What are you playing?

[LemiusK]

14 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

To be honest, the way it's drawn just looks very cliche to me. And, thinking through the original story, I honestly don't know what they would want to improve by including a scene like that. To me this feels just like a cheap way to keep the readers' attention. But to each their own, I guess.

On the other hand, I heard that the remake corrects a few plot holes the original had.

Well, maybe it's not to improve anything, but add additional scenes, or maybe even tell a totally different story/sub-plot involving Tsugumi and Sara's relationship? You did mention that you heard the remake corrects a few plot holes, after all, not to mention that VNDB listed the XBox version as an entirely different VN because of the numerous rewrites done to the story. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Tsugumi and Sara have an entirely different sub-plot of their own involving that CG.

If later versions of VNs with additional routes aren't usually listed as a separate entry of their own, then it makes sense that this XBox version of Ever17, which was listed separately, must have even more additional content than just an additional route, or rather, maybe its content is drastically different from what you recall of the original story.

I'm just speculating like you are, but I don't see why you are thinking of it in such a negative light, since you haven't offered any proof of what you're implying.

Edited November 25, 2018 by LemiusK

[Dreamysyu]

35 minutes ago, LemiusK said:

I'm just speculating like you are, but I don't see why you are thinking of it in such a negative light, since you haven't offered any proof of what you're implying.

Well, I see your point, so I'll leave it at that. My own negative thinking about it is mostly based on some negative reviews I recall seeing at some point, but I don't remember where exactly I saw them.

[LemiusK]

18 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

Well, I see your point, so I'll leave it at that. My own negative thinking about it is mostly based on some negative reviews I recall seeing at some point, but I don't remember where exactly I saw them.

Hm, yeah, that makes more sense, and I can see now why you would arrive at such a conclusion. I would probably think the same thing, considering I'm quite cynical myself.

Still, the reliability of reviews varies greatly depending on their sources. If it's something Metacritic, then hm, maybe they are more reliable. If it's something like IGN or Gamespot... I don't think so. Furthermore, one CG alone isn't really a game-breaking factor to determine the overall quality. So yeah, I'll leave it at that food for thought as well.

Edited November 25, 2018 by LemiusK

[Thyndd]

3 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

On the other hand, the voice actors still speak in that language. Well, they still pronounce these words in a very Japanese way, but it definitely sounds like an actual language. I'd say, it's a very cool thing to do.

Oh that's... interesting. From what you're telling me it sounds like there's some lost potential there. It would've been amazing if only they had worked up at least a phonology, but if the voice actors still make it sound natural I guess it's cool anyway. It definitely piqued my curiosity, I'll add it to my wish list.

3 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

he one by Echo 6 probably? I also watched it some time ago and it actually almost made me change my opinion about Extra. It's true, the amount of foreshadowing is insane, but it's even more insane that all this foreshadowing is almost completely unnoticeable on your first walkthrough.

I was actually alternating between Echo Six and TheBlueShifting. And yeah, it's pretty incredible that on your first reading it's nearly impossible to notice anything, as all the clues follow naturally from the conversation. MLA spoilers below:

Spoiler

The only thing I noticed during my first reading was actually right on the beginning, in the Sumika's diary part, when she says that she asked Takeru something weird and that "They both couldn't imagine a world in which they were not together". The grave tone in that part, plus the fact that I already knew that Alternative would take place in another world (you know, little spoilers from the sinopsis and stuff) made me realize that was probably foreshadowing and I was like "Oh shit".

But then there's so many other clues scattered all along the way that sometimes I almost think I'm getting paranoid. Like when they started talking about "short-term memory loss", and I was like "yeah, about that...". Then Sumika complains that her memory's been getting worse lately due to Takeru hittting her so much. Yeah, fuck you 

Every little thing triggers my PTSD. And about that, when they randomly use the PTSD alarm sound in Extra is like... 

Oh and I wanted to add @Dreamysyu, in regards to the fact that rereading (or watching a let's play, whatever) Extra after Alternative made you change your opinion about it... Yeah, that's the case for me too, but the more I think about Extra and Muv-Luv as a whole, the more I love it. I firmly believe that Muv-Luv is to be regarded as a whole, as a living being. If you cut off Extra, it dies.

It's not only the "fun" () references, but the fact that it seems so boring and ordinary at first glance is what builds up all the shock for later. It's the fact that you suddenly realize how extraordinary Extra is in its being ordinary. It makes you reflect upon your own lifestyle like no other piece of fiction I've read before. Add to the mix the fun foreshadowing and how it ties with the story as it's told in Alternative, and you have no reason to complain about Extra. For fuck's sake, even as a simple moeblob wouldn't be that bad. I've seen worse.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Thyndd

[Fred the Barber]

8 hours ago, alpacaman said:

I completed two and a half routes of Symphonic Rain (Fal/Lise complete, made the choice for the Torta bad ending and now Chris has a visitor on Christmas). It's not great so far but I like it because it has a nice atmosphere and the writers use the term "Good End" very creatively *cough*.

  Reveal hidden contents

I kind of respect the creators for doing everything to piss of readers who buy this expecting a harmless moege/nakige with a rythm game. It's just soo unnecessarily mean-spirited. I knew beforehand that there was supposed to be a twist but I expected something like themes of depression, considering the setting, not that every character either is a sociopath or has their life destroyed by one.

Going by the way the routes went so far my theory for the twist in Torta's route is that Arietta is actually dead, probably by Chris' fault or at least he left her to die or something like that. Chris is in denial though so Torta keeps sending him letters impersonating Arie and even dressing up as her on Christmas to keep up the illusion and keep him from going completely insane.

 

Symphonic Rain

Fal

Enjoy the rest of the ride! Lise is the brass ring of the bunch, so it only gets better from where you are!

[LemiusK]

Still working my way through Coco's route in Ever17, but I came across a certain folklore there that also existed in the story of Aoishiro, dealing with both Yaobikuni and Tsubaki trees. It's probably a coincidence, since I have no idea how prominent the Yaobikuni is in Japanese folklore, but it's kinda nice, since I'm reading both VNs at the same time. It helps that the Yaobikuni's story has themes that are relevant to both VNs (at least I would assume it's relevant in Aoishiro's case, since I haven't gotten very far yet). Feels like I'm reading two stories with similar themes.

Edited November 26, 2018 by LemiusK

[Dreamysyu]

I didn't see the notification after your edit. Don't know why, maybe because the other part of the post was referring to me anyway.

On 11/25/2018 at 6:25 PM, Thyndd said:

Oh and I wanted to add @Dreamysyu, in regards to the fact that rereading (or watching a let's play, whatever) Extra after Alternative made you change your opinion about it... Yeah, that's the case for me too, but the more I think about Extra and Muv-Luv as a whole, the more I love it. I firmly believe that Muv-Luv is to be regarded as a whole, as a living being. If you cut off Extra, it dies.

It's not only the "fun" () references, but the fact that it seems so boring and ordinary at first glance is what builds up all the shock for later. It's the fact that you suddenly realize how extraordinary Extra is in its being ordinary. It makes you reflect upon your own lifestyle like no other piece of fiction I've read before. Add to the mix the fun foreshadowing and how it ties with the story as it's told in Alternative, and you have no reason to complain about Extra. For fuck's sake, even as a simple moeblob wouldn't be that bad. I've seen worse.

Yeah, I know. I absolutely agree that Alternative would never work without Extra. At best, it would be just a somewhat decent sci-fi VN. That's why I always disagree with some people who recommend to skip both Extra and Unlimited and to go to Alternative right away. Btw this is pretty obvious if when you read Alternative for the first time that Extra is very important, and you definitely don't need to reread it to understand that.

The reason why I still have pretty mixed opinion about Extra is because, when I read it the first time, I just didn't like it at all. The comedy was completely unfunny, and the infrequent attempts at drama were absolutely laughable. At some point, after I got to the ending of Ayamine's route and the game crashed while playing credits, I literally rage dropped it while giving it 1/10 on VNDB. Of course, the overall experience was still worth it, but I was honestly never a fan of when VN rely on mediocre beginnings and overextended common routes to make the final parts of their stories shine.

But the biggest surprise for me when I started watching this let's play was that... Extra turned out to be nowhere as bad as I remembered. Yeah, it's still far from a masterpiece, but watching this let's play I actually found myself engaged with these characters, and the comedy actually turned out to be... pretty funny, at times? When I read it originally, I think I only laughed once or twice throughout the whole game. You know, in the end, I still decided not to change my opinion about Extra because of that. I already learned to like these characters because of Alternative, so it's pretty natural that I became a lot more engaged with them this time. And following a letsplayer is still a very different experience to reading it myself. And the fact that I only followed the main route this time (and the things I hated the most are in Ayamine's route) also helped, I guess. On the other hand, there is a certain point that could imply that my second experience with this game is more valid than the first one: I read Ixrec's version of translation, and the let's play I watched followed the official translation. You know, I usually try to be careful when talking about things such as translation quality because I know that my English is still very far from prefect, and I am probably not qualified to talk about it in many cases. Still, it's pretty obvious that comedy is the one genre of fiction that is extremely sensitive to the translation quality. If you make a joke sound weird, translate it too literally or completely miss the point why it was supposed to be funny in the first place, the joke will be ruined. The common route in Grisaia, for example, would never work if it wasn't translated so well, and the game might've never become as popular as it is nowadays. This leads me to the point, that in the end, ironically, the translation quality for moege turns out to be even more important than it is for most plot-focused works, because nice comedy is basically the only thing that could make a moege work (excluding porn, of course ).

On 11/25/2018 at 6:25 PM, Thyndd said:

Oh that's... interesting. From what you're telling me it sounds like there's some lost potential there. It would've been amazing if only they had worked up at least a phonology, but if the voice actors still make it sound natural I guess it's cool anyway. It definitely piqued my curiosity, I'll add it to my wish list.

You know, after playing it for a bit more time, I realized that I was a bit incorrect in what I wrote in the previous post.  First of all, the "spell" turned out to be only a temporary solution, and after it stopped working, he still couldn't understand anything. And now it looks like he started trying to learn the language for real. It looks promising if you ask me.

About phonology: I'm not sure. The phonemes themselves are all used in Japanese, from what I understand, and I suspect that the text was originally written in katakana. You know, I kind of understand why they went this way, considering that it was voiced by Japanese actors. The only exception i noticed is the sound 'l' that isn't used in the text, but appears in the names of several characters (including the character mentioned in the title of the VN). Well, I guess it's just a minor plot hole, though, I believe, there could be some historical reasons why some sounds could only rarely be used in foreign words or some names, for example. At the same time, the way these phonemes are placed in words doesn't sound Japanese at all, and most characters make pretty long pauses between words, which also doesn't sound Japanese. On the other hand, the difference between how the main and the secondary characters pronounce these words is pretty noticeable. The main characters sound foreign enough that I would never realize their actors were Japanese if I just randomly heard these lines on the Internet. The secondary characters... sound like Japanese people trying to speak some language they don't know very well. But, who knows, maybe they are all isekaiers or something.

[Thyndd]

1 hour ago, Dreamysyu said:

But the biggest surprise for me when I started watching this let's play was that... Extra turned out to be nowhere as bad as I remembered. Yeah, it's still far from a masterpiece, but watching this let's play I actually found myself engaged with these characters, and the comedy actually turned out to be... pretty funny, at times? When I read it originally, I think I only laughed once or twice throughout the whole game. You know, in the end, I still decided not to change my opinion about Extra because of that. I already learned to like these characters because of Alternative, so it's pretty natural that I became a lot more engaged with them this time. And following a letsplayer is still a very different experience to reading it myself. And the fact that I only followed the main route this time (and the things I hated the most are in Ayamine's route) also helped, I guess. On the other hand, there is a certain point that could imply that my second experience with this game is more valid than the first one: I read Ixrec's version of translation, and the let's play I watched followed the official translation.

It might've been the translation, it might've been the fact that you were already emotionally invested in the characters the second time around, it might've been that the first time you just were not in the right mood for it, or you know, some combination of all these factors. If you ask me, for me the most relevant would be the latter mentioned. I've lost track on how many times I've watched or read something that had a great impact on me the first time only to find it interesting at best the second time, or viceversa. Experiencing something just on the right time, with the right mindset, could mean a world of difference. At least for me, that is 

1 hour ago, Dreamysyu said:

The common route in Grisaia, for example, would never work if it wasn't translated so well, and the game might've never become as popular as it is nowadays.

Oh, definitely. Grisaia is so amazingly well translated that if I didn't know better I could've sworn it was an OELVN. And one with a great writer behind it, I mean. 

I also read the official Muv-Luv translation (steam version) so I wouldn't know if some jokes were lost in the Ixrec's one. I might check the fan translation later out of curiosity.

1 hour ago, Dreamysyu said:

About phonology: I'm not sure. The phonemes themselves are all used in Japanese, from what I understand, and I suspect that the text was originally written in katakana. You know, I kind of understand why they went this way, considering that it was voiced by Japanese actors. The only exception i noticed is the sound 'l' that isn't used in the text, but appears in the names of several characters (including the character mentioned in the title of the VN). Well, I guess it's just a minor plot hole, though, I believe, there could be some historical reasons why some sounds could only rarely be used in foreign words or some names, for example. At the same time, the way these phonemes are placed in words doesn't sound Japanese at all, and most characters make pretty long pauses between words, which also doesn't sound Japanese. On the other hand, the difference between how the main and the secondary characters pronounce these words is pretty noticeable. The main characters sound foreign enough that I would never realize their actors were Japanese if I just randomly heard these lines on the Internet. The secondary characters... sound like Japanese people trying to speak some language they don't know very well. But, who knows, maybe they are all isekaiers or something.

That's the thing, as you noticed, phonology is much more than just a set of phonemes. The allowed distribution of the different phonemes in a syllable (phonotactics), suprasegmentals (intonation, stress, pitch accent, tone...), and a whole lot of other features come together to give a language its flavor 

The fact that you mentioned, where the main characters sound different and 'foreign' in some way, probably means that they had taken some of this into account, which is something a linguistics freak such as myself always appreciates .

1 hour ago, Dreamysyu said:

You know, after playing it for a bit more time, I realized that I was a bit incorrect in what I wrote in the previous post.  First of all, the "spell" turned out to be only a temporary solution, and after it stopped working, he still couldn't understand anything. And now it looks like he started trying to learn the language for real. It looks promising if you ask me.

Huh, that's clever. So the spell is just buying time till the MC learns the language, so that by the time it wears off he can already understand the language and they can keep the text in japanese

[Dreamysyu]

8 minutes ago, Thyndd said:

it might've been that the first time you just were not in the right mood for it

Hmmm. Interesting thought. I know it happened to me a few times when I suddenly liked some VN when I tried to reread some parts of it after I already finished it. Still, don't know, I don't really feel like that's the case here.

11 minutes ago, Thyndd said:

Huh, that's clever. So the spell is just buying time till the MC learns the language, so that by the time it wears off he can already understand the language and they can keep the text in japanese

Maybe I didn't explain this well. Basically, the "spell" only works for a very limited time (maybe a few hours, from the way it was explained). It did help him to learn some information he wasn't supposed to know at that point, but it didn't help him with the language at all.

Well, of course, I don't know what the authors will do with this in the future, and, I guess, I should stop spoiling it (though I'm still very early in the story, so that was okay so far, I guess).

[adamstan]

I just finished Shinigami no Kiss wa Wakare no Aji. And it isn't easy to rate it.

It's rather short VN, with only three routes (with the third being unlockable true route). There is only one choice, that selects the route, so there is no need to repeat the common.

I started with Shizuku's route - she was interesting tsundere-imouto character, but the route felt pretty weird, especially h-scenes, filled with bad hentai cliches However there were some nice emotional moments too.

Honoka's route was much better, there was actually some nice love there

However, whole thing felt underdeveloped - there were few locations and characters, and whole world felt rather empty. It was almost as taken out of the conversation Kouhei had with Tsubaki in YMK, when he lamented the fact that, in contrast to eroge, in real life you can't just create world for two people  
Also, I mentioned h-scenes earlier - they, especially in Shizuku's route - were full of hentai cliches, like hero's unlimited stamina or

Spoiler

Bondage with your stepsister? Gimme a break...

And of course Kohaku, main heroine and shinigami HAD to be loli... It was slightly jarring, because especially in true route writers attempted to make nakige. It looks like they decided to take after ONE, Kanon and AIR, but didn't make it to Clannad in their research Mind you, sex scenes weren't nearly as bad as those from Kanon or AIR, but still created some dissonance. (except for Honoka's route, they were sweet and loving there)

// side note:
there is this term for videogames, "ludonarrative dissonance", when gameplay elements in some way don't align with a story or contradict it. Maybe we should apply something similar to h-scenes in VNs? "Ero-narrative dissonance"?
//

If that was all there is to this VN, it would be somewhere between 6.5 - 7 on my scale. Nice art and likeable heroines, but nothing special. However, true route is reedeming quality for this VN. Despite some dissonance created by turing MC-kun into lolicon, it was filled with feelings, and ending managed to squeeze some tears from my eyes. It actually followed KEY formula pretty well.

Spoiler

We even got some miracle involving time-travel at the end And the story of Hiyori sacrificing herself in order to save Makoto by making contract with shinigami, and then Makoto offering his life back for her was really touching.

Translation was pretty good - not overly literal, and without glaring errors.

So, thanks to the true route the final score settles at 7.5/10 (lolicons and siscons can raise it even more for themselves ) You may give it a try, it's short. I'd say about 15-20 hours max.

 

Edited November 26, 2018 by adamstan

[alpacaman]

3 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

Hmmm. Interesting thought. I know it happened to me a few times when I suddenly liked some VN when I tried to reread some parts of it after I already finished it. Still, don't know, I don't really feel like that's the case here.

Maybe it has to do with you already knowing where it's going so you notice more of the clever foreshadowing the writers are doing? I still wouldn't want to revisit Extra. Tama's stupid reaction sprites and the bad physical humor are just too much for me. And when you think that the common route is finally finished after the cook-off they add the lacrosse tournament just to annoy you with another anime trope. God I hate Extra. Which makes it even more amazing Alternative managed to make me want to be able to just go back to the innocent world of Extra.

[Dreamysyu]

8 minutes ago, alpacaman said:

Maybe it has to do with you already knowing where it's going so you notice more of the clever foreshadowing the writers are doing?

Hmmm, I don't think it has anything to do with foreshadowing, because even though there's a lot of it, it's not like it appears in every single scene. It was more like, this time the whole VN was just a lot more pleasant to follow than the first time. About expecting where it was going, yeah, this could be the case.

[LemiusK]

Just started Root Double a day ago, but... the SSS system seems like a rather pointless interface to replace your traditional dialogue system... so far anyway. I'm informed by the game that the SSS choices will get more complex down the line, but so far, it seems that you could easily avoid Bad Ends by trusting everyone, shifting their "Impression Level" to the max. Seems like a cheap way to earn those social points you would have otherwise earned in Ever17 by picking the correct dialogue option.

And even if later choices require that you not trust Character A or B to avoid a Bad End, it still seems like a rather awkward system where you have little to no idea what the exact context of what the MC is going to do next. I'd much rather see a text choice than make a decision that's so vague and arbitrary.

When I have no context as to the kind of decisions I'm making other than "have more confidence in Person A or Person B," that just seems like a rather poor and shallow decision-making system compared to the traditional VN choices, where I have specific details as to what I'm going to say next.

 

Edited November 27, 2018 by LemiusK

[alpacaman]

To quote my impressions of the choice system when I read Root Double:

On 3.9.2018 at 9:06 PM, alpacaman said:

The only thing that's really annoying me so far is the choice system. Instead of just presenting you with multiple choices there is a mechanic where you pick a value from 0-8 for every character affected by your next action with a higher number meaning you having "higher senses" for them. While sounding interesting in theory it's never quite clear beforehand if having higher senses for someone means trusting them more, caring more for them, having confidence in them or whatever and depending on the situation this can lead to the protagonist doing the opposite of what you wanted him to do. And there are nearly no decisions where you need other values than 1, 4 or 8 to progress, so having such a nuanced system seems like a waste.

Looking back, most of the times the text prior to the choice indicated what a high value would probably mean and the way it works even gets something like an in-universe explanation somewhere down the line but imo it's still worse than just having straight up choices imo. The only thing you can really change by using values other than 1, 4 or 8 is whose character mini-ending you get which amounts to a short scene and a CG, except for one or two decisions.

[LemiusK]

29 minutes ago, alpacaman said:

To quote my impressions of the choice system when I read Root Double:

Looking back, most of the times the text prior to the choice indicated what a high value would probably mean and the way it works even gets something like an in-universe explanation somewhere down the line but imo it's still worse than just having straight up choices imo. The only thing you can really change by using values other than 1, 4 or 8 is whose character mini-ending you get which amounts to a short scene and a CG, except for one or two decisions.

Yeah, definitely seems like a poorly thought out and a poorly designed system to me. I think the fact that the player is able to acquire the character mini-ending they want by relying on some numerical value removes the emotional context the player would have experienced if it's a text choice instead. Think about it.

In normal VNs, you pick which "girl route" you want to enter by being nice to that girl. It's almost as shallow, simplistic, and binary as this SSS system. However, there's a fundamental difference - you have textual context behind those choices. You have texts telling you whether if the MC is saying something nice or doing something nice for the girl you want to enter the route of. I think this small difference makes a bigger impact for me personally. It just feels more realistic and organic, like I'm having an actual conversation.

To replace that with an unreliable and unclear choice where I wouldn't even know if I would get this girl's mini-ending or not, it's just awkward and almost makes me unsatisfied even if I do get the ending. Feels like I only got the ending by sheer luck, not because I made a conscious decision. Bad Ends become even more meaningless in this game when you're also relying on sheer luck to determine your MC avoids a nasty fate. It feels unrealistic to make a life-and-death situation with such an arbitrary decision.

I understand that the SSS system of Root Double also has context behind its choices - the context being whether if you trust Character A/B or not - but the problem is, it's a very unreliable context. As alpacaman has indicated,

On 9/4/2018 at 3:06 AM, alpacaman said:

it's never quite clear beforehand if having higher senses for someone means trusting them more, caring more for them, having confidence in them or whatever and depending on the situation this can lead to the protagonist doing the opposite of what you wanted him to do. 

It's a very vague context, and causes more problems than it solves.

VNs with dialogue choices can already be difficult to design, because sometimes, even with texts and dialogue, the choices are STILL unclear to the player! Think about it. How many times in VNs, you pick a dialogue choice, and the characters you're talking to react differently than what you would expect? People in real life already have a tough enough time trying to figure out the context of each other's words without entering some misunderstanding, so to blur that line even further with such an obtuse decision-making system, it just seems impractical.

Edited November 27, 2018 by LemiusK

[littleshogun]

Quite a lot of page that we got here (At 600 pages). Anyway, as for the topic currently I'm already finished with Hatsukoi Sankaime Yurino's route who is Taichi's (The MC) crush. By the way Yurino here is rich girl/ojousama character), and compared to Emilia's route there's no main story because it's mostly just tell of how Yurino's learn of how to open herself to communicate her feeling to Taichi, moreso because of her route problem was stemming up from the lack of communication. Also while I'm at Sankaime here, I did find that Togawa here was very bland as MC's male character friend because we didn't even know some of his life story, which is quite contrast seeing that in many VNs we did know of what male best friend characters interest are, although I may be too hasty on Togawa here seeing that I just managed to finished two routes here. As for the next route, I'll play Sui's route in which she's Taichi's little sister by blood.

PS - As for Yurino's seiyuu, compared to Momoi Ichigo who voiced Emilia her CV was still little so more or less she's newcomer eroge seiyuu. That said, if you like Kirikoi you should recognize her role as Princess Sylvia (Her long name is too mouthful lol).

Edited December 16, 2018 by littleshogun

[Rain Spectre]

I agree with the sentiment on Root Double. It's one of those situations where you can clearly tell the wanted to do something cool and interesting, but the reason people stick to a choice system is because trying to get funky tends to fail. The obvious desire is to create a more diverse system of choices, but until we create free thinking AI, the choice will always be binary. 

[Decay]

8 hours ago, Thyndd said:

It might've been the translation, it might've been the fact that you were already emotionally invested in the characters the second time around, it might've been that the first time you just were not in the right mood for it, or you know, some combination of all these factors. If you ask me, for me the most relevant would be the latter mentioned. I've lost track on how many times I've watched or read something that had a great impact on me the first time only to find it interesting at best the second time, or viceversa. Experiencing something just on the right time, with the right mindset, could mean a world of difference. At least for me, that is 

It's true that this can be chalked up to a large variety of factors, but it's also true that the translation is dramatically better in just about every conceivable way. I had a similar experience. Degica's Muv Luv Extra made me laugh several times an hour while I maybe laughed once or twice the entire time reading Ixrec's Muv Luv. Translation is strange in the way it can have huge effects on how readers react to a work in ways that are completely invisible to the reader. Oftentimes when reading a substandard translation, the reader will enjoy themselves less without ever realizing why, or that the translation is substandard. That's one of the reasons translation quality is so important, even for people who only care if "they can understand what's happening."

 

ANYWAY, I've been reading Re;Lord lately. It's surprisingly good, as long as you can tolerate a terrible protagonist who is meant to be laughed at instead of related to. It's just good dumb fun, and probably one of SP's best-translated games, in all honesty. It's a little short and very much an incomplete story (with part two coming out eventually, hopefully soon), but I recommend giving it a shot.

[Thyndd]

4 minutes ago, Decay said:

It's true that this can be chalked up to a large variety of factors, but it's also true that the translation is dramatically better in just about every conceivable way. I had a similar experience. Degica's Muv Luv Extra made me laugh several times an hour while I maybe laughed once or twice the entire time reading Ixrec's Muv Luv. Translation is strange in the way it can have huge effects on how readers react to a work in ways that are completely invisible to the reader. Oftentimes when reading a substandard translation, the reader will enjoy themselves less without ever realizing why, or that the translation is substandard. That's one of the reasons translation quality is so important, even for people who only care if "they can understand what's happening."

Yeah, I have to agree. And as Dreamysyu was saying, translation quality is all the more noticeable when it comes to comedy. When you think about it, translation is all about meaning and form. A decent translation will preserve the meaning, while a great translation will also word the message in a way that a native speaker finds compelling and suited to the context. 

Comedy is all about form. Trying to make comedy out of meaning alone is like trying to make people laugh by explaining why a joke is supposed to be funny. It's no big surprise then that this is when translation quality shines the most.

[r0xm2n]

Been reading Princess Evangile.

One thing that really stands out are the jealousy skits

Already completed 2 routes. My thoughts.....

* Ayaka.

Spoiler

For a woman which has curves for days, she somehow manages to be cute looking too! I love her playful nature too. Most of her hentai CGs are awesome too.

* Ritsuko.

Spoiler

Man, her voice is so calm (she sounds similar to Sachi from Grisaia ....... but the difference was, Sachi was a real banshee in her erotic scenes).

Her route had a lot of drama. The headmistress is a real bitch.....

 

Started Chiho's route. This seems to be the "childhood friend/love triangle route". Which probably equals tons of drama and jealousy skits....

[adamstan]

Well, they say that it's best to read Ayaka after Ritsuko - there are some minor spoilers for Ritsuko in Ayaka's route. Also, Ayaka's route is the one that explains headmistress' behaviour. But it isn't that big issue. I went with Rise > Chiho > Ritsuko > Ayaka. But saving Rise for last may be good too - if you like her. (I did, but some apparently don't)

26 minutes ago, r0xm2n said:

the jealousy skits

Yeah Ritsuko hiding behind potted plant in cafeteria was absolutely hilarious

Spoiler

I think Chiho's route was the weakest (but not bad), however I loved her epilogue.

Edited November 27, 2018 by adamstan

[LemiusK]

And finally, Yumiko's AS (and also my final AS) comes to an end in "The Labyrinth of Grisaia". I definitely have mixed feelings towards it. On one hand, it's a very fitting ending where 

Spoiler

all the heroines you've come to love come together for one comedic feel-good finish. It's sappy and heartwarming, and shows the happiness these characters have while spending time with each other.

On the other hand, it's way too fitting for an ensemble cast story, almost to the point of being generic. It feels like the typical ending you'd see in anime with a large diverse cast of characters. Much like the rest of Yumiko's route, her ending is so predictable and lacks any interesting variety. There's even a

Spoiler

fireworks display!

That said, it's not a bad ending, and as I've said in my blog post regarding the parallels of Michiru and Yumiko, her route almost felt like an improved version of Michiru's route. She still gets made fun of at her expense, but she also grows as a person at the same time, which Michiru didn't. There's a mix of comedy and slice-of-life drama, so it's very balanced. Furthermore, both of them also

Spoiler

had their dating plans ruined, albeit through different methods. But for Yumiko, she actually admitted that she had fun in spite of the plans being ruined. Michiru, on the other hand, just seemed to be constantly whining even 'till the post-credit scene that "This wasn't the date she had imagined."

Such a tragic difference that makes Michiru's character look that much worse, and Yumiko's character that much better. Sigh. Oh well.

Anyway, enough of lamenting over things we can't change - time for the Grand Route, The Caprice of Mayu!

Edited November 27, 2018 by LemiusK

[ciel_yuri]

7 hours ago, r0xm2n said:

Been reading Princess Evangile.

Do you like it? I have it on Steam for some reason, but I think it's the all ages version. I wonder if I should even bother with this one.

[LemiusK]

Things are finally picking up in Aoishiro for me. I know I complained about its infodumping in my blog, but... I guess the story does require a bit of tolerance before the 'good stuff' happens. That said, there's still quite a lot of Japanese jargon I have no understanding of, but by this point, I'm pretty much skimping through such texts, ignoring the context or meaning behind them. Can't do anything about it.

Reached a bad ending just now, and after looking at the flowchart, I noticed that the routes are designed in such a way that even trivial decisions like whether to return AFTER you chose to chase someone can lead you to a result that's entirely different from if you chose not to chase him to begin with during the first decision, or if you chose to keep chasing him. It's fascinating how intricate the branching of Aoishiro is, and this leaves me impressed. I haven't seen this complex of a branching route since School Days, or maybe Shibuya Scramble. Not bad. Very realistic.

Edited November 27, 2018 by LemiusK

[adamstan]

4 hours ago, ciel_yuri said:

Do you like it? I have it on Steam for some reason, but I think it's the all ages version. I wonder if I should even bother with this one.

 

I liked PE very much, it is near the top of my VN list, with score of 8.5

I plan to reread all-ages version some day, as I bought it on Steam too. 

All-ages version is direct port of console version, with some replacement content for h-scenes. (that's why, unlike with the fandisc, there's no +18 patch from Mangagamer, as the versions differ too much). I think it should be good in this version too - while h-scenes were actually quite nice in this VN, not showing them shouldn't harm the story, assuming it's only the actual sex-scene being cut, like in Sanoba Witch.

But if you don't like moeges or anything close to them - obviously don't bother with it, as it is just sweet romance story.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Dergonu
Arrrr'