Large update about future releases from MangaGamer

[Lancer-X]

People who are actually interested in h-scenes will think the game's content is weaksauce, and people who aren't may be repelled by the cheesecake shots. So I'm not sure that making it non-H, but with cheesecake, helps them very much.

It is _very_ weaksauce, to the point where I don't think the latter situation you describe will be an issue.

[LexarV]

Oh, nice! I like the weak sauce! It's a nice change of-*SMACK*
Pass the hot sauce. *squirtttts onto the cheesecake*

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Anyways, I will probably get a hard copy; though, I'm only somewhat interested in the plot...; but the fact that they are catering for a Western audience is and could be interesting. Besides I've never been to the locations the game tours... why not, right?

Too bad they aren't voiced though... It would be *interesting* if they had an english speaking protag, and two japanese girls speaking english (most of the time...) [or would it be the other way around...?]

[Lancer-X]

Too bad they aren't voiced though... It would be *interesting* if they had an english speaking protag, and two japanese girls speaking english (most of the time...) [or would it be the other way around...?]

For the majority of the game, all the characters speak Japanese. It would be interesting to have a native English voice actor speaking the protagonist's (Japanese) lines, though.

[Guest]

Mangagamer's boards hacked. Not cool...

[Lancer-X]

A number of places have just been attacked (and I'm noticing that a number of them, including MangaGamer, are hosted by InMotion Hosting. Hmmm) - it looks like tiger-m@te just found a new zero-day and he's testing it out.

EDIT: Okay, the comment about InMotion Hosting was not wrong. I haven't seen anyone else comment on this yet, but I've done some quick digging and found _ten_ separate InMotion-hosted sites, ALL attacked by the same dude.

EDIT 2: InMotion has acknowledged the issue.

[Billybob]

So mangagamer releases hard copies now? Are there any "must have" releases? Or really anything worthwhile at all? I've got a small stack of eroge I've never played sitting here, but it's mostly stuff I really don't care for and just ordered to support the cause. Maybe I'll get around to it sometime, but I'd prefer to order some good stuff and play that first.

[LexarV]

Kara no Shoujo comes to mind, but it's not a hardcopy yet...
Higurashi and Higurashi Kai might be worth the purchase~
Kira Kira too, but it's the all-ages version for hardcopy.

If you're a fan of Da Capo games, you might buy their limited edition Da Capo and Da Capo 2... (IF you're a fan...)
I would like to get Guilty the Sin hardcopy, but it's mediocre from the reviews I've read...
It might be worth getting Edelweiss, thanks to the new translation; but it's not a hardcopy...
Koihime Musou might be worth it if you like tons of ero scenes, and a long game from what I've heard... Not hardcopy though... (maybe once it sells 2000 copies hopefully it can get a hard release with voices)

[Guest]

As far as Da Capo 2 goes, you don't really need to be a fan. It was a solid game. A couple of amazing routes and most of the other routes were above average for a moege.
As for Kira Kira, the ero was rather random. It really served no purpose other than being ero and it wasn't done well. Anyway, if you only buy hardcopies, since I thought Kira Kira was by far the best VN I've ever played, I can't recommend getting it enough.

[Billybob]

Do you need to play Da Capo to be able to get into Da Capo 2? If it's a more solid game I may give it a go. Winter time is gaming time for me, so I'm trying to stock up.

I was looking at the digital only games. Some look good so maybe I'll try them out. Edelweiss in particular.

Guilty the Sin has the tentacle icon next to it, so that's definitely out. Not a fan of that stuff.

I'll look into Kira Kira as well. I really do prefer hard copies, but beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.

[DarkFusion]

You can play DC2 and enjoy it without having payed the first game.The only thing that may go over your head are some scenes involving Sakura and a few references and jokes, but aside from that it's very much playable for newcomers and completely superior to the first game

[Lancer-X]

Do you need to play Da Capo to be able to get into Da Capo 2? If it's a more solid game I may give it a go.

No, you don't, and I wholly recommend skipping Da Capo altogether and just going for Da Capo 2. It's hard to put into words how awful Da Capo is, although I've tried a few times on these forums =P (I really hate Da Capo)

[Jinnai]

Do you need to play Da Capo to be able to get into Da Capo 2? If it's a more solid game I may give it a go.

No, you don't, and I wholly recommend skipping Da Capo altogether and just going for Da Capo 2. It's hard to put into words how awful Da Capo is, although I've tried a few times on these forums =P (I really hate Da Capo)

I starts out with so much seeming potential that fails to utilize it effectively and flat at the end. That's my thoughts atleast.

[fujifruit]

Do you need to play Da Capo to be able to get into Da Capo 2? If it's a more solid game I may give it a go.

No, you don't, and I wholly recommend skipping Da Capo altogether and just going for Da Capo 2. It's hard to put into words how awful Da Capo is, although I've tried a few times on these forums =P (I really hate Da Capo)

It's funny because Mikiage wrote some of Da Capo.

[Lancer-X]

It's funny because Mikiage wrote some of Da Capo.

Kure did too, and Kure can write some seriously good stuff. But Da Capo isn't it.

[Billybob]

Guess I'll get Da Capo 2 after my next paycheck. I'm kind of getting Snow Sakura vibes from it. Are they somewhat similar? Snow Sakura is not my favorite game but it was good enough that I completely finished it.

Also I was looking at Kara no Shoujo, and damn that's a shame what happened with the voice work. I haven't played a non-voiced game since Kana Imouto and that was at least 5 years ago. I'm not sure I can go back, but it looks really good. So tempting.

[Lancer-X]

Guess I'll get Da Capo 2 after my next paycheck. I'm kind of getting Snow Sakura vibes from it. Are they somewhat similar? Snow Sakura is not my favorite game but it was good enough that I completely finished it.

Both games feature sakura in winter, which is itself not that common a concept, but that's all. They're very different stories.

[TDOMMX]

Also I was looking at Kara no Shoujo, and damn that's a shame what happened with the voice work. I haven't played a non-voiced game since Kana Imouto and that was at least 5 years ago. I'm not sure I can go back, but it looks really good. So tempting.

Just grab the fan-made voice patch and problem solved. The recording studio refused to set a licensing fee appropriate to MangaGamer's target audience and chose not to lower it in spite of the sales data, so we have no voices as a result. In this rare case, I see no reason not to give them the finger and play the game with voices anyway, letting them know that they could have negotiated a cut but didn't because they were too greedy.

I just finished playing through the disc versions of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Higurashi Kai - I would have loved to play them with voices, but my familiarity with the anime let me imagine the voices in English no problem. I still can't go after Koihime Musou yet (low sales = no voice patch; no voice patch = no hard copy; no hard copy = my laptop can't play it; my laptop can't play it = I won't buy it); here's hoping that changes in the near future. Go Go Nippon doesn't have voices either, but, as usual, I'll buy it the moment it gets a hard copy.

[Lancer-X]

I just finished playing through the disc versions of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Higurashi Kai - I would have loved to play them with voices, but my familiarity with the anime let me imagine the voices in English no problem.

It's funny, but this is precisely why I can't watch the Higurashi animation- the voices didn't come close to the ones I imagined when I played the games originally. =P

[TDOMMX]

I just finished playing through the disc versions of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Higurashi Kai - I would have loved to play them with voices, but my familiarity with the anime let me imagine the voices in English no problem.

It's funny, but this is precisely why I can't watch the Higurashi animation- the voices didn't come close to the ones I imagined when I played the games originally. =P

Really? I'd recommend against watching it because it suffers from heavy adaptation decay, the first season has QUALITY animation, and the directors seem to have no idea how a Chekhov's Gun narrative device works - nothing to do with the voice acting. Instead of showing things chronologically with appropriate pacing and detail, they rush over or flat-out skip key points the first time, then show flashbacks immediately before or immediately after those points come into play. These points come across as asspulls as a result.

Just a couple of things that come across as hokey or outright don't make sense, off the top of my head:
- In the Cotton Drifting / Eye-Opening chapters, the anime leaves out that the wrong twin received the demon tattoo; the private school escapee / waitress is really Mion, and the spunky club leader is really Shion. This removes a good chunk of Mion's reason for seeking revenge against Shion ("Give me back my name!!"), as well what Mion means when she tells Keiichi that Shion really loved him.
- The anime ending of the Eye-Opening Chapter ruins Mion's tear-jerking moment of regret after she slips and gets a concussion (right before she decides to commit suicide by letting herself fall from the elevator). In the anime, her shirt suddenly gets caught on a hangnail, and her sudden fall is accompanied by a seemingly knee-jerk "Oh crap! I'm sorry!!" moment...
- The first five episodes of Kai shoehorn the omitted events from the first six arcs while changing the epilogue of the Atonement chapter and having Satoko play the part Keiichi originally did during the epilogue of the Curse Killing chapter.
- When Rika's friends visit her in the Massacre Chapter when she pretends to be sick with a cold, the anime version changes the time of their visit to afterschool. The discussion they have in which Rika explains everything lasts until sunset. After the eyecatch, Rena comments that the next shift of police guards should arrive soon to relieve the ones currently there since they had been standing guard since noon. Only, the guards weren't there since noon in the anime; they didn't arrive until past sunset.

Personally, I love Satsuki Yukino, Soichiro Hoshi, and Mai Nakahara. Yukari Tamura makes the nipa~ and mi~ without them coming across as completely pants-on-head retarded. Miki Ito is a great Takano. The only voices I didn't like were Satoko's and Hanyu's (you can't hear the auau or nanodesu without thinking ugu~... -_-).

I'm about to check out the manga version; I'm told it fares much better than the anime despite having multiple artists; we'll see just how well it stacks up.

[LIGHTDX]

We love master! Conquering the Queen, and Harem party have been relased In Mangagamer.

They are planing to relase in the future Harukoi Otome, DEARDROPS, Destroyer and Ef althoght in the oficial page they only show Harukoi and deardrops, still is a fact they are working with the other two.

[Russo_Turisto]

I take back everything I said about Go Go Nippon! being a risky project. There was nothing risky about it, mainly because it is so incredibly cheap. I don't mean that as an insult, it just is. About half of the background CGs were conveniently taken straight from KIRAKIRA, and the rest are mostly stylized photos of various Tokyo landmarks. The music is pretty basic, and there are a few basic animations (train rides, etc). Cheap, cheap, cheap.

So there was really almost no risk in treading the (mostly) uncharted waters of making a VN for the western audience. I don't know whether it was a smart move, but with the cost of making the game being so low, they have a chance to make profit on this one.

[Russo_Turisto]

Man, I wish I didn't play the DEARDROPS trial. Now I'm checking MangaGamer site, twitter and blog five to ten times per day, and that's certainly not healthy.

[Kouryuu]

Man, I wish I didn't play the DEARDROPS trial. Now I'm checking MangaGamer site, twitter and blog five to ten times per day, and that's certainly not healthy.

I'd that's a perfectly normal response! Won't be too much longer, hopefully. The Beta Testing on it is already complete.

[Russo_Turisto]

Heh, well here's hoping.

I liked KIRAKIRA (well, I like everything by OVERDRIVE so far), but even before DEARDROPS was announced, I wished for a game just like it, but slightly more mature and with less happy-go-lucky feel (*cough*Kirari*Cough*). DEARDROPS seems to be exactly that.

[LIGHTDX]

I liked KIRAKIRA (well, I like everything by OVERDRIVE so far), but even before DEARDROPS was announced, I wished for a game just like it, but slightly more mature and with less happy-go-lucky feel (*cough*Kirari*Cough*). DEARDROPS seems to be exactly that.

I agree. But, in my case, the problem wasn't juts the happy-go-feel but having the main character crossdressing almost all the time. Is very funny one or two times agains his will, but all the time is a little unpleasant and unrealistic to me. But this one look perfect without it, having better characters and being slightly more mature. I just hope they put a relase date already.