What are you playing?

[Mr Poltroon]

13 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

It probably should be changed during localisation. If few people in Japan would know that Charles is a boy's name that a girl shouldn't have, the name wouldn't sound weird to them. If that's the case then to keep the spirit of the original during translation and allow audiences in English the same experience as the Japanese audience (aka to not feel weirded the hell out,) there's an argument (that I'd be making) that it should be changed in the English localisation whether Charles is the "correct romanisation" or not.

You know, at some point I convinced myself that it was in fact her second given name. That's a thing in a lot of European countries, to the point where I know a few male Mary's myself. Not that they go out of their way to be called by that name, but a few people do, such as my mother, except her second given name happens to actually be female.

[Darklord Rooke]

6 hours ago, littleshogun said:

As for the naming, according to another thread at Gamefaqs, it was said that for Charles name they use the French one (It's 'sharla' instead of usual 'charles', and the reason for that was quite complicated to say the least).

Found the thread you were looking at, it's not complicated. Charles pronounced Sharla because Japanese use the French pronunciation (I don't believe it is, in fact I'm looking at a French pronunciation guide as we speak, but let's run with it) -> Sharla is pronounced Sharuru in Japanese -> nickname is Ruru.

An easy way to fix that is to localise her name as Carla. Not Charles.

[littleshogun]

18 hours ago, Darklord Rooke said:

Found the thread you were looking at, it's not complicated. Charles pronounced Sharla because Japanese use the French pronunciation (I don't believe it is, in fact I'm looking at a French pronunciation guide as we speak, but let's run with it) -> Sharla is pronounced Sharuru in Japanese -> nickname is Ruru.

An easy way to fix that is to localise her name as Carla. Not Charles.

By the way, what I meant complicated is that the history between Japanese and French people that cause Japan to pronounce 'charles' in French way instead of English way. Other than that, perhaps you right about Charles and Carla there (Fairy Tail use that method actually).

Back to topic, to tell the truth my Deardrops playthrough was delayed because of some circumstances. I'll try to resume my playthrough in this month.

[Vorathiel]

Just play it fullscreened, as you should. ;P

[Moelohim]

Been getting into Higurashi for now but only have read it like 5 minutes. I already gives me some creepy vibes though.

[Deniz]

I'm playing Canvas 2 and enjoying my harem as a teacher with young girls.

 

Edited April 17, 2017 by Deniz

[Soulless Watcher]

I'm really enjoying Doki Doki Oyako Lesson, it tickles allot of my fetishes. I just wish that the people who worked on the partial patch knew BOTH english and japanese and not one or the other. Seriously even though I know zilch about Japanese I can tell  つきあって means dating or going out, simply by the context and how it sounds (it's quite the common phrase in anime and visual novels), so why the fuck do you use "associated with"? Seriously, why did Tinker Bell take the time to target this joke of a translation project? 

Edited April 18, 2017 by Soulless Watcher

[Nandemonai]

Well, from a certain point of view, the very fact that the TL is a joke actually is a good reason for a C&D by itself.  I wouldn't want something I'd worked on treated so shabbily.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Nandemonai
I ken spel

[Soulless Watcher]

17 minutes ago, Nandemonai said:

Well, from a certain point of view, the very fact that the TL is a joke actually is a good reason for a C&C by itself.  I wouldn't want something I'd worked on treated so shabbily.

That only applies if the company gives a shit about western audiences in the first place. The company has shown no interest in officially localizing any of their titles and none of their other titles have had an attempted fanpatch. So at worst the legal action was taken due to the company believing that pirates = fantranslations or an over-protectiveness of their intellectual property. At best it was due to fear of international law or the group was actively distributing pirated copies of the game on their website.  

Either way the only thing they accomplished was crushing any hope of a potential market for their games outside of Japan, which admittedly they probably would have nothing to gain from. 

Yeah, I know I'm just bitter. 

Edited April 19, 2017 by Soulless Watcher

[Dreamysyu]

So I have finished the 2048 arc in Himawari and started Aqua's route. Well, that arc turned out to be pretty good, especially compared to the common route. On the other hand, there were a few parts which almost broke it for me.

Spoiler

First, the characters. Should I mention that Aqua is a much better protagonist than Yoichi? (I hope I spelled his name correctly.) I don't know, Yoichi at this point seems like the most boring VN protag. He is bratty, childish and just plain stupid: the moment when Aries regained her memories was so obvious that it's not fun, but he hasn't realised it. Aqua on the other hand... Well, I guess, I just like her general attitude, and some of her inner worries click with me pretty well. On the other hand, her relationship with Daigo feels a bit cringy, for the lack of a better word, but, I don't know, knowing that she had Akari's memories, I can see how it could happen.

Aries changed since the common route: she stopped being annoying and became outright unlikable by the end of the arc. Though, at least it seems to be intentional. I don't really have any strong feelings about Aoi. Akira and Soichirou are pretty interesting characters, and I would like to learn more about them. Daigo... Well, I see what archetype they try to utilize with him. And, though somewhat unrealistic, it is not exactly an unlikable archetype. On the other hand, it definitely makes me wonder how he even managed to survive 43 years of his life. Mistook Earth's and Moon's coordinates, crashed into the Moon and died there. Just... what?

Still, the flashbacks are my favorite part of the game so far. I'm sure, just by themselves they could probably be a part of a 10/10 VN. Sadly, they aren't.

Now, on to sci-fi elements. To be honest, I didn't like them. In general, when I read a sci-fi novel or a VN, I don't like having thoughts like "This could never happen in real life", that's why I often prefer fantasy, which by definition has nothing to do with the real life. In Himawari, sadly, this thought never left me. I wrote down below a few things I noticed, fell free to object me if you think I'm not right.

Spoiler

- The airliner, the Aries' escape pod, also, two Himawari rockets: all the crashes in the VN happen in the same spot, and the probability of such event is extremely low. You could say that the program written by Aries made all of them crash in the same spot for some reason, but it's very stretchy.

- - Daigo and Aqua in the end of the 2048 arc crashed almost exactly in the same spot as Daigo's Kaguya two decades earlier.

- The code written by Aries was used in the airliner without excessive testings. Does a person who did it know how codding works?

- - For some reason, nobody saved the code in some place where Aries had no access to. And nobody was able to write a new code. Just... what was there?

- Gravity on spaceships. How did they managed to make it? The only feasible method I know about is to make a ship rotate at large angular velocity and to use a centrifugal force. The shape of the station and the corridors in it implies that it was not what was done.

- The Lunar Theory. To be honest, I almost dropped the game at this point. Yeah right, all the cells in the body simultaneously change their DNA after new memories are acquired. Even if we assume that mechanism like that exists, what are the chances that something goes wrong in one of millions of cells? The patient would probably quickly acquire some form of cancer. Though, I'm not a biologist, maybe I'm wrong.

- The escape pod had enough fuel to reach the Moon. Though, I'm not sure about this one. Actually, to reach the Earth, you would need to stop the orbital motion of the pod, and it would require some fuel too, especially if you want to chose the point of the Earth you want to reach, and not just reach the Earth in general. On the other hand, my intuition says that it wouldn't be enough, but you need to make some calculations to say for sure.

I don't know, maybe some of those things are actually explained further in the VN, so don't take them too seriously.

Anyway, I'm more or less enjoying this VN so far, though it's deffinitely not a 10/10 VN, and most likely not even a 9/10. I'd say, it goes for a good 7 at this point, but there are still several arcs that have (Tadam!) Youichi as a protagonist, so it's too early to say anything.

PS. Why my reactions always look so negative even when I like the VN in question?

[Adorabear]

Finished Edelweiss last week and was really surprised by it. I was expecting those whole thing to be comedy, but some of the routes got really depressing like Haruka's route... :'( She was my favourite character, so going through that one was a bit hard. I think the best routes were Haruka's route and Natsume's route. Mizuki's route was decent, although I think the drama felt a bit forced. Ran's route wasn't bad, but definitely felt like it was the weakest out of all of them. Mei's route was also quite good, but was also pretty sad. Overall, I really loved the game, and I will definitely read the fan disc soon!  

 

I am now working on Deardrops for the VN Reading Club, which is a very enjoyable read so far!  

[granit]

I've just finished reading the Forest. It was fun to read, but I can't say I fully understand the story though

[onorub]

Finished Air and enjoyed the ride. That being said, it kinda bothers me that the Summer Route was the only one where the plot twists didn't feel confusing.

[Vorathiel]

Summer was great. Wish to read more from tht writter. He also wrote Planetarian and it was great as well. But I will not fall as low as to start reading Clannad again for his one route with most airhead and dumb character ever.

[Daydreamer97]

Curently reading Tokyo Babel. I finished Raziel's route and while it's good, I personally couldn't feel the 'romance'. It feels forced to be honest, like they shoehorned it at the last minute. I couldn't see any reason they would fall in love- it just happened. I do like the story even though I find myself rolling my eyes at parts. 

Spoiler

I cannot see how Setsuna became so powerful. His raison d'etre reeks of Gary Stu. But since it's pretty much escapist fiction, I guess it works. It just really bothers me how Setsuna's raison d'etre is literally overcoming the impossible. My eyes rolled so hard at that part.

I'm personally impressed by the amount of research that went in the lore and worldbuilding. I like the references made to Judeo-Christian mythology and even apocryphal books. I have an interest in apocrypha so I really liked those elements in this VN. I loved how they incorporated all those elements in this VN and it ended up that I'm more excited about exposition than the action scenes. I'm a practicing Catholic so some parts did make me uncomfortable. I just reminded myself that it's all fictional but it's definitely not something I'd recommend to my more conservative religious friends haha.

I have high hopes for this VN. I hope Sorami's and Lilith's routes are better because as good as Raziel's route is, it's lacking. Sorami and Setsuna so far seems to have more chemistry than Raziel and Setsuna so I'm definitely getting my hopes up.

Edit: Just to add, Adam and Setsuna's interactions feel more romantic than his and Raziel's. I was halfway inclined to ship them instead.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Daydreamer97

[TexasDice]

I actually dropped money on Neko-nin exheart, because of how much the production value impressed me. 

Nothing world breaking story or character wise, since it's just another one of those short, fluffy kinetic novels, like Nekopara, KaraKara or strictly speaking even the Sakura titles. Other than to those lazy Sakura Xs however, it feels like all the money for Neko-nin Exheart was on the screen: Great UI, lots of flashy overlay effects, excellent audio in all areas (background moans, spriteless characters with actual voices, etc), little animations in the static sprites and really high quality art (even the SDs look great). Also, top-notch decensoring which always wins me over.

This actually beats a lot of longer VNs I've read in terms of raw technicalities (which isn't fair, since Neko-nin was made 2 months ago). I would say Nekopara is still ahead due to the animation quality and how beastly Sayori draws everything, but I was still thoroughly impressed from a technical standpoint. 

 

I would actually recommend this to everyone who likes this genre of short-vns without much substance. Which, since we're on Elitistnovel.net shouldn't be that many people, but hey. 

[Jun Inoue]

Started The Silver Case (Silver Jinken) and... I'm not too impressed, for now. The game itself kind of stops or avoids all the tension and seriousness that I'm guessing we're meant to feel in these scenes and cases of murders, terror and mystery.

[Dreamysyu]

I finished the Aqua's route in Himawari, and, let me say it straight, I didn't like it. At all.

The truth is however, that I can't pinpoint what exactly I didn't like. There are still things like unrealistic characters and completely nonsensical setting, but, let's be honest, almost every VN has both, and we still like them. This time however... I saw exactly which emotion every scene supposed to bring, but they just didn't work. The reason, most likely, is that I failed to connect to any of the characters in the Common route, and it worked in that way. Though I have a feeling that maybe I should've stalled this VN before I had more time to spend on it and read the route in one go instead of stretching it to several weeks.

I don't know if I'm going to continue this VN right now. Actually, this VN made me seriously consider dropping the VN medium altogether. My next VN needs to be a complete masterpiece, or I might actually do it, you know.

[akaritan]

2 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

I finished the Aqua's route in Himawari, and, let me say it straight, I didn't like it. At all.

The truth is however, that I can't pinpoint what exactly I didn't like. There are still things like unrealistic characters and completely nonsensical setting, but, let's be honest, almost every VN has both, and we still like them. This time however... I saw exactly which emotion every scene supposed to bring, but they just didn't work. The reason, most likely, is that I failed to connect to any of the characters in the Common route, and it worked in that way. Though I have a feeling that maybe I should've stalled this VN before I had more time to spend on it and read the route in one go instead of stretching it to several weeks.

I don't know if I'm going to continue this VN right now. Actually, this VN made me seriously consider dropping the VN medium altogether. My next VN needs to be a complete masterpiece, or I might actually do it, you know.

I've had this experience several times before (thanks, Da Capo), and I really do think that you should just take a break, and probably drop Himawari too. If you dislike it to the extent that it's pushing you away from VNs as a whole, then reading more will be a huge waste of your time. Frankly, I don't think dropping VNs as a whole is a great idea, as you're probably just burnt out and I truly do think that there are still good experiences that the medium can offer you. However, that is your choice to make. What I would do is drop Himawari, and then do something else for however long until another VN piques your interest (be it weeks or months).

[littleshogun]

19 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

I don't know if I'm going to continue this VN right now. Actually, this VN made me seriously consider dropping the VN medium altogether. My next VN needs to be a complete masterpiece, or I might actually do it, you know.

I knew that Himawari was going to be either very good or overrated ie not good there. Although if I may say something, it's definitely scretching too much if you want dropping VN medium altogether. As for your solution, I think you better drop Himawari and take a rest for a while just like Akaritan suggested. And if you recover, I think you could try to read both of Higanbana and Rose Guns Days if you still interested in VN (Or haven't read those yet). In the end, it's your decision.

Edited April 30, 2017 by littleshogun

[Funyarinpa]

21 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

 

I don't know if I'm going to continue this VN right now. Actually, this VN made me seriously consider dropping the VN medium altogether. My next VN needs to be a complete masterpiece, or I might actually do it, you know.

You probably just need a break. We've all been there. After trying to get through Muv Luv for some seven months, I ended up not reading practically anything for six months or so. I also felt like maybe the medium wasn't for me after all. Then I happened to pick up the first chapter of Higurashi and that got me out of that slump.

If you're looking for a masterpiece, The House In Fata Morgana is sublime.

[Darklord Rooke]

23 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

Actually, this VN made me seriously consider dropping the VN medium altogether. My next VN needs to be a complete masterpiece, or I might actually do it, you know.

2 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

If you're looking for a masterpiece, The House In Fata Morgana is sublime.

So long Dreamysyu, it was nice having you around *waves*.

[Decay]

I'll cut you, rooke

[Vorathiel]

11 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

So long Dreamysyu, it was nice having you around *waves*.

Did you wrote anything longer about your look on FataMorgana? Would be intersting to read something negative about it.

[Dreamysyu]

To be honest, I wrote this point just several minutes after I finished that route, and maybe I overreacted a bit there. Anyway, it's not like it was entirely Himawari's point that I started to think about dropping VNs. It's more like, finding good VNs to read became a bit too difficult recently, and I'm not sure at what point it becomes just not worth it anymore. Like when I just started, I could just take a random high-rated VN often mentioned in reviews, and I was almost guarantied to like it, at least to some extend. For some reason, I managed to like VNs for that is good in them and almost completely overlook their flaws. There still were some VNs I didn't really like (mostly, less popular ones), but I always could just drop them at the very beginning and move to something else.

Then, at some point, about a year and a half ago, it just stopped. Suddenly, for almost every VN I played I could say "There were some great moments in it, but ... completely ruins it", or "I liked it overall, but there were some aspects that lowered my overall enjoyment quite a bit". For example, I liked very much how Ever 17 handled mystery, and I had very good time trying to add all things together. On the other hand, I couldn't care less for it's characters, and the final revelation turned out to be so little thought-out, that it dropped my overall mark by 2 points. It all got a bit tiring, and the thought that maybe my time with VNs is coming to its end started to appear in my mind from time to time.

Then for a few months I just didn't have enough free time to read VNs anymore. When I came back, I tried Fata Morgana, and suddenly I was engaged again. And though it wasn't perfect, I managed to overlook it's flaws and get the full enjoyment of the things it does right. The same thing with Pygmalion, though it's actually even more flawed than Fata Morgana (like, 20 times so). Then I tried Himawari, and suddenly I'm where I started. Overall, I can't say I hate it, or this is a bad VN. There are some things it does quite well, and the overall idea is quite good. Just, I cannot connect to the most characters, especially to the protagonist, and the number of plotholes makes it almost impossible to enjoy it to fullest extend. The worst part of it, though, is that I start to compare Himawari to some VNs I read earlier... and I don't see how they are better. It's not a very healthy thought, because it makes me wonder whether those VNs were actually as good as I remember, and maybe my tastes are just changing with time.

Maybe you're right @akaritan and I just need to stay away from VNs for some time. I'll probably try to get through some works in other media that I wanted to try. Anyway, thanks for your advice!

I'm stalling Himawari for an indefinite amount of time. I'm not dropping it, however. I still want to give it a second try, at some point of time. I had a single precedent when I suddenly started to like a VN long time after finishing it, even though I fully hated it the first time. I am still going to at least finish it, but I won't touch it at least before the middle of this summer.

And I'm sticking to VNs with good protagonists from now on.

@littleshogun

Yeah, thanks, but I tried both, though I haven't finished them. Actually, I'm a big fan of Higurashi and Umineko. Though, in case of Higanbana, I just couldn't make myself care about it, and dropped it on the third chapter. As for RGD... I played first two seasons when they the only ones available in English, but never got in the mood to finish it later.

@Funyarinpa

Thanks, but I already finished it.

@Vorathiel

I'm pretty sure Moogy wrote something somewhere... Though I don't have a link, sorry.

Edited April 30, 2017 by Dreamysyu
typo