Vorathiel and A Profile

[Okarin]

Saw on his sig that Vorathiel recently finished "A Profile" (Akabei Soft, perpetrators of the renowned but terrible "Sharin no Kuni"). I'd like to know his thoughts on this one, because I found it terrible, on par with the beloved "Yume Miru Kusuri", only that I received no porn.

[john 'mr. customer' smith]

Just curious, but why aren't you sending a pm?

[Kawasumi]

7 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Saw on his sig that Vorathiel recently finished "A Profile" (Akabei Soft, perpetrators of the renowned but terrible "Sharin no Kuni"). I'd like to know his thoughts on this one, because I found it terrible, on par with the beloved "Yume Miru Kusuri", only that I received no porn.

you obviously played the wrong version then kek, there is a lot of porn in a profile

[Okarin]

Just now, john 'mr. customer' smith said:

Just curious, but why aren't you sending a pm?

Because I want to openly discuss the novel for anyone who wants to participate in the thread. In this way, people who are considering reading it will have a backup (with no spoilers hopefully).

I asked Vorathiel specifically since I saw that he finished the game recently, and can talk with recent memory of it. The game was translated some years ago.

[Vorathiel]

I'm embarassed, somebody called me by my name. ;3

But first of all - I might not be a reasonable source of information for this VN. I'm rather anti-stupid dramas.

Second - there is 'some' porn (one, long scene for route). But there are versions around the net with disabled porn. I skipped thorugh h scenes, cause they were really, really bad.

So here we go. A profile was written by famous Looseboy, man who created great G Senjo no Maou and nothing else worth mentioning.
He understands how to write action thrillers (best scenes in G) and how to write nice comedy. It was in G, it was in Sharin, it was in A Profile.
But he tends to do 'dramas' and I would bet my money on that he have no siblings and at least till the day he starter writing G, he never had any closer relation to any women besides maybe his mother. He just don't get it.

A Profile is really short (around 10-15h, depend on how fast you reading, I finished it in 12) VN with almost non existing common route (maybe 20 minutes?) and three routes. There is an order to which routes should be read (or maybe there is imposed order, dunno, I went with a flow and had a proper order). First - stepsister, second - friend from school, and third - ex girlfriend. Yes, exgirlfirend and it's not a spoiler, it is revealed almost at the begining.
Every character is 'mild' in every aspect. Imouto is mild tsun with mild energetic side, second character is mild quirky mildly strange and cold person, and ex girlfriend is mildly airhead type of heroine. Which is fine, they're not exaggerated in any way. But downside is that they're kinda boring because of this.

It is a really fast read, nothing drags on, and it enraptures a reader. Kinda in a way Twilight or Harry Potter books does. They're not very well written, but keep reader interested.

And finaly main course of this dish - dramas. Dramas in Hoshizora no Memoria can be summed in very little words, and they're mostly laughable (think Asuho or Isuzu).
Dramas in G Maou side routes or in Sharin no Kuni are incredibly boring and/or ridiculous. But still - fairly simple.

But not in A Profile. Dramas, or 'plots' of every route are convoluted, every character changes status quo at least few times. Think of something as covoluted as this (imaginary example, no spoilers) - boy meets girl, fun times, then old friend comes on to scene, everything changes, then another boys steals girl no 1, then girl no 1 reveals her dark secret, so boy 1 can't be no longer with her, but he still wants to be with her, etc, etc.
That convolution saves them. Saves them, because as I said at the beginning, Looseboy doesn't understand people and their relations at all. Characters made ridiculous decisions, their motivations are simply 'fucked up', but it's shown by writer as 'proper way of thinking' etc. So there is a few unintentional laughs.

Looseboy also it's known for his big plot twist. They're here as well, but not as dumb (nor as big) as in Sharin, and simply made sense.

I gave it 5.4/10. Maybe a little too harsh, because I had a fun with this. Finished this in 3 days and was constantly interested in what happens next. But this is by no mean good title.

PS Why is it better than Sharin no Kuni? Because is much simplier. Sharin with it's setting and attempt to say a big story had a much higher horse to fell off to, and it did splendidly. Fall so hard thet there is not much of a corpse to even pick up. A Profile was a much simplier story and therefore it was simply fall over on face after stumble on some rock.

[Aizen-Sama]

(This post contains spoilers if you haven't played the game, so please don't read it if you're planning to try the game.)

A Profile is probably the most boring VN I've ever get to play.

First of all the protagonist and the set up of the game is pretty weird. Basically, it's a school full of weirdos and unwanted people, I could get the explanation of "because the school is in a conflictove area", but that's  not the case, at least that was my impression when I played, because one of the heroines is an Ojou-sama, and the scene where the story develops seemed to me like a very standard neighborhood.

The common route is boring and repetitive. Constantly reminding us that the protagonist was a troublemaker in the past but now wants to "reform" or something like that, and the slice of life scenes were bad as hell, while I do try to get the approach the game wants the player to have regarding getting closer to the game's characters I don't think it it accomplishes it very well.

I'll rank the three heroines from less boring to a "want to kill myself while playing the game" level of boringness:

Rizu (less boring)<Miou<Miku (dear god)

Rizu: sister of the protagonist. Her wake up scenes made me want to just skip her entire route, because I swear that I spent almost 45 minutes just passing text talking about how the protagonist is trying to wake her up and she doesn't want to. She feared her brother's attitude when he hanged out with his old friends and was a delinquent, that's what forced Masayuki to change, but in the totality of her route I found her annoying and acting like the description of her says: "Like a spoiled brat" (If the game intended the player to find her character annoying then it was a very well done deed.) Last but not least, the trigger to her H-scene was pretty bad imo, suddenly she likes her brother so much that she wants him to sleep with her without any build up.

Miou: Masayuki’s childhood friend. She’s a "bright character" that just likes to be together with Masayuki and Kaine. She considers hemself as a normal girl. But what does the game or the one who wrote the game consider normal? The main problem regarding her route is the focus that is given. The constant question of : is she prostituting herself or is it just a rumor about her? (Although the story makes it pretty obvious.) Then, the constant back and forth about how does she like the protagonist but at the same time she wants to stay away from him as much as possible and wants to hurt Rizu as much as she can because she was the reason Masayuki changed from a delinquent to a decent student. What a retarded reason, although knowing Rizu's personality I wouldn't mind helping Miou in her deed, lmao.

Miku: I swear to god this was by far the most boring route I've ever read in my entire VN experience. No other route can make me want to jump from a window other than this one. First of all, the fact the she is portrayed as an Ojou-sama but she's in a school known because of their badly behaved students makes no sense whatsoever, I could get the reason of proximity regarding her house in the story, but still, weird. She has a cold personality throughout the entire game, except when she shows her true intentions to Masayuki. The reason she's concerned about him is because he stopped running competitively because he had physical restraints that didn't let him keep up. Again, another retarded reason to be concerned, and after reading that I realized that I had read several hours her route waiting for something more interesting, a deeper backstory. In the end, all that I got in the end was a stupid backstory and a tasteless heroine.

Summing up, boring story, tedious and boring routes and stupid reasons to do things. I know, it's a game and it's fictional, but man...

Apart from that, I thank Amaterasu translations for translating the game, because although I don't like it I know there are lots of people who do, and after all a fan translated game will always be something good for the community so everyone can enjoy more VN's in general.

 

[XReaper]

this thread literally brings back those pains my brain felt acouple of years ago...

[Vorathiel]

Translation was done by infamous Ixrec team, but I found it pretty nice. Good read, nothing came across as badly written as my own sentences (which I sometimes can't comprehend in one reading, I need to read again to understand what I meant >.<).

I forgot to mention what Aizen said - they're all really weird. Each in it's own way. And he put character motivations and actions in much simplier way - retarded. Yeah, that probably sums up Looseboy character development. Almost everybody in his VNs is retarded.
But I didn't found this vn boring at all.


Also - old art style was much better than new one. Whole vn (in new version) is just ugly, would rate art around 4/10. Music was better, but nothing really good.
https://vndb.org/v1894/chars#chars - old version of characters.

[Aizen-Sama]

1 minute ago, Vorathiel said:

Translation was done by infamous Ixrec team, but I found it pretty nice. Good read, nothing came across as badly written as my own sentences (which I sometimes I can't comprehend in one reading, I need to read again to understand what I meant >.<).

Also - old art style was much better than new one. Whole vn (in new version) is jsut ugly, would rate art around 4/10. Music was better, but nothing really good.
https://vndb.org/v1894/chars#chars - old version of characters.

Don't know what's up with the Ixrec team, could you tell me why do they have that reputation?

Could you also link the new artstyle? Never knew there were new sprites for it or something like that.

[Vorathiel]

6 minutes ago, Aizen-Sama said:

Don't know what's up with the Ixrec team, could you tell me why do they have that reputation?

Could you also link the new artstyle? Never knew there were new sprites for it or something like that.

Ixrec is amking his translations ultra-literal. Sometimes is readible (MuvLuv) sometimes is so badly written it's just incomprehensible (Comyu).
https://vndb.org/p771

We all probably read new version of A Profile.
Old art (from vndb):

Spoiler

   

New art:

Spoiler

  

I hate Miou's face, she looks like that Moomin from Sharin, Natsumi.

[Deep Blue]

Am I the only one who thinks it was a good vn? 
What this vn needed was a route for hirate kaine and a bad ending where you could kill Rizu because she was an annoying little prick.

Sharin no kuni is amazing, come on vorathiel rating nekopara higher than sharin is a bit too much even if you disliked it

[tymmur]

1 minute ago, Deep Blue said:

I'm the only one who thinks it was a good vn?

I can't speak for other people, but I absolutely hate it. I think I gave it an honest chance, but it kept being weird and boring and in the end I simply couldn't stand reading anymore and it's one of the few where I'm simply unable to push myself to reach even one ending. Not liking any of the characters didn't help either.

[Vorathiel]

59 minutes ago, Deep Blue said:

Sharin no kuni is amazing, come on vorathiel rating nekopara higher than sharin is a bit too much even if you disliked it

No, it's not. Nekopara is fluffy little thing, filled with sweets and moe. And porn. Nothing more. But nothing less.
Sharin no Kuni tried to be deep, rich, heavy VN, but failed miserably, because almost every single little thing in it make no sense whatsoever.
World in Nekopara with eugenics and slave catgirls make little to no sense as well, but Nekopara do not focus on it's setting at all.

I did an non edited, emotionfull and never finished rant about every flaw I could remember here:

unfortunatelly I had no more time and energy to write more. I stopped just before worst part of this game - Touka chapter.
 

1 hour ago, Deep Blue said:

Am I the only one who thinks it was a good vn? 
What this vn needed was a route for hirate kaine and a bad ending where you could kill Rizu because she was an annoying little prick.

I was kinds surpsrised how little I hated her. 'On paper' she has almost every trait I normally hate. Imouto, possesive, spoiled, tsunderish, energetic, stupid and angry. And yet I did not. Maybe because all of her traits was 'mild', like everything else in this VN. I didn't like her at all, her true route in my 'head canon' is that route without deflowering her (despite how riduiculous it was, with all that movieng from home, jut to not receive any more kindness from her brother, or something like that).

Route for Kaine...I can't see how this might work. He was a mainly man and in love with Miou. 


Overall - I'm surprsied how many people found A Profile boring (especially if they like Grisaia).

[Okarin]

Well, just for the record, I did finish A Profile, and dropped Sharin instead. It helps that A Profile is shorter and has a better flow. Like people said, it's not boring, it's just poor. But for some reason, I read on amused. On the other hand, I think I could use Sharin to cure insomnia.

I never thought about it, but parallels can be traced between Kaine and Sepia. Although Kaine is a little fucked up.

And Miou, good Heavens. A very fucked up character that I ended up not understanding at all, because she's so twisted and unrealistic. Overall all heroines were kinda WTF, and not good ones. Also I don't like the enforced playing order in any VN.

You can read a little more here:

http://sanfter-flugel.tumblr.com/post/129492836987/a-profile-eroge-review

[Deep Blue]

On 6/6/2016 at 7:45 PM, Vorathiel said:

No, it's not. Nekopara is fluffy little thing, filled with sweets and moe. And porn. Nothing more. But nothing less.
Sharin no Kuni tried to be deep, rich, heavy VN, but failed miserably, because almost every single little thing in it make no sense whatsoever.
World in Nekopara with eugenics and slave catgirls make little to no sense as well, but Nekopara do not focus on it's setting at all.

I did an non edited, emotionfull and never finished rant about every flaw I could remember here:

unfortunatelly I had no more time and energy to write more. I stopped just before worst part of this game - Touka chapter.
 

I was kinds surpsrised how little I hated her. 'On paper' she has almost every trait I normally hate. Imouto, possesive, spoiled, tsunderish, energetic, stupid and angry. And yet I did not. Maybe because all of her traits was 'mild', like everything else in this VN. I didn't like her at all, her true route in my 'head canon' is that route without deflowering her (despite how riduiculous it was, with all that movieng from home, jut to not receive any more kindness from her brother, or something like that).

Route for Kaine...I can't see how this might work. He was a mainly man and in love with Miou. 


Overall - I'm surprsied how many people found A Profile boring (especially if they like Grisaia).

Well I don't agree with many of your arguments, I just got back home from school I'm so tired that I won't say anything because I don't think it matters, it matter what you believe  I don't like subarashi for example, I think it's a crappy and pretentious vn xD but everyone thinks it's a masterpiece so yeah I don't mind if you think sharin no kuni is a bad vn or even the worst that you've ever read, everyone is entitled to think whatever they like.

[Okarin]

Wasn't Sharin crappy and pretentious? I really didn't like any characters in it.

[castor212]

So ixrec trans is considered bad?

 

Funny, I always feel like his translation, based on what I read and what I heard, is actually one of the better quality  aaround.

[Vorathiel]

I kinda like him too, but then you have Comyu with flowers like these:

[castor212]

dunno man, felt like at least he care about the translation going to english, compared to some translation/translators. Once again, it's how i compared it to the voiced lines. Then again, me understanding japanese at some level might have some hands in that

but then again, could be just me

like, a beggar's real choice is pick your poison and all