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Sunrider Academy (dating sim review)


Plk_Lesiak

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The Sunrider series is one of the most successful OELVN franchises – one which not only spawned two highly-appreciated VN/strategy game hybrid titles, but even made a rare attempt at expanding to the Japanese market (at least successful enough that the games’ developer, Love in Space, apparently works on making their upcoming title, JP-idol themed Shining Song Starnova, into another export product, with Japanese voice acting and other elements rarely seen in western-produced VNs). Both the freeware Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius and it’s commercial sequel, Liberation Day, got much recognition for their space-opera storytelling, solid game mechanics and good production values.

            One thing the mainline Sunrider games definitely lacked, however, was satisfying romance – while the cast followed typical harem tropes, with male protagonist and vast, female-only crew more or less visibly in love with him, the character development for most of the girls was extremely basic and, at least in the first game, player was left with no ability to pursue any of them. To remedy this sorry state of affairs, Sunrider Academy was created – an alternative universe dating sim spin-off, placing the protagonist and the main four heroines of Mask of Arcadius in a typical high-school setting (although without abandoning the sci-fi elements or the Sunrider universe itself). So does this game, published by Sekai Project on April 2015, really remedy mainline Sunrider games’ omissions?

Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

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"a rare attempt at expanding to the Japanese market (at least successful enough that the games’ developer, Love in Space, apparently works on making their upcoming title, JP-idol themed Shining Song Starnova, into another export product, with Japanese voice acting and other elements rarely seen in western-produced VNs). "

I found this weird when I first read it, for I'd always been under the impression that Love in Space's titles were exclusive to the west. After checking it out, though, it appears Liberation Day has a Japanese version. Mask of Arcadius seems to have something in Japanese too, I think, but I don't believe any other of their products are available in Japanese, including Starnova.

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1 hour ago, Mr Poltroon said:

I found this weird when I first read it, for I'd always been under the impression that Love in Space's titles were exclusive to the west. After checking it out, though, it appears Liberation Day has a Japanese version. Mask of Arcadius seems to have something in Japanese too, I think, but I don't believe any other of their products are available in Japanese, including Starnova.

Liberation Day was released in Japan along with Mark of Arcadius, as a single package. When I wrote this, admittedly some time ago, I was under the impression that the extreme weebness of SSS was once more a way to turn it into an export product on a later date, but I guess their approach is more about pandering to actual weebs with the over-the-top Japanese stylization. Maybe I was giving them more credit then they deserved in this respect, but I wouldn't be that surprised to see the JP version pop up at some point. :>

Plus, if we count these three, the only "other Love in Space game" left is the Academy which clearly has little capability to thrive on the JP dating sim market, especially with the original Sunrider getting little recognition there. 

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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2 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Liberation Day was released in Japan along with Mark of Arcadius, as a single package. When I wrote this, admittedly some time ago, I was under the impression that the extreme weebness of SSS was once more a way to turn it into an export product on a later date, but I guess their approach is more about pandering to actual weebs with the over-the-top Japanese stylization. Maybe I was giving them more credit then they deserved in this respect, but I wouldn't be that surprised to see the JP version pop up at some point. :>

It's certainly in the cards, if they can work with Japanese closely enough to write/translate the script for Liberation Day.

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