They should just make it even more anime. AH will never appeal to the masses since its a literal doujin game with surprisingly good mechanics.
loved Arcana Heart 3 cause it had cute girls so can’t wait for AH4 to come out.
Just a small confirmation. As of right now, Arcana Heart 4 is currently to in development for both Arcade & Steam.
I just think they need to be aggressive with marketing the game. They can’t rely on the “word of mouth” or arcades “attract mode”. They need to get their faces out there and what they can offer.
Just a heads up, I’m also in the process of talking to Examu, Takaya-san, & RyoRca (she’s the songwriter for UNIEL, Melty Blood, & did the lyrics for Persona 4 “Pursing My True Self” - she’s acting as my point of contact as a rep for Examu) in trying to get them to attend Anime Weekend Atlanta this year. So far, their interested but with scheduling, it’s going to be tough but they want to see what my intent is and what we can offer them in coming.
Let’s hope everything plays out the way I want.
They’re basically stuck between a rock and a hard place. Excessive Japanese anime moe culture is off-putting to a lot of westerners. Now, they could keep going in the direction they’ve been going, but my guess is they see no significant profit there competing in a crowded market with games like Dengeki Bunko and whatnot, which have the obvious advantage of having the actual well-known anime characters in there. So they probably figured it would be a better move to go more in the direction of ArcSys games, which do relatively well in the west for anime fighters. Except the existing game’s fanbase are people who actually do enjoy the aesthetics.
For me, Arcana Heart has always had largely the same issue as DoA. It’s a good series with good mechanics where Japan being Japan made the aesthetics unappealing to a lot of consumers, because there is a divide in what’s considered in good taste. And I’m sure someone’s going to get pissed at me for saying that, but it’s a fact that to a lot of people, significant portions of the aesthetic of Arcana Heart is creepy fetishization of little girls, whether they’re right or not. Hell, you could argue that political issues or gender politics or whatever shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying a game or not, but that’s rather naive and opens a whole barrel full of worms most people would probably rather leave sealed in some basement.
Then again, I’m one of those people who greatly enjoyed Arcana Heart 3, but had to struggle with feeling like I needed to take a shower every time I played it early on. I’ll definitely buy 4 if it’s half as good as 3 was, but I probably won’t buy a physical copy in person without first putting on a trechncoat and dark glasses.
And then comes that asshole friend of yours that shouts loud and clear to everyone hear: “HELLO KECKA, HOW ARE YOU DOING MAN? WHOOO, ARE YOU A FAN OF ARCANA HEART TOO? WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTER? MINE IS THAT 10 YEARS OLD GIRL WITH SWIMSUIT!”.
TLDR
They need to double down on the moe.
There’s nothing good about DOA besides the waifus though.
Actually, DOA and Arcana Heart can’t really be compared that easily…
Dead or Alive is honestly more successful mainly because of what genre it’s in and more to the point, it marketed itself better as of late in the West compared to Arcana. My reasoning is more or less on the nose is that it’s mainly due to being too “anime” for the Western market combined with the typical stranglehold Street Fighter has on the Western Fighting Game scene.
Dead or Alive’s main issue is really competing with Tekken since people see that as more of the premier 3D fighter. It’s other issues are honestly more used when it comes to 2D players rather than 3D players.
I think people overblow how exactly much the problem people have is with the fanservice and more or less the actual gameplay or the aesthetic.
Don’t make me slap your shit.
Nah, it’s got them kawaii pantsu too. Plus it also sells lotion at premium prices through dlc costumes.
Well I hope that when it does come out, the characters aren’t 3D cell-shaded like Guilty Gear Xrd. I like the characters in plain old 2D.
I like them in 3D because more animations and special interactions are possible. Having to hand-draw every frame sort of limits what can be done with them.
Most people touched on the biggest issue this game has.
Skullgirls had some issues with the art direction though the characters are interesting, Arcana hearts has both issues though. It also doesn’t help the game has art collections and shit of girls in questionable positions that are totally not ‘10 years old’.
Arcana hearts has great mechanics imo, but the aesthetic will never appeal to the American scene unless it has more male characters and at least a predominant percentage of the female cast looks like they are in their late teens or older.
You must not have ever played this game then.
It has plenty of mature looking women, and they don’t ever try to hide the fact that the underage girls are indeed underage.
“Interesting” is a subjective criteria, I’d say Kira with her shapeshifting blob is pretty interesting. They try to be original and not have millions of moves blatantly stolen from other games.
Male characters? Fuck off back to Skullgirls with that shit. They have all the terrible male characters you’d possibly want. The key selling point of all-girl fighters is that they are in fact all-girl fighters.
Arcana Heart 3 Love Max Six Stars will probably be making its way to PC. I say probably because Examu is going the crowd funding route with this one and states that this was from the feedback that they got from the international crowd who really wanted the game while waiting for Arcana Heart 4.
https://twitter.com/takaya_coucho/status/843111002090610688
Really hopes this does well.
That’s probably the way to go for a game with a small niche in the West. Hope it does well too.
Hopefully this enlights them and they do a port of DaemonBride aswell