Otogirisō — stories left

On attempting to attract new audiences, Chunsoft developed a simplified game where the player only chose various narrative branches via menu options to progress the story, later describing this type of game as a "Sound Novel".

The game's director Koichi Nakamura had previously been involved with the development of the first three Dragon Quest games, and recalled that he was dating a girl at the time who did not play video games.

Programmer Manabu Yamana said prior to the idea of the sound novel, the team attempted a game that would contain elements of Dragon Quest, Sim City (1989), and Populous (1989) which he said "didn't work at all."

He said that would make a game "anybody could pick up, and maybe it would also lead them to playing other games in the future.

Nakamura said the stories in Otogirisō ended up getting larger than they had initially imagined, making it difficult to test to make sure the narrative flowed appropriately and that sound effects went off at the correct time in the story.

Nakamura said that it was easy to get funds to become a publisher at the time due the bubble economy of Japan at the time.

The game was described as selling "quite high" in Japan by Rik Haynes of Super Play, Nakamura said the game initially shifted about 120,000 units.

Chunsoft said the release would be postponed in October and re-announced in February 1999 that the game would be released on 25 March.

Nakamura said in interview from 2006 that the PlayStation version of the game sold around 100,000 copies.

For the original Super Famicom release, the four reviewers in Weekly Famitsu said that Otogirisō will be very divisive and found it difficult to evaluate.

Yutaka Noguchi of Weekly Famitsu later commented on the game, writing that it had simple graphics which made it an "unusually restrained production".

Bag Koji said it was his choice of the top game in the Sound Novel Evolution trilogy.

In a review of Banshee's Last Cry in 1994, a reviewer in Famicom Tsūshin said that there have been many games inspired by Otogiriso, but most were just re-hashes.

While games described as novel-styled games had existed on PCs in Japan since ' (1988), Koyama said that Otogirisō and Chunsoft's Banshee's Last Cry were the two works that had a direct influence on contemporary novel-styled games.

Academic Ko On Chan said that this style used in Otogirisō and Banshee's Last Cry allowed for more text on screen which intensified the experience of reading through sound effects and illustrations.

Jiro Ishii, a game developer who worked on Chunsoft's 428: Shibuya Scramble (2008), said that Otogirisō created a new structure for adventure games called the "loop structure".

This game sold more than 300,000 copies, and in 1999 it was ported to the PlayStation as well as adapted into a manga and a novel.

In the Cross Review feature of the magazine Famitsu,the four reviewers gave 6, 6, 7, and 6, for a total of 25 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine,it scored 23.45 out of 30, as shown below.

This score placed it 28th among all Super Famicom titles (323 titles in total, as of 1993).

In addition, in the "Best 30 by Category" printed at the end of the "Super Famicom All Catalog '93", a special supplement to the 1993-8 information issue of SUPER FAMICOM Magazine, it took No. 28 overall, No. 10 for music and sound effects, No. 30 for controls, and No. 7 for originality.

The game sold around 300,000 copies.

The game was described as selling "quite high" in Japan by Rik Haynes of Super Play, Nakamura said the game initially shifted about 120,000 units.

The game eventually shipped over 300,000 units.

Nakamura said in interview from 2006 that the PlayStation version of the game sold around 100,000 copies.

On attempting to attract new audiences, Chunsoft developed a simplified game where the player only chose various narrative branches via menu options to progress the story, later describing this type of game as a "Sound Novel".

The game's director Koichi Nakamura had previously been involved with the development of the first three Dragon Quest games, and recalled that he was dating a girl at the time who did not play video games.

It became the first game published by Chunsoft themselves, having relied on companies such as Enix previously.

In the book History of the Japanese Video Game Industry, published in 2023, Yuhsuke Koyama wrote that while many adventure games were released in the late 1980s in Japan, the number of titles had rapidly decreased following 1989 with only a few mystery-themed games or games featuring characters from manga and anime being released.

On its release for the Super Famicom, reviewers in Weekly Famitsu found the game difficult to review, but recommended it for adventure game fans.

Nakamura said the stories in Otogirisō ended up getting larger than they had initially imagined, making it difficult to test to make sure the narrative flowed appropriately and that sound effects went off at the correct time in the story.

For the original Super Famicom release, the four reviewers in Weekly Famitsu said that Otogirisō will be very divisive and found it difficult to evaluate.

As for how this game came about, Chunsoft initially considered making an RPG, but could not realize it because of capacity problems.

The game's director Koichi Nakamura had previously been involved with the development of the first three Dragon Quest games, and recalled that he was dating a girl at the time who did not play video games.

While finding the release closer to a novel than a video game, he praised Otogirisō, saying that no mater how it is received, the release takes a step forward in game design and that alone took courage.