Friday 17 June 2022

Quick thoughts on 3Hopes demo

You need not worry, Felix. This is the hairstyle that fans' been asking for.


*may contain spoilers for FE3Houses and 3Hopes.




FE warrior Three Hopes demo released and will be available in one week. I like FE but never played any Warrior games so this is something new to try. You can find my sloppy gameplay here...oh boy. I streamed using AVerMedia GC311 and the latency makes it so hard for action games. 

I played Neo TWEWY with it and somehow managed to clear the hidden boss Sho -- this is more like a miracle if I looked back. I guess it's the sound cue that helped me a lot, as the delay in sound is very minimal.

Then I streamed Wario. If you look at my streams, they are quite poorly played. Again I can't tell if it's just because I wasn't good enough in controlling the characters in the first hour of playing the game. Nowadays I just clear most Wario cup challenges with gold medals without any difficulties...

Then it comes to FE warriors. The delay is so obvious when you have to constantly realign yourself in the right direction (which is a bigger problem then in Neo TWEWY) and each time it takes like 0.3 seconds...this is no good and I have to find a solution before I can go back streaming again.

But what do I think about Three Hopes?

As someone who have cleared absolutely everything in FE3H (not necessarily the story details but game wise), this is almost like a parallel universe as the story is altered from the very beginning. Let's say that it helps us to fill the background settings of 3Houses itself.

For example the stance of Rhea is very interesting as she is quite anti-science if you search through the libaries in 3Houses so you wonder what she or her race thinks about what ruling people's meant to be. Unfortunately she and the church had minimal role in the war phase so we didn't have the chance to investigate her more. However in 3Hopes she's definitely around -- while the monestary again went fallen under invasion, she have made more vital decisions in the first 4 chapters already than the whole game of 3Houses. If she remained active later in the game we may well find a complete different side of her.

In 3Houses all story paths are based on overground livings and are associated with the heirs of Sothis. In that sense Argarthans are of course the 'evil' one, and all we did is to crack their plans and demolish them at the end. But the gurdge was never properly settled. For some routes Argarthans simply wasn't involved at the end, and for routes where they were beaten some definitely slither into the dark for another revenge maybe in a thousand years. Such feature is shared among all the endings -- the class leaders each found a short term solution for the continent, maybe for a generation, maybe a few. But there are unsolved matters -- crests, Nemesis, underground livings and more -- are sure to be unstabilities in the future. (Maybe we would have seen a better solution had IS saved the removed chapters in the Black Eagle route but we can never tell now).

But technically it's hard to cover these in a game from the perspective of 3Houses. The game is complete in terms of military conflicts and we certainly won't expect some 40 minutes of pure text covering what happened for the rest of the story. This is precisely what 3Hopes serves it purpose: the only way to have things fully resolved is to put someone associated to Arval as the protagonist where communication can happen with the house leaders, then later to the countries/church. 

This is merely my expectation, but it's natural to me. I have high hope in IS giving good plots anyhow.

Interestingly I only realized that the academy is only for 1 year. How is that possible? Considering this is an academy for the royals it wouldn't be surprising if it takes 3 (the standard high school setting) years or more, 5 or 7 years would even be fairly standard. A  single year course structure would make things much like a master degree in modern real world, but considering the age of some students and how basic things are being taught (well, their weapon wielding skills are like rank E at the beginning) this is simply highly unlikely. This is just a setting that is weird for me to take...

Another thing that I want to point out is how fast did the transition happen. In 3Houses we spend half the ingame time in the academy doing casual things: learning(/teaching), relaxing with other students etc. Listing out the boar route we have the following consecutively:

1) suddenly you are invited into the academy
2) suddenly the first mission you get is so polluted with darkness and conspricies
3) suddenly Dimitri turned into a king
4) suddenly war among the country begins

Even if we count the ingame time (3) and (4) are separated by a year it's still massively short for those students to grow up (vs 5 years in 3Houses), and it brings even more confusion for us the players when they all happened in 3 hours. It is also hard to imagine such sharp transition of the class leaders within 2 years unlike what happened in 3Houses.

But well, I guess we need a reason to raise the wars for the game. Three countries is perfect for a set up similar to the famous Dynasty Warrior series as well. Hopefully Koei will give us a good game this time.

Monday 13 June 2022

12/06/2022: 從2434到5032

彩虹社母公司Anycolor inc.(TYO:5032)上市,前兩天都以漲停收市,現價已是招股價四倍以上。

我第一反應是這家公司的營收模型也太像ACGN股市了吧:觀眾抖內其實就是買產,營收上升會反映在股價上,持股發大財的觀眾又去拿盈利抖回去促成循環。當然,這個模型成立前提是觀眾持股夠多,而google分成又不能太重,這在現實中當然沒法成立。說起來ACGN股市現在計劃改版,看看到時會變成怎樣吧(

平時沒有留意vtb界的人也許會感到奇怪,業界龍頭hololive的聲勢(就算不算這次上市)怎一下就被超越了呢?

是處理不好政治問題嗎?說實話設敏感詞之類的頂多也就一時觀感不好,反正大家現在也記不起來了。最顯著的受害者就只有龍一位,頂多加上半個哈洽馬而已。一家旗下有數十個藝人的娛樂公司會因為大牌裡面一兩個畢業而停滯不前嗎?

說到娛樂公司正好讓人聯想到yagoo那要把vtb養成偶像的野望,那麼是他們過於約束中之人們的創意(尤其跟彩虹社那邊各種放飛自我相比)反而限制了自己的潛能嗎?我覺得是還好,一來這正好可以跟虹搶佔不同市場,二來有傳出被管很重的也沒很多(哈洽馬和兔?)。

那麼是虹EN太強的關係嗎?Luxiem和Noctyx兩團一上來都以泰山壓頂之勢稱霸vtb市場,Vox都已經快在SC榜裡登頂--他的女粉瘋狂程度已經快追上某個vtb有一腿且上過紅白的白毛歌手一拼了。但是別忘了holo EN剛出來的時候訂閱也是隨便破百萬,現時在觀看時數上像鯊魚和華生他們還是相當穩定。

如果要找holo和彩虹社一個決定性的不同之處的話那肯定就是在男V的開發上了吧。

holo的男v只有元祖holostar一團,現在也還半死不活地在活躍著,真是浪費一堆好皮了。彩虹那邊就從來沒放棄過開發男V的市場,類型也相當多元化。古早時期的劍持刀也跟葉到現在還在活躍,劍走偏鋒的有圭利和社築等人,在時機成熟的2021開始推出了三個以男v為主的組合:英文有Luxiem和Noctyx,日文則有Eden組,三組皆大獲成功。

翻查一下彩虹社的出道記錄的話就會發現以前他們都讓兩三個人組成組合出道,但近一兩年最成功的都是以五人為單位出道。發現甚麼了嗎?

--這就是動漫界的男團系作品的成功公式啊。

主要角色清一色是男生,可以是五個可以再多一點但是不能太多;劇情可以有主線但要把時間平均分配給各種CP,最好不時來個上(攻)下(受)關係逆轉等等,剩下就是等腐女腐心大發開始吃下各種周邊順便產出各種同人作品把原作捧上神檯就好了。

只要把過去幾年的女性向作品攤開來一看,隨便數也能數的出一大堆這樣的作品,主要落在偶像系和運動系作品裡面(不過唱歌跳舞其實也是一種運動?)。偶像系的比如歌之王子殿下、偶像大師sideM、催麥、Idolish、A3、偶像進行曲、偶像夢幻祭……運動系就更多了,幾乎每個運動都有其對應女性向動畫:白領羽球部、Tribe Nine(????)、Futsul Boys、Re-main、灼熱卡巴迪、SK8、花樣滑冰等等。每一部的手法都是如此相似,它們修正了早期人數太多或太少、過於著重主線導致CP分配不均等問題,已經是一個成熟的產出體系。

Vtuber要參考這種套路並不難。本來人數就不會太多,5個一組剛剛好。把背景和性格給安排上了以後只要透過各種連動讓他們自然生出(或被腦補出)各種CP關係就好了。

那麼當vtuber獨自開台的時候又應該怎樣做呢?很簡單,把參考對象從男團系作品換成乙女向作品就好了(當然不是轉生到乙女世界當路人……)。這邊遊戲作品比動畫更為豐富:戀與制作人、明治東京戀伽、未定事件簿、Mystic Messenger、美男系列……這裡的重點應該是如何在特定背景/設定下把人格的魅力發揮出來。不過看看那些彩虹大物新人依舊是放飛自我人皮不分,我想這方面靠訓練加個人魅力就能搞定吧?

很多人以為ACG市場還是以男性為主,實際上女性在這方面的消費力一點都不差。光是把她們投入在三次元娛樂市場的錢分一點到二次元上就是一筆可觀的數字。在dlsite、虎穴或comiket(C100終於來了)也能看到女性向作品與其他作品分庭抗禮的景象。要讓她們掏錢並不難,只是方法要用對,不能用男性向作品的套路而已。

這麼大的一個市場holo竟然完全放過隨彩虹社搶下來,現在又出現各種青黃不接的狀況,龍頭位置被搶也就剛好而已。再說一次,holostar沒有用心經營真的很可惜……

當然不單看線上人氣而從財報角度看的話,彩虹社營收比holo更多元化也是一大優勝之處。他們一直都有總之先商品化的習慣,參與動漫配音(這個holo也有就是)和進軍三次元樂壇更可以幫助他們自身擴大影響力;看他們上市披露的資料來看,他們跟大股東Sony也有不少合作協議,這一點也是個體戶holo比不上的。

所以Anycolor的股價要飛起來了嗎?

--我怎麼知道,我又不看vtber。(‾◡◝ )

Disclaimer: 本人並沒有持有任何上述公司的股票及衍生產品。