Category: Video Games

Fate/Get Licensed

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This is an open letter to any companies that are either currently localizing visual novels or are interested in getting into that market.

Imagine this. Some company like Manga Gamer or JAST USA that already adapts Japanese visual novels into English wants to bring out Fate/Stay Night. It is a highly demanded title with a ravenous and dedicated fan base. The problem is the licensing price on a high-profile game like Fate/Stay Night is equally high to the point where it would need to sell more copies than any other visual novel ever has in the English-speaking market to break a profit. Despite the number of people who say they would pay there is a readily available fan translation of the game from Mirror Moon so the question always is how many of them will actually buy anything. I know there are manga that English publishers won’t pick up because they feel the scanlations make them worthless to license. How many people will buy a game they already played for free?  I am sure many companies have run the numbers and discovered that the risk to reward ratio is far too great to take a chance on the title. As it is it might not even be viable at all. I myself can’t blame them. They just want to keep the lights on.

But now that Kickstarter has created a viable method of getting funding and support to what would otherwise be high risk niche projects. I wonder if a title like Fate/Stay Night could be viable. I am not going to even pretend like I am an insider. I don’t know what the licensing fee on visual novels are nor how much the assorted overhead costs are with releasing a title like Fate/Stay Night. Even with a Kickstarter it might still be ridiculously prohibitive to even attempt such an undertaking. But I feel a well orchestrated and promoted Kickstarter just might be able to make this a feasible idea. It removes a good deal of the risk involved in licensing such a big named title and lets the companies involved get a real sense of how many people would buy such a title before any money exchanges hands. It is a great time to run a kickstarter for such a project and a title like Fate/Stay Night will definitely get people talking. No one is assuming you are every going to raise Double Fine money but you could easily make Barbara money. And that just might be the boost the game needs to actual make it to its English-speaking fans.

I can’t help but be fascinated with this idea. If any one has any idea of how to make this happen let me know. If any company wants to take this idea I am leaving it on the table. If any company was toying with the idea before I wrote this post then I am showing that it has some support. Otherwise if you support this idea just leave a comment below and pass this post around to show this idea has support among the fans.

Ongoing Investigations: Case #155

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All good things must come to an end and so I wrapped up Carnival Phantasm season 3. Last week I wrote about Fate/Prototype but it was just an extra added in with the last disc of Carnival Phantasm. Otherwise the last 4 episode stick to the comedic tone of the rest of the series. We start with the best new episode right out of the gate. The Holy Grail Grand Prix is just amazing. The Lion-Go will win your heart with its cuteness, Gilgamesh pops in during the middle to ruin everyone’s day (like he always does), and it is nice to actually see Assassin get to participate in a sketch. A good deal of joke time bombs in this episode. The Akiha story is straight out of Take Moon with Kohaku up to her normal tricks but the Brainwasher Detective skits that end the episode were the star of the show. The third episode is a Final Destination homage all around Lancer and his Kenny like tendencies. The final episode wraps everything up with the conclusion to the dating plan from the first disc and a round-up of all the pieces of the Type-Moon universe. While they were not voice acted they included characters from Fate/Zero, The Garden of Sinners, the Mobile Site, and even Notes. I am sad to finish Carnival Phantasm but maybe one day down the road we will get another season after a few more games come out. Surely Mahou Tsukai no Yoru, Fate/Apocrypha, and maybe even Girls’ Work will warrant revival of the carnival.

Thermae Romae came to an end just after three episodes. But a delightful three episodes they were. In each subsequent adventure Lucias spent more and more time in Japan soaking up the culture. Because he celebrates each new experience in Japan with such enthusiasm, it spills over to the audience (maybe because so many of us non-Japanese fans long to go as well). And each time he returns to Rome things get weirder from smelly bandits to being courted by the emperor to a village of baths. Perhaps a few more episodes wouldn’t get stale but I definitely think they let the series go out while it was still a quirky surprise and that’s a good thing.

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The Final Denouement of the Golden Witch

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It has been a long journey so see the conclusion of Umineko no Naku Koro ni. The story started in 2007 and finally concluded with 8 visual novels being released over the course of 4 years with over a dozen extra side stories being release up until the last Comic Market in December. It was a fun journey along the way that allowed me to try and figure out what was real, what was fantasy, and where the truth lied on Rokkenjima in October of 1986. When I finished Requiem of the Golden Witch I was filled with a mixture of hope and dread. The penultimate game was amazingly powerful so that I was hopeful that the end of the series would be just a great but at the same time I was worried that it could not live up to the expectations it had set.

So when Twilight of the Golden Witch came out to some rather negative reviews it was hard to tell if this was part of the normal cycle of Umineko reactions or if it was a horrible ending. The problem was when a new Umineko game came out there was always a flood of spoilers. When everything was sorted out due to fake spoilers and mistranslations there was invariably a negative reaction that the story had gone down the drain. But usually when the translation patch came out most everyone saw the story in whole new light when they actual read the story. But this time that negative feeling did not seem to go away. Many people (including myself) seemed rather frustrated with the ending as provided by the spoilers for a lack of answers. But now that I have finally played the game and seen the ending through I am going to give my spoiler filled thoughts on the ending and the series as a whole. This is a mixture of catharsis and celebration for a pretty wild ride. If you were curious for a simple spoiler free review then it is simply that I do not regret playing this series. Continue reading →