Happy new year everyone! 明けましておめでとうございます！
That’s yet another year is in the books, having survived the end of the world. Well, I knew it wouldn’t happen since I played Owaru Sekai no Birthday this year. It can’t end when we still have such a huge backlog to clear. Anyways, I’ll give a short recap of the past year and see if I fulfilled my New Year’s resolutions for this year.
There wasn’t much changes to the blog this year as we’re quite satisfied with the current structure focusing on eroge-focused weekly news, monthly eroge release overviews, and anime previews and first impressions (by Zen and nemuiwanko). I finally got around to updating the eroge company list, and also added Twitter and Facebook sharing buttons for posts. WordPress added country stats back in February. Obviously, the US tops the list, followed by Indonesia, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore.
My resolution from last year was to finish 18 of the top 20 imouto-ge according to EGS. Honestly, I didn’t pay too much attention to it. It showed with vast majority of games I played were recently released ones. The list changed a bit over this year, with Riaimo almost catching up to Yoake. I’ve went up from 13 to 14, but I still haven’t played Sinsemilla yet (I started earlier this year, but then my hard drive died).
Random 2012 tidbits:
- 30 new companies debuted this year. Even though none of their games were masterpieces, this shows that eroge isn’t dwindling by any means.
- Eroge/VN anime adaptations this year: Amagami SS+, Shining Hearts, Koichoco, Muv-Luv TE, Little Busters! (finally) and Robotics;Notes. DCIII has been announced for spring 2013!
SakimoeSaimoe concluded with Toki’s victory. She knew it all along after Saki swept the quarterfinals.- It seems like the PS2 ports have come to an end, and in their place come the PSP adaptations. There’s also a trend towards social games.
- Smartphones are showing up a lot in the eroge themselves (Hatsukoi 1/1).
- While I don’t think there’s an increase in all-ages games, they don’t seem to work for every company. DCIII, TOKYO BABEL and Imaimo didn’t do badly, but Supipara put minori to the brink of bankruptcy, leading to the promotion for their following game (Perseus) having a great focus on H.
- Speaking of H, there seems to be more moe/chara-based nukige this year, such as Pure Girl and Kurafuta. The stories are quite simplistic and there’s sure a lot of H (51 scenes in Kurafuta), but they’re quite enjoyable if you like the chars. I love apple pie!
- AkabeiSoft2 restructured its vast number of sub-brands, closing some which had only released 1-2 games. Then they created some more by the end of the year. What was the point of all that?
- UnisonShift Blossom doesn’t seem right without Itou Noizi…
- How about those feels? Four Leaf Studio’s Katawa Shoujo came out at the beginning of this year. While not amazing, it’s still a step in the right direction for the English doujin community. My fav route was Emi’s.
- SQUARE ENIX wasn’t too thrilled with EX-ONE’s Futsuno Fantasy and had them change a bunch of stuff, from the logo to the various parodies (goodbye Chocobo!).
- Chuunibyou games were unsurprisingly common when Chu2Koi was airing.
- BK1 merged with e-book seller honto, but there were no changes among their offered services.
- It doesn’t matter WHO IS IMOUTO. Miyabi is mine.
- I don’t really have much time for MMOs nowadays, but TERA was quite pretty and SEA (English) RO2 open beta started just a few days ago. Since I loved RO, I’m obligated to play RO2 even if it sucks.
- Let’s nai nai!
I played a total of 18 games this year, all but one of which were released this year (Amamiso was the exception). That’s less than last year’s 24, but I played a lot more trials. My favourite was Irohika, which is best played following Iroseka since it is more of a sequel than just a fandisk. DCIII and Owaru Sekai were also pretty good. The worst was Hatsukoi 1/1, which I ranted about for a good few weeks. My favourite manga from this year would be Sis Plus, while my fav LN is Papakiki (also loved the anime – happy happy girl!).
Once again, we were blessed with lots of wonderful imoutos this year, including Hiyoko Strike‘s Hina, Tsukumo‘s Tsukumo and Maya, DCIII‘s Himeno, Monobeno‘s Natsuha, Yukiiro‘s Miyuki and Akira, Arterial‘s Mirai, Sakura NoReply‘s Minto, Koiimo‘s Aoi and Akane, 1/2 summer‘s Kazuha, OwaruSekai‘s Ili, Lovely Quest‘s Minaho, Pure Girl‘s Sora, Melodia‘s Mel, Otama‘s Momiji, Aemushi‘s Nanagi, Nainai‘s Hazuki and Ren, Tototo‘s Susuki, Imaimo‘s Ayumu, Kimisora‘s An and Perseus‘ Ren. However, the co-winners this year are Kurafuta‘s twins Yae and Ema! I can’t choose just one!
妹 だ か ら で す ☆
My New Year’s resolution for this year is to finish Sakuya’s route in Sinsemilla and play the Applique fandisk as well. It always seemed like I get distracted whenever I pick it up, so maybe this will give me some motivation.
Thanks for continuing to support us! We hope you are looking forward to another good year for eroge and imoutos!
