Muv-Luv is one of the most popular visual novels in the history of the genre. It’s appeared on everything from PC to Xbox 360 over its 13-year history, but the thing is, it’s never been released outside of its native Japan.
A new Kickstarter is looking to change that, hoping to bring the first two titles in the series — Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative — to Steam with an English-language release.
In addition to localisation work, the team behind the project — “A mix of dedicated fan translators and professional translators from Japan [who] will work directly with the creators of Muv-Luv series” — are pledging to do stuff like update the games’ visuals (using assets from the PS3 versions of the games) and upgrade their UI and menus.
The campaign asked for $US250,000. With two days gone, it’s already at the $US450,000 mark; if it hits $US500,000 the devs are promising a Vita release, which seems like the perfect platform.
With the money already raised, the plan is to have the first title on Steam around March 2016, with the second sometime around next Winter.
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5 responses to “One Of Japan’s Biggest Visual Novels Is Coming To The West”
There were multiple anime, it was… ok…
There was one anime (Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse) and it was an adaption of an extremely average spinoff manga. The actual Muv-Luv Alternative visual novel is tonally more in line with the opening two or three episodes of Total Eclipse rather than the rest of it, and is significantly better IMO.
The only downside with this is we have to fund the first game. The original Muv-Luv has two parts to it and the biggest part is an exceedingly average run-of-the-mill dating sim style game. Once you do the two main routes in it, you unlock a completely different story arc, where the main character wakes up to find himself in a parallel universe where the planet was invaded by an alien species that are slowly but surely wiping humanity out. Alternative (the second game) basically remakes and expands on that story, and it’s Alternative that people really care about.
I’m not sure if many steam users who are immersing themselves in the recent influx of VN’s will be able to chug through Extra. Unlimited was fun and interesting to read, and then Alternative was a huge eye opener on how everything was set up beforehand. I hope it succeeds as a kickstarter first though.
Yeah, Extra is pretty hard work to get through. You don’t need to do all the routes (thank god) but the two you do need to do are very long and there’s not really much that’s special or interesting about it. Night and day difference with Unlimited/Alternative.
It’s already succeeded as a Kickstarter, the only question at this point is whether they raise enough to fund the side stories.
I watched the most recent anime. The first two episodes were amazing, you got introduced to all these characters and then they got butchered to pieces shortly after and you had no idea who was going to live. Then the rest of the series was basically yet another harem anime with an angsty boy with buxom girls lusting after him with some robots occasionally being flown. Much disappointment.