The Controversial History Behind Compile Heart

Compile Heart is a developer who is perhaps best known for Hyperdimension Neptunia and moe-based games in general. They are owned by a larger company under the name of Idea Factory, which has multiple labels for otome and male-oriented games. Before you go ahead and dispute that title, let me explain that I am not personally upset with them in any form, but they have experienced a wide range of controversies over the years dating back to their founding in the late 2000s and still continues to this day. Out of everything I’ve seen, I have witnessed a lot of hatred toward them from both parents and politicians, particularly from Common Sense Media. That’s a topic I’ve wanted to explore.

I won’t touch upon its history or evolution, just the reasons behind the criticisms they’ve experienced over the years. Let me get to the main point and you can probably guess from the first pointer as it’s the most ambitious one.

1. Inappropriate Content

Compile Heart often leans into sexual territory with their games, even trying to benefit from it. We’ve all heard these discussions from parents and politicians about morally objectionable content, and our own parents didn’t want us stepping into that territory when we were young. They have been at the center of that argument, and kids shouldn’t be doing any of the fanservicey content their games feature in real life. One of the most notorious things their games often feature is these “touching minigames”, and the characters involved are often teens. In MPAA rating descriptors, the suffix “some or all involving teens” is often appended at the end if media contains these.

Even the Australian Government, namely the Australian Classification Board, took a public stance against their games, citing their impact on youth. I can’t go too far but the sexy scenes their games feature have raised concerns over the years. It’s caused many parents and politicians to dislike Compile Heart and those involved in creating their games. It doesn’t stop here – many of their games ended up getting chopped to bits in terms of edits for certain regions. Multiple companies, including Sony and Valve, laid the ban hammer on some of their projects.

2. Quality and Repetitive Gameplay

To be clear, this involves the gameplay and quality of their games. This is a major problem in a lot of their titles; the gameplay mechanics are not user-friendly, it’s very easy to get lost, forcing players to use guides on where they need to go, and balancing issues. Not to mention, no game other than Hyperdimension Neptunia has been successful; many of their games, particularly under the Galpogos label, have not been a hit in their own right.

The battle systems have been a major source of this, one common complaint is overrelying on combo traits to make standard attacks more powerful than special moves. This ends up leading to a lack of depth, where players can exploit specific combo setups rather than exploring different strategic options.

3. Dungeon Travelers 2

My next reason behind their hatred had to be one of their lesser-known games, being the infamous Dungeon Travelers 2. Unfortunately, this is a very touchy subject to talk about as it involves sexually graphic material found within that game. The series is a spin-off of the To Heart series of visual novels, which are already eroge (erotic games targeted at adults). There is one scene where a female character uses what appears to be a phallic object. This was present in the original Japanese version of the game.

I do want to mention that this scene is not accessible in the international versions of the game. During the localization process, that was a major nightmare as if it were left in there, it would have caused it to get an NC-17 rating. It ended up catching the ire of Sony, and all they had to do was not include that sort of explicitly graphic material in the first place. If a game you’re making gets slapped with an Adults Only (AO) rating from the ESRB, that is a death sentence as most major retailers will not stock games with that rating, and neither will any of the major console manufacturers license such games.

In fact, this was one of the worst things they’ve ever done in any game, and it definitely compounds with the first reason, making it worse.

4. Franchise Milking

Compile Heart has been known for releasing new installments on a regular basis. Many games take time to complete, but as of the writing of this article, Hyperdimension Neptunia has had 20 entries released, plus a 21st game in development. If a series gets released yearly, be prepared to shell out $60 for that game, plus make sure you have enough time to complete it so you can be ready for the next one. Since the series has been strong, they’ve been relying on it for so long.

Creating a huge game requires a large amount of time and resources. Sometimes, it’s easier to release content as they are being developed. It doesn’t matter if the game becomes a hit or not. I guess time will tell.

Outro

How do you feel about Compile Heart? Are you bothered by their past controversies, or how do you feel about the newest ones?