Aselia the Eternal official thread/FAQ

JAST Games Game Discussions
#41

The ero is important to me too. I’ll buy the game whether it has ero or doesn’t, just because it’s Eien no Aselia (I couldn’t say that for every game). But I’d REALLY rather have the Special Edition that has the ero + all the extras in the all-ages version. And I’m willing to pay extra for it.

But yes, JAST is clearly trying to reach out to new markets. Obviously their current market is the adult crowd, because they’ve never brought an all-ages game over. So of course there will be some resistance. Even Mangagamer, which has a small catalog of all-ages games now, has always brought over the 18+ version when it exists–and they claim based on sales that their fans are more of the story-oriented type.

#42

I’d tend to say this might be a confounding effect caused by their translation issues. Most of the ero-ero titles they have in their library were released with god-awful translations, and most of the titles with improved translations have been the more story-centric titles, since that’s largely what they’ve been releasing lately. So it seems to me that it isn’t necessarily that the story titles are doing better, but that more recent titles are doing better.

#43

To be honest, I’m not very keen on this game, even though I know almost nothing about it. First off, there’s the lack of ero, but that’s not the main issue. I just don’t like my visual novels with gameplay. Especially if they are RPGs, cause in my biased opinion Japanese RPGs are the worst. The storylines are okay, but the battle systems and character progression systems are ranging from silly and unbalanced to plain outrageous. I’ve yet to find a single Japanese RPG with a decent battle/leveling system. “I’m level 128 and I deal 56874 damage”. Yuck.

And then there’s the lack of ero. :stuck_out_tongue:

#44

Maybe, but it doesn’t make you as angry at those two Law Eternals that attacked Kaori’s friend whats-her-name as you should be (when I first played Eien no Aselia, killing them made that pain-in-the-ass final mission worth it for me). In general, the eroscenes are present to elevate the emotional weight of the story. The dark route works quite well to stress exactly what Yuuto is fighting against when he resists Motome. Honestly, the only H scenes I’d remove are probably Kaori’s and Tokimi’s, neither of which I found to be particularly appropriate or necessary.

#45

From an investor’s point of view, that would be a mistake though. With very few exceptions (Pokemon for example), the logistics and managing of two versions of the same game, results in greater profit loss than gain. It may seem simple, but it’s not… there’s more to it than having the same script. When you’re gonna make a gamble between the mainstream and hardcore, always go mainstream: the last decade of gaming has pretty much proven that to be true in all genre subsets. Catering strictly to the hardcore causes financial suffocation. The question is: will JAST gain more new interest, than losing old loyalists? Expanding markets is the key to business success. I’m hoping JAST has found a winner.

#46

There ARE a handful of exceptions to this. Atlus has finally started doing well with the Shin Megami Tensei series, which is hardcore. (The games are so steeped in old school hardcore design mechanics it’s just silly at times … Nocturne’s gameplay system was so unforgivingly hardcore that I eventually gave up.) Then there’s the Disgaea series, which is what prompted NIS to open up an American branch.

And then there’s Demon’s Souls, which went on to sell more than half a million copies.

But by and large, the hardcore crowd is a lot smaller than the casual crowd. And yes, that means that the hardcore get catered to less and less. I would really like to play more games like MegaMari, but it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.

#47

Nonetheless, Atlus and NIS were brought to the brink of financial ruin on both sides of the ocean. Hardcore are finicky… difficult to please… and don’t have the monetary reliability of the mainstream. Generally speaking, a C+ mainstream title will get the same profit return as the A+ hardcore.

Titles like Disgaea are also a niche game, within niche games. Harvest Moon and Rune Factory are better sellers these days. Predominantly because of lady gamers… but still… :expressionless:

#48

the jrpg market is dying in the west

#49

Tell me that after Pokemon rapes it again this March. Will easily sell more copies than Mass Effect and Dragon Age combined. :stuck_out_tongue:

To be fair, usrpg market NEVER took off in the east. Go figure.

EDIT
Of course Pokemon is a major exception, because not only does it always aim at the mainstream, but continously regenerates it’s fanbase. My neighbor’s kids don’t remember a thing about the RG carts from the GB days (not even born): their first exposure was DP on the DS. Of course hardcore RG fanbois curse the DPP gen (hell… even the RSE gen) for “ruining” their Pokemon… but it really doesn’t matter, because each new reiteration has a larger NEW fanbase. B&W is sure fire to do the same yet again.

Great marketing and demographic research team Nintendo put together for that series.

EDIT 2
Hmmm… sorry… seems I took the topic offline. If anyone wants to continue this topic about hardcore/mainstream, maybe we should make a new thread? :oops:

#50

This release is fairly pointless unless the PS2 version was released by a company like Atlus or Aksys. But I guess your company wouldn’t want to localize anything with loli, so I guess this is the only way to go…

#51

http://vndb.org/v74
Pretty good scores… also it says greater than 50 hours of gameplay…
I know it has multiple difficulty levels too, so that should take the burden (or add it) out of battles?

I like the opening, which version do I like best though hmm… :smiley:
PC version OP
PS2 version OP

This game needs to show up in Rightstuf under the games section…
I got into visual novels because Phantom of Inferno (all-ages), so this is another great one to hook fresh meat with! :stuck_out_tongue:

Plus the sequel looks real nice… (It doesn’t seem to have an all-ages version… hint, hint)
A menial 30$ investment, may help us more Xuse games…

#52

Yep, you’ll easily burn more than 50 hours if you want to clear all routes.

The first time you play, you have to play the easiest (default) difficulty. After you finish the game on this difficulty you can play it again on Hard, and after finishing on Hard you can play on Super Hard.

I don’t like it that much personally. Plot and characters are much weaker.

#53

I need banners to post on message boards. I started a thread on the NISA forums–they’re exactly the target audience you want to be hitting with a game like this.

#54

I dunno what you want in a banner… so I just did a quick sample thing:

#55

I don’t see it as a waste, since a lot more people will be playing this game than before. Orders of magnitudes of more people if you count only legitimate buyers…

Oh, and for anyone still wondering about XUSE’s translation, Shingo has graciously allowed me to post an excerpt of the raw, unedited text provided by XUSE:
http://novelnews.net/2011/01/31/jast-us … an-swords/

#56

Wow, that’s surprisingly good quality. It’s a bit stiff in a few parts, but it seems like XUSE actually hired a professional to prep the English script. (Which might explain why XUSE wanted Jast to use it … if I paid for a pro translation job I’d be irked if my partner firm junked it and went with a new one.)

#57

I must say, I’m quite pleased to hear this news. Both that they have found a new partner, as well as them expanding to more than just the all-ages games that were inherited. I think this is a really good way to possibly draw more people in to the adult side. Of course, there are some who are some who are completely against games with adult content, but for those who might be on the fence about such things, it is hard to ease them in to it with so few translated games for all-ages. I’m really hoping this does well enough that we see many more all-ages games.

#58

It’s a S-RPG, though, not a RPG.
As for being level 128, I think you’d have a hard time enough to be of maximum possible level if you’re not used to S-RPG to worry about the matter. But, yeah, whatever. The more I talk with “fans” on this board, the more tired I am with what reason they give soever to explain why they won’t be buying a game.

Well, it’s so recent I’m not sure It was brought on the discussion table… Probably not.

It’s what everyone on this board who played both versions have been saying, and the general consensus about everyone who played both versions as well, but you realized we’ve been preaching to deaf ears, don’t you?

#59

Well, looks like they got another preorder from me. Can’t really complain though as I haven’t been doing much importing lately and ??? will probably be next on that list. I am somewhat surprised they went with this particular title, but we can always hope that if it does well enough that we can see other high quality non ero games brought over.

#60

i will wait and see i gotta save my cash for koihime and MTG(magic the gathering)