Nandemonai

I've been around for awhile, long enough that I remember the types of games that got officially translated in the late 90's. There were a handful of gems in that era (like Eve Burst Error and Nocturnal Illusion) but also a huge pile of really bad nukige. Bad by 1998 standards nukige. Any of the following have pretty much no entertainment value whatsoever: This game has everything: terrible writing, uninteresting characters, really short, bad plot, and just being really old and awful. I think it's the first yurige ever officially translated, but there's a reason nobody remembers it: https://vndb.org/v1189 SLGs are rare nowadays; they died out because they're terribly repetitive. This one straight up lies to you about its own mechanics, telling you sex training the maids is optional. It isn't. The only way to get money is forcing the maids to service men who randomly show up and demand to sleep with them, because they'll pay. If you've trained the maids 'correctly'. At the end, if they aren't trained well, you get ragged on for doing a bad job by the same character who told you it was optional: https://vndb.org/v11014 This game at least tries to be funny, but between the generic badness of the story, the cast of 100% stock characters, and the awful wooden localization (which was standard for h-games back then), it's pretty dire: https://vndb.org/v1444 One of G-C's first releases took several really old plot-what-plot games from way back in their back catalog (from back when really short pointless sex games were standard, because games with plot hadn't been invented yet) and stitched them into this. None of the scenarios are interesting, and the whole thing was already too dated to be hot 15 years ago: https://vndb.org/v159

You literally know that's literally not true and you're literally wrong, right? Sekai does do a lot of Kickstarters but they also release a lot of games without KS. They release a lot of games, period. As for this Kickstarter, it seems to me to be a way for MangaGamer to gauge how much demand there really is for the project. If their project pulls in five hundred dollars, it's probably not worth spending more than the bare minimum. If it pulls in five hundred thousand dollars, well, that would be a sign that a lot of people are really interested in this project.

Unfortunately that wasn't real progress. I somehow did my math wrong. I've updated the previous update to have the correct figure (which is a third smaller than it was before ) and here's the new figure: 39.2%

SakuraGame sold a game that was so poorly handled, that they had simply run the whole script through Google Translate. Script commands and all. The resulting script bore only a passing resemblance to something the game's engine could actually execute, so naturally it would crash early on. I don't remember which game that was, or if it was ever fixed. But that's pretty powerful evidence that they do not, in fact, edit their work at all.

I work in software myself. Their explanation makes perfect sense to me. They fell victim to one of the classic blunders: They made a risky change (upgrading a version in their script compiler) that they thought was a mostly-harmless change. Because it was right before the games were supposed to release, they said 'we just need to do a quick check and make sure nothing broke' when what they really needed to do was another full runthrough of the game. Why would they do this? Because their tests are still manual. Someone has to manually play the game and check for untranslated lines. This is another of the classic blunders. Something like checking for untranslated lines, or checking to make sure that there are no 'orphaned' parts of the script (lines that exist in the data but the engine never actually displays), can and should be automated. Anytime a build is generated, those checks should be run automatically. This is a bit more expensive to develop up front (because you have to write the tools to run these tests, and the infrastructure to do it automatically) but it saves a lot of QA effort, and avoids humiliating incidents like these. So they made a risky change they didn't realize was risky, and it blew up in their faces. Okay, fine. There's nothing out of the ordinary about this. It happens. And they can't revert the change, because it would cause even less acceptable issues. Also nothing unusual. Then they discovered fixing it requires rewriting the game engine, which is riddled with inline assembler (ugh!), and is generally a pain in the ass. Again, there's nothing unusual about this. There's two things about this that get me. First, Sekai's QA processes are clearly insufficient. The game should never have gotten out of the door like this. They need better tools and processes so they don't do so much manually. Each project needs to build a button that fires off a test to find out whether there are any untranslated lines. And they need to push that button every time they make any change. Second, this is Sekai Project being Sekai Project again: You must have known this weeks ago ago, guys. This happened right before Christmas, they might not have even started looking at it until early January, then it takes a while to really understand the problem. Then it takes a while to realize 'no, this isn't a quick fix'. By this time it's probably around mid-January. So why was it only announced this week? Look. Everybody makes mistakes. Bugs happen. But there's no excuse for not announcing this as soon as they knew what the root cause was. This is like them announcing they'd talk about Maitetsu 18+ at a con, then not doing it, and then leaving it hanging for months.

Color me impressed. Not only are they saying they approve of fan translations, but that they'll give you the game data so you can work on it? I've never heard of anything like this before. This is great.

I enjoyed Vol. 1 less than Nekopara Volume 1 (which I describe as 'it mostly manages to not be boring'; to me the first Nekopara is basically the definition of average), but I did kinda sorta enjoy it. It played fast and loose with the plot - the developments at the end seemed kind of abrupt and poorly paced - but it just barely managed to keep me engaged. Then I played the beginning of Vol. 2. And it was terribad. The cliffhanger at the end of Vol. 1 is resolved by really ludicrous retcons, ass-pulls, and deus ex machinae. I completely lost immersion in the story after that, closed the game, and never looked back. I expected this approach would continue - never mind sensible story development, the end of vol. 2 would probably throw some BS curveball out of left field to keep people coming back, then volume 3 will come up with whatever lazy asspull ex machina is the most convenient way to get out of it. Some of the spoilers I heard from people discussing the game here essentially confirmed I wasn't too far off base. So, yeah, not terribly interested in this Momoiro Closet.

After I enjoyed Corona Blossom so much that I quit playing as soon as I read the opening scene of volume 2, uh, I have no plans to so much as look at this until after reviews are out.

If you can play untranslated games, then play all of them. If not, Koihime Musou is the only one in English right now.

Steins;Gate. Demonbane. Saya no Uta. Tokyo Babel. Shadows of Pygmalion. Littlewitch Romanesque. Eve Burst Error. 999/Virtue's Last Reward. Hotel Dusk. Chaos;Head. Koihime Musou. Kara no Shoujo.

I've never liked kuuderes / expressionless-types. They're empty shells that run afoul of the eight deadly words. Stupid characters have to be handled carefully or they'll really get on my nerves. I find idol culture twisted and kind of morally repulsive, so I'm not a big fan of idol characters either; there's this undercurrent from the baggage just of being an idol that makes my skin crawl. Also, I'm really not a fan of abusive or co-dependent relationships. A lot of these stock characters can easily slide in there. Manipulative, sadistic, or arrogant, for example, can go there. The kind of hyper-aggressive tsundere you find in (say) Love Hina, where they'll beat him up (literally) over things they know aren't his fault, definitely goes there. And yandere / yangire needs to be very carefully handled for the same reason.

That isn't really a problem, because localization doesn't normally work that way. Rights are typically sold off by language and region. Note that of all the games Hikari Field licensed, exactly one of them is getting an English version. Moonstone has a relationship with MangaGamer, and that relationship is working out extremely well for them. Every one of Moonstone's 4 english-translated games is very popular. So unless Moonstone doesn't know how to negotiate contracts, they still have the rights to give to MangaGamer. I'd say that the game actually has good odds of getting licensed, even if Magical Marriage Lunatics somehow bombs (which I very much doubt). Sales of Supipara volume 2 and Trinoline will probably be enough to push Volume 3 over the finish line.

I thought Kouryuu fan translated Koihime, not Soul Link. But yes, basically any fan translator who is actually any good, and wants to go pro, can do so. As for #4, I don't think it's ever happened. I cannot think of a single case where either a licensor, or the original Japanese rightsholder, issued a C&D, and the fan translators ignored the C&D and released the game anyway. Several projects have been killed by C&D. One of the most notable was Aroduc's hilariously ill-conceived attempt to Kickstart a fan translation. That one actually attracted a DMCA, and Kickstarter yanked it. (The original project page is blanked out by Kickstarter, but there is in fact a Wayback version here: wayback). Since nobody has been crazy enough to continue and release a patch after a C&D has been issued, we haven't seen the aftermath. Sooner or later someone will decide to push their luck, and we'll see what happens. Legally, this would be a very dicey proposition. Suing someone in a foreign country is a massive hassle. A real lawyer can tell you more, but generally, if you sue them in your country, the judgement's basically worthless. And if you sue them in their country, you have to actually go there and show up in court, which costs a fortune and is a royal pain in the ass. These companies are typically small and can't really afford to file that kind of lawsuit. Practically speaking, a rightsholder can use the DMCA, or similar processes, to demand that a patch get taken down, or that an FTL website be removed from the internet. But that's generally going to be the limit of what they can get away with.

Says the man who admits he's never even seen Azumanga Daioh.

Sekai never struck me as a company that doesn't care about the games they release. They're terrible at public relations (witness their latest bon mot about Root Double on Vita), and they've had a couple of recent slip-ups in regards to TL quality, and they seem to struggle with too many projects and not enough people to run them. But we know the modus operandi of companies that don't give a shit: they just do a crappy job and release the game anyway. They don't bother delaying projects for a long time, like Sekai has done. They just release a steaming pile, and maybe kinda sorta fix it later. They also don't launch Kickstarters for games. Those are a pain in the ass, they involve a lot of extra work, and generate a lot of really picky and demanding customers. And if a game needs a Kickstarter, that's a sign that it hasn't got enough market potential to be worth it to them anyway. Or, put another way - Maybe you don't have to do a quality release if you already got the Kickstarter money. But remember: A good reputation takes years to build, but only moments to destroy. If you ever want to get more Kickstarter money, you can't expect to half-ass it the first time. Despite all of Sekai's problems, I have exactly once gotten a vibe from them that they said 'eh, fuck it' and released something they clearly shouldn't have (that would be Leyline, naturally).

Dysfunctional relationships are a real turnoff. I feel like if Ai were a guy people would be calling it toxic, creepy, and weird. As for the topic, sure, moege have improved my life. Some of them are quite fun. And I get to read a topic like this, with only the choicest, saltiest posts from people who seem to be under the impression that moege are the Seven Seals, and if you read too many of them then Evil shall befall you.

You forget nukige. Imouto Paradise is chock full of all the overused tropes and juvenile sexual fantasies, and it is definitely not a moege.

This thread's been active for an hour and nobody's mentioned Steins;Gate yet? For shame! Then I will!

Nobody opposes censored releases. (Well, okay, some people do. They're crazy.) What people oppose are censored only releases. People give MoeNovel well-deserved flack because of their plans to not give people the choice to read the versions they want to read, and the condescending and insulting ways they've gone about this. I want them to stop. If they won't, I want them to go away and let other people release the games instead. I don't want the games not released at all. I don't want them released like this. None of this in any way reflects badly on you; you should read what you want to read. Just don't try to tell me that I shouldn't read what I want to read too. No, MoeNovel's "mistakes" (which aren't mistakes because they were deliberate) are not "just nitpicking".

Well, the ordinary writing world doesn't work this way. Random House and MacMillan and all the others do not edit author's manuscripts for them. They certainly employ editors, who do in fact edit manuscripts. But editors don't rewrite them. Instead, an editor's job is to read the work, and identify everything that need to be tweaked to make the script better. Then they send back a pile of feedback to the author, who then rewrites the book themselves. Fan translation projects do this not because it's a good way to work, but because it's the best they can do with what they've got.

Agreed. The fundamentals are the fundamentals because without them, you have nothing. The people involved do not have the best track record on those fundamentals. We'll have to see.

On Reddit people found that they had a preview image for a sixth game up. It's gone now, but it was supposedly for this game. (They numbered their images 1.jpeg, 2.jpeg, etc. and then left 6.jpeg accessible.)

You have one opportunity to make a first impression. It's never a good sign when someone blows it in an easily avoidable way, like not having an editor go over the first thing people see when they go to your website. "Under the slogan" is not really a thing, and the bit under "What do we do" is a run-on. Their announcement is also rife with poor word choices and stuff that's too wordy and reads poorly. None of these, individually, are all that bad. But they imply a lack of attention to detail, and that is bad. That's very bad. I'm also concerned that TheChuee's defense of the work on HoshiMemo isn't "here are the reasons why the review is wrong / takes things out of context/ out of proportion" but essentially "ehh, who gives a shit?". Edit: That first part was me not quite understanding that TheChuee was commenting on something someone else did. He didn't do that. I apologize to him, and have edited out the offending reference.

Sure sounds to me like what happened is Ixtl signed a contract that turned out to have some hidden catches in it, one of those catches being that Degica won't simply hand over the Steam app to them. I will also note that if Ixtl was happy with the way things had turned out, that contract likely would have been renewed. But beyond that, we don't know, and likely never will.

I'm going to be a sarcastic wiseass and say "A good English translation"