Sorcery Jokers was released on January 12th

[novurdim]

On 14.01.2018 at 12:56 PM, Sparteh said:

I seriously hope that this thing will break the tradition of terrible endings which 3rdEye have. 

so did it or did it not, mate

[Sparteh]

1 minute ago, novurdim said:

so did it or did it not, mate

It depends on taste I guess. For me it was underwhelming. Of course, I didn't expect anything on the same level as lets say Umineko Magic End or Baldr Sky Dive endings. It was lacking. Furthermore, it was even worse than endings of the some short VNs I have played, i.e. Phenomeno or Guilty Crown Lost Christmas. If I had to compare, it was on similar level and terms to Shinigami no Testament. I could tell more, but that would be heavy spoilers. Do you want to know more?

[novurdim]

44 minutes ago, Sparteh said:

Do you want to know more?

No, not really.

[Sparteh]

9 minutes ago, novurdim said:

No, not really.

Then I won't spoil. I will just say this, I disliked ending due to 2 reasons. Partially because, like I mentioned, I found it underwhelming. Other reason, there was a plot hole (or at least I missed something, but I doubt it).

[Stormwolf]

On 18/01/2018 at 11:03 AM, jikorde said:

From what I've read, the game has ending splits for the girls. So Senri gets two endings and Haruto gets two endings, and all the penetrative sex is in those endings.

So not really a kinetic novel afterall.

[Sparteh]

1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:

So not really a kinetic novel afterall.

It depends how you look at it. Main story does not have actually game impacting choices after all. H-scenes aside, those "girl epilogues" weren't any good. If I had to decided, I would say that Fiona's was the best one. 

[Stormwolf]

I found out from the very beginning that i would like Fiona best. That red haired girl which i don't recall the name for is annoying as hell, and i bet the black haired one is the typical arrogant heroine. I haven't actually met her yet in my game.

[Sparteh]

6 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

I found out from the very beginning that i would like Fiona best. That red haired girl which i don't recall the name for is annoying as hell, and i bet the black haired one is the typical arrogant heroine. I haven't actually met her yet in my game.

Well, they were a bit annoying, but nowhere near to the level of the Haruto.  

Just a short info about story structure. It has NO spoilers about plot itself, just a way how VN is structured in terms of routes. Still, I will put it in spoilers, since some people might not want to know it.

Spoiler

Actually VN goes more like this Common route>choose MC, here the focus is on 2 heroines (one for Senri and 1 for Haruto)>choose mc again, focus on another 2 heroines>true end>heroine epilogues. Those choose MC parts can more or less be considered to be heroine routes, except for the fact that they don't go into separate timelines like in most VNs.

When it comes to heroines, I have hard time choosing the best. Overall as a character, Fiona was the best, but the way how chemistry worked, 2 of the best scenes in entire VN (at least in my opinion) were with Noah.

[Stormwolf]

 

20 hours ago, Sparteh said:

Well, they were a bit annoying, but nowhere near to the level of the Haruto.  

Just a short info about story structure. It has NO spoilers about plot itself, just a way how VN is structured in terms of routes. Still, I will put it in spoilers, since some people might not want to know it.

  Hide contents

Actually VN goes more like this Common route>choose MC, here the focus is on 2 heroines (one for Senri and 1 for Haruto)>choose mc again, focus on another 2 heroines>true end>heroine epilogues. Those choose MC parts can more or less be considered to be heroine routes, except for the fact that they don't go into separate timelines like in most VNs.

When it comes to heroines, I have hard time choosing the best. Overall as a character, Fiona was the best, but the way how chemistry worked, 2 of the best scenes in entire VN (at least in my opinion) were with Noah.

Spoiler

Haruto's route sounds terrible then :S Not only does he suck, none of the heroines redeem his route either :/

 

Edited January 20, 2018 by Stormwolf

[twisted]

@Stormwolf I found Asahi annoying at first too but she really grew on me over the course of the story. She gets a lot more romantic development than Riku does. Also don't know how far you've got but Haruto does get slightly less insufferable later on.

Edited January 21, 2018 by twisted

[Silvz]

On 17/01/2018 at 12:52 PM, ChaosRaven said:

A more worrysome matter though is the episode structure. Initially I thought that you take the POV of a certain character for an entire chapter, but it looks like there are constant POV jumps even after short scenes. And not only that, the VN doesn't just jump to the next scene, it opens a whole bunch of new scenes and you can choose with which you want to continue. I honestly don't know how the VN wants to tell a homogenous story when it's structured like an H-scene gallery.

Though I'm still at the beginning - maybe things get clearer when I proceed a bit further. 

I think you'd love how Kindred Spirits on the roof (yuri) does this kind of storytelling, as you choose the point of view/route you want in a calendar, while sticking to the same timeline; so you unlock each new chapter to each romance duos whenever you want, and each scene is a new situation with, sometimes, weeks between them.

Also, there is Zero Time Dilemma, from the zero escape series, which lets you pick which scene you want to watch first, and them unlocks more after you play a few. In the end, it only matters storywise (not going to spoil anything), so it may be different from this game.

What I'm trying to say is that there other games that have this structure of point of views and they work perfectly.

Honorable mentions: Umineko, Katahane

[ChaosRaven]

7 hours ago, Silvz said:

What I'm trying to say is that there other games that have this structure of point of views and they work perfectly.

Honorable mentions: Umineko, Katahane

I think that's not really the same thing we are talking about. Umineko is told from 3rd person POV and in those character jumps are quite normal. And if Kindred Spirits on the roof is written like Sakurai's other VN's, it's probably also 3rd person POV. Didn't play the others, so I can't judge. Though technically I played Katahane for a few hours, but I dropped it because I didn't like it and I can't remember the writing structure anymore.

And in Sorcery Jokers it definitely doesn't work 'perfectly' - it's an absolute mess so far. Not just because of the sudden POV changes, but also because of the unfunny jokes and some really dull written characters with Haruto and his ultra-annoying 'that's not playing fair' statements in particular. The VN even goes so far to show the exact same scene from the 1st person POV of two different characters. This can be interesting if there's a certain twist behind it like in Root Double. But in Sorcery Jokers it's done for completely pointless slice of life scenes just to drag the pacing down.

I still hope it's just a messy beginning and gets better after a while, because I definitely won't finish it like that. Currently, the only thing that keeps me reading is Senri and that there are occasionally still interesting story bits showing up.

Edited January 21, 2018 by ChaosRaven

[Stormwolf]

16 hours ago, twisted said:

@Stormwolf I found Asahi annoying at first too but she really grew on me over the course of the story. She gets a lot more romantic development than Riku does. Also don't know how far you've got but Haruto does get slightly less insufferable later on.

Sounds good. Gonna start reading it seriously in one of the coming days

[Kirashi]

On 19/01/2018 at 10:20 PM, Sparteh said:

Well, they were a bit annoying, but nowhere near to the level of the Haruto.  

Just a short info about story structure. It has NO spoilers about plot itself, just a way how VN is structured in terms of routes. Still, I will put it in spoilers, since some people might not want to know it.

  Reveal hidden contents

Actually VN goes more like this Common route>choose MC, here the focus is on 2 heroines (one for Senri and 1 for Haruto)>choose mc again, focus on another 2 heroines>true end>heroine epilogues. Those choose MC parts can more or less be considered to be heroine routes, except for the fact that they don't go into separate timelines like in most VNs.

When it comes to heroines, I have hard time choosing the best. Overall as a character, Fiona was the best, but the way how chemistry worked, 2 of the best scenes in entire VN (at least in my opinion) were with Noah.

I am at the 5th days. When I finished the prologue, I was so fucking happy I could choose Senri without having to read Haruto's bullshit (and I thought I could finish the VN like this). Now I have to read the other boring dumbass, and I don't know if I'll be able to do that until the 5th days without dropping.

Here are my questions:

Is there a MC more important than the other? Or is it balanced?

Can I skip Haruto (press ctrl) without missing something important?

Is he still dumb and painful to read in his route?

Edited January 22, 2018 by Kirashi

[Sparteh]

4 hours ago, Kirashi said:

I am at the 5th days. When I finished the prologue, I was so fucking happy I could choose Senri without having to read Haruto's bullshit (and I thought I could finish the VN like this). Now I have to read the other boring dumbass, and I don't know if I'll be able to do that until the 5th days without dropping.

Here are my questions:

Is there a MC more important than the other? Or is it balanced?

Can I skip Haruto (press ctrl) without missing something important?

Is he still dumb and painful to read in his route?

For importance, it is debatable. Technically they should be more or less equal. Though, for me personally, Senri felt more important. This is a bit of ending spoiler, though I won't include details, just a little of general outline.

Spoiler

Haruto and schoolgirl squad won their final fight, only because Senri won his and pretty much did all background work by himself. Heck, all enemies that Haruto faced and fights themselves were trash. 

Skipping Haruto? Well in the end all information was shared through the story. Though, you would miss all backgrounds and important facts about 2 heroines. Also, his route focus more on certain aspects, that were only a bit mentioned in Senri's part. So in the end it wouldn't work. I wouldn't recommend skipping it, BUT I know how annoying Haruto is, so if you want to skip something, you could skip some of SoL dialogues. 

And yes, he still stays annoying, though some people would claim that not so much. 

[Kirashi]

And what about the screentime for both MC and both route? Is it balanced? I'm affraid that haruto might have more but I want to be sure

[Sparteh]

12 hours ago, Kirashi said:

And what about the screentime for both MC and both route? Is it balanced? I'm affraid that haruto might have more but I want to be sure

I haven't exactly tracked the time, but I would say it was more or less equal. Though due to the fact that Haruto was so annoying it felt longer than it was

[Nier]

Anybody noticed that MangaGamer translated "Siscon" as "Sister Enthusiast"?

This is as bad as when NISA translated "Fujoshi" as "Fangirl".

[novurdim]

10 hours ago, Nier said:

Anybody noticed that MangaGamer translated "Siscon" as "Sister Enthusiast"?

This is as bad as when NISA translated "Fujoshi" as "Fangirl".

Nope, this is a pretty great translation, especially if the word is used in the humorous context.

[Sparteh]

8 minutes ago, novurdim said:

Nope, this is a pretty great translation, especially if the word is used in the humorous context.

It would be great translation if not errors. For example, there has been numerous occasions where I have seen "9" instead of "g"

[novurdim]

2 hours ago, Sparteh said:

It would be great translation if not errors. For example, there has been numerous occasions where I have seen "9" instead of "g"

Well, sure, though I do wonder which of the letters in a "sister enthusiast" looks like "9" or "g".

[Nier]

4 hours ago, novurdim said:

Nope, this is a pretty great translation, especially if the word is used in the humorous context.

What do you mean "Nope", you are going to say that you haven't seen how "Siscon" was translated as "Sister Enthusiast"? I mean if you are already selling an 18+ game, might as well go all the way and not try to PC-ify the thing.

I am guessing the reason why did they did is that since they were planning on releasing the game as both an All-Age and 18+ title, they just went the easy way in and made 1 PC-fied translation for the whole game while only removing the sex scenes from the All-Age version, of course that impacted things such as "Siscon" being turned into "Sister Enthusiast" in all versions of the game.

Edited January 24, 2018 by Nier

[novurdim]

35 minutes ago, Nier said:

What do you mean "Nope", you are going to say that you haven't seen how "Siscon" was translated as "Sister Enthusiast"?

I didn't play it yet, I meant that this is a great translation of the term if you decided to translate it. Did you want to see sister fucker or smth.

[Stormwolf]

13 minutes ago, novurdim said:

I didn't play it yet, I meant that this is a great translation of the term if you decided to translate it. Did you want to see sister fucker or smth.

Are you playing stupid on purpose? He obviously wants the term "siscon" to be used.

[novurdim]

17 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

Are you playing stupid on purpose? He obviously wants the term "siscon" to be used.

You sure? Because then you are implying that he thinks "siscon" is some hardcore untranslatable 18+ word and now that could be a serious offence to a person and his capabilities.