Decay

I guess I just let all that stuff wash over my without noticing it. Maybe I've consumed too much british media.

Erm, okay? I really am genuinely confused by your statement, though. The text, outside of DD, didn't feel especially British to me, but I may have just unconsciously accepted it and therefore not noticed it, or something like that.

???? What are some examples of this? I actually can't think of anything.

Yeah, I fucked up. I stand by what I said, but if I was going to make any criticism of the translation, it needed to either be in general terms, or be a stronger criticism with more/better examples. Maybe I'll try finishing the Kasumi route later today if I have the time. I barely got any reading done yesterday. Other random thoughts: 1) I like Kasumi more than the other heroines, and it's kind of a bummer that she has the "intro" route. 2) The BGM gets a bit repetitive, and isn't especially good overall. There's some decent tracks, but it's largely pretty generic, and there aren't enough tracks. 3) I'm getting the feeling that Masada doesn't think very highly of women. I hear his games are more popular with female demographics than most other chuuni titles, which only confuses me. 4) These moments of comedic relief are pretty good, and the way they manage to mix exposition into them helps with the pacing. Though it gets more romcom-ish than I expected (though it seems very self aware about this).

It's not the worst I can come up with. I only used two examples I already had available to illustrate a point: That improper writing techniques might be making it more difficult for people less used to reading English. I wasn't intending to thrash the translation or start a huge debate over it, but I guess I should have known better.

Dies irae was not meant to be hard to read. It's only really especially hard for people who are not natural Japanese readers. Those who are can decypher the prose just fine. There are times where the writing and dialogue is being cryptic, but that's different, and has nothing to do with the prose in an action sequence. The myth that Dies irae is some ultra hard Finnigan's Wake-esque work is just that: a myth. It came about from westerners who learned Japanese later in life attempting to read it. If nothing else, action sequences should always be easy to follow if you want them to be entertaining. You also should avoid confusing depth and complexity in writing with actual readability and flow. What I take exception to—and this is indeed a nitpicky issue of semantics—is that they are not IN the rooftop, they are ON the rooftop. Actually, this issue can be fixed if you just change "enter the rooftop" to "enter onto the rooftop." They barely use "staple," actually, and there is no way the repetition of it is even remotely important. It is of exactly zero importance, actually. If it was supposed to be of importance, than they really failed at getting that across to the reader. I already said that "decapitating" is an adjective and not a verb, so I don't know why you're repeating that. I suppose my issue is that armor piercing rounds have qualities to them that make them especially adept at piercing armor, while these slashes are just slashes. If they strike the neck they will chop a head off, but there's nothing really special that specifically allows for that other than their speed and ferocity. Thus, I would hesitate to use "decapitating" as an adjective for them while they are failing to do that. I guess what's more important than whether you CAN use "decapitating" there is whether you SHOULD, as it leads to a needlessly confusing sentence. In fact, I'm still not fully sure what exactly that sentence is saying. It's prose isn't deep and complex, it's just sloppy. They use the entire series of slashes as a subject while describing what happened with previous slashes in the same breath, leading to some confusion. There has to be a more elegant way of writing that. I fully acknowledged that these issues are ultimately not very big, but their frequency of occurrence is a little disappointing, and I do believe it's a major contributor to why some foreign readers are finding it difficult to read. edit: This whole thing is being blown out of proportion so I'd like to avoid blowing it out even further, if possible.

What I was trying to say and not getting across well is that a slash can't be decapitating unless it actually decapitates. That's how adjectives work. Also, only his neck was targeted. Every single slash was being directed at his neck and they were hitting other parts of him because he was moving around/dodging them. edit: I don't think I'm reaching that much when that line genuinely confused me for a second when I read it. There were several lines in that scene that I had to reread in order to understand what was happening, and that's obviously not ideal.

Proper grammar can speed up the process of reading and comprehension even if you aren't aware of when the grammar gets bad. That's what makes grammar important. Though I was really more talking about odd/incorrect word choices which isn't purely a grammatical issue. Take this from a scene halfway through the common route: You can't "enter" a rooftop. Or maybe you can, but it sounds very painful, since the rooftop is a solid object. You can exit the school onto the rooftop, climb stairs to the rooftop, etc, but not enter it. Also the word "staple" is used incorrectly here. They probably heard the word used in reference to foods and consumer goods that people eat/use on a regular basis, but the word isn't flexible enough to be used for a place one person likes to go to. In this case, something along the lines of "favored" could have been used instead. This is pedantic as all hell, true, but little things like proper word choice can go a long way to making your writing more easily understandable. In this line, it was pretty clear anyway what was happening, so I doubt even a non-native English reader like you would have any difficulty understanding it. But there are cases where it can get messier, such as the next line: First of all, those slashes are not decapitating, because they're missing and thus not actually decapitating anything. You could say "would-be-decapitating," but that's really clunky. This leads to the next problem, where of course you die when you are decapitated. Pointing that out feels rather silly. One idea would be to remove the "decapitating" adjective and use "decapitate" as the verb in place of "kill," restructuring the sentence to make that work. I'm also not a fan of "state" there, because that implies that they have other states they could switch into, but IIRC, those slashes are by their nature invisible, so I would probably just switch "state" with "nature" (unless I'm misremembering that scene). "I couldn't quite confirm this due to their invisible nature, but a direct hit from the slashes that merely grazed me a moment before would no doubt decapitate me on the spot." TBH, I'm still not happy with that, "a direct hit from the slashes that merely grazed me a moment before" is such a mouthful, and the way talk about previous slashes mixed in with a line that's trying to portray the slashes as a still-ongoing event feels very clunky. I'd be tempted to just cut out the reference to the previous slashes entirely. "I couldn't quite confirm this due to their invisible nature, but a direct hit from any one of these slashes would no doubt decapitate me on the spot." There's also a possible tense error with "kill," but despite the narration being in past tense, it's describing an ongoing event. To be honest, this is where my lack of editing experience shows, as I actually have no idea what the correct tense here would be. If we say "would have no doubt decapitated me," that gives the line a deterministic bent which might remove some of the tension in the scene. Thematically very appropriate for the game, to be sure, but not great reading. Eh, whatever. I'm sure some people will see this and call me nitpicky or say that they can understand it anyway so it's fine. I'm not actually trying to call out the translation as unreadable trash, it's still better than most VN translations for sure. But I think if a non-native English reader is having difficulty understanding some parts, there's actually a pretty good chance it's because it's not written as well as it could have been, and not because it's written too well, which is what some people are trying to claim (mostly, those same non-native English readers who don't know better).

To be honest, the writing is a little bit rough from a purely grammatical standpoint. Improper word use is the biggest offender, but you also occasionally spot sloppy punctuation. For the most part, natively English readers shouldn't have much difficulty with inferring what's happening despite the occasional roughness, but non-native readers may find it quite a bit more difficult thanks to that.

I'm basically at the end of the common route (apparently it branches early in Chapter 7), and I've enjoyed the VN so far. It's not mind-blowingly good but I still dig it, and besides, it's just the common route. There's a LOT going on with it. Like, so much. So many characters with differing motivations, so much jargon, so many bizarre magical concepts to have to understand and all the rules attached to them, etc. There probably hasn't been an English-translated VN with so much complexity in its world building since Fate. I realized I hadn't read the "Other Stories" I unlocked so I started the first one, only to get bored to tears and quit halfway through. I hope reading them isn't important because I kind of don't feel like doing so.

Just to reinforce how important it is to read the routes in the correct order, check out this entire twitter thread: tl;dr: An important scene will be missed if you don't read every other route before the Rea one.

I would like to repeat:

This is very bad advice. Do not do this unless absolutely nothing else works. Well, first things first, Funbag Fantasy is a 4:3 game by default. What you are seeing is the game in its intended aspect ratio, It's SUPPOSED to have black bars. If you get rid of them and stretch the game across the whole screen, it's just that, stretched. Everything will appear wider than it's supposed to be. Some people still prefer playing this way. If you want, you can go into your graphics card driver settings and there should be options for how to handle these situations. In NVidia's control panel, tell it to overwrite application settings, set it to have the GPU do the scaling, and then select the option that stretches the image across the whole screen.

For the most part, the English translation is quite good, though it's not perfect of course. There are occasional typos and grammatical issues, but the bigger deal is what I perceive as occasional tonal inconsistencies. It's not really anything that will prevent the you from enjoying the game.

That is the entire game.

Posted a new thread for the VN release: Mods can close this one, maybe.

Dies irae, long-held to be the holy grail of chuuni VNs, is finally upon us! Often praised for its complex and wordy prose, its philosophical themes, its extensive and gloriously nerdy fight sequences, and the manner in which it deconstructs the chuuni action genre, it's a grand battle opera that has become a seminal work in Japan, and we finally have the chance to experience it for ourselves! Whether we're blown away or we're completely let down by the hype, it will be an interesting experience either way. It's currently only available on Steam. If you were a kickstarter backer, go to your Backerkit dashboard, the codes should be there. First things first, the recommended route order: Kasumi -> Kei -> Marie -> Rea. The game's two parts represent the order in which the routes were initially released, but that is NOT the order in which you should read the VNs. The route order is unlocked, yet can ruin the experience if you go out of order. Stick to the recommended route order if you want to have the best experience, no matter who your favored waifu is. Furthermore, there are specific choices you have to make in the Rea route if you want the best, most complete ending in the game. Follow this walkthrough, composed by one of the game's translators, if you want an easier time with that. The second issue: Bueehhh!? Two parts? DLC?? Freemium!?!? Ever since the prefundia launched last year, light has said that there would be two parts. Dies irae is an absolutely huge work, and would typically necessitate a $50+ price tag, yet Steam is a platform that is extremely unfriendly towards high-priced VNs. The split game setup was conceived as a way to combat the hostile environment for high-priced VNs on Steam. And just yesterday, light revealed that they will be offering the common route for free. So, it will be free common route + Act I and Act II purchasable separately, all in one storefront. Third issue: All-ages? Waitaminute! This was an adult game! Dies irae has a long and complex history of releases. To be frank, the initial release of the game was a mess that not many people actually liked very much. They then released a free patch that rewrote large parts of the scenario and added a good chunk of content, but it still wasn't enough. The second release of the game, Acta Est Fabula, added two new routes that further explored the universe of Dies irae and provided a new final route that was far more satisfying than the last, making it actually feel like a complete story. And then, a few years later, the all-ages-only Amantes amantes was released. It didn't add any new routes, but it did add a boatload of content to the existing routes, including an expanded final ending that is considered a must-read, as well as all-ages h-scene replacements that people have said do a better job with character bonding and development. Amantes amantes has ever since been considered the definitive version of the game by its fanbase, and is the version that was Kickstarted. However, light recognizes the weeaboo's love for porn, and is going to offer an 18+ patch that will add those h-scenes back in (and remove the replacement scenes). Unfortunately, this patch will take a little while to come out—it's currently scheduled for late July. Be aware of this if you insist on playing the 18+ version of the game. It's happening, just not right away. Also be aware that the version of the game on Steam now has long been considered THE version of the game to play. Misc issues: The menus for some are in Japanese unless you use Japanese system locale! If you're experiencing Japanese menus, switch your system locale. This is not a consistent issue, and the team is aware of it and looking for a fix. (fixed) So let us see what all the hype is (or isn't) about! Use this thread to share your experiences. Remember to use spoiler tags and to properly label them for anything spoilery.

Yeah, this is a double edged sword. One argument I've heard is that steam buyers tend not to play VNs for terribly long, so giving them a substantial chunk of VN to read for free actually makes them less likely to buy. They'll get their fill and move on.

http://www.views-pr.jp/ <-- This company, maybe? That's not quite how math works, unfortunately. 0.5 * 50 = (0.5 * 25) + (0.5 * 25)

The structure is basically as they said it would be from the start: Split in two parts, both available at release. Except now the common route is free, when that wasn't thought to be the case before.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/644540/Dies_irae_Amantes_amentes/ Guess who was one of two people who voted June 2nd.

I'm not so sure. Steamspy doesn't seem to track DLC sales so we can't really see what the DLC performance looked like, but over 100,000 people booted up CSG Chapter 1. That's an awful lot of people for that kind of game. There's a chance that sales model will actually work out in DI's favor if it gets people hooked on the game.

In reality, it really does seem like a short delay. I actually sort of do expect it this weekend at the latest, despite me making it sound like it won't. It seems like there was some minor hitch that caused a very short term delay. Hopefully it's resolved soon.

Surprise! Dies irae is delayed! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1986219362/dies-irae-english-localization-project-commences/posts/1899216?ref=backer_project_update The folks on the Dies irae team maintained that there would be a May 31st release all the way until just a few minutes ago, when they announced a sudden last-minute delay to some time "this week." Reading Steiner is on twitter making it sound like this will be a super short delay. We all know how light operates by this point, though. So place your bets! Will light actually make their revised release estimate? Will Dies irae actually release this week? Or will light find a way to fuck up spectacularly? Will it even come out this year?? Who knows! Crazier things have happened. Isn't this exciting? It's probably better than playing the game itself! Thanks, light!