Otakon speculation and discussion thread

[Daydreamer97 51]

I might pick up Gahkthun this week so Sona-Nyl got me interested (the Alice in Wonderland in New York sold it). There's no otome game announced but I'm happy with a story title featuring a female protagonist. Plus, if it will be released next year, I'll be 18 then so I can read it without guilt. Hapymaher's description interested me but since I haven't read an 18+ VN before (Gahkthun might be the first), I'm not sure if I'll read it. I don't know if I'll read SonoHana since I'm not so into yuri vns. I might buy Sorcery Jokers when it's out.

So there's 2 titles I might buy plus Bocchi Musume and The House in Fata Morgana fandisc out of Mangagamer's 2016 announcements. I'm pretty satisfied.

[ChaosRaven 564]

Too bad Conjueror couldn't announce his secret project yet since it seems to be a rather highly rated title.

Still, I'm almost convinced it's NOT Eustia since he's so desperate to make everyone believe it is... 

[Asimmacovski 18]

I was working today and just came home to see the announcements.

MangaGamer is my new God.

[littleshogun 1,514]

Let me tried to sort the tier now here, just like back at AX. Before that, I noticed that for these 2 years Sekai like to announce their big title at AX only (Even then, this year Sekai was underwhelming) and I think Mangagamer was quite balanced for the announcement at both conventions here.

Very Good

• Hapymaher
• Rance VI
• Sorcery Joker

To be honest, I was only interested to Hapymaher graphic for now. But the premise was quite interesting there and after all the girls was quite cute too (I knew that the reasons were shallow). If we talking about the story, the writer here was also involved in Fate Hollow writing, so expect something that familiar with Ataraxia there to enjoy this. Oh, and ironically Conjueror as Mangagamer translator didn't like Hapymaher. For Rance VI, let's said that the moment Arunaru announced that he delayed this I edited VNDB entry for the translation in rage and Decay told me that I shouldn't add personal feeling to the description there (I mean at the page, not the reason for editing). It was more than back a year ago. Sorcery Joker, the premise was quite interesting and the graphic was quite good here to say the least

Good

• Shien no Sona-Nyl
• Sono Hanabira Nyuu Jene

Sona-Nyl opening song was quite good, and according to some people out there this is the best of Sakurai Hikaru's work and favorite, which remind me when Hironobu Sakaguchi (or Nobuo Uematsu maybe) said that FFIX was his favorite game. In short, in term of Steampunk Sona-Nyl here would be like FFIX for the Steampunk series. Sono Hanabira, looks interesting with new 3 pairs here, although if I may said that maybe Mangagamer should release 11th games here if only to knew more story about Risa and Miya here. Oh, and of course Sono Hanabira announcement would be good for yuri fan here.

Below Average

• Rance 5D
• Fatal Twelve
• Garden of Dream

I want to place Rance 5D under 'Take Your Time, Mangagamer' tier here. But since according to schedule that they can't delay it anymore, so I decided to just add it here. Once again apparently it's not quite interesting other than it tell us the meeting between Rance and Rizna there. For Fatal Twelve, there's no enough information for now but maybe it will be good for some people here I guess. Garden of Dream, guess I'll take a look later although the opening was quite good for Argentine OVN there. From the premise, maybe 

That's all for my tier here, and once again Mangagamer was the winner here.

[Fred the Barber 1,829]

1 hour ago, littleshogun said:

Let me tried to sort the tier now here, just like back at AX. Before that, I noticed that for these 2 years Sekai like to announce their big title at AX only (Even then, this year Sekai was underwhelming) and I think Mangagamer was quite balanced for the announcement at both conventions here.

Very Good

• Hapymaher
• Rance VI
• Sorcery Joker

To be honest, I was only interested to Hapymaher graphic for now. But the premise was quite interesting there and after all the girls was quite cute too (I knew that the reasons were shallow). If we talking about the story, the writer here was also involved in Fate Hollow writing, so expect something that familiar with Ataraxia there to enjoy this. Oh, and ironically Conjueror as Mangagamer translator didn't like Hapymaher. For Rance VI, let's said that the moment Arunaru announced that he delayed this I edited VNDB entry for the translation in rage and Decay told me that I shouldn't add personal feeling to the description there (I mean at the page, not the reason for editing). It was more than back a year ago. Sorcery Joker, the premise was quite interesting and the graphic was quite good here to say the least

Good

• Shien no Sona-Nyl
• Sono Hanabira Nyuu Jene

Sona-Nyl opening song was quite good, and according to some people out there this is the best of Sakurai Hikaru's work and favorite, which remind me when Hironobu Sakaguchi (or Nobuo Uematsu maybe) said that FFIX was his favorite game. In short, in term of Steampunk Sona-Nyl here would be like FFIX for the Steampunk series. Sono Hanabira, looks interesting with new 3 pairs here, although if I may said that maybe Mangagamer should release 11th games here if only to knew more story about Risa and Miya here. Oh, and of course Sono Hanabira announcement would be good for yuri fan here.

Below Average

• Rance 5D
• Fatal Twelve
• Garden of Dream

I want to place Rance 5D under 'Take Your Time, Mangagamer' tier here. But since according to schedule that they can't delay it anymore, so I decided to just add it here. Once again apparently it's not quite interesting other than it tell us the meeting between Rance and Rizna there. For Fatal Twelve, there's no enough information for now but maybe it will be good for some people here I guess. Garden of Dream, guess I'll take a look later although the opening was quite good for Argentine OVN there. From the premise, maybe 

That's all for my tier here, and once again Mangagamer was the winner here.

My face when Sona-Nyl is put below Rance on the same tier with SonaHana:

[sevencamelot 9]

you think they will sell a box release of the Rance game or just digital?

[Marcus 12]

Sekai Project announcements at AnimeFest:

• This World Unknown
• Connie Amarance

Link to their press release. It's not Otakon, but SP did spend the majority of their AF panel talking about Otakon announcements again. 

[Vorathiel 234]

Well, great to see another Steampunk game. Haven't read any of them yet, but I love them right now. Settings, art (except Gatkhkhun I didn't like that style), music, screens with beautiful prose, opinions, all of them are building my hype. I hope I won't get dissapointed. But for now - kudos for MG.

Also Fatal Twelve have good description and I'm interested.

Anything else is very 'meh', outside my radar. So far best news this year is still Baldr Sky.

[littleshogun 1,514]

1 hour ago, Fred the Barber said:

My face when Sona-Nyl is put below Rance on the same tier with SonaHana:

About tier there, don't worry too much about it (And I apologized if some of you dislike my tier here). It didn;t mean to express my dislike toward Sona-Nyl here, but rather of how much I looking forward to the release and if the announcement caught my attention here or not. Okay, the answer here would be I also looking forward to Sona-Nyl here, but right now Hapymaher and Sorecery Joker caught my attention more here. As for Rance, the reason was I'd already keep my eye on the translation project before delayed back at 2015. So I couldn't help to be excited here to see Rance VI announcement here. For Sono Hanabira, well I kinda want to see the three cute couple there.

tldr - I was also looking forward to Sona-Nyl here. And the opening song was quite good.

PS - Maybe I should keep explaining that my tier was more in term of interest rather than if the game was bad or not here for next time here.

[ChaosRaven 564]

Not sure if it was already mentioned here (at least I didn't see it), but Sona-Nyl is getting the better art assets from the console version and Rance 6 will get a high resolution update for the English version.

[Fred the Barber 1,829]

48 minutes ago, littleshogun said:

About tier there, don't worry too much about it (And I apologized if some of you dislike my tier here). It didn;t mean to express my dislike toward Sona-Nyl here, but rather of how much I looking forward to the release and if the announcement caught my attention here or not. Okay, the answer here would be I also looking forward to Sona-Nyl here, but right now Hapymaher and Sorecery Joker caught my attention more here. As for Rance, the reason was I'd already keep my eye on the translation project before delayed back at 2015. So I couldn't help to be excited here to see Rance VI announcement here. For Sono Hanabira, well I kinda want to see the three cute couple there.

tldr - I was also looking forward to Sona-Nyl here. And the opening song was quite good.

PS - Maybe I should keep explaining that my tier was more in term of interest rather than if the game was bad or not here for next time here.

Nah, it's all good, I was mostly kidding. Everybody's got their own opinions, and I just really like the Steampunk games

Edit:

16 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Not sure if it was already mentioned here (at least I didn't see it), but Sona-Nyl is getting the better art assets from the console version and Rance 6 will get a high resolution update for the English version.

They haven't guaranteed that they'll get the better art assets yet for Sona-Nyl, but yeah, koestl said they're going to try at least. No rights issues there, only potentially technical issues. For Rance 6 they guaranteed it, though.

[Narcosis 1,197]

I still can't believe Sona-Nyl got announced... but then, I already knew this will happen, sooner or later.

Thank you, based MangaGamer.

[Basileus777 15]

1 hour ago, sevencamelot said:

you think they will sell a box release of the Rance game or just digital?

I'd be very surprised if Rance doesn't eventually get a hardcopy. It won't be at release though.

[XReaper 661]

18 minutes ago, Basileus777 said:

I'd be very surprised if Rance doesn't eventually get a hardcopy. It won't be at release though.

they mentioned it´s indeed possible for rance to end up getting hardcopies, but that pretty much depends on its sales.

[Basileus777 15]

2 hours ago, XReaper said:

they mentioned it´s indeed possible for rance to end up getting hardcopies, but that pretty much depends on its sales.

Rance will definitely sell enough to get a hard copy.

[sevencamelot 9]

4 hours ago, Basileus777 said:

I'd be very surprised if Rance doesn't eventually get a hardcopy. It won't be at release though.

Kinda lame then.  It's not like most people would buy the digital then another hard copy.

[Basileus777 15]

1 hour ago, sevencamelot said:

Kinda lame then.  It's not like most people would buy the digital then another hard copy.

I agree, MangaGamer doesn't do hardcopies at launch to minimize risk, but with Rance they would definitely sell enough to justify it.

[Kairix360 7]

From Sekai Project's announcements, I think Fatal Twelve sounds like it could be interesting, and I would like to hear more about it. I'm glad to hear that they are going to bring the whole Narcissu 10 Anniversary Anthology Project to the Vita as well; more VNs that I can play on the Vita is always good! Hooray!

It sounds like MangaGamer is going to be releasing a lot of interesting things soon! Glad to hear Sono-Nyl was announced since that sounds like something I would enjoy. Not familiar with Hapymaher or Sorcery Jokers, but it sounds like they are very good games. I will have to look into those.

[Crayten 105]

Instead of announcing even more games it would be nice if Sekai Project would actually start releasing some of these titles. I mean just look at the huge backlog they allready have https://vndb.org/p162 and its getting bigger and bigger with every passing month.

[RikiSanic 67]

48 minutes ago, Crayten said:

Instead of announcing even more games it would be nice if Sekai Project would actually start releasing some of these titles. I mean just look at the huge backlog they allready have https://vndb.org/p162 and its getting bigger and bigger with every passing month.

This complaint is a little silly, though. People were disappointed that Sekai Project didn't announce a whole lot and yet MangaGamer announces 5 major titles and everyone's happy to accept. At this point, though, MangaGamer has announced more big titles than Sekai Project this year, and they have even more unreleased titles that were announced previous years. For example, MangaGamer still hasn't released Bokuten, Himawari, Da Capo 3, Kuroinu, and the Shadows of Pygmalion. Sekai Project's unreleased major titles from last year are Chrono Clock, Tenshin Ranman, and Wagamama High Spec. As you can see from their translation progress page, titles are being worked on, and many of their smaller VNs (some announced just a few months ago) are already 100% translated. Their big titles seem to progress rather slowly, which can be annoying, but the translations are all contracted, so it's not like they can force them to hurry up. They're also not going to wait for all of their titles to finish before they license more, because every publisher needs a constant stream of work so they can stay in business.

Look at MangaGamer's backlog: https://vndb.org/p428. If you remove the EVNs and currently-in-development titles from both companies, the number of titles each have is about the same, even though Sekai Project has more doujin VNs. Wait for convention season to be over and check back in a year from now. If they still aren't close to releasing their earlier announced titles, then you can worry.

 

[sanahtlig 1,591]

1 hour ago, RikiSanic said:

This complaint is a little silly, though. People were disappointed that Sekai Project didn't announce a whole lot and yet MangaGamer announces 5 major titles and everyone's happy to accept. At this point, though, MangaGamer has announced more big titles than Sekai Project this year, and they have even more unreleased titles that were announced previous years.

The difference is that Sekai Project relies on Kickstarter.  Having a large backlog makes backers uneasy.  The more projects going at the same time, the greater the loss to backers if Sekai Project suddenly folds.  A growing cascade of crowdfunding campaigns suggests reckless expansion, or worse, starting new projects to fund previous ones (a.k.a., a pyramid scheme).  Finally, too many simultaneous projects could stress the organizational apparatus overseeing all of them, resulting in lack of proper oversight and quality control.  These are all serious concerns.

MangaGamer is established, experienced, and boasts a fast-paced release schedule AND the quality control to back it up.  Not to mention that if they suddenly collapse, backers won't be left with the tab.

[RikiSanic 67]

I think they're kind of finally getting a hold on their Kickstarter campaigns, though. Grisaia should be fully translated by the end of the year (whether or not it releases by then is a different story), World End Economica's third episode is finally coming out soon, Narcissu has had steady releases, Memory's Dogma's first part is coming out soon, and Vita ports have been officially announced.

They also haven't launched a Kickstarter since Root Double back in January. They did launch two Indiegogo campaigns since then but their turnaround has been much faster. Still, other than the Nekopara anime, they haven't announced plans for more Kickstarters of their VNs, which is what I'd be concerned about. People are complaining that their non-crowdfunded titles are taking too long to come out. How do we know that they aren't focusing on their crowdfunding promises while those are being translated?

Like I said, though, they've had three panels in the past month and have only announced a few doujin titles. With only one planned convention left, it seems a little weird to tell them to stop announcing stuff. They probably will stop soon.

edit: Look at it this way: if Sekai Project had planned Kickstarter projects for even two or three of the VNs they announced this year, I'd be concerned too. But it honestly looks like their non-crowdfunded titles are taking longer than their crowdfunded projects. It's not like the promises to their backers are going to the wayside and other titles are being released sooner. It seems like they're just slow in general.

[Suzu Fanatic 376]

Time will tell. I have some concerns about the internal restructuring going on - but it may bear no weight.

[Basileus777 15]

2 hours ago, RikiSanic said:

For example, MangaGamer still hasn't released Bokuten, Himawari, Da Capo 3, Kuroinu, and the Shadows of Pygmalion. Sekai Project's unreleased major titles from last year are Chrono Clock, Tenshin Ranman, and Wagamama High Spec.

 

That example doesn't really illustrate your point as all of those MG titles other than Kuroinu are fully translated and near release while those SP titles are in early stages and probably a year+ away from coming out.  Clannad is pretty much the only example of a major SP title that was translated internally that wasn't beset with delays.  MangaGamer has the occasional project that takes too long, but they churn out longer titles much more reliably than anyone else in this business right now.

[Chuee 186]

11 minutes ago, Basileus777 said:

Clannad is pretty much the only example of a major SP title that was translated internally that wasn't beset with delays.

Most of their translations are outsourced anyways. Not to mention translation is always done by individuals, not the organization as a whole. If a translation is going at a slow rate then that's because the people working on it don't translate as fast as others you're comparing them to.