Emerald, I can see where you're going with this and your editorial was pretty well written. Unfortunately, you have to face a grim reality when it comes to gamers in japan. One of the reasons the Valis games in japan sold alone was the fact that the game featured hot anime girls in skimpy garb. What does that create? SLEAZY...FANBOYS!!!
I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that fanboys wrote countless letters to Telenet asking them to create a porn game for Valis. And with the recent boom of porn games in japan (hell, a porn game beat out the launch of the XBOX 360!), it was inevitable that Telenet would look into it.
Besides, the franchise was also considered long finished until this came up. I'm not even sure if today's generation of japanese gamers even KNEW the Valis franchise existed. Who knows? This might revitalize the franchise, even if the methods are questionable.
Dark Fact, your post makes a lot of sense and it represents reality pretty well. There are a couple things I want to comment on, though, because I'm not entirely happy with the shape of Japanese reality, and I think it's our responsibility to question companies' actions when we don't like what's happening
(1)
I agree that sex sells. Zealous fanboys WILL turn suggestive situations into pornographic doujinshi (key word: doujinshi. Not sponsored by the original creators.) This game probably did come about from a particular contingent of people (most likely Valis X's designers) asking Telenet to sponsor a hentai game. There may have been others who emailed and asked for hentai, but I assure you that there are a lot of fans who wanted a REAL (and non-hentai) Valis game instead.
Even if Valis fans overwhelmingly DID want hentai (which I seriously doubt), the actions of sexually zealous fans shouldn't be quietly accepted.
Suggestive is not the same as
pornographic. I'm not saying this in a "pornography is evil" kind of way. What I'm saying is that "suggestive clothing" --> "hardcore pornography" is not an inherently natural progression. The transition from "stimulating attire" to "lesbian encounters" requires a mental leap that was never intended by the original creators.
For one thing, the Valis attire was intended to stimulate the PLAYERS, not other characters. In other words, the attire's suggestiveness went
completely unrecognized within the games themselves. For the female Valis characters to suddenly have sex with each other is a mental leap that is never suggested by the original series. I'd even go so far as to say the lesbian sex is a perversion of the first episode's theme of "friendship".
In Valis 2 for the MSX/X68k/PC-88, Megas forces Yuko to strip. He fully intends to shame her. If a serious re-telling of Valis 2 were made, and if that scene were changed to end with Megas raping Yuko... I'd be bothered (due to personal admiration of Yuko), but that action would be understandable. It would at least be *in character* for Megas to do such a thing.
However, it is NOT in character for other females (Reiko, Cham) to have sex with Yuko. And it's certainly NOT in character for Yuko to use the Valis sword as a dildo. Furthermore, that potential "Megas rape scene" does not actually happen in Valis 2 because Yuko is supposed to be an icon of inshakable purity. If Megas had actually screwed Yuko, then the game's optimistic final message to players would have been ruined.
My objection has less to do with pornography, and more to do with my respect for Wolf Team and Renovation's ambitions and my faith in those ambitions. Valis X spits in the face of Wolf Team, Renovation, and the fans who believed in them.
Even without looking at the ethical aspect... Valis X has nothing to do with the original games and cannot possibly co-exist in the same "fictional reality". Therefore, as Steve said, it's a pointless follow-up, because it's not really following up.
(2)
If I recall, the porn game that beat out the Xbox 360 launch was Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, which is the "fanbox followup" to Fate/Stay Night, which is one of the best-selling PC games -- hentai or otherwise -- to ever come out of Japan.
Three important points about Fate/Stay Night:
1) the series was born as a hentai series
2) the followup was done by the original developers
3) it's a really damn good game
There are some really, really excellent Japanese hentai games. "Welcome to Pia Carrot". "Kimi ga Nozomu Eien". "To Heart 2". From looking at the Valis X screens, it is my educated guess that the worth of Valis X as anything other than an "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY DID THAT" shock piece will be minimal. Genuine QUALITY hentai games like Fate/Hollow Ataraxia are games that expand the genre. Cash-in efforts like Valis X just leech off of the genre's popularity.
Besides... computer porn has been big in Japan for ten+ years. Why didn't we receive a hentai Valis 4 years ago? Why not 2 years ago? Why not next year? Did they really have to release this game on the
20th Anniversary of Valis?
Telenet has survived for 13 years since the Death of Valis by making:
Parlor Games
Pachinko Games
Tales series Games
They've done fine, and could have continued doing fine. So... why did they endorse Valis X?
Simple. Telenet is using Valis X as a way to promote their downloadable-hentai service. I'm not anti-capitalist, but cash-in efforts such as this demonstrate the ugliness of a purely capitalist approach.
