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Fata Morgana Before Crime Review - Top 10 Best Rated VNs Translated at 2016


littleshogun

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As for this time, I decided to make my 'Top 10 translated VN at 2016' even though it's very belated for obvious reason lol. Once again, I would use some data from Conjueror's video with some modification here, and also to show of how easy the score was fluctuated. As for the rules, no yaoi and otome VN here, localized name for alias, I'll list both of Erogamescape and VNDB score if possible, and the translation must be considered complete by VNDB as of February 12th 2024 with the VNDB score would be based on that date as well (Keep in mind that it can be fluctuate). Also beware of the spoiler when you played the opening here.

10. 11eyes -Tsumi to Batsu to Aganai no Shoujo- (VNDB 7.30, Erogamescape 76)

Back at 2011 there's a lot of talk about this VN with the translation project of this was ongoing, although of course nowadays the project is already dead. And then back at December 2016 we suddenly have Denwalts release his surprise translation patch, and turned out that it's 11eyes patch. While granted that the patch was have some faults, I say we should appreciate Denwalts's effort for translating a well-known VN. The premise is we have Kakeru who is an orphan lost his older sister five years ago, and his only friend is Yuka. One day both him and Yuka was thrown into a world with red sky that was called Red Night, and that it have a lot of monsters. Some time after he somehow survived, he find out that there's several other people who can enter the Red Night. From there Kakeru decided to unravel the mystery behind the Red Night which naturally will involve a lot of fighting. 11eyes here also offer an unique feature called Cross Vision in that we'll be able to see some scenes from other perspective, although of course most of the time we see things from Kakeru's perspective seeing that he's the MC.

9. Hakuisei Aijou Izonshou aka Nurse Love Addiction (VNDB 7.36, Erogamescape 75)

First of all, this is a shoujo ai VN which mean that there would be some yuri, although in regard if that it's quite limited though because this is all age VN. For Hakuai premise here, our MC Asuka who is quite a ditzy one find her picture book with the writing 'I want to be a nurse' and from there she find out that her childhood dream was to became a nurse. So from there Asuka and her more responsible younger sister entering the nursing school, and met with a very popular yuri couple who soon to be the sisters best friends. After that they'll gonna have a fun school life while learning to becoming the best nurse, ......if only it was as simple as that. Yeah, turn out things here was not as simple as it looks from the cover alone just like Symphonic Rain - I mention that because it was from same developer, and I guess some Symphonic Rain staff also involved in Hakuai here. As for the twist itself, I'll leave to the reader here in order to find out about that if you curious.

8. Tokyo Babel (VNDB 7.47, Erogamescape 71)

As for this VN, the premise was that the world was already destroyed and right now the last remaining of humanity live in the purgatory - by the way the name of the purgatory was the title drop. Also other than human world, both of heaven and hell also have some complicated situation as well so both of angels and demons live in purgatory as well. From there, all three races was travelling together in order to met the God to asking His atonement. Of course there would be no smooth sailing for this because sometimes some powerful being got crazy, and here's our MC job to combat the crazy one while on his quest to find out about himself. That premise aside, it's already well known for the fighting scenes here so it should be good if one yearn for that. Also interestingly this VN did have no sex scenes, and in exchange it have all star cast from the anime (Such as Hanakana and Miyuki Sawashiro) which probably blew most of Propeller's budget. For last note here, I just want to nitpick that why they need to use school as purgatory lol, and more seriously noted that Tokyo Babel was more in line with Shin Megami Tensei franchise in general.

7. Seinarukana -The Spirit of Eternity Sword 2- (VNDB 7.57, Erogamescape 75)

As for this VN, supposedly it was Eien no Aselia sequel although the connection was quite loose because it only have few returning characters from Aselia, and the casts are travelling between different worlds instead of stay in one world like back at Aselia. That said, the gameplay for this VN was improved so at least should be satisfy some people who's been interested with Aselia gameplay. As for the history of the translation, it was back at 2011 iirc that Seinarukana was started the fan translation. After that, the first translator was disappeared and then the team got another translator to hopefully finished the project. Too bad thought that the second translator did disappear as well making the project was in danger of the purge. After all that happened, Aroduc decided to help with the translation and out of those two he is obviously managed to finished the translation and sold it to JAST. Which obviously lead to long time - it was planned at 2013 iirc only to be delayed, before finally it was saw the release at 2016. Well all of those events were already in the past, and at the very least we could enjoy it in English.

6. Himawari (VNDB 7.60, Erogamescape 82)

There's an interesting case in regard of the English version release of this VN, namely that this VN spent too much time in testing case ie delayed. As for the reason, I could say it was probably because Frontwing released PSV version for Japan first before ported it to PC for overseas version, but it didn't matter now anyway because it's already released - the delay was last for more than half a year though because it was supposed to be released along with Tokyo Babel (Tokyo Babel released at March 31st). As for the premise of the VN, it was in regard of Youichi (The MC) who live in 2048 and still recovering in regard the loss of his dad who was dead along with many victims in the space plane crash, with him as the sole survivor of the accident and suffer amnesia to boot. After he find an alien girl at one night, Youichi was started to uncover his memory and the truth behind the accident. For a bit more trivia, Himawari was released as doujin first before Frontwing took the attention to this and adding all star cast from anime as the seiyuu. As for the difference, the original version contain sex scene while the remake version didn't have that (Duh).

5. Dracu Riot (VNDB 7.70, Erogamescape 77)

This VN did have many history back at April 2012 when the VN itself was translated by Insem after he finished with Hoshimemo. Long story short, we saw Insem withhold his almost completed patch for more than two years (And make the fan angry in the process), before finally release it back at April 2018 with Miu's route untranslated. Because the patch was incomplete, some members of Fuwanovel decided to to finish Miu's route. After that, back at September 2016 apparently there's a discord within the team, which resulting some team members leaked the patch. Although the patch then was taken down quickly, it's still too late though because the leaked patch was already spread. After that, back at AX 2017 Sekai decided to officially announce this in that the new version should be more polished compared to the leaked patch (According to Decay, the leaked patch was still unedited). As for the premise, it's more or less just vampire who live in an articifial island and MC was tried to adapt at the island after became the vampire. It have some sci-fi element and some plot about vampire origin, but the overall tone is lighthearted.

4. Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- (VNDB 7.86, Erogamescape 82)

What I first remember for Root Double is that I'm looking forward to the eventual English release of this VN since back at 2012, simply because GundamAce (The translator) said that this VN was on the almost same level as Ever17. Of course I was quite happy seeing that it was finally about to be licensed by Sekai back then, some problematic issue aside. Let's not forget that this VN was also have the delay as well, although the case was not as bad as Saku Saku though because at least they only delay it once instead of twice lol. As for the premise, it's involved a nuclear explosion in a facility and there's amnesiac firefighter captain who was supposed to rescue the people inside the facility, only to be trapped for 9 hours and from there he and his comrades must try to figure of how to save themselves. There's also another MC in which he was a high school student who also trapped inside the facility, and from there he also must figure out of how to save himself and his friends.

For more info, there a lot of number nine here (Nine enneagrams, nine characters, and nine hours) so I think it's more or less could be said as Nakazawa answer to 999 (Uchikoshi created that, and Nakazawa was Uchikoshi's former partner back at Ever17). For one more note here, GundamAce lament that Takeshi Abo was not composed the OST in Root Double, because he think that it would be more fitting. Oh, and forget to said that Sekai released Xtend version instead of original version, which is a better version because Xtend add some additional scenes. So I'd decided to post both opening here, and beware of the spoiler from 2nd opening below.

3. Rance VI - Zeth Houkai (VNDB 7.89, Erogamescape 84)

After Arunaru finished with Mamatoto, he worked on Rance 6 back at 2015. Back when he worked on the VN I was quite hyped, especially with someone said it's more enjoyable than FF12 in his blogpost and Arunaru is fast translator. However, I was disappointed when he decided to halt the project for some reasons, which turned out to be working with Mangagamer to translate Beat Blade Haruka. Thankfully, Mangagamer announced Rance 6 along with 5D and so Arunaru can use his translation. For Rance 6 itself, it's about Rance who came to Zeth after his adventure in 5D. In there, he find himself become the slave because he didn't posses magical talent while his slave Sill ironically treated far better than Rance (Sill herself is the mage). Zeth itself is a country where people treat mage as the first class citizen with non-mage as lower than human, so obviously there's a resistance movement to fight the unfair situation. Being scouted into one of the movement, Rance decided to join the resistance in order to get his revenge to the mages, be reunited with Sill, and more importantly have sex with as much as woman as possible.

2. Okujou no Yurirei-san aka Kindred Spirits on the Roof (VNDB 7.96, Erogamescape 79)

I admit that at first I didn't see this VN potential because of the simplistic graphic lol, and I thought that the format just 'yuri couple of the chapter' in which it's what Liar-soft like to do with their Steampunk VN. Turned out that's not the case because instead of just one time appearance, the couple actually did have enough development and more so if we decided to watch all the scenes from the perspective of the couple. For the premise, it was just a ghost yuri couple who couldn't move on because they want to felt each other but they wouldn't be able to do that for obvious reason, and so they decided to enlist Yuna's (The MC) help in order to established as many yuri couple as possible in order to allow the ghosts for learning how to express the feeling. Obviously heard that request Yuna was quite hesitant, but after did the first attempt reluctantly she started to like that and decided to be more active. Oh, and by the way this VN was partially voiced, although there will be full voiced version later though (JP only) - I hope that Mangagamer will license that version if possible.

1. Fata Morgana no Yakata aka The House in Fata Morgana (VNDB 8.79, Erogamescape 87)

Okay, at first I didn't trust this VN like Yurirei because of the graphic was quite unorthodox compared to usual VN, and more importantly the Bayesian score of this VN was quite low - turned out that more or less it's just determined of how popular the VN was. After seeing the good review for this VN, I decided to tried this and find it was quite good indeed, especially with the mystery behind the aforementioned house. As for the premise, you act as someone who got amnesia and a mysterious maid guide you through the doors which show the tale of the house's former residents, whose more or less were doomed to have a tragedy while hoping that you'll get your memories back. The VN itself was a doujin one so there's no voice in the VN, at least in translated version because there's also PSV version with voice acting. It also spawned drama CD which have voice acting as well, and the casts are well known for anime fan - some of them returned for voicing PSV version. Another good point of this VN was the OST, which some of those was sang by Gao. Here's one of the sample in form of the opening.

Well, that's all for the list here and hope you enjoying this. As for 2016 it was quite interesting contrast because there's more story content VN, compared to 2017 in which some of best VN there could be categorized as usual charage. Not that I said it was bad of course, but rather it's just something that I noticed here.

PS - For the title I'm simply combined both of Fata Morgana and Root Double subtitle (Before Crime After Days) into Fata Morgana Before Crime, which could be still an appropriate title for Fata Morgana fandisc lol.

Edited by littleshogun

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