Archive for Februari 2014
What is a Eroge ?
History See also: Bishōjo game and Visual novel Japanese eroge, also known as H-games[1] or hentai games, have their origins in the early 1980s, when Japanese companies introduced their own brands of microcomputer to compete with those of the United States. Competing systems included the Sharp X1, Fujitsu FM-7, MSX, and NEC PC-8801. NEC was behind its competitors in terms of hardware (with only 16 colors and no sound support) and needed a way to regain control of the market. Thus came the erotic game. The first commercial erotic computer game, Night Life, was released by Koei in 1982.[2] It was an early graphic adventure,[3] with sexually explicit images.[2] That same year, Koei released another erotic title, Danchi Tsuma no Yuwaku (Seduction of the Condominium Wife), which was an early role-playing[4][5] adventure game with colour graphics, owing to the eight-color palette of the NEC PC-8001 computer. It became a hit, helping Koei become a major software company.[6] Other now-famous Japanese companies such as Enix, Square and Nihon Falcom also released erotic adult games for the PC-8801 computer in the early 1980s before they became mainstream.[2] Early eroge usually had simple stories, some even involving rape, which often led to widespread condemnation from the Japanese media. In some of the early erotic games, the erotic content is meaningfully integrated into a thoughtful and mature storyline, though others often used it as a flimsy excuse for pornography.[2] Erotic games made the PC-8801 popular, but customers quickly tired of paying 8800 yen ($85) for such simple games. Soon, new genres were invented: ASCII's Chaos Angels, a role-playing-based eroge, inspired Dragon Knight by Elf and Rance by AliceSoft. In 1992, Elf released Dōkyūsei. In it, before any eroticism, the user has to first win the affection of one of a number of female characters, making the story into an interactive romance novel. Thus, the love simulation genre was invented. Soon afterwards, the video game Otogirisou on the Super Famicom attracted the attention of many Japanese gamers. Otogirisou was a standard adventure game but had multiple endings. This concept was called a "sound novel". In 1996, the new software publisher Leaf expanded on this idea, calling it a visual novel and releasing their first successful game, Shizuku, a horror story starring a rapist high school student, with very highly reviewed writing and music. Their next game, Kizuato, was almost as dark. However, in 1997, they released To Heart, a sweetly sentimental story of high school love that became one of the most famous and trendsetting eroge ever. To Heart's music was so popular it was added to karaoke machines throughout Japan—a first for eroge. After a similar game by Tactics, One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e, became a hit in 1998, Visual Art's scouted main creative staff of One to form a new brand under them, which became Key. In 1999, Key released Kanon. It contains only about seven brief erotic scenes in a sentimental story the size of a long novel (an all-ages version was also released afterward), but the enthusiasm of the response was unprecedented, and Kanon sold over 300,000 copies. In 2002 a 13-episode anime series was produced, as well as another 24-episode anime series in 2006. According to Satoshi Todome's A History of Eroge, Kanon is still the standard for modern eroge and is referred to as a "baptism" for young otaku in Japan. Although many eroge still market themselves primarily on sex, eroge that focus on story are now a major established part of Japanese otaku culture. Several voice actors have voiced in the eroge genre, but were credited under pseudonym in order to avoid to confusion of voice actors. Among famous Eroge voice actors are listed under the alias: Hitomi (Minami Hokuto) Hyo-sei (Erena Kaibara) Akane Tomonaga (Yukari Aoyama) Kei Mizusawa (Rino Kawashima) Naga Nogami (Yuki Matsunaga) Natsumi Yanase (Izumi Maki) Sayaka Aoki (Rumiko Sasa) Ryoko Tanaka (Hikari Isshiki) Ryoko Ono (Nazuna Gogyo) Mai Goto (Oto Agumi) Yukiko Iwai (Yuki Iwata) Hideki Ogihara (Takezo Koike) Hiroko Taguchi (Nazuya Gogyo) Keiko Suzuki (Chisato Suzumori) Tae Okajima (Soyogi Tono) Yuki Kajita (Mahiru Kaneda) Hiro Yuki (Biscuitt Shishaku) Shizuka Ito (Rina Misaki) There are also few voice actors who are not credited under other name and use their real names. Among them where: Yui Ogura Ringo Aoba Yuana Miyazawa Yuzu Mamiya Saori Yukito Yukina Fujimori Tomoe Tamiyasu Toru Ueki Yui Sakakibara Kazuya Ichijo
Gameplay There is no set definition for the gameplay of eroge, except that they all include explicit sexual content. This most often occurs as hentai scenes of the player character having a sexual encounter with other characters. Usually the sexual content is presented as a reward for the player's successful fulfillment of certain tasks. Eroge gameplay is often in the style of a visual novel or dating sim. However, there are also many other gameplay genres represented within eroge, such as role-playing games, mahjong games, or puzzle games. Some eroge, such as those made by Illusion Soft, are just simulations of sex, with no "conventional" gameplay included.
What is a visual novel?
First I would tell you whether the Visual Novel
A visual novel (ビジュアルノベル bijuaru noberu?) is an interactive fiction game,[1][2] featuring mostly static graphics, most often using anime-style art or occasionally live-action stills (and sometimes video footage).[3] As the name might suggest, they resemble mixed-media novels.
In Japanese terminology, a distinction is often made between visual novels proper (abbreviated NVL), which consist predominantly of narration and have very few interactive elements, and adventure games (abbreviated AVG or ADV), which may incorporate problem-solving and other types of gameplay. This distinction is normally lost outside Japan, where both NVLs and ADVs are commonly referred to as "visual novels" by international fans. Visual novels and ADVs are especially prevalent in Japan, where they made up nearly 70% of the PC game titles released in 2006.[4]
Visual novels are rarely produced for video game consoles, but the more popular games have occasionally been ported to systems such as the Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, PlayStation Portable, or Xbox 360. The more famous visual novels are also often adapted into the light novel, manga or anime formats. The market for visual novels outside of East Asia is small, though a number of anime based on visual novels are popular among anime fans in the Western world.
Gameplay
Visual novels are distinguished from other game types by their extremely minimal gameplay. Typically the majority of player interaction is limited to clicking to keep the text, graphics and sound moving (most recent games offer "play" or "fast-forward" toggles that make even this unnecessary).
Most visual novels have multiple storylines and many endings; the gameplay mechanic in these cases typically consists of intermittent multiple-choice decision points, where the player selects a direction in which to take the game. This style of gameplay has been compared to the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Most, however, strive for a higher level of plot and character depth than the aforementioned series of interactive children's books.[5] These can be more closely compared to story-driven interactive fiction. While the plots and storytelling of mainstream video games is often criticized, many fans of visual novels hold them up as exceptions and identify this as a strong point of the genre.
Some visual novels do not limit themselves into merely interactive fictions, but also incorporate other elements into them. An example of this is Symphonic Rain, where the player is required to play a musical instrument of some sort, and attain a good score in order to advance. Usually such an element is related as a plot device in the game.
Some shorter works do not contain any decision points at all. Most examples of this sort are fan-created. Fan-created novel games are reasonably popular; there are a number of free game engines and construction kits aimed at making them easy to construct, most notably NScripter, KiriKiri and Ren'Py.[6]
Many visual novels use voice actors to provide voices for the characters in the game. Often, the protagonist is left unvoiced, even when the rest of the characters are fully voiced. This is to aid the player in identifying with the protagonist and to avoid having to record large amounts of dialogue, as the main character typically has the most speaking lines due to the branching nature of visual novels.
Style
Visual novels are commonly characterized with dialog boxes and sprites denoting the speaker. This is a recreation of the screen layout of a visual novel, generated by the Ren'Py game engine.
The visual novel genre has evolved a style somewhat different from print novels. In general, visual novels are more likely to be narrated in the first person than the third, and to present events from the point of view of only one character. It is fairly common for the primary structural unit to be the day rather than the chapter, with formulaic awakenings and returnings to bed framing each day's events. There are of course many exceptions to these generalisations.
In the typical visual novel, the graphics comprise a set of generic backgrounds (normally just one for each location in the game), with character sprites (立ち絵 tachi-e?) superimposed on these; the perspective is usually first-person, with the protagonist remaining unseen. At certain key moments in the plot, special event CG graphics are displayed instead; these are more detailed images, drawn specially for that scene rather than being composed from predefined elements, which often use more cinematic camera angles and include the protagonist. These event CGs can usually be viewed at any time once they have been "unlocked" by finding them in-game; this provides a motivation to replay the game and try making different decisions, as it is normally impossible to view all special events on a single play-through.
Up until the 1990s, the majority of visual novels utilized pixel art. This was particularly common on the NEC PC-9801 format, which showcased what is considered to be some of the best pixel art in the history of video games, with a popular example being Policenauts in 1994.[12] There have also been visual novels that use live-action stills or video footage, such as several Sound Novel games by Chunsoft. The most successful example is Machi, one of the most celebrated games in Japan, where it was voted No. 5 in a 2006 Famitsu reader poll of top 100 games of all time. The game resembled a live-action television drama, but allowing players to explore multiple character perspectives and affect the outcomes. Another successful example is 428: Fūsa Sareta Shibuya de, which received a perfect score of 40 out of 40 from Famitsu magazine.[3]
For details you can see on the Fans page
For Examples
