That’s sad… kinda sad. 
Is the cause of the rushed game= “high development costs”, “extremely tight schedules” and so on? So, you’re basically saying that this “Extra disc” is something of an addon to flesh out the game? And though it does a decent job, it’s just not as good as many hoped it to be? No offense but isn’t that kinda of a rip-off? Charging people extra for more in order to deliver a decent game?
Man, now i’m hoping that JAST will … nvm. =P
This is nothing new for BCyc though. MinDeaD BlooD was released incomplete - though not as glaringly obvious - hence the fan disc being released mere months after the parent title, with so much vocal and artwork content (a pity the DVD remake didn’t incorporate it back). Gun-Katana, according to the developer extras after getting 100% clear, was supposed to have three more levels and/or more unique boss fights (a pity there’s no fan disc to incorporate it back). Yami no Koe Ibun Hasumi has waaaaay too many loose strings, for it to be a true complete story.
Magic-8-Ball says, “Signs point to yes” 
That really and truly sucks. Won’t doing all that alienate their fan base? Qn time, Narg-sensei: Why do they release an incomplete game? It kinda confuses me a little since they want people to buy their games, don’t they?
Bad, bad… bad developers! :evil: Now, I’m less… enthusiastic about their games 'cos who the hell wants to play an incomplete localized game. ><;;
Btw, I noticed that 1 of the Yami no Koe games had yaoi content. Anyone want to tell me how they managed to get people to play without freaking out big time? That’s 'cos I doubt many of the male eroge players enjoy yaoi.
All games have deadlines. Not all games are finished by the deadline. In fact, most games are NOT finished by deadline. Doesn’t matter if it’s BCyc or Electronic Arts. Sometimes the investors paying for the game production, will force an early deadline, by cutting funding and ordering the game to be released. In rare circumstances, a game not finished by the deadline, will get extended. In equally rare circumstances, the game will be finished by the new deadline.
Sadly, that’s how the game industry operates. Customer approval is always desired of course; but executive decision overrules that. A game does not have to be 100% complete, to gain huge profit. That has sadly been proven over and over again.
Bah… right, that kinda sucks. =/
But somewhat understandable. You need to earn a % of $$ in order to pump back $$ into the company so they can afford seiyuu, artists and so on. And if I was an investor, I’d want to recoup some money too.
Yet, not entirely understandable. =P 'Cos don’t the fans just simply “tolerate” the issues until one day, they get fed up and take it out at the company/other companies unlucky enough to be ?
Also, I suspect that most of the management are probably people who don’t play eroge but invest only, in order to gain profits. Probably the ones who see the market in terms of shares, percentages, profits and so on and who don’t understand that making a series of “cost-cutting decisions” can backfire very very badly. From the little that I know about consumers, when they get angry at a company… they often don’t “know” the reasons why so they’ll blame something else in the game… like “style of art used”, “type of gameplay”, “writing ability” and so on. =P It doesn’t have to make sense 'cos anger is often blind: just that as long as there’s a venue for their anger, it works.
I blame investors like these for ruining the industry, not by a single decision but through a multitude of decisions that eventually build up into severe customer dissatisfaction and bad reputation for an industry.
Game Developer: I want to make the very best, like nothing ever was.
Game Investor: To cut costs is my real test, to profit is my cause.
Game Publisher: I’ll manufacture all ero, take them far and wide.
Game Retailers: Hottest ones that sell real well, and stock lots of inside.
Game Buyers: Eroge!!! (Gotta Buy 'em)
It’s you and me, I know it’s my destiny.
Eroge!
Ooh, you’re my best friend, in a world otaku defend.
Eroge! (Gotta Buy 'em)
Our hearts so true, our moe will pull us through.
You please me and I’ll buy you,
Eroge!
Gotta buy 'em, gotta buy 'em all!
Say… what?! :lol:
(Not really sure what you’re trying to say?)
I recently played Yami no Koe 3, their last release prior to MinDead, and wow… wasn’t expecting Black Cyc to have made something (much) worse than Mushi Tsukai, but somehow they did. It’s ridiculously short for a full price eroge (3107 voice files, probably under 4000 lines of text all up as in usual Yami no Koe fashion, every line is dialogue and in 3 only the sub-characters are unvoiced. The game does play longer than that, because of the poor system design, but really the amount of text in it is on par with a 2000 yen eroge), concept’s silly, execution is pretty terrible, and above all it’s incredibly ‘light’ for a title that needs to be dark in order to work.
It’s been a while since I’ve looked at it, but I think the original MinDead was only really missing the evil route found in the fandisc. I don’t think it needs to have sub-character routes, and if they’d trimmed back some of the excess CGs/ero from the main game, and replaced them with the evil route, then maybe they could have squeezed it all into the original release, without requiring more CGs/text. The other thing I’d take into account when assessing if something been released ‘unfinished’ is the length/amount of content it has - MinDead isn’t a short eroge by any means, and in terms of the quality and quantity of material, at the very least it’s well above average in all respects. On the other hand, Yami no Koe 3 is complete but there’s so little to it…
I have far more problems with them rereleasing the DVD version of MinDead (for full price - normally any re-release of a title, even with added content is discounted) and adding very little additional content, outside of full voicing, to offset that.
Just playing around with an eroge industry theme song, sung by the right chorus.
Original theme is one of the epic Pokemon songs: Gotta Catch 'Em All
EDIT
Technically, until MinDead, BCyc was considered a “low tier” eroge maker, so it’s excusable.
No one was expecting something like MinDead from them… really got attention. This was followed by that other Yami no Koe dud, so then we got the assumption MinDeaD was a one shot deal… until the chain of Mugen Kairou, Gore Screaming Show, EXTRAVAGANZA, and Gun-Katana made it seem like they could do no wrong. Then there was that thing that caused their studio to split, and we got some rather lukewarm titles, till Mugen Kairou 2 popped up (because some of the leaving members came back). Cthulhu should have been awesome - it had the potential to be awesome - but we didn’t get awesome… and now their 2010 catalog is over.
It’s for cash cows like me. Mooooooooooooooo!
I did like the yandere route for the twincest in the expansion disc: perfect reason why you should always aim for both. :mrgreen:
What I think Black Cyc should do to recover is make something like Hateshinaku Aoi- Japanese horror in a country setting looks to be back in style of late and Gore Screaming Show was basically that sort of thing anyway. They wouldn’t need Hiro or Izumi for this either- Kusaka Matsuri could do it (although he’s not with Cyc any more, so maybe not)
At least it wasn’t quite as disgusting as this:
http://www.getchu.com/soft.phtml?id=36102
http://www.getchu.com/soft.phtml?id=172101
Narg: Sorry, don’t really care for pokemon. =P
Black Cyc split? Seriously? Meh… this sucks. 
So, this means their games lack meat 'cos part of the team involved in making their games great aren’t around anymore.
Soo… besides Cyc, who else makes “dark games” best?
That would depend what you mean by dark. For example, I think ruf has a pretty good lineup of dark games, with the Rasen Kairou series as well as things like Witches of Salem, Dorei Shijou and others. They aren’t exactly gurotastic like Black Cyc, but if you’re looking for the crucial combination of ‘gurotastic’ and ‘actually good’ there’s not many alternatives.
Nitro+ is where it seems you’ll get a universal agreement, good thing JAST made a deal with them
Does Nitro+ really make dark games? Muramasa, Vjedogonia and Saya are one thing, but I never really associated that image with them. Nitro+ is Phantom and Hello World to me!
Well… split is probably too harsh. Some guys who were somewhat considered as “exclusive” artists and writers the studio commissioned, suddenly became independent and created a doujin studio that made Corpse Maid. For a while, BCyc was experimenting with different presentations of of dark eroge, while Corpse Maid followed the “MinDead/EXTRAVAGANZA” type thing. A bit later they were back with BCyc hiring them.
Could have just been a period, where they took a break and recharged their batteries: though their sudden departure, immediate work an eroge, and return back doesn’t exactly seem like it. Either way… Mugen Kairou 2 and even Cthulhu, show the company still has the creativity… just that they’re not on a roll.
As the others mention: depends what kind of “dark” we’re talking about. Draculius from meromero cute is a dark eroge, but so is Devils Devel Concept from Akatsuki Work, Tsukihime from Type Moon, Sabae no Ou from Lost Script, and of course MinDeaD BlooD from Black Cyc. The way they handle “dark content” is as varied as they handle vampires.
One can like all of them (I do) - and some may only like one or two of them.
BCyc has become known for taking violent sex and over-the-top tentacle rape, making it a central selling point for the title, but still provide a solid supernatural scenario, so that there’s more to talk about than the sex. They’re also known for making games overboard challenging for a 100% complete, and contracting Death Neko music for their “big budget titles” (Denkishiki Karen Ongaku Shuudan, who is really Y?sei Teikoku).
Oh, KeroQ is a good maker of dark eroge - their titles generally aren’t that overtly ‘dark’ but they fit the bill pretty much perfectly.
It’s probably easier to name individual games than companies, as (I think at least), the quality of dark eroges seems to vary a lot more than light eroges - Banya Izumi for example wrote MinDead Blood and EXTRAVAGANZA but has also worked on some truly awful ‘dark’ games for Dieselmine and Morning Star. There are certain writers (and maybe even certain companies) who have worked on nothing but good eroges, but they’re mostly on the lighter side.
Oh Giga… I’d forgotten about that example.
Well, I’d say Innocent Grey makes dark games. And really good dark games, too.
I wonder which Cthulhu game coming out in August will be better the fan disk, or this game:
