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This Week in Games - VR Kanojo




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belvadeer





PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 11:25 am Reply with quote
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Meanwhile, there's still no sign of Yōkai Watch 3 for the West. I really wonder if Level-5 has basically given up on trying to make the series a thing here – despite a massive marketing push, it never seemed to take.


That is mostly likely the case. The anime hasn't had a new dubbed episode in over a year now (the same fate that befell poor Doraemon before his show's eventual removal from Disney XD) and they haven't shown a single new Yōkai Watch toy commercial on TV since then. It's safe to say they've given up on it. Yōkai Watch did manage to generate massive interest for a while (enough to be the #2 monster collection series here after Pokémon despite being a new IP to the U.S.), but the craze seems to have died down.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2544
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 11:39 am Reply with quote
Hmmm, Heidi writes about Blue Mary being added to KOF XIV, & ends the article with "Take it easy"... I see what she did thar!

*for those who don't get it, "Take it easy!" is one of Terry Bogard's catchphrases from KOF, and Terry is Mary's boyfriend.*
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Lynx Amali





PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 11:43 am Reply with quote
I didn't see Yokai Watch picking up in the west considering how late they brought it over so I'm not surprised it didn't do very well. At least it did better than Danball/LBX. Excuse me while I go cry that W and Wars never came over, let alone how bad the anime and kits were handled.
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Kicksville



Joined: 20 Nov 2010
Posts: 1175
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 12:40 pm Reply with quote
It is worth noting Yokai Watch fell off super hard in Japan, and is being retooled into Yokai Watch Shadowside, which had a movie and replaces the anime series this week. How well that'll do is anyone's guess, but the days of it being this giant massive thing have definitely been over since about a year ago at least. It appears Yokai Watch 4 is indeed taking up the Shadowside motif, confirmed in a magazine.
belvadeer wrote:
That is mostly likely the case. The anime hasn't had a new dubbed episode in over a year now (the same fate that befell poor Doraemon before his show's eventual removal from Disney Anime hyper) and they haven't shown a single new Yōkai Watch toy commercial on TV since then. It's safe to say they've given up on it. Yōkai Watch did manage to generate massive interest for a while (enough to be the #2 monster collection series here after Pokémon despite being a new IP to the U.S.), but the craze seems to have died down.

We did get Yokai Watch 2 Psychic Specters, and apparently the dub has been recast to cut costs - I suppose that hardly matters if we don't actually see the dub anywhere, but they have been trying, at least.

I imagine even if it didn't make it as a major franchise like they were hoping, we may still get the games - the media presence it could lay claim to was certainly large enough to keep it in the minds of enough people to shift a decently medium amount of units. I would think. I will not be shocked if they skip 3 and we get 4 on the Switch, especially if they work fast enough to beat Pokemon to it (I also won't be shocked if Yokai Watch 3 ends up being the last 3DS game ever released, and sells dozens of copies).
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 4:26 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
The Steam version of VR Kanojo doesn't let you go beyond a certain point in your courtship of the female character, but – as is typical for a lot of these sorts of games that turn up on the service – there's a patch you can download that will restore all the spicy bits.

Unfortunately Steam recently changed their policy following tighter rules around sex similar to social media outlets. They don't allow any links to patches or methods stated by the publisher to restore adult content in games anymore. Users will still post them in comments although Steam has the right to remove them, but certainly any links by the publishers themselves is no-no now.

It makes me wonder though, why go through the trouble of purchasing it on steam then patching and potentially needing to apply external patches or new patches again when updating, when you can purchase the whole uncensored game at the original publishers site?
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4422
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:17 pm Reply with quote
configspace wrote:
Quote:
The Steam version of VR Kanojo doesn't let you go beyond a certain point in your courtship of the female character, but – as is typical for a lot of these sorts of games that turn up on the service – there's a patch you can download that will restore all the spicy bits.

Unfortunately Steam recently changed their policy following tighter rules around sex similar to social media outlets. They don't allow any links to patches or methods stated by the publisher to restore adult content in games anymore. Users will still post them in comments although Steam has the right to remove them, but certainly any links by the publishers themselves is no-no now.

It makes me wonder though, why go through the trouble of purchasing it on steam then patching and potentially needing to apply external patches or new patches again when updating, when you can purchase the whole uncensored game at the original publishers site?


I've wondered the same thing. From the company's side, it makes sense since Steam allows them to reach more new customers that might not know where to look, and until recently could follow a link and go to the publisher's site. From the customer's side, I don't see the point, outside of not wanting the explicit content in the first place unless Steam sells it for less. I've seen some games where the patch costs $5 on its own, so there is even more reason to just go to the source.
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Zero-chan
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 25 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:38 pm Reply with quote
[quote="configspace"]
Quote:
It makes me wonder though, why go through the trouble of purchasing it on steam then patching and potentially needing to apply external patches or new patches again when updating, when you can purchase the whole uncensored game at the original publishers site?


Convenience, safety, and community are bigger deals than you might think. A lot of folks are reluctant to fork over their credit card data to a weird little website that's only selling and handful of games. You also get the benefit of community forums and possible Steam extras (gotta have trading cards and cheevos!).
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Crext



Joined: 04 Nov 2012
Posts: 211
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:59 pm Reply with quote
I wonder if VR Kanojo's parallel sales with Summer Lesson has helped them a lot since the main character is basically the one you date there? They're also quite lucky with their time sales window, the original HTC Vive set just got a discount in preparation for an upgraded version. To see the steam site buzzing with such activity is also rather fascinating since I'd assume people normally would try to hide their attractions to these sorts of experiences?

Either way, I think there's no better time to jump on the VR train than now tbh, regardless of your intentions. I've played plenty of the other VR games on steam, and it's really good exercise too. Maintain your shape / Become a hottie by dancing with Hatsune Miku, only possible in 2018+!
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 6:11 pm Reply with quote
belvadeer wrote:
Quote:
Meanwhile, there's still no sign of Yōkai Watch 3 for the West. I really wonder if Level-5 has basically given up on trying to make the series a thing here – despite a massive marketing push, it never seemed to take.


That is mostly likely the case. The anime hasn't had a new dubbed episode in over a year now (the same fate that befell poor Doraemon before his show's eventual removal from Disney Anime hyper) and they haven't shown a single new Yōkai Watch toy commercial on TV since then. It's safe to say they've given up on it.


Like Disney's wild overestimation of showing Princess Mononoke in theaters, they tragically overestimated the idea that a Japanese phenomenon would exactly translate to the West.
Here, it was seen as "the next Pokemon", but Pokemon had very established fandoms with the card-game kids and the Nintendo kids long before it became an anime thing.
With Yo-Kai, they brought the anime over first, and wasn't sure exactly what marketing craze it was automatically supposed to "cause".
And most kids were confused, since they didn't culturally know yokai as well as most Japanese kids, the creatures were a little too odd to be identifiable or lovable (as much as we all loved Pikachu Anime smallmouth ), and no one seemed to be playing any game to follow, which even Yu-Gi-Oh had the hook of--And the whole collecting aspect just didn't have the same innate cultural "Hunting stag beetles" appeal for North American 10-yo. boys that tracking rare Pokemon instinctively had for Japanese 10-yo. boys from the beginning.

As for poor not-too-bad Doraemon, it was also expected to publish-or-perish its Japanese hometown-phenomenon on demand, but was relegated to being the B-player to the freakish cult-cable domestic cartoons X-D had their own studio's money more profitably invested in.

Heidi wrote:
since both Honey Select Unlimited and VR Kanojo are pretty tame and straightforward. Erm, as tame and straightforward as games about virtual sex can be, anyway. Honey Select Unlimited is basically “make custom characters and watch them perform naughty acts, plus VR support” while VR Kanojo is “Summer Lesson but Horny on Main and VR's Right in the Title.”


If you remember that early viral parody-video of the Oculus Rift commercial, that geeky VR fans would do nothing but watch CGI polygon girls, the VR adult games feel like someone cynically went through the motions of attaching softcore to the new technology because they were the first to do the inevitable--
Sort of "Here, here's that VR 'sex' game you're supposed to be watching by now."

Watching stiff, angle-shaky CGI girl-tropes give your "virtual date" is certainly what most early adopters would fantasize the appeal of adult-VR would be about if they'd never seen actual VR in their life before.
The live-action adult industry, also believing that any new technology is "theirs" to shape as they will, has not been slow to jump onto first-person 3D POV VR in Japan either, but that's a whole different area that probably can't be covered on these boards.
Let's just say that a variety of niche options is probably going to divide the casual gamer from the more serious specific thrill-seeker. And that for the new headgear wearer, there are not only 'virtual dates" that go where Steam can't, but also Japanese live-action POV VR adult cosplay-parodies of Kemono Friends and Kizuna Ai, that are....ahem....not for the easily disturbed. Embarassed
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 9:59 pm Reply with quote
belvadeer wrote:
That is mostly likely the case. The anime hasn't had a new dubbed episode in over a year now (the same fate that befell poor Doraemon before his show's eventual removal from Disney Anime hyper) and they haven't shown a single new Yōkai Watch toy commercial on TV since then. It's safe to say they've given up on it. Yōkai Watch did manage to generate massive interest for a while (enough to be the #2 monster collection series here after Pokémon despite being a new IP to the U.S.), but the craze seems to have died down.


Do you mean at the time? Because there is no way that Yo-kai Watch, as a franchise, has outdone Digimon in cultural impact or revenue outside of Japan.

Lynx Amali wrote:
I didn't see Yokai Watch picking up in the west considering how late they brought it over so I'm not surprised it didn't do very well. At least it did better than Danball/LBX. Excuse me while I go cry that W and Wars never came over, let alone how bad the anime and kits were handled.


I don't think it's even that they brought it over late, as most people in the west had never heard of the Yo-kai Watch games (or anime or anything else) until Nintendos of America, Europe, and Australia started aggressively promoting it. Rather, I think it was severely mismarketed. Look at what kids have been into over the 21st century: It's either epic battles (well, what kids might consider epic anyway) or wacky slapstick comedies paced a mile a minute. Yo-kai Watch was played up as neither.

Pokémon can succeed where Yo-kai Watch couldn't because Pokémon has the image of the player character being a great hero emerging from nothing, something that resonates well with kids, whereas Yo-kai Watch focuses on mundane tasks with the supernatural Yo-kai added in. I think that it could've succeeded, or at least not fail so hard if it was marketed as a battle between good and evil, playing up the player characters as plucky kids who amass a fearsome army of Yo-kai to battle against whoever the villains are, as that is exactly why Pokémon games remain top-sellers in spite of mobile gaming otherwise stealing most of the attention away from console/PC gaming.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 1:23 am Reply with quote
Greed1914 wrote:
I've wondered the same thing. From the company's side, it makes sense since Steam allows them to reach more new customers that might not know where to look, and until recently could follow a link and go to the publisher's site. From the customer's side, I don't see the point, outside of not wanting the explicit content in the first place unless Steam sells it for less. I've seen some games where the patch costs $5 on its own, so there is even more reason to just go to the source.

Yeah I can see how it works to spread the word. I certainly here about obscure Japanese titles that way outside of the Sekai Project/Denpasoft published ones. But then Steam would pretty much serve as an ad platform to me and I'd just go buy it from the publisher (like you can here from illusion soft)

Zero-chan wrote:
Convenience, safety, and community are bigger deals than you might think. A lot of folks are reluctant to fork over their credit card data to a weird little website that's only selling and handful of games. You also get the benefit of community forums and possible Steam extras (gotta have trading cards and cheevos!).

hah, I forgot about the stream achievements/trading cards. But I guess if they want Steam convenience, especially if you want load on another system... for me the uncovenience of patching esp. with breakage from updates outweighs non-patching from publisher. And in a few rare cases, Steam can suspend or remove the game for whatever reason.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 1:59 am Reply with quote
Kicksville wrote:
We did get Yokai Watch 2 Psychic Specters, and apparently the dub has been recast to cut costs - I suppose that hardly matters if we don't actually see the dub anywhere, but they have been trying, at least.


I hadn't heard about a recasting at all. I just know there hasn't been a new dubbed episode airing on TV since last year. That's very strange.

Quote:
I imagine even if it didn't make it as a major franchise like they were hoping, we may still get the games - the media presence it could lay claim to was certainly large enough to keep it in the minds of enough people to shift a decently medium amount of units. I would think. I will not be shocked if they skip 3 and we get 4 on the Switch, especially if they work fast enough to beat Pokemon to it (I also won't be shocked if Yokai Watch 3 ends up being the last 3DS game ever released, and sells dozens of copies).


I just miss seeing the show really. It's actually enjoyable enough despite the localization changes, and I think it's unique how they handled the Yōkai names to make the puns work. Komasan's "Oh my swirls!" exclamation and rural accent are the most amusing highlights.

leafy sea dragon wrote:
Do you mean at the time? Because there is no way that Yo-kai Watch, as a franchise, has outdone Digimon in cultural impact or revenue outside of Japan.


I'm referring to its popularity here.
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DRWii



Joined: 16 May 2007
Posts: 636
PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 7:29 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Still, every single previous EO class?

For better or worse, this isn't the case; including the new Hero class, the total available classes number 19. And it's already been confirmed what classes are in (from left-to-right: Highlander, Ronin, Protector, Harbinger, Nightseeker, Survivalist, Arcanist, Medic, Pugilist, War Magus, Ninja, Gunner, Shogun, Zodiac, Farmer, Hero, Landsknecht, Sovereign, and Imperial).
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