Princess Evangile Release 2015

[Satsuki]

I actually did not notice those lines at all.

Advantage of a non-native English speaker, I guess   

[Decay]

I'll probably leave that out of the review, because people have a high tolerance for bad writing. Still not well edited. I can't get sucked in, the writing keeps jolting me out.

A lot of people here are ESLs and simply don't notice the flaws. Or if they notice but don't actually care, to be perfectly frank, they're wrong for not caring. The more people telling them that they should care, the better.

[AlexZandria]

A lot of people here are ESLs and simply don't notice the flaws. Or if they notice but don't actually care, to be perfectly frank, they're wrong for not caring. The more people telling them that they should care, the better.

The flow of the words is probably one of the most important parts of a visual novel for me so I definitely second an effort to raise awareness on these kinds of things.

[Darklord Rooke]

My uptight lecturing on Mangagamer's LACK of writing style is going to lead to much mockery in the near future. I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I made for the cause!

[AlexZandria]

My uptight lecturing on Mangagamer's LACK of writing style is going to lead to much mockery in the near future. I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I made for the cause!

Not all of their games. NTY!!! Was really well written, IMO. Their translations had no glaring errors and didn't feel stiff at all.

[Darklord Rooke]

Not all of their games. NTY!!! Was really well written, IMO. Their translations had no glaring errors and didn't feel stiff at all.

[Down]

It's a question of who's working on the game rather than Mangagamer, to be honest. Of course Mangagamer as a whole is responsible for putting out a subpar game, but in the end you can't really say that "Mangagamer's writing is bad". For instance, the dude who worked on Cartagra and works on KnS 2 is definitely a good editor. They do have talented people working. Just maybe not all of them. I don't care about games that are not Innocent Grey or Gakhthun anyway.

[AlexZandria]

It's a question of who's working on the game rather than Mangagamer, to be honest. Of course Mangagamer as a whole is responsible for putting out a subpar game, but in the end you can't really say that "Mangagamer's writing is bad". For instance, the dude who worked on Cartagra and works on KnS 2 is definitely a good editor. They do have talented people working. Just maybe not all of them. I don't care about games that are not Innocent Grey or Gakhthun anyway.

With the amount of nukige they write it is no surprise they might have a few questionable translators and editors.

[Decay]

"That good MangaGamer editor" aka Ritobito. I believe he did Cartagra, and is currently handling KnS2 and Gahkthun, possibly Euphoria too but i don't remember. He was the editor on the Dangan Ronpa 1 fan translation, which was better than XSeed's official one. He's pretty dang good at what he does. Edit: Scratch that, he's not doing Euphoria but is doing the two others I mentioned as well as Fata Morgana and Da Capo 3. The fact that they put him on DC3, possibly their most important project, tells you how much MG respects his ability.

 

With the amount of nukige they write it is no surprise they might have a few questionable translators and editors.

 

The nukige is like a trial for translators. Almost all prospective translators have to work on some nukige before getting something else. I don't think the fact that they translate nukige has much to do with the quality of the other games' translation staff.

[Darklord Rooke]

Yeah, I expect nukige to be dodgily translated, nobody really cares that it is either. I'm a little disappointed that this game hasn't so far (it's still just the trial version, no idea if the actual version will be like this) been handled decently. But I suppose real world concerns do hamper quality

[zoom909]

Yeah, I expect nukige to be dodgily translated, nobody really cares that it is either.

 

I don't expect that.  Whatever it is...if I'm going to play it, and if it's got lots of text to read, then I want it to be readable.  Some nukige are worth reading, anyway.  Any visual-novel-style game that isn't worth reading the text, isn't worth playing...you've just got yourself an expensive hentai image / sound gallery at that point.

[sanahtlig]

So here's further news on editing plans:

 

Q: I saw on the MG fourms that Princess Evangile is going through another edit phase and might not make it in time for release. Why is PE getting released already when the editing is not even done?

A: I can't actually load the forums to see the original post (ha ha...), but I think it's a bit exaggerated. The game went through translation and editing before we did testing, and the demo came out after both were complete. As Kaitsu said on her ask (http://ask.fm/KaitsuKai1/answer/125298535204), the changes won't be huge, mostly small incremental fixes and cleaning up where it's needed.

http://ask.fm/The_Doddler/answer/124887785969

 

That seems to indicate that the demo will be representative of the final product.

[TexasDice]

On a scale from Moenovel to Edelweiss 1.0, how bad is it? I'm too lazy to get the demo. 

[sanahtlig]

I haven't played any of those 3 titles, so I'll have to consult the Professor on this one.  Sounds like a good subject for his next blog post.  I can say that Mangagamer hasn't erased content out of existence with this release, so they have that in their favor at least.

[XReaper]

On a scale from Moenovel to Edelweiss 1.0, how bad is it? I'm too lazy to get the demo. 

dunno which ones translation is actually the worse one on your skala. sure moenovel produced unintentionally (or not) something "very unique" & edelweiss was full of typos and whatever mistakes (but the translation itself didnt look that bad in my eyes, or it did but cant remember anymore).

hope it wont be on moenovel niveau, that would be really a shame

[Decay]

It doesn't belong on that scale. It's nowhere near as bad as MangaGamer's first few years. It reads better than most fan translations, but overall it's just... kind of sloppy, I guess? I expect better out of MangaGamer these days. 

[Darklord Rooke]

What's the condition of the demo? I can't comment on the translation but it's probably fairly accurate translation wise, however it reads like it has had very little editing. In fact it reads like it was written by a dude who has no clue about basic english sentence structure. It's really disappointing in a game which costs near 50 bucks.

 

BUT Moenovel's was far worse. Can't comment on Edelweiss, not my kind of game.

[Zakamutt]

Is there anyone else who's not sure if this is actually a problem? This is, far as I can tell, internal monologue. People's speech is rarely efficient. Additionally, if you used Rooke's shortened sentence, you run into the problem where the textbox isn't filled up very well (I'd consider this a problem of aesthetics, at least...) Now, said space could potentially just be used to put the next piece of monologue in, assuming there is one, but that depends on what exactly would go in there.

 

Not enough info, really.

 

////

 

...Maybe I really just took issue with perilous though, come to think of it.

[Darklord Rooke]

Is there anyone else who's not sure if this is actually a problem? This is, far as I can tell, internal monologue. People's speech is rarely efficient. Additionally, if you used Rooke's shortened sentence, you run into the problem where the textbox isn't filled up very well (I'd consider this a problem of aesthetics, at least...) Now, said space could potentially just be used to put the next piece of monologue in, assuming there is one, but that depends on what exactly would go in there.

 

Not enough info, really.

 

The internal monologue is the actual narrative in a first person novel, which is where a writer's job starts. Anybody can whack out a dialogue scene, it's the prose and the narrative which is the hardest and most important. They create imagery for the reader, build a scenario for the scene to take place in. Good writing is conveying that image, or information effectively to the reader, butchering a sentence and obscuring the information is usually considered bad writing. There are many kinds of good writing, but bad writing tends to be the same... I think.

 

People's speech IS rarely efficient, but dialogue is not meant to reflect real life (unless you're doing a piece of literature and this is one of your themes.) This is why a writer is usually told they should mimic real dialogue in their novels, not actually include real dialogue in their novels. Same goes for monologues and narration.

 

Ahaha, there's plenty of times in the novel where the text box isn't near filled. It's a poor excuse really. And yes, I'd take an empty text box over a butchering of a sentence any day. Although maybe the devs can keep the whole "empty text box" thing in mind the next time they fill it with 

 

"..."

 

And yes Bats is right. I AM a grumpy old man

 

EDIT: Replace perilous with dangerous then

[Zakamutt]

pls, just go with "bad" already. This is a moege protag, he's bound to be retarded. And looking back on it... well, I'm a born contrarian. I do think your approach to shortening is a bit on the extreme end though.

 

Out of bored interest, is the situation part necessary? Because otherwise you could go with something delicious like "I wasn't even joking, this was bad bad."

 

I like italics

[Darklord Rooke]

pls, just go with "bad" already. This is a moege protag, he's bound to be retarded. And looking back on it... well, I'm a born contrarian. I do think your approach to shortening is a bit on the extreme end though.

 

Out of bored interest, is the situation part necessary? Because otherwise you could go with something delicious like "I wasn't even joking, this was bad bad."

 

I like italics

[sanahtlig]

If I can't understand a sentence because it's so badly written, then there's a problem.  At its core, the purpose of writing is conveying a message.  If that message is being obscured because they can't figure out how to translate Japanese grammatical structures into clear and flowing English, then they're not doing a good job.  I play VNs in English to give my mind and hands a rest from the difficult work of parsing Japanese.  If they're making me stop auto-mode to puzzle out bad English, it's defeating the whole purpose of playing the game in English.

[XReaper]

cant agree more. the sole purpose of those kind of media is to erntertain ones mind and not the other way round. bad writing, caused by lax editing (or whatever) results almost ever in lesser enjoyment of the whole product, its the same with watching a movie when the screen is continiously flickering.

[TexasDice]

So, hypothetically speaking: What would you guys prefer to happen now?

 

1. Pricedrop

2. Postponed release, to have an editor do some magic

or

3. Release as planned and free patch later on

[AlexZandria]

So, hypothetically speaking: What would you guys prefer to happen now?

 

1. Pricedrop

2. Postponed release, to have an editor do some magic

or

3. Release as planned and free patch later on

 

either 1 or 2. I want to preorder it but I can't after what I've heard about the demo. I'd be more willing to buy into it with a steeper discount and I'd be willing to pre-order if they announced they were pushing back the release for editing.

 

On the other hand I'd be upset if they didn't announce they were planning to fix it up and then they released it with a free patch later because I would have missed out on the discounted pre-order that I would have easily bought into if they'd told me they were editing it.