this is my first post i think - so hello to everybody!
Well, i got a windfall of $400 from a rent mix-up recently, and i didn’t know what to do with all this random extra money, so i went online to find something new. I’m a big manga fan, so looked around for something interesting, stumbled onto a page about h-games, and on a whim i bought just over $300 worth in one shablam, mostly based off of Hentaineko’s reviews, but what i thought looked interesting too. So I got:
- JAST 3 set: Season of Sakura, 3 Sisters, something else - Horny Bunnies 1 & 2 - Kango Shichyozo 1 - Chain - Creshendo - Desire - Casual Romance Club - Fairy Nights & Legend of Fairies - Brave Soul - Critical Point
Seems like a lot for $320. Anyway, any suggestions what i should play first as a good introduction to h-gaming? or what’s the best order to go in for these?
After I’ve gone thru them, I’ll give you my thoughts about them. I just thought I’d let someone know what I did who could appreciate it, since everyone here seems to be pretty big fans. I can say most of my friends here weren’t very impressed.
You could have given the money to me you know. Meanie… Don’t even think about your bestest friend in the whole world… :sniffs:
The JAST collection or Kango Shicyauzo would be good starters. I haven’t played some of the other ones you got like the Fairy series or Casual Romance Club.
It depends on how you want to play them, my personal recommendation is to start with one of the best. So this list is in order of best to ones that are very good but not as rich in story, and includes all but the two I have not played. I also separated the three games on the JAST CD for the sake of the list.
Also three others not on your list I highly recommend you someday pick up Kana ~Little Sister~, Private Nurse and the Milky House Collection which has the excellent game Nocturnal Illusions on it’s disc.
As to your list Crescendo is perhaps one of the best games out there, along with Kana so if you want to start with one of the best that is a good place to start.
- Crescendo - Seasons of Sakura - Kango Shichyozo 1 - Brave Soul yet just so you know as an RPG it will take longer then the other games to play through for each ending. - Casual Romance Club - Chain - Critical Point - Three Sisters Story - Runaway City - Do You Like Horny Bunnies 1 & 2
For the most part, as said, this list is done in order of personal favorites and also is in part a list that sort of goes by rich storyline and plot though good but not as rich storyline. Which is obviously true for Do You Like Horny Bunnies 1 & 2, good games but not a deep storyline.
Most of the others have a lot more story to them, and if you asked me again, the only slight change might be the adding of those you did not buy to the list with Kana sharing a top spot with Crescendo.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-09-2004).]
What to play first for a good introduction… I recommend the Jast Memorial Collection to start out with. Nice set of good games. Then maybe Critical Point if you feel like plot, or Crescendo for romance story. The rest is up to you.
Enjoy!
[This message has been edited by Benoit (edited 07-09-2004).]
As SCDawg-san mentions, it really dependent on how you want to play them or at least why. Are you looking for story? Are you concentrating on the art style and iamges? Just the novelty of it? Purely for the sexual stimulation?
Personally, I pretty much agree that starting out with Crescendo and Season of Sakura is a safe thing. Both give you a taste of the potential within these games as well as offering different art styles for you to try and see what you like.
Conversely, if you want to focus on the sexual aspects, it might be better to do it in reverse order, since the two Bunnies and Runaway City tend to focus on those aspects and offer a bit of variety in the interactions.
If you want to see some variety in gameplay, most are multi-path games except for the two Fairy games and Chain. Brave Soul of course plays like an RPG. Desire and Casual Romance Club both offer something slightly different than the standard multiple-choice pathing.
So you have a number of options on how you want to go about it. The main thing is to see what you like and don’t like and later, if you want some further recommendations based on your experiences, we can probably help narrow it down quite a bit.
I actually did a lot of research before I made my purchase, so it wasn’t entirely on a whim. Private Nurse and Milky House collection didn’t get so high ratings from a lot of the sites I went to. Also, re: Private Nurse I sort of wanted to span the field and I already had 1 kango game, so I didn’t want to get another.
I was quite close to getting Kana … some people said the story was a little too coincidental. Maybe, I didn’t get it because I wasn’t prepared to get so depressed since the almost universal opinion was that you’d have a lump in your throat thru most of the game. But after reading around some more, there’s enough people talking about it that I’d really like to get it. It has the benefit of giving some integrity (if that’s the right word) to the genre so that I can point to it when anyone starts to wonder why I’m getting into B-games. Anyway, it’s definately high on my list of what to get next.
I also want to get another one no one mentioned, Divi-dead, because I like the mystery/suspense genre and things that are a little deep and dark (but not sicko dark), and that one seems to have it.
And then maybe a 3D game, Des Blood 4 if there’s enough story to it. I can justify getting a fully Japanese game and struggle thru it with my decent nihongo if it’s actually a game where I can move around, etc. Maybe Sexy Beach 2 if it’s really as fun as some people insist, but i’ve heard really mixed things about it and don’t know what to trust.
Also, Tokimeki Check in seems to get pretty rave reviews so that’s high on my list too. It seems good to balance the sadder/darker b-games with some of the lighter/funner ones.
You should have did yourself a big favor and snagged Eve burst error, dividead, adam, and desire. Theya re getting harder to find, and are some of the best b-games translated to date.
I don’t mean to double post, but 2 people just jumped in as i wrote my last post. Got your message, thanks.
as I said, i’m sort of into the darkish mystery/suspense, so Chain is looking good, and reminds me to look into Eve Burst Error, is it really worth not having the hentai?
damn, you guys are posting faster than humping rabbits…
Anyway, i’ve already got Desire (its as if people just missed that on my list). As for Eve B.E. and Dividead i just said i really want to get them, but I’ve heard mostly bad things about Adam. Do you think it’s really that good?
Tokimeki Check in! is another that I can highly recommend. As to the Milky House Collection , I can kind of see where people are coming from with that, but personally Nocturnal Illusions ranks among my top five favorite games keeping in mind Kana and Crescendo share the top spot.
Private Nurse is a different style then most of the other games out there in English, I have heard many ways to describe it but to me it is sort of like a foreign film, it is wonderfully done in a style that is not often seen or mainstreamed, and slightly misunderstood as a result or that is my impression.
Yes Kana will leave you in tears, I have not heard of a single person that has played it who has not broken down as the game goes on, but that is one of the reasons it is such an excellent game, the wonderful story that helps make it one of best games on the market.
Others just mentioned one I keep forgetting because it does not have sex scenes in it, but Eve Burst Error is also an excellent and recommended game done in such a way that playing it through and not looking for where they cut the scenes out nothing was noticed, it was seamless, if you look I am sure you will notice something, but just enjoying the game I did not notice them gone.
Adam is worth getting as a follow up to Eve Burst Error but it is not as good as Eve Burst Error in my opinion. Also it left me wanting the conclusion more then Eve Burst Error left me wanting Adam. Oh the conclusion is one that is likely to never come with the company that brought them over no longer bringing games over.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 07-09-2004).]
quote:Originally posted by Keido to Ido: Anyway, i've already got Desire (its as if people just missed that on my list). As for Eve B.E. and Dividead i just said i really want to get them, but I've heard mostly bad things about Adam. Do you think it's really that good?
Most everybody has said pretty much everything about all of the games, so I won't add too much, except to say I pretty much agree with everybody's opinions. The only thing that I would add is that I don't personally think too highly of Divi-dead... it does have a complex story (actually, a little too complex... it's very difficult to follow what's going on, and a lot of it is pretty obscure, even after you have finished the game and several endings), and there is certainly mystery in it, but in my opinion it is not nearly on par with games like Chain or Eve: burst error. If I were going to spend the money on another game, I would recommend going for Kana, depressing or not, simply because Kana is a better story, has better graphics, better music, and is a much more solid game. But, bear in mind, that's just an opinion.
quote:Originally posted by Keido to Ido: - Fairy Nights & Legend of Fairies
Unfortunately, these two titles (I refuse to call them games) suck by pretty much any method of reckoning. I gave them away for free because I couldn't justify charging for them.
The 'story' is pretty bad. It's chock full of cliches and totally unoriginal.
The 'characters' aren't, really. They're all pretty much cliches too and they don't really do anything surprising.
And, just in case you're thinking 'at least there are sex scenes, right'? - there aren't, really. I mean, technically they exist, but not really. It's hard to describe; you'll see.
There isn't any gameplay either. They're wholly linear novel-type games.
I'm tired, so I'm not saying this in the most eloquent way - but honestly you could have saved some money by posting the list of games you were considering first ^^
well, hentaineko gave fairy nights & LoFairy’s both 10’s, so i can be forgiven for thinking they wouldn’t be so bad. And I’m into fantasy/supernatural stuff, dragons and fairies and such, so I thought it couldn’t hurt … Anyway, both of them together only cost maybe $20 out of the $320, so it’s not really a big deal. And it’s not like there’s tons of gameplay in most of the ADV games, maybe you get to make a choice every 20 minutes which has little to nothing to do with what to expect - it’s not linear, but it’s not exactly free-form. If the story sucks, well, so be it. I’ll decide that after i’ve played it. I think HNeko rated it so high just because it was something different. Well, we’ll see.
All together, though, i’m actually pretty happy with what i picked. Except for the Fairy’s series and maybe the Bunnies series, no one here has really said i made any bad choices … and i probably couldn’t have resisted getting a game called Do You Like Horny Bunnies? no matter what. And as for the Fairy series, it was so cheap in comparison to the other games and I like fantasy stuff so much that it might not have made a difference either. At any rate, I didn’t know about this board before picking, and everyone on Otakufridge more or less referred me to HNeko’s ratings, so that’s what I went with. shrugs
Anyway, all of this seems so personal. There are a few titles that people either love or they can’t stand, particularly Dividead, Fairy’s series, Desire, even Kana are some i’ve seen up and down on the scale.
What gets me is that, I just spent $50 getting the new Theif game, and its gameplay and graphics were pretty top-notch. It’s on the unreal engine, so it’s 3d, you have dynamic lighting, real time shadows, rag doll physics, etc. And to go from that to essentially a $50 slide-show took me aback for a second. At first I thought that was an introduction thing and i once i figured out the whole game was like that I literally whispered to myself oh, you have got to be fcking kidding me*. Anyway, it got better as the story got on, and it’s always good to practice my japanese… i’m just wondering where all that money is going; i can’t imagine their development is that expensive.
i’ll get back to you on what i think of specific games when i’m done. gotta work now.
quote:well, hentaineko gave fairy nights & LoFairy's both 10's, so i can be forgiven for thinking they wouldn't be so bad.
Hentai Neko's reviews are strange. I mean, they gave those games a 10, and gave True Love (an excellent out-of-print dating sim) a 6! I mean WHAT THE HELL? So what if it's long... The other reviews are alright, but still a bit strange. I find the reviews on Animetric to be better representive of the quality: http://www.animetric.com/bgames.html
quote:and everyone on Otakufridge more or less referred me to HNeko's ratings, so that's what I went with. *shrugs*
Well... DUH. Otakufridge seem to be more or less Hentai Neko's domain, at least their hentai and bishoujo game boards.
quote:What gets me is that, I just spent $50 getting the new Theif game, and its gameplay and graphics were pretty top-notch. It's on the unreal engine, so it's 3d, you have dynamic lighting, real time shadows, rag doll physics, etc. And to go from that to essentially a $50 slide-show took me aback for a second. At first I thought that was an introduction thing and i once i figured out the whole game was like that I literally whispered to myself *oh, you have got to be f*cking kidding me*.
...And? You can't really compare those games. One is just about shooting things while gazing at the graphics (might not be entirely accurate), and the other spends time telling you a story, with graphics that are mostly DRAWN. Drawn, not pre-rendered. They take much talent. Talent for drawing, and talent for thinking out the story, and then making a complex engine, supporting the multi-paths.
quote:Anyway, it got better as the story got on, and it's always good to practice my japanese... i'm just wondering where all that money is going; i can't imagine their development is that expensive.
The longer you roam these boards, the more you understand how much work actually goes into these titles.
Let's see, you have to pay: -the scenario writers -the character designers -the game designers -the producers -the drawers -the voice actors -the programmers -the debugging and beta-testing crew -the advertising -the packaging -the pressing of CDs -the printing of the manuals
And we're not even out of Japan, yet! A lot of work goes into these games when they are licensed for translation. They have to be translated. The engine has to be altered to allow regular characters instead of Japanese. The game has to be edited with the translation, making sure there are no sudden line breaks too. The game has to be beta-tested, debugged, the graphics get uncensored by the Japanese companies for us. Then the manuals have to be printed, the boxes made, the CDs pressed.
The end result is the game you hold in your hands. That's not all either. Part of the reason why these games are $50 is because the industry is still small, and they're being pirated on a not so small scale, all over the net. Underage people, people who have low morals, people who just want to get freebies, etc. Want to get more insight into these low-life? Look for the thread "Ignorance about bishoujo games". There's been a huge debate about this on another board.
That's all. Sorry for my aggressive tone in the post. Got a bit carried away there, and this issue's being a little too high in my head in the past. ^_^;
Right… I was confused as to why I paid so much money for Casual Romance Club compared to all of my other games until I found out about that and realized that CRC was actually a Japanese game coming out of Japan–hence, I was paying Japanese prices. I’m kinda glad I only have to pay $50 a pop to support my habbit
yeah, i maybe exaggerated my point about the quality/price ratio. First, i remember living in Japan and paying $1.50 for a half sized coke.
Actually, I didn’t mean to suggest that the quality was even an issue at all - the wording I used was misleading in that respect. Most of the images are drawn really, really well, you can tell a lot of time and care went into the style, etc. - and i love hentai, so on that front it was just what I was looking for. I have no doubt that the money is worth that kind of time and effort, and I can totally appreciate that.
I think i was expecting a bit more interactivity and innovation for a video game, which is a different point. I remember reading an article about video games as a new art form, and how most new art forms sometimes take time to develop their own strengths as they build off their artistic predecessors. So, e.g., photography was originally held to the standards of painting, and mimicked the norms of painting until it developed its unique strenghs of being able to capture in-the-world images. And cinema was held to the norms of photography and theatre when it first developed, until it developed its unique strenghts of having a edited narrative thread. In a way a lot of video games’ unique strength is the combination of interactivity and a narrative thread. But too many vacillate from having too little narrative thread - they don’t tell a story, your basic shoot’em games - or too little interactivity - like pre-set movies where you just choose which scene comes next, but it’s difficult to find the balance.
Every once and a while a game gets it, maybe Theif 1 or Deus Ex 1 IMO, although opinions differ. But usually it takes the right conditions for them to do it, they have to be in an innovative atmosphere. You say the H industry is pretty small, but the Himeya site had what looked like 100s of these games. Certainly the ones that get translated into English are quite a small sample, so I’m perfectly willing to accept that my opinions are unjustified. But most of the one’s i saw were listed ADV. I’m curious why there isn’t more variety or more of a push for more interactivity. Seems to be a bit of a cookie cutter syndrome; they aren’t willing to take too many chances and they stick to a formula around since the early 1990s because it works.
Well, all of this is just a first impression. I’m quite enjoying myself with the stories of these games, so I can’t complain. In fact, this isn’t even meant as a critique per se. It may just be a matter of taste. And I find all of y’alls comments to my last post totally persuasive. Like I suggested above, I totally retract my statement on where the money is going and any suggestion that the quality isn’t worth it. Both the stories and artwork have been fantastic so far. No complaints there at all.
For what they are, they are very well made products and very enjoyable. I’m just thinking about the potential and wondering if there are some h games out there that are going out of their way to push the boundaries of that potential, particularly in adding more interactivity. Since I haven’t played enough of them to really form a concrete opinion on this issue, I’ll just leave it as a tentative first impression and allow myself to be pleasantly surprized.
Actually, come to think of it, I really haven’t played enough to even say what I’ve said so far. I’ve been working too much to finish a game. So for now I’m just going to retract everything I’ve said until I can form a better opinion about what I think. Ha! That should leave me immune to criticism! But I’m still curious if you guys have thoughts on these issues. I haven’t read that other thread someone mentioned so maybe I’m being redundant. If so, sorry.
Nah… I was a little surprised when I played my first translated bishoujo game… it was actually pretty linear, with no alternate endings and no real choices to make, so I just kind of went through the story, and wondered why they called it a “game.” But there are a lot of different types of bishoujo games, some of which haven’t been translated. For a good example of a pretty interactive game, you have Brave Soul, I believe. Also, a lot of your games have multiple endings, so the decisions that you make will affect the story that you get. Crescendo is an example of that kind. And some, like Chain, you just have to enjoy the story… fortunately (in my opinion), Chain is a damn good story. So, in short, it just depends on the game…
Any game or animation that features reasonable amount of female power will score a good review regardless of acutal gameplay. It’s a bad mistake to choose games based on Neko reviews unless you share the same interest in “female power” as the web mistress. Scroll through some of the hentai anime reviews and you’ll see what I mean.
