What's GOOD about bishoujo games?

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#41

For me a good story is a must as well. The first game I played was Kana - Little Sister which is still one of my favorites today. The 2nd one I played was Private Nurse. Although I liked the story, there was a few times that I actually skipped some of the H-scenes to get back to the story.

YUME MIRU KUSURI was a great game and also liked the music in it. The main theme was stuck in my head for like a few days. Snow Sakura compared to other bishoujo games I have played seemed kind of average story wise. Haven’t played Raidy yet so can’t comment on it. The Sagara Family was a good game as well. I did like it better than Snow Sakura.

At the moment, my favorite games are probably Fate/Stay Night, Tsukihime, and Clannad. For Clannad, I didn’t mind that it didn’t have H-scenes in it, but I don’t think having them in there would have hurt it either. Once in a while I don’t mind playing a game like Utawarerumono, but for once, I would have preferred if it had voice overs in it. I must of have been spoiled by the anime. :smiley: Sometimes it feels like after I find out that an anime series was created from a bishoujo game, I want to play it even more. Overall I don’t usually stick with a particular genre of bishoujo game or visual novel. I liked Black Bible as well, but haven’t had the chance to play Discipline yet.

#42

You know, a good story is a must, that goes without saying. But it’d be better if the game plays like a game, not some kind of Japanese-voiced E-Book. Yeah, there’re choices to make, but to the point that choosing doesn’t even require you to get your brain to work (like in the case of YMK) it seems pretty pointless to provide you that much choices. You see, choices in YMK is already like the guidelines for you to know which should you choose to progress with this or that route. I like challenges, i love the feelings i had when i finally reached Saki’s route after many guessing, the result i achieved was more meaningful for me than following up a guide (same goes for when i reached Mio’s true ending in FOH or Koori’s ending in HinataBokko, they’re hard to figure out but worth my tries nevertheless)

Long story short: a game can be made better if it challenges you to “think”, not just sitting back and let the story progress :stuck_out_tongue: I like Tsukihime for the same reason: one wrong choice and you’re dead, no mercy. Now that’s what i’m talking about.

#43

EGS listing:
http://erogamescape.dyndns.org/~ap2/ero … reater=328

Muvluv novelization:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/imag … 327&sr=1-1

For the most part, he’s contracted by brands staffed by other ex-CD Bros. employees, such as AXL and Bloomhandle.

#44

For VNs like that, where there aren’t a heap of interesting bad ends, I sort of prefer the Haru no Ashioto style of just giving you one or two choices in the game to decide the route you end up on. (and not having any irrelevant choices whatsoever) I think it’s more worthwhile to spend time writing story for the main path than for a heap of short side routes that do nothing other than merge back into the main path and possibly trigger a flag or increment a counter.

#45

I do have to say this is probably true. The people who want story in their games are very much more common here than in the customer base as a whole. Some people also lie, even when asked directly by the people running the company what they should do, and say they’re more into story.

If the games didn’t have h-scenes, I’d be much less interested in them. But if they didn’t have good stories, I wouldn’t keep coming back.

#46

That really depends what the game is. Games based around anime probably could do better even without H-content because of character recognition. I bought Galaxy Angel games for that reason.

The best direct indicator for this sadly though the number of downloads the translation patch for Love Hina GBA got it came out. Beyond that, not really much has come out expect fighting games and the occasional RPG for the English market based off non-hentai anime. The rest has h-content, like those crappy flash games or stuff done by Type Moon and translated by Mirror Moon.

#47

I would never have sarted playing VN without the h-scenes.
I remember the only thing I wanted at first was to try a H-game and I bought Crescendo.
Then it was the revelation… VN were the greatest creation of all the time and now I think that the story is the most important thing (isn’t EVER17 one of the most awesome game you’ve ever seen ?).
Nevertheless, without h-scenes, some games would not be as good (YMK, Crescendo,…).

#48

My first was actually “the legendary” Tsukihime because a friend of mine told me that it’s great. So i lurked my way out to get the game. Of course, Tsukihime was great as he said, and it’s the kind of VN that H-scenes are pretty much unnecessary. So yeah, since that time i didn’t play VNs for any other purpose than story and challenges (man, Tsu was hell of a challenge), so i’m good with non-H games (H-scenes are always welcome though :twisted:).

#49

Wrong thread…

#50

Well I totally disagree with guys claiming that the only thing attracting them to Bishoujo Gaming is sex. I don’t know how it works on you but animated erotic scenes don’t turn me on :lol: :lol: :lol: Bishoujo Games appeal to me because of the story and the ability to make your own choices that affect the outcome. Since it involves mainly reading, I treat it as a substitute of a good book. To me it’s even better than reading the book because when you read you have no influence on the book and you are 100% passive to the story. During Bishoujo Gaming you are a master of yor own fate. This I consider wonderful

#51

That entirely depends on the book. I’m not sure how old you are, but when I was a child, I used to read Choose Your Own Adventure books. Reading them when I was young is something that probably primed me for enjoying these games later in life.

#52

Quite a personal question how old am I (20 by the way :slight_smile: ) and although I might get a clue what are you aiming at, shamefully I have to admit I have never heard of such books, probably because I’m not sure they have ever been introduced in Polish market. Nevetheless, Bishoujo gaming is my kind of “chooice-adventure books” in my range

#53

I really didn’t need to know your exact age, but now that I do I can further on what I said before. While I have no idea how well the CYOA series books did in the Polish market, I don’t think I really need to know, since by the time you would have been able to read, the books were fast falling out of favor, even in its home market of North America.

#54

Now everything’s clear :slight_smile: good to know CYOA existed

#55

From what I understand, the series is trying to make a come back, with some fair success. You can read an article about it here. While I say “Choose Your Own Adventure”, I should clarify that I’m only mentioning the most well know series of a genre known as gamebooks. I also read books from other gamebook series, two of the most memorable being “Escape from the Kingdom of Frome #3: The Caverns of Mornas”, and “Twistaplot #15: Spellcaster” (which incorporated a simple substitution cipher with a rune-like alphabet, which I memorized and used to write down things at school I didn’t want others to read :stuck_out_tongue: ).

#56

Well it’s obvious that every teenager in his life endures a period of sexual hyperactivity and everything connected to sex and nudity cause abnormal excitement. That’s how majority of people has first encounters with hentai (since it’s anime drawing style parents don’t get suspicious and it’s safe to collect covered) and further browsing the web brings about the discovery of Dating Sims. So no wonder initially people get attracted to it just by sex. More “ambitious” players grow up to expect something more from B gaming.
As for introducing CYOA books in Poland: this will happen only if it hit’s the bull’s eye in American market. If it’s a miserable failure developers will not risk

#57