As the title suggests.
With the market not doing very well in the West at the moment, and with small symptons (though, hopefully, temporary) that it’s on rough shores in Japan, I think we should all evaluate why we play these games in the first place.
I myself will give an answer, but I’d rather hear other people’s opinions first before I give my own (also, mine is fairly long) However, I want to state that, despite how things re at the moment, I’ll still play these games.
Personally, I enjoy being lost in a story. A game, doesn’t matter if it’s a Bishoujo Game a PS2 Game or an old Nintendo Game… for me it’s about the story. There has to be a good story that I can get lost in. I want to feel like I’ve become the lead character and that my choices are really having an impact on the way the story is going.
I don’t play for the images, nor do I play for the sex… but for the pure enjoyment of the story.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
Story is always important, but another major one would be the choice of different paths you can take. I like the fact that you can end the story in different ways, so with each play through it tells another side of the story. I use to read the choose your own adventure books, so it’s a pretty natural transition into novel type games.
Art and music also play a part to draw me into the mood of the story.
[ 12-02-2006, 02:14 AM: Message edited by: Mei ]
i confess when i found out about these games it was mainly the images and not the story to a point where i had about 17 of them from titles like season of sakura but then i found out about ones from himeya that i absolutely loved like adam,d,chain was great
now i only own two because i was trading them back to a company and getting credit and buying new ones.
too bad they stopped translating them though…now i just half ta wait for bible black…now i do look more so for story wise and detective/murder/mystery games…but they are hard to find when it comes to these games…
I play them because they’re so different from today’s mainstream games. I like the different approach.
What also attracted me was that they aren’t linear. You can make choices that affect the flow of the story and/or the ending you get.
I’m also a sucker for love stories. Especially dating sims. I discovered this niche through True Love (which I later got to own legitimately).
Good question.
I have to admit that what first attracted me to bishoujo games was the porn. I really didn’t ask any thing more from them than that. Imagine my surprise, then, to find that these games tell really great stories (altho, the spelling often leaves something to be desired) that tug at your heart strings, make you laugh and even creep you out sometimes. IThe writing is good. I often enjoy reading the same scenes over and over again and therefore seldom use the fast foward function when I’m playing a game. I love the characters, and enjoy thinking about them outside the context of their games. Why, for example, is Ryo from Crescendo often so thin-skinned and angry? What ever became of Yumi, whom I consider the real heroine of Little Sister? And what sort of a future will Takuya, the sexual chamelion from the Xchange series have? Look, I found negotiating the gender minefields of adolescence hard enough with my sexuality intact. If I’d had to endure what Takuya goes thru, I’d be looking at years of counseling. Finally, there’s the challenge (after all these are games). Bishoujo games are like rat mazes, are they not? Go down the right path, pull the right lever, and you get a nice surprise. If not, well… What kind of surprise? Well, for me it’s when I finally get Taka and Kana in bed, or experience the really beautiful encounter between Rya and Yuka. So I guess it all comes back down to the porm, after all.
Great story, great character design, different gaming experience, and adult situations. I don’t like my games sanitized.
I’ll just make a list:
My quick and shortlist to why I play them.
Probably due to the illegality of showing pubic hair in Japan. At least in the past.
For me, originally it was the porn, now that takes a back seat to the story and multiple choices/endings.
It’s actually the reverse. That’s why there are the recent so-called ‘hair nude,’ which covers up the genitalia and thereby skirting the puritan laws that were imposed on the Japanese after WWII.
Private region is shaved in H-games in general probably because 1. they weren’t drawn in to begin with, mosaiced and all; 2. most AV stars shave the pubic region so that the genitalia is visible, not for the Japanese audience, but so that the video can be exported overseas. As a general rule, adult videos that are filmed in one country are exported to all countries around the world, law permitting.
To be honest…
When I run onto these games some years ago…
I was attracted to the graphics and the different title names unlike most games in other consoles…
When I started my 1st playthrough…
I was just anticipating the CG’s…
But I soon realized that these games can actually provide me knowledge of various stuffs…
And so…, I continued to buy and play and collect these games just for the sake of those bits of knowledge I can obtain from them…
Somehow…I was attracted by to them this way…
It somehow feels like your journying to different places, different worlds, different times… Much like what I do most in my reality…
I just love… discovering many things and…
“The more I learn… The more I see… The less the world empassions me…”
That is all…
Why do we play these games?
At least in my opinion I would answer the same reason you read a book or watch a movie; for a short time you get to leave reality and go to another place. Experience all of the good and bad elements of that place and time, later to reflect on it.
I would suspect the reasoning behind my preference to anime-based, rather than some other forms, is mainly the artwork. It is rather unique and though its’ formation is from a foreign culture there are recognizable components, as a Westerner, I find attractive. Whether it is the influence of Disney from the early days of development or just that both cultures have a collection mental imagery of what we find appealing, I know or care not. It can be, at its best, stunning and beautiful.
The aspect of gaming which is unsanitized and has adult themes, even taboos included in it, is appealing as well. I am an adult and dislike anyone telling me exactly what I can or cannot watch, read, or enjoy in any given medium. I feel that I should have the power to decide if something is good, bad, decent, vulgar, right or just plain wrong. Add the fact it invokes a “wide open add anything into a video game” feel that I remember fondly from computer games in the eighties, before present-day governing standards, and you’ve got a winner.
Given that I am conservative in almost everything else in my life might surprise most that I stand on such a liberal soapbox toward bishoujo gaming and other guarded forms of expression. I find that should this or any form of expression, given that it is in adult hands and places no harm on others, should not be ommitted merely because of dislike to its’ existance.
post script to this: I have criticisms of this form as well but kept to the positive subject heading.
Before I give my long reply… a thought on the responses so far:
Noting that gameplay is not the focal point of these games, the story, then, has to be the strong point. And, I agree with you, that’s what these games should be played for.
And that’s another essential point about these games… the plot-centric gameplay. ALmost every game out there has a linear storyline, with a definitive ending, but b-games offer a chance for a better, or worse, ending.
AN honest opinion, and one I cannot deny.
However, to quote the good ALan Moore, there is no ‘beautiful porn’… but eroge, at its finest, shows that there CAN be beautiful porn.
I do not dny that what got me interested in the games was originally just the explicit content… but after paying Kana, I realize there’s more to it then just that.
Mirk’s opinion is one of the best in this thread, and I have to agree with him on this matter (though I’dd that I wish the characters of such games were of the odler demographic, then of a younger age to fulfil some high school fantasy).
~
As to what I think… hold a moment.
I’m lonely.
:eek: You are?..! 
Big time.
Somehow…(Tilts head to the left.)
“I wonder why…?”
You’re vexed on how an internet guy can be lonely? Let the thought float in your mind a few seconds.
Well, Conan, perhaps the coming New Year will be better. I nearly gave up looking then I met my wife. Never know what tomorrow will bring.
Looking forward to reading what Phineas Lucis
thinks on all of this. I will agree on the age-centric thing, but there are a few titles containing older anime ladies. Seems they add different stereotypical ladies into some bishoujo games just to cover the major fantasties in Japan (maid, loli, classmate, etc…)
[ 12-09-2006, 08:47 PM: Message edited by: Mirk ]
Think I’ll finally learn what “fun” means Mirk?