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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
Idea Factory and Otomate have brought us some incredible flights of fantasy over the years. There are the historical dramas, allowing us to hang out with and romance the Shinsengumi or Beinke. Then there’s the bright and bubbly Cupid Parasite, where you play as Cupid herself, or the almost brutally…
Read More
Well, Konosuba: Love for These Clothes of Desire certainly has its eye-opening moments. This is a game that likes to get downright dirty in places, and embraces (with gusto) every possible sexualisation trope you can imagine in anime. It has a ball doing so, and as long as isekai-style narratives…
Read More
Some licensed games aim to introduce people to the property, and in doing so help to expand the overall number of fans the thing has. Koei Tecmo has been particularly successful at that over the years, applying the Warriors (Musou) formula to several emerging IP. Arslan: The Warriors of Legend,…
Read More
One – also known as Kagayaku Kisetsu e – is one of the legends of the visual novel genre. Originally released way back in 1998, it was one of the early projects by a developer called Tactics, which is notable because many of the creative team moved on from that…
Read More
CASCHA Games’ Concealed caught my attention for several reasons. The game has gorgeous art direction for one thing, and the promise of a horror visual novel set in a school is always a good way to catch my attention. Those two things go together beautifully. Unfortunately, this is going to…
Read More