Sakura series, wtf "Rant"

[Hayashi]

I think it's time for Winged Cloud (WC), company responsible for the Sakura series games to upright stop and kill themselves or shut down the company, anything would do as long as they would stop releasing trash. In my opinion, all WC did with the Sakura series was,

1) Profit

2) Coined false images of VN as "Fap games" "Plot less Power points" with their obvious plot less games.     

Yes, it is cool that they are bringing VNs to the west, but at the same time bad reputation were also brought over with their bad writing and tons of other stuff.

Thoughts? 

[Narcosis]

Arguably, their newest installment to the 'series' is actually a preety decent game. Discuss?

[Hayashi]

2 minutes ago, Narcosis said:

Arguably, their newest installment to the 'series' is actually a preety decent game. Discuss?

Highly doubt it tbh. I have had bad experiences with the series in the past.

[Dergonu]

Sakura Dungeon is definitely on a completely different level from their previous games. It is actually pretty decent. The fact that they are improving is a really good sign.

They still have several things they can do better, like making more diverse art, making more intriguing stories and characters etc.

There is no doubt that Winged Cloud has a long way to go, but after seeing their most recent game I have to say, my faith in them has been somewhat restored.

I look forward to seeing if they can keep on learning and improving as a company, or if this was their limit.

There is still hope.

[Narcosis]

My guess is they could propably improve on art diversity and certain designs and perhaps keep on making similiar games, which incorporate pure gameplay into the storyline. That, aside from actually writing something decent for once, because Sakura Dungeon isn't any better from their previous games, when it comes to the story; pure excuse for a game type, that is.

[wyldstrykr]

too bad they are not responsible to sakurakoi, one of the few sakura thay worth buying (maybe)

[littleshogun]

Speaking about Sakura Dungeon, I played it and I think it's not too bad if we look at the gameplaly, although the gameplay itself could became repetitive though (Well, usually this is common problem for RPG). But I think while the gameplay was fun, lack of attribute increase was made this game quite unrewarding for levelling your party other than your main (I mean usually in dungeon crawler you could see of how much your stat increase, while here you could only see your stat for level 1 or level 10 was same). Beside from the scroll item I could see that all party member could basically became clone of each other, except with different passive skill. The battle itself actually quite interesting, since here we had mana doubled duty as rate of how well you could hit or evade. As for capturing, well the monster was all girl and from the body it was all the same so it could get repetitive too. And for the engine, looks like Renpy wasn't suitable for this game because my Sakura Dungeon was run slowly (Although it could be my laptop though). But from there I could see of how Winged Cloud push Renpy engine limit. And for the story and character, it was very standard I think although the interaction between Ceri and Yomi was nice though. I think that's all for my comment about Sakura Dungeon.

[john 'mr. customer' smith]

https://twitter.com/wingedcloudvn

Why don't you go tell them that yourself and see if how they respond?

No offense, but all of this has been said enough times already.

People buy what they want, succesful companies make what people buy. Every content creator also wants to make something good, but in the end, money is what matters

All we can do about it is promote the stuff we think is good

[sanahtlig]

Winged Cloud hasn't responded to comments on Twitter for a year.  Contacting them there seems pretty useless.  Your best bet is to sponsor them on Patreon and connect with them there.  They only listen to money.

[Qrqe]

3 hours ago, john 'mr. customer' smith said:

https://twitter.com/wingedcloudvn

Why don't you go tell them that yourself and see if how they respond?

No offense, but all of this has been said enough times already.

People buy what they want, succesful companies make what people buy. Every content creator also wants to make something good, but in the end, money is what matters

All we can do about it is promote the stuff we think is good

Pretty much this. You guys are talking like they have some kind of holy mission or they "have" to show the greatness of visual novels to entire world etc. Its just a business, as long as they are making enough profit why would they care about the "bad reputation" or "having less plot" honestly.

[DarkZedge]

4 hours ago, Narcosis said:

Arguably, their newest installment to the 'series' is actually a preety decent game. Discuss?

It actually is, I was one of the first to say it'd be trash like the rest have been but ever since, I've actually played it and  enjoyed  the dungeon crawler gameplay.

I think that it is like @Dergonu said and they've improved, while they still have a lot of flaws to fix and things to improve we can't deny that they've gotten better with this latest instalment of their "series".

  

[john 'mr. customer' smith]

1 hour ago, sanahtlig said:

Winged Cloud hasn't responded to comments on Twitter for a year.  Contacting them there seems pretty useless.  Your best bet is to sponsor them on Patreon and connect with them there.  They only listen to money.

I know, I was being sarcastic, to be honest. 

I don't even think you'll be able to make much of a difference even on patreon. As long as shiny tits make money, they won't try anything very different from that.

As for the reputation of visual novels, I don't think there's anything we can do about the negative image. All we can hope to achieve is to make people aware that good VNs exists as well.

[Narcosis]

11 minutes ago, john 'mr. customer' smith said:

As for the reputation of visual novels, I don't think there's anything we can do about the negative image. All we can hope to achieve is to make people aware that good VNs exists as well.

Or make 'good' games ourselves; you either consume or produce, but it's your choice where and on what you want to spend your money. Spend it wisely and everyone benefits.

[VirginSmasher]

It's been confirmed since Sakura Spirit that Winged Cloud is a trash company in general so these threads are pretty pointless.

[john 'mr. customer' smith]

35 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

It's been confirmed since Sakura Spirit that Winged Cloud is a trash company in general so these threads are pretty pointless.

actually, a little while before that even

[VirginSmasher]

Just now, john 'mr. customer' smith said:

actually, a little while before that even

So they also made a shitty otome. Somewhere out there, the otome haters are laughing maniacally.

[Nekolover]

 Art diversity  and holy shit please stop using such a cookie archetypes.  How do I put this in perspective?   I play any other VN and it will be fun with the characters.  Yet they somehow overdue it and it just make me cringe in a bad way.  Like is fine that they are using archetypes but there a limit to it being overdue aka overkill.   The best comparison I can make is this other thing.  Seikon no qwaser is one the most perverted anime ever create and yet I love it. Yet I can't even get past episode 2 of queen blade.   Same thing here with them.  The lack of trying in the story is not the problem for me although that is a an issue. Is the overkill of the characters  archetypes that put me off.  I haven't play any of the games but watch gameplay of it.  This my impression of that. 

[solidbatman]

As long as the games make money, they'll keep pumping out the same sort of things. It is refreshing, however, to see them explore a new genre of game. I'm hoping to get my hands on the game soon to see how their formula translates to HRPG. Because after Sakura Santa, it really can't get much worse. 

[sanahtlig]

9 minutes ago, solidbatman said:

As long as the games make money, they'll keep pumping out the same sort of things. It is refreshing, however, to see them explore a new genre of game. I'm hoping to get my hands on the game soon to see how their formula translates to HRPG. Because after Sakura Santa, it really can't get much worse. 

Nutaku was eager to give me a review copy.  You can try them.  PM me if you need the e-mail address of the contact that provided me the review copy.  They did request however that I mention their store in the review.

[solidbatman]

18 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

Nutaku was eager to give me a review copy.  You can try them.  PM me if you need the e-mail address of the contact that provided me the review copy.  They did request however that I mention their store in the review.

I'll likely end up buying a copy down the road, and my slate is a bit full of back logged reviews atm. But thanks for the info  

[wolfrayet]

I would have to agree, the Sakura games are pretty cancerous. Especially given how the Western market is becoming more and more saturated with officially released VNs... it's just a deluge.

But hey, in the end they're not hurting anyone; just making money off of peoples' bad taste.

[monkeysrumble]

At least the Sakura series has embraced its true nature.

Fap material.

[sanahtlig]

So I was browsing Winged Cloud's Patreon page, since they broke my Sakura Dungeon uncensor patch link and I had to figure out a workaround, and I stumbled on some new info.

Two of their upcoming games include Sakura Adventure and Sakura Space.  I saw some preview CG for Sakura Adventure and some Patreon comments before my access was revoked and then reinstated (maybe this is content I wasn't supposed to see?).  I also saw a backer complain that Winged Cloud didn't even bother to announce Sakura Dungeon to backers when it went live on Nutaku (link).  Winged Cloud responded that they didn't have a dedicated PR person and therefore they weren't able to properly manage backer communication.

Sakura Adventure teaser CG

[andzalot55]

The Sakura series isn't bad. I have to agree with you that its not as fappable as other VN's but it's all about the "plot."