo Babel was good, and to Decay, I think Setsuna was like Yuuji from Grisaia franchise, only Setsuna came from ruined world that caused by war.

I think that's all for now.

Pygmalion was a bad memory too... the only good thing was the visuals.

[littleshogun]

1 hour ago, Clephas said:

Pygmalion was a bad memory too... the only good thing was the visuals.

About Pygmalion, I'm sorry to heard about that, but I think at least Pygmalion was more acceptable to VNDB and Erogamescape compared to Sougeki though. At least in Pygmalion I'd still saw some comment give around 70 score, while for Sougeki the highest was only 74 (That's only one score with 70 by the way) in EGS (For comparison, Pygmalion score was 70 while Sougeki score was only 40). And I think actually Pygmalion could be compared to Aoishiro in term of shortness imo if you commented that Pygmalion was short imo.

Since I'd remember you also talk about Pygmalion getting bugged, I think once again maybe Doddler better try to port Pygmalion to more stable engine like Unity in order to fix the bug. Although it was obviously after doddler already tried to fix all the bug in Pygmalion and it was still failed though. Either way, it'll be hard work to doddler, and the translation still at 51% at this moment anyway.

Well, enough about Pygmalion and Sougeki here, and let's wait for Tokyo Babel (11 days later). Looking forward to your review, @Clephas (Or I should said re-review, since I posted your review at VNDB here) even though your impression might change slightly though.

[littleshogun]

Okay, it's good Friday today and 6 days left before Tokyo Babel release, so in this post I'll bump this thread and post some seiyuu info that I left in previous post. The big seiyuu for anime fan was Suzuki Chihiro, Okamoto Nobuhiko, and Horichi Kenyu. Although the rest of the seiyuu still new or received less role, except for Yamamoto Kanehira here who got some casting as supportive role in VN. I think that's all for the seiyuu I could think of. And as for Clephas review, here's his review from his blog here (Although he should be the one who posted it here though, but oh well).

I think that's all for now and let's waiting for 6 days from today.

[littleshogun]

Another bump here, and this bump was to add another review of this game from none other than the translator himself, Conjueror. Here's his review. His score was good though, at 4 (Not 4/10 like solidbatman Little Busters, but 4/5). It's quite interesting that Clephas prefer Tokyo Babel and Conjueror prefer Ayakashibito, but from Clephas VNDB score and Conjueror score I'd said that they think both Ayakashibito and Tokyo Babel was good.

As for my take, I think I'd like to point that both of the review mentioned that there's some weak point in regard of romance, and also in regard of character development. In case you expected romance and character development in this game, I'd recommended to play game like Noble Works or Princess Evangile instead of this game. But if you like action, well look forward to this game, since Conjueror mentioned that 50% of Tokyo Babel was action scene. And speaking about weak in romance, funny enough that Conjueror and another reviewer here lamenting that there's no H-Scenes in Tokyo Babel that allow us to see how much the romance bloom between MC (Setsuna) and heroine.

I think that's all I could write at this moment, and it's only 3 days before Tokyo Babel finally released by Mangagamer.

[Darklord Rooke]

Not much hype surrounding Babel  

[LiquidShu]

30 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Not much hype surrounding Babel  

Well I was pretty hyped for it until I read the post above yours. I never expected Tokyo Babel to be strong in the romance department but hearing that it's that weak, plus 50 % of CG is action... eh. If I really wanted some action outside of meh vidya games, I have a boat load of martial arts movies, anime, and then the occasional Majikoi. If Tokyo Babel is anything like Ayakashibito then I'm sure I would enjoy it quite a lot. Even then though I skimmed through, maybe even skipped, a number of action CG's in Ayakashibito. 

[Mr Poltroon]

Yes. Rather unfortunate that I'm under the impression I shan't enjoy this when I do try it. Eventually.
...It's even got a sizeable demo for me to get a feel for. I really might just try it out.

[ChaosRaven]

A visual novel isn't exactly the best medium for action, simply because of the lack of 'motion'. It's still possible, but you have to be very good at it. From the titles I played, only MuvLuv Alternate and Fate/Stay Night managed to impress me with their action scenes. The bridge fight in Fate/Hollow Ataraxia in particular was breath taking.

But considering that even Ayakashibito had already too much action for my taste, I'm not really convinced that I will enjoy this. I'm therefore considering to await the overall reaction on the title first before I decide to buy it.

[littleshogun]

@LiquidShu Maybe I should sugatcoat my word about romance in my earlier post. Anyway, I think it's only Conjueror opinion though, so of course it may be different for each people. About recommendation, I'd wrote it based on Conjueror review alone, but I'd play the demo and I think it's true that Tokyo Babel will have many action scene (About 2 and half (Because the 3rd fight was cut in the middle) fights just from the demo). One more thing, I think it's not 50% of CG but I'd said 50% of the content was action scene (Which not neccessarily CG of course), and if you like Ayakashibito writing, maybe you'll enjoy Tokyo Babel writing because the writer were same people. Well, in the end the decision to play it or not was up to you anyway.

[Suzu Fanatic]

I shall not be dissuaded. I reserve judgement until I've read it myself.

 

 

Though the comments about reduced romance are concerning - I'll just have to believe.

[Eclipsed]

Full installed game will be 9GBs? Holy I will need to upgrade to a 128 GB SD card for my Tabby  

[Darklord Rooke]

I'm surprised the inclusion or exclusion of romance is such an important factor for people. 

[Eclipsed]

1 minute ago, Rooke said:

I'm surprised the inclusion or exclusion of romance is such an important factor for people. 

Just like how the inclusion or exclusion of H-scenes is such an important factor for people huh 

~~
As long as there's some romance, doesn't have to be the main focus, I will satisfy

[LiquidShu]

26 minutes ago, Rooke said:

I'm surprised the inclusion or exclusion of romance is such an important factor for people. 

For me there are better mediums for something action oriented. When I read a VN I typically go straight for romance, since that's what I want from them. Hell, I was even on the fence about readng Steins;Gate since I wasn't sure how much romance/flirtation there was. Figured I might as well watch it instead. I'm reading it now though but that's for a different topic. 

[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.

[LiquidShu]

10 minutes ago, Decay said:

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.

If it's an action oriented novel, or sometimes even manga, I would still enjoy them. It's just for VN's that's not what I want from them. I want the romance and the routes/my decisions to reflect not only the overall outcome of the story, but how the MC handles his/her romantic interests as well. 

[Suzu Fanatic]

3 hours ago, Rooke said:

I'm surprised the inclusion or exclusion of romance is such an important factor for people. 

Definately not a dealbreaker - a good story can stand on it's own, regardless. But I'll admit I have an affinlty that favors romance in alot of things I watch/read. Probably a subconcious effect of choosing a single life - I probably draw my source of "the feels" through other mediums (Not crazy or anything, I don't pretend I'm the mc or anything that weird). I'm content to just see a story's characters grow close and work through whatever trials are thrown at them.

 

But definately not a dealbreaker - I mostly enjoyed Ayakashibito's writing style, so I'm looking forward to what TB holds.

 

EDIT: my thoughts on what is/is not a better medium for action/etc: I grew up in a time that relied HEAVILY on books - sword fights, gunfire, martial arts - all of it had to stem from a writers ability, and my own imagination - so to say it should be through a animated medium to be well-expressed just seems silly.

 

god i feel old

[Formlose Gestalt]

13 hours ago, Rooke said:

Not much hype surrounding Babel  

Well I am pretty hyped about the title. It was the final push to create an account here. (Hi! btw.)

Since I plan to play it on release, I didn't even bother with the demo. 

Even with the reduced romances I think it's going to be an interesting and unique read.