Decay

Japanese companies guard their properties very tightly. I'm not overestimating Sekai, you're underestimating the stubbornness of the license-holders. They are infamously stubborn in this regard. And to be honest, they should be. You can't just give a license to any idiot with money, that would be monumentally stupid business management. They want someone they view as trustworthy, someone who won't bring embarrassment to their brand. You can't expect them to willingly do business with a bunch of nobodies. Fruitbat Factory had to work with a bunch of small doujin developers before they could land a big deal for Eiyuu Senki and Little Busters, for one example. That's just how things work.

Because there is virtually no way whatsoever that Regista would actually deal with some random group of fan translators. It would be pretty much impossible for them to secure the license on their own.

Okay, so, the bet would be basically won for Nemu if Keisuke "killed" her, and Kanae was meant to spare Keisuke. So Nemu set things up that would get Keisuke to kill her, and the second before it happened Kanae stepped in and stopped it from happening, rendering Keisuke unconscious, while forcing Nemu to live with the memory that Keisuke, full of hate for her, would have killed her, filling her with despair. It was sort of a rigged bet, because what Nemu was asking for is basically what Kanae wanted all along anyways, and the end result was pretty much good for no one but Kanae.

You know... now that I think about it, I never actually picked that choice, lol. So... probably? Who knows, man. I actually dislike the whole "what's real and what's not??" part of the true route. I don't think it adds much of value to the story.

She didn't expect Keisuke to pick her. The psychological manipulation they did on him was supposed to make him pick the others because he wanted to protect Kanae no matter what. She probably figured she'd be safe. And it matters if it's real for the people paying to watch it. They don't want to see fake people get tortured, they want to see it happen to real people. And what about the human experimentation thing? Kanae lumped the underground game along with all of the other experiments they ran where they obtained data on people going through a variety of hardships. I'm going to stay firmly in the "it really happened" camp until someone can show me something really convincing that indicates the opposite.

Rinne lost her limbs when they were mangled by Nemu's crew. Remember that they did this when they captured her. The research company probably figured it was better to fit her with prosthetics than repair them. The other routes were real, too. It would explain why in the Natsuki and Rika epilogues, Kanae doesn't show herself to Keisuke and only has sporadic contact with him, probably so he doesn't ever question the phony memories they constructed for him.

But now this became a commercial project under Sekai flag. This changes everything. I would rather send Lemnisca 200$ as a donation, really, if they would continue doing fan translation..But we get what we get. You would have supported them, but who else would? Would they have gotten $36,000? Something tells me no. Not to mention, fan translation is already in a legal gray area and a lot of fan translators don't like the idea of accepting donations for it. If Lemnisca wants to go fully legit and earn a respectable paycheck for their work, more power to them I say.

Well, is there any reason to assume those earlier events did take place in VR? If you want to say it was just that day, so what, they had a VR simulation of the underground game and the school chaos, but then brought Keisuke into the school in the midst of the actual chaos that was taking place? But in that case, that would mean that the setting they were simulating was actually happening at the same time, so why bother simulating it? I also suspect a large part of Kanae's disdain for Keisuke comes from him picking her in the underground game, something she didn't expect to happen. The first screenshot here is pretty clear. At least some part of this actually happened. For the second screenshot, she mentions the underground game being used for data collection in addition to the bet, and also tripling as a paid show for wealthy spectators. Nobody would pay that kind of money to see a fake VR show. Pretty much everything in the main story of the game was "real" and a part of a grand experiment, in addition to trying to break Nemu's mind so she'd recess into a shell she doesn't want to climb back out of, to create the proper conditions for paradise. Whenever VR and memory manipulation enters into the fray, stories can easily become too convoluted for their own good. Euphoria is a pretty good example of this.

If they were doing this on their own then it would definitely be a fan translation. People deserve to get paid for their hard work if it's of good quality.

I had a conversation with Kawasumi about this, and the conclusion we arrived at was that most of the VN actually didn't take place in the VR world. Kanae herself very specifically said that everything up until Nemu's neck being snapped by Keisuke was real. It's hard to know from the context whether or not she was simply referring to the events of that day or the entire story up until then, but from what we've learned about how their company does things and the games they put on for the benefit of paying spectators, I'd assume that pretty much everything was indeed real. Anyways, regarding the ending, I don't think it needed anything more. I don't think I'd be very interested in seeing some kind of heartwarming tale of recovery. Not every ending needs to spell everything out for you. This is why Amane's route in Grisaia had the worst epilogue.

Why not? That's the standard price for VNs of this size.

The raw script size is somewhat equivalent to that of 40 hour titles like Subahibi, Hoshimemo, and Noble Works, IIRC (they removed that bit from the prefundia but I believe they said it was 2.5mb). So maybe the EGS estimates aren't accurate? Maybe Clephas can clear up the game's length since he has played it. The Lemnisca guys still have day jobs to support them and are heavily underpaying themselves for their work. Who knows what the situation is at MiKandi Japan. Not every project is the same and not every company is the same, making direct comparisons like this doesn't really prove much.

Rika's mental breakdown as Keisuke kept picking her was pretty interesting. It's that kind of stuff that euphoria was really great at. Everything else about her was pretty insufferable, though.

Top fuwareview comment of the year. In my case, I already knew I hated them, but they don't seem too exaggerated in euphoria even if you don't disable them. Also I will continue to pluralize that word with an "s" just to spite OriginalRen. Ahegaos.

http://prefundia.com/projects/view/root-double-before-crime-after-days-xtend-edition-heading-west/7236/ TL;DR: They're asking for $120,000. Estimated delivery date is March 2016. The stretch goals are just for a fanbook and drama CDs. Interestingly, apparently Sekai Project is getting none of this money, according to the funding breakdown? All of the funds are going to Regista, Yeti, and Lemnisca. Maybe this will convince some of the SP haters to chip in? Lemnisca has proven themselves with I/O. That is a ridiculously complicated VN with complex narration and dialogue, and they translated it very well. Root Double was directed by Nakazawa Takumi, known as the director of the Infinity series (Ever17) and I/O. This is a pretty exciting project all around.

http://reviews.fuwanovel.net/2015/12/04/euphoria/ Euphoria, sometimes brutal, sometimes disgusting, sometimes intriguing and suspenseful. What a weird game. Steel your stomach and be open minded when approaching this one. I'm curious what you all thought of the review, it's the first one I've ever written.

In several of the h-scenes there is dialogue that might progress relationships and that kind of thing. Some of the routes involve romantic feelings for the other person, but not all. Not every route has a happy ending. If you just want some sweet moe romance story then skip this.

Then use the launcher!

https://www.epicgames.com/shadowcomplex/ Seriously, what the hell? Where did this come from? Shadow Complex released a good six years ago to critical acclaim. It was one of the first commercial western takes on the Metroid formula, and is one of the truest Metroid-style games out there, in my opinion, having a large and seamless map to explore with a crap ton of secrets and powerups to find. In short, it's really good. And those of you that missed it the first time around owe it to yourselves to try the new version. Because it's freaking free! And this is after years of most fans being convinced a PC version would never happen. This is pretty fantastic news. Play this game. edit: It's only going to be free for a month so get it while you can.

Obligatory Louis CK

My review of this will be going up on FuwaReviews tomorrow at noon CST. I hope I'll be able to convince some people who wouldn't otherwise touch it to give it a shit.

Imouto Paradise has one, Rio, the tsundere. Wait, this was a honey trap, wasn't it?

Just politely inform customs that she's actually a 1,000 year old ethereal being and I'm sure they'll understand.

I wasn't aware of that, sorry for misleading you. I just sort of winged it and got by without a problem and looking at the guides, there didn't seem to be any apparent method to the madness regarding location choices.