Chrono Clock - Common and Michiru
Entry posted by sm2345
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Well, I do seem to be jumping about different VNs, alongwith watching anime and all, but yeah, variety makes it exciting!
Anyway, with Chrono Clock having been released on Steam and other platforms, and me having them, I thought of giving Purplesoft a spin. Because why not?
But, first things first. It's been a while since I last read a translated VN (a couple of years I guess?), and this is an official localization of the same. So, I kind of want to get rid of that itch in my back first.
Thing is, the official localization... is pretty good, English-wise. It has a professional aura to it, and the English is quite well done and flows well in my opinion. It's just... there are places where it felt over-localized. It might be me preferring a more literal translation, but still. I mean, do teenagers in the US use swearwords like the f-word as part of their daily lives that frequently? I don't know, since I'm not from the US. And maybe that's why I kinda grew hazy on whether I was reading a VN or not... Sometimes it felt like a VN, yet didn't feel like one. It might be just me havign some culture shock though. Nevertheless, I feel this is quite good with people who are not familiar with VNs and don't need to know everything that's under the hood regarding Japanese culture. However, I might be more comfortable reading it in Japanese after all, dunno. The drop of honorifics was quite jarring to be frank, but I guess those are not needed for the casual VN reader?
In conclusion, the localization is well done, but... some things are irreversibly lost in translation. It sometimes also felt that there was more than what met the eye that could not be completely conveyed. Ah, English seems to be such a restricted language now, haha.
Moving on, the VN itself. Do keep in mind that I'll be biased somewhat due to the English translation...
Oh, another thing. The unlock order of routes are: Michiru / Misaki / D.D. / Makoto --> Cro --> Miu. So Cro's route will be unlocked only if the other 4 heroines' routes are finished and so on. (Hurk, so many girls' names starting with M)
Common route
Well, this has a rather odd common route. If I say so, unique. This quite digresses from the usual pattern of either the protagonist knowing the heroines well, or the one where he meets then one by one, and is then asked to make choices. It did feel slightly forced to be frank, but overall, was not bad.
Now, I cannot comment about the writing since it is not the original writing I read, but rather one through the mirror of the localization guys over at Sekai Project.
The choices for routes are pretty straightforward... mostly. The events... well, it's more like a classic VN to me, where events happen with different heroines. Not too much deep. To be frank, I cannot recall the same well. Maybe the common route did not leave that much of an impression on me.
Michiru
All right, I'll be frank. I usually avoid doing Blood-related sister routes. And Michiru was pretty much last on my list, just because I wanted to unlock the other two heroines' routes. But due to, ahem, choice, I ended up on the route. To be honest, I was so confident that I'd made the correct choice that I didn't realize that I was actually on the Michiru route till just before the confession.
That being said, I'm grateful they didn't put any H-scenes for the route in the middle of the route, leaving them to be read as separate scenes after the route is completed. And that gets it huge plus points for me.
Content-wise... it was not bad. A little bit touching too.
But... maybe because I read through it too fast, but I didn't quite realize the steps and jumps in their relationship. It... just felt shallow. Is it because I read through it too fast? (finished the route in 3 hours from the split) Or is it because I was not in the route I originally planned to be in? Or was it because I don't like doing blood-related sister heroines in general? Was the writing itself not deep enough for me? Did the localization lose too much in translation? Or is it a mix of all of these factors?
I liked the events, yeah. But to be frank, I was not as touched as I was, say while reading Mako's route in Senren Banka.
Nevertheless, let's see how it turns out. On to Misaki's route!
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