Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Review Discussion

[Decay]

Hi. Just in time for the game's release.

http://reviews.fuwanovel.net/2016/04/27/root-double-before-crime-after-days-xtend-edition/

I couldn't find a decent promo image in English. I have no idea what that's saying but hey, whatever. I give this game 3/5 stars.  

While I think it's a bit overhyped and overrated, it still has some good stuff going for it and some of you people who are huge zero escape and infinity fans might like it anyways.

[ChaosRaven]

It's available on Steam now, so I'm currently downloading.

And I'm still hyped for it... 

[Decay]

7 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

Incoming salt 

Wut.  Wouldn't it have just made more sense to leave them out instead of translating them in such a way that the dialogue itself sounds unnatural?  Almost nobody I know refers to their own friends as "Mr." and "Ms." in casual conversations unless it's some sort of joke.  I really don't understand why they thought that was a good idea.  Does this happen quite often, in various circumstances, or does it just come up a few times?

I'm a little disappointed to hear it went all ham-fisted with the morality and themes you mentioned.  I became more interested in it than I was before when I read what themes were included in the story, only to have my interest die back down to where it was previously when you said they kinda botched the implementation of said issues.  Were they at least handled well enough in the beginning?

The honorifics thing doesn't come up too often. Most characters are on a first-name basis and it all sounds normal. It's usually just random background characters at the school and stuff like that. Oh, the teacher refers to her students as Mr. and Ms. as well, which feels weird. Still doesn't happen all that often.

About your second question, well, sometimes? A lot of the stuff kind of gets glossed over until they directly address it. Sometimes this actually works out, like some of the stuff going on in Rokumei City feels a bit creepy and unnerving, at least to me. But often times you'll see the characters go "I SEE NO PROBLEMS HERE!" until suddenly it's "OH WOW ACTUALLY IT IS BAD AND NOT GOOD!" with all of the nuance of an 8th grade sociology essay.

[the_dive]

The VA list really doesn't seem that bad, actually it seems quite decent. Do notice that Rin's VA from Remember11 is on it. Wonder if her character is as much of a bitch here as she is in Remember11.

[WinterfuryZX]

I'm downloading the game on a pendrive, steam is taking ages just to calculate the available space... I hate this stupid platform. I prefer to download the game with my desktop PC since it's almost 9GB.

[Darklord Rooke]

23 minutes ago, Decay said:

Oh, the teacher refers to her students as Mr. and Ms. as well, which feels weird. Still doesn't happen all that often.

It's not as weird as you'd think depending on circumstance. It happened when I was at school, but more often when 'you were in trouble'.

Classmates don't usually go around referring to each other with titles though. Well ... not titles you can repeat in polite company in any case.

[sanahtlig]

For the record: the comment system on FuwaReviews is terrible.  I have 3 accounts on record with Fuwanovel, and NONE of them worked to log in.

I haven't played Root Double, but this comment caught my notice:

Quote

Together with two other rescue workers, they set out to collect any remaining survivors and to find an escape route before the radiation poisoning kills them. 

I hate to break it, but if you're at the point where death from acute radiation poisoning is a concern, you're beyond fucked.  Radiation poisoning is like a sunburn in that it's slow onset.  The highest levels will kill you within 48hrs.  5x less than that will STILL kill you, but it'll take a month or so.  Less than that will ALSO kill you, but in the form of cancer. (Source)

[Decay]

I didn't dig into the minutiae of their situation because explaining EVERYTHING could take ages, but in the game world they developed a drug called AD ("Alone Despair," thanks Japan) to counteract radiation poisoning. They actually have limited supplies of the drug and much of the first scenario is spent with them trying to locate and secure more of it.

But there's definitely some suspension of your disbelief required in some aspects.

[solidbatman]

14 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

For the record: the comment system on FuwaReviews is terrible.  I have 3 accounts on record with Fuwanovel, and NONE of them worked to log in.

 

Same system as all wordpress based sites. We've had some server issues today though. I'll check in with nayleen about it

[sanahtlig]

14 minutes ago, solidbatman said:

Same system as all wordpress based sites. We've had some server issues today though. I'll check in with nayleen about it

I can log into blog.fuwanovel.net just fine.  I tried the same credentials with FuwaReviews and the login failed.

[VirginSmasher]

It's unfortunate to hear that you weren't big on this one. I'm still gonna try it to form my own opinion. I have been waiting on this for 4 months now.

[MayoeruHitori]

2 hours ago, Decay said:

AD ("Alone Despair," thanks Japan)

For the record, it's Alone Desire.

Quote

there weren’t any real stand-out performances among the cast.

Not even Shimizu Ai? To me though, even the simple fact that both male protagonists are 100% voiced is a huge plus in the voice department, compared to most VNs.

[Decay]

Right, right. Root Double is full of some of the most absurd english terminology imaginable. Got some mixed up.

edit: Shimuzu Ai isn't in RD according to VNDB.

[MayoeruHitori]

1 minute ago, Decay said:

Right, right. Root Double is full of some of the most absurd english terminology imaginable. Got some mixed up.

Oh, I didn't notice that the person who I quoted was you, the reviewer. Since you've already finished the VN, let me just share with you my interpretation:

Spoiler

Remember the actual function of Alone Desire? It's the "desire" to be "alone". I won't say any more than that, because I know some people can't help but click on spoilers.

Admittedly, the main reason behind calling it "alone desire" is to match Beyond Communication and fit the pointless "B.C. A. D." symbolism. "Alone Drug" would've been simpler but not as cool, right?

To me, the only really silly part of Root Double is the Biblical references. They basically sound deep but mean nothing. It's just that Nakazawa wanted to go with a "B.C. / A.D." motif. Well, at least it's not as bad as SubaHibi's Alice in Wonderland references.

 

Quote

edit: Shimuzu Ai isn't in RD according to VNDB.

 

Spoiler

http://beautyplanets.web.fc2.com/VADB/game/g_14975.html

I'm referring to a certain spoiler character, who I thought performed quite well during several climactic scenes where she even adopt different personal pronouns and styles of speech... I won't say any more because I know some people can't help but click spoilers.

 

[Decay]

2 minutes ago, MayoeruHitori said:

Oh, I didn't notice that the person who I quoted was you, the reviewer. Since you've already finished the VN, let me just share with you my interpretation:

  Hide contents

Remember the actual function of Alone Desire? It's the "desire" to be "alone". I won't say any more than that, because I know some people can't help but click on spoilers.

Admittedly, the main reason behind calling it "alone desire" is to match Beyond Communication and fit the pointless "B.C. A. D." symbolism. "Alone Drug" would've been simpler but not as cool, right?

To me, the only really silly part of Root Double is the Biblical references. They basically sound deep but mean nothing. It's just that Nakazawa wanted to go with a "B.C. / A.D." motif. Well, at least it's not as bad as SubaHibi's Alice in Wonderland references.

 

 

  Hide contents

http://beautyplanets.web.fc2.com/VADB/game/g_14975.html

I'm referring to a certain spoiler character, who I thought performed quite well during several climactic scenes where she even adopt different personal pronouns and styles of speech... I won't say any more because I know some people can't help but click spoilers.

 

For the first spoiler, yeah, they even said as much in the game. It "makes sense," but it's still a hilariously stupid term. So is Beyond Communication, for that matter. And literally every other bit of fictional english terminology. I don't hate it, though, I find it comical how bad Japan is at naming things in English, and their continued insistence at doing so anyways.

As for the second spoiler: Oh. Hmm. Eh. I wasn't particularly impressed with that, but that could have easily been affected by the translation.

[Eclipsed]

Above average + but disappointing experience = pretty okay

Great review as usual. I hate unsatisfying mysteries, so I'll be sure to tread carefully when I pick this up in 2018.

[Conjueror]

I thought the review was pretty spot-on.

The game was written by a completely new writer afaik which explains the kinda underwhelming / amateurish prose and writing (I wonder how it would've been different if Takumi Nakazawa, the guy responsible for the ideas and plotting, wrote it himself). I think he made a better team with the E17 guy.

Still a very fine and thoroughly entertaining (if not exactly earth-shattering) game though.

[Decay]

2 minutes ago, Conjueror said:

I thought the review was pretty spot-on.

The game was written by a completely new writer afaik which explains the kinda underwhelming / amateurish prose and writing (I wonder how it would've been different if Takumi Nakazawa, the guy responsible for the ideas and plotting, wrote it himself). I think he made a better team with the E17 guy.

Still a very fine and thoroughly entertaining (if not exactly earth-shattering) game though.

It was actually written by a trio of writers, although I don't know who was responsible for what. Have you played Secret Game 2nd Stage? The same group went on to do that (with Nakazawa directing again), so I wonder if there was any improvement.

[Conjueror]

2 hours ago, Decay said:

It was actually written by a trio of writers, although I don't know who was responsible for what. Have you played Secret Game 2nd Stage? The same group went on to do that (with Nakazawa directing again), so I wonder if there was any improvement.

I haven't, but it has relatively good ratings and is 18+, so I definitely will sooner or later. The other two writers are credited as "subs" on egs, which usually means they wrote ero scenes or tweaked the text, but I've got no idea what they were doing in the context of Root Double. I could pretty much tell right off the bat when a writer switched in Grisaia, but the text in RD is consistent from start to finish.

[ChaosRaven]

10 hours ago, Zenophilious said:

Okay...reviews are one person's thoughts and opinions on something, ya know.  You might have no problems with it, while Decay obviously did.  There's no reason to suddenly reverse gears and start advising people not to buy it, just don't let hype alone be the reason you buy something, because it will usually leave you disappointed.  I can count on one hand the number of times I went into something hyped and came out saying, "I wasn't disappointed in the slightest!".

Well, I already backed it months ago, so the review had no chance to influence my decision to buy it anyway. Root Double is also a title that most likely fits my taste so I'm probably more tolerant to flaws it might have.

Besides that, the title has more than enough good ratings that it can be considered a good title. But I always appreciate a more critical review because they often emphasize the true flaws of a VN, and usually I find it easier to tolerate those if I'm prepared for them. Too glowing reviews can raise unrealistic high expectations which inevitably leads to disappointment. Ironically, a critical review can therefore result in a more pleasant experience than an all roses review.

[Funyarinpa]

I love Nakazawa's work so I'll pick it up either way, but since it's on Steam I will just hold off until I get the money.

[Vorathiel]

Well, this review made me...not want to read this in nearest future.    I'll definitely read this some day, but after what I read, no rush. Will just read Ever17 instead.

[Funyarinpa]

26 minutes ago, Vorathiel said:

Well, this review made me...not want to read this in nearest future.    I'll definitely read this some day, but after what I read, no rush. Will just read Ever17 instead.

EVER17 IS THE FUCKING TITS, GET ON IT, NOW

NOW

[Vorathiel]

6 minutes ago, Funyarinpa said:

EVER17 IS THE FUCKING TITS, GET ON IT, NOW

NOW

Nope, need to finish I/O first. And probably struggle to the end of Grisaia, I want to be 'vn obligation free' for E17.

[littleshogun]

Good review, and regarding of con I couldn't elaborate much other than GundamAce also agree with you in regard that the revelation was underwhelming, and he was praise Root Double was better than Ever17 or same (Then again you may disagree though).

Oh, for a confirmation, is Route D was jammed with character flashback or not? Because I'd read that many people complain about that (Although Tyrosyn was okay with that though).

I think I'll post my first impression later in my thread, because at this time I'm still waiting Root Double to be available on certain site.