Koihime Delays

So we’re finally announcing the new release date for Koihime Musou: February 28th, and I wanted to explain some of the reasons behind this delay. (Since Nexton is doing the script insertion for both, this means Guilty will also be delayed until March 14th).

First of all, was a lot of our testers failing to grasp the size of the project they had to deal with, underestimating it, and thus starting their work late. This has been the biggest reason behind the delays, and the key offenders who have still failed to turn their reports in will not be returning as testers.

Aside from that, there have been a few major bugs. The first was a start-up issue: If one clicked outside the screen as the game loaded, it would fail to load. Coincidentally, this was not unique to the English version, and occurred whenever I loaded the Japanese version as well, so it was a bug that existed in the original. But again, simply not clicking outside the game prior to load prevented the issue. Similarly, there have been a few bugs with where certain characters from word came out faulty, and were echoed across the whole script. So the testers have been hunting them down to be replaced with characters that DO work without issue. However, the most annoying issue was scripting errors on Nexton’s end. Let me show you what I mean:

So here we have what should be Line 1, Line 2, Line 3, followed by Line 4 (not shown). Instead, what you see here is Line 1, Line 2 (Old Translation), Line 2 (New Translation, minus the word cheeks), followed by line 4 (not shown). Yes, Line 3 is missing, and no, this kind of error is not something any of us were happy to see. This meant our testers have been going through scrutinizing both the in-game scripts and the translation files to make sure that nothing has been omitted, and that the correct version of the line was being used in all cases, in addition to checking for the usual typos, text-errors, and any bug issues the battle system may have brought on. It’s been a rather hefty task I certainly don’t envy them for doing, especially when there were a few occasions in which an entire character script would be subject to such errors. The igaming software has to be constantly updated based on the changing market and the client request.

So although we must apologize for yet another delay to it’s release, we would like to assure you that every day has been to ensure that the final product which reaches your computer screen will be the best one that we can provide, and will be free from these errors. So, try and look at this on the bright side and think of it as opportunity to spread the news of our release that much more and get that extra step closer to voices!

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97 Comments

  1. Damn, this is sad news! ;.;
    But I’ll look at it from the bright side and be patient. I hope you won’t run into more troubles with this.

    And boo to the testers who neglected their “duty”!

    • Here, here! Boo to them!

      I’m not happy about the ones who neglected their “duties” either, but I am proud of the ones who did do their work. They’ve done a great job picking up the slack and catching all these bugs and missed lines, and I’m glad to see the work they did.

      …Okay, I’m really just glad they’ve made sure none of my work went to waste. <_<;;

      • If you have room for anymore testers I’d be happy to climb aboard. I have some experience QCing for a couple of fanlation groups, I majored in english and am currently taking a Japanese course, and since I’m currently looking for a job and my only other courses are all online I’ve got a good amount of time on my hands.

  2. Dang, that’s right smack dab between a few games I’ll be getting for my Ps3. Killzone and BulletStorm 2/22 then I’ve got Deus Ex, Dragon Age, and Homefront on 3/08. I was hoping it’d be coming out before then, which would allow me the time between it’s original date and the 22nd to play it like crazy.

    Either way, I’ll be getting it… I’m just not sure I’ll have a lot of time to play it. Hopefully it’ll come with voices, though. That’ll be enjoyable.

  3. /sigh

    Leave it to Kouryuu to put up images of loli along with some Big Gay Wakamoto when posting bad news…

  4. It does kinda suck that there are these pretty critical bugs around when you’re trying to get this thing released.

    I understand that MangaGamer are working really hard to fix these bugs. All I can say is, keep up the good work! 😀

  5. I WOULD BUY YOUR GAME IF YOU KNEW HOW TO USE APOSTROPHES CORRECTLY

  6. Stop using MS Word, duh.

  7. Well, since I’m currently out of a job, this gives me time to save money and read the original story. Still, this is my reaction:

    (note: This isn’t an insult directed at you guys, just trying to make light of the situation)

  8. No offense. But here we are now. With another delay. No voices unless a certain # of copies are sold. And to top it all off, you’re releasing it on February 28th, right in the smack middle of huge PC and Console releases.

    Do you guys honestly have any clue what you are doing to your sales? Don’t get me wrong, I would love to support this game. But between the delays, no voices, and now the fact that the game is coming out when I have other gaming purchases that have higher priority. Sorry.

    I wish you guys the best of luck in the future.

    • So you’re saying that releasing a half-baked game with broken grammar, repeating lines, that might crash every three seconds is somehow a better choice?

      So are you high, drunk, or just stupid?

      • Oh, let me reiterate this.
        As I said, the start-up error was just that: a start-up error. Once the game was up and running there was no problem, and the solution (for the tester’s at least) was really simple: just don’t click on anything once you double click the icon to load the game until the game actually loads.

        As long as you just wait the 1-2 seconds it took the game to start-up, there was no problem.

        • Interestingly, I encountered this bug with the demo too, a few days ago. I assumed my demo download had been corrupted. But some games can take a minute or more to load, and it’s quite natural to carry on multitasking while waiting for games to load. At least I’ll be warned what causes this…

    • Joe has a point, I have other PC games to buy around the end of February.

      *assassins creed Brother hood and bullet storm*

      I thought I’d have enough money to buy this before buying the other two, but it seems I was wrong…

      • To be fair, if you can’t buy it at the end of February, you can still buy it Mid-March, End of March, etc.

        Even if you can’t buy *now* when it releases, you can buy it later too. It’s not like it stops being on sale after release day.

        • This was something I was going to point out on Joe’s post, as well. Just because one cannot get a game on its initial release date doesn’t void it from ever being able to be purchased hence. Don’t mean to point out what is blindingly obvious to others, but I think Joe needs to know that games aren’t like produce; they don’t spoil nor stagnate. Unless of course one Joe is some super otaku who likes muttering to him(or her)self,”Heh heh heh… I was one of the first to download the game. That makes my copy special.”.

    • “No voices unless a certain # of copies are sold.”

      Actually there will be voices regardless of how many copies are sold. Someone will make a voice patch for it and if not, i’ll do it myself.

  9. Dear Manga Gamer,

    Fire the baddies and hire me. I’ll work for smut.

    Luv,
    殺人貴

  10. Why do you have to do this to Shuri? ;_;

    • Because Shuri is loving, adorable, absolutely devoted, and wants to do her very best and more in order to please you.

      • She’s better than Rinrin. You guys should sell Shuri merchandise at the next con, I’d buy it. All I have is Sousou’s laptop sticker…

        • Sorry, Shuri’s only #2 in my book. Sousou’s #1. You will soon agree~.

          The Hawawa General is absolutely adorable though. =3 If BaseSon does bring Shuri stuff to AX (assuming they come again-which I don’t know yet), you’ll probably have to get in line behind me.

  11. Awesome. I was worried the delay would be longer.

    <3 Mangagamer

  12. Hm, I hear Onsokumaru from Ninin Ga Shinobuden in that voice sample. To whom does that voice belong in Koihime Musou?

    (Brr, another voice I need to get used to. I’ll keep hearing Angela and Onsokumaru in this game…)

    Nevermind. I found out the voice belongs to that muscular pig-tailed guy.

  13. Any chance you guys will use the extra time to advertise KM some more?

  14. Wish I could pre-order… 🙁 I got money to spare atm. :p

    • I wish you could too. =(

      I’m trying to convince them to work on that, but I’m also trying to get our affiliates program out first and foremost.

      • Ah, OK. Hopefully, you will be able to implement this feature soon. 🙂
        I look forward to buy it, not to play it, though. Not until there’s voice. 😛

    • I have to agree on this point. What would the harm be from allowing us to buy the game now and when it is released, having us download it from our purchase history? Is there more problems to this than I’m thinking of? (I’m not trying to criticize, just curious is all.)

      • The only *real* problem is paying to update our shopping cart system/software to allow for such a feature.

        I haven’t been disagreed with, it’s just other things are on the front burner.

  15. you people confound me if you were going to buy the game in jan why cant u just keep that money until its released …….. i know this is a hard concept i really do but dont come on here and complain about how u cant manage your money or use your head any who this does suck but rest assured i have had my money saved for this game months ago and i wish u all the best for translating such a great game

  16. NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

    Damm it u lazy testers ; ;

  17. The Societalrebel

    Well that’s disappointing. 🙁

    We were expecting the game no later than the end of this month, but thanks to a couple of incompetent slackers, we’ll have to wait for another month.

    For all that’s worth, Shuri and RinRin better be in the final product. Also, no JAST-style censorship or delays the next time around. 🙂 Promise MangaGamer?
    _____________________________________________

    Seriously, you guys should make certain you hire the right people for the job. If the guy doesn’t have the passion for trade, fire him and look for next one. 😉

    • I can absolutely confirm that Shuri, Rinrin, and such are all in the game and their CG’s are uncensored. After all, they’re certainly over 18 according to the text.

      As for our beta testers, they’re doing this for free games, not cash, so things like paying jobs, finals, and so on do take priority. Had the scale of issues with the scripting and the text rendering bugs not been so large, chances are we could have absorbed the delays, but they were and we couldn’t.

      We are looking at some new people for our next round of betas, but it’ll take a special sort of person to train maids and handle Sir Vincent and his pork sword.

      • But this past month has been winter break…If a tester is one of those poor college kids who live vicariously paycheck to paycheck and stresses themselves to all hell come the big breaks in between semester, then maybe beta testing LOTR worth of script wasn’t the best of choices for them to make. Maybe they should have asked to quit ahead of time, once they realized that they can’t make the deadline…?

        There’s a hundred different things that could have been done correctly for these few to not spoil it for the majority. All I ask is that you who moderate, separate the wheat from the chaff come the next project.

    • Well, to be fair, fire them and look for the next one is EXACTLY what we’re doing, so yeah. It’s not hard to find volunteers =D

      And yeah, if you look verrrrrrrrrry closely at the text picture you can see that it’s Rinrin, uncensored, and going at it. =p
      So that should answer your question. (Also why I chose that particular image).

      • The Societalrebel

        @ sloanereinja & kouryuu9

        Haha, thanks for the heads up. I’m certain you guys will overthrow JAST as the Kingpin(distributor) of visual novels. Their service awful. They have the tendency to stall the vast majority of their releases. Take Demonbane for example. Its been taking them nearly 1 1/2 year since they’ve acquired the license from Nitro and the translation from TLwiki, and STILL no release.

        Their website has recently stated, “Demonbane Completion Draws” Near(er). What a joke!

        http://www.jastusa.com/

  18. Thank you for giving us actual insight into the problem. I’m glad this is being solved and we wont get a buggy final product, many companies sell their unfinished games to the consumer without shame.
    You guys have found out that communication is key,
    and you have gone a long way from when you started.

    I will gladly wait until the end of February, although I really want to play this game as soon as possible 😛

  19. i was like noooooooooo bastards quit teaseing me at first but i understand gotta do wat yu gotta do

  20. At least now you know who are and who are not committed to the work they promised in the beginning when they wishes to be testers for the game.

    Like a statement i always keep in mind during my project at university. “don’t !@#$% around, get the job done”

  21. oh woe is me.

    now i have to remember not to spend the money i had set aside for it xD

    • on a side note a voice patch is already planned by a certain translation group, sorry MG

      • I doubt there’s any “sorry” to it. They and BaseSon probably (definitely) both were counting on this. Not that Kouryuu will reply to this in the affirmative, of course.

        If BaseSon can get us to buy their game without paying an arm and a leg for the voices, they’re happy. And I’m happy too, honestly… those actors didn’t do an iota of work compared to the scenarists, scripters, artists, and programmers involved elsewhere. Why should they eat up the entire profit?

        Yeah, this might mean we’ll see more of this particular gambit, but as long as you aren’t too proud to buy games voiceless, you’ll never play a voiceless game, if you know what I mean.

        • i dont mind voiceless VN’s TBH, granted the only 2 voiceless VN’s iv ever read were sengoku rance and kana little sister but i didn’t even notice it, however the voices for them never existed so that wasn’t an issue, i only found out for sure i was buying KM when i ran across some people from a reliable TL team planning a patch to put them back in.

          so really the patch got me to buy KM, without i cant say for sure TBH im not to keen on buying games missing content.

      • I think independently produced add-ons like a voice patch could potentially help sales since it gives what people want without having to go though the pain of forcing Nexton of bearing the pain of having to pay allegedly out of the ass for it.

        Woe to the VAs, but if it ain’t selling, then it ain’t selling…

        • The Societalrebel

          @ Justin iZ Here

          It was only a matter of time before a voice patch was coming up. And considering this is outside of Nexton/Baseson’s approval, I wonder how will fare with MangaGamer. Either way, voice or not, I’m still getting the game. I look at visual novels as interactive Mangas, so this isn’t a big deal to me. =)

          @ MangaGamer

          Any plans on improving visibility and your websites’ traffic? Also what are your relations with JASTUSA? Are you guys friends or foe, or in between? We’re just curious..

          • I’d imagine that Manga Gamer and Jast are only superficially competing…while Manga Gamer does have eroge, the majority of their games fit the description of visual novel better than Jast’s, and Jast is the opposite.

  22. i wonder if this will get delayed again. Yes sure February 28th, same as January 31st (last day of the month), coincidence? or just another date set temporarily.

    • Thirty bucks says they just figured “eh, it’ll be done sometime in February”.

      • something tells me its a temporarily date.

        • This delay occurred as a result of testing, and we’re now in the final stages – implementing those reports. Assuming there are no problems, the master up will be mid-February.

          There is honestly no reason why it should be delayed again, and if by some act of Satan it is, I can guarantee you I’ll be bitching about it long before you are.

  23. Wooo that is a lot of hate directed my way. I think I may have said my point in a way that was taken wrongly and I think there may be some misunderstanding here.

    Naturally, releasing the game in a time-frame where there are other titles out there that gamers want to pick up is always an issue. And of course, you have to release it SOME time so I am sure MG sat down and took into consideration when would be the best time to do so after all these setbacks and delays.

    However, unfortunately I do not think I will be picking up the title. I’ve bought games from you before, and I think the work you guys do is for the most part truly wonderful. The fact of the matter is though going back to my 1st post, you’ve done more “harm” already than “good.”

    Yes, the game is coming, yes it is uncensored, yes it is a good game. But unfortunately there were too many hic-ups and “situations” encountered along the way that IMO feel turned away new potential customers. No matter how many people jump on this comment section and counter my arguement with “I’m still buying it!” Awesome. I think thats great. Unfortunately at this point in time I just don’t see the value for me anymore.

    Maybe a couple of months down the line if I have some spare cash I will pick it up. But as far as whether or not this game is a “success” for you guys will have already been decided by then. I wish you all the best of luck and hope your future projects don’t have as many road-bumps along the way.

    • That’s like saying people aren’t going to buy Duke Nukem Forever because it was delayed for like a decade…

      Don’t get me wrong, I understand what you’re trying to say, you’re just doing a terrible job at articulating it.

    • I actually don’t know if he had any problems before this one. But from my perspective, it’s not that bad and yes, I am going to try and buy it. I’ve said it before, but I’ll repeat it. This game is coming out between a few major games that I want. All of them costing 60+ dollars. But the games I’m buying aren’t really… Like this VN.

      I understand what your saying in that hardcore gamers are going to be poor these coming months, but the way you say it is like you only get paid once a year. =p Anyway, wish you the best, my fellow VN friend. Who knows, we may be getting the same games and playing together without know.

  24. Is this good news to me? Actually as of now I am in the state of “otaku mode off.” Can’t bring myself to finish reading the Suika I bought past December even though I’m half way done with it and can’t even bring myself to watch anime. Even though I like it SOO much, I just can’t load it up…..maybe it was because of Narcissu Side 2nd….? I did stop reading Suika after I found and read Narcissu 2. Maybe being hit with 2 sad stories isn’t good for a person’s psyche. Setsumi-chan…….*cries*

    Well, anyways I’m not too shocked or down in the drain about the delay. As a matter of fact I don’t really care as long as there’s an estimate of when it will be released. And seriously, I think telling the customers about the delay instead of keeping it quiet is a business move one should be proud of. It shows how much a business cares for their customers and their support. It puts both a business and its customers in good relation.

    ……I’ll be ready with munny in the bank.

    • My otaku mode is off too. Bad timing, seeing as I need to get it back on for those Kara no Kyoukai blurays that cost a fortune…

      I have more than a sneaking suspicion that getting the g-senjou no maou TL out the door after spending 20 months on it was the cause of this decrease in my otakudom. Kouryuu, I love your translations. If I’m to maintain my interest in eroge, I need something with lots of mindless sex and engaging story in between. In other words, I need Koihime Musou T.T

  25. I really don’t mind the delay that much. I STILL LOVE YOU GUYS >_> you do your best to bring great games to us English speakers even though you don’t stand to make a fortune off of them and that’s what I love about you guys.

  26. Sad news but I guess it can’t be helped. I eagerly look forward to the release. It’s funny, my otaku mode is off as well. guess I’ve just been overloading my life with anime for so long that my body is finaly rejecting it. ;-; Ah well. Good luck with the bug issues. Oh, and if the testers keep slacking off, just send me an email and ill come to thier houses and kick their asses ^^

  27. Please stop posting the game CGs on every blog entry.

    • does it really matter? you read the VN for the story not the CG’s (i hope)

      • It’s a VISUAL novel. I would argue you do both, yeah, even the hcg’s.

        I even avoid spoiling the soundtrack. Why ruin an intense moment with a new bgm track by hearing it beforehand? Same goes with CG’s. One of the perks of event CG’s is the excitement of seeing new art, be it erotic or otherwise.

        • It’s exactly as you said pondrthis, thank you.

          • meh i still dont see how its bad, so you saw a girls ero CG before hand..chances are ul forget about it before you even get to it anyway with all the other CG’s clogging ur mind =P

    • While I agree that spoilers aren’t good, you have to consider that these CGs help as a kind of advertisement. It will show to the people reading this blog that this game is indeed beautiful.
      That said, Kouryuu (and sloanereinja at times) does his best not to post spoiler CGs.

      I am very spoiler sensitive myself. I also don’t listen to a soundtrack before having heard it in the game. However, I can’t say that the CGs I see posted here have spoiled much yet.

      If I had to choose between posting no CGs here for my own personal interest or do posting CGs here for advertisement, then I think the latter takes priority.

      I agree that even posting a single CG, no matter the content, is considered a spoiler, and personally I might want to avoid them. However, without seeing a single CG of a game, I can’t judge whether I would like the game. I have to see some CG before I can decide whether I would like the art style (ie. “the feel”) of the game. So I am happy that Kouryuu posts a few of the non-spoiler CGs.

      tl;dr:
      These CGs help people decide whether they might like the game or not, so they are necessary, even though I agree that they can be considered spoilers in a way. We just need to find a perfect middle-ground between personal anti-spoiler interest and public advertisement, and I think Kouryuu has found this middle-ground perfectly.

    • If the CGs are somehow spoiling the game for you, you can always not read the blog and just wait for some news aggregate to put out the information…

    • Yeah, as many have already said I try to avoid posting CGs that are really spoiler-ish, but you have to post something or people won’t have an idea of what the game looks like and what to expect. How many people do you know would buy a video game without at least seeing some kind of footage of it’s gameplay in action? I don’t know of any. For VN’s the equivalent is CG.

      If I do post any CG that’s spoiler-ish, usually it’s also a CG that is used on the company’s original site for the game and/or in their promotions.

      And as I mentioned before, part of my reason for selecting that shot with Rinrin was to satisfy those who keep asking if she’s going to be uncensored.

      ……Also, considering Koihime Musou has over 160 unique CGs (In other words not counting variants) I don’t think posting a handful on the blog is gonna hurt anyone.

  28. I love how off topic these things get ^^

  29. Still without voices??????Holy crap ¬¬

  30. Aside from that, there have been a few major bugs. The first was a start-up issue: If one clicked outside the screen as the game loaded, it would fail to load. Coincidentally, this was not unique to the English version, and occurred whenever I loaded the Japanese version as well, so it was a bug that existed in the original.

    Well known issue with the engine to begin with. I think if you start trying to take care of this bug it’ll take forever. All games using that engine have this problem to begin with.

  31. Awww I was really looking forward to getting this CG as soon as possible, I thought the trial was pretty interesting. I don’t mind waiting for it because January and February got good games coming out for the PS3 and Xbox 360 (hoping it will kill the necessary time); hopefully Koihime will be bugless by then (cross fingers).

  32. I actually ordered an untranslated version after reading this. Looks like it was faster for me to improve my Japanese to a sufficient level than keep looking how the release was constantly postponed. Good luck with 2000 sales, though.

    • Why would you come here to check up on the English translation if you’re already able to read it in Japanese? *baffled* Anyone fluent enough in Japanese would prefer the Japanese before the English version. Anyway, I’d gladly wait another month to get the uncensored version.

      • Why are you even replying to an obvious troll? I took a year of Japanese and I’m still extremely far from being able to read and enjoy a Japanese game.

        • Hmm, I see. I guess it would take longer than half a year for him to learn Japanese. My troll detector has been failing lately. >_< I usually just assume people who say stupid stuff are generally stupid, and I tend to want to point out flaws in their logic.

          • 5-6 years is more like it if you want to be good enough.
            Japanese is no way an easy language to learn. You need to learn hiraganas, katakanas and kanjis too.

          • Z, not wanting to argue with you or anything BUT, you can learn all the kana in less than a month. The toughest thing is the Kanji, and technically all you need to know is 600 of them to get you through. Even though there are thousands of Kanji.

            You saying five or six years is wrong, you can be proficient in Japanese in two to three. It all depends on how much you love the language and how much time you’re willing to devote to it.

  33. Nice poster, as if to show how you fu**ed everyone’s expectations ) Just kidding. I know what a bother nasty bugs can be.

  34. I have 1 question admin. Will MangaGamer translate a next Koihime musou? I mean fandisc or alternative version of Koihime Musou ~A Heart-Throbbing, Maidenly Romance of the Three Kingdoms~ ??? Thx for any answer

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