Heya, I’m a big fan of B games and cruise these boards although I don’t post much. I would just like to thank PP for releasing Brave Soul. I’ve been waiting years for a B RPG to get released in the states (yea i know that BS isn’t the first one, but its by far the best and the others are long out of print). The only thing i would like to say is PLEASE release more RPGs, Girl Raising Sims, ect. Anything at all as long as it’s different from the multi-scenario bishoujo adventure games which make up 95% of the US Bgame market. Don’t get me wrong i would buy any Bgame ever translated, but you can only play so many multi-choice games based in a high school before it starts to get cliche. LMM and Gibo both look great and will add much needed variation to the US Bgame market, and I hope PP continues to pick up various games that don’t all fit into the Multi-choice adventure game catagory.
I totally agree with you. I used to buy any bishoujo game released in english until Brave Soul I preordered a long time ago (and it really was worth waiting !). I didn’t buy any bishoujo game since, because I would really like something new, gameplay wise.
On the other hand, I understand Peachprincess and the other companies, since it costs much more to produce a rpg or sim than an adventure game, and since their income is probably already not that great with adventure games, rpg and sim would be even worse.
Me too. That’s a shame Hobibox is gone, because their next project, GUN SHIELD WARRIOR SAKIGAKE, is gone too.
Let’s hope Top50 will finish his ‘MEN AT WORK!2 translation Project’ soon. And i hope someday G-Collections will bring to us some bishojo RPG or simulation too, like FORTUNA from Zyx and SUMERAGI NO MIKOTACHI from D.O.
quote:It may be just me, but I think it takes more time and effort to port an ADV than a RPG or a SIM, RPG being probably the easiest to port...
Originally posted by Stephan:
On the other hand, I understand Peachprincess and the other companies, since it costs much more to produce a rpg or sim than an adventure game, and since their income is probably already not that great with adventure games, rpg and sim would be even worse.
I think it depends on which particular aspect. I would guess a text intensive game, like most ADV’s, the main time and effort would be within the translation parts. For an RPG or a SIM, it would probably be more of getting the underlying computer code to port over correctly. shrug Then again, I’ve never ported a game, so what do I know?
quote:
Originally posted by olf_le_fol:
It may be just me, but I think it takes more time and effort to port an ADV than a RPG or a SIM, RPG being probably the easiest to port...
I don't understand...
In a rpg you have to do the same work as in an adv game (dialog + choices) + all the action/rpg system.
[This message has been edited by Stephan (edited 03-04-2004).]
[This message has been edited by Stephan (edited 03-04-2004).]
quote:
Originally posted by Stephan:
I don't understand...In a rpg you have to do the same work as in an adv game (dialog + choices) + all the action/rpg system.
Maybe, but don't forget... in a RPG game EVERY character, non-player character, enemy, etc., has dialogs, choices or even events, sometimes randomly.
And i think RPG games made to japanese O.S. can not to be so easily ported to non-japanese O.S. and run without problems.
it really depends on if they can sell more rpgs than adventure games and how signifigant the sales are…if they are big enough like BS it would be in their interest to translate others.
I don’t know, I think ADVs are the easiest to port over. Usually the game engine is fairly simple, the translation of the script would probably be the biggest thing needing work. RPGs usually have a more complex game engine you would need to localize, plus the translation script, and usually there are more menus and other things that would need to be translated in a RPG.
quote:2K and XP are very language portable... Other than ASCII-Unicode, Windows is still pretty much Windows... And you'll have the ASCII-Unicode pb. anyway with ADV. The other pb. is resizing the strings to fit the windows; considering the amount of text in a RPG (even taking into account the menu, etc.) and an ADV, ADV is waaaaaaaaay more problematic IMO. I fail to see what is "hard" into porting a graphical engine from Japanese Windows to US Windows (and if it's using DirectX, it's even easier...). OTOH, I can see how problematic how the decision-tree can be tricky to port, according to how the events and character string are factorized...
Originally posted by wanfu2k1:
I don't know, I think ADVs are the easiest to port over. Usually the game engine is fairly simple, the translation of the script would probably be the biggest thing needing work. RPGs usually have a more complex game engine you would need to localize, plus the translation script, and usually there are more menus and other things that would need to be translated in a RPG.
Bah, Lamuness is probably the best to answer...
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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 03-04-2004).]
Hmmm…yeah resizing the string data would be a problem. But if the flow chart and everything is already done I don’t see how it would be more complicated switching the language.
Yeah Lamuness would be the best person to answer these questions.
[This message has been edited by wanfu2k1 (edited 03-05-2004).]
the following is strictly personal opinion, doesn’t represent peapri’s views
some of these are just speculation or protential problems that I forsee (and therefore my personal opinions only, and therefore i can be wrong), but here we go…
rpgs in general have less text because many of the actions and scenes can be presented with more than just text. however, the most anal thing about rpgs (versus avgs) is the testing part. going through the fighting parts numerous times is pretty annoying and tedious, especially for a multi-ending rpg. also, post-product support (bugs) are more painful to deal with for an rpg because they are more computer-resource-intensive and are bound to have problems and crashes. at this point i don’t think peapri can handle support for a 3d-game because everybody has different 3d graphics cards.
it obviously costs more (for the japanese company, as well as us) to make a rpg; i think it cost crowd 3 times just much for their other avg games to produce brave soul which is the main reason why there isn’t many bishoujo rpgs in japan ot begin with.
work-flow wise (in japan), i am sure they will rather spend more time (and therefore, money) focusing on producing high-quality CGs than, say a rpg-engine.
i don’t mean to sound condescending or sound like our previous board admin, but you guys should be thankful (and forturnate) that peapri is lucky enough to get crowd’s games, and that crowd is willing to let peapri port brave soul. also, understand that japanese b-games are mostly dominated by avg games, not rpgs (which I am sure most of you know by now). this is of course different than people’s taste here which is generally relatively more action or rpg-oriented. i guess this is part of the “cultural/mindset difference” so to speak, but i think you guys should understand and appreciate the japanese bishoujo game market for what it is as a whole because for us to simply port nothing but rpgs and totally ignore all avgs is, in my opinion, a bit hmm…“biased” because that’s what people here wants. sure, the “money votes” are important, but at some point we ask ourselves what the hell are we doing in the niche by porting nothing but rpgs when the what the japanese b-game market is avg-dominant…a majority of the legendary and famous b-game titles are not rpgs to begin with.
finally, what is brought over in english greatly relies on what companies we work with. if we work under, say square-enix, then sure complain to us all you want about whichever rpg you want to see. however, if the companies we work with are avg-oriented (which is what the majority of b-game companies), we can’t really tell them at gunpoint to make an rpg from scratch because you guys want rpgs; we work with only what they have. if we get a chance, we will try to reach out for other companies, but even so, there isn’t alot of companies who do rpgs to begin with (and there isn’t alot who would care about the idea of releasing in english)…
again, this is all personal opinion. feel free to shoot me down for anything that is ballantly wrong; i will stand corrected if well-justified.
[This message has been edited by Lamuness (edited 03-05-2004).]
That pretty much covers it Lamuness. While personally I’d like to see more RPG’s, unless its feasible for both PeaPri and any company they work with, it’s not going to happen. Also note that Elf, who had a mega-hit with WordsWorth hasn’t even made a new RPG after it, so that has to tell you something.
I like RPGs too, but bishoujo RPGs? Well, yes, but one bishoujo RPG should be enough for a good while, because the way RPGs on the PC are made aren’t really my taste. All that mouse-clicking to move, battle, etc.
So I’m not complaining.
As for Brave Soul support, the only thing which still needs work in my opinion, is the MIDI engine. Like I stated in my mini-review, at times it will suddenly get out of balance, which can be annoying.
Yea rpgs take far more time in testing depending on the type of rpg, but testing while tedius and time intensive isn’t exactly costly.
Even the other costs, most of which in rpgs are to programing or in recent years to FMVs, its still considerably cheap in comaprison to sales. That’s assuming you want to use cutting edge technology (or well in case of consoles, push them to their limits). Most people i know prefer substance to style and would be willing to sacrafise that FMV for better storyline. (Although in xenosaga the cutscenes were what i liked the most, well other than the card game, so there are alway exceptions).
3d rpgs or any 3d games in general definatly are cpu intesive and more prone to difficulties as well as expensive, but that doesn’t count 2d rpgs which are still popular (or static background rpgs with 3d characters) like FF series since 7.
But Lamuness’s key point is that it requires japanese companies to produce bishoujo rpgs. They will only produce more if they see they can get better profits in japan.