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Strangest Japanese Videogame Genres Discussed
Thanks to GameSpy for their column discussing a number of videogame genres that are popular in Japan, but not in the West. Picks include the more obvious such as dating sims ("Players look through the eyes of a young man and try to woo a variety of girls by making the proper dialogue choices"), pet raising sims ("where you raise and, uh, feed an everyday hamster... or a rhinoceros beetle"), and even voyeurism-based titles such as Primal Image, where "...poorly constructed 3D women with frightening facial features played brief animated sequences while you took pictures before the time limit ran out." Have Japanese-only genres such as dating got the capacity to take off in the States?
My other post here says why I think Gamespy's assessment of dating sims is [censored], so here are some links for anyone who wants to find out about them from people who don't think they're only for the terminally weird:
The ren'ai games mailing list.
You already read Megatokyo, right? Check the forums: the "dating sims" forum there includes plenty of information, as well as a FAQ which covers the subject in some depth.
You are thinking of two different things, although I suppose they are similar in many ways. There are "dating sims" and then there are "adult games". The latter is of an entirely pornographic nature and usually the stories of these games is nothing to write home about. OTOH, many so called "dating sims" do feature a good story that can be interesting. And BTW, most of the regular dating sims are for consoles and not for the PC. (In fact, the console manufacturers will still not allow pornographic material to be published)
Also, Japanese have a completely different sensibility about what is macho or effiminate. You'll see yakuza wearing pink socks or carrying Hello Kitty bags. Japanese girls and young women are more tech oriented than their American and European counterparts and teenage boys and young men will play games that an American 16 year old boy wouldn't touch.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
What the hell are saying? Karaoke Revolution was the FIRST game on TIME's game list thingy...
America is nowhere near ready for most of these games yet, mostly because they just aren't used to anime, which contains lots of whacky things (to the americans, of course).
I've played my fair share of hgames (hentai games), and I've found some of them to actually contain a decent storyline, even without the H, (Dividead) and some of them have been ported to console without the H (Private Nurse).
Sometimes the translations are just absolutely hillarious. There's a choice in X-Change 2 that goes something like: You're having sex with your girlfriend in the morning. You have two choices. You either continue having sex, or go to school.
Seriously, what kind of stupid question is that? I chose go to school, of course. But those decsions are part of getting all of the girls... as most games have multiple girls and you have to try to score with them all. Like, there's a graphic completition percentage, you have to try to get all of the pictures that are in the game, H, or not. Of course, some of the l33ter people can just hex the savegame, but what's the fun in that?
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans