Favorite Bishoujo Game (Revisited)

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Since the question was raised, but degenerated into another topic, I thought I’d raise the question again, just to get some ideas from some long-time players (I think that I’m relatively new to the genre).

I like plot-driven games (apparently with a little mystery to them); two of my favorites have been Chain: the Lost Footsteps, and Eve: Burst Error (although, I wasn’t as fond of the sequel). Brave Soul actually captured my attention (although I gather that it is fairly unique in the genre), and occasionally, I like a dating sim (although, I sometimes feel like I’m playing the same game over and over again without any real variation–which was why I was suprised that I liked Brave Soul so much, since it’s really a glorified dating sim in a lot of ways).

I’ve got all of about 18 games in my collection (with three more on the way), and I’m looking for ideas on what might be interesting, and where to go to look for them.

#2

Brave Soul seems good for me, is there going to be Brave Soul 2? If there is can you give me a link to check it out and comment to the creators? I have some good ideas for the game, for example you should be able to unlock all the characters (have all 8 or whatever number there is in your team) as one of the special things you do when you beat the game. Also they should let you control the fuck and make more options. Anyone have an email address or something so i can contact them? Last but not least what kind of game is Giniro? You choose decisions in a little text like Stepmother’s Sin, adventure like Brave Soul, or a game where you control fucks like for example Biko3 stalker sim which isn’t made by Peach Princess?

#3

I don’t really have a favorite. I enjoy(ed) the three that I have now equally, which are True Love (still has to come to my house, but I did play it), Princess Maker 2, and Brave Soul.

#4
quote:
Originally posted by Sakamoto:
Well I still like Giniro (by Nekoneko) the best by far (but it's long out of print). It was machine translated into English, but it was just an awesome game in my opinion. I like the story as much as any of my all-time top favorite anime (maybe more). It had great background music of which I bought a CD of. And like I said before, I never turned off the background music while playing it because the music added so much to the atmosphere of the game and I never grew tired of it.

As far as regular English commercially produced games though I can't really say because I'm way behind in my game playing and I haven't played many games compared to many of you. But I ordered a few games last week. Right now my favorite English commercially produced game is Kana, but maybe that'll change in the next few weeks. Maybe.

[This message has been edited by Sakamoto (edited 06-15-2004).]

Giniro sounds like it might have been interesting--too bad it's out of print. I like a good story-driven game.

I've got Kana: Little Sister, which I consider good, with three exceptions. First, it's a real downer--I get real bummed by the time I finish the game, even on a good ending. Second, I've only played it through a few times because the text speed is s-l-o-w, and there's no way to speed it up past a certain point. So after a while of watching the same conversations and monologues go by, I start getting anxious for the ending. Lastly, if I recall correctly, there's not a lot of extemperanious CG's to unlock (although I could be mis-remembering this, since I've had a computer crash since the last time I played Kana, and haven't reloaded the game and *sigh* played through it all over again to unlock all of the endings).

#5
quote:
Originally posted by sdfadsa:
Brave Soul seems good for me, is there going to be Brave Soul 2? If there is can you give me a link to check it out and comment to the creators? I have some good ideas for the game, for example you should be able to unlock all the characters (have all 8 or whatever number there is in your team) as one of the special things you do when you beat the game. Also they should let you control the fuck and make more options. Anyone have an email address or something so i can contact them? Last but not least what kind of game is Giniro? You choose decisions in a little text like Stepmother's Sin, adventure like Brave Soul, or a game where you control fucks like for example Biko3 stalker sim which isn't made by Peach Princess?

I don't know if there will ever be a Brave Soul 2, but I believe that the odds of another RPG style bishoujo game being produced pretty much hinge on the success of Brave Soul. It took four times the work of a standard bishoujo game to produce (and, hence, more money), so they will have to show a lot of profit in order to consider doing another project of that scope.

As far as contacting the makers of the game... I'm not entirely sure, but if you're here, you're pretty much in the right ballpark, since you're dealing with the American distributors. Try asking Peach Princess for more information.

#6
quote:
Originally posted by Benoit:
I don't really have a favorite. I enjoy(ed) the three that I have now equally, which are True Love (still has to come to my house, but I did play it), Princess Maker 2, and Brave Soul.

I don't think I've heard of either True Love or Princess Maker 2. Heh... the only problem with games that have a number after them is that I always have to go find the original. I have the same problem with anime [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img] True Love -sounds- like it's a dating sim... just a guess from the title. I usually order my games through a distributor which has a fair selection of games from a number of manufacturers, but I'm sure that what they carry is limited (after all, I haven't seen True Love or Princess Maker 2 on their list).

#7

You’re correct, Wolfson, True Love is a dating sim.
It’s been out of print for years now. However, thanks to the help of Baldo, a fellow board member here, we’ve managed to locate copies of the game at an Italian site. But, there was a problem; they didn’t ship outside of Italy. But since I got a friend who lives in Italy, I’ve managed to buy 5 copies of the game (they were even the last ones! o_O), and get one for my own, and the four others I sold with no profit to fellow board members here (SCDawg, fxho, Noirbo and Laslow).
There seem to still be some copies at www.consoleland.it, but the site is very expensive. For example, True Love costed 10 Euro at the previous site, while at consoleland it costs 51 Euro (!).

Princess Maker 2 is a game that never saw an official English release. However, there’s an English beta version floating around the Internet, which is pretty much complete.
To know why it wasn’t released, you can check the thread I made about it to find some links.
I have the beta version, and in an attempt to have the game legally, I bought the Japanese Sega Saturn version. It’s not 100% legal, but at least I tried.

And if you think I’m a moderate fan of these games for knowing this, well, you’re wrong. I’m still quite new, just like you.

#8
quote:
Originally posted by Benoit:
And if you think I'm a moderate fan of these games for knowing this, well, you're wrong. I'm still quite new, just like you. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/tongue.gif[/img]

Heh... Still, it seems like you've been going about getting into this the long/hard way [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/rolleyes.gif[/img] I was just cruising around the site where I order my anime from and was in the "adult" section, and saw an area labeled "games." "Games?" I thought. So I looked at the write-ups on their listing,
picked one at random (I think it was Desire), and gave it a try.

I haven't even gotten to the point of hunting around the internet for lost and out-of-print bishoujo, or unique things like that. And my Japanese is bad enough that I'm not going to try ordering straight from Japan at this point (besides, my circumstances are bad enough that I don't think I could aford it at this point :P ).

So... compared to some of you guys, I feel pretty mundane: I just go to the catalogue, pick out a game, and buy it...

#9

I never really hunted for these games.
A friend of mine talked about Princess Maker 2 on more than one occasion, so I tried it out.
My brother had found True Love one day, in the period that I was looking for a dating sim of sorts. I had tried Tokimeki Memorial, but I can’t read Japanese, and no translation exists. But I wanted a game just like that. True Love was exactly what I was looking for.

It’s not hard to find these games, they are often there with their pirated fellows. Most of us here actually began our bishoujo experience by pirating the games. Then we got to know the industry and became loyal, legal fans. People who get to know these games through other means are pretty rare.

#10
quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
Heh... Still, it seems like you've been going about getting into this the long/hard way [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/rolleyes.gif[/img] I was just cruising around the site where I order my anime from and was in the "adult" section, and saw an area labeled "games." "Games?" I thought. So I looked at the write-ups on their listing,
picked one at random (I think it was Desire), and gave it a try.

I haven't even gotten to the point of hunting around the internet for lost and out-of-print bishoujo, or unique things like that. And my Japanese is bad enough that I'm not going to try ordering straight from Japan at this point (besides, my circumstances are bad enough that I don't think I could aford it at this point :P ).

So... compared to some of you guys, I feel pretty mundane: I just go to the catalogue, pick out a game, and buy it...

Come ... join us, you'll like it. It's fun!

I don't speak Japanese that well, either. But I am now attempting to learn it, because at the rate the market is expanding ... we may, eventually, see most of the big-name titles - but that will be a long time from now; the current Japanese big names may not be viable projects then.

#11

Gin Iro was mentioned; I own a copy, but have not played it yet. (That’s true for a LOT of things, really …) I have heard it’s really good but quite tragic, like Kana. Be warned that tracking it down will be … difficult, if possible.

Same goes for Casual Romance Club. Own it, never played it, it’s out of print, people rave about it.

There is Kanon. It’s got a partial translation patch (54% complete, I think, with the last released patch) but you have to own the game.

Other than that, I recommend (roughly in order) Snow Drop, Private Nurse, Tokimeki Checkin!, and Critical Point.

#12
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Come ... join us, you'll like it. It's fun!

I don't speak Japanese that well, either. But I am now attempting to learn it, because at the rate the market is expanding ... we may, eventually, see most of the big-name titles - but that will be a long time from now; the current Japanese big names may not be viable projects then.

It seems like it would be a broader market to choose from--but I'm afraid that I'd lose a lot of my interest in the game if I couldn't understand 90% of what was going on [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/frown.gif[/img]

For the time being, I think it's going to be a race to see which happens first--the American market expands, or I master a great deal more Japanese (unlike some of the people whose posts I've read, I haven't taken any classes, and am trying to learn by the self-taught method).

Also, I saw a post that quoted a price for a Japanese version of a game at about $300--a little out of my price range at the moment, although that may have been an exception, and not the rule.

#13
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Gin Iro was mentioned; I own a copy, but have not played it yet. (That's true for a LOT of things, really ...) I have heard it's really good but quite tragic, like Kana. Be warned that tracking it down will be ... difficult, if possible.

Same goes for Casual Romance Club. Own it, never played it, it's out of print, people rave about it.

There is Kanon. It's got a partial translation patch (54% complete, I think, with the last released patch) but you have to own the game.

Other than that, I recommend (roughly in order) Snow Drop, Private Nurse, Tokimeki Checkin!, and Critical Point.

As I mentioned somewhere before, a lot of story-driven bishoujo is dark--I was surprised when I played my first game and major characters started getting killed [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/eek.gif[/img]

I'm surprised to hear that Casual Romance Club is out of print--I only recently got my copy of the game... maybe only a couple of months ago. I wouldn't rave about it, though. For the price I paid, I thought it was pretty mediocre fare, although getting all of the CG's for all of the girls is pretty challenging (I still haven't done it). They bill it as a "bilingual" game, but the vocals are incomplete in both languages, and the English vocals are very badly read by the same Japanese woman for all of the characters. And I was disappointed that they didn't even bother to do the courtesy of "graphical emotions" for the speaking characters (you know... where they put an expression on the face and/or change body language to give an impression of the speaker's intent).

Someone mentioned Kanon on another thread, but I've never heard of it, so I don't know what I'd be in for... I'm also not sure if I want to go the route of fansub patches--aparently the jury is still out on them. How good -are- the translations, anyway, and is it worth buying a game and only having 54% of it translated?

I just got my copy of Tokimeki Check In, and am starting to pick my way through it. For a dating sim, it looks pretty promising (that was another problem with Casual Romance Club--it actually got pretty repetitive after a while). I may look into Critical Point as a future purchase, since that was a plot that had piqued my interest a little bit before. I've seen some screen shots of Snow Drop, and I'm not sure I really like the graphics (maybe that's a cheesy thing to rate a game on, but -I- do it anyway [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/tongue.gif[/img] ). I hadn't really considered Private Nurse too seriously before--the blurb that I read on the game led me to believe that it wasn't a dating sim, and the plot didn't sound too interesting otherwise... at least from what I recall.

#14
quote:
Originally posted by Sakamoto:
I don't mean to go off-topic here, but do you find sad stories to be tough-going?

Probably. I also don't have a lot of time available. (I have plenty of unplayed video games and unwatch anime to attest to that.)

#15

Casual Romance Club out of print? Since when?
People rave about it? Where? You sure you aren’t talking about True Love?

Kanon is not 54% but 57% translated, and personally I would wait for it to be fully translated and bug-free before buying it. The general opinion is that it’s a great game.

#16
quote:
Originally posted by Sakamoto:
I don't mean to go off-topic here, but do you find sad stories to be tough-going?

Heh... It's not -entirely- off-topic, since we're talking about favorite bishoujo, and you're just generalizing. A sad (or grim, as the case may be) story can keep my interest, as long as the plot is gripping enough. Or--in the case of Kana--hoping against hope that they wouldn't -actually- let her die [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/frown.gif[/img] But most of the first good bishoujo that I played, plot-wise, killed off a lot of the characters, or had psychopathic killers running around committing murders to add to the mystery of things.

#17
quote:
Originally posted by Benoit:
Casual Romance Club out of print? Since when?
People rave about it? Where? You sure you aren't talking about True Love?

Heh... Okay... That's kind of what I thought, so maybe I was right to be confused by the statement. But then again, a lot of the dating sims are pretty generic except for quality. Well, okay, I take that back... there's usually some kind of plot hook that differentiates them in some way. but don't get me wrong... I like playing them, and I'm already enjoying Tokimeki Check In.

quote:
Originally posted by Benoit:
Kanon is not 54% but 57% translated, and personally I would wait for it to be fully translated and bug-free before buying it. The general opinion is that it's a great game.

Agreed (at least on the first part). It just doesn't make sense to use a patch that will give you a partial translation, and might be full of bugs.

So what sort of game is Kanon anyway? I can't glean much from the title (Hmm... "Kanon"... Big Russian gun?"). If the word is Japanese, it's not one I recognize (which wouldn't be surprising at this point), but then they often come up with some--shall we say--unique words on occasion when they're naming things. But then, I guess Americans do, too, if I think about it [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/tongue.gif[/img]

#18
quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
So what sort of game is Kanon anyway? I can't glean much from the title (Hmm... "Kanon"... Big Russian gun?").
No, Kanon doesn't have anything to do with guns. For a good English summary of the game and plot, read this. It sounds like a great love story, but personally, I'm not entirely satisfied with the character design. Somehow the faces appear too 'flat'.

#19

Revisiting the BBS after a loooong time, due to… nostalgia?
Beware!!! (standard disclaimer follows ) I’m pretty much a Complete Newbie¬ô, completely ignorant of what the English and Japanese “bishoujo” markets have to offer, so my opinion is based on what little knowledge I may have… Don’t hit me, all of you!!!

  • Favourites:

    1) NekoNeko Soft’s “Gin’iro”: sad, tragic, depressing. A story of reincarnations, and damnation. And the storystelling is just excellent. Love stories as they should be.

    2) Key’s “Air”: sad, tragic, depressing. A story of past mistakes brought to reincarnation. Excellent storytelling. 1000 times better than Kanon.

    3) jANIS/ivory’s “Triangle Heart 3”: best of the Toraha games IMO, because of the protagonist (Kyouya is just my ideal man: hard-worker, good fighter, serious, honorable, dedicaced, etc. A modern samurai) and the ‘family’ atmosphere.

    4) NEC’s “Sentimental Graffiti”: still (among) my favourite after all those years. It may be pure nostalgia, since it was the one who made me a galgamer since ‘97. Through the stories aren’t the best (compared to today’s standard where the focus is on it), the girls keep a special place in my heart.

    5) Eushully’s “Ikusa Megami 2”: wonderful RPG system, wonderful characters, excellent story, splendid graphics. What can I say more? Oh, and I just admire the main character!!

    6) TYPEMOON’s “FATE/Stay Night”: the writers did their homework as far as the legends are concerned, alright. Other than that, it doesn’t have the usual stereotypes (no loli for instance ), the stories are very good and very well-written, the main character is different from most, the girls are pretty (Saber), cool (Rin) and cute (Sakura)…

  • Honorable mention:

    1) √©lf’s “Refrain Blue”: unique storyline, which includes the multiple plays of the game inside the storyline itself. Beautiful story, full of traumatized characters.

    2) Tactics’s “ONE ~kagayaku kisetsu e~”: unique storylines, beautiful love stories with a sad tone. Precursor to “Kanon” and “Air”, and in some ways better than “Kanon” IMO.

    3) BasiL’s “21 ~TwoOne~”: as usual, I like it because the stories are sad and the characters pretty traumatized. The plot is very good as well, mixing my favourite theme of eternal damnation (which goes with reincarnations and love, of course).

    4) Key’s “Kanon”: well-known even to non-galgamers, due to the anime series. Thus no comment.

    5) Mediaworks’ “Sister Princess”: it’s all about the sisters!!! I have to mention the game is 1000 times better than the anime (which I hate BTW)…

  • Games I should play… but still didn’t have the time to (backlog is every galgamer’s everyday trouble ):

    1) age’s “Kimi ga nozomu eien”: if only because the anime is being released…

    2) TYPE-MOON’s “Tsukihime”: ditto.

    3) circus’s “D.C. ~Da Capo~”: ditto.

    4) minori’s “Wind ~A Breath of Heart~”: another too famous game I cannot let pass…

    5) Leaf’s “Tenshi no Inai 12 Gatsu”: controversed by many, but is supposed to have pretty pretty traumatized characters.

    6) tamasoft’s “Sekai no subete -remind of you-”: rumoured to be the saddest game of 2002…

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“What is love if not painful and tragic? It’s just boring.”
- Elaine Barlow -

[This message has been edited by olf_le_fol (edited 06-17-2004).]

#20

OMG LIES! You are not new!