After its release, LL quickly saw its sales rise, achieving over 600,000 in its first week and breaking a million in its second.
If this momentum continues, it's possible it could reach 6 million in sales by this Time next year.
For a galgame, this can no longer be described as just popular; it's practically sweeping the nation.
The basic player base for galgames in Japan is only so large, but ever since Pokeni entered the industry, it has continuously expanded the galgame market. A market research and evaluation report from Sega this year indicated that:
The number of galgame players in Japan is showing a rapid growth trend, with at least over 8 million people to date.
It is estimated that by this Time next year, this segment could accumulate to 10 million players.
Historically, the 1990s to the early 21st century was precisely the peak period for galgames, which actually aligns with historical patterns.
This is mainly because before Pokeni, few game developers paid much attention to the game plot of galgames, and Pokeni, whether in terms of plot or graphics, forcefully pushed forward an entire Time, at least 10 years ahead of its Time.
It was like a dimensionality reduction attack.
From Sega's research data, it means Pokeni has firmly occupied more than half of the galgame market.
Its position is unshakable.
In the galgame field, Pokeni is equivalent to Nintendo.
Of course, this does not mean that Pokeni only has galgames; their Pokémon, Diablo, The Witcher, patema inverted… these games can be said to be blooming in many areas.
So far, apart from the Waterloo of famous academy, peers don't know what else Pokeni is not good at.
It pioneered the top-down real-Time action game, created a new galgame model, creatively adopted a gravity-reversal mechanism for side-scrolling games, and pushed graphics to the extreme.
Such a company, in terms of creativity and quality requirements, simply makes its peers look like clowns.
No one knows how much more such a Pokeni can grow.
It seems this company has no growth bottleneck.
...
The popularity of LL has several reasons.
The first reason is the high quality of LL itself, from the plot to the graphics, especially the world through the daughter's eyes and the father drawn by the daughter; these are all reasons for its super high reputation.
Hayao Miyazaki is truly a master in the painting industry; his first participation in game production was able to deliver such stunning beauty to players through such gorgeous and fantastical visuals.
At the same Time, LL's good performance is also due to the momentum from the previous CL.
CL was excellent, a masterpiece among galgames, bringing countless people to tears, and Pokeni's official promotion also hyped LL as a supplement to CL.
Therefore, the popularity of CL drove the popularity of LL.
Countless players were eager to see how LL supplemented CL and how it formed a mirror relationship with CL.
This gimmick was quite good.
Almost all players who played CL would definitely acquire LL.
And after experiencing LL, its reputation was once again boosted.
The popularity of LL, in turn, fed back into CL; now, it's as if the two games have entered a seemingly "unrelated" deep binding, leading to a terrifying chemical reaction between them, and the popularity of both soared to the highest point.
This matter was simply a disaster for other games of the same period.
Because of the coupling effect of these two games, all concurrent games were instantly overshadowed.
After experiencing LL, Hiruta Masato, the President of Elf Society, felt his heart pounding non-stop.
He was directly scared into a cold sweat.
Fortunately, a few months ago, Hiruta Masato heard that Pokeni was going to release a new galgame. As an unofficial disciple of Furuhara Tsubaki, Hiruta Masato held him in extremely high regard, so the company's "comrade-in-arms 2," which was originally supposed to be released in the same period, i.e., the second half of the year, was postponed to January of next year.
Now it seems that this decision was truly incredibly correct.
Moreover, to create a unified effect from two different games, independent yet interconnected, like the terrifying quantum entanglement in physics, Furuhara Tsubaki is truly formidable.
It is precisely this Linkage effect that has turned CL and LL into wonderful twins, thereby continuously dominating the popularity charts, which is truly remarkable.
"Learned something new again."
"So amazing, Furuhara Tsubaki."
...
Relatively speaking, Konami, that big unfortunate, wasn't so lucky.
In the same period, Konami had just released a galgame that the company had high hopes for, named—
"Tokimeki Memorial"
It was intended to open up the corresponding game market, but unexpectedly, no sooner had it started than it encountered the overwhelming force of CL.
After CL's crushing victory, "Tokimeki Memorial" was almost submerged in CL's halo.
Before it could recover, LL arrived again.
"Tokimeki Memorial" was completely crushed.
In the entire game market, the voice of Tokimeki Memorial was almost unheard.
Goodness, being crushed twice by Pokeni's games, there's nothing left but bone fragments.
From the results, the popularity of Tokimeki Memorial was quickly suppressed and cooled down by the combined force of CL and LL, disappearing without a trace.
Many players hadn't even had the chance to try this game before being drawn to CL and LL.
Why not, when these two games have a natural combined effect that has all the major game newspapers and players discussing them now?
The popularity of Tokimeki Memorial was forced to decrease.
But in reality, this game is a very good galgame.
"Tokimeki Memorial" describes a love story set against a high school background, with the game stage set from April 4, 1995, to March 1, 1998.
The player takes on the role of a new student who has just entered the private Hikari Academy by the Seto Inland Sea, about to begin three years of student life.
He discovers that Shiori Fujisaki, the girl he has long admired since childhood and grown up with, but has not been in contact with for many years, is in the same class as him.
The ultimate goal of the game is for the protagonist's long-standing crush, Shiori Fujisaki, to express her love for him on graduation day.
Therefore, the protagonist must demonstrate his masculine charm in academics, sports, and even during the sports festival and cultural festival.
Additionally, various endings will result depending on the player's actions in the game.
The main objective of the game is for the player to control the protagonist to win the heart of Shiori Fujisaki or any of the other 12 girls in the game, each with different appearances, personalities, interests, and habits, during the three years of high school life, and to recreate the love legend of Hikari Academy on graduation day.
Because there are many girls to choose from, there can be different story developments and multiple story endings.
The game is a very typical galgame, with excellent art style, well-developed and unique female characters, and a delicate and moving storyline.
This game originally had many highlights and was a style loved by many players. If it hadn't encountered the twin crushing force of CL and LL, it should have been a big hit this year.
Perhaps it could even leave a significant mark in the entire history of galgames in the future.
But unexpectedly...
"Damn it! Why did it have to encounter CL?!"
In Konami Corporation, the 31-year-old genius Producer Kojima Hideo gritted his teeth.
That's right, the Tokimeki Memorial series came from Kojima Hideo's hands.
This guy can be considered one of Japan's top ten game Producers, Konami's genius Producer. Before producing "Tokimeki Memorial," Kojima Hideo had already gained fame with "Metal Gear," the world's first tactical espionage action game.
And at that Time, Kojima Hideo was only 24 years old.
It can be said that he was talented and had unlimited prospects.
This Time, Konami entrusted the task of expanding the galgame field to Kojima Hideo, truly placing high hopes on him.
And "Tokimeki Memorial" is undoubtedly a very good work; the only regret is that it later encountered CL.
"It's one thing to encounter CL, but then LL came along," Kojima Hideo rubbed his scorched forehead, feeling like he wanted to die.
CL, to some extent, shared many similarities with Tokimeki Memorial.
Both are campus romances, both are love journeys before high school graduation.
Although not as high quality as CL, the girls in Tokimeki Memorial are designed quite well, and their storylines also have their own charm.
If it were just CL, then at least after CL's popularity faded, players would somewhat recover and notice "Tokimeki Memorial," a very good romance game.
Although not as touching and profound as CL, it is definitely a superior work among galgames.
But, but!
LL came out right after, not only failing to reduce CL's popularity but also creating resonance!
Moreover, in Kojima Hideo's view, Hayao Miyazaki's participation also added fuel to the fire. It currently seems that the popularity will only continue to rise in the short term, and there's no possibility of it decreasing within this year.
"All the popularity has been snatched away! Damn it!" Kojima Hideo gritted his teeth and said fiercely again.
...
Shortly after LL's release, industry insiders who were originally confused slowly started to understand.
Everyone was puzzled as to why Pokeni's promotional strategy allowed CL and LL to be released so close to each other.
After all, for every major game, it's like movie theater screenings; CL was still hot, having only been released for about a month, its popularity still high, and many players hadn't even had the chance to experience it yet, when LL began its relentless promotional period.
This is equivalent to your blockbuster movie still being hot, but you're already pushing the next movie.
For audiences and players, it could very likely lead to dispersed popularity.
Because if I was originally going for a Pokeni game, and I hadn't even acquired the previous one, and then another game appeared, at this Time I would fall into the dilemma of which one to acquire first.
And once CL's game popularity is overshadowed by LL, the good results that could have reached 2 million or even 3 million might abruptly stop.
So when LL was being promoted, industry insiders were generally not optimistic, believing it was a major decision error by Pokeni's operations team.
In essence, they were accusing President Qing Zhiyuan of being brainless.
The reason for past successes was likely just dumb luck.
Some even speculated that Pokeni was lucky in the past, being in the small company stage where releasing one game in half a year for promotion was good enough. Now that they have more money, their shortcomings of "lack of experience" have been exposed.
However, when LL was actually released, those previous questioning voices gradually weakened.
Replaced by—
"Amazing! Pokeni's promotion this Time is simply divine."
"It should be said that the promotion strategy and the game product complement each other perfectly, working seamlessly."
"Yes, the game product is great."
"CL and LL are truly like a person and their shadow, independent yet mutually accomplishing. Any single game could become a classic and move players to tears, but together they unleash astonishing power.
It's simply terrifying.
What kind of divine person could come up with two such games and release them one after another?
Furuhara Tsubaki, truly a remarkable game Producer."
"Yes, the game promotion seems incredible, but it's all because the product is like this. Precisely because these two games complement each other and form a resonance effect, the promotion naturally has to adapt to the specific situation.
I now retract my statement that Pokeni's operations team doesn't understand games.
Pokeni's game operations team, including the President, are simply a group of divine people!"
"Without two such game products, one wouldn't dare to adopt such a promotion strategy. From this, it can be seen that Pokeni's internal structure is truly solid.
The operations team, without a deep understanding of games and extreme confidence in their own games, would not be able to adopt such a promotion strategy.
Facts prove that product and operations truly complement each other.
Pokeni, this game company, is divine."
...
Aoki Haruhi, using two games, profoundly taught a lesson to his industry peers.
Countless companies, inspired by CL and LL, had many new ideas—
Oh, so games can be made like this.
Oh, so complementary cores can form such a powerful effect.
Although it's in the galgame field, it seems this model can also be extended to other areas.
But how exactly to apply it, everyone hasn't figured it out yet.
Among those deeply affected were not only Hiruta Masato and Kojima Hideo in the galgame field, but also Hironobu Sakaguchi of Square.
He had been contemplating the final fantasy series for many years, always troubled by its lack of continuity and resonance, and at the same Time, worried that too deep a plot connection would deter many players from starting new entries.
However, now seeing CL and LL, he was deeply shaken.
"So games can be made like this!"
Hironobu Sakaguchi's eyes sparkled.
Even though CL and LL had completely different character designs and story plots, players deeply felt the intrinsic connection between them; this strong mutual pulling relationship was simply wonderful.
But...
Damn it!
How to apply this model to his own games?
Although Hironobu Sakaguchi was deeply shaken and inspired, he also scratched his head in frustration, because his mind only had some scattered points of light, and no concrete threads to integrate them.
Inspiration flashes and is gone; if you don't grasp it, you might never find it again!
Damn it!
Hironobu Sakaguchi frowned and scratched his head.
My head itches so much, it feels like I'm about to grow a brain!
Please Support me by becoming my Patreon member and get 20+ chapters.
[email protected]/Ajal69
change @ with a
Thank You to Those who joined my Patreon