A New Pulltop game officially coming out...but no JAST?

[HeadHunter]

@Nandemonai

Oh, it has nothing to do with hating anything. I happen to agree they’ve ruined their product, but it’s easy to do that without hating it. That’s a bit harsh.

I expect that there’s a reason Pulltop released Princess Waltz, years ago, in English - and nothing since. (Other than this soon-to-be-DOA release, I mean.) If they wanted to work with Jast again, they’d’ve inked some sort of deal by now. (It’s pretty clear they’re interested in English releases, after all, considering all the work it must have taken to, ah, ‘alter’ the game like that.) I wouldn’t be surprised if they never want to work with Jast again.

As for why they would try this? And then ignore everyone saying it’s a terrible idea? It smacks of desperation. They are making a bold ploy to try to get a lot of sales. Rather than picking something more modest, they went directly for one of their best titles. This avoids one common pitfall (releasing a crappy test project, then overgeneralizing when said crappy game bombs) but puts them at way too much risk of - well - doing exactly what they’re doing now. Compromising too far, abandoning their original audience, and not winning over the mainstream audience they were never going to get anyway.

But ultimately they’re doing this because they want the game to be successful. They want to try to move a lot of units, and they think (probably correctly) that continuing to sell to the eroge market will yield only small gains over time, and won’t hit whatever target number they’re aiming for. They’ve made a decision to ignore the naysayers and take the long shot. They’re not doing this because they hate their products and their customers, but because they see it as a better option than walking away.

Sometimes it works. If, once upon a time, Atlus USA hadn’t hacked “Persona: Revelations” to pieces (modifying the sprites, dubbing and translating it dreadfully, having to dummy out half the game), the RPG market would be very different. They wouldn’t have been able to barely eke out a living in the PS1 era, Disgaea likely never sees release outside of Japan. The ‘wacky JRPG market’ basically wouldn’t exist today.

But where Atlus USA eventually succeeded, Pulltop is probably going to fail.

Interesting, so in a way they pretty much trying to be cocky.
Since Atlus was mentioned, I would really wanted to see them and Aksys try to release actual non-AO titles on ps3/360, like Dunamis 15 or upcoming VN from Arc System Works and see how they do here, this would be I think a right way to do something like this.

[Lancer-X]

I hope they haven’t ruined it. Even with the changes made, if it’s still a good game at the end of all of this it’s only a good thing for it to see a release.

I definitely want this to be successful, but it’s kind of hard to see how some of these modifications are justified even from the ‘cast as wide a net as possible’ perspective. People young enough to be traumatised by a kiss scene aren’t really going to appreciate a romance story anyway.

If the story is damaged I will never forgive moenovel. I haven’t actually played this game so I can’t comment on how possible it would be to tear H scenes out of it without damaging it-- but I do hope they consulted with the original writers in doing this. I believe this is standard practice when e.g. porting eroges to consoles (where the ero is automatically verboten)*. Nobody ever had to censor a kiss scene for the console market though!

*on the other hand, console releases typically contain extra scenario to make up for the removed scenes, which automatically requires the original writers

EDIT:

Since Atlus was mentioned, I would really wanted to see them and Aksys try to release actual non-AO titles on ps3/360, like Dunamis 15

YES. Although I more want to see a PC port…

[Nandemonai]

@Lancer-X

If the story is damaged I will never forgive moenovel.

I agree. I would also be willing to bet they did. This is one of the reasons I am so pissed off at them.

[stromiv]

1. You plan to remove all sex scenes from the original game. Will they
   be replaced with any new content, or will they simply skip over the
   sexually explicit part without any other changes?

2. Yes, all sex scenes will be removed, and no new content wil be added. However, the game will still have a nice story, and the game will not have any awkward endings. Players who have not played the Japanese version of the game will be able to find the game interesting, and safe to play.

3. There are rumors that kissing scenes or certain aspects of them will
   be removed or altered as part of the sexual content removal. Will there
   be any changes to any of the kissing scenes (outside of those taking
   place during sex scenes which are obviously cut entirely) compared to
   the original game?

4. The kissing scenes will be altered so that it will not show any tongues or lips touching, but will show the back or side view of a couple kissing, as seen under the ‘demo’ section in the official homepage, link.

5. Similarly, there are rumors about sexual jokes being cut or toned down
   in order to fit the ESRB T rating. To which extent has the dialogue been
   modified to remove references to sex (apart from cutting out explicit
   sex scenes)?

6. The wording has been changed so that there are no sexual jokes. There are, however, minimal slapstick humor scenes left behind.

7. There are also explicit scenes and images in the original game that
   were not part of sex scenes, such as bathing scenes. What will happen to
   these scenes and images? Will they be removed? Will the images be
   modified to remove explicit parts?

8. Explicit scenes such as bathroom scenes will not show any obvious body parts, and will show characters in towels. Characters will also be covered by water in the bath. There will be no unnatural blocking of body parts, such as a blank-out of parts, or blocks covering body parts.

9. For some time, Play-Asia listed the non-physical version of the game
   as being distributed in the form of Steam codes, although this has since
   been reverted. Are there any concrete, direct plans (as in, accepted by
   Valve) to sell this game on Steam? If not, do you plan to try or have
   you tried to get the game on Steam?

10. No, we do not have plans to sell the game on Steam. We do not plan, nor did we try to get the game on Steam.

11. Will the game (physical and/or download version) have DRM? If so,
    what kind of DRM will be used?

12. The DRM of the download version will depend on the download platform/ website that you have purchased the game from.

13. There are rumors of the sexual content of the original game being
    re-added to the game as DLC, based on a registry entry named
    ‘SweetLovePatch’. Are there any plans to re-add the sexual content like
    this or to release an 18+ version of the game? If not, what is the story
    behind the ‘SweetLovePatch’ registry entry?

14. No, there are no plans to re-add sexual content. The ‘SweetLovePatch’ will left over from the original game. It was purely a mistake on our part and will not be included in the full version of the game.

15. The translation of the demo version has received a mixed response. To
    which extent, if at all, will the script be revised before the game’s
    release? Will you release an updated demo when the script has been
    completed?

16. There are no plans to revise the translation for the full game at the moment. A few parts might be altered in the full version but the script for the demo will not be updated.

17. MoeNovel seems to be a subsidiary of Will. To which extent were Will
    and/or Pulltop involved in the decision to release this title
    internationally and the decision to remove its sexual content?

18. It was decided by all departments to publish an all-ages version of the game.

19. To which extent were Will and/or Pulltop involved in the actual
    localization of the game (such as deciding which content to cut, how to
    alter certain content, etc.)?

20. The cut contents and the alteration of contents were both decided by Will and Pulltop.

21. A Twitter account has appeared with the name ‘MoeNovel’ but no
    profile picture. Is this (going to be) the official MoeNovel twitter, or
    did someone register the name before you were able to?

22. Yes, it will be the official twitter account. It is still being updated at the moment.

http://vndb.org/t4084#19

[sanahtlig]

I’ll just leave this here:

Stance on censorship: MoeNovel acknowledges that this is a censored release. The decision was made by the developers with the approval of all parties involved, and there are no plans for an 18+ release. No content was added to the Western release to replace the removed content. Furthermore, MoeNovel has stated they have no plans to release original all-ages titles in the West, which must mean that their goal is to make popular eroge more accessible to Westerners by removing the ero content.

Sexual humor will be removed.

These changes are based on new information from a fan that e-mailed customer support.
http://vndb.org/t4084#19

“Stance on censorship” was compiled in part using this information:

@MoeNovel

Although this strategy is deemed as disrespectful, we have no plans in
producing a visual novel in English without censorship at the moment.

@MoeNovel

We understand your concern regarding this matter, and through there are no current plans to release English versions of All-Ages games, the same might not be said for the furture.

[Nandemonai]

… so I was right. They ruined it. Stiff translation, gaping holes, removed a bunch of the humor. I guess it’s some small consolation that when I don’t buy it out of principle, nothing of value will be missed.

[fujifruit]

2. The kissing scenes will be altered so that it will not show any tongues or lips touching, but will show the back or side view of a couple kissing, as seen under the ‘demo’ section in the official homepage, link.

Go bankrupt, scum

[Nargrakhan]

Whoa… first I thought they only did some cosmetic surgery. Then I thought they merely gutted the game…

Holy Fucking Eroge Goddess… they brainwashed, gang raped, murdered, and tore this bitch’s soul out.

:shock: :evil:

@fujifruit

Go bankrupt, scum

I’ll drink to that. Moe Novel is everything I fear from a translation company.

I’m usually the guy who thinks, “something is better than nothing”… but even I can’t stomach the level of insanity this has taken.

JAST… MangaGamer… you need to take your kohai and teach her right from wrong before she dies before learning to walk…

[DarkFusion]

Can’t really cancel my preorder since I used paypal to pay for it (did not know about the censorship when I preordered), but I’ve managed to find the real version and fandisk bundle at a reasonable price so I guess the censored version could help if the Japanese gets too complex.

[Nandemonai]

@Nargrakhan

I’m usually the guy who thinks, “something is better than nothing”… but even I can’t stomach the level of insanity this has taken.

Like I said before about Atlus USA - sometimes you have to be willing to compromise, and being an implacable, unmoving zealot doesn’t work without an army of other zealots. Which we conspicuously lack. Hell, I bought a ton of Hirameki titles, shortly before they went POOF, because they’d gotten the message and started trying to find titles well-suited to their all-ages strategy.

But this is too much. If this works, then the winds will shift entirely in a very bad direction. So all I can do is boycott them and hope they fail hard and fast. That way the licenses can go to people who aren’t dingbats, and the Japanese licensors get burned as little as possible in the process.

Fortunately, if history is any guide, nowhere is exactly where they’re headed and they’re on a bullet train that way.

[fujifruit]

https://twitter.com/Moenovel/status/337023303455739905
mite b retarded

[Pirkaf]

@Nandemonai

But this is too much. If this works, then the winds will shift entirely in a very bad direction. So all I can do is boycott them and hope they fail hard and fast. That way the licenses can go to people who aren’t dingbats, and the Japanese licensors get burned as little as possible in the process.

I agree. But I think better strategy is to send them emails and to write on their Facebook page what we think about their censorship and editing. It worked several years ago when Mangagamer wanted to censor Soul Link. Many fans protested and the gave in. Fortunately. Otherwise Mangagamer titles might as well all haven been censored since then.

[Lipp]

Just got my shipping confirmation from Play-Asia,
FedEx says it’ll be delivered tomorrow.

[stromiv]

I guess we will see just how well this release turns out. I haven’t heard any recent news about the title, and it appears to not be in any outlet stores, so I don’t know what happened to their talk about those things. And we get to see just what type of reaction the general public who buys the VN will give the release once they play through it.

[Lipp]

@stromiv

I guess we will see just how well this release turns out. I haven’t heard any recent news about the title, and it appears to not be in any outlet stores, so I don’t know what happened to their talk about those things. And we get to see just what type of reaction the general public who buys the VN will give the release once they play through it.

If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s an interesting read:
http://projetsaya.fr/?page_id=308

The important parts:

Confirmation on Pulltop (Will) relationship:

Saya : Is Moenovel related to Pulltop or are you an independent company?
Fujisan : We are definitely closely related to Pulltop. I was actually influenced by the first Pulltop brand (Note : Will). MoeNovel is not an independent company and you can think of MoeNovel as being a member of the same corporate group as Pulltop.

Reason for cutting ero content explained + they actually went to the effort to rerecord any altered/new lines:

Saya : Why did you decided to cut off the ero content? Do you think it was not suited for the western market?
Fujisan : We decided that if we had sexual content it would not distribute (as easily).
The purpose of MoeNovel is to expand the presence of visual novels from Japan.
From our experience we understood that if we had the erotic content in the game we would be completely unable to deliver it to a wide and distant audience.
For the product to receive recognition, we thought it was important that we try to appeal to everyone. But because we cut the erotic content and replaced it with new content, parts of the novel were no longer consistent and so we had to fix and revise all of it. Of course we recorded new voices for those parts and made a higher degree of perfection for the visual novel.

Confirmation of future projects:

Saya : If If My Heart Had Wings is successful, what are your projects? And if it’s not, will you try to release other games?
Fujisan : If If My Heart Had Wings is a success and receives high recognition then we will make an effort to raise its popularity even more. In other words we will try to make the next project a success as well. Even if it isn’t a success we will do the same thing.
First of all, raising the awareness of visual novels is our first task, then we will release the next project and make an effort to make it a success.

Confirmation(?) that future titles may also cut ero:

Saya : Do you have anything to say to the western VN fans?
Fujisan : We released a version of If My Heart Had Wings without the sexual content but MoeNovel by no means thinks negatively about visual novels that have sexual content. In order to get a high degree of recognition for visual novels in the world we think that diversity is necessary. We, at MoeNovel, wish for the visual novel genre to expand worldwide. If this is realized we will be very happy.
We worked very hard to write If My Heart Had Wings and it has a wonderful story so please buy it!

[stromiv]

Yeah, I was reading that, and it didn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the title. Especially the part about future titles possibly cutting stuff out. Heck, their altering of stuff CAN possibly point out to this not leading to a similar experience that the Japanese version had. So while the Japanese version was good from their awards and rating, this Westernized version might not be that great. I will wait to see some customers reviews once they play it through all the way. Especially since they probably had to rewrite a whole new route for the girl that went from a sexfriend to a lover (I believe that is how one whole route was).

[michelous]

jast-usa does this all the time releases one game from a company then never releases another title
jast usa’s child companies used to do this more often now more or less jast usa does one game then never does another

[stromiv]

http://i.imgur.com/XsnmEhb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qT1TjHK.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/LDX9Ggj.jpg

[sanahtlig]

@michelous

jast-usa does this all the time releases one game from a company then never releases another title
jast usa’s child companies used to do this more often now more or less jast usa does one game then never does another

That’s because JAST has become fond of opportunistically snatching up fan translations in progress. I imagine it’s a lot cheaper than working on titles from scratch.

[stromiv]

And someone’s views on the whole debate that was going around the internet about what MoeNovel did: http://kakeracomplex.wordpress.com/2013 … el-reader/