NISA moves into publishing anime collections

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

NIS America licenses Toradora, Persona and more | Japanator.com: anime news, original features, and weird stories from Japan, updated daily!

Dunno if I'm thrilled with the direction NIS is going in lately. They've been profitable enough in the last year to keep afloat, but their earnings are down 97% from the previous year. So, basically, they're treading water and expanding into anything to keep afloat.

Enough to whore out Disgaea as a visual novel (basically an adventure game minus the adventure game element, so what's the point?) and start publishing anime.

They're making some interesting picks on Anime, though. ToraDora, Persona: Trinity Soul and others.

Yay, I guess. If this is what they need to stay afloat, I'm down for the Persona stuff at least (though what I have watched seems questionable).

They can keep that visual novel shit, though. I just can't help but take exception to them being marketed as games.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

Have you seen the Persona anime? Just wondering if its worth the time.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

Its a bit iffy from the first few fansubs I bothered to watch.

It has Igor, it has Personas and Akihiko for P3 makes an appearance in the later episodes, having grown up to become a cop.

Seems they borked the "otherworld" aspects of the personas, though. People can summon and use them in the real world now without a special condition like the Dark Hour, Abyss of Time or the TV realm. They draw on some story elements from P3, though, so there's a difference - there are people that still awaken to the persona ability naturally with no ill effects, but there's also a trend creating users like the Strega in P3, which is a forced awakening with detrimental effects - this time really detrimental.

This occurs through a fad teens use to get high called "shadow stripping" and that's where it kinda starts to not make so much sense. There doesn't seem to be a special condition for that to occur. The natural way is having Philemon, an agent of Philemon or his nemisis (Nyarlathotep) visit you - that's a natural awakening.

But its dangerous. Do it too much and the persona ability awakens unnaturally and the Persona exits the host violently, turning them inside out and dead before they go berserking on the streets.

At least, that's what I'm remembering of it. I'm pretty sure this isn't going to be considered canon, though.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

Hmm...maybe I'll try a few episodes but since I enjoy the games, I might not care for the liberties they've taken.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

Well, it also improtant to keep in mind they don't make it clear which Persona universe this is set within. In the first Persona game, there wasn't a "dark realm" of any kind ot call forth personas. Additionally, everything in P2: Eternal Punishment onward in a parallel universe. This is due to the events we never got to see in Persona 2: Innocent Sin, which takes place in the original universe.

[cidbahamut]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

Have you seen the Persona anime? Just wondering if its worth the time.

Absolutely not.

I watched the whole thing and I don't know why. I'm not terribly familiar with the Persona universe, but that doesn't really change the fact that this was a bad show on just about every level. Shoddy story, shallow characters and sub-par action sequences, all of it interrupted constantly by whiny crackpot dissertations on metaphysics.

I much preferred watching my friend play Persona 3 to that terrible excuse for an anime.

[Mhurron]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

There's no need to hold back now cid. Tell us what you really think.

Disgaea 2's story would probably work better told in an Anime then it did in the game. That story didn't really seem to lend itself well to a tactical RPG.

[Feba]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

They can keep that visual novel shit, though. I just can't help but take exception to them being marketed as games.

Oh shit, BBQ doesn't approve of a genre of games! QUICK, ADD STATISTICAL MODIFIERS, IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO REGAIN OUR DIGNITY.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

Oh shit, BBQ doesn't approve of a genre of games! QUICK, ADD STATISTICAL MODIFIERS, IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO REGAIN OUR DIGNITY.

I knew saying something like I did would be the same as saying "Hey Feba, you suck!"

Its just I don't feel a point-and-click adventure game needs to be stripped down further from being an interactive experience. I object to this on the same level as Heavy Rain. These are not true games and don't adhere to using critical thinking to enjoy them

Bad enough Wii has all this waggle mini-game fodder out there, but at least Nintendo's non-games seem to have a level of interactivity to them that gives them a purpose and function. Heavy Raid wishes it was a movie (and its not really even good at being that), Visual Novels want to be manga or books... and I really just don't see why they aren't that instead. Seems like making the manga or book would be the cheaper way to go.

Seems perfect of an ebook reader, but gaming systems? Not really.

[Mhurron]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

Its just I don't feel a point-and-click adventure game needs to be stripped down further from being an interactive experience. I object to this on the same level as Heavy Rain. These are not true games and don't adhere to using critical thinking to enjoy them

A Game - an amusement or pastime;

It is a game.

Oh you said true game.
No true Scotsman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Logic, you cant haz it.

You don't like this type of game, say so, no one really cares. I don't care to sped time on visual novels either. However your habit of redefining words and phrases to belittle and look down on people and things you don't like just makes you look like an idiot.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

A Game - an amusement or pastime;

It is a game.

Oh you said true game.
No true Scotsman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Logic, you cant haz it.

You don't like this type of game, say so, no one really cares. I don't care to sped time on visual novels either. However your habit of redefining words and phrases to belittle and look down on people and things you don't like just makes you look like an idiot.

I'll make this simple, read it slowly and try not to let Wikipedia do the thinking for you. Instead, let's just use common sense.

Books are read - Passive, but allow for imagination
TV and movies are watched - Completely passive, if you've started thinking, the TV show or movie has failed (or your house is on fire).
Games are played - Interactive, requires understanding of various abstract elements and critical thinking/skill.

Go on, tell someone that doesn't play games they aren't abstract. How the left analog stick represents the body, legs, feet and the right one represents not only your head, but your gun arm as well. Or how paddling a ball breaks bricks. Or why Mario grows for touching a mushroom when there's no narrative reason for it.

You must not only become accustomed to abstract controls and laws of a game world, but put them toward critical thinking, twitch-based skill or both. In essence, each new game requires you to learn a new language, to learn new properties and laws that are not common to real life.

Now, guess what the other mediums don't do?

What is the visual novel is selling itself as?

Given there is no "language" to master or skill/logic involved, along with no win/loss condition; I'm going to have to say its selling itself as a book. If that's what I want, I'll make a trip to Barnes and Noble, the comic shop or get an ebook reader. Its not something I'm going to go to GameStop for.

[Mhurron]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

I'll make this simple, read it slowly and try not to let Wikipedia do the thinking for you. Instead, let's just use common sense.

Books are read - Passive, but allow for imagination
TV and movies are watched - Completely passive, if you've started thinking, the TV show or movie has failed (or your house is on fire).
Games are played - Interactive, requires understanding of various abstract elements and critical thinking/skill.

Go on, tell someone that doesn't play games they aren't abstract. How the left analog stick represents the body, legs, feet and the right one represents not only your head, but your gun arm as well. Or how paddling a ball breaks bricks. Or why Mario grows for touching a mushroom when there's no narrative reason for it.

You must not only become accustomed to abstract controls and laws of a game world, but put them toward critical thinking, twitch-based skill or both. In essence, each new game requires you to learn a new language, to learn new properties and laws that are not common to real life.

Now, guess what the other mediums don't do?

What is the visual novel is selling itself as?

Given there is no "language" to master or skill/logic involved, along with no win/loss condition; I'm going to have to say its selling itself as a book. If that's what I want, I'll make a trip to Barnes and Noble, the comic shop or get an ebook reader. Its not something I'm going to go to GameStop for.

So the choose your own adventure books were games and not stories? There was a logic, or simply trying things to see what would happen, there was win/loss especially since if you weren't paying attention you got the bad endings, or the same one over and over.

This is pretty much how visual novels and other interactive fiction work. Your interaction is simply to make decisions that influence what story line or ending you get.

Of course, boiled right down, thats all any story driven computer game is. Combat and puzzles are not required to make a game a game.

I suppose you could go ahead and tell me Rhapsody from NIS isn't a game. It doesn't require any understanding of abstracts. There is no critical thinking and pretty much no skill. You go around talk to everyone, they will eventually tell you where to go, and I mean tell you where to go as in "go here and talk to so and so." There is no skill, battles are less then a minute and death is pretty much impossible. You're watching a story you can finish the whole thing in something like 10-12 hours by doing nothing but hitting X, and I can't stress this enough, you very literally only ever have to hit X. By your definition this is not a game. But it is.

Visual Novels are what JRPG's are if you take out the combat. You go here, if you talk to person A before B you get storyline and ending X, if you talk to B before A you get story and ending Y.

You might want to try and redefine what a game is so that you can call yourself a gamer and not be 'tainted' by people who want to go through stories with multiple endings without combat, knock yourself out. Just stop being so surprised when you're called an idiot for it.

But I suppose real gamers don't need to be constrained by things like language.

[Feba]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

Books are read - Passive, but allow for imagination

So then my old stacks of CYOA books aren't actually books? What are they then, games? But there are no abstract elements to understand, or critical thinking or skill involved. It's pretty much an entirely random outcome, with the reader rarely being able to tell which choices lead to the good ending, and which lead to THE END on the next page you flip to. And if they are games, then clearly visual novels are even more so, at least in the case that they have choices.

TV and movies are watched - Completely passive, if you've started thinking, the TV show or movie has failed

Wow. No wonder you mention you rarely watch movies and TV, clearly your tastes there are absolutely terrible.

You must not only become accustomed to abstract controls and laws of a game world, but put them toward critical thinking, twitch-based skill or both. In essence, each new game requires you to learn a new language, to learn new properties and laws that are not common to real life.

I'm going to take out twitch-based skill, given that we both probably play RPGs as much as anything else, and we're posting on the forum for an MMO with a very high forgiveness for latency.

I'm also going to remove the 'new language' part, considering almost all games are similar to other games we've played in the past. At best, most games teach you a new dialect of a mostly-universal language. The control mapping is also mostly irrelevant outside of action games. And most games don't require much skill or logic-- even in RPGs, arguably the thinking man's genre, you can generally level up to the point where you can wipe the floor with enemies without strategy. Also, requiring logic would mean that people who simply resort to using strategy guides are no longer playing video games. If I put in Phoenix Wright, play it for an hour, and then get stuck, it's a video game. If I use a strategy guide to move forward, does it stay a game, even though it effectively presented no challenge? What if the strategy guide is included inside the game software? What if the game tells you what to do after a certain amount of struggling?

That's the problem, BBQ, which Mhurron pointed out. Your definitions are set up to achieve your own end, and the only way for you to support them is to continually redefine them. Instead of jumping on him for posting a link to one of the most prolific websites on the planet, perhaps you should have read it and tried to understand what he was talking about.

[Mezlo]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

TV and movies are watched - Completely passive, if you've started thinking, the TV show or movie has failed (or your house is on fire).

Ketaru would kill you for this... lol...

I think alot while watching tv and movies. Is what you're trying to say is, thinking in an attempt to change or alter the outcome of the show? In which case I'd agree because obviously a movie can't be altered by us merely thinking, unlike a video game.

[Feba]

Re: NISA moves into publishing anime collections

Oh, and reading Mhurron's post also makes me think, is D&D a game? Sure, there are rules and a logic to it, but the DM is God, and has the final say on everything. Does D&D being a game depend on who the DM is? If I have a DM who prefers esoteric interpretations of the rules; or abusing the rules for the fun of it, is it no longer a game? Is it a different game, even though it uses the same rulebook? What if I have a DM who applies the rules in a completely normal way, but who is dedicated enough to telling the story that they never let the player die-- that they would create dues ex machinas to save players, or simply make it impossible to die?

Or, alternatively, what if you have a Bastard DM who will never let you win? Is that a game? What if he lets you lose less badly?

To bring it back to video games, what about fights you can't win or lose? Does it cease to be a game during those periods? Are video games actually movies during cutscenes?