Well, I dithered too long and missed Robert’s deal on Cardcaptor Sakura, so I ended up over at RightStuff (“Our motto: We ship when we want to!”), picking up theirs. Over $500 in anime for $80; well, the series would have to suck something grandly to make me regret that deal, and by all accounts, it doesn’t. So I’ll have plenty to watch for the next, oh, two months or so? That is, assuming I actually get it from them.
Watch me try to burn through all of it in three days. (Ain’t happening, not with that much material, but still…)
While I was on their site, I noticed the category, “Adult Games.” I’d gotten mildly curious about the subject, since Kanon came along — I’d actualy gone looking for a translated copy of it, and also for a copy of Otome wa Boku. (Purely to confirm Mizuho’s sex, I assure you! Inquiring minds want to know.) I figured that if the genre spawns that much animé, it can’t suck too badly. (Wait, I should reconsider that choice of words…)
I hadn’t checked out RightStuff’s list before, so I started looking at some of the descriptions of the games. It was obvious that their specials were mostly of the really bad stuff. Laughably and obviously so. Then I ran across Tokimeki Check-in, which wasn’t on special. I recognized the cover character from MT-i’s entry in last October’s De-motivational Poster contest over at TJ’s — she’s the entrant for Gentlemanliness, and I remember thinking “That’s…. not going to be an easy decision in the game, given the ‘provocation.’ And that outfit is one helluva provocation!”
Ok, ok, so I ordered it. “Porno for the people!” is the new cry of the revolution, and all that. I will probably have to set up one of the systems to dual boot, since it doesn’t say it will run under Win2k. Ah well. But then I really pushed my luck by looking at another of of the bargain games: Jewel Knights. The text made it look borderline bad, but maybe funny, until I got to this part:
Features a full “auto forwarding mode” mode as well for handsfree play.
Um. Well, there’s nothing like user-friendly features, after all….. Oh, look, and it is compatible with Win2k!
(Wait. I use the mouse left-handed anyway….)
*points and laughs at Ubu while making sure Tokimeki Memorial isn’t visible on my desktop…*
I’ve had it for a few years. The meido isn’t MY favorite character from the game…
Oops. Fansubs on the brain… I meant Tokimeki CHECK-IN, not “Memorial.”
Is there any way to get to the pictures without having to wade through the game logic?
I would bet they’re encoded in a proprietary format, specifically to prevent that. Of course, maybe the “hands-free mode” includes a “fast-forward” feature…
Ero-games in Japan run the gamut from tender love stories that happen to contain a few pornographic sequences (like Kanon) to all-out sausage fests where the story only serves to set up the next sex scene (like the ones you mentioned). Only the latter sort have any chance of being officially localized for English-speaking markets; if you want to buy an English translation of the game your favorite bishoujo anime is based on, you’re out of luck. There are unsanctioned fan translation projects out there, but very few are completed due to the enormous amount of text which must be translated.
Incidentally, hands-free play is a pretty standard feature for visual novels, and not just for the reason you suspect. Clicking the mouse after every sentence gets to be annoying after an hour or so, you know? You can usually adjust the speed, which would qualify as fast-forward. And while the images are generally stored in some sort of archive, it’s often trivial to hack; zip files of the all the H-scene illustrations (HCG) from a game can easily be found on the Internet if one knows where to look.
Why am I not really surprised by any of that….
If I remember correctly (I’m not at The Pond right now), there IS a file that holds the pictures… of course, that might just be the *ahem* not-quite-purchased version I have.
Oh, I forgot to mention… she’s not my favorite character, and she’s not really a meido, either, but that’s just nitpicking…