Re: わたしの勇者は多重神格者 EPISODE1：「ひもろぎとグリマルキン」
I'd rather see in-engine animations than still image CGs. Is this what "professionals" do? Put still images in a 3D game? Looks like pretty boring content too (for me that is, no offense to those who like this kind of content). And there is no demo? But looks like the gameplay could be decent.
Edit: Both part one and part 2 are up on Hentai4daily. It's over 1 gig though, so I'm not downloading it. (I'm on limited bandwidth and the content doesn't appeal to me much anyway)
"PRO" indicates actual game companies with salaried staff(Type/Moon, Key, Tinkerbell, etc.), as opposed to amateurs groups/clubs, or "circles".
Most of these companies make nothing but visual novels (that do not necessarily have H-content). Their artists primarily specialize in making still CG images. Most of them aren't even animators, and lack the training to do so.
These companies are a far cry from AAA companies. Or even A companies, for that matter. They are more like indie studios. Usually in Japan it's either console gaming or go bust, so PC gamers are stuck with nothing but visual novels or amateur/doujin games.
Xuse has a history of experimenting with different genres of games. Even in these games, their H-artists make CG images. They can't really afford to change, since their demographic are expecting a visual novel with still CGs as always, so the most they can do is to tack on a 3D dungeon-explorer to a visual novel instead of making it independent from the ground-up.
Not that I like this game or the studio in particular, but calling them unprofessional is a tall order, since they are using standard industry practices to meet customer expectations while trying to introduce some innovation instead of doing the same thing as everybody else. Far better than Ubisoft cutting corners in the same game that they have rehashed for five or six times already -- these guys really should have known better.
Yes, for most Western players, Japanese games (the ones that are only being released domestically) are usually overpriced and not worth your money. It's economics of scale at work though, as they have low sales figures due to their small demographic.
Once again, while I don't particularly like this game (Too much talking. Yes, I can read moonrunes), I believe that this is a step in the right direction for the industry, as they are experimenting with new mechanics in an engine that are unfamiliar for them (Unity), as opposed to using the same decades-old VN engine that everybody else have been using. The more developers start to switch to Unity, the better.
They also seem to have split the game into three parts, with the combined price being cheaper than most other comparable games (again, not comparing with Steam, but with visual novels in Japan). Maybe they want to let their customers choose not to buy EP2 and 3 if they don't like the new style they're experimenting with. Heck, with the sale going on it's even cheaper than a decent chunk of RPGMaker games.
