To those asking how to play the game: I first saw a tweet about a finished translation being announced (because another team had been working on a translation, and the person wanted it known they had a finished one coming), but the tweet has since been deleted. Someone in the premiere said that deleting tweets about translations is apparently normal for this translator, but I haven't been able to find any more information since. Hopefully, one of the two teams working on translations of Otogiriso will finish it and make it public soon.
I saw the tweets, and it was indeed mentioned that it was finished a while ago, so that the other team would not waste their time with a long project (even though they kind did, having 1 year of work already). It was not mentioned why it wasn't released yet, but the translator is a chill and trustful dude, he certainly has his reasons. Obs: edited because i guess you may not want to put the translator name out there.
Fun Fact: Otogirisō is the name of a plant. It literally means "Little-Brother Killer Herb." In English we call the plant St. John's Wort...which makes for a substantially less effective title 😅
In germany it's called "Johanniskraut" which translates to Johannis-Weed and it's used as a healing plant kinda like herbal medicine. Johannis is a Name basically like Johann for instance
In germany it's called "Johanniskraut" which translates to Johannis-Weed and it's used as a healing plant kinda like herbal medicine. Johannis is a Name basically like Johann for instance
This is a very interesting video history-wise, but I was a little surprised about how little you actually discussed the game and it's plot. I would have liked to know more about it in balance with it's history.
You make the most well thought out, historical analysis about the world of gaming like no other. I’m barbecuing on a Tuesday in my backyard listening to this. It’s almost scientific in the amount of research that you do.
@@cobaingrohlnovo I mean... the guy has a backyard, a barbecue and plenty of time to barbecue on a tuesday afternoon. Quite the opposite of embarassing
I felt what you expressed about the relative difficulties of researching and unearthing Japanese media. Discovering an awesome foreign film, or game, or book, or a band, or anything else that you'd otherwise would have had no exposure to due to your nationality is a pleasure that's tinged with a faint sadness. Whenever I stumble upon something underrated and obscure from another country, it's hard for me to not immediately think "what else have I been missing out on?". Learning a couple years ago how uniquely and barbarically strange Dutch black metal was (quite distinct from the better known Norwegian, Finnish and French scenes) was an eye-opening moment for me, and filled me with a similar mild dread about what I've been overlooking - not out of obstinance or presumption on my part, but literally just because I wasn't aware of it. Who would've guessed that The Netherlands has some amazing metal music?!
Yeah the Netherlands seems to produce a lot of weirdos who go off to to great things in metal. Especially Symphonic Metal with bands like After Forever and Epica. I never thought of looking into Dutch Black Metal so I guess I got something new to browse through when I'm bored.
The thing is if you grew up in those cultures you'd probably lose that sense of wonder. There's a reason so much Japanese media is obsessed with America, for example. Parasite Eve, RE, Silent Hill, etc.
[LONG comment] Hi, I'm one of the two parties that are fan translating this game (independently of each other). I first wanted to say this is a great video about a game that I've spent over a year both examining at a technical level and translating! I've seen just about everything the game has to offer in terms of content. I really loved the insights into its development history and wanted to say some things about the game: 15:17 "the possibility for how sound had evolved" -- Nakamura stated in an interview that a big draw to the SNES/SFC hardware, besides the capability to render kanji, was stereo sound (NES/FC only had mono). 20:45 "Designing [the text's] appearance was important" -- The game has many "script control codes" that handle things like background graphics (14), sound effects/music (11), and special effects with the text (11). Text effect codes include things like "wait a certain amount of time before automatically continuing the text scroll" or "stop the text scroll and wait for player input". For graphics and sound, they can either abruptly cut in/out, or they can gradually fade in/out over a period of time, just to list a few. There is even a mechanic where the protagonist's girlfriend uses a different honorific (san, kun, chan, etc.) for him each time you complete a playthrough! 21:28 Compared to old adventure games that you described here, I agree that Otogirisou's simple gameplay and lack of game over makes it more accessible. I won't give a specific number, but there are many possible endings to the game! However, I also feel that "no game over" lessens the impact of choices compared to Chunsoft's later titles like Kamaitachi and 428 Shibuya Scramble. 22:17 This comment about trying to appeal to women with Otogirisou is spot on according to Koichi Nakamura! He was dating a woman around the time and showed her some of the games he had worked on, but she said she didn't see the appeal to them. An addition about Manabu Yamana: Between his time at Chunsoft and Genius Sonority, he founded the game company HeartBeat, responsible for DQ VI and III on SFC, plus DQ VII and IV on PS1. Sadly, HeartBeat went out of business before they could release the PS1 version of DQ IV in English (see: back of the manual for DW VII).
It’s very interesting that how these incredible dev teams created a text based adventure horror game, when they were college students. Not to mention that how this horror game from Chun Soft inspired them to make Silent Hill and Fatal Frame.
As an avid Japanese horror fan, I think your content is gold. If I wasn't a starving artist I would gladly support you on Patreon. I know I have no right to ask you for content, but I think it would be very cool to make a documentary about Illbleed (an amazing gem from the Dreamcast era) and about the Harayigami series since I know next to little about the original series I only have access to the Switch next-gen series Shin Harayigami.
@@ladylark10884 No problem. First, I think there are two distinct variants of J-Horror: the subtle dark slow-burn style like The Ring and the shocking gory body horror like Evil Dead Trap or Tetsuo. I like the slow burn horror, and I guess you are like me so I will recommend you the classics: House (Hausu), Ringu (of course), Dark Water, Pulse (Kairo), Grudge (Ju-On), One Missed Call, Marebito, Suicide Club, Cure, Tomie-Rebirth and Uzumaki (best live-action adaptations of Junji Ito's works). As a guest star, I also recommend you some Korean horror: The Eye and the amazing Whispering Corridors series (if you like horror in a typical Japanese school setting like Corpse Party or White Day you must watch it). Audition is phenomenal but it is a mix of the two styles, it is very sadistic and brutal, I don't know if it is for you. The woman from that movie will make Jigsaw shit his pants and beg for mercy.
Visual novels are such an interesting genre. It's impressive what they achieve with so little in terms of graphics. The stories can be so incredible sofisticated and convoluted and yet, they just work. Like FataMoru, which I'm currently obsessed with lol I really liked this docu, getting into the history of VN gives so much more context to the experience of reading/playing one.
Thankyou for this! You have a great way in creating documentary style content, especially when it comes to the history of this particular developer. I believe you should continue making more of these! It would be a wonderful docu-series on established Japanese developers and publishers as you seem to really do your due diligence on them! Bravo!
I usually love your videos but honestly, this is one of the most frustrating RU-vid videos I've ever watched. You don't actually tell us anything about the game. If it were a situation where the game is so iconic and infamous to English-speaking players like Silent Hill or Fatal Frame, that would be one thing. You could give us videos about those games development histories and we wouldn't really need to know too much about the plot of the games because they're already well known. But at the beginning of the video, you acknowledge that this is a game that has been more or less unknown outside of Japan for 30 years, and just barely got a fan translation. Since you don't explain anything about the game, it's design, it's plot, what inspired the art, etc. There is no reason to draw a comparison to Fatal Frame or Silent Hill. Other than the fact that this one seemed to create a very basic, technical foundation that the others drew from. And since we don't know anything about this game or how those other games were inspired by it, the development history has no meaning because you don't talk about the actual game and how it is important. Outside of the very basic technical reasons. Yes, the story of the creator and how he started his business is interesting, but you're connecting it to a game that, you admitted, no one knows anything about. If you were just going to go into the history of the founder of that game company you could have just an a Dragon Quest video because then people would actually have context. I'm sorry if it seems I'm just trying to pick you, I'm not. This video was incredibly frustrating because you didn't go into detail and I hope you do a part 2. I really want to know what this game is. I really want to understand its connections and how it inspired Silent Hill and Fatal Frame from thematic and artistic perspectives, and I would love to hear your opinions on it because I think You have a lot of very well thought out and interesting opinions.
Nakamura is like the Japanese John Carmack and honestly it's best they have never met, their combined forces could rip a horrible hole in reality that might never be repaired.
The level of research and nerdery on this channel... You're amazing. As a huge fan of silent hill, Japanese horror and horror as a whole, I love it here ❤️
This is how you make a video about the history of something great, I like the narrator's voice, reminds me of Japan Video Topics in the 90s. There's something inspirational about knowing the history of the gaming industry, going from scratch and being bold enough to try new concept and see where it goes.
I found your channel while I was stationed in Korea in the Army. I would binge watch the silent hill symbolism videos. Keep doing what you do. Great Work 👍🏻
I really just wish this would get a fan translation because I am dying to know what all the endings are about. For anyone wanting to watch the game be played with english voice over, go watch Tara Devlin's playthrough of this.
It's not that selling an interactive novel was new. But it was uncommon on consoles. Usually, visual novels were made for computers, like the MSX, a console, with a controller, was expected to have a videogame.
I remember watching St. John's Wort back when Netflix was just discs. Had no idea it was an adaptation. It's not a good movie, not that I recall. Would be great to play through a translation. The story seems like it would work much better in that format.
There are a ton of these SNES-era Japanese "sound novels" out there. I'd be genuinely surprised if Otogiriso was even the first one in the horror genre, but I know for sure there are a ton in the mystery genre.
AFAIK it's just like a dozen, not that many for a console with over 1700 games; though I guess it depends on what you'd count as one at times. NES/Famicom had way more adventure games/VNs (though in an older style). SNES had loads of JRPGs instead, well over a hundred in Japan. As far as VNs go, nothing beats the Japanese PCs though. Lots of obscure games there. PCE-CD and PSX also had quite a few, many based on anime directly.
@@mariusamber3237 I think Chunsoft put out the bulk of them, maybe 8-10, but Banpresto, Athena, Imagineer, Access, Pack-in-Video and Pandora Box all put out a few as well. There are also a few obscure "Doujinsoft" releases I've heard mentioned before, but I don't know anything specific about those. I'd guess in total there are probably somewhere around 20-30 for SNES. There are also a few which released on the Satellaview. Regardless, the Visual Novel/Sound Novel genre goes all the way back to the early/mid 80's with releases on the PC-6001, PC-8801, Famicom/NES (as you mentioned), FM-Towns, ect.
Yes, I think it's doubtful that Otogirisou is a "first" in that respect though I could be wrong. I think it depends a lot on how strictly you want to delineate genres, how strict the inclusion criteria for a given genre or sub-genre are. I mean text adventures, also of the horror variety, were common in the 80's both in the West and Japan, but they're distinct from visual novels. The PC-88 and PC-98 in Japan did have kanji support way before the SNES came out, and had tons of both text adventure and text-heavy Japanese-style adventure games (typically menu-based) since the 80's. Mystery House by Sierra was "remade" by Micro Cabin into a similar game with the same name in 1982, Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken was a popular release in 1983. Kojima's classic Snatcher was a huge hit in 1988 for the PC-88 and MSX2. The same year Onryou Senki came out on the PC-88, an adventure game with horror elements. None of these might tick all the boxes of the specific type of "sound novel" Otogirisou was styled as, but here's no doubt that there are many landmark releases for the visual novel that predate Otogirisou by several years.
@@Mogura87 Yeah, Portopia especially is interesting, since they're releasing some kind of an odd experimental version of it in English on Steam now. Would be cool if they included the original in English too, but... that's a bit of a stretch, probably. Then again, Famicom Detective Club games were remade and localized, completely out of the left field, so there's always a chance for some old-new releases. I wouldn't even be surprised about Otogirisou getting localized, or Banshee's Last Cry getting some new English ports. Nowadays it's much more likely than it was back in the 90s, or even the 2000s. It's just too bad that the Japanese-style VNs are mostly so obscure in the West, but I guess the language barrier and the obscurity of the systems did its thing.
@@mariusamber3237 My impression is that not only Japanese, but also Western text adventure games dating back to the 80's are pretty obscure today, much unlike, say, the point and click classics of the DOS era. If you aren't well over 40 and grew up with games like Zork you probably haven't even tried them, maybe not even heard about them. I feel I never see them being discussed in any detail by any reasonably big retro gaming RU-vid channels, only fairly small and niche ones.
Cool video but I wish that you would have dedicated a bit of it to describing what the actual content of the game is. I watched it because you said that it inspired silent hill which I'm a huge fan of. From what the video has said about it, the only similarities that I can see are they are both Japanese horror games.
The title is somewhat misleading imo, I was extremely curious about the story of the game itself and I kept waiting for the moment you would tackle the subject, but it never came.
Little criticism, I wish you explained the game more rather than the entire history of the man. It took a bit too long to get to the point of the video.
Unfortunately, as I haven't yet been able to play an English version, I know little to nothing of the story; hopefully I'll be able to do a part two someday and include more detail then.
I loved this game! One of the first games I beat after learning to read Japanese. I loved how your choices created a branching story, causing each playthrough to be unique. Also, it was quite frightening if you played in the dark haha. The whole "Sound Novel" sub-genre from the 90s is full of wonderful titles like this, Night of the Sickle Weasel, and my personal favorite, "Majoutachi no Nemuri" (Sleep of the Witches).
This was fascinating and cool to see what essentially lead to the VN genre. Also, Fata Morgana has to be one of the best stories I've ever experienced in anything. I finished it over a year ago and still can't stop thinking about how good it was.
Impressive! i was in japan a month ago and found a snes copy of this game lying around in a shop. I knew which game it was causa i'd seen the move ages ago (i thought it was pretty bad). after seeing this video i think i should have bought that copy i found, just for historical reasons. so, great video. I'm a huge fan of the clock tower series (the original ones) and even met hifumi kohno, the creator of the first game. Do you think it would be possble to make one of these in-depth videos about the original CT? take care!
This video is excellent as it offers a more interesting, newly explored look at the little community of those who were so passionate about this art. Nakamura not giving up on his idea and Chunsoft making it is great. The new realm of video games was a perfect realm for the team to explore the novella storytelling style. I'd love to see them remaster this game and talk about it, they've inspired tons of horror games
Yes! Since I saw Otogiriso for a brief moment on a prior video from Muse, I was hoping to see this topic in a more deep manner. Then it's just a question of time to see something about Twilight and/or Moonlight Syndrome 😆😉
That was a brillant video essay! I too had been curious about this game ever since hearing an orchestral arrangement of two themes from Otogiriso ("Lingering Morning Mist" and "Beyond the Sadness") from the second Game Music Concert album from 1992. I'm glad there's gonna a fan translation of St. John's Wort. I am also glad that Kamatachi no Yoru got translated into "Banshee's Last Cry" in English by Spike Chunsoft around 2010s for iOS. I do hope that version gets ported to modern consoles.
I remember watching the movie based off this game! I had no idea it was based off a video game, but I remember loving the way they incorporated inventory management, item collection, etc. into the movie via very video-game like camerawork and, of course, references to the in-movie video game that was supposed to be the whole reason the characters were visiting the creepy mansion in the first place. I want to try to find the movie again, since it's been about a decade since I last watched it and the site I found it on has probably been shut down by now.
23:32 "they would ultimately sell 30,000 units on the SNES" Is this really true? Maybe it was just a slip of the tongue but it sounds like it would be a massive flop if they initially prepared 120,000 super famicom copies, and only sold a quarter of them? I don't know japanese so I can't verify any original sources, but the english wikipedia mentions they sold 300,000 copies for the super famicom which sounds like it fits the narrative. Very good and informative video, such an intriguing story behind this game!
What a great and engaging review! I often lose interest halfway into game reviews I never played, but this one kept my attention till the end. Your storytelling, visuals and the sound of a video feels a bit like an interactive game itself.
I had not heard of this game until this popped up on my recommended! I hope to play this game one day soon and to experience what inspired so many of today's horror games.
As soon as I saw the cart, I realised I had it on my shelf. Picked it up from a bargain bin years ago mainly because the label reminded me of Resident Evil. Hope the fan translation comes out as my Japanese is very poor.
Fantastic video. THANK YOU for covering Otogirisou! Kamaitachi no Yoru has gotten more attention in the West over the years, but Otogirisou isn’t as accessible in English. I’m really happy anytime older sound and visual novels get more attention. I wish they were all more easily accessible, especially in this age of mobile phones that could easily run many of them.
I just finished Kamaitachi no Yoru a few days ago and randomly saw this video on my homepage. Crazy how things just fall into place like that. Great job
Great story, I always enjoy your videos! Just a heads up, this video doesn't show up when I search for "otogiriso" or "otogirisou", I realize that the "ō" is more correct but it's messing with your visibility.
played the kamaitachi no yoru remake not long ago and really enjoyed it. i'm happy to see more sound novels translated, tom does a good job with fan translations
Funny enough, I actually have the PS1 version of this. I randomly bought it from a store in Seattle and didn't know what it was at the time. Glad I did now.
I still remember the weird way I found out about this game, playing through Tsukihime Fan disc, there is a scenario called Imogirisou(the Oto in Omogirisou means younger brother, the Imo here means little sister), that is basically a parody of this game, though it manages to capture quite a bit of the basic feeling of these kind of horror games, it helps that Tsukihime is almost a horror game itself.
I would have liked to see a video which explains what the game is about, what feelings it created in players, how it created those feelings, and what it has passed on to Silent Hill and Fatal Frame. This video doesn't do any of that. But, it does spend a TON of time talking about the minutia of a bunch of peoples' careers. Why?
Now i'm kinda remembering some retro visual game that is from NES or SNES that has some boss fights when u get deeper on those novel parts either they are dungeon protector boss or such and u, the main character of the game that is either a student or a shrine server and u venture on those different stories of such bosses and their lores.
Hoping that u guys provide me the name of the game as i don't know what is happening on those dialogues because if i remember correctly the dialogue is on either Japanese or a Chinese language
I'm planning to play it again because i feel like it left me a hole that is never been closed since then after quiting the game because of its region language
I love your content so much, you're inspiring me to become a gaming content creator myself someday Also, do you plan to make a video on the Twilight / Moonlight Syndrome games? They look like your cup of tea
was in the same boat as the comments hoping for a premise of the game, but to be fair it does say Creating Otogiriso 😂 and it was interesting hearing about the creative process, like the rewriting of a concept but in different genres & by different people! crazy how many of the ideas nakamura proposed became staples in VNs, 999 being the first one to come to my mind because 20:59 reminded me of how dead set i was on not playing novel mode idc how much im missing 💀
If you want to say this title (or anything in Japanese) there’s a rhythm you need to follow so it sounds normal. Like the title, clap your hands to space the sounds out… O_TO_GI_RI_SO_U the R needs to be gently rolled like in Spanish, and the U get tacked onto SO like the OU sound in *uncouth* ….the way the author of this video is saying it kinda hurts. Just let the sounds flow. It’s easy if you try. Promise.
I enjoyed this video but I feel like some information about the game's story or setting would have been nice too. I get that it's a horror but where is it set? Are there multiple paths to take or options to pick? Or is it just a static story where you just control the speed that the sentences load in?
This is an awesome video, many thanks for the research, the copy, the edit, and the super interesting result! Kanji are useful when reading japanese text in great part because there is no spaces in japanese. They act as syntactic markers allowing to “scan” a sentence to distinguish different grammatical units. Without kanji it’s difficult to grasp where words start and end.
