Feeble ?? Attempt by western VN developer

[inthesky 10]

I own two VN created by western developer, that's not posted here called Fading Hearts By sakura river, and Shira oka - second chances by Okashi Studio.

 

Both of those devs already establish quite long time ago, okashi were built in 2005, i don't know about sakura river. The point is both of them only had 2 games each and they are very average.

 

these two are their first title.

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1. Okashi studio's Shira oka short review.

 

Played like dating sims, no skip function, you cannot get a good end or any end in the first try. You have RPG like stats that very very hard to increase. mostly you just stared at your room with very little face time with the girl.

Basically you just re-read mostly the same line over and over again with no skip already read function

there's inconsistence partial english voice.

it's so hard for most people to play so the devs had to created an easy setting patch.

the art work is .. well bad.

average story line, for a veteran eroge player

literally going to take hundreds of hour to complete it

the final verdict is .... it's a pretty bad VN.

 

notes:

my gripe is that, i don't know what their target demographic is. most veteran eroge player will always prefer some H scene especially in a romance based VN. if there no such thing, the story line had to be real good.

kids nowdays would prefer banging sound of console modern warfare 3 style. They won't ever spend hour's and ours of text reading with little excitement. most of them that like these type of game would prefer japanese one anyway.

plus there's no H-scene as a redeeming factor. in bad VN we at least could look forward to those scene.

 

2. Sakura River's Fading Hearts short review.

 

Uses renpy engine (not really relevant)

quite an interesting story line. (maybe boring for some people)

face time with the girl is also quite short, but not as short as shira oka

Kudos for the amazing artwork

simple RPG gameplay

no voice, no H

bgm is also good.

the final verdict is that this is quite a nice little vn.

 

notes:

it's not that bad, but it's not that good either. difficulty is also quite high, but not as high as shira oka. the RPG element are a lot like 'lighting warrior raidy' not the dungeon delving part, but the fighting part.

 

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my question is, why can't they go more mainstream, develop a VN with the tried and true formula of japanese eroge.

and what happen if they hit a big success, like type moon with tsukihime? will there be more and more western based eroge devs? will eroge got more publication into english speaking society?

will japanese devs will put english subtitle as a default option in every new eroge they produces?

maybe thats too optimistic, and maybe it changes nothing, guess we'll never know.

i just don't want them to go down.

 

there's other western title like bionic heart by tycoon games, but i don't played it, mostly all of them are under the radar. like those games you never know exist and founded in bargain bin.

how many of you guys got these?

 

oh and i think there's one reason why they don't put H-scene into the game. they are trying to establish that not all of these type of game are porn games. if only their story is as good as clannad.

[TheRealDeal911 10]

I agree, though it would take the west a while to get it right. Even if they re-use the formula that we all know and love. Plus it would be quite difficult to get it out there, especially with the H-scenes. I only lived in my home town in Scotland when i was 2 but im in Thailand now, so i have that to thank for getting me into this anime scene (Thailand has very little anime it was an otaku friend that introduced me) and it feels asthough it would have to be a truly remarkable VN to get the boost it needs in the west, and as much as i wish it will happen (Which i do, because i read books before, but these VNs/Eroges are much more enjoyable for me) it wont happen anytime soon. Ive never heard of a western eroge, which is really quite a feeble attempt if i say so.

Edited May 22, 2012 by TheRealDeal911

[ultimecea 22]

man..

then would you share???

[Ivan 163]

You mean... like "Katawa Shoujo"?..

[Kaskade 12]

I think typical dating sims and as far as western 'vn' developers will go.

[inthesky 10]

man..

then would you share???

 

you mean upload it? my internet upload speed only 30kb/s

[TheRealDeal911 10]

I thought that Katawa Shoujo was a thing made on 4-Chan, and they made themselves 4 leaf studios thanks to the logo. It went mainstream, (Still is i believe, its on the most looked at pictures on Knowyourmeme.com) Perhaps even more visual novels with a wider audience in mind might make it big in the west.

[killerinsidee 14]

I guess it's a gonna be a bit hard to find these VNs for some people. I found Fading Hearts, but I can't find the Parallel side story or what ever it is.

[inthesky 10]

Sakura River Interactive - Visual Novels

 

their artwork's amazing though,

 

then compared it to this one

 

Okashi Studios

[ultimecea 22]

Sakura River Interactive - Visual Novels

 

their artwork's amazing though,

 

then compared it to this one

 

Okashi Studios

 

i remember something like the links were removed and full game are no longer available...]

dint have any cash to pay for the game~

[Caelistas 12]

Shira Oka sucked ballzz

[Bane Doyle 10]

I guess it's a gonna be a bit hard to find these VNs for some people. I found Fading Hearts, but I can't find the Parallel side story or what ever it is.

They took that down from their site to "improve it" I believe. It's never been put back up.

 

These two examples are rather poor. There are many, MANY, more Western VNs out there, quite a few of them much better than the first you listed. The problem is that quite a few of the other suck and the western audience has a bit of an issue with this style of game. "Too much story, not enough action" and all that. They don't get very popular because of that unless they get lucky or work exceptionally hard (Christine Love and Analogue making it to Steam).

 

Thanks to the stigma of "you're just copying Japanese VNs", Western devs seem to be moving away from being similar to traditional eroge (for lack of a better term) in story and execution. At least in theory, you still have far more traditional ones like Katawa Shoujo. And, thanks to the lack of translated ones, there are a lot of otome games like Magical Diary: Horse Hall (mixed with a stat raising sim) or Re: Alistar++. Than you have more interesting ones like Digital: A Love Story, which is a very different execution all together.

 

Bane, your "you will play almost anything" is showing.

[encrypted12345 11]

Bane, your "you will play almost anything" is showing.

 

There, there. Someone has to take the fall then recommend the good ones to us.

 

Personally, I don't care what the premise is, it's the execution that matters. No use having a unique premise if you can't execute it decently. At the same time, if you have a familiar premise, you have to execute it pretty damn well. KS is an example of the latter disability aspect of it aside. I can't think of an example of the former in the Western VN development though that's because I barely dabble in them.

 

Katawa Shoujo did cause a weird eroge boom though. Usually people go from anime > eroge even with gateway VNs like Fate Stay Night or Kira Kira, but for many people lured in by KS, the progression is eroge > anime.

[killerinsidee 14]

>will japanese devs will put english subtitle

No.

>as a default option

Never.

>in every new eroge they produces?

Are you kidding me?

 

Actually, they already did it once - Go! Go! Nippon! ~My First Trip to Japan~

Doubt it will happen again though.

[inthesky 10]

>will japanese devs will put english subtitle

No.

>as a default option

Never.

>in every new eroge they produces?

Are you kidding me?

 

Yeah, what is that ?

since i don't own console and l like Dynasty warriors series, i was baffled when koei decide to release pc version only in japan.

doesn't it more profitable to have a worldwide release, since 90% (just guessing) people in the world understand or at least can read english.

even after piracy i think the number of people who buy the original will cover the cost of the translation. since DW 7 already had a english version on it's console counterpart, it would have been easier.

 

and about those english subtitle.

honestly i don't know how hard is it to translate a VN along with the images, but i think the benefit it will bring would very much cover the cost of hiring an english translator and a image editor right?

it'll render translation people like mangagamer moot though but that's beside the point.

mangagamer can survive on translation alone, that means the japanese devs will certainly bring more money in from english audience.

 

well my point is, doesn't it benefit them to have a default english translation ?

[Bane Doyle 10]

The only examples I can think of for simultaneous language releases are GGN! (which was NOT released in Japan, as it was made purely for the American audience as a kind of teachinf tool), the re-release for Ace Attorney in Japanese for the DS, and Koenchu! (which is made by a Japanese armature group in conjunction with people in the OELVN community after an initial release in Japanese).

 

Granted, the later is a very special case as it also has English voice acting (that ranged from very good to meh, not unlike the Giniro example I suppose), was published by the developers, and has Spanish, German, AND Italian options for the demo.

 

I don't think they will ever release simultaneous languages in any release unless the circumstances are special.

 

So, uh, Giniro... is the voice acting any good?

[Bane Doyle 10]

So... it's a mix of Lux-Pain (written script not matching spoken dialogue, but decent acting) and Casual Romance Club (Japanese VAs, but with hopefully better voice acting)?

 

That's... interesting. I'd be up for listening to that actually, just to see how it places