I’m aware, I was going to do them for the laughs.
SoS is worth playing at least once inspite of its age, especially if for no other reason than to get a historic retrospective of one of the better games from that era of English eroge.
Ehhh… it’s a 1996 game that’s written like, plays like and looks like a 1992 game. Compare its art to that of YU-NO, released in the same year-- the C’s Ware titles from around that era, some of which were translated into English, also looked much nicer.
Eh, most of the C’s wares stuff that was translated ins’t really comparable to SoS. And I’m just talking about English titles here, the most easily accessable and understandable to the majority here. Obviously if you can read Japanese and get a hold of a copy and can run it on a newer system then there are better alternatives.
EVE and DESIRE certainly are comparable to Season of the Sakura… in fact, ‘comparable’ isn’t the right term- they mop the floor with it.
Both of those are very linear games. In each there is only 1 outcome. That alone makes it debatable whether its better in terms of gameplay. Also, both used the same gameplay functions used in SoS.
Graphic-wise, yes, both of those clearly blow SoS out of the water. You’ll here no debate about that with me. Storyline-wise, that’s a matter of taste. As mentioned gameplay uses the same mechanics so there’s no comparison there. Finally, the linear vs. branching storyline means the Eve and Desire lack as much replay value.
Eroge don’t have replay value*; you pick it up and play it until you’ve exhausted all the text in the game, then you’re done. The only difference is Season of the Sakura makes you read largely the exact same thing many times over in the process. That’s not replay value, that’s boring.
As for EVE and DESIRE using the same gameplay system as Season of the Sakura; yes, that’s strictly true, but Season of the Sakura uses it far more obnoxiously than either of those games did and the fact that you have to go over the same parts of the story so many times exacerbates the problem. It’s because EVE and DESIRE are linear that they happen to be less annoying, which I’d argue makes them better games. Of course, it’s no secret I love linear eroges (Kitto, Sumiwataru Asairo Yori mo is a good example) so YMMV
*Not quite true, an eroge has replay value like a book has replay value. If you liked the story you might want to read it again, or just read really good parts of it again.
And that’s my biggest complaint against them.
Well apart from being both visual novels and being released at about the same time (still the EVE we got was a remake not the original)I thing they are fundamental diferent and any comparison is well a bit forced . Both Eve and Desire are linear yes but they are both all about being a action\mistery tale with a bit of wild romance put in place, while season of sakura is a typical romantic eroge with a branching storyline wich revolves around the relation with the girls .
Compare them all you want put I simply do not see the point they are too different for a serious comparison .
Hate them of like them for their good or bad points not simply by comparing two diferent things.
It was never my intention to compare them- I don’t think they can be compared in any case. I was simply putting examples out there to show that Season of the Sakura was not very good for 1996, not even among those translated into English. Because it adopts a graphical approach similar in quality to that of Nike and Kuratta Kajitsu, people can be fooled into thinking it’s from 1991-1992 which would paint it in a far more favourable light compared to other titles of the time.
Well yes, if people thought it was from c. 1992 then there is an issue. I do not know for certain (maybe Peter can answer this), but whether the artwork was done like that because of the budget or as an attempt to capture an older style game. As an apt analogy, in animation more modern animation styles will use techniques to render their styles to look older than they are for particular stylization reasons. People may criticize that, but it should be made apparant that doing that doesn’t automatically render a product inferior in its graphical design. Of course, if it was done for non-artistic reasons, that might change things.