Quote:
Originally Posted by Balzac
This leads me to wonder: are there varying production staff for each of Alcot's games? It seems their qualities rise and fall with the years. (or the seasons) It may have something to do with writers, or the staff, or both.
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There are definitely different production teams, and particularly different writers. For example, Honey Comb's latest
Aete Mushisuru Kimi to no Mirai ~Relay broadcast~ was written by the same writer who did
Shunki Gentei Poco a Poco (and also
Kicking Horse Rhapsody).
1/2 Summer, though, was written by a different set of writers (who have worked on games for a bunch of different companies), and Aneiro a different set still (only one in common with 1/2 Summer). Now, Nakahito and Onigokko were written mostly by the same writers (minus one extra writer for Onigokko)... but just being written by the same writers doesn't necessarily guarantee that they'll keep out churning games that you like (or that every work they do will be an equal hit). Some of these writers are in-house writers (employees), and some of them are outsourced/contract writers, so you're not necessarily going to get total consistency between them. Also, the producers may exercise varying degrees of control over varying aspects of the work, and these sorts of things are always subject to personal taste as well.
So yeah, basically... I think buying by brand isn't necessarily going to be any sort of guarantee. You pretty much have to play the trials to see if you like the story. There are some brands that have certain key elements that are generally common through all their works, but even that isn't always the case. In this day and age, it's also inescapably true that some brands are churning out works faster than ever because they're living from game-to-game, so that increases the variability of the output too. Not all brands can afford to be like August -- years between releases but extreme consistency in terms of their products (to the point that some have accused them of being
too consistent and repetitive
).