Anime Games and the US

( 1 Vote ) What is it exactly about the US and anime based games that prevents the two from ever meeting? I mean the gaming industry is massive and the anime industry has quite a few fans so it would seen to be common sense to release some of the anime based games or even the games that inspired the anime themselves here in the US for the fans to enjoy.

For those that don’t know there is pretty much a 90% chance that any given anime is either A) Based on a game or B) has a ton of games released based on it. With this being the case you would think some devs would like to take advantage of the anime fans and bring out some games here for easy sales but it never seems to happen.

Now don’t get me wrong we get a few games here like the Dragon Ball Z games and a few Naruto games but even in the case of Naruto the vast majority of games based on the franchise never make it outside of Japan. In fact the Naruto franchise a few years back had a fighting game based on it released in Japan that was at the time considered one of the best fighting games around. However that game never made it state side? Why not?

Now some out there would argue that the genre of these anime based games doesn’t exactly appeal to the US. Which to some degree may be true. A large portion of anime games are what are known as Visual Novels. Basically they are the equivalent of a choose your own adventure book with pictures and voice acting. Some anime fans would be surprised to know that a incredible large portion of anime are adapted from these games. Such as Clannad, Air, Shuffle, Chaos Head and my personal favorite Fate/Stay Night. As a matter of fact those unfamiliar with the Fate/stay Night game would probably be confused about all the ruckus about the recently announced Fate/Stay Night movie which is being based off of the Unlimited Blade Works story arc(A story arc that has only appeared in full in the original visual novel itself).

You would think that since the anime based upon these games are so popular that English speaking fans would like to see the roots of the series so to speak. The truth is they do. Fan made translation patches are produced and released on a regular basis for these games which goes to show people want to play them. Website Mangagamer has recently been met with much praise over their announcement of a official release of a English versions of Shuffle!, When They Cry and Da Capo II. Games that were previously thought to have no chance of a official English release.

As mentioned many of these games receive fan translated patches and are released free over the net in hopes of allowing fans of these great games to play them. Fate/Stay Night is one such game that recived a English patch from translation group Mirrormoon. The fact that a game the sheer size of Fate/Stay Night was translated independently is mind boggling as Fate/Stay Night is one of the biggest Visual novels to be released clocking in at nearly 70+ hours after all story lines are completed. The sheer amount of text to be translated is massive. However the fans cared enough to translate a game of this size which again shows people in the US want to play these games.

Now some will say all those games are made for the over 18 market and while that is indeed true the vast majority of the games get console releases and are toned down for that audience. These console releases have all the adult material removed thus allowing a larger audience to play them. It is those console releases that end up selling the majority of copies as the audience is much larger. Fate/Stay Night had the Realta Nua version released on PS2 which added voice acting and removed any questionable content. A similar treatment has been given to games like ToHeart, Clannad, Air and Shuffle!. Only to name a few.

Now lets talk about the games the anime themselves have inspired. As I said earlier the vast majority of anime spawn games. The US is finally after what seems like a insanely long wait getting the fighting game Fate/Unlimited Codes for PSP of course based on the Fate/Stay Night series. However incredible popular anime series such as The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star have spawned games that are likely to never reach the US despite the series popularity. In the case of these games their genre can’t really be to blame as both of them are either Rhythm games or mini game collections that fit with the style of the anime. It’s also a wonder why we don’t get a lot of the Bleach games here in the US as Bleach is one of the most popular anime properties around right now. The few that have been released have enjoyed relatively positive reviews yet the majority of the games based on the series never make it state side again I wonder why.

Not to long ago anime series Ikkitousen was getting a game released stateside. However the project was cancelled after the dev could not get the game a rating of T. One wonders why that stopped the devs as the series is somewhat popular and would have probably still sold to anyone who was interested in the game despite the rating.

Considering the vast majority of these games would require little more then a translation it makes you wonder why US companies have never tried to localize and release these games as there is clearly a audience for them.

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