So I've played H games... (Pixiv Fanbox)

Hello everyone,

I've been thinking these last days about making a post to talk about my gaming experience of the past 6 months.

DISCLAIMER: I'M ONLY TALKING ABOUT JAPANESE GAMES HERE.

Those of you who've been following me for a long time know that despite the fact that I make H games, I don't really play them. I've played a few, but when it comes to H, I'm more of a manga/doujin/CG guy. But there's one heavy exception which is ONLY the exception that led me to want to create Vitamin Plus: Vitamin Quest. When I played Vitamin Quest (which I played right away because I was already simping Butakoma back then) I realized how his style was fitting for a game and the rest you know it...

But earlier this year, I felt like starting a whole new game of VQ2 for the sake of it and I enjoyed the hell out of it once more. It gave me an itch to scratch I didn't think I'd have an for several months, I took the chance of heavy sales on DLsite to buy A LOT of games. Honestly, I haven't done them all (especially VNs, cause I need to have a very specific mindset to feel like doing one), but I did a good number. I also discovered how the market of localized games had expanded with Jast USA or Kagura Games. Needless to say that I bought a couple of games in english too.

I'd like to mention something important: don't expect me to give titles in this post. I want to share the global feeling I had through the experience as a whole. So I don't plan on going like "this game was nice" or "this game was bad". Also because from what I understood, apparently, my opinion on certain games are going in the opposite direction of the general consensus. But I ended up understanding why and I'll develop that part in my conclusion.

1) Non RPG Maker Games

That part is meant to be quick because since those games are not made with RPG Maker, it's harder to compare them with what I do. Gotta be honest, though, most games implying keyboard or controller controls are still stiff as fuck, even in 2023. Looks like some things never changes XD I've tested a bit of everything from pixel art only games to full 3D platformers to Semi-VN/Semi-Simulation games.

Usually, those games tend to be enjoyable as the gameplay possibilities are fitting the style (in RPG Maker you're not as free to do whatever you want as there.) Some of them share a problem (which is a MASSIVE problem to me and often the reason for me to drop the game pretty early): the lack of immersion. Some of those games are so focused on the gameplay elements and everything linked to it that H content feels like a side random stuff where you're not emotionally invested. It's mainly true for a lot of those goblin-related games where there are thousands girls to abduct but the scenes are the same for all of them and there's no really implication from the player. Personally, it feels like watching a basic picture out of nowhere. It's a massive no-go for me. To me, one of the reason of playing a game is because it gives you the possibility to slowly know the girls. It doesn't have to be thousands of lines, but a bit is nice. Since it wasn't the case for some of these games, I dropped them right away (and to be honest, I'm surprised they're rated so highly on DLsite when the H part is so weak, and I'm not only talking about immersion :x)

2) RPG Maker Games

Oh boy... I must've played between 20 and 30 of those... I didn't finish them all, but when I abandonned them I always made sure to understand what was the reason (so I could understand better what I was looking for in a game and what I disliked.) I'll have to cut this part in different category if I don't want this part to be indegistible:

2.A) Art

This is of course the first thing that catches your eyes when you look at a game: Is the art good? Same old song: different strokes for different folks. No one will say that VQ2 is badly drawn. However everyone has a tolerance level about what they consider as "still fapable" in terms of drawing content. I have no idea where I stand, but I know that I can appreciate "average Japanese art" more than "good western art" in some cases. But I digress. Something came out as a whole from the different games I played, it's the fact that usually (USUALLY), the most beautiful games are not the most interesting. Either in terms of content or in terms of quantity. I've often been let down by very beautiful-looking games that ended being just "okay", while games with a bit less polish on the art side had much more to offer. There's a SINGLE game where I came for the art and wasn't let down at all (even enjoyed more than just the art.) But to be honest, most of the games I bought, I bought them based on the promise of what they contained. You know me, you know my games. You can have the best artist in the world, if you do vanilla content, I won't even considering glancing at the game ^^'

I also found out that in some cases, mixing artists wasn't a problem for people. A couple of games I bought had several different artists and even though I loathe this, I still bought them because of the content. And some of those were extremely pricey and yet sold a ton, so I feel like if I were to hire someone else to work on a game with Peak, it wouldn't be that bad. But I wouldn't do it because it doesn't tick with my vision of things ^^'

So as a comparison with my games, do I feel ashamed of the games I release? Absolutely not. Sure Peak's art is probably cleaving and some might not like it, but it doesn't pale against most other games.

2.B) Best Girl

Now the core: content. I have to admit that this is probably where the range is the wider between games. Some game promise a lot and fail to deliver, other don't look like they have a lot to propose when they're awesome. And both those statement have their opposite also true. Of course, the best is when they promise a lot and they do deliver. But it doesn't happen that much. There are tons of ways to be kept away from the smut. All the games that are actual RPGs and ask you to spend ages in fights, games with thousands of branching (in Japanese so you don't understand anything) or worse, game where you don't even know how to trigger smut itself. I will admit I finished one of those games without even triggering a single H scene because the way to trigger them was so obscure I had to check on the internet how to do it after finishing the game (and the game was in english! It tells you how obscure it was.)

What kills me is that there doesn't seem to be any correlation between content and difficulty to unlock it. Some games have tons of content that are painful to unlock while other have a low amount of content that is very simple to unlock. That seems to be a very RPG Maker game problem as I didn't feel that problem with other games (of course by RPG Maker games I cover Unity games made to look like RPG games too as well as Wolf Maker games.)

Now, if I dig a bit into fetishes themselves, did most of those game deliver? Well... if I had to summarize my global feeling, it would be "they deliver the content they promised but in a very lazy way." To explain my point I need to explain that I play with Textractor + Translation aggregator (but no translation site). With just the kanji translation I can make the sense out. Problem is: a good amount of the games I played were not compatible with Textractor so I had to figure out the meaning of the Japanese myself. During the story it's usually hard to follow, but for smut, it's often the same kanjis coming back. And so this way, I can see if there are efforts made on the text. If all the kanjis are the regular ones I see, then there are no efforts on the narration (when there's one :x) Thankfully some games do a really good job at really adding a good narration to the fetishes and as such, what is just a basic situation pic with a precise fetish can turns out being much more impactful. I remember that one of the games I played was one of the ugliest of the pack and yet I enjoyed it because the guy made an effort on everything else that wasn't art since it wasn't good and especially on narration and it worked greatly. Unfortunately I tend to see a correlation where the better the art is, the less efforts are put in the writting. It's not ALWAYS the case, of course, but still. Once again VQ2 is an exception.

And if I want to quickly talk about VERY nich fetishes, then it's never really satisfying to be honest. It's often something that feels like it's been integrated to the game to bring in more custommers than for a real enjoyment. And ONCE AGAIN, VQ2 is an exception on that side (yeah I'll lick the game's ass for the whole post :x)

There are probably more things I could say about content, but I'll stop here, cause this post is already way too long.

What about the comparison with my games? That's probably one of the key points here. In terms of pure content, NONE of the games I played looked like mine. Ever since I checked that devil invention that is Graphtreon back when I was on Patreon and saw that lots of new game makers where earning more than me in barely a couple of months, I always estimated that the burst of game creators would lead to thousands of guys making the same stuff than me. It's maybe true in the western market, but in Japan? Apparently, not. That mix of consensuality and hardcoreness is still extremely rare to find... So, I know it's stupid because I do my games to fill a void I can't find in other games, but the reality is that technically, based on my own preferences towards a game, I'm forced to say that my games are over ALL other games when it comes to content :x

2.C) UI

A whole paragraph about UI? How boring... Yeah I know... And yet, you'd be surprised how UI can affect me. It's simple: UI is often the first thing you're dealing with in a game. And there are two schools with Japanese game makers. The school "I don't give a fuck". And those words couldn't ring truer. Some games have the base RPG Maker UI without ANY tweak (not even a change of color on a line. NOTHING.) I don't know if it's because they don't want to bother with it or because they're so confident in the rest of their game that they don't feel it's usefull. And I can't say much, cause one of the games I truly enjoyed had this bareback UI that felt so wrong considering the rest of the game...

However, when they make efforts on the UI? Well, it's simple, I feel like my games are shit. It happened A LOT, when testing games, everytime those great UI showed up I was like "fuck... my games look so amateurish compared to that..." To a point where it was almost depressing me. VQ2 is once again a good example. The UI is just fantastic. EVERYTHING is crafted with care, it's perfectly fitting. When a UI is so gorgeous it gives such a "pro" feeling to your game it's hard to not feel envious.

Thankfully, I quickly discovered that the quality of UI had nothing to do with the quality of the game. There are many games where the beautiful UI made me depressed but I go better when I saw how basic the game was and it had actually nothing much to propose (as in "nothing more than most other games of his genre".)

2.D) The rest

Quick mention of the mapping. There again, there's a bit of everything ranging from really bad to very good. I'm impressed at people making really nice mapping. I know I don't have the skills to make awesome maps so I try to make them the less ugly I can, but I'm always baffled when maps are well designed.

Mention of Live2D. It's a trap. In case you don't know my opinion on Live2D, I don't like it. Or to be more precise I refuse to call that "animation". That's pupetting. I won't dwelve into the debate because I'm sure many people won't agree with me. But in terms of content in H games, Live 2D is a trap. It looks nice and all, but all the games with Live 2D had major flaws: Either most of the content was available very early and progressing felt pretty useless, either the simple use of Live 2D felt like it wasn't even necessary to create any form of gameplay and the game was just a succesion of Live 2D scene. And I'm not even talking about the way things are animated. When I see the effort made by the best Live 2D game I've played compared to the less impressive, it's almost comparing my 3D renders with a Pixar film... Also, Live 2D is also a trap because if you like the kinks of my games, you're fucked. Most Live 2D games are vanilla as hell :x (At our level I think we can count goblin/orc stuff as vanilla, right?)

So yeah I prefer a perfectly crafted still pic than an average pupetting pic.

GoR. I integrated those in TH2 thanks to VQ2. And only thanks to that game. Usually the other games proposing it weren't doing it a way I liked. Either you couldn't die instantly, or you had to lose a battle 10 times to progress, or there were no pics, or the scene content was downward ridiculous... So yeah, I seem to have a very specific way of enjoying those and it's the Butakoma way of doing them :x

I was also disappointed by games with specific monsters that didn't take the chance of those monsters characteristics to influence the scenes. And in the end you could switch it with anything else, it would work the same. Back in the days I wasn't so picky, but as I get older I tend to pay a lot of attention to this sort of things.

Global Conclusion

I'll try to be brief, this post is too long. For a certain time playing those games depressed me as I felt like they were better than mine. But as things evolved, I found out that even the most successful games had HUGE flaws that were killing me. And I reached the conclusion that as much as my content is niche, I don't search the same things in a game than the majority of people.

Some of the most successful games look bland as fuck to me (either in gameplay or smut, or both) to the point where I'm baffled that they sell so much.

And I probably won't make friends by saying that, but I feel like people have very low expectations when it comes to H games. That's why I keep being insulted for the mini-games in VP or the recipe mechanic in SoV2. The majority of people don't want to use their brain while I do. The majority of people want the same scenes over and over again. The majority of people want games with a gameplay so close to a real game that you can end up playing the game not caring about the smut.

And I'm stating those elements by having a game in mind for each. So yeah, my games are not niche in terms of content because of the smut but also because of the way you play them. It doesn't fit what the majority wants. But at the same time, people don't want something TOO braindead (Naomi's Past is definitely the game I sell the less by FAR (even less than Slice of Venture 1)). So you have to deal with me.

I have my vision of H gaming. And I'll say something extremely pretentious, but if TH2 ends up being the game I want, I dare saying it'll kick the ass of the majority of those huge-selling H games (the only flaw compared to them being that it's in 3D (cause yeah I place the fact it's in 3D as a flaw compared to a 2D game :x))

That's all for the conclusion. I don't deny my past games, no matte what people say about them. The fact they don't sell much has nothing to do with their qualities. Sure they are filled with flaws but I've seen games selling several dozens of thousands having even bigger flaws so in the end, it's something very common in the H industry.

Sorry for the huge-ass post, I really felt like sharing how I felt about this gaming session. Thank you all for supporting my pretty close-minded way of seeing H gaming. I hope you'll keep bearing with me as I keep on making those games ^^'

See ya o/