March 28, 2024, 02:40:03 am

Super Famicom Sound Novels

Started by Protoman, May 18, 2018, 11:19:31 pm

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Protoman



Otogirisou, the original by Chunsoft. Uses SFC graphics and has a movie based on it.
Kamaitachi no Yoru, the evolution by Chunsoft, serial murders at a ski lodge, uses photos with silhouettes of people. The most famous one with several sequels.
Majotachi no Nemuri, written by writer Jirou Akagawa. Uses photos but not silhouettes I think
Gakkou de atta kowai hanashi, as the titles says, scary school stories. Uses photos including for characters
Tsukikomori, made by the same company as Gakkou, this time people are telling stories in a hotel I think. Also the most expensive and the only one I don't have the box for
Yakouchuu, about people on a ship who get killed... that's about it.
Zakuro no Aji, about science fiction writers trapped in a building, I think
Getsumen no Anubis, a Sci-fi story on the moon, uses SFC graphics for once instead of photos
Sound Novel Tsukuuru, make your own sound novel! There's also one built into the Super Gameboy-looking cartridge
and as a bonus, Silent Hill Playnovel for GBA. As far as I know just the game as a sound novel, but with maybe some extra scenarios.

Anyone "played" any of these? They're more like books than games, the only interaction usually being choosing what action the protagonist takes or which line he says, kind of like Mass Effect etc later on, like do you want the regular reply or the sort of dickish reply?
So far I've played Otogiriso and Yakouchuu.

P

Sure I've played a lot of sound novels, but out of those listed I only have Sound Novel Tsukuuru. I meant to play some of those since forever but I still haven't. Also I would like to get a data cartridge to use with Sound Novel Tsukuuru (and other games that use them) but they are very expensive and quite rare (on ebay at least).

Yeah pure sound novels (and visual novels which is basically the same thing but with more graphic, Chunsoft trademarked the "sound novel" term) has little to no interactivity and are really digital novels with sound and visual elements. You might struggle to call them games. Some sound novels mixes in other genres though.

I love the genre. Really good games captures you totally like a really good book.

L___E___T

 

I have the first two you mentioned CIB but only because I simply love the packaging design.

I can't play them at all so I'm not reaally sure what to do with them.

Interestingly, Otogirisou was mentioned by many, many Japanese developers asked what title(s) they felt missing from the Super Famicom Mini.  It was a popular game it seems at the time, it surprised me to see just how popular.

If it's easy and fast, I would love to hear what these titles translate as into English.
My for Sale / Trade thread
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=9423.msg133828#msg133828
大事なのは、オチに至るまでの積み重ねなのです。

Protoman

Quote from: L___E___T on May 20, 2018, 12:26:39 am
If it's easy and fast, I would love to hear what these titles translate as into English.


It's not that easy really but here's my stab at it.

Otogiriso - 弟切草 - This is the name of a flower known in english as St. Johns Wort, according to the japanese story of the name anyway it got the name because a brother (弟)killed (切, cut his throat) and the blood spilled on the flower (草 although this means grass) and that's why the flower has black spots.
Kamaitachi no yoru かまいたちの夜 - Night of the kamaitachi.. Titles have been suggested as "night of the sickle weasel, or banshee's last cry, the second one being just wrong imo, but I don't know how to translate kamaitachi at all because it's the name of a japanese folklore monster who cuts it's victim with razor-like claws or something.
Majotachi no nemuri - 魔女たちの眠り - The sleep of the witches? The Sleeping Witches maybe
Gakkou de atta kowai hanashi - 学校であった怖い話 - Scary stories that happened in school / Scary School Stories
Tsukikomori - 晦-つきこもり - The kanji is the title, the hiragana is just how to read it. Apparrently it means the last day of the month.
Yakouchuu - 夜光虫 - Night, light, insect. Apparently the name of a sea phenomenon when a kind of organism that sometimes emits a blue light.
Zakuro no aji - ざくろの味 - The taste of pomegranate. Hah. No idea how that relates to the game yet.
Getsumen no anubis - 月面のアヌビス - Anubis of the moons surface, anubis is from egyptian mythology, the game takes place on a moon base.


P

Just to clear some things up:
弟 - little brother
切 - cut
草 - grass

Kamaitachi is a Japanese yokai. Kama means sickle and itachi means weasel so yeah it really means sickle-weasel. According to legends kamaitachi comes in groups of three and runs very fast causing a whirlwind. The first knocks you down, the second cuts you up with his sickle (depending on the depiction, the sickle may be a real sickle tool or sickle-shaped parts of his claws) and the third one heals your wounds, only leaving the scar.
It's a tale that explains why cuts caused by vacuum pockets from whirlwinds causes strange wounds that does not bleed.

Kamaitachi is a common name in games for wind-based attacks that cuts with vacuum slices, although sometimes it is translated to something else in English.

Protoman

Sickle weasel sounds kinda stupid, maybe that's why they try various other translations for it.
I like the joke I heard in GameCenter CX, that in one scene in the game three people named Kamai were talking to each other, so Kamai-tachi  :)

L___E___T

 



Kamaitachi I am familiar with, thank you - I didn't know it was the yokai in this case.  That makes me want to play the game more! :)

Anyone that had played Ghost and Goblins should know exactly what this animal looks like - they're the whirlwind enemy that you see on stage 1.

I quite like this kind of literal description.  I can't speak Japanese, but often see that, where as Chinese for example has more elaborate / symbolic descriptions.  

My for Sale / Trade thread
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=9423.msg133828#msg133828
大事なのは、オチに至るまでの積み重ねなのです。

P

It is written in hiragana but I think that is how it usually is written.
I haven't played the game yet, but since it's a murder mystery I guess the kamaitachi is figurative rather than a real yokai appearing in the game.

It seems a port of it got an English release and named Banshee's last cry. It's just a localized title, not any kind of translation of the Japanese title.

Protoman


L___E___T

 



Love the artwork on these - especially the top row blue one which I'm missing. 

Many Japanese developers included one of those in their top titles they think the SFC Mini was missing.

Is the one bottom left a BSX exclusive?
My for Sale / Trade thread
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=9423.msg133828#msg133828
大事なのは、オチに至るまでの積み重ねなのです。

Protoman

Quote from: L___E___T on January 28, 2019, 12:14:04 pm
Love the artwork on these - especially the top row blue one which I'm missing. 

Many Japanese developers included one of those in their top titles they think the SFC Mini was missing.

Is the one bottom left a BSX exclusive?


The blue one is Majoutachi no nemuri, and yes that blue forest looks quite nice
The one that was high up on the wishlist I believe was Otogirisou (the top left one)
The bottom left one, Sound Novel Tsukuuru, is not BSX exclusive but compatible. At least I know you can use the BSX memory card as a.. memory card,
as well as transfer in music you made in another game like this, Ongaku Tsukuuru; Kanadeeru, which sound like a cool idea. It does come with a pre-loaded
sound novel though, written by Kenji Terada, scenario writer for Final Fantasy 1-3!


P

Yeah the data cartridge is used with about any Super Famicom game that has a these small cartridge slots on top of the cartridge. The Tsukuuru (or "Tkool" as it's also stylized as) series often use those so you can share your games with others, and as Protoman said, share sound data made in Ongaku Tsukuuru. The Satellaview also broadcasted games from competitions and the like so that they could be downloaded on a data cart. Some can be found online and some has been converted to a normal ROM so they can be played in a flashcart or emulator.

BTW I really have to get around to play Otogirisou!

Protoman

Only two more of these to play on SFC(not to completion, just one round of the story) before I can move on to Machi on PS1 and the Silent Hill one..

Protoman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvPaFpX5Rw0

Finally finished my video on the subject. From the command-based adventure games like Portopia to Chun Softs latest, this is the story of the sound novels~

P

Great video! :) The ending was kind of funny. ;D

I've also always felt that this genre doesn't gets the love it deserves in the west (with the exception of western adventure games like the earlier text-adventure games and games like Déjà Vu, Shadowgate, Maniac Mansion and the LucasArts adventure games series). I never understood why though. I guess it suffered the same fate as RPGs at first since it's a different genre from the more common action games, and it also needs more more work to localize. Japanese RPGs boomed all over the world after the FF VII hype, but the genre of Japanese adventure/novel games is still quite obscure outside its country of origin despite it being a fantastic genre, doing things quite differently from similar western games.

Also I always thought Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom was an odd choice of an adventure game to localize. Maybe it's because it doesn't have anything typical Japanese that would complicate the localizing process.


BTW the data cartridge isn't just for taking the game you made to a friend and for transferring sound data on but also for downloading games from the Satellaview.
Also I think the gnomes on the Sound Novel Tsukuuru packaging are great. They may look out of place if you don't consider that they are mascots of the Tsukuuru series. They only seems to appears in Tsukuuru titles for the SFC and Playstation though. Not on anything for any PC system as far as I remember, nor do they appear in recent entries in the series for GBA, NDS, 3DS or Switch. Maybe their artstyle doesn't go well with modern artstyles or something.