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Companies that rest on their own laurels


Clephas

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(Note: Right now I'm playing Dungeon of Regalias, on a long-standing request for me to make an assessment.  This doesn't have anything to do with my statements below.)

One of my pet peeves is companies that depend on their reputation to sell their games, regardless of quality.  Pulltop, Navel, and Circus are the most frequent offenders on this side...  Pulltop, in particular, has developed a habit of releasing second-rate games under existing IPs (the second and third Lovekami and their sex-focused FDs) that add nothing to the series.  Navel has a habit of excessive sequels (Tsuki ni Yorisou Otome no Sahou and Shuffle) and trips off into side-story wonderland.  Circus has a habit of endless sequels (D.C.).

I call this 'resting on your laurels' because these companies are basically milking successful IPs to death in order to stay afloat, rather than generating really new content.  Oh, I will be the first to admit that Shuffle really, really did need the rewrites it got later on, and the afterstories and voice patch for the original Tsuki ni Yorisou were hugely beneficial.  However, Tsuki ni Yorisou, Otome no Sahou 2, despite the hopes of those of us who were interested to see how they would handle a second generation, turned out to be greatly substandard to the original, flopping massively in the heroine paths despite a promising beginning in the common route (which is probably why they've been releasing so many mini-fandiscs to 'rebuild trust'). 

As for Pulltop... The original Lovekami was actually a first-class VN that showed off the best of what a fantasy charage can be.  However, its successors were... immature and pathetic in comparison (obviously written as moe-bait rather than serious efforts to continue the series).  Koi no Resort was a rather blatant effort to make a spiritual successor to the kamige Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no that failed massively (primarily due to the lack of comparable sensitivity in the writing, depth of the characters, and independent strength of the heroine paths... in other words, everything).  Even Oozora and Miagete Goran visibly suffer from an excess of ambition and a lack of the ability and patience to achieve it (believe me, every time I go into a new main-company Pulltop game of late, I leave wanting to cry from disappointment).  This is pretty sad, considering that Pulltop started out as one of my favorite companies after blowing me away with Uruwashi no and Lovekami in rapid succession...

I don't think I should even have to describe what Circus does with Da Capo, lol (I could, but it would just start a salt fight).

However, it isn't just charage companies that are the culprits.  Even my beloved chuunige companies can fall victim to this kind of intellectual laziness.  Propeller, the second it lost its primary writers, forced out two massively flawed works in rapid succession (one of which - Pygmalion - , to my despair, actually got localized *spits in disgust*) that weren't even worth playing (though Pygmalion probably would have been good if they'd used a different writer and actually put forth the effort to make it into a real story).  Light, the producer of so many awesome chuunige, put out a work of penultimate laziness just a few months ago (Sora no Baroque).  Nitroplus, in a rather pathetic effort to sharpen its skills at psychedelic stories, went off the beaten track with Sumaga and Axanael.  Even Akatsuki Works, which has always been consistent, if nothing else, has of late been lowering its standards somewhat.

Understand, I am perfectly willing to accept that companies will not produce a kamige with every single project.  The idea that any company could manage that, given the limited budgets most VN companies have to work with, is fundamentally ridiculous.  I am quite willing to enjoy trips off into the wilds on occasion (such as Pulltop's surprisingly high-quality Natsuiro Recipe or Moonstone's Sakura no Mori Dreamers).  I am also willing to accept that sequels rarely match the originals.  However, I do think, if they can't match the original, they should at least build something of close to equal quality in a slightly different direction, instead.  To be specific, there was absolutely no reason to make every aspect of Tsuki ni Yorisou 2 to echo the original's beginning framework so closely (to be specific, the way he suddenly became less capable than before when the heroine paths started made me want to various unpleasant things to the writer). 

I am also willing to admit that a new set of writers means inevitable hiccups... I could have accepted that Propeller's works would need to be a bit different after Yuuichirou left the company.  I would have even been willing to shrug off Pygmalion as a fluke.  However, the way the company, rather than pulling in a single capable freelance veteran writer (of which there are plenty in the industry), dragged in a massive number of writers (all of which were mostly nukige writers) to make Jaeger.

Light... has no excuse.  Light's fanbase, whether they started with Dies Irae or have been following the company for much longer, is accustomed to high quality long games with extensive setting and character development and highly complex stories where every last element of the setting is squeezed for everything it is worth.  Sora no Baroque was a slap in the face, a game that departed greatly from the company's style, even aside from the raw quality issues.

Nitroplus did have an excuse... they were a company that was always seen as 'weird'.  Experimentation has always been their norm (which is probably why it takes them so long to recover after each release), so Sumaga, while being a massively boring abomination from the perspective of people who liked their earlier works, was understandable and forgivable.  However, Axanael... wasn't.  To be blunt, it takes a peculiar type of brain to actually enjoy those two games, even if you aren't a Nitroplus fan.

Akatsuki Works' gradual descent really has been so gradual as to have been barely noticed.  While their characters and situations have mostly maintained the quality we, the readers/players, are accustomed to, it has to be said that the gradual decreases in length and detail in the stories have been apparent for some time.  I honestly enjoyed Suisei Ginka and thought it was one of the most conceptually exceptional of the company's games in years.  However, it was also relatively short (less than fifteen hours for me is short for a chuunige) and generally over reliant on the 'Akatsuki Works Style' of VN  design to keep the reader's interest.  The 'style' is proven to work at keeping the reader's interest, but it is also so recognizable that anyone who has been reading this company's works since Ruitomo will recognize it instantly.

In other words, I just needed to spout salt about the companies I feel have gotten intellectually lazy due to past success, lol.

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37 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:

Minato Soft is the master of resting on their laurels with making endless Majikoi sequels.

The difference is that many of them actually add something other than sex to the series... to be straight, I could forgive them for A for Margrit's after, the Ryouzanpaku paths, and the various Kuki maid paths alone.

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