I doubt they will ever reach the levels of Zelda and Final Fantasy…right now the only contenders for those in the rpg department are from SquareEnix and Bandai. Doesn’t mean other’s aren’t worthy, just that they are obscure.
I really can’t help but wonder if it is the erotic content that prevents these games from achieving the awareness they deserve. I am tempted to think it is, but there are stories where the h-content is necessary, or, at the very least, is implied and/or censored.
I still go by the belief that two versions of any b-game should be available, one h, and one non-h.
The Lufia series is the closest you’re going to get for now if you want something resembling a bishoujo RPG. 
quote:
Infinity wrote:
I really can’t help but wonder if it is the erotic content that prevents these games from achieving the awareness they deserve.
Perhaps we should be happy that bishjou games havent made it into the limelight. A bigwig in EU
made headlines in Swedish newspapers when he wanted to ban the game Rule of Rose because he said it was sadistic. I am glad that he didn’t find Virgin Roster or Tsuki because that the kind of awareness i don’t want these game to achiveing. It is better to be a little fish in the pond where you can hide among other fishes than the largest pike who evrybody want to land.
What i mean is that if these games get mainstream success then the politicos and other bigwigs will start to scream of censorship, i am afraid that will happen here in Europe.
…Actually…Thousand Arms and Azure Dreams: Another Life (ps1) are closer.
I don’t agree. Those games just have an included dating simulation feature that isn’t even necessary to beat the game.
The Lufia series focuses on love and the relationships between the main characters. That’s why I would call it close to a bishoujo RPG.
I would just like to add that Brave Soul was, a while back, announced as having surpassed the then-all-time-best-seller XChange 1. (Aside from being the first or second game PeaPri released – ever – it is also cheaper than anything else.) It was retracted, on grounds that XC1 still had an edge (from how long it’d been out), but BS was selling much more rapidly than XC1 was.
By now I expect BS to be far and away the best seller, even assuming it slowed down.
It all depends on how you want to define the term “failure”. Certainly compared to the big fish in the “video game market” this particular market “segment”'s volumes are so low as to be insignificant. But if you’re going to call Brave Soul a ‘failure’ on that basis, then Peach Princess itself is a failure, and ought to be closed down.
It’s much more meaningful to compare Brave Soul to the rest of the US market for these games, and when you do that, Brave Soul looks much better.
[ 12-21-2006, 10:10 PM: Message edited by: Nandemonai ]
Well… this is a new discovery, and I have to thank Nandemonai for correcting me.
I remember it was described by one reviewer on GameFAQs that X-change was CROWD’s biggest game overseas, and that this had to lie largely on the preferences of the gamers who buy these games.
From the outlook, one would think that the market in both countries is different, perhaps it is, but, if the Erogamescape is anything to go by, the differences aren’t all that great.
And again, if Brave Soul’s succes is anything to go by, it would have to be for the same reason it succeeded in Japan. Diablo 2 gave me a cool story, a cool hack-n-slash engine, and multiple classes… but it didn’t have a dating sim in it, and I didn’t get the pairing I wanted. At least I got that in Brave Soul.
Succeeded in Japan? Brave Soul didn’t do that well there. When asked if Brave Soul was going to get a sequel, Crowd’s response was a flat-out “No”.
Actually, the ratings on Erogamescape are NO index for the commercial success of a game inJapan, but only for how thre people who bought it really liked it. You wouldn’t expect a person to vote against a certain game, if he/she hasn’t bougth it at all - right?
Or even if you do, then Erogamescape certainly doesn’t…
In addition to this, a rating here becomes more accurate with the more people voted. And because only people who baught the gae would vote, the amount of voters might more accurately tell if the game was actually a comercial success.
Hmmm… it looks like I should add the amount of voters in my list in order to clarify that pesky detail… ^^;;;;
You do realize that CROWD did another game which featured all the characters from Brave Soul ? It wasn’t a sequel in any way, yes, but to feature all of its characters shows that the game had at least some success.
You do have a point there, and I stand corrected (though I stll believe Brave SOul wasn’t all that abd, or CROWD wouldn’t have done another game about brave soul… and I’d post a link if it wasn’t for the firewall) That being said, after looking at Unicron’s other list, and mentioning the Zyx games that had only one vote, the number of woutes would also clarify it.
EDIT:
600+ votes for Kana alone… 800+ votes for one other game for D.O. (and that had a high rating)… and Crescendo may ahve only got 100 votes, but that’s better than nothing.
While it’s true the ratings aren’t a good indication, the ratings and popularity, together may give a better picture. Which means that a minimum of 100-500 votes should indicate that the game has some recognition.
[ 12-22-2006, 07:27 PM: Message edited by: Phineas Lucis ]
You mean that Breakout rip-off that requires a 1.5 Ghz processor? Hardly note-worthy. I think there wasn’t even any new art.
[ 12-23-2006, 11:43 AM: Message edited by: Benoit ]
Well, maybe, but I personally think that CROWD would have had at least some sales for Brave Soul in order to do even a rip-off like that. If Brave Soul ahd been a total flop, they would have hardly mentioned the game at all, or anythign close to it, on their site.
As I recall Peter explaining it, Brave Soul did well in Japan, but cost WAY more to make tan your average b-game, and Crowd felt they could not sustain themselves making such expensive titles.