Nanaboshi Kanata is a student who has been traumatized by love. He is lying down in front of the Shiratori Academy gates in protest of it being torn down. The weather forecast is sunny with a chance of UFOs. This is the day he comes into contact with the Guide for Galactic Lovers. One small step for man, one giant leap for the plot. His classmate Yamada turns out to be an alien. UFOs start raining down from the sky. On top of all that, the Galactic Empire is demanding him to fall in love.
When he returns home, he finds that the sofa of his living room has been occupied by the Chancellor-Elect. One thing happens after another, and Kanata finds himself the target of the President of the Galactic Empire’s affection! “Analysis of both routes complete. Rate of success with either party is immeasurable.” When the impossible becomes possible, Kanata and the heroines engage in the Fourth Loveduction.
14 comments
i guess it can work sometimes if the characters/interactions are well written, thinking kokoro connect for example, but usually it seems like a clear indication that everything in the story is designed just as half heartedly as the introduction.
I mean just look at the Trails series. For china and Korea they get day one releases but for english companies they won't give the scripts and stuff to until the game is released because they don't trust the integrity of english translation companies to not leak their stuff etc.
There's also essentially no bar to limit entry into the "industry". If you can draw anime lewds, or pay someone to draw something, you can write some nonsense shit and pair it with anime girls, and bam. You've got a VN.
I just can't wrap my head around it.
i'm also wondering if these companies underestimate the range and viability of the higher tier vns. Steins gate for example seems to have been a huge hit in the west as well.
But yeah if the less complex stuff sells, why go there?
As for the game on this page, it wants to be a comedy with sex scenes, which is common for eroge. However, fans of eroge are interested in what they can get out of the game, same as you. But you want a complex story with death and mystery and such, while most eroge fans want a fun story that reads smoothly. Steins Gate actually has worse pacing than a lot of eroge, and it asks a lot of the reader to stay focused. Many slow scenes, lots of world-building and lots of characters, all who develop at their own rates. Eroge such as this game will hook you and keep you reading until it's complete, if it's the game you're after,
I think it's important for the community here to remember that visual novels are a very, very expansive medium. There are so many ways visual novels can entertain people, and none of those ways are wrong, or bad. I personally love both Love-Duction and Steins;Gate. But I always find it frustrating when the community, here or on any website, wish that all visual novels were the same. Anyway, sorry for the long post, thanks for reading, and have a nice day!
yeah i mean of course you are mostly right, this is not my genere / i am not the target audience / there are people with a lot more tolerance for this kind of entertainment... But i feel like that is not the core of my issue with this. I don't hate on an entire genre (just naming isekai for example as 90% of that is terrible), i dislike these vns that are just so absolutely lazy. I mean it's fine if you want to do an erotic comedy, but is it too much to ask that you think about a scenario or situation that makes it a little unique? I feel these people do not have the goal of making something that is funny or erotic. They want to make something with as little effort as possible. Jokes you have heard a thousand times over, Story progression that just happens (like an algorithm wrote this), and some almost decent art that does not cost too much. It's so incredibly lazy. It feels so... depressed.
I mean look at imouto paradise or the recently uploaded dark elf sister game, at least here you feel that somebody took a day to think about how to make this hot, or funny. Like somebody liked thinking about how to build tension. Most of these games feel like the people making them asked themselves only "how to make money of people we think of very poorly, without breaking a sweat?".
To be honest, it probably comes down to something we don't think about on websites like this, the price tag. The visual novel industry was never a real economic powerhouse, and it's always been a little shaky. Probably, most people who work in visual novels/eroge are there because they have passion for the medium. It might be easier to make money as a writer with paper novels, even. So a lot of eroge developers aren't working with a lot of money, and most of them could be considered indie companies at that. They have to keep costs low, especially since releasing a game every 2 or 3 years is what you'd expect to need, to stay afloat.
So, for a lot of devs, it comes down to what's practical money-wise. One 4,000 yen game every two years? Four 1,000 yen games every year? It all comes down to questions like this. That's why art is sometimes rushed, or cheaper looking. Stories don't have as much time for rewrites, editors are too busy/expensive, etc. And these questions are applicable for translation companies as well. In my previous message, I mentioned that lots of goofier stories like this one "read smoother." It has a side-effect, it's easier to translate.
The eroge industy isn't lazy the way EA and Ubisoft can be called lazy. In fact, EA and Ubisoft employees work way too hard, and it's usually the upper management's errors that result in lower-quality games. With the eroge industy, if you find these games "depressing" or lame, it's probably because they're not rolling in money or time. It's far from lazy or condescending, it's closer to desperate and inexperienced. If you find games like this sloppy or unenjoyable, nothing wrong with feeling that way, but this industry doesn't have corporate bastards like most of the video game industry does, so try to take it easier on them. Many aspiring creators would be scared to enter the world of visual novels, so they have my respect at least.
Anyway, not trying to contradict anyone, just sharing my thoughts. Have a nice night.
thank you for your reply. It certainly made me think about this a bit differently.
i can see a company trying to survive on producing cheaper titles faster, while aiming for smoother translations. Those companies probably do not deserve my criticism, even though their games still might.
I have trouble imagining people with passion working on many of these titles, although maybe it’s not passion but experience and skill they are lacking more. I think real passion would reveal itself at least somewhat, even on a budget.
Anyways even if i don’t think the scenario you describe holds true to that extent for most companies, it still made me see this in a different light. thanks!
Anyways, as someone who has seen the utterly massive amount of fate level quality or muv luv level quality vn's that are exclusively in Japanese I can say clearly that there is obviously a profit motive and a general distrust for why their stuff doesn't get translated.
It does seem that the english VN market is getting worse (and lazier) over time. It just fucking sucks, it's like you either spend thousands of hours learning Japanese/Kanji or suck it up and play localized trash.
thank you for your reply. It certainly made me think about this a bit differently.
i can see a company trying to survive on producing cheaper titles faster, while aiming for smoother translations. Those companies probably do not deserve my criticism, even though their games still might.
I have trouble imagining people with passion working on many of these titles, although maybe it's not passion but experience and skill they are lacking more. I think real passion would reveal itself at least somewhat, even on a budget.
Anyways even if i don't think the scenario you describe holds true to that extent for most companies, it still made me see this in a different light. thanks!