Visual Novel Fans Unite!

[Linuts]

Hirameki, about the only company I know that is bringing Visual Novels from the land of the Rising Sun to the land of MacDonalds, is conducting a survey asking what we want to see next in the growing industry. This is a good time for all you Fate/Stay Night (http://www.tcnj.edu/~sumter2/IMM14001/fatestaynight/), Planetarian, Tsukihime, AIR, Kannon, Clannad fan out there to tell them what we want!

Here's the survey:

http://community.hirameki-int.com/modules/enqeute2/index.php?id=1

NOW SIGN!

BTW, Hirameki's most recent translated titles are Eve 17 (http://www.akibaotaku.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/144) & Ai Yori Aoshi (http://www.akibaotaku.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/24_32/products_id/30). Ok, not exactly the best titles, that's why we need to tell them what we want!

[Blitzwing01]

I've become interested in Key Visual Arts recently...

FYI, they are the people behind pop hit visual novels Kannon and AIR. After some searching for English patches for thos games, I came across one of their more recent titles, Planetarian.

Like all visual novels, this "game" is really just a book accompanied with beautiful artwork. Unlike it's bigger predecessors, Planetarian is about 1 hour long (or however fast you read it), but what you get from it will be an eternity (as one of the themes that this story converys ^^). Just so I don't spoil anything... Key has been famous for its storytelling, and I've become a believer after "reading" this game ^^.

How many here have actually played it? My guess is probably "zero", but for those who want to try it go here:

http://planetarian.insani.org/

They have English patches for both the demo and the full retail version. And for a mere 10 bucks to download, I think it's well worth it ^^. Worth almost as much as a manga, so I guess you can think of it as such too^^.

Finally, an excuse to reply to that post without extreme necromancy. ^^; Planetarian is quite good! I suppose it best fits into the "kinetic novel" category - essentially a book with pictures and sound, as there aren't any choices to be made in the plot.

Well, I took the survey; Hope they do Kanon/Air/Clannad!

[Linuts]

Heh. It's about time someone replied ^^.

Seeing AIR will be cool, but I don't know much about Clannad. But hey, it's Key^^.

More people sign! :D

[Major Tom]

Must fight nerd impulses......damnit, I lose

I must admit I have been very curious about this whole visual novel thing. It would be interesting if those things became more readily availble. However, I've no experience in them, so I don't know how they play, or even if I'd even like the style. Is there like, freeware novel around I can try (and no, freeware is not stolen, it's simply free. There's no problem asking)

Other than that, it seems the current trend is to ship only to the US, which is inconvienient fo rme.

[Blitzwing01]

Must fight nerd impulses......damnit, I lose

I must admit I have been very curious about this whole visual novel thing. It would be interesting if those things became more readily availble. However, I've no experience in them, so I don't know how they play, or even if I'd even like the style. Is there like, freeware novel around I can try (and no, freeware is not stolen, it's simply free. There's no problem asking)

Other than that, it seems the current trend is to ship only to the US, which is inconvienient fo rme.

http://narcissu.insani.org/

In fact, there is! Perhaps try narcissu. I have yet to read this one, but it I heard it was pretty good. Translated into English with the blessings of the Japanese creator, and free to download!

http://planetarian.insani.org/

The Planetarian demo has been translated and is available for download here. Insani has also released an english patch for the full version.

http://www.haeleth.net/

Haeleth is one of the most well known visual novel translators. Probably best renowned for his Kanon translation patch (which is still in progress, but the next release should be a complete one!) His forums are pretty much the home of English speaking VisualArts/Key fans. There are several freeware projects available for download on his site.

http://forums.megatokyo.com/

MT's Dating Sims and Visual Novels forum is another good place to go for discussion on the subject.

http://nscripter.insani.org/

Make your own visual novel! nscripter and ONscripter are open source tools that you can use freely. Many of the freeware novels make use of it; it's quite powerful in the right hands.

[Linuts]

Major Tom

There is a free English demo of Fate/Stay Night here:

http://www.insani.org/fate.html#dl

Yes, it's translated by a group, but the demo itself is officially free anyway. You don't get to make any choices though since it's a demo. It does give you the same prologue as the actual game. (No sex scenes, BTW perverts.)

Also Planetarian is a good buy. As stated in my post quoted by Bliztwing01, the game is around the price of a manga volume and it's well worth the money IMO. Again, you don't get to make choices, since there's only one story. Details of getting the game and its translation patch can be found here. (Also no sex scenes.)

http://planetarian.insani.org/

Visual/Kinetic Novels as a whole are like any normal novels you find at a bookstore, but accompanied with images, music, sound effects, and multiple storylines. You play the role of a character, and storylines are usually branched depending on the choices you make. Some branches may not appear until the completion of another branch, as the story and its characters unravel more and more under each branch. They don't usually offer much in terms of player input (heck, I'm not even sure if this whole topic belongs in the Arcade section), but like any good novel, a well written Visual/Kinetic novel will draw you in.

Truth be told, these games usually compose of Erotica as well (Damn Fapanese)... But I'm sure you know the difference between Erotica and Porn :p. Although, I do think they are unnecessary most of the time. Thankfully, there are titles that have none like Key's Clannad and Planetarian. Well known titles like AIR also have version with the Erotica edited out (and this version sold really well in Japan). I believe Fate/Stay Night will also have an edited version. So no excuse for West distributors to not bring it here :p. Anyway, just think of this as a game with a well written plot covered with little sex, instead of a sex game covered with little plot.

[Major Tom]

wipes tear away......Thanks guys!

I'll have a play of these over the next few days and let you know what I think. At least I can finally feel like a TRUE NERD!

[Blitzwing01]

At least I can finally feel like a TRUE NERD!

*is tempted to post the meme of the animepillow hugging otaku*

As an aside, I wish those new-fangled e-book readers would incorporate visual novel support. It wouldn't be too cost-ineffective to implement - the most expensive part of those is the display, likely.

[Major Tom]

Okies, I downloaded Planetarian, Fate/Stay Night, and Narcissu. For some reason Planetarian froze up on me, which all in all isn't a bad thing, for reasons I will describe later. But that was disapointing, because going by synopsises that was the one I was most looking forward to.

First of all......

\MT shakes his fist at Linuts......You have created a new convert, and I'm not too sure whether to be dismayed or delighted at that!

I played Narcissu first.....well played isn't exactly the right term, viewed would be better. Damn. That was very good. I liked how it just told a story, no real attempt to try and send a message, you get what you will out of it. Although the terminal illness part of the story hit me the hardest, bringing up some rather unpleasent memories, well more an sympathy for what the characters are experiencing. This would have to have been one of the very few things to have genuinely made me cry. I actually think this would make a good anime, if it was in the right hands, it could easily go overly melodramatic and angsty, parts of which were very well balanced in the novel. I have yet to view it unvoiced, but they say you get different things out of it.

And then I loaded up Planetarian. And would you know it, the opening theme song was a hymn that is rather intricately tied up with the rather unpleasent memories brought up by Narcissu. If had known that, then I probably would have tried Fate/Stay Night next......but it locked up on me, so I was spared a rather depresseing time.

So, onto Fate/Stay Night. I was rather impressed, it was like an action anime in a novel form....I really liked how the visuals gave something to ground your imagination on, but then left enough room to play around with it. Admittedly, the only 2 characters that I am interested in are Rin and Archer, the others seem.....thin. But of course, this is only a demo, and is actually different from the real thing, so I think it's still worth a look. I have issued orders for my brother to start downloading the animated series because of this.

All in all, I am rather impressed by what I have seen, and would like to get a hold of more. I think I'm going to sign that petition, because then some of these may make their way over to Australia. And it's given some ideas of my own.......next time I'm near broadband I'm getting that scripting program.

[Linuts]

As an aside, I wish those new-fangled e-book readers would incorporate visual novel support. It wouldn't be too cost-ineffective to implement - the most expensive part of those is the display, likely.


That would actually be pretty cool, and a nice way to introduce the genre here. It's kinda hard to people to play a "game" when they are not actually playing it o_O.


\MT shakes his fist at Linuts......You have created a new convert, and I'm not too sure whether to be dismayed or delighted at that!



You will be assimilated.



And then I loaded up Planetarian. And would you know it, the opening theme song was a hymn that is rather intricately tied up with the rather unpleasent memories brought up by Narcissu. If had known that, then I probably would have tried Fate/Stay Night next......but it locked up on me, so I was spared a rather depresseing time.



If that game didn't freeze, you would've dehydrated from all the crying. Planetarian is definitly short and sweet.

[Sorrow-kun]

Visual Novels are something I desperately want to see more of outside of Japan. There's little interest in a lot of them, and there seems to be so few fan translating projects for them, except for the biggest name titles (Fate/Stay Night and Kanon, eg), which is likely due to the fact that they're complex and difficult things to translate (not only is the language apparantly difficult, but you need to have the skills to create patches and cracks and whatnot, and they tend to be looong pieces as well... Kanon's fan translater claims the project is the size of 6 Shakespearean plays. It's a project he's been working on for somewhere close to two years, and the fact that he has the patience and committment to stick with it is really something to be respected.)

They're good, but the sad fact is, if you want to follow them with any amount of seriousness, you need to know Japanese.

[Linuts]

Another reason why Visual Novels are superior! YOu can't do this with normal video games!

http://www.koichan.net/a/src/1135954768808.jpg

Well maybe not... But still

Visual Novels are something I desperately want to see more of outside of Japan. There's little interest in a lot of them, and there seems to be so few fan translating projects for them, except for the biggest name titles (Fate/Stay Night and Kanon, eg), which is likely due to the fact that they're complex and difficult things to translate (not only is the language apparantly difficult, but you need to have the skills to create patches and cracks and whatnot, and they tend to be looong pieces as well... Kanon's fan translater claims the project is the size of 6 Shakespearean plays. It's a project he's been working on for somewhere close to two years, and the fact that he has the patience and committment to stick with it is really something to be respected.)

They're good, but the sad fact is, if you want to follow them with any amount of seriousness, you need to know Japanese.

The Kanon translator practically did everything himself. If they can actually get a dedicated localization team, then translating them shouldn't be too time consuming (as opposed to the years they've taken in fan translation).

And I agree, the lack of interest in the west is depressing... T_T. Several things make the genre much harder to pick up here.

1) Stereo-type that they are all porn games... Can't blame them, considering those are the only titles that are actually selling in the west.. Leaving the good visual novels in the dark most of the time.

2) Their licensed anime adaptations are not always that good, and give them bad impressions. And also no thanks to the Harem genre T_T.

These things are also very hard to find... Although, I have spotted a few copies in the local hobby shop... Sitting on the second floor attic... Tucked away within all the other ancient mangas and comics books...

[aeroshadow]

Linuts already knows, but I've played through Planetarian and a little bit of Kanon myself. I was planning to keep playing through Kanon until I hit the untranslated section, then move onto more visual novels, but in the end, something else I can't remember caught my attention.

After playing those, I knew then why many anime are based upon visual novels. Planetarian, I think, if executed correctly, would make a beautiful, short but sweet OVA series.

Now that I've been reminded of these nifty things, I think I'm going to pick up Narcissu as well. ^_^

EDIT: I've completed Narcissu. I... liked it. There isn't much to say, really.

This site (http://www.shii.org/translate/) is pretty useful. It notes all the translated japanese visual novels to date... or at least most of them.

EDIT: The above link only lists unlicensed visual novels.

[Blitzwing01]

And then I loaded up Planetarian. And would you know it, the opening theme song was a hymn that is rather intricately tied up with the rather unpleasent memories brought up by Narcissu. If had known that, then I probably would have tried Fate/Stay Night next......but it locked up on me, so I was spared a rather depresseing time.

[...]

And it's given some ideas of my own.......next time I'm near broadband I'm getting that scripting program.


My friend had a similar problem with Planetarian crashing. He was able to solve it by installing the correct font. Try this...

Excerpt from the Planetarian FAQ:

2.1.1 Japanese support

Unlike many other Japanese games, planetarian does not necessarily require you to force your default ANSI codepage (= language for non-unicode programs) into Japanese. Nevertheless, if you are having problems getting planetarian to run, this should be your first move. If you do not know how to set your default ANSI codepage into Japanese, follow these (http://www.insani.org/faq.html#4) instructions.
If under Windows 2000 or XP you continue to have problems running the game -- specifically, if you can start the game but you find that it crashes after 3 lines or so, then you may need to install this (http://haeleth.net/dl/sazanami-gothic.rar) font regardless of whether or not you have Japanese support installed.


And the scripting stuff is only a couple of megs, you could probably get it off of dialup reasonably fast.

[Sorrow-kun]

This site (http://www.shii.org/translate/) is pretty useful. It notes all the translated japanese visual novels to date... or at least most of them.Holy shit, aeroshadow! A million thanks for that link.

* Sorrow-kun didn't even realize anyone was translating the Cross Channel game, let alone that they'd gotten that far.

[Kurorakuda]

* Kurorakuda recalls all good visual novel games that he's ever sat through

* Kurorakuda looks at his wallet

Damn you Linuts!!!

* Kurorakuda fights the urge to participate in poll

* Kurorakuda loses

[aeroshadow]

BTW, Hirameki's most recent translated titles are Eve 17 (http://www.akibaotaku.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/144) & Ai Yori Aoshi (http://www.akibaotaku.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/24_32/products_id/30). Ok, not exactly the best titles . . .Sorry for bringing back an old thread, but this quote has been bothering me a little bit. ^^;

Just letting you know, I wouldn't dismiss Ever17 so quickly. After all, it is ranked #1 on ErogameScape (http://erogamescape.dyndns.org/~ap2/ero/toukei_kaiseki/toukei_median.php?average=t&erogame=null&coterie=null) (for the record, Ever17 has no erotic content) for a reason. Sure, those rankings may not be the ultimate justification of quality, as ranking systems like that are usually more reflective of popularity, but hey, it does mean something. Hirameki didn't choose a random title, but actually one that was a hit in Japan. (It has also received high reviews on RPG Fan and Advance Media Network Anime Games, if that matters at all.)

That being said, Hirameki intruiges me. Do they lose money on each title? I can't understand how they can profit from this type of thing at all. While Ever17 may have been a hit in Japan, who the hell in America has even heard of it? Perhaps they love visual novels so much that they don't mind losing a bit of cash to localize a few? I think the best way to introduce visual novels to the American market would be to show an anime adaption of one on Adult Swim (F/SN, for example), then follow up its popularity by releasing the game, probably with the h-scenes cut out. I don't really know anything about business, though. *shrugs*

Anyways, I am learning Japanese with a friend this summer in the hope that I'll be able to play CLANNAD slowly and roughly, with the help of a dictionary before an anime adaptation comes out (MOONPHASE predicts one in 2007). Yay!

PS: A fan translation of Wind ~a breath of heart~ has been completed like yesterday. Just letting people know, since this is virtually the first time a fan translation of a visual novel of that length has been completed. All the other completed fan translations up until now have been for smaller games, like Planetarian and Narcissu. The completion of Kanon, Shuffle, and Tsukihime should follow soon.

[Linuts]

Sorry for bringing back an old thread, but this quote has been bothering me a little bit. ^^;

Just letting you know, I wouldn't dismiss Ever17 so quickly. After all, it is ranked #1 on ErogameScape (http://erogamescape.dyndns.org/~ap2/ero/toukei_kaiseki/toukei_median.php?average=t&erogame=null&coterie=null) (for the record, Ever17 has no erotic content) for a reason. Sure, those rankings may not be the ultimate justification of quality, as ranking systems like that are usually more reflective of popularity, but hey, it does mean something. Hirameki didn't choose a random title, but actually one that was a hit in Japan. (It has also received high reviews on RPG Fan and Advance Media Network Anime Games, if that matters at all.)



I have been hearing good things about the game. Just having a hard time finding a copy. Maybe I'll shop online instead.



That being said, Hirameki intruiges me. Do they lose money on each title? I can't understand how they can profit from this type of thing at all. While Ever17 may have been a hit in Japan, who the hell in America has even heard of it? Perhaps they love visual novels so much that they don't mind losing a bit of cash to localize a few? I think the best way to introduce visual novels to the American market would be to show an anime adaption of one on Adult Swim (F/SN, for example), then follow up its popularity by releasing the game, probably with the h-scenes cut out. I don't really know anything about business, though. *shrugs*


THey've actually advertised the game quite a lot in serveral American Anime/Game magazines. Not sure how well the company itself is doing, but hey it's a start. The Anime industry didn't start off being popular either.



PS: A fan translation of Wind ~a breath of heart~ has been completed like yesterday. Just letting people know, since this is virtually the first time a fan translation of a visual novel of that length has been completed. All the other completed fan translations up until now have been for smaller games, like Planetarian and Narcissu. The completion of Kanon, Shuffle, and Tsukihime should follow soon.

Whenever they say "should follow soon" it usually means another few years :D.