At least until Kadokawa issues a C&D.
Once upon a time, there was a web game named Kantai Collection. In this game, a player, known as an “admiral”, collected girls, known as “ships”, and put them into fleets to sail the high seas and blast enemies out of the water. And for what it was, it was damned good. Except that registration was limited to a small lottery and literally everyone wanted in.
Eventually, more and more people got into the user pool, including non-Japanese people who relied on tools to help translate the interface and act as a VPN. And for what it was, it was damned good. Except that it was still in Japanese.
Until now.
This changes everything.
I never played the original Kantai Collection, because in web games like this, unless you start at the launch of the server, you’re always behind. And even so, you’re always a little bit behind. So anyway, I was super excited to try out this version.
Except… What’s that? GoGames? Who the fuck are these guys?
Turns out, that’s a damned good question.
You see, there’s no information about the company anywhere on their site, and the only other game they published is a Bleach web game, which has been out for quite awhile. And judging by the tone of people in the forums, I’m not alone in wondering how legit this whole operation is.
With the game being in alpha, there’s no real harm in putting a little time in here and there, since it’ll all be wiped regardless of a C&D, so I decided to try it.
The game begins with us informing us that the game is not “Kantai Collection”, but “KanColle”, as if that’s enough to avoid lawsuits when they lifted the entire graphical and musical libraries of the original game.
Since they wanted us to test out all of the features (being in alpha and all), we got tons of free shit. Which was great, by the way. 10k gold went a lot further than I thought it would. It also ran out super quickly.
The main screen of the game is pretty much identical to Kantai Collection. Your waifu (Kongou for me, and I even Kai’d her, oh yeah) appears on the right while all of your gameplay options are on the left. As you can see, I have a lot of instant repairs and other shit because the game gave me way too much and I’m a hoarder. It doesn’t, however, give you nearly enough bauxite to maintain the rares and super rares they throw at you left and right.
Basically, you set up a squad of up to 6 girls (more is usually better, but the branching paths on the quests are sometimes better with 4 or 5, so you have to weigh that sort of shit), make sure they’re fuel’d and ammo’d up, and send them on their way.
Let’s go!!!
Aw yeah, if I go nodes A -> F -> G -> I -> J, I can totally do this!
Yeah! Shoot torpedos at their faces! Their scary, scary faces!
The battle system is totally passive after you select a formation, so you have to get lucky sometimes and hope you can survive multiple waves of enemies with much higher stats than you. Either that, or I just have the worst RNG in the world. Or maybe the game was just coded shittily. I wouldn’t put it past these ripoff creators.
Yes! One down, three to go! If I go that route, it is. The original game has some probability thrown in to determine routes, but this game does a straight if-then routine. By having only 5 ships instead of 6, I guarantee that I go down the route I want.
This can backfire. For example, on the expeditions, you’re supposed to need a “minimum” of certain numbers of certain ships in your fleet. The first requires two DD (destroyers). In this clone, if you have more than that, it fails you. I don’t even understand how that works logically.
Anyway.
All right; I made it to the boss! Come on, waifu! I’ll sing Teitoku no Kizuna (Kongou’s character song) as much as you want if you win this for me! I’ve been stuck here since like Sunday!
Fuck it all.
The great thing, though, is that when the girls get “sunk” or even just damaged, they show it very, um, creatively.
Awwww yeah.
Let’s go repair these chicks and get back out there to the fleet, shall we? We’ll click on over to repair and put them in the slots and then…
Okay, I guess it’s the type of game to make you wait for shit. Let’s put my beloved Kongou in there once these finish and…
Fuck. That. Shit.
So, uh, obviously the game has flaws, and I guess that’s what all the instant repairs were for. But I guess it can’t be too bad if I played enough to be ranked in the top 10 players on the server, right?
Rating: 10/10 give me beta now.
Other then the “minimum” number of ships also being a “maximum”, any other issues you ran into during your run though their alpha?
They have the same setup, options, selections as the jap version?
Just the poor routing in the actual quests, being if-then instead of probability. There were a few bugs requiring me to refresh the page, but they were just “Your flagship has been damaged, returning to base”, so it would act as a refresh anyway.
Since it’s an alpha, I’m going let the whole “Advanced Construction” thing slide, I can understand how veteran Kantai Collection players feel, it takes a lot to make a Yamato or Bismarck, none of which I’ve constructed yet.
Even so, the hate this adaptation has been receiving is a bit ill placed, due to it’s state as an alpha, I’m under the impression the servers will be wiped and all player stats reset, balancing will take place and bam.
All in all, it really shouldn’t have been too hard to tell Japan “Hey, here are examples of my previous works; I want to translate this game and broaden your horizons by allowing an English audience proper playability.” I might cost them more, but the traffic should more than make up for it they utilize ad revenue or something. Then, just put in a script that’ll demand adblock turned off, because you know, Adblock ruins the internet.
Yeah, we can’t test things that take a year or more to do, so it only makes sense. That said, I haven’t gotten a Yamato or Bismarck yet. T___T
I’ve heard rumors about the actual person behind this, and he’s a bit of an asshole. Again, they’re rumors and may not have basis in fact, but ehhh. Not a good reputation.
People are just pissed that it seems he hasn’t received permission from Kadokawa to make this. Companies can be really aggressive about their intellectual property.
Kadokawa has been quite stupid in not localizing this, so it’s their fault. By other hand playing with his attempt is risky in the sense that you can lost everything from a day to the next if Kadokawa decides to DMCA him. With all honestly though, I would just play and enjoy while it’s here. It’s right that it may cease to exist in the future but so what, at least we can enjoy for the time being.
I don’t think Kadokawa would accept to localize it even if they are offered a finished translation. Kadokawa has been quite bold in that they don’t want to release it and period. They don’t want to deal with other markets for the time being.
Just a random titbit of info.
Kancolle or 艦これ is actually a pretty common way to say kantai collection in short. I see it fairly often on nico douga. It is not like they thought the name on their own at all.