Fading Hearts

sanahtlig · December 4, 2010, 7:48pm

I just ran into this game while surfing around.

http://sakurariver.ca/main/fading-hearts

An English visual novel with seemingly good production values that I haven’t even heard of? And it was released a year ago?

RPGFan gave it a good review. It seems to play a bit like True Love. It’s made by a Canadian developer, but it’s clearly modeled after Japanese visual novels.

Has anyone here given it a try?

michelous · December 4, 2010, 8:13pm

here is the vndb
http://vndb.org/v2635
it say it is all ages

Ignosco · December 4, 2010, 8:16pm

I played the trial when it was first announced. The art seems to be the only good thing about it (and iirc, there weren’t any CGs in the trial, and just a small number of tachie) - with all the other components, perhaps the only positive, is that they’re not the worst thing I’ve seen someone try to charge money for in English? Maybe I’m wrong, and all the poorly presented, unrelated plot elements might come together convincingly in the endings, but I highly doubt it will, and I’m not about to pay to find out. The sim/RPG parts are also pretty awful.

On a related note, Shira Oka finally has a release date and price. Despite the lack of clear direction/trying to spread the budget over too many components, I’m still 99% sure it’ll be better, and more worth putting down money for than Fading Hearts.

LexarV · December 4, 2010, 8:59pm

Not really new, Nov 2009~ But, I did the same whaaat? when I found out about it at the start of this year.
You can read some comments about it :
http://visual-novels.net/vn/index.php?o … 9&Itemid=2

a review :
http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/Fading_Hearts/index.html
Oh, and here is the opening to the game :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFVCTdPBk0M
And the official trailer :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itgq5cKRlng

You can get a copy of the disc version here too :
http://www.hendane.com/shop/index.php?_ … roductId=8

I just bumped into this :

Still going on production for the next games. One long term one and two short term ones. Still actually too busy with just making sure the production side stays on track to make a debut trailer.

However what I can do is talk about how Fading Hearts was inspired.

During my time in Japan, I watched an Japanese Anime called Higurashi (When They Cry in North America.) I found the mystery part of it really interesting. Higurashi is interesting because of how the story was structured. It went back to an earlier point in time with the same characters and settings but had different outcomes. Also you started to understand that there were “rules” to how the story would play out.

So I thought about how the story had rules sounded like a game. Then I looked at the stories again and realized it really seemed like someone’s various play-throughs for a game. Then I thought about how cool it would be to be in a player in that game trying to figure out what’s going on while trying to survive. Then I thought it would be impossible due to the combinatorics of how much would need to be written.

I realized a way to make an interactive story that could be authored by one person. It even felt like a game to those who played. You can choose your goal. You can fight the flow and nature of the story and the story would fight back. Whichever had the stronger force would have it’s way.

That’s how Fading Hearts, a highly-player-influenced interactive narrative game, was inspired.

http://planet.renai.us/

It has a trial/demo too! I have been meaning to give it a go…

Lastly, I might suggest following these sites for most VN news so you won’t miss titles like these when they are released :
http://visual-novels.net/vn/
http://novelnews.net/
And the general news here :
http://forums.novelnews.net/forumdisplay.php?f=54

Those two usually get most of the titles… but they don’t usually include fan stuff, or retro console stuff… sometimes VNs will appear here :
http://www.romhacking.net/

I’m don’t know a good place to track fan made original titles… you can try here :
http://www.amaranthia.com/modules/oledr … ?cat_cid=4 (cute stuff)
Oh and after some searching just now, here is a site with many good links :
http://planet.renai.us/
I’m sure I can find a good news source somewhere after searching there.

I don’t know if they include many fan 18+ VN titles though…
If someone knows a good site for fan 18+ VN titles do tell

Lancer-X · December 4, 2010, 9:09pm

Good art, godawful plot and writing, little or no direction. Poor artist is totally wasted on this project.

papillon · December 4, 2010, 10:03pm

When it was very first announced, before the demo was taken off the net for a long time? If so, and you’re sufficiently bored, you might want to check it again - at one point (before I started selling it as an affiliate) the author got another writer (not me) to go over the text and help tune it up.

It still appears to be a love-it-or-hate-it game though. I have heard from more than one player who thought it was great and others who can’t stand it. If you wanted to like it but were frustrated, it might be worth trying, if you couldn’t stand it, you probably still can’t.

I believe there are extremely few CGs even in the full game. Like, less than five. But I’m not 100% sure. Certainly if that’s what you’re looking for, this isn’t the right place.

If you’re looking for experimental English games with nice art and a high CG count, have you tried the latest Other Age? (Which, like many such games, can be found through my website… ) Don’t expect a traditional VN or an epic plot, but there are some pretty pictures at least!

Ignosco · December 4, 2010, 11:01pm

papillon:

I played the trial when it was first announced.

When it was very first announced, before the demo was taken off the net for a long time? If so, and you’re sufficiently bored, you might want to check it again - at one point (before I started selling it as an affiliate) the author got another writer (not me) to go over the text and help tune it up.

It still appears to be a love-it-or-hate-it game though. I have heard from more than one player who thought it was great and others who can’t stand it. If you wanted to like it but were frustrated, it might be worth trying, if you couldn’t stand it, you probably still can’t.

I believe there are extremely few CGs even in the full game. Like, less than five. But I’m not 100% sure. Certainly if that’s what you’re looking for, this isn’t the right place.

If you’re looking for experimental English games with nice art and a high CG count, have you tried the latest Other Age? (Which, like many such games, can be found through my website… ) Don’t expect a traditional VN or an epic plot, but there are some pretty pictures at least!

Ah, I forgot that there was an earlier version (with a slightly different title?) that I read about on Lemmasoft. I played the trial of Fading Hearts that’s currently on the website. The art comment was mainly an observation - thinking about it, as the success or failure of Fatal Hearts will pretty much be solely based on the story, quality of the writing and the integration of it into the sim/RPG components, there probably wasn’t the need to put too much time/money into the art.

I haven’t heard of the Other Age series before. I’ll give the demo a shot now. [Edit: To offer my two cents, art’s very nice for something in this pricerange + there’s an abundance of it. However, if what I saw on the path for Zelan is any indication, there’s not a suitable amount of text to do any of the 10 heroines justice, and many of the endings feel very perfunctory, and just added to provide an outcome, not a satisfactory conclusion. It’s hard to say if it’s good or bad, as it only felt like I was only 10% of the way through when I reached what seemed to be Zelan’s good ending.]