Question regarding Figures of Happiness, anime humor

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Okay, so I’m somewhat new to the world of Erotic games, having recently made a $600 order for what I assume is the entire downloadable catalogue of the Peach Princess/J-List/G-Collections/etc. conglomerate, and played about 11 or 12 of them over the past few weeks.

I loved playing Amorous Professor Cherry, The Sagara Family, Kana: Little Sister, and Crescendo, but hated Slave Pageant and Water Closet mostly because scenarios in which the player (via the first-person avatar) rapes the female characters really squick me, and when said relationships then become inexplicably consensual, that squicks me even more.

So, my most recent game was Figures of Happiness, and I found it awesome and disappointing all at once. Some of my complaints are listed in a GameFAQs review and associated message board topic I posted, but I’d like to at least address a question about the sort of humor that appears therein to an audience where it will at least have some chance of being read and answered.

The humor in the game was nonsensically silly, and very much not to my taste. Once I made the (seemingly groundless, but I discuss that in detail in the links) choice of staying with Minamo in the second half of the game I began to enjoy the naivety and indecisiveness of her charaacter, but some of her behavior was just annoying. Kokoro, on the other hand, I absolutely hated, hamsters and all; she reminded me of the sort of humor I saw in anime series that I watched with friends in college, like Excel Saga and the Rurouni Kenshin series, that I hated just as much. I’m not humorless; I laughed out loud at the team-Ryo caper which caps the best storyline featuring Kaori (the school nurse) in Crescendo, it’s just that the sort of humor in Figures of Happiness really impaired my enjoyment of the storyline (which did manage to bring me close to tears regardless).

I notice that just as this brand of humor isn’t ubiquitous in Eroge games, it also isn’t ubiquitous in anime; Ghost in the Shell and the Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal both lacked them, and I enjoyed both of them. The Kenshin OVA, in fact, brought me to near-Kana-level tears, IIRC.

I’m not sure if I’m being clear enough in describing the characteristics of the sort of humor I mean, but if I am… is there a sub-genre that describes the presence of such humor in an anime product, or an English-language watchword I should look for before making a purchase? Any specific products that I should or should not bother ordering?

#2

Unfortunately there’s usually no way of telling before you play the game itself, although if a demo is available, you can normally get a good idea of the sort of humour the story uses in advance.

#3

As Lancer-X stated already, unless you play a demo or read a detailed review of something you just never will know how things play out. Take for example an anime called ‘Now and Then, Here and There’. The very first episode is cutesy and slice of life. But episode 2 through the end of the series it’s extremely brutal and bleak.

#4

You could always -cough- “preview” eroge before purchasing them. I don’t think many people on this board would approve of that though… :smiley:
But damn, that’s a lot to spend on downloads. I would just buy the boxed editions from rightstuf. When on sale, you can get eroge for as cheap as $10. (plus there would be no DRM and a pretty box :wink:)

#5

That’s one of my favourite anime series’ ever, actually. Although I’m not sure that’s saying much, because I don’t watch much anime =P

#6

Generally I recommend reading reviews and checking forums like this for opinions before spending too much money on any eroge game - just as with anime there are some real winners and some real stinkers to be had. (and very little that sits comfortably in the middle)

Personally I like a lot of the silly humor as even when it is bad it can be worth a groaning laugh … and sometimes that is as good as anything else.

After you’ve played a handful, though, I think you start to get a sense of which games will have more of this than others.

#7

In a eroge, most of the time the humor is “below the belt”.
I think the funniest game we have is probably Snow Sakura ut I admit I laughed really hard with X change alternative, YMK and Cross Channel.

Btw, congratulations for buying every single translated eroge :slight_smile:
But i feel deeply sorry for you since you bought VN like water closet, etc… (and by etc, I mean secret wives club, I gonna nurse you, … :smiley: )

#8

Hrmph.

My strategy for beating Water Closet and Slave Pageant was (a) get drunk (b) use a walkthrough (c) fastforward through everything, and (d) don’t look.But hey, the pain of those train wrecks is worth it if it means I can play another Kana, Crescendo, or even Figures of Happiness at some point in the future; as much as FoH’s narrative failures and nonsensical humor upset me at points, I still finished every ending, using the “Skip Previously Read Text” rather than the “Skip All Text” option.

The irony of my playthrough of FoH was that I eventually found myself speed-clicking through the sex scenes, which tended to be repetitive since the females all shared the same sexual experience and mindset, to get to the rest of the story. Given some narrative modifications, in fact, I think the game could have functioned even better without such explicit sex, as a mainstream visual novel. I mean, my reaction to the story kind of reminded me of the way I was brought to tears by some of Lost Odyssey’s “memories”, delivered via a Kana-style text presentation, on the Xbox 360.

If it weren’t a patently illegal violation of copyright and license, I’d love to try remixing the story myself as a fan project, since (my complaints aside) it is that good.

EDIT: Oh, and I didn’t buy anything that I couldn’t download, mostly because I have a shared mailbox. The people I share it with wouldn’t go so far as to open my mail, but I’d be scared that (a) there might be an indicator of the contents on the package, or (b) my address might get on a list where some entity will send me an embarrassing indiscreet catalogue of adult products.

EDIT: Not buying un-downloadable products means that I’m missing The X-Change Series and Casual Romance Club, among other ones.

Oh, and sorry for the constant edits; I invaded my landlord’s liquor cabinet last night, and some of the crap in there has to be a couple of decades old. I think I’m still feeling the after-effects.

#9

Out of current JAST catalogue, I think only ones that are level with Kana and Crescendo are Yume Miru Kusuri and Ever17. Those are both very different stories, but very excellent(YMK still remains as one of my favourite translated visual novels). If you haven’t gotten those yet, I fully suggest that you do.

You could also look into titles that MangaGamer has available, all of their products are download versions. Out of their catalogue I can recommend Kira Kira and Suika A.S+(there’s demos available for those two if you want to try them before purchase), also Shuffle and Da Capo if you like somewhat more generic stuff.

#10

Humor is a really subjective thing. Even if you read reviews, I’d say it’s hard to get a grasp of what the game is like. You really need to play the demo to get a good impression of a game.

And Jast just sends games in plain bubble envelopes, though $600 of games probably would require a box. :stuck_out_tongue: I’ve never received anything in the mail from them after. I think being discreet is one of their selling points.

#11

Yeah, last time I bought a boxed game from Jast it came in a plain grey bubble envelope, with a little stamp stating the sender.

#12

When Jast sends out the physical copies for me, they arrive in the same kind of packaging normal games/DVDs from online orders. So if a neighbour gets sight of the package, it will look like you simply ordered a normal DVD/game.

#13

I have found myself doing that same thing in various games … sometimes I just don’t care about the sex scenes and would rather get on with the story. Mind you, sometimes I DO want to see the sex scenes, so I’m not saying they are always bad. There are games like Yo-Jin-Bo and (crap, can’t recall the name now, about a group of people trapped in an undersea amusement park … someone else will have to provide the name) which have no sex in them and rely only on good story and humor - but those are difficult to find in english. (not sure how more common they are in japan)

#14

Jlist actually has an item in their FAQ that pretty much answered all your worries about shipping. :lol:

#15

That would be Ever 17, a game I still need to acquire.

#16

You sure are in for a ride. Ever17 is amazing and so much better than any visual novel I’ve played. It has a VERY fleshed out story and characters. Get it from J-List the second you can. Definitely the best translated game released,

#17

I have YMK downloaded and ready to play, but it’ll be a while to get back to it. Powering through the repetitive sex romps Little My Maid and Idols Galore so soon after having having finished Figures of Happiness again and again and again for its story has burnt me out for the moment, I think; I’ll probably be devoting the next several weeks to web programming instead… and when I do get back, it will be for Come See Me Tonight 2; YMK is eight places away on my list.

Thanks for the responses, and thank you for assuring me of the discretion of the companies in this business. I’d like to send a copy of Kana and/or Crescendo as a gift for my younger brother, and perhaps for my older brother as well (if he possesses a non-work computer to play it on!) but the last thing I want to do is get them on a list where they’d receive occasional catalogues featuring anime teenagers fucking.

By the way, are there any other translating companies whose products I wouldn’t be able to find via peachprincess.com or g-collections.com? And what about products that have no downloadable version? Are there any stand out stories among those?

#18

There’s also MangaGamer.com. Some of there older games had bad translations (they’re a Japanese company), but they’re improving, and have some good licenses.

There are also a few translated doujin eroge on the English side of DLSite. They’re unprofessional, so quality is scattershot, but I hear the English version of Violent Semen Inferno is pretty popular: http://eng.dlsite.com/work/=/product_id/RE018397.html (partially at least for kitsch value, I’m sure).

#19

Ah, I don’t think that’s good. What sense is there to torment yourself with bad titles if you could use that same time to enjoy better stuff?
But then again it’s your time you’re using to read sex romps, not mine. You could always separate sex romps from each other with better titles.

I already mentioned MangaGamer earlier, Overdrive’s Kira Kira is one of the best officially translated visual novels(well, the translation is not the best there is). Also, they will be releasing Higurashi soon, no choices in that one, but the story in itself is great.

There also is the fan-translation scene, that’s a whole different thing. If you’re interested I can give few pointers on that.

#20

Thank you; I’ve added Mangagamer to my bookmarks, and will probably make some purchases there when I run low on Jast-associated products… and if I’m still craving more, I’ll look into fan translations, but that’d be a measure of last resort; I’m still paying down the karmic deficit I acquired from pirating Fatal Relations, True Love, and the Immoral Studies “games” back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.