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Go! Go! Nippon! ~My First Trip to Japan


InvertMouse

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I attended an anime convention yesterday and picked up this game:

http://www.mangagamer.com/allages/Titles/Details/0E336212-7AF5-411E-ABEF-54A20A1ADBE6/go-go-nippon-my-first-trip-to-japan

I never heard of this game until I saw it. The truth is, I picked this up because it looks similar to a VN project I hope to take on someday. I wanted to share my backstory if you're willing to listen B):

My Twitter friends know I'm obsessed in Hong Kong, and in particular, a suburb named Causeway Bay. I have hopes of building a VN x game hybrid (much like Unhack) that takes place in that town. My hope is to use photos, audio and videos from that place and overlay anime sprites over the images. So, I wanted to study how this Go! Go! Nippon! game pulled it off.

Last night, I gave Go! Go! Nippon! a go. The game seemed to have used photos for reference. However, they're painted over, and a lot of brandings and blurred out or changed (e.g. WcDonalds instead of McDonalds). For my project, I'd so deeply love to use actual photos. My hope is to create a setting that players will genuinely grow fond of. There must be a lot of legal issues around that, though. Accidentally including branding in photos, etc. Does anyone know how all that works? As in, legal rules around photography.

Now, to talk about the actual Go! Go! Nippon game. I expected a bland story, and honestly, so far, it is. However, the game features a bit of history for each location you visit, which is what I'm hoping for. It's largely about educating the players as well. That makes it really feel like a trip to Japan, and going there with two cute girls is always a huge bonus, hohoho B). Unfortunately, I felt like each location could have used a few more background images. I wanted to see more of the place.

The music is absolutely forgettable. No voiceovers either, but hey, better none than some bad ones :P.

Last, most of this game features Japanese and English text simultaneously. If you're interested in learning Japanese, I reckon it's a great excuse to pick up the game B).

If anyone's played this game, I'd love to hear what you thought of it!

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Oh yeah, I played this VN. It's interesting, though I wouldn't say it's good. It's just weird, I think they simply did it for people trying to learn a bit of Japanese and who want to go to Japan.

It was interesting, but it has nothing worth remembering, not OST, only two voices, etc.

Anyway, I liked the text, it was cool playing a VN and see the Japanese and English text at the same time

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Mikel, yeah, being able to read the English and Japanese text at the same time is cool for sure. Educational, too. Though to be honest, I get lazy and I stick to the English :lol:.

Kotomi, I'm actually enjoying the game, too. Just noticed that there's a photo button that links to real photos of places on Google Maps. It's great when you go in with a tourist perspective hoping to learn about Japan's history and culture.

I guess we can all agree that the music is bad :lol:~

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I had some fun with it. I liked watching a Japanophile realize his dream, enjoyed the history lessons (VNs are much more fun than guidebooks!), and liked the love stories. I'm not a fan of H-Contnent, so the super-minimal skin was appreciated.

As for the music... It's been so long... I worry that I actually listened to it all the way through both routes...

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I just finished my first playthrough of this last night. Well, I expected nothing out of the ending, but at least it was cute, I guess. There are still a few locations I have yet to visit, so I might check those out. Really, if you go in with a tourist mindset, the game is acceptable enough :).

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