It’s hard for us in the West to fully appreciate just how core idol companies and groups are in Japan. It’s not just about the music and performance, though that is certainly a big part of it. Idol groups act as talent feeder pools for just about every other part…
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There are conventional visual novels, and then there are the kinds of visual novels that Type-Moon produces. Tsukihime is a game that has a fearsome reputation, being one of the very first works of the company (it came before Fate/Stay Night, which has become the Type-Moon behemoth), and was essentially…
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I’m consistently surprised that these “fandisc sequels” to popular otome games get localised. Just recently we saw one for Cupid Parasite, and now there’s one for the excellent Radiant Tale. I would think that given how niche otome titles are, sequels to those otome titles would have an even more…
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Love & Country, a World War 1 period piece visual novel by a rookie studio, is both very surprising and also inspiring. It’s almost certainly going to fly right under the radar, but it’s a tightly-written, smart little thing… and also very, very steamy. Dear lord is this game sexy…
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I am genuinely surprised by the launch of the two Quintessential Quintuplets games in this “double pack” (Memories of a Quintessential Summer and Five Memories Spent With You). They’ve been published by MAGES, one of the legends of visual novel development. They’ve also been published by Spike Chunsoft, one of…
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Aksys has a habit of finding the most wonderful visual novels to localise… and Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch looks like it continues that form. This is a coming-of-age story mixed in with a “mystery stretching back hundreds of years.” It also looks like it has some light…
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One of the things I’ve learned in making my own visual novel is that scope can very easily blow out. Every new scene, character, idea, and story beat that you add in means more backgrounds, CGs, character costumes and music. Then it all becomes very expensive. And so, in most…
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There is massive money on the table for the first localisation outfit that can produce high-quality translations of Chinese-developed games for their Western release. Unfortunately, we don’t have that localisation infrastructure yet. It has only been in the last decade or so that games from Taiwan and/or China have started…
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Those who have been reading DDNet for some time know that for a few years now I’ve been working on a visual novel that’s on a subject close to my heart: Ballroom dancing! Why has it taken so long? Because the scope of this project is just that significant, and…
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With the same creative team behind it as Olympia Soiree, Tengoku Struggle: Strayside was always going to be an interesting visual novel. As it turns out, it’s going to be particularly interesting for people that are students of Japanese historical figures and spirituality, and perhaps a little befuddling for those…
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