Sabae no Ou 2

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Sabae no Ou 2 has been announced. Official site is up as well.

The original Sabae no Ou was an awesome vampire story. It quite frankly had a [b]kick ass intro movie[/b].

The problem for most importers is that Sabae no Ou had no voice acting, tons of kanji, and was a true visual novel with a few rpg-ish elements (i.e. tons and tons of text; not so many pictures). It also had a yaoi moment here and there… but I thought they were pretty well done and offered a lot to the story.

Sabae no Ou 2 will have voice acting, and more importantly, continue the story. Also our favorite telepathic demoniacally possessed talking prairie dog is back. :twisted:

#2

Sabae no Ou also borrowed a few terms from WW’s rpg Vampire: the Masquerade. Does the sequel still have “Malkavians”?

EDIT: One, apparently.

#3

Most of the characters in the first game, appear to be in the second because it’s a direct sequel. That’s why Chris is back at least…

I noticed that Sabae no Ou borrows quite a few ideas from several Western vampire RPG’s… It’s got some Ravenloft (the concept of the Demiplane of Dread and some hints of the Dark Powers), as well as RIFTS (Vampire Kingdom world book) splattered in there. Actually it makes a lot of sense, considering that Sabae no Ou plays like a pen-and-paper RPG. I’m pretty certain the creators have played these Western RPG’s, and made their own story out of it.

However it’s not a direct rip off… Ravenloft was obviously inspired by Castlevania (which in turn was inspired by Vampire Hunter D), but the two are significantly different.

#4

I wouldn’t call it a direct ripoff, although the world sounds a lot closer to WW’s WoD than Ravenloft or Rifts does. But “Malkavian” is copyrighted by them. There was a wrestler some years ago in the WWF who sported fangs and called himself “the Gangrel”. WW sued and made him include the copyright notice, even though gangrel is an actual dictionary term. I didn’t see anything like that in the Sabae no Ou page, but they’d have to include it if the game is translated here.

#5

Actually I’d say the game becomes a lot like Ravenloft after you hit a certain point. Then it drifts into Japanese vampire ideas… like Hellsing and Trinity Blood. The WoD stuff only goes so far… they’re not the end all be all to vampire ideas after all. It’s also not like WoD doesn’t rip off other ideas either, because they seriously do (and it’s rather ironic and hypocritical that they challenge others for doing it to them). Also the world setting is a lot more “anime gothic” than “western gothic” than you’re giving credit for. It’s like comparing Record of the Lodoss War to Dungeons and Dragons. RoLW was originally a D&D campaign setting (rumors claim TSR even turned it down), but the two entities are completely different in a visual aspect. Deedlit is an elf, but she ain’t like any elf Gary Gaigax imagined.

In any case, I seriously doubt we have to worry about Lost Script getting sued by White Wolf. I wouldn’t even rate them in the top 100 list of studios with a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting translated into English. Even if it did, they could just drop the “Malkavian” surname, or rename it something else in a translated version. Sabae no Ou had no voice acting in it… so it only be text…

#6

On the flip side, WW did drop the artist who submitted tracings of Devil May Cry art as his own work.

#7

Heh… that’s actually funny and sad at the same time. Come to think of it, I don’t think CAPCOM would have really cared though. Even the American branches of Japanese video game companies are incredibly laidback when it comes to their properties these days… most have unofficially given up on the whole ROM piracy thing. Then you’ve always had the community ran things like OCRemix and whatnot. It wasn’t always like this of course… Fighter’s History anyone? :lol:

But it’s good that WW polices their own. Increases my respect for 'em a little.

#8

Here’s the art in question: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=409998

Companies may tolerate piracy, but a commercial product probably requires at least a letter. Capcom and WW actually have a relationship from the Steetfighter RPG, so they probably agreed to pull it from future printings.

#9

LOL… what a dumbass artist… he had the balls to trace the BOX COVER ART of the game. :lol:

Well it would be nice gesture to do that… but it doesn’t have to happen. Naturally the tollerance changes from company to company, but there’s a lot of commerical work out there, that doesn’t get written permission to ripoff. Case in point: checkout iTunes and do a search for “Video Game Music” or something of that nature. You’ll get a dozen groups making cash off “remixes” of various game songs. Not a red cent goes to the original composer… and some don’t even give credit to him or her (usually just the game and what part of it). Some even say in the CD liner (if you get the hardcopy), that the original game studio doesn’t approve or endore the product (i.e. they didn’t get permission).

In the 'ole days, lawyers would have been sent on attack mode… but studios like Capcom and Konami have become totally mello, because they’ve realized it’s best to support a fan community than break 'em down. The doujin mentality of Japan has been allowed to flourish in the West… which is awesome. Plus free publicity and all that. :slight_smile:

Yea… that would definately help.

Although still… given that it doesn’t put Capcom or DMC in a bad light (if anything, it only makes WW look like theives), I don’t think Capcom would care as much as WW. Free publicity and all that. :wink:

#10

Download page has the the intro movie for the game.

Kinda upset they didn’t continue with the improved Latin choir theme song… the horrid Engrish JPOP seems totally out of place. Just using the original song would have fit better (and convey it’s a direct sequel). :frowning:

Korono slightly makes up for it though. Moar Korono please! :twisted:

More importantly, if it’s not a flashback scene, it seems the Queen Bitch isn’t really dead… which given how she died in the canon route, is VERY surprising.

That boobie hugging rat has a lot of explaining to do.

Finally: somone at Lost Script like Stephen King. That’s the second time they’ve quoted something from his books. I don’t think either were officially released in Japan either, so he/she must read English or something…

[size=1]This game only makes me want a MinDeaD BlooD 2… if Lost Script can make a sequel to their vampire flagship title, surely so can Black Cyc.[/size]

#11

Only somewhat on topic - Stephen King’s books have been officially translated into Japanese. Interestingly, the Gore Screaming Show wikipedia article, suggests that the eroge was a homage to King’s novel It.

#12

Yea… but that claim is followed by ??? (citation needed). :wink: :stuck_out_tongue:

However now that you mention it (pun!)… Pennywise The Dancing Clown and Gore Screaming Show share quite a bit in common. Never noticed that until now. In deeper thinking, it’s probably because they both owe homage to Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones (the whole primordial godlike alien evil that drives you insane if you try to comprehend them).

#13

True :P, there’s unlikely to be any sort of official citation, but it’s not just wikipedia that mentions it. A few reviews and the like have also discussed this idea, including one article here.

#14

Yea… I agree with you and them: Gore Screaming Show was definitely inspired by IT.

Everything seems even cooler now. :stuck_out_tongue:

Hmmm… I wonder what else of Stephen King would make a good ero. :twisted:

#15

A question about the original Sabae no Ou for Narg: when you reviewed it on Elizar you mentioned that the title was really really difficult to complete. Is that because there’s a lot of decision points, because of the difficulty of the gameplay, or because of some other factor?

#16

Four items made the game hard…

#1: Kanji, kanji, kanji, kanji… this game is a total kanji nightmare.

#2: Typo, typo, typo, typo. The patches fixed this though…

#3: No voice acting (thus the kanji and typo thing were magnified).

#4: The way the game engine is built. It’s one of those “choose your next page” things… which means the plot loops and diverts into all sorts of dead ends. You have to “map” your decisions, as you’ll easily get flustered from the round and round activity.

#17

Thanks :). I won’t get this right away because of #1-3, but I was most worried about the combat etc. being horribly difficult, as that’s not always easy to work around. #4 isn’t a problem as I’d feel no guilt about using a walkthrough after reaching a certain level of frustration with the game.

#18