True Love's Wikipedia page and Parsley

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Someone didn’t seem to know True Love at AnimeSuki, despite being into bishoujo games. Probably because the person was from the “English bishoujo game = porn” camp. So first I searched for the game box on Google Image Search. Nope, nothing of True Love on there. Then I did a regular Google search.

I stumbled upon a Forever Geek review about the game, complete with a load of comments of “plz send me the game thx” comments. The review itself was good, though.

Next I saw the Wikipedia page. My God, there was some horrible misinformation on there.

-It said the game was developed by Software House Parsley and released by Otaku Publishing. As far as I know, those developer houses usually publish these games themselves, no? The back of my True Love box mentions a CD Brothers copyright, so maybe they published the game. But it was definitely not Otaku Publishing.

-Translated and published by JAST USA in 1994. What the fuck? It was Otaku Publishing, and not that far back. The back of my box says 1999.

-There is mention of there being a demo of the sequel, but this is a common mistake. What people are thinking of is True Love Select, the same game as the original, but with extra characters.

It is generally believed that True Love 2 was never released because Parsley went under. I visited its website, linked at the end of the article, and surprise, surprise, the company still exists! It has never stopped releasing games, which is why I conclude that it never went under! So I guess the game really got cancelled as the article suggests?

This makes me wonder if Peter can’t get their help to re-release True Love or release True Love Select.

#2

I for one would love to see a True Love re-release or sequel, that and maybe another 3 sisters story, nocturnal illusions, Seasons of Sakura god all the oldies now those were the good games.

Could anyone here, imagine another SoS, 3 sisters story, Noctunal Illusions and True Love with remastered images, updated storylines etc? I’d buy them in an instant.

[ 03-07-2007, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: Kanodin ]

#3

Oh just a quick statement, I know that there was a Jast memorial release but what i’m talking about is fully redrawn images of our favorite characters and a rewritten but similar story.

#4

TLS would be great. Even though it would be a re-release of an existing title, the existing one has trouble playing on many newer machines because of XP’s stupid handling of midi files.

#5

More importantly, the existing one is out-of-print. :confused: Bringing over True Love Select would be the best choice, because then there would also be bonus content for people who already played the game, which almost everyone did at some point.

#6

The Doushin is mine. Hopefully that isn’t as bad as what the TL one was.

#7

True Love is definitely a classic, and my favorite game actually. It would be interesting to see the differences in True Love Select.

#8

I sure would like to see True Love Select. I always feel bad playing the original but not owning it, but it’s nigh impossible to find it for sale anywhere these days.

#9

Heh… I know next to nothing about True Love, outside of the few things I read about it here and there. Nocturnal Illusion is the “oldie” I remember fondly. No twincest - but it was before people knew what was best. :wink:

The games share some “themes” in common with each other, but there’s no direct connection. Sorta how Final Fantasy 4 and Final Fantasy 5 share some themes, but both are assumed to take place in a different world. However, Shinju no Yakata shares enough with Nocturnal Illusion, that many who play it believe the people who made Shinju, had to have known about Nocturnal. There’s just too much in common… the way you pick rooms, the “trapped” protagonist, the mysterious housekeeper, etc.

But Shinju being an official “follow-up” to Nocturnal is impossible, since the original company went bankrupt years ago. I’ve tried tracking who currently holds the Japanese rights to the property, but all I hit are dead ends. I think it’s one of those “in limbo” things, given the age and difficulty of tracking the individuals who actually put the game together.

[ 03-21-2007, 03:46 PM: Message edited by: Nargrakhan ]

#10

Well, Nocturnal Illusion did have an XP version released. But I have no idea if there was any kind of update to the game.

I hadn’t remembered just how old the game [Nocturnal Illusion] was until I realized just how long ago I first played it.

EDIT: As for this new game possibly being related … well, that’s very hard to say indeed unless you know who worked on what. I mean, Xenogears is “officially” unrelated to Xenosaga … except XS was originally supposed to tell the 6 episodes that XG was “episode V” of – AND was made by the same creator (well, 1 and most of 2 were made by the same creator). They also are obviously using many of the same themes and ideas.

So unless we can figure out who actually wrote the scenario for NI, and also who worked on this new game, it’s more or less impossible to say anything for certain.

[ 03-21-2007, 11:43 PM: Message edited by: Nandemonai ]

#11

EDIT
Someone complained my original post was too confusing. The same person also pointed out a few things to me about NI that I didn’t know about. For some odd reason, he (she?) doesn’t want credit. :frowning:

The “mystery informant” pointed out my error in thinking that the PC98 of Japan was the same as the PC98. After learning that, I suddenly relizied the development “holes” I had concerning NI, were due to the belief that there was a pure DOS based NI, when it was actually a PC98 based.

Errr… okay… just read on. :stuck_out_tongue:

Nocturnal Illusion (¬ñ¬≤¬å¬∂¬ñ√©¬ëz¬ã√à) was released on 22 April 1995 for the PC98 computer system: a series of desktop PC’s that dominated the Japanese computer market for quite awhile before the Windows 95/98 global conquest. Sorta like the IBM PS/2 thing. They evidently had a different architecture from Western computers, and were not initially compatible with DOS.

NI was first packaged on five 5.25 disks that took a grand total of 4MB disk space, and cost 9240 yen before taxes (more expensive then than now, taking inflation into account). The developer of the game was Apricot, but the distributor was Excellents Japan. From here on out, I will refer to this as the PC98 version.

After Microsoft won the OS war and proceeded to Conquer the World™, NI was converted to operate in Windows 98 (although this version of NI is predominantly DOS). From here on out, I will refer to this as the Windows version. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine exactly when the Windows version of NI was produced… but a timeframe of late 96 to early 97 seems to be a good gestimate. Because the PC98 series of computers had different hardware specs from those that ran MS DOS & Windows, NI had to be modified, which included the graphics and audio.

Following the Windows conversion, the game gained popularity in Japanese eroge circles, and prompted Excellents to release it throughout East Asia and the United States (RCY America in 1997) to expand their market base. Ultimately this venture failed, as Excellents went bankrupt later on.

Now this makes a bit of an interesting situation: there are two versions of NI floating around. The original PC98 version; and the remade Windows version. So this begs the question, “Which was better.”

My is answer: “I don’t know.”

I’ve only owned and played the Windows version (which uses MIDI for music and GIF for graphics). I’m told the PC98 edition can be found floating around the Internet, but I’ve never bothered to look.

Anyways, this timeframe was the height of NI popularity in Japan, because on 28 December 1997 a soundtrack was released for it on CD, featuring music from both versions of NI:

–²Œ¶–é‘z‹È MusicLibrary
(Stock Code: 2031175)

Good luck finding a copy… I’ve been searching for almost three years. :stuck_out_tongue:

Here’s a list of the tracks if you’re curious:

There’s also an artbook that features development illustrations from Nocturnal Illusion. I have yet to even learn the ISBN of this priceless treasure. I merely know it exists, because I saw three or four scans from it on a Japanese image forum.

Oh yeah… There’s a Japanese series called ¬ñ¬≤¬å¬∂¬ñ√©¬ëz¬ã√à¬Å@Eternal Nocturne. This has NOTHING to do with Nocturnal Illusion. They just have the same title.

[ 03-22-2007, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: Nargrakhan ]

#12

It really is a great game. I would still play it if it weren’t for the annoying midi problem which really makes the game unplayable (yes you can turn them off, but only once the game’s loaded and having to go through several menus with midi plus loading screen and it makes the game less fun with no music). If TLS I’d buy it.

It’s a really good game and if you get a chance to get a hold of it and play it, and can get past the annoying midi problem which is not the game’s fault, i think you’d like it.

[ 03-24-2007, 02:23 AM: Message edited by: Jinnai ]

#13

Or you could run a superior Win9x platform, and not have the MIDI problem. :frowning:

#14

Well, yes if you replay it every day for a year…but i can still have fun replaying my Chrono Trigger and Lunar: SSSC games, even today and even after beating them countless times. I just don’t play them for a bit after I last beat them.

And Win95 is only superior in that manner, but 98 is still better since it does all that 95 did better and still doesn’t have the MIDI problem. But they both still are bad when it comes to hardware recognition drivers.

[ 03-26-2007, 12:20 AM: Message edited by: Jinnai ]

#15

My replays were separated by a year at times, most of the times by weeks.

Nope. That’s when Internet Exploder got ‘integrated’ into the system, making for a much slower and less stable system. It’s also when they started cluttering the interface with fluff and needless clutter like “Favorites”, an icon in the top right of every window, and so forth.

Also, seriously… a web page as a background? Browsing your hard drive like a web site? Who dreamed up this nonsense?

The only thing that Win98 has going for it is that it can use more recent DirectX versions.

Ever wonder what was really new in Windows 98?

How so? Because it’s not all included out-of-the-box? There was a time when people were not lazy, and installed the drivers that came on a floppy or CD-ROM to get their hardware working.

If you really want the full package, there’s always Maximum-Decim Native USB Drivers.

If you want to talk about hardware recognition in WinXP, don’t tell me that it’s all that good. My CD-ROM drive disappears from time to time. On other WinXP computers than mine, my sister’s digital camera is not recognised, even though it’s nothing more than a USB flash drive. Worked fine on the Linux computer, though.

In the end, though, drivers are third-party plug-ins. You can’t blame the OS if some don’t work. Especially as of late, because often the Win9x drivers were an afterthought in the last couple of years.

[ 03-26-2007, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Benoit ]

#16

Bullshit. IE was integrated to Win95 already, since OSR1 (IE2.0).
For the rest, prior to Win95 OSR2.1, you didn’t have USB support with the system (do I have to explain you why USB is so great?), so you’d want at least OSR2.1 to avoid the hell of PS/2 devices. Now, OSR2.1 comes with IE3.0.
Oh, yeah, you think that IE3.0 is so great. Too bad it doesn’t support HTML 1.1 (gasp!), DHTML (thus, of course, not XML nor DOM) and only basic CSS, making it hard to browse nowadays.
And IE4.0 was integrated in Win95 since OSR2.5.

You noticed the driver pack is written “Only for Windows 98SE English !!!”, right?

[ 03-26-2007, 01:14 PM: Message edited by: olf_le_fol ]

#17

Look at that, olf_le_fol thought this was a good opportunity to corner me. :stuck_out_tongue:

It was not integrated. It was a forced install ‘option’, easily removed.

If you mean “with the system” as in “on the disc”, you’re right. However, you could enable USB support since OSR2.0 by downloading/getting from somehwere the USB update.

PS/2 devices aren’t hell. What do we use PS/2 for? Our keyboard and mouse. PS/2 is more than adequate for that, and backwards-compatible to years back.

All USB offers for keyboards and mice is faster data transfer speed. But unless you type 500 characters in a minute or something else impossible for any human being, it’s not needed. For mice, it offers no advantage.

Indeed, “comes with”. Not “integrated with”.

I never said I did. What do you think I have in my signature?

You must mean XHTML 1.1. Neither does IE7, the latest release. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal anyway, HTML 4.01 is as good as XHTML for most web pages.

DHTML = JavaScript + CSS + DOM. XML does not come into play. IE7 doesn’t support XML either.

  1. CSS is fluff, not necessary to browse the web.
  2. There are still so many websites that have table-based lay-outs these days (a design tactic from 1998) that the lack of CSS wouldn’t even matter much visually.

When I bought my PC, it did not have IE4. When I reinstalled it, it didn’t either. I only got it popping up once, because I left the installation CD in the drive. So it’s really more of an after-thought. I don’t call that a mandatory install component.

As for the IE3 install, which, again, is not integrated, read this guide. Doesn’t impact my system’s abilities in the least.

  1. The hardware recognition argument was for both Win95 and Win98.
  2. If you had bothered to read the thread, you’d have known that it works on other regions. People are even making localised versions themselves easily. Works fine on WinME too, and word has it that it even works on Win95, but I have no need to test it, as I use Nathan Lineback’s USB drivers.

[ 03-26-2007, 03:12 PM: Message edited by: Benoit ]

#18

It was integrated with the system, with a possible manual uninstall because the integration wasn’t strong enough, not because it wasn’t integrated (and by “manual uninstall” I meant that you can’t uninstall it properly from the “add/remove” panel).

If you have to use third parties software to enable it, it means the system doesn’t support it. Sure, you can pretty much find a third-party software to palliate what the system lacks, but that doesn’t mean the system is any better.

USB also supports hotplugs, which PS/2 doesn’t.
Also, all recent devices (camcorders, cell phones, etc.) use USB, not PS/2.

I meant “integrated”, because it was the case.

My bad: I meant “only HTML 2.0”, since HTML 3.0 was only in its draft phase.

There are more and more pages using css and the w3c recommends it.
Remaining with a browser supporting only basic css is like still prefering to walk and shunning cars because they’re more expensive, more polluting and less healthy.

Sure, it wasn’t integrated. It’s why the page you linked tells you how to hack the install file or your system in order to remove it!

As I wrote, you’re palliating the system’s lack of feature, which is not viable for most users. Integration of such features into the system removed the pain for the users to look for the n existing third-parties sofwares, try them and decide on which one is the “best”.

Since you think you know the system so well, let’s go into details about what Win95 lacks.

  1. The GDI+ library isn’t included, which makes it a pain to draw anything beautifully (not gradient brush, no cardinal spline, no matrix object, no scalable region, no alpha blending, no native support for basic image type).
  2. Most of the Winsock 2.0 APIs aren’t supported in Win95 (or even 98).
  3. The Common Control library is 4.70 (you’d need IE4.0 to have the Common Control 4.71, Win98 for 4.72 and IE5.0 for 5.80), which makes many modern features ugly (like the Wizard97, or many keyboard/mouse management since the NM_CHAR or NM_KEYDOWN notify message only existed since 4.71)
  4. No full UNICODE support. In fact, the kernel itself is ANSI so to manage UNICODE strings, it has to convert them to ANSI then back again to UNICODE. For location compatibility, that’s essential.
  5. Most of the Netapis isn’t implemented, which makes the system harder to secure from a network POV (and that includes the Internet).
  6. I’ll pass over the lack of RRAS management, impersonating feature, quota management and others.

But really, the addition of GDI+ is what makes Win98 far superior to Win95.

Once again, I’ll say it: wishing to remain with Win95 and considering it’s better than, say, XP, is wishing to still walking instead of using a car, because a car is more expensive, more polluting and less healthy. Which is true… if you don’t have to walk far.

[ 03-27-2007, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: olf_le_fol ]

#19

I liked reading more about True Love than technical crap about operating systems.

#20

We could make it more fun and talk about OS-tans. :slight_smile:

I think Vis-tan is way hotter than XP-tan. She has that exotic look. :wink: