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#581

My position on this matter has little to do with money, I can afford to buy nukige/dark titles from both MG and Jast, I just choose not to. MG’s position is understandable - they admitted that sex-oriented VNs sell a lot better than everything else, and it makes sense to pick up cheaper titles, since I’d wager a guess that a large majority of customers who buy sexfests exclusively are not all that interested in quality.

I buy everything story-based from MG and Jast, god knows I even bought and read HinataBokko recently, with its half-baked story, horrible translation and all. It will not change anything, but I voted with my wallet and made my personal preferences known.

I imagine that all of the titles announced at AX will bring MG a lot more money than story-based VNs of similar level would ever be able to, and that makes the decision not to support MG in this even easier.

#582

Great news. I happen to like third-rate garbage from Liquid. :stuck_out_tongue: Softhouse-Seal, on the other hand, is not my cup of tea.

#583

It not just story though. To use it as an example again, euphoria has some of the best looking dark side offerings out of the Clock Up library. Garbage title is Garbage: be it plot, characters, or sex. Yea, some of the best dark eroge do have intricate (for the genre) plotlines, but that level of detail also bleeds into the artwork, torture creativity, duration of agonizing sex, shock value. Etc, etc, etc.

I mean titles like euphoria and Gore Screaming Show get talked about a lot for being so guro, but honestly, they really aren’t that guro. It’s how the guro is quality presented, that makes people recall them more vividly and more violently than they really were. But on a guro scale? They’d be near the bottom.

We sexfest fans aren’t as simple to please as one might think. We do have levels of standards, and know the difference between good shit and bad shit. :wink:

Now does a bad dark side title sells better or the same as good dark side title in the West? No idea. Hasn’t happened yet. They do in Japan though, and so the general principal should hold. The scenario then, is to get MangaGamer to take a leap and give it a shot to find out. Greater word of mouth, people posting on their forums, promise of purchasing, and just general whatnots would greater increase those odds than not doing them. Naturally, no guarantees, but the playing field has been gradually getting better.

I think we’re just largely in a situation of agreeing to disagree, since neither of us is wrong in ideology or practicality. There’s plus and negatives to both sides.

Me? I just want my goddamn euphoria. :stuck_out_tongue:

#584

That’s why I said “a majority”, not “all”. :wink: I’m fairly certain that your average casual customer won’t care if he’s getting Euphoria or Suck My Dick Or Die. I personally know a few people who don’t even know English and just simply skip everything between the H-scenes. :roll:

#585

I’m not sure on that. Suck My Dick Or Die and euphoria are on totally different levels that even a casual would notice. Suck My Dick Or Die doesn’t for example: use vicious electrical torture, bloodletting, or have girls cutting off their own heads as they scream out your name and say I love you over and over again. Even someone who always skips over text would immediately notice these things. It’s like comparing a campy 1950’s horror movie with a modern photorealistic gore flick. Relatively speaking of course. :slight_smile:

It’s because euphoria examines the ramifications of torture sex and the effect it has on the human mind, that it has greater variety and better execution the flow than Suck My Dick Or Die. There are certainly more violent ero than euphoria, but nothing in the West at least. And certainly not without the artistic merit that justifies it. And of course, if something like euphoria is too violent, there’s still other great choices like Mugen Renkan and whatnot.

I don’t think the majority of dark sexfest fans actually buy from MangaGamer in any real numbers. Most of what I see on the guro and violence boards, complain it’s third rate. Like you, they refuse until they get something like euphoria or Mugen Renkan. So whatever profit MangaGamer has seen with dark ero, is not truly reflective of the interested customer base. Releasing an AAA title would certainly prove if this is true or not. Hence the “taking a leap” notion.

#586

Out of curiosity, what do you dislike about Eroge!, Narg? I happened to think it was pretty good, even if the level of ero wasn’t really necessary.

Anyway JAST has the same problem, really, only perhaps moreso. Sure, MangaGamer has Clockup and Liquid, but JAST has Will, XUSE and Nitroplus! Pretty clear to me which localiser isn’t milking its brands hard enough =P (Ayakashibito, Saihate no Ima, Kuon no Kizuna, Hello World, Gekkou no Carnevale, Soukou Akki Muramasa, Steins;Gate and plenty more since I can’t remember every Will title right now). MangaGamer, on the other hand, has already localised every decent CIRCUS title except Mai-HiME (and that’s probably stepping on the turf of other licensees,) every decent OVERDRIVE title and ClockUp and Liquid only have a couple of good titles between them anyway. The only obvious omissions to me at the moment are Cartagra, Katahane and Oretsuba (besides the two you mentioned.)

#587

vndb links

Oppai Sensou - Kyonyuu VS Hinnyuu
http://vndb.org/v4857
Kozukuri Youkai H Henka ~Otome o Okasu Hyoui Gattai~
http://vndb.org/v6359
Nakadashi Spy no Sounyuu Sousa -Shikyuu no Heiwa wa Ore ga Mamoru!
http://vndb.org/v5155
Orion Heart ~Injoku no Suku Mizu Sailor Senshi
http://vndb.org/v6662
Reizoku no Majo April ~Injoku no Mahou Choukyou~
http://vndb.org/v6758

Eroge! ~H mo Game mo Kaihatsu Zanmai~
http://vndb.org/v4037

all sex romps wish they would’ve got some good stuff

#588

No. You’re right, it’s not a bad ero. Putting aside my bias for dark side stuff, I’d place it as second or third best title Clock Up has made. I’m just upset they didn’t pick a dark side title. That’s all. grumble grumble But yea… I’m not saying I consider getting Eroge! a waste of money. Just not something I would ordinarily add to my collection a second time.

This is most certainly true. JAST has disappointed me more times than I want to recall. I’m still waiting for Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashino… which is one of the very few lovey-dovey happy-sappy eroge I will ever admit being on my top ten list of all time favorites. That’s right. Twincest, Yandere, Vampire, Stockholm Syndrome, Hair-Over-The-Eyes Nargrakhan actually has deep love for a title that contains NONE of his fetishes. In fact, I didn’t even buy my first copy (Baldo got it for me), but I went out and bought a second to give my monetary support. You kick me in the balls JAST. You kicked me in the balls. And of course, though it wasn’t all their fault, the whole fallout with the Black Cyc negotiations. So fawking close… soooooo close. I died that day. :cry: (Now I’m undead… with JAST crushed nuts.)

#589

…Did i just spread a tear? :mrgreen: :wink:

#590

This game was actually announced a few months ago. And I have to say, none of the rest of those licenses interest me much at all.

#591

Really? Not even Eve Burst Error or Higurashi or Kara no Shoujo? Or for that matter, Soul Link (which despite having a bland opening section kicks it into overdrive prtty quickly)? I’d’ve figured at least one of those would appeal to you.

#592

This is more or less the reason I buy as many titles as I do, but I don’t quite think of it that way. I look at it more as a matter of expectation management. I don’t buy titles that I would actively dislike, but if there’s a game that might not be great but is probably okay, then I’ll pick it up. Because there’s only two companies in business at the moment translating these games. And every single company that has ever gotten into this business has died, except for Peter’s empire. And that’s only because of J-List.

Beggars can’t be choosers. There have been a handful of titles I actually think are good. All the rest are somewhere in forgettable, mediocre, or just plain bad. But for the most part they’re still better than the alternative, especially as long as the only real alternative is “The companies go broke, no one ever again translates h-games officially, pirates for the win”.

Every movie can’t be Citizen Kane, or Inception, or The Maltese Falcon. As an English-only player (for now anyway), I judge English-translated hgames by comparison to the English-translated library. When I first played Snow Drop, I thought it was really good … because I was comparing it to Season of the Sakura, and May Club, and the like. Now? I really doubt it. Likewise, right now I buy games that - if there were better titles to pick from - I’d never even give a second glance to.

That growth though will never happen if everyone looks to the masterpieces in Japanese, then doesn’t support the English market when it doesn’t instantly live up to that.

#593

Nope. I know people hold them high regard, and it’s not that I think they’re garbage, but I don’t particularly like them. I’ve actually never been a fan of Innocent Grey, despite many people’s attempts to convince me otherwise (I’m evidently in a very small minority among dark siders with this), which is why I never comment on their titles. And despite what all the doujin led me to believe, the twincest in Higurashi was a lie.

#594

Made a post about both panels if anyone’s curious:
http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/forums/e … m-JAST-USA
http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/forums/e … Mangagamer

Looks like JAST wins this year, even though they only announced one new title

#595

one good game beat several crappy sex romps any day

#596

lol… I just realized what that nagging thing in the back of my head about Eroge! was. Yume Kui from Tsurumiku. :stuck_out_tongue:

#597

Kay… since I’ve been on the topic of MangaGamer for a bit, I have a confession to make… I buy MangaGamer titles, but I don’t really play them. I own and played the Japanese originals, so I don’t have a real reason to. After all, I’ve got real life matters to attend to and a serious backlog of Japanese games I haven’t finished. As posted on before, I mostly bought them to support the genre, ya know?

So I make an exception, then install and start playing. I wrote a review for the game years before it was translated (and in a time it seemed like it would never be), so I wanted to update the dated article and perhaps revise the score I gave it.

[color=red]THE AWFUL TRANSLATION! IT MAKES MY EYES BURN![/color]

Sweet Jesus in Heaven, Holy Mother Mary who love Him, and Father who sits on the Throne… it’s terrible. I’m almost tempted to text dump the Japanese version, run it through a decent machine translator, and see if the output is any better. I thought MangaGamer fixed their translation issues. This game was released in 2011. What improvements did they make? And the jokes… whoever translated them sucks at their delivery. To read one thing and hear them say another… WHY GOD!? WHY!?

I know people complain about JAST taking their sweet ass time releasing stuff, but at least they take care with the translation. MangaGamer’s mass production assembly line really shows the opposite. I’m assuming the translations MG lifted from C&D fanlation projects are remarkably better… but that’s no excuse. What kind of in-house translation team does MG have? Are they British or from the Commonwealth?

#598

The two MG titles I proofread weren’t too bad, but I wager you’re not talking about either of those. Is it Zaishuu?

#599

Yea. It’s Zaishuu The SiN… or Guilty TheSiN as MangaGamer calls it.

I mean, it does seem like someone proofread the script. It’s not as bad as the first MG title I ever played in their baby days (when they pulled them offline and claimed they weren’t ready for public sale), but it’s like being in a time warp and seeing 1980’s game translations. The localization also appears to have been done by someone who was British: they call girls birds for example.

EDIT
So go rummaging through the MG Blog for translation, and I find the guy who did it and his comments on translations. Maybe I should have done that first…

http://mangagamer.wordpress.com/2010/08 … the-demons

Not winning any points with me, but meh…

EDIT 2
The use of British English is an annoyance. Now I know the Brits will say (and perfectly be in the right to): “Now you know how we feel.” But really? It’s hard enough for someone to transliterate something from Japanese to English, but then you wanna be “fancy” and then translate it from American to British? I’m going through the story and the guy calls something a “loo”. I’m like, “what the fuck is a loo”? I didn’t have the volume on for the game (was listening to MP3’s), and I actually ended up listening to the Japanese language to understand what the English was supposed to be. Which then revealed a few things they added or dropped for translation. Maybe I’m just being overly critical because it’s late and I’ve got too many root beers in me, but I’m still trying to figure out if this is a decent translation.

EDIT 3
Kay… I’m not being over critical. I noticed there’s a scene when they skipped over an entire sentence, which then made the rest of the conversation totally not make sense in the English text because of it. And they keep calling Narumi, Atsumi, when everyone is calling her NARUMI!?!?!?!?

EDIT 4
I know others will just say its just semantics and me being a whinny ass, but if you’re gonna translate something into English, use the neutral international version. Yea… it tends to be American centric, but that’s what happens when a nation has something like Hollywood, has a massive footprint on the Internet, meddles in international affairs, and generally acts like they own a planet they don’t.

#600

Perfectly okay to use British / Commonwealth English, but filling your text with British-isms (or American-isms, or any other {country}-isms) is a no-no for obvious reasons when you’re trying to reach an international audience. When I translate or write, I use Australian English because that’s my language, but I don’t go throwing in references to billies, bogans and barbies. That’s the stuff that trips people up, not the presence of an occasional extra ‘u’ they weren’t expecting.