Nandemonai

*Ahem* We need more people (especially since I'm slow) but I am working on the h-scenes. The project desperately needs editors.

The 3/31 date is for the Japanese release. The English version is marked "TBA". I would be very surprised if we got a day-and-date simultaneous (or near enough) release.

I think at least one of their 100/100 secret projects (they have two) will be revealed to be the April release at Anime Boston.

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." [hides]

Not having played it myself, all I can say is such features are commonly (but not always) locked until after you've beaten the game for the first time.

I hereby dub this the oppai-r-squared rule!

They did more than that. If I'm not mistaken (and I could be, my Japanese isn't the greatest) they said the English version "had already been delivered". In which case, they kind of have to announce it at Anime Boston because they probably plan on releasing it soon after.

Most of the endings are short offshoots of the main line. The Just use a FAQ for the true ending. Everyone does. It's so damn obscure. Other than that, whenever Okabe says "I should make a call" to do something important, but doesn't actually do it, save. One of the choices will get you an ending, the other will keep going.

Missed the bit about Gaiden. That'll teach me to post when I'm hungry. In that case, I'll bet it's one of the secret projects that's nearing completion. After all, that's what happened to the original Funbag Fantasy (when it was announced, it was already almost done.) Edit: The Japanese does indeed say that the English version of Gaiden is already done. So there's that. That's gotta be the one project that started out at 100/100 (not the one that hit 100/100 a week or two ago).

That's almost certainly one of their upcoming announcements, but it can't be one of their secret projects. Releasing a hard copy of a game you've translated already doesn't involve translating or editing anything. All six of the secret projects have a TL and edit percentage. So they must be new games. But we can expect at least one as-yet-unannounced hard copy at some con where they've got a panel.

You guys know that there is a typo in your sample video, right? And it's at the very beginning, so it's freeze-framed into the YouTube embedded player.

The exercises serve a purpose. People learn by repetition. That's why in grade school, you covered the same basic material in Math and English class year after year. Sure, it got a little harder and more advanced every year, but the main thing was to drill the subjects into your head by sheer repetition. I would not recommend skipping the exercises, or you'll have a harder time remembering how all the grammar items work.

11eyes was a fan patch, though. If it'd been a real release, then it would be surprising. Fan patches bear no relation to how well the companies are doing; I'm pretty sure there's a fan patch or two for games from long-dead companies.

If you have the time, find a good community college and sign up for courses. That's what I did. Try to find one that uses native speakers. You'll have to do homework, which is annoying. But if you have a small class and a good teacher, you'll get a lot out of it. And it will be way cheaper than paying for private lessons (which you can do, but I don't recommend unless you have a lot more money to throw around than I do). In between that, and having been learning kana for awhile, and picking up bits from anime over the years, I did okay. Not great, but okay. It wasn't the fastest way to go, but it was easy enough that I could make it work for me. Trying to go all in works for some people; not for me.

Also, be aware that "writing quality" is highly affected by the quality of the translation. Kanon and Fate/Stay Night were both fan translated. I haven't played either, so I can't comment on the translation quality; but I wouldn't be surprised if they were not very good. (Grisaia was professionally done, but I haven't played it yet either.) Poor localization can turn a great game into a terrible one. I'd recommend Gakhthun, Steins;Gate, and Demonbane. They all have a very high reputation and the localization is very good.

I admit that kanji are the bane of my existence, and it's easy to miss something in a sea of kanji I can't read. But I don't see anything saying 1800万円 anywhere. Which one of these entries is a ramen shop? They must have damn good ramen, and very understanding owners, to run up a tab that high ...

I think even Clockup categorize this as a nukige. I also disagree. It's very close to the line, but I don't think it quite manages to cross it. As for the story itself, I liked it quite a bit, but it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I did not think the true end was handled well at all. Too much that happened in the end was glossed over. They played a little too loose with the sci-fi. Characters behaved in foolish ways without any real motivation, because if they didn't there was no way the writers could get out of the corner they'd written themselves into. And their attempts to make Nemu sympathetic largely didn't work for me. That said, I don't think Euphoria would be good sequel material. A fandisc to resolve some of the plot, maybe. But a full-on sequel? No, I don't think so. The threads that were left open aren't very good sequel material. There are interesting stories that could be told, but those stories would be very in different genres. Imagine a James Bond sequel, done in the style of a John Grisham movie involving complex legal wrangling over Bond's prior escapades, in which Bond appears for only a few minutes and doesn't even pull his gun. That might be interesting, but it's too different from what came before. It's a hard sell. The core story is over. Trying to add to it isn't really going to work, because all that's left is the plot about the evil corporations and a sleazy cabal of the rich and powerful. The thing is, that was always background material. The game avoided it as much as possible. And whenever it had no choice but to talk about that, they glossed over as much of it as possible and handwaved the rest away with "don't even think about messing with them, count your blessings they let you walk away." The heart and twisted soul of the story lay elsewhere, and those things wrapped up in the game. So you're left with two bad choices. One, a sequel about the side plots (the conspiracy and evil tech companies), and that likely works about as well as trying to make a Kara no Shoujo spinoff about Moon World (the cafe). The other, a lame rehash, 'look what the bad guys are up to again', where basically the same plot happens again, only the school has a different name and the characters are a bit different. Neither one of these works terribly well.

I can understand "once burned, twice shy", but Hourglass of Lepidoptera had far worse issues. Its problems were less Japanese VA being pushed on the Kickstarter, and more that SRL was straight up dishonest. They were the partner from hell to work with. Paying for astroturf Steam reviews can get not just your game blackballed, but the whole publisher too. It's a total dick move, too, because everybody knows this is true, and yet they did it anyway. While that was what Sekai cited as the reason they had no choice but to terminate the relationship, I'm highly skeptical it was the only misbehavior SRL got up to. Because we already know them to be of questionable character, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to hear SRL had been lying to Sekai Project (probably about how much the rewards would cost) and that's a large part of why those rewards were so long in coming. In that light, the VA would just be another broken promise from SRL: Given what else we know they've done, I can easily believe they lied and significantly low-balled how much it was going to cost. Then when they actually had to put up or shut up, they had a lot of trouble. Sure, this would be very foolish and short-sighted, but it's not really any more so than astroturfing Steam.

Good for you. You probably won't want to back this, then. However, it's kind of weird that you would act surprised and indignant that a feature many people in the community are known to care strongly about would feature prominently in their sales pitch.

Deardrops and Kira Kira are set in the same world. There are 4 games: Kira Kira and its fandisc (Kira Kira Curtain Call), and then Deardrops, and finally a crossover fandisc where the casts of Kira Kira and Deardrops put on a show together (d2b VS Deardrops -Cross the Future-). All 4 have been released by MangaGamer. My understanding is that Kira Kira and Deardrops are completely seperate, other than maybe a cameo or two. Apparently d2b VS Deardrops ties off the whole continuity or something; but I've never played any of the games. They're all on my list.

It's a horror VN with character development and romance. It's both. Make of that what you will.

Uh, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement that you can't remember the name of your favorite character from the game

Yeah, I would look into the cause of the file mysteriously disappearing. That shouldn't happen. If you can't figure out a cause, then you might want to check your system for infection or hardware issues. Files shouldn't randomly disappear from your machine.

Hah. I think I'll take you up on that, @Darklord Rooke. Meanwhile, I guess it's time for a new status update post. A month to the day after I posted the last one saying six weeks was too long in between updates. Aaarglbaaargl. In January, Ryechu decided it had been too long since he started working on it, and so he decided to start fresh. (That is, start over.) He has, uh, not gotten as far as he had the first time. Consequently, the project is now 5.2% edited. (Confession time, this is the reason I didn't post terribly frequent updates in the last few months. I was attempting to avoid posting a congress update.) Thank you, @Ryechu, for agreeing to spend your free time on this. It's just a shame it turned out you don't actually have any. Best of luck, I know you're crazy busy.

Da Capo 1 was one of the first titles ever translated by MangaGamer. Back in the bad old days when they had non-English-native translators. I recommend staying the hell away from it. Haven't gotten into Da Capo 2. I hear it's much better. My own experience with Da Capo 1 soured me on it pretty badly, badly enough I haven't actually tried DC2 yet. Been meaing to.