Clephas
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Posts posted by Clephas
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I've seen the AI-generated games that are popping up on DLsite, and I even played a few. My first thought after doing so was... boredom. They look beautiful and technically hit the fetish points of those trying to play them, but they somehow manage to be completely bland and soulless nonetheless.
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4 hours ago, LAsuka said:
Games are excessively long and padded out because writers are paid based on the number of lines they write.
Even if you feel "every scene is necessary" or if you feel the VN is too short, that's because the writer did a very good job masking the fluff, and making the fluff seem "integral" to the story, when in actual fact, it adds absolutely no value, and is the writer just pulling ideas from (for lack of a better term) his ass. But hey, if you thought the fluff was good, more power to you. The work exists for the reader, after all.
Translators are the ones paid by the word, symbols or lines. While there might be VN writers out there paid by the line, most of the time when someone hires a writer it is either based on time or by the project. The company either pays a by the hour salary for time spent in office on the project or a single lump sum to contract for the project. I have only been hired with a by word count on three occasions in the last twenty years, since it is usually a recipe for contract disputes on both sides.
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23 hours ago, Zalor said:
Interesting that you say that most VNs are too short. I feel like VNs are awfully padded out a lot of the time. Instead of showing us what's necessary, they'll beat us with the same SOL dynamics for ages and consider that "character development." That said, I completely agree with you on Dies Irae. I feel like Ange doesn't like the work (which in and of itself is fine), but used the video as an excuse to bash on it without sticking to the topic at hand.
I should also add that the writing in Dies Irae's fight scenes is superb and I couldn't disagree more with this take from the video. It's about one of the few VNs where I actually go back time to time and reread the fights.
His comment about plotge being too padded/long is the one I was referring to. Mindless SOL and repeated dating scenes are unnecessary fluff even in SOL games, because they often don't do anything for the character dynamics or character development, which is supposed to be the point. I tend to subconsciously ignore that type of VN now that I don't feel like I have to play them all the time.
Generally speaking, even in a romance SOL VN, you only need one or at the most two dating scenes that don't lead into drama or the conflict of the path. However, some companies (Yuzusoft comes to mind) include way too many date scenes (not to mention interminably long h-scenes), resulting in a lot of unnecessary padding. To be blunt, it might sound counter-intuitive, but I often thought of dating as non-SOL content, because (unless the characters are married or the characters have had numerous lovers) dating is a deliberate departure from daily life, a low-level stress-test for romantic relationships because 'dating' has been so beautified in anime culture.
Despite jokes about cutting Kasumi's path (a lot of fans make that joke), there is very little you could cut from Dies Irae without weakening it. Dies Irae is a detail-oriented VN in the sense that every detail has its place in the story, right down to the deliberately exaggerated personalities of the main characters on both sides of the conflict.
Similarly, I can't see a reason to cut anything out of Muv-Luv Alternative (though Muv-luv itself could have done with a major trim).
Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai and the other games by that company actually base their appeal an their extremely detailed romance from high school to full adulthood, developing the relationship and having numerous tribulations. In that sense, I give that company kudos, because it got them a solid fanbase. However, it doesn't appeal to the people who want 'quick in, quick out' SOL romances like Wagamama High Spec.
Another thing that needs to be accounted for is reading speed. Even in English, there are people who simply don't read that quickly and those who read excessively fast. For me, completing an 800 page paperback novel in six hours is normal, but for most people that is the work of weeks of scattered reading or several days of concentrated reading. The disparity is inevitably going to lead to differing opinions and preferences for VN length and narration styles.
Someone who takes ten minutes to read a page in a novel probably isn't going to like a narrated battle scene that goes on for the equivalent of forty pages. Whereas for me it is simply entertaining.
Not to mention those VN fans who work full time aren't going to have enough free time to really enjoy a VN like Dies Irae even if they have an average or slightly above average reading speed. For someone like that, the wordiness of a game like Dies Irae isn't something to relish but something that eats into their free time more than they think is necessary.
... why am I defending my opponents? Stupid fairness brain...
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To be honest, this isn't one of your better videos... Length preferences are entirely a matter of taste and most VNs are too short, not too long. A lot of VNs cut out stuff so that they have excuses to make fandiscs, after all.
To some extent, I can agree that Hoshi Ori is too long, but for a certain crowd (who want to follow the romance until they are in the grave) it is an attractive game.
Your comments on Dies Irae were malicious and excessive. It was like listening to a 4chan troll's rant. I also found it amusing you were comparing it to Fate/Stay Night, when the experiences are completely different except for the beginning. Instead of pointing out things that could have been cut out to shorten the game (which was supposedly the premise of the video), you immediately decided to bash it in general, which kinda defeats the point of including it in the first place.
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DMM does this periodically, thoroughly blocking foreign IPs for months at a time, easing the restrictions for a while, then doing it again. Honestly, I dunno why they do it... I mean, all it does is cost them business.
Edit: I do know that early on it was an attempt to disrupt the pirates, but most of the people who do the actual work of ripping VNs live in China (incidentally why so many pirated VNs have spyware and ransomware on them), Korea, Southeast Asia, or Japan... IP blocks don't help at all with the Japanese, and it barely slows the rest, since the ones ripping are hackers in the first place. It's a pretty pointless way of doing things.
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59 minutes ago, av-x0 said:
I'm looking for works fine h-code of Routes(DVD),Routes(CD),ToHeart2 XRATED.
I find 3 h-codes of Routes.I tried with ith and ithvnr.
One of h-code for Routes(DVD) /HS1C@476999 /KF will force the game to close.
And applying the code for the Routes(DVD) /HB14@47CA20/kf and the one for the Routes(CD) /HS1C@476999/KF results in an infinite loop of text.
I thought that agth would work, but I couldn't find agth software on the net anymore.
vnr didn't work and textractor couldn't apply the code.
ToHeart2 XRATED couldn't find H-code on internet.
I did as much as I could, but I'm at the limit of my ability. please help me.Have you tried Textractor yet? You can get agth by downloading Translation Aggregator, as it comes attached to that program.
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12 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:
That's a shame, really. But I wonder if it is a good opportunity for Western developers to rise. I'd say, a big problem with VNs right now is how limited they are with the plots they cover and how annoying some of the cliches are, but smaller companies are generally a lot more creative.
Mmm... The question of whether this might stimulate the Western market... yes and no is the short answer, in my opinion.
Yes, some people will spend more on EVNs and thus stimulate some people to make more... but it probably won't be as much as you might think. In my experience, many JVN addicts tend to outright ignore EVNs if someone doesn't insistently push them to play them. The reason why this is a problem from the opinion of someone who wants an outcome where the JVN crowd heads for EVNs is that there are a huge number of untranslated 'classics' and high-quality VNs in Japan. Ironically, in recent years, the most creative ones are the least likely to get a translation, which actually makes sense, since mindless SOL is the flavor of the month right now in the localization industry (because it is easy to read and easy to translate).
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15 hours ago, ShiningBird said:
I agree with you, the Japanese are rapidly releasing new visual novels. The demand in the west is not so great that there will be enough translators for all the novelties, there will be no one and nothing to pay them.
The AI idea is interesting, but it seems to me that we will not be able to see it very soonThe JVN industry in Japan is dying (except for nukige). There are entire months where there are no serious releases these days. Covid pretty much killed most of the minor companies and several of the major ones. This just accelerated the trend that began in 2019, as demand for SOL games, which were the bread and butter of the industry, started to fall rapidly with the lower buying power of the demographics that primarily consumed them.
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18 minutes ago, Satsuki said:
I actually don't, really. I mean, there are hundreds of VNs coming out every year. Even if you don't count low-price short nukige, we still have a massive backlog of VNs. Meanwhile, we have like, what, 5-6 localization companies capable of releasing fewer than 30 VNs in total a year (more like fewer than 20, actually...).
Long story short, localization works taking too long, and new VNs coming out too fast, plus the decades of backlog, so it's not at all a surprise that we still have a heck ton of untranslated stuff...
It's probably time for someone to train an AI specialized in translating VN already
I wonder how they'd even go about that, considering how varied the quality of Japanese to English translations are... Even if you provided every localized game and the original text as learning material, it probably wouldn't let it produce an accurate translation (though they'd probably also need to feed it high-quality prose in massive amounts to make it comprehensible).
More likely, you'd get something either slightly below or slightly above average, which isn't that high of quality either way... Though I imagine just cutting out the translation and editing staff would save a lot of money for localization companies... lol
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6 hours ago, ittaku said:
Not a bad summary, but you left out a massive reason they're not very profitable - piracy. People feel a sense of entitlement to porn, and also a degree of guilt with buying porn, so they pirate it instead. It's estimated there are 10x as many pirated copies of eroge compared to the number of units sold. Add a section of the community that is toxic and encourages piracy or discourages purchasing because they have some personal beef, and you've got a clusterfuck right there. Whilst pirating is rife in all media areas, eroge seems particularly bad, which makes it much worse when the profit margins are so slim now. VN translation is not a good business model, and virtually all the Western localisers do it because they're passionate about the medium, and most of the staff accept relatively poor pay for the same reason.
It is an issue, and one that doesn't really need to happen with localized VNs. To be blunt, compared to JVNs that haven't been localized, the prices are unbelievably cheap even in the most expensive cases. There is no excuse for pirating localized VNs... especially since sales on digital versions are a regular thing if you just wait.
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My list (ten):
Kamio Ami (Semiramis no Tenbin)- You don't mind being manipulated, as long as it is by a pretty girl.
Chitose (Silverio Vendetta)- You like functional yandere heroines and don't mind getting the shit beat out of you to make you a better person.
Belche (Draculius)- You like complex and layered relationships with women, especially ones where the woman serves multiple roles beyond wife and lover in your life.
Ritia (Evolimit)- You are willing to overlook a bit of cybernetic modification if it is for an adorable and kind-hearted girl who also happens to have the hobby of leading armies of young people against giant robots.
Kei (Dies Irae)- Being enemies doesn't mean much to you beyond spice to a relationship, and you have a thing for strong women with a serious fragile side.
Aria (Yurikago Yori Tenshi Made)- You don't mind patiently answering your partner's questions because figuring out her unique personal language is as intriguing to you as her body.
Velvet (Akeiro Kaikitan)- You like the quiet type, even if they seem a bit gloomy, and you have a bit of a savior complex.
Suzu (Ayakashibito)- You prefer to be as close as family with your partner, and the stronger that bond is, the better you feel about it.
Adelheit (Floral Flowlove)- You like taking care of your partner and the more hopelessly lazy they are, the more you like it. Her great singing voice and kind heart are just the cherry on top though.
Tonoko (Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no)- You prefer to be the more mature figure in the relationship, and you have a taste for girls that are smarter than you. If they are kind-hearted and sensitive, that only makes it better.
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Seija Musou's original WN and Ln were both high quality. It's questionable whether that will translate to the quality of the anime though.
Summer is mostly sequels and isekai for me... I didn't see anything especially interesting on the list otherwise. I am surprised they are reviving Bleach at this point, and I'll definitely watch the Kenshin remake (though the story hasn't aged that well).
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Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no - While some might say the setting is unrealistic, the romances in the main school routes are very emotional and impactful even given their situations. Every path stands on its own in the main school routes (the redheads in the branch school routes have related routes), and there is a tight focus on the relationship from the moment of the path split, with the relationship being slow burn early on in all three cases.
Gin'iro Haruka
Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai
Edit: To clarify, the best place to look for VNs with actual romance (vs harem guy gets to choose anyone) is VNs made between 2004-2014. To be frank, most of the supposedly romance-heavy VNs that came out after that were relatively low quality. Tone Works VNs stand out as an exception, as all of them have extremely good romance from beginning to end.
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Nitroplus is your bread and butter company for that type of game. All their games are kinda out there. However, Chaos; Head and Steins; Gate are the obvious ones for the Serial Experiments comparison.
Owaru Sekai to Birthday
Futagoza no Paradox
A bit farther out there is the ~rururu series by Smee, as in Harumade, Kururu and its successors.
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This thread has the answer to your question, but I'll go ahead and add something. Mono games generally split content across multiple threads and h-codes don't do anything because the proper threads are in a different place each time you open the game. I also suggest you use Textractor's Remove Hooks function to get rid of the extra hooks that don't have any usable text, or you'll crash your pc (this is from playing Zero myself).
Edit: also, slowdown of the game is pretty much inevitable if you use a text-hooker, unfortunately. I tried everything to figure out a way to stop that from happening, but gave up and just played without one in the end, simply because it was so annoying.
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Except for the first three, not in any particular order. Limiting it to fifty instead of a hundred though.
1. Belche- Draculius
2. Shigure Sora- Devils Devel Concept
3. Kamio Ami- Semiramis no Tenbin
4. Kaito- Akatsuki no Goei
5. Shannon Wordsworth- Evolimit
6. Kuki-sensei- Ayakashibito
7. Mercurius- Dies Irae
8. Ashley Horizon- Silverio Trinity
9. Zephyr Colerain- Silverio Vendetta
10. Veratyr- Silverio Ragnarok
11. Valzeride- Silverio Vendetta
12. Gilbert- Silverio Trinity
13. Ragna- Silverio Ragnarok
14. Narita Shinri- Hello, Lady
15. Shou- Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana
16. Ren- Karenai Sekai to Owaru Hana
17. Arcueid- Tsukihime
18. Rin- FSN
19. Maia- Hapymaher
20. Saki- Hapymaher
21. Yayoi- Hapymaher
22. Keiko- Hapymaher
23. Adelheid- Floral Flowlove
24. Souma Ria- Kin'iro Loveriche
25. Sylvia- Kin'iro Loveriche
26. Kanori- Minamijuujisei Renka
27. Tanizawa Tsukasa- Kanishino
28. Miyabi- Kanishino
29. Tonoko- Kanishino
30. Shino- Kanishino
31. Mimori Ichirou- Hatsuru Koto Naki Mirai Yori
32. Kazami Yuuji- Grisaia no Kajitsu
33. Sachi- Grisaia no Kajitsu
34. Kazami Kazuki- Grisaia no Kajitsu
35. Kaze no Ushiro ni Ayumu Mono- Jingai Makyou
36. Suu Sasamaru- Kitto, Sumiwataru Asairo Yori Mo
37. Okita Soushi- Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier
38. Ayame- Tenshi no Hane o Fumanaide
39. Suzu- Ayakashihibito
40. Soushichi- Ayakashibito
41. Cinema- Komorebi no Nostalgica
42. Fluorite Alvega- Komorebi no Nostalgica
43. Cactus- Ou no Mimi ni wa Todokanai
44. Kuro- Sakura, Moyu
45. Shinku- Irotoridori no Sekai
46. Celica Sylphil- Ikusa Megami series
47. Hime- Tiny Dungeon series
48. Toshirou Kashima- Vermillion Bind of Blood
49. Musumi Koutarou- Izuna Zanshinken
50. Kiritooshi Hiro- Yurikago yori Tenshi Made
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On 1/29/2023 at 8:56 AM, Templarseeker said:
Backing up the rec for Hollow. Easily the best game in the series. The protagonist, Leon is an experimental soldier/commander who was altered by the current leader of the demons to be a counter to divine forces. Game begins with him brutally suppressing a military rebellion.
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For Eushully, the ones that are fully translated aren't good choices for introducing the setting. Ikusa Megami Zero and Verita are the best intros, with Madou Koukaku coming a close third.
Vermillion Bind of Blood
The Silverio series
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Please clarify... I can't make a recommendation with just that.
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Tsundere annoyance is generally a matter of perspective and usage. Old-style tsundere usage is fairly stale and boring, and in that sense this VN hasn't aged well. However, the draw of this game is that it is an old-style nakige more than anything else.
If you want a change of pace, this - and other games like it - probably isn't the best choice. While it isn't terribly dark, it is a game that is focused on creating emotional catharsis through contrived 'sad' situations that are later resolved (the standard style made popular by Key's early games). If you want an emotionally light game, there are a ton of high-quality and emotionally 'light' rom-coms and sol-focused vns out there. If anything, there is such a plentitude of that type of VN out there that it makes up more than two-thirds of all the non-nukige VNs released over the years.
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They probably never finished the game/vanished. Since I can't find it on steam, it was probably never released.
Walkure Romanze & Clover Days
in Visual Novel Talk
Posted
Never said it was bad, it is actually a gem. I just thought the H was - typical of a lot of that era's VNs - intrusive and excessive at times. I also tend to prefer VNs where the protagonist is the central role or at the very least equal with the heroine on all levels. While there are a few paths (in the fandisc and in the main game) where he is central, the one that is considered canon has him being basically a side-character.
If I had to compare this game to another one, it would be Aokana, because Aokana was modeled after it in concept. This game is executed better though.
Edit: I used to make wall of text posts about stuff like this, but I just don't have that kind of energy in me anymore.