Tag: idea factory

Charge of the Otomes part 2!

Charge of the Otomes part 2!

otome2

Return of lame titles!

A while back I wrote a post about otome games making an appearance in the western VN market. It’s almost a year ago – and some more interesting stuff has happened since then, so I thought I’d make a follow-up post. I need to get this blog going again anyway, and what better way to procrastinate from the work I’m supposed to do?

First up is Dragon Academy, which is the game I wrote the most about back then. The first episode and a demo had come out at the time, and this original english web-based otome game seemed promising. Unfortunately, that’s all we ever saw of the game.
The promised second episode never turned up. After a while Go! Comi promised a re-vamp of their O-Play section that would bring new life to these games, but later the page went back to its old “coming soon” status, and the O-Play sub-forum has even been removed from their site. It doesn’t look too good.

But all is not lost! Where companies like Go! Comi have fallen behind, the indies are here to save the day.

As of my last post, the OEL game “Fatal Hearts” by Hanako Games was one of the only alternatives for english speaking fans. Since then a new indie developer has entered the scene and released two games aimed at a female audience – Heileen, a game that works mostly like a normal visual novels, and Spirited Heart, a game much like the Princess Maker raising sims.

I have played Spirited Heart quite a bit myself, and it is an addicting and challenging game where you can play as a human, demon or elf, and choose different jobs while havaing random encounters with guys that you may later end up marrying. While not as polished as the Princess Maker games, Spirited Heart is still a very nice game, and I suspect it will be even nicer when the upcoming premium edition gets released. (Premium edition… or was it special? I don’t remember).

And the indies aren’t the only ones who have been releasing games for us since last time.

A cute little game called Princess Debut has been released for DS in the US. In the game you play as a girl who ends up taking a princess’ place in another world, and then she has to practice dancing for an upcoming ball. Apart from that, she also has to choose one of the princes as her dancing partner.
The art is cute, and so is the story – but it’s generally something aimed at… much younger girls than me 😛 If you don’t mind some overly cute sillyness, princesses and tons of dancing, then you should give this game a shot and support the license. And then let’s hope something with a little more substance is up next!

I also mentioned a survey that Idea Factory had started on otome games in the US. Unfortunately not a lot of info on the results have come out yet. On the other hand it seems that the results of such surveys in a few different countries have ended in Idea Factory making a new brand called “Otome Forte”, which will release more gameplay focused games aimed at girls. The first title is “I will protect you” for the DS, a seemingly Castlevania inspired game. Whether these will stand a chance outside Japan is unknown.
Let’s hope that’s not all that comes out of it…

Last but not least is the Princess Nightmare translation project…. although it doesn’t look that way, it’s still alive, don’t worry. But don’t expect to see anything any time soon.

And what about that other guy in today’s banner? Well he’s just from an up-coming game that I am looking very much forward to, but hasn’t got anything to do with english releases (unfortunately). Let’s take this chance to end the post with some nice art!

Bunnies with wings? I'm sold...
Bunnies with wings? I'm sold...

Now back to work!

The charge of the otomes!

The charge of the otomes!

Yeah, the title is lame….

Anyway, it looks like otome games are charging forward recently. Not only is a lot of BxG companies in Japan creating new otome game branches (making stuff like Circus’ new Da Capo for girls), but a lot of visual novel-style games for girls are popping up in english as well.

There was the indie game Fatal Hearts by Hanako Games, then Idea factory began a survey with interest in localising their otome games, I just read about a german “dating game” with a female lead yesterday, and then right afterwards I heard that “Dragon Academy” was finally released on Go! Comi‘s website…..

Dragon Academy looks like it could be interesting. So far there is a free prologue and the first episode up for download on their site. The episode costs $7.99, but I heard that it’s very short.
The art looks pretty good so far (I only tried the free, very short prologue), although I do feel like they didn’t make as much of an effort on the drawing the main character as they did on the male characters.
One of the features in the VN is that when you get to make choices, you have to choose the feelings that she responds with (Sad, angry, and so on). But when you hover your mouse over the expressions, you can read the corresponding sentences that she will say, so in general it’s not very different from how you usually play these kind of games.
I can’t say much about the story yet, though I do hope that there will be more to this game than just an excuse to hunt after hawt boys. We didn’t really get to see any of these boys in the prologue either, except for in the short movie clip in the end. On my computer that flash movie was very much out of synch, which kind of ruined it, by the way.
Looking on the Team page, you can see the three girls working on the game. Hmm, I wonder how they got into that business…..

As for the german game, Dating Day…. I heard about that about a year or so ago, but then forgot again. Looking at the website, it’s not something that appeals to me very much. Generally seems like a plain dating sim with minigames, and the art really puts me off. I’m not a very big fan of that kind of cartoon style.

On the other hand, if you’re not into otome games, there’s not much else than hentai games to go for on the visual novel front…..

And now, I’ll get back to the drawing board…. working on my BxG game…. 😉

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