Love Plus + Possible English Release?

[J. Datie]

Konami has apparently shown interest in localizing the 3DS sequel to Love Plus, while bloggers are apparently still showing strong interest in inserting the word Xenophobia (now a proper noun) into every story involving VN or DS localizations. Personally, I think the game sounds kinda generic, albeit with a few neat features, but any interest in bringing over more of these kinds of games is good. Plus, it's Konami, so it could be interesting to see a release from a large, mainstream company.

[LVUER]

Yes! Yes! Yes! C'mon Konami, release it \(>_<)/
I definitely gonna buy it without fail if you release Love Plus in English!

[gekiganwing]

I admit this message may be TL;DR. But here's some factors to consider:

1) Early in 2010, Nargrakhan started a fan-driven effort to localize Tokimemo 4 (PSP). I don't recall that it got anywhere. The domain tokimekimemorial4.com is currently owned by Konami, and I can't find any of the old pages on archive.org.

2) The window of opportunity to sell DS games in English is closing quickly, as the 3DS is slated for worldwide release in early 2011.

3) During the lifespan of the DS, companies focused more and more on games for parents and kids. (I think this might be because a lot of the "games are serious business" fans were either interested in other entertainment, or played DS games through emulation or R4 cards...) It's too early to say whether this trend will continue on 3DS.

4) A lot of the top-selling games in 2010 have distinctly western aesthetics and themes. People have been buying serious action, sports, and military games. Generally speaking, 2D games and cute games are a niche.

5) In terms of console games that were localized in 2010 that had some romance elements, I've heard that Sakura Wars 5 for PS2/Wii was a failure in terms of sales, but Agarest War for 360/PS3 was relatively successful. I can't back those statements up with numbers...

6) It's been over three years since Konami attempted to create a western-style romance game with Brooktown High. I've heard that it didn't sell well. (Did it reach any audience? Was it doomed by being a PSP exclusive? Good question.)

7) AFAIK, Konami has not expressed much interest in localizing its romance games. I know the company has a good history, a stable of successful franchises, and worldwide name recognition. I don't know if anyone at Konami has been paying attention to the fan translation of Tokimemo Girls Side DS. (The discussion thread for the ongoing fan translation of TMGS2 on the GBATemp forums has been quite active.)

8 ) Generally speaking, romance games are an untested category in English speaking console game fandom. There may be some fans who will buy it. But there are a lot of people who don't want to have -- or admit they have -- an interest in fictional characters. (At its worst, this is known as Perverse Sexual Lust.)

So yeah, there's a lot of room for doubt. One hopeful note... If you look at DS software that was released in English, you'll see a number of games that either didn't get published on consoles prior to 2005, and some games that previously wouldn't have been localized. I was impressed by some of the unique and unprecedented DS games. There's potential for the 3DS to break new ground... especially if customers decide to buy them.

My recommendation -- if you're interested in an English localization of LovePlus for 3DS, then politely post on the company's forums at http://www.konami.com/forums . Also, send a persuasive email to Konami employees. Perhaps Nargrakhan might recall specific people who could be open to customer feedback. (It might help to do a bit of research on persuasive letters, so that you emphasize Konami's needs rather than your own wants...)

[sayuri]

I could care less about Love Plus+ but I'll buy it just to show Konami there is an audience. Translation: I want Tokimemo.

[LVUER]

It's not a big problem about 3DS, since it's features full-backward compability. So people with 3DS could still buy DS games.

Still, I won't surprised if they don't release the English version. But I DO still hope (only a little, a very little tiny bit) they will release it...

[machinist]

i never bought consoles since SNES but if japan starts releasing date sims in english i will buy them !!

[gekiganwing]

During my much-too-long post, I kinda forgot one thing... there's a 3G cellphone in English that's fairly similar to LovePlus. It's called "V-Girl," and it has a splashy homepage at http://v-girl.com/vg3 . (There was a similar program called "V-Boy," but its site is gone, so I think it's been discontinued.)

As far as I know, no crazy fans have attempted to marry a character from V-Girl, and I don't know of any instances where people got so obsessed that they ruined their real life relationships. Perhaps it's because the game is relatively obscure, or there aren't many fans who obsess over polygonal characters. Perhaps it's not moe...

Anyway, I think LovePlus got a negative image with anime/game fans because a few people took their interest way too far. They either didn't ask themselves "should I do this in public?", or were unbalanced enough that they didn't care. But let's not forget that there's fans in just about any media form who throw caution to the wind and embarrass everyone else. (See this TVTropes entry: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... AGoodThing )

[flowerthief]

Has anyone tried that V-girl game? I'm kinda curious how it rolls.

About Sakutai 5, yeah it was a failure in sales. And it looks like they got lucky that Sony approved it at all. It doesn't look like Sony is gonna approve any more localisations of games in that series for any of their systems. Also, the time it took to localise it was longer than the time it took to develop the Japanese version! (Interview with the NIS representative where he says all that)

It's for these sort of reasons that I try to get those of us who play these games in Japanese to help each other out by writing guides. (but no takers so far)

Anyway, I think Love Plus is the best-selling ren'ai title of all time by now, isn't it? If we can't get a localisation of that one, there's no hope ><

[gekiganwing]

TLWiki's planned fan translation had been moving along quietly... and then today, I noticed that jjjewel from GBATemp released a partial, rough patch: http://gbatemp.net/t272861-love-plus-en ... tion-patch This is the same person who was in charge of the TMGS1 fan translation, and who got her previous project done in less than a year, thanks to extensive help.