New company to publish Japan doujin games for sale here?

sfried · Post by **sfried** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 9:47 pm

http://www.rockinandroid.com/

I haven't heard this news anywhere around these forums, so...

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 10:26 pm

Looks like they found a nice niche market there.
And 20 US bucks for that Suguri Perfect Edition (interesting looking and sounding game).

Surely interested in that last one alone.

Post by **Ghegs** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 10:28 pm

Surprising. I wonder if they're going to actually translate some games or just take the ones that are already 95% in english? What about DRM on digital downloads?

We'll see how this starts up, I guess.

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 10:28 pm

they only seem to have like 5 games.....

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 10:40 pm

I recently tried out Flying Red Wine Barrel and love it. Is Suguri any good?

If this company brings over good games I'll consider buying some for sure.

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 10:47 pm

jonny5 wrote:they only seem to have like 5 games.....

Well you've got to start somewhere, right.

If successful, I am sure they'll add many more to there portfolio.

agustusx · Post by **agustusx** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:31 am

maybe if it does well enough they will have games not released 5 years ago

Of course it will be new to someone, but ppl interested in this sort of thing may already have acquired a copy..

Zeether · Post by **Zeether** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:55 am

Cool, Gundemonium collection. Maybe now we can understand the story in the games...

Cthulhu · Post by **Cthulhu** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:18 am

This is pretty awesome, actually. I'd been wishing for years that Japanese developers would wake up and smell the modern internet and sell their stuff online rather than solely through doujin shops/meetups.

Looks like they've only got a few "partners" right now, but I'll happily support them once stuff is on sale.

I'm taking a leap of faith that these guys are legit, but I don't see any indications that they're not.

sfried · Post by **sfried** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:49 am

RockingAndroid wrote:"It’s only within the last 5 years that creator-owned games have emerged onto the scene, offering more visually stunning graphics and innovative game play that can only be crafted by the Japanese mind."

Sure is weeaboo here. Probably never heard of the demo scene...

That said, I'm glad more small publishers/distributers are recognizing stuff like Cave Story and Blast Works, and hopefully that means doujin game makers realize the potential of also getting fans abroad.

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:53 am

agustusx wrote:maybe if it does well enough they will have games not released 5 years ago

Of course it will be new to someone, but ppl interested in this sort of thing may already have acquired a copy..

i said the same thing but edited my post quickly

didnt wanna come off wrong

sfried · Post by **sfried** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:55 am

I suppose it would be the first time they would get to play it in English.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:36 am

I have a bad feeling about this.

Check out their page for three Platine Dispositif games in one, for $20. They offer a "direct download" (aka, they just downloaded them from elsewhere, for free), and they offer them in English and Japanese. Where are the retail releases?

Does Platine even know about this? I, well, not so much work for, but have been a part of Non-Directional Translations (NDT) for about the past 3 years. Check their site out here. Out of all the Platine games, they've done Engage to Jabberwock, Starleaf YO, Gundemonium, Royal Edoma Engine, and Gundemonium RECOLLECTION.

So two out of three games in the Platine package have already been translated by NDT. Suguri has also been fan-translated as well. I get the feeling this site is ripping off fan-made translation patches for doujin games. There's some games out there that they have listed which I don't know if they've been translated by other groups or not, but there's no screenshots of what they're offering either.

Fenrir · Post by **Fenrir** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:34 am

That suguri feels pretty much like Senko no Ronde... or didn't I understand a thing?

agustusx · Post by **agustusx** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:19 pm

Elixir wrote:I have a bad feeling about this.

Does Platine even know about this?

Strange the release date for the Gundemonium collection is so far off, Wouldn't they be caught by then and forced to take it all down?

If they were bootleg they would at least be smart not to talk about working with creators, they probably would rename the games and creators too.

Of course Im saying if they were smart bootleggers.

There was a guy who stole some boots from a store. Got taken to court and wore those very boots. When asked why he replied "I'm not stupid enough to wear boots I stole in court".

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:33 pm

Okay yeah I'm fairly sure they stole NDT's translation.

See the song title that's almost covered up by the copyright crap? That's part of the translation done by NDT. The title of the song is originally in Japanese.

I'd appreciate it if the topic creator changed the thread title to "Western site ripping off fan translations of doujin shmups".

Avoid this site.

If you really want Platine games, register on ShoppingMallJapan and buy them off here.

Enhasa · Post by **Enhasa** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:24 pm

Fenrir wrote:That suguri feels pretty much like Senko no Ronde... or didn't I understand a thing?

Suguri is a 1p game, like a traditional hori with stages, but with unique dash and weapons mechanisms. Acceleration of Suguri is the followup, a 2p vs game like Senko. The mechanics are more or less Suguri placed into a 2p game.

My personal opinion is that Suguri is great and Acceleration is crap (some of this might be that it compares unfavorably to Senko). Many people like Acceleration though, so try for yourself.

Edit: I'm most confused by these people's questionable taste in doujins than anything else.

agustusx · Post by **agustusx** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:26 pm

Elixir wrote: If you really want Platine games, register on ShoppingMallJapan and buy them off here.

Me no speaka jpnese. Thx for the link though, didn't know you could still buy these.

Observer · Post by **Observer** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:27 pm

Usually, we would be sure if this is real when we see some sort of comment/confirmation from the authors themselves. Maybe someone should email them and get the gears moving?

What now makes me doubt is that they would surely prefer to market or sell their shit themselves like Marsbound does with Cloudphobia or i-saint does with Exception (which you can buy off Melonbooks Dojin Broadband Service).

Elixir> That link look interesting. Do they ship internationally? (as in outside the usual US/Europe thing)

P.S.: I swear that Space Dynagon thing seriously looks like the infamous "yukkuri", and that came out before those atrocities were common...

agustusx · Post by **agustusx** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 10:11 pm

Observer wrote:Usually, we would be sure if this is real when we see some sort of comment/confirmation from the authors themselves. Maybe someone should email them and get the gears moving?

I emailed rockingandroid to see what their response would be, if any. It's not the same thing as the creator, so that's an option for those interested. I was just curious to see if there would be a professional response, what story would follow etc. The site has a ghetto under construction blog, which is always a sterling sign of professionalism.

dai jou bu · Post by **dai jou bu** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:08 pm

Enhasa wrote:Suguri is a 1p game, like a traditional hori with stages, but with unique asdash and weapons mechanisms. Acceleration of Suguri is the followup, a 2p vs game like Senko. The mechanics are more or less Suguri placed into a 2p game.

My p ersonal opinion is that Suguri is great and Acceleration is crap (some of this might be that it compares unfavorably to Senko). Many people like Acceleration though, so try for yourself.

Suguri is great. Very awesome, actually. The only truly unique thing Suguri does is the damage scaling- the more you dash, the higher the heat. The higher the heat, the more damage you take, and if you know what you're doing you're going to be dashing all over the place and will be punished hard for making a mistake, which is in essence emulating a shmup. Since you only get one lifebar to complete the stage, you REALLY need to know what you're doing with the game's system in order to complete it at high heat while blowing up everything at the same time.

And you'll look good doing it in the process.

AoS is essentially Megaman Power Battles: the engine has been modified slightly to try to balance the game for 2 players duking it out (ie- they increased the amount of frames needed to pass before you can attack cancel and you can theoretically be hit by infinities if you don't have enough meter to activate your "antifield"). As I've said several times before about this game (and people still don't get it), the visual presentation is strikingly similar to Senko no Ronde, but the modified game engine plays something like Psychic Force if it was speed up 120% and didn't have you execute lots of circular motions in order to execute a lot of important moves. Instead, you have to memorize like, 7 different buttons to press in the heat of battle, which is still pretty hard to do even though the game has been "slowed down" from its original speed.

EDIT: I also believe the reason why they're whoring Suguri a lot on this site is because there's also an unofficial translation of it available for download (for both games!), and they're using this person's patch without permission.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:10 am

Observer wrote:Elixir> That link look interesting. Do they ship internationally? (as in outside the usual US/Europe thing)

P.S.: I swear that Space Dynagon thing seriously looks like the infamous "yukkuri", and that came out before those atrocities were common...

You would have to get the guy at SMJ to order from the shop. I've done so and it worked out nicely. Most people here already have a SMJ account though. If not, well, you're probably using Rinkya. In which case, get an SMJ account immediately.

Also, yeah, Dynagon was out way before the yukkuri things (my avatar used to be

) but it was never popular. Fantastic game though.

postman · Post by **postman** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:39 pm

RA has responded to the rumors of fan translations, and claim that everything is legit and they have spoken to several doujin companies for their projects......

Looks promising!

agustusx · Post by **agustusx** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:42 pm

postman wrote:RA has responded to the rumors of fan translations, and claim that everything is legit and they have spoken to several doujin companies for their projects......

Looks promising!

i guess they dont like me then, i got no reply

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:55 pm

postman wrote:RA has responded to the rumors of fan translations, and claim that everything is legit and they have spoken to several doujin companies for their projects......

Looks promising!

Of course they're going to say that. What proof do they have?

Devil REI · Post by **Devil REI** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:02 am

Elixir wrote:
postman wrote:RA has responded to the rumors of fan translations, and claim that everything is legit and they have spoken to several doujin companies for their projects......

Looks promising!
Of course they're going to say that. What proof do they have?

http://ameblo.jp/daidaistaff/entry-10234884221.html

:V

Talking to these guys a bit, they seem to be a pretty awesome bunch. Nice to see a startup taking on a fairly risky area (shooting games for western users) in the current environment. Of course, I'd imagine the costs of licensing these from the devs is a lot less than the Cave 360 stuff...

And I'd imagine their own translations are in the works right now, so they likely nabbed a few screenshots off the web for demo purposes, so-to-speak. Not likely to be doing that again with this controversy, I'd imagine...

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:00 am

Elixir wrote:how dare stupid gaijin translate japanese doujin game

Twiddle wrote:No, Elixir. You are the gaijin

Enhasa · Post by **Enhasa** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:17 am

Elixir wrote:Yes, because it's a smart idea to spend $72.90 USD for something that looks like a shmup minigame compilation. I'd rather buy a Japanese visual novel for the same price because I'd probably get more enjoyment out of it and it would definitely last longer. Do you not see the problem here? And before you say "I'm just cheap", remember that I own arcade boards and I've imported every shmup for the 360 so far, including Otomedius G which was seriously not worth the price, and Raiden IV which I played about three times.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 5:27 am

You know, Elixir was doing the yukkuri thing before even the Pixiv porn artists were. Some people are just fated to be ahead of their time. Chin up, man!

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 3:16 pm

I don't give a shit if they translate it or not. I give a shit if they're stealing fan-translation projects which take months to years of effort, from groups they've never even contacted once and they're trying to make an actual profit out of it.