Its a bit disappointing to see ELF mentioned only as a screenshot source, and C’s Ware never mentioned, despite these two being the two undeniable kings of eroge in the 90s and early 00s.
Really? I didn’t click through but I expected at least a full chapter on Yu No.
YU-NO isn’t mentioned at all, despite it being perhaps the single most influential eroge of its time. Even to this day I haven’t played a game like it. (Though to be honest, my personal thoughts on YU-NO is that it would have been a better game without the erotic content, but I digress).
EVE Burst Error isn’t mentioned either, neither is XENON Mugen no Shitai, DESIRE, not even Amy’s Fantasies (known in Japan at the time as “the unmarketable game”) is mentioned. They spend more than half the article talking about the history of erotic media content in historical Japan.
Seems like this is an article that the writer just wanted an excuse to talk about KOEI and Enix developers early careers.
I agree about YU-NO. I played the original and resented it. I hear the modern rerelease sands off some of the more objectionable content but I’m not terribly interested in playing again.
Im not the Culture Police so I understand that Japan’s culture at the time was much more… accepting… of certain fictional content. Erotic media in general is just not for me, and my personal opinion is that those scenes didn’t add to or help advance the plot. However, the story was phenomenal. I found myself captivated by it, so much so that when the erotic scenes came up it kinda took me out of the game. I was excited to find out what happened next, and the twists and turns in the story were unexpected. Great world building as well. Ryu Umemoto was truly a god-tier composer.
I know the game released on the SEGA Saturn, so I don’t know how censored certain scenes are on that version, but I didn’t play it simply because it was never released in English. The PC version had some censorship AFAIK but the music used Windows MIDI instead of the FM of the PC98. But it also was not released in English, and sadly the fan English patch “restores” the censored scenes as well as adding voice acting from the SEGA Saturn release.
I know the game also released for PS Vita, but its also not in English so I dont know whether it has the same content as the original, but I imagine its probably based on the Windows version.
Switch version? Probably the worst version of the game, and it has nothing to do with toning down certain scenes. The art style is so diluted compared to the original, which is a great amount of the game’s charm. The original version had a timeless art style, but for some reason they decided to make it more like modern generic sterilized anime designs. The OST was changed, and while it is more faithful to the original than the art, it has some strange EQ and balancing that emphasizes the wrong instruments, so when compared to the original OST some parts of the song are inaudible or are too loud.
“Haha I play them for the plot. Here’s my thoughts on the ports for three separate platforms.”
Bro, come on.
I didnt play the other versions, I only know about them and the differences from the original. Before I played the game I looked up the differences to see what they were, and I would have played the SEGA Saturn version first if it had an English patch because AFAIK it has the same art with less/toned down/removed sex scenes. Switch version I played a little bit of but the art style I simply didn’t enjoy, so I dropped it pretty early on.
I know its a meme and all, but unironically I do play for the plot.
The plot is fantastic. The time-travel and visual novel mechanics set the foundation for generations of games and made the world take the genre seriously. Gross gratuitous rape and incest scenes are on the mandatory path, and they’re presented as rewards.
Hm. Rereading your reply, I’m not really sure what your point is.
- It’s* a bit disappointing
- in the '90s*
- early '00s*
This was followed by Orandazuma wa Denki Unagi no Yume o Miru ka? (Do Dutch Wives Dream of Electric Eels?, Dec. 1984, PC-8801). Inspired by Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), players take on the role of a private investigator who has to track down a sex doll (called Dutch wives in Japan) that has become sentient and is murdering its lovers. The player tracks down the rogue doll by seducing all the women in Tokyo’s red-light district.
The concept sounds awesome. The porno parody “Blade Runner” needed.
I think it was also the plotline of an episode of the AD POLICE anime OVA. Or maybe it was Parasite Dolls, which is part of the same series. I can’t remember fully.
EDIT: After looking it up, it was either EP1/EP2 of AD POLICE FILES, or EP1 of Parasite Dolls that had a plotline like this. However, prostitutes and murder have been in crime and investigation stories since the dawn of crime, probably because the correlation of the two crimes is very high in real life. Most famous example being Jack the Ripper’s cases.
