Rant: ~...and a pear in a Quickie tree~
Merry Christmas, everyone!
I've been slacking again, as you can probably tell, but that's more due to time constraints with work and other things I'm doing. Up until recently, I've been working on a wikipedia entry for R.U.R.U.R., aside from translating wakamuraP's Hadou fan video centered on idolm@ster's Amami Haruka. The former is getting there, while the latter still needs a lot of work.
I was hoping to be able to write a review on Valhalla's Kissing under the mistletoe, but I really haven't had time to do much with it (work is to blame for that one), so instead I'll simply talk about concerns some people express over the semi-imminent PSP port of R.U.R.U.R and whatever else I can think of at the moment.
R.U.R.U.R. -petit prince-: We still have no release date anounced. My guess is that light may be having issues compressing the game to fit into a UMD. The game alone was more than 3 gigabytes, which is twice the capacity of the UMD. Part of me wonders if they'll simply release it on PSP-GO or look for another console to release it on (wishful thinking wants it to be the 360). As is, they'd have to cut a lot out of the game to make it work.
Timing is another cause for concern. This thing was announced in mid-2008 and we still have nothing other than a flash website that is simply a front page with a promo video. All signs point to "this winter", and seeing how the last big release that I followed advertised for "this winter" turned out (the PSP idolm@ster games), I think we have a decent chance of seeing the game released in February if all goes according to plan.
The biggest concern, though, is the storyline. While Hinagiku's route was not dependant on sex to progress the story, Mizubashou, Shirotsumegisa and Kobatomugi's routes are. Taking the stories as they currently are, there is cause for concern since it would require major rewrites to get the story going again. This indeed may be the first time a game company is trying to release a story reliant on sex as a plot device on a console. A simple redo of the scenes or a scene swap is not going to fix things like they did for Comic Party and To Heart 2. To help illustrate this, I'll touch on the routes in detail:
- R-Mizubashou: Mizubashou's route uses sex as a device through which Mizubashou initiates Ichihiko into the "world of adults". The concept itself is a bit odd, since the game makes it quite apparent that the robots of the St. Exupery have no real understanding of what human relations are like (they try their best to interpret things with the information they have in hand, but that can only go so far). After the initial point, Mizubashou uses it as a way to keep Ichihiko "happy" with the world she created for him, or at least, happy enough that he won't start asking questions.
This route happens to be one of the two routes where Ichihiko exercises his high rank as a human once he finds out the truth. Of course, this comes at the cost of his trust in the chapekku, especially Mizubashou. A large part of the damamge stems from the intimacy between Mizubashou and the protagonist. There'd obviously be some changes for a console release, but I do wonder how much would have to change as well as how much of the themes behind Mizubashou's story would be lost (trust, unconditional love, manipulation, family).
- R-Shirotsumegusa: Shirotsumegusa's route would probably be the one to see the most changes. After all, the entire route is dependant on Shirotsumegusa forcing herself on the protagonist several times. The reason behind this is simply because, like Mizubashou, she also believes sex would make Ichihiko happy, but instead of being casual about it, Shirotsumegusa takes an aggressive approach (in part because she also uses it to try to get Ichihiko to like her more than Mizubashou or Hinagiku).
Some of the things she does to him are on the strange side of things (creating multiple versions of herself, not to mention creating a tentacle monster using her network of nanomachines). These aren't just for the sake of having ero-scenes, since Shirotsumegusa gets reprimanded by HAL and Mizubashou several times because of her escapades. The tentacle thing, in particular, starts the chain of events that lead to the first battle with Hinagiku (which Hina loses), Shirotsumegusa eventually going rogue, and most importantly, Ichihiko sacrificing his humanity to stop the returning Hinagiku and Shirotsumegusa from killing each other. And by sacrificing his humanity, I mean, placing himself inside the vats used to make chapekku and having the machincal implants common in military chapekku inserted into him through nanomachines, thus renaming him R-Ichihiko.
The shock value of that decision (Hinagiku is surprised, but Shirotsumegusa instantly takes the "what have you done?!" stance) is enough to stop Hina and Shiro in their battle, and I feel there's very little that can be done to the story if we are to preserve that. The story also builds off the fact that Hina and Shiro don't like each other very much, but the above mentioned are as, if not more, important.
- R-Kobatomugi: Simply put, this entire route would get scrapped and rewritten from scratch. Kobatomugi's route is spun off from Mizubashou's route, where Ichihiko's memory of the events leading up to the discovery of the ship and his world being fake were successfully wiped. Kobatomugi takes it upon herself to investigate the meaning of "happiness", and like the above two, uses sex as a means to try to understand it.
- Others: The writers can get away with removing ero scenes in Hinagiku's route, since the route itself seems to be designed around being a clean story. Tanpopo's route doesn't need them either, and Benibana's route had one tacked on for consistency's sake. Speaking of which, Benibana is supposedly getting a new ending, which to me says the events leading to the end of her story will also change. This, combined with the whole "reformed Ichihiko" leaves me somewhat hopeful. Ideally, we'd have major rewrites in all the routes, simply because changing the protagonist from whiny little boy to something else would have a huge impact to how things play out.
Featured Character:
Name: Hasebe Aya
Game: Comic Party
Designed by: Mitsumi Misato
Voiced by: Sonozaki Mie (DC and Anime version)
Theme: Tsuki no douwa (Lunar Fairy Tale)
Aya is introduced as a quiet girl with a very gloomy air about her. This usually keeps people from approaching her, but ComiPa's protagonist (Sendou Kazuki) decides to approach her regardless to learn as much as he can about her. Should Kazuki decide to focus on doujinshi featuring original stories (instead of parodies or homages to existing series), he can get Aya's attention for long enough to get to know her and critique some of her work.
As the story progresses, we learn that Aya has actually been doing Comic Party for a couple of years, but has remained relatively unknown as an artist because her works rarely sell. While her artwork is much more realistic than that of other artists (and thus not attractive to most con-goers, who preffer anime-style art), her writing skill is what makes her works impressive. Kazuki himself notes that Aya's writing is the true selling point of her doujinshi.
After spending a couple of conventions around Aya, our protagonist decides to ask her if she would like to work together with him as a unit. At first, Aya refuses out of fear of causing trouble for him, but accepts after Kazuki insists (and after he turns down the opportunity to join big doujinshi circles like CAT OR FISH?!). Thus, Jamming Book Store and Brother-2 join forces, seeing our protagonist find companionship in Aya while she also gets used to having him around and even learns a thing or two on how to improve her own art style.
Good times are had and our couple grows closer, but they are put to the test during the December Comic Party when Taishi calls Kazuki out and advises him to break his partnership with Aya. His reasoning is that Aya could be holding Kazuki back from fulfilling his true potential as a doujinshi artist (and thus not helping much in Taishi's plan to take over the world with doujinshi). While Kazuki refuses to do so, Aya overhears the conversation and soon after announces that she's giving up Comic Party and doujinshi as a whole.
Aya's retirement proves to be just a lie when our protagonist learns that she joined CAT OR FISH?! and managed to sell doujinshi in the hundreds by just copying their art style. There's not much of a confrontation, but our protagonist mentions that he preffers Aya's "real" style. This leads to Aya breaking down and begging him to be with her. Thus, our couple makes up and see the end of the one year that envelops ComiPa's story as a point that reaffirms their feelings for one another. As the story closes, Kazuki decides to continue his work and become a mangaka, while Aya decides that she wants to be an author.
Personality-wise, Aya is more that just quiet. She's usually afraid to speak up (some web sites jokingly mention that the player should turn the character voices knob to max volume before beginning Aya's route), and at times settles for nods and shakes of her head to communicate. She's a woman of few words on almost every topic, with the exception being art supplies. Since she works at an art supply store, she can go on rants about what is good and bad in terms of pens, erasers, paper and so on (much to her own embarrassment).
Having read this, you can watch this for further emphasis on this character.
That's it for today.
-Moroboshi Yuumei
I've been slacking again, as you can probably tell, but that's more due to time constraints with work and other things I'm doing. Up until recently, I've been working on a wikipedia entry for R.U.R.U.R., aside from translating wakamuraP's Hadou fan video centered on idolm@ster's Amami Haruka. The former is getting there, while the latter still needs a lot of work.
I was hoping to be able to write a review on Valhalla's Kissing under the mistletoe, but I really haven't had time to do much with it (work is to blame for that one), so instead I'll simply talk about concerns some people express over the semi-imminent PSP port of R.U.R.U.R and whatever else I can think of at the moment.
R.U.R.U.R. -petit prince-: We still have no release date anounced. My guess is that light may be having issues compressing the game to fit into a UMD. The game alone was more than 3 gigabytes, which is twice the capacity of the UMD. Part of me wonders if they'll simply release it on PSP-GO or look for another console to release it on (wishful thinking wants it to be the 360). As is, they'd have to cut a lot out of the game to make it work.
Timing is another cause for concern. This thing was announced in mid-2008 and we still have nothing other than a flash website that is simply a front page with a promo video. All signs point to "this winter", and seeing how the last big release that I followed advertised for "this winter" turned out (the PSP idolm@ster games), I think we have a decent chance of seeing the game released in February if all goes according to plan.
The biggest concern, though, is the storyline. While Hinagiku's route was not dependant on sex to progress the story, Mizubashou, Shirotsumegisa and Kobatomugi's routes are. Taking the stories as they currently are, there is cause for concern since it would require major rewrites to get the story going again. This indeed may be the first time a game company is trying to release a story reliant on sex as a plot device on a console. A simple redo of the scenes or a scene swap is not going to fix things like they did for Comic Party and To Heart 2. To help illustrate this, I'll touch on the routes in detail:
- R-Mizubashou: Mizubashou's route uses sex as a device through which Mizubashou initiates Ichihiko into the "world of adults". The concept itself is a bit odd, since the game makes it quite apparent that the robots of the St. Exupery have no real understanding of what human relations are like (they try their best to interpret things with the information they have in hand, but that can only go so far). After the initial point, Mizubashou uses it as a way to keep Ichihiko "happy" with the world she created for him, or at least, happy enough that he won't start asking questions.
This route happens to be one of the two routes where Ichihiko exercises his high rank as a human once he finds out the truth. Of course, this comes at the cost of his trust in the chapekku, especially Mizubashou. A large part of the damamge stems from the intimacy between Mizubashou and the protagonist. There'd obviously be some changes for a console release, but I do wonder how much would have to change as well as how much of the themes behind Mizubashou's story would be lost (trust, unconditional love, manipulation, family).
- R-Shirotsumegusa: Shirotsumegusa's route would probably be the one to see the most changes. After all, the entire route is dependant on Shirotsumegusa forcing herself on the protagonist several times. The reason behind this is simply because, like Mizubashou, she also believes sex would make Ichihiko happy, but instead of being casual about it, Shirotsumegusa takes an aggressive approach (in part because she also uses it to try to get Ichihiko to like her more than Mizubashou or Hinagiku).
Some of the things she does to him are on the strange side of things (creating multiple versions of herself, not to mention creating a tentacle monster using her network of nanomachines). These aren't just for the sake of having ero-scenes, since Shirotsumegusa gets reprimanded by HAL and Mizubashou several times because of her escapades. The tentacle thing, in particular, starts the chain of events that lead to the first battle with Hinagiku (which Hina loses), Shirotsumegusa eventually going rogue, and most importantly, Ichihiko sacrificing his humanity to stop the returning Hinagiku and Shirotsumegusa from killing each other. And by sacrificing his humanity, I mean, placing himself inside the vats used to make chapekku and having the machincal implants common in military chapekku inserted into him through nanomachines, thus renaming him R-Ichihiko.
The shock value of that decision (Hinagiku is surprised, but Shirotsumegusa instantly takes the "what have you done?!" stance) is enough to stop Hina and Shiro in their battle, and I feel there's very little that can be done to the story if we are to preserve that. The story also builds off the fact that Hina and Shiro don't like each other very much, but the above mentioned are as, if not more, important.
- R-Kobatomugi: Simply put, this entire route would get scrapped and rewritten from scratch. Kobatomugi's route is spun off from Mizubashou's route, where Ichihiko's memory of the events leading up to the discovery of the ship and his world being fake were successfully wiped. Kobatomugi takes it upon herself to investigate the meaning of "happiness", and like the above two, uses sex as a means to try to understand it.
- Others: The writers can get away with removing ero scenes in Hinagiku's route, since the route itself seems to be designed around being a clean story. Tanpopo's route doesn't need them either, and Benibana's route had one tacked on for consistency's sake. Speaking of which, Benibana is supposedly getting a new ending, which to me says the events leading to the end of her story will also change. This, combined with the whole "reformed Ichihiko" leaves me somewhat hopeful. Ideally, we'd have major rewrites in all the routes, simply because changing the protagonist from whiny little boy to something else would have a huge impact to how things play out.
Featured Character:
Name: Hasebe Aya
Game: Comic Party
Designed by: Mitsumi Misato
Voiced by: Sonozaki Mie (DC and Anime version)
Theme: Tsuki no douwa (Lunar Fairy Tale)
Aya is introduced as a quiet girl with a very gloomy air about her. This usually keeps people from approaching her, but ComiPa's protagonist (Sendou Kazuki) decides to approach her regardless to learn as much as he can about her. Should Kazuki decide to focus on doujinshi featuring original stories (instead of parodies or homages to existing series), he can get Aya's attention for long enough to get to know her and critique some of her work.
As the story progresses, we learn that Aya has actually been doing Comic Party for a couple of years, but has remained relatively unknown as an artist because her works rarely sell. While her artwork is much more realistic than that of other artists (and thus not attractive to most con-goers, who preffer anime-style art), her writing skill is what makes her works impressive. Kazuki himself notes that Aya's writing is the true selling point of her doujinshi.
After spending a couple of conventions around Aya, our protagonist decides to ask her if she would like to work together with him as a unit. At first, Aya refuses out of fear of causing trouble for him, but accepts after Kazuki insists (and after he turns down the opportunity to join big doujinshi circles like CAT OR FISH?!). Thus, Jamming Book Store and Brother-2 join forces, seeing our protagonist find companionship in Aya while she also gets used to having him around and even learns a thing or two on how to improve her own art style.
Good times are had and our couple grows closer, but they are put to the test during the December Comic Party when Taishi calls Kazuki out and advises him to break his partnership with Aya. His reasoning is that Aya could be holding Kazuki back from fulfilling his true potential as a doujinshi artist (and thus not helping much in Taishi's plan to take over the world with doujinshi). While Kazuki refuses to do so, Aya overhears the conversation and soon after announces that she's giving up Comic Party and doujinshi as a whole.
Aya's retirement proves to be just a lie when our protagonist learns that she joined CAT OR FISH?! and managed to sell doujinshi in the hundreds by just copying their art style. There's not much of a confrontation, but our protagonist mentions that he preffers Aya's "real" style. This leads to Aya breaking down and begging him to be with her. Thus, our couple makes up and see the end of the one year that envelops ComiPa's story as a point that reaffirms their feelings for one another. As the story closes, Kazuki decides to continue his work and become a mangaka, while Aya decides that she wants to be an author.
Personality-wise, Aya is more that just quiet. She's usually afraid to speak up (some web sites jokingly mention that the player should turn the character voices knob to max volume before beginning Aya's route), and at times settles for nods and shakes of her head to communicate. She's a woman of few words on almost every topic, with the exception being art supplies. Since she works at an art supply store, she can go on rants about what is good and bad in terms of pens, erasers, paper and so on (much to her own embarrassment).
Having read this, you can watch this for further emphasis on this character.
That's it for today.
-Moroboshi Yuumei