Category: Video Games

Ongoing Investigations: Case #072

Leave a comment

Ah, Tachikoma, how I longed to have you for my own for so long. Okay, so he is a little far from having the real deal, but I’ll take what I can get. He is die-cast metal, I was a bit worried there would be a balance issue what with that huge back end, but no problem! The articulation in his legs is good and his feet and hands are fully poseable. As you can see his crouching position is quite nice. However, his arms don’t fair as well. If I try to give him a sort of excited yatta Tachi pose, they don’t really reach high enough and tend to pop off. But overall he is a good size and detailed making him one of the best I’ve seen avaliable. He also comes with software that allows his to say phrases and light-up and move a little. Though the CD is for Japanese PC only (which of course you can get around).

I recently got a copy of Stolen Hearts by Miku Sakamoto from CMX. Shinobu Okuma is a super short girl who accidentally spills milk all over an expensive kimono that the frightening Koguma brought to school with him. He shames her into working at his grandmother’s kimono shop where she slowly sees that he’s a sensitive guy and not the wannabe Yakuza everyone thinks he is. It is a cute story. I was a bit surprised that by the end of the first chapter Shinobu and Koguma are a couple. Part of me wonders if this was supposed to just be a one shot story that was popular enough to get turned into a series. The first chapter could so easily be self-contained. The characters are solid and entertaining. Everything works really well when Shinobu and Koguma are interacting. My main problem is the story tends to lean on shojo tropes too much and whenever it does so it is at its weakest. The story really shines when its characters are doing something a little outside the mold. It’s a fun read but it is not going to win over any new fans to the genre. I did find the teen rating on the back quite curious. This manga is super chaste. Maybe it gets racier down the line but so far the most anyone does is some hand holding. The only fan service is traditional Japanese clothing service.

Continue reading →

Visual Novel Logos Part 2: Bloggers just wanna have fun!

6 Comments

We return for round two of our analysis of the commonalities of  visual novel logo designs. Last time we looked at the similarities of crying girl games. This time we are looking at fun/comedic bishojo visual novels. This was the second type of logo that stood out just as strongly as the sad girls in snow games. They too have this distinct easily recognizable formula to their logo design that instantly tells you what sort of game you are picking up before you see anything else.

What originally struck me about bishojo game logos was that even though they are marketed for guys, the logos are distinctly what you would image seeing for elementary/middle school girls or you could even image them being drawn by said young girls. This sent me on a quest to compare the two.

These are the happy fun visual novels usually based around comedy. Unlike the crying girl games which are supposed to invoke a feeling of the beauty of sadness these games are supposed to be an energetic tribute to hot girls. And having sex with said hot girls. The lettering of the logo is always big and bold with rainbow colored letters. There is then a subtitle with smaller uniformly colored text but if tends to be just as neon crayon colored as the title itself. The lettering seems to bounce around. Although how asymmetrical it is varies from logo to logo. There is usually a colorful abstract shape in the background and/or mascot along side everything else. The Shuffle! logo is a perfect example with it’s pastel rainbow colored logo, colorful whirlpool in the background and it’s uniformed colored arrow and much less rainbow colored subtitle. Overall I feel that the logo is supposed to invoke a lighthearted festival feeling. They are meant to invoke a fun, energetic, humorous feel. I have to agree 100% with what Narutaki said about the designs looking like they were draw by an artistically talented elementary school student or at least something aimed at said student.

You can click the image above to show more logos and also see a comparison to logos made with young girls as the target audience, more on that in a few. What hits you first when looking at these bishojo game logos side by side is the overall color palette which immediately brings out a light-hearted feel and removes even a remote possibility of worries (unless you’re worried about having too many girls to choose from). Even without the mascot or icon that many like to add in to these designs, there is a sense of fun and energy present. The actual type can vary but it always has a boldness to it and the use of a double stroke, usually a white or light thick stroke around the type followed by a black or dark thin stroke. The color palette here is bright, but when looking at the logos for young girls, you can see they are in the same vein but tend to be more saturated. The visual novel logos are actually more feminine, more girly than the ones actually aimed at girls. If I may be philosophical for a minute, it’s like the difference between what girls are like and what guys think girls are like. But commonalities should be clear including the boldness, the off kilter line of type, and the use of strokes. They actually evoke the same feelings (well, minus all that fan-service)!

I am once again curious if other people agree with our observations or have other good examples to add to our case files. The next one should wrap this series up unless someone wants to provide some examples for different distinct genre design. Please look forward to our next visual novel logo article.

Visual Novel Logos: Part 1 Part 3

Ongoing Investigations: Case #071

1 Comment

At some time in the past I used to have some amount of skillz, but no more. Nothing has proven this more than me playing the New Super Mario Bros. Wii. You can play it like a standard Mario game in which case it plays pretty much like every old school 2D Mario platformer. It really reminded me of Super Mario Bros. 3 quite a bit. The other way to play it is is multiplayer which just adds to the madness. The second you add another player on the screen the game changes completely. It makes many things in the game that were simple very hard and several hard tasks very simple. If you play the game with the right people it will add to the fun especially if you use the bubble trick during some scrolling parts and if you use the team ground pound. Also partners can make getting the coins so much easier. But if you play with some other people death by scrolling and “stolen” powerups can lead to some petty grudges. Our little group pretty well together. We beat the game proper without too much difficulty but having some very good players did not hurt. We still had to go back and get all the star coins but I think we had a great time.

Playing New Super Mario Brothers Wii with 4 players is the only way to roll, seriously. It is fun, it is insane, it is hysterical, and it is deadly! Biggest issue that we all had was when someone would get hit there would be a slight pause of delay which totally threw off your rhythm causing much mayhem and plenty of extra deaths. This was never more evident than in the hidden world in World 8 with the rollercoaster-like contraption. I also found the game to be the right mix of difficulty, which is certainly ramped up with multi-player. While I agree that is references Super Mario Bros. 3 a lot, I think it really took a ton for Super Mario World, possibly my favorite, and things from Mario 64 and even Super Mario Bros. 2 U.S. This game was a wonderful culmination of great pieces from each older game and I have faith that when they make a sequel, they had better make a sequel, that they will fix some of the annoyances and add even more fun stuff! I can’t recommend this game enough, it’s a gem, Mario’s still got it!

Continue reading →