Darklord Rooke

Introduction posted: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/blog/65-rookes-ramblings/ No information yet, just an introduction.

For those that don’t know, the other day some villains ambushed me and they gave me a task – to produce a writing critique of Sakura Spirit. This, they say, will entertain the masses and provide much mirth for those on Fuwa. It is a task I went into full of hubris. But first some background. Sakura Spirit is an English developed Visual Novel with extroadinarily pretty art, and yet it suffers from a horrible reputation. A reputation even more repulsive than those terribly translated, doujin, nukige abominations Mangagamer spews forth. The mere mention of this title produces hisses and insults from nearby people, reactions you’d usually only hear if you gatecrashed a teenagers party. Dressed in only a bathrobe and slippers. Shouting that it was past your child’s bed-time, you were here to collect them, and had anybody seen them? There’s very few people or institutions that could release something so aesthetically beautiful only to produce such disgust in the public, and my money’s on the Government. And so I went into this challenge supremely confident, reassured by the knowledge that the Government has never done anything right. I would be gifted a game that was completely horrid, and I would need to apply only a minisule amount of brainpower to produce a detailed critique. How misplaced a feeling this was! But onto specifics, why the uproar over such a beautiful looking game? Well, there’s 4 reasons: there’s no plot, it’s a game about sex but there is none, it’s an English developed visual novel with Japanese words and phrases sprinkled everywhere, and the writing is horrid. So the only positives to the game are the pretty art, and the fanservice. But surely gamers are a smart species, they wouldn't fork over good money just because of some large, oil-smeared boobs, am I right? That would be like watching NASCAR for the crashes, or watching a foreign film to laugh at the funny mistranslations in the subtitles. But I was wrong. Over 100,000 people own Sakura Spirit, and that’s more than the entire voting population of Aruba. And most of them appear to have thoroughly enjoyed themselves, if the review system on Steam can be taken at face value. Which it can’t. But here’s the thing, if a small indie studio can sell over a hundred thousand copies just by including some nice art, and sprites with reflecting boobs, then there’s no incentive to provide a decent story or good writing. Writing takes time, and good writing even more so, and if there's little monetary reward to head down that path then people won’t. But unlike Winged Cloud, Sekai Project is a production studio and DO have a professional reputation to maintain. In response to the uproar they made some apologetic sounds and issued some vague promises on Reddit. They said they asked Winged Cloud to “improve the grammar and writing” and have since “changed their QA procedure”. But despite their revamped QA procedure the situation repeated itself with Nekopara, another awfully pretty game that was obviously translated by the Government. This didn’t bode well for their first promise. So over the next few weeks (Fuwa time) I will analyse the game’s writing to find out how much it has improved, and what writing issues are still included in the script. Obviously they wouldn't have been able to shoe-horn in a plot, or much additional character development, but what have they improved and how bad is the writing in its current form? Is Sakura Spirit finally worth purchasing or is it still nothing more than a glorified erotic CG gallery… with no actual porn? That’s what we’ll find out.

While I used to read light novels, I was never really a fan of the prose found in them. And because they had nothing else to fall back on I prefer VNs.

Well when you’re talking about a competition between two plotless, pointless, crappily written/translated, only-exists-to-provide-fanservice games, the one with the better art will usually win. Especially when they cost the same. So you’d EXPECT Nekopara to win comfortably.

Hmmm, I was initially avoiding this because I had question marks over the writing. BUT I had a look at the trailer and it looks decent (can't really tell, it's hard to get a detailed impression from a trailer,) I'll have to give the demo a try. My interest has officially been piqued. Good luck with your campaign, 10,000 pounds is a lot of money to raise.

A really good question! A little off-topic (but not really,) is anyone else bored with the common words seen everyday, everywhere? The magic has gone out of expression . "Edited by Zakamutt, Today, 11:13AM" is just so boring a phrase, I'd much rather see something like "Zakamutt fiddled with his post inappropriately, Today, 11:13AM". ... Or maybe that's just me?

Thanks! This was pretty useful! It explains why it’s insanely popular, and also explains why I probably won’t like it (not really a fan of action-shounen anymore, or teenage angst, or ridiculously over-powered characters etc etc.) The impressions I've been getting were indicating it probably wasn't my type of game

Will be interested to hear your thoughts. I haven't played it yet, and I haven't decided whether I will either.

No

Try it and become addicted like the rest of us

Well, my initial impressions of the first... 20 lines or so are thus. I should note these are very shaky, they're just initial impressions. Writer states conclusions, not describe actions, which fails to produce an image and fails to get across a sense of time passing to the reader. This is a VERY common problem, and will affect the writer's ability to produce an image and manipulate pacing. Anybody can write engaging dialogue, you earn your writer stripes by writing engaging prose. Pointless info dump Opening scene may have no purpose

Zaka hit the head with the hammer. Huniepop is a dating sim/puzzle cross. It doesn't meet the requirements to be a visual novel. Play it if you like match 3 puzzle games, and dating sims (think Persona 3/4.) I'm a little embarrassed to say I'm addicted

Considering they sold so well with only art and boobs, they probably thought a writer wouldn’t bring in enough new customers to justify the cost This is VERY interesting, I’m gonna download an earlier version and highlight some comparisons. They're WELL worth highlighting. They’ve ironed out quite a few of the sentence structure issues, unfortunately they couldn’t touch the story and it looks like they haven’t fiddled with the style, but judging from the opening scene your brain no longer wants to explode reading it. It’s MUCH different to the earlier versions, Sekai must have leapt on them hard. BUT I promised an in-depth critique and that’s what you guys will be getting. I’ll just be spending a little longer talking about styles, story, and improvements they made, and a little less time ripping apart their sentences (that'll still be there, just not as much ) I promise to make it entertaining as well. Here’s something though, the prose in Sakura Spirit (as it stands today) looks much better than the prose currently in the demo version of Princess Evangile. Obviously I haven’t played a lot of either game, and that’s not taking style and story into consideration - just the state of the prose. But it’s an indication both how much they've improved, and the horrid current state of Evangile (I’ll be writing a review of that game, so it better improve or I’ll be annoyed.)

I'm out. Well... I had a good run at it, I'm happy with that

Good to see you back, I always wondered what happened to you. Looking forward to the translation project you'll be working on.

You get the most boring mail, Tay

The guy who does the backgrounds and Gui for the Sakura games is one of the most sought after artists in the OELVN industry. He's quick, reliable, and so very damn good. Everybody wishes they could afford him. http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=29801

Pfffft! I totally don't sound like that

Was this that April Fool's joke Zaka posted? http://blog.fuwanovel.net/2014/04/fuwanovel-to-become-real-translation-group-details-follow/

You da man, Nay! And you gave him a bitching new title too! You're just too nice

Dagnammit Tiag! XD

I should point out that when I asked for my username to be changed to "Darth Rooke," Tay just ignored it. I gave some very compelling reasons why my username should be changed too. Still bitter...

Dear random mod, please change this fella's name to LeBlanc. Thank you! Welcome LeBlanc, to the forums! I hope you enjoy your stay, smart-guy

What he said *points up* There's a partial patch floating around somewhere.