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Holy shit, are people here for real with devaluation of the last good bits this game has, lol. Lose makes lolige, but they try to keep it reasonably down to earth and emotional for most of the part, where it matters. If you want porn and dirty talking, go play Little Bitch Girls in Hog Farm.

Oh, stop being a baby. MG has been releasing a shitload of other stuff lately. Don't throw a tantrum just because they're throwing fans of other stuff a bone this con.

The clear winner is the end user. So many announcements, a number of titles for different tastes etc. We did nothing and yet we gain access to this treasure chest.

I'm a bit biased since I was the dracu riot editor, but I dispute the notion that only sophisticated prose needs to be written well. I find it really important for comedy as well, and Dracu-Riot is a comedy game first and foremost. The leaked patch read halfway decently on the surface, but the moment you stopped and thought about almost any exchange of dialogue in the game, you'd find a ton of little inconsistencies that break the flow. The patch actually contained thousands of unfixed mistranslations on the micro scale. So while you could accurately glean the bigger picture from the translation, most of the dialogue felt a little off. The comedy that relied on absurd situations all still worked, but most of the banter lacked impact and wasn't as entertaining as it could've been. My team and I fixed all of those little errors, and I think the game is a lot more entertaining as a result (though of course I would, lol). That, in addition to us trying to make the prose more natural in general as well as a (light-handed) attempt at making the different character personalities more distinct meant that over 70% of the lines were changed from that patch, so the changes probably aren't as minor as you're thinking. Though I perfectly understand why someone wouldn't want to read the whole VN again if they already read the fan tl version.

This topic is so depressing, lol.

This is the latest VN by AXL, and it is also the latest in its 'swords fantasy' (there is very little magic in these games) series (I say series, but they are just a line of similarly-designed games). The previous games in this series include Princess Frontier, Hyakka Ryouran Elixir, Racial Merge, and Ou no Mimi ni wa Todokanai. This is also AXL's fifteenth game, making it one of the most prolific companies (ignoring subsidiaries) still active. Like all the games in this series, it is based in a world whose tech level is medieval with bits and pieces of higher levels of technological development here and there. This one falls in an area similar to Ou no Mimi, rather than Princess Frontier or Hyakka Ryouran, meaning it has a somewhat more violent turn almost from the beginning. The protagonist is an antique dealer (thus the game's name) named Rowan who, due to the loss of his parents during an adventure at the highest levels of the tower, has had to deal with an aversion to the tower that is at the center of the town that serves as the center of the game's story. This changes when a young girl bearing a greatsword named Linaria comes into the picture, and he finds himself guiding a young group of adventurers through the lower levels of the tower. Rowan is not only an antique dealer but an exceptionally talented dagger-user and toolmaker. He is also the only individual in the town that can repair the various machines that come down from the tower. If I were to pick his class, I'd consider him to be a cross between an engineer and a rogue, with excellent crowd-control techniques and stuns. Like a lot of mature protagonists, there is a disconnect between his emotions and rational behavior, and as a result, he will often take the logical path, even when it conflicts with what his heart wants, thus leading to him being a bit dense about emotions in general. The tower is much like a lot of roguelike rpg towers (though this game isn't an rpg) where people climb the tower to gather treasure, fighting monsters and robot-like Guardians as they do so. The power gems taken from the Guardians can be used in various devices made from parts taken from the tower, and this is the source of most of the setting's higher technology. The tower itself is self-repairing and self-defending, deploying seemingly endless numbers of Guardians and monsters. No one knows how high it goes. The three heroines are the young princess Karin, the protagonist's adoptive sister Mira, and the newbie adventurer girl Linaria. Karin is a sort-of tsundere who very obviously is in love with Rowan from the beginning. Her father is the second King of the country (that consists of the tower, the town, and the land around it), but she only realized she was a princess at a relatively late age due to the closeness of the royal family to the people. Mira is a responsible girl who takes care of most of the chores and the account books at Rowan's shop... and has an unnatural attachment to the spiky ball and chain she uses as a weapon (the first time you see her flushing after squashing an enemy says everything). Linaria is the daughter of a deceased adventurer who came to find out why her father abandoned his family in order to seek fame and wealth in the tower. Though she resents adventurers as a profession, she is too kind-hearted to actually take it out on anyone. Common Route The common route mostly accounts the trials and tribulations of Rowan and company as they rise through the lower levels of the tower to be acknowledged as full-fledged adventurers (novices are called 'virgins' until they reach town on the Twentieth Floor). If you like AXL games' style of character interaction, you'll like the slice-of-life elements, and the battles are actually tactically interesting (something that is unusual for AXL). There are a few emotional moments dealing with Rowan's past, but the common route mostly serves to familiarize you with the characters. Normal Ending This is an ending you get if you fail to pick one of the three main heroines. It is basically a joke ending where the results of his actions in the common route come home to roost, lol. Karin Karin's path starts out with a lot of light ichaicha and a somewhat annoying get-together sequence. However, at roughly the halfway point, it suddenly turns dark and violent... and outright bloody. The violence in this path startled me a bit, as it is out of character for AXL (AXL generally restricts violence to one or two scenes in a given path, and never on this kind of scale). However, the story was interesting, and I left the path feeling satisfied. The actual progression from lighter atmosphere to darker one is common on AXL's games, and anyone who has played one will probably recognize the pattern... That didn't bother me, though, since it was interesting in and of itself. Linaria I recommend that anyone that plays this game play this path last. The reason is is that this is the only path that deals with the tower itself and climbing to the top as its subject matter. It is also the only path where certain major issues involving the protagonist are completely and finally resolved in a direct manner. This is perhaps not surprising, seeing as Linaria was being presented as the 'main heroine' almost from the beginning. However, it is a situation where anyone who plays this path will be a bit displeased with the other two if they played it first. The path itself is a lot less bloody than Karin's (to be blunt, Karin's path is the only one that gets bloody and serious to that degree), but it is still a good path, with a more emotional focus than Karin's. Mira Mira is my favorite of the three heroines, so I left her for last this time. She is the protagonist's adoptive little sister, and she falls under the archetype of the 'imouto who scolds her beloved oniichan but adores him'. Mira is a serious girl who cares deeply about the antique shop they are running, and as a result, most of her path deals with the economic issues of the city and the tower. It was when I finished this path that I came to the conclusion that Mira's path is the 'merchant' path, Karin's is the 'nation' path, and Linaria's is the 'adventurer' path. Mira's path is full of secrets and conspiracies, and it has some really good moments for Verbena (who is incidentally my favorite character in this game). It is also frequently humorous in ways the other two paths didn't manage, which was a plus for me. Some thoughts A few thoughts/complaints about this game. I honestly liked this game a great deal... but it seriously needed a grand route to put the themes of the other paths into a single one. The issues in each path weren't going to go away just because they weren't dealt with in those individual paths, and it bugs the hell out of me that there was no single path that brought them all to a resolution. I also think Verbena should have had a path other than the normal ending. Sure, she is a slut, a heavy drinker, and takes pleasure in unleashing her spiky weapons (ranging from morning stars to kusarikama)... but her personality is just awesome. Seeing that kind of character go all deredere is one of my favorite AXL events (AXL does really good 'haraguro' heroines). Conclusion If you liked any of the other 'swords fantasy' AXL games, you'll like this one. It has all the elements that make those games great, such as the protagonist being equally or more important than the heroines, decent action without being focused on the action, and a mix of light humor and serious story that keeps slice of life from getting out of hand. I'll be the first to admit that AXL doesn't change its art style or character archetypes, but that never seems to effect whether their games are good or not.

Who the fuck wants to translate Rance X with its 260k lines 8mb text

I'm mostly interested in the more niche otome genre but I'm really seeing a lot of potential there. However, most are really interested in F2P mobile games (see how popular Mystic Messenger is). Also, there are so many EVNs for PC which are mainly otome (and even Russian ones which get translated in English). On the PC side, there's a lot of growing interest with how successful Cinderella Phenomenon is. I think as the fanbase matures even more, there would be more interest in the paid stuff. I mean, several kickstarters were successful and expected to deliver. The quality in general is also becoming better with more interesting plots and characters. (They even feature LGBTQ+ love interests!) Especially since otome EVNS love their strong female characters. What I'd also really love to see though is something like The House in Fata Morgana. Not otome but compelling narrative, strong visuals, and an absolutely beautiful and haunting soundtrack. I hope to see something like that as the audience grows.

Mangagamer's panel is starting, and I'll list their three announcement at this post here. Edit - Now that they finished their announcements, here's the list of the announced VNs. I'll comment more on this later. Announcement 1 - Luckydog1 Gian Carlo (also known as the "Lucky Dog") and 4 other members of mafia group called CR-5 are locked in prison. One day, they all receive letters from their boss, stating that if Gian successfully breaks all five of them out of the prison, he will become the boss of the CR-5. The group decides to give it a try. Announcement 2 - Lilcycle This first all-ages title by PARTICLE is based on a series of yuri drama CDs. The main characters are new idol Yuuno, student teacher Tamaki, and hall monitor and ninja Saeka. The story is focused on their triangle relationship, although the other 12 girls from the drama CDs will also show up, sometimes with surprising pairings. Instead of a single protagonist, the player can switch the viewpoint among the girls. Announcement 3 - Rance IX The Helman Empire is the oldest of the countries on the continent, as well as being the most powerful for a long time. However, corruption had ruined the nation and most live in extreme poverty. It felt like it was only a matter of time before an internal revolt would break out or they would be invaded by a neighbouring country. Then the former Prince Patton Misnarge, who had disappeared after failing to conquer a neighbouring country, returned after training hard to keep his promise of bringing back glory to his country. To aid in his revolution, he recruited the best and most courageous men that he had met during his travels, including the most powerful warrior Rance. PS - All description was taken from VNDB page of the respective VNs. PPS - Nevermind, they decided to add the additional very good announcement here, so here's their additional announcement here. Bonus Announcement - Rance X For over a thousand years, the Continent has been divided into two sides: the Monster Realm, home of the all-powerful Dark Lords and the monster hoards that they command, and the Human Realm, home of humankind and its kin. In the year LP0007, the forces of the monster army suddenly invade the Human Realm, striking with both overwhelming strength and ferocity. The civil war between Dark Lords, which had been locked in a stalemate for several years, had finally ended. Its victor, the Dark Lord Kayblis, was declared ruler of all of monsterkind. His first decree was to take back the human territories using all of the forces at his disposal. While the major human nations of the world attempt to fight off the invading threat, the immense power difference between their armies and the united monster army quickly becomes clear. Humanity's strength steadily begins to waver in the face of the seemingly unstoppable foe. The Human Realm's major world leaders hold a summit to discuss a means of combating the monsters, but are unable to reach an agreement between each other. Just as all hope seems lost, the man known as Rance stands up: "All of you just follow me, okay? I'll smash-up all the monster armies no problem!" While the summit's attendees are understandably shaken by this bold declaration, they quickly accept it. The Kingdom of Leazas' Queen Lia Parapara Leazas. The Magic Kingdom of Zeth's Viceroy Magic the Gandhi. The Helman Republic's President Sheila Helman. The Free Cities Alliance's representative Copandon Dott. The eastern nation of JAPAN's ruler Oda Kou. The world's largest religion the AL Church's Pope Crook Mofus. It is because of these six women, who have each witnessed Rance's heroism save the world from crisis firsthand, that the agreement is reached. Under Rance, humanity is united as one. Thus, the great war to determine the future of the Continent begins.

Ixrec/Amaterasu TL: weird "Japanese-y" sentences, reportedly butchers the prose and themes of the original VN, literal to the point of being borderline nonsensical at times GHS TL: so verbose even Polonius would tell him to shut the fuck up, 2deep4me, heavily modified to support GHS' weird view of the world Moenovel TL: literal shit. I wouldn't read this if it were the literary version of water and my eyes were on fire. If I had to pick one, I'd pick ixrec's TL every single time.

Update 1.2, now with more tiddy! Maitetsu 18+ Restoration Patch 1.2

VNs missed the boat as they would have had to have taken off in the non-instant entertainment era. People don't read any more; that's why VNs will never be popular in the west.

Standing equal to anime and manga is pretty much impossible because you can't really play VNs through your browser but need to download them.

Amaterasu's one: readable but way too literal, a lot of jokes were completely ruined and it's full of translator notes that "helps" you understand what the hell they were trying to say. GH one: readable but he decided to make every single sentence twice as long for absolutely no reason, he probably rewrote half the script to sound more "profound" in English Moenovel's one: unreadable, nothing makes sense, looks almost like a machine translation

As you can see the patch for some reason doesn't work with the base steam version even if you applied the official restoration patch to it. It only works on the FAKKU version(Full game). Also there is a high chance that applying this patch to the steam version may cause unnecessary glitches to pop up like the one you are currently having with missing characters, so i would suggest you to not use this patch with the steam version of the game irrespective of whether you have applied the official 18+ dlc or not.

The VN community made some insane effort to make the medium more accessible - I'm not sure if we would ever get where we are now without the huge fan translation community that put an incomprehensible amount of work into making this absolutely obscure, mostly unknown genre available in English. We talk about 200+ games translated mostly for free, among them Clannad (reminder - a game with a script longer than all Harry Potter books combined). Aeru's anarchistic vision for Fuwanovel was to make VNs popular by spreading pirated copies with fan translations. This vision was abandoned when the Western VN market started professionalizing and I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the initiative is now on the side of those who inherited the manpower and passion of the VN fan translation industry (that is, the publishers, who now employ pretty much all the most talented and dedicated people from the VN FTL community). And the developers, whose expansion to the West was made possible mostly thanks to the huge grassroots effort in the years prior. If they don't do a better job at expanding the niche, I don't think anyone can. But as fans... Well, this: Saying this might be getting boring by now, but when you type "visual novel" in google Fuwanovel is one of the first things you find. A community effort at making information about VNs more accessible, helping people get into the medium through initiatives such as the recommendation quiz... These are the things we could definitely do more of and I think they mean a lot. The problem is, Fuwa is in a perpetual state of paralyses, so we can't really use it as an effective platform - this might change though and concentrating on such community sites and contributing to them is the best approach IMHO. There's no "magical" way to make VNs suddenly grow to the popularity levels of Manga and Anime, they'll never get that far, but we can cultivate our little niche and strive to make it more inviting. Anything beyond that is in the hands of people that are actually paid to do something about it.

I have now decided to add openings to the VNs on the list, atm I am only adding openings on youtube from the channel of either the publisher or developer though I might add others later, though if I don't find the opening on youtube at all I probably won't add it.

Things went from: 2016: "Y U no Rance MG? You suck!" to 2018: "Y Rance MG? You suck!"

Is that a hint that I'm writing too much

Yes, the argument being that even if the script were 10 times the size of the original, it would still seems small compared to Rance X.

Mystery solved. VNDB added him to Rance X yesterday. I was right that he wasn't listed with an obvious candidate for the next release. Had he been listed, then we might have had a chance of predicting Rance X being announced. Once again it makes so much sense in retrospect, but not before you have seen the ending. Rance IV -Legacy of the Sect- Rance 4.1 -Save the Medicine Plant!- Rance 4.2 -Angel Army- Kichikuou Rance All those have fan translations though. Only the remakes of 01-02-03 lacks translations or announcements of translations. Short is an understatement. Rance 1 came on 4 floppies in 1989 and it's apparently 1.5 MB compressed. Most likely they used DD disks, giving it a total of 2.8 MB available. That is for everything: script, graphics, audio etc. For comparison a few posts back it's mentioned that Rance X use 8 MB for the script alone. Even though the remakes are claimed to have 10 times as much text as the originals, translating those would likely feel nearly instant compared to Rance X. If I am to take a guess to why Rance X is announced and not the early titles, the reason would be that they know Rance X will take ages (years) to translate. If they stop Rance releases while translating, the Rance hype might die out before they finish. Right now they announced it, they have 3 announced, yet not released, 3 remakes and 4 old titles without remakes, making it a total of 10 unreleased Rance titles. This allows them to release a Rance title every 10th of the Rance X translation time, which will make it seem like a steady stream of "new" titles and Rance will have a better chance of still being hype when Rance X is released. The fact that a number of those titles aren't marathon readings just makes it easier to do them in parallel with Rance X. Somebody mentioned something of a possible remake of Rance 4 (could be a fake rumor for all I know). If that is true and one will be released in Japan at some point in a not too distant future, it's entirely possible that Alicesoft and MG plan together and MG will release 01-02-03-04 within reasonable time of each other. If that's the case, it's possible that MG is translating the remakes now, but can't announce it until the 04 remake is released in Japan or something like that. We can speculate all we want. The only thing we can really do is to wait for MG to do their job and we will likely get every single Rance title. It's just a question of when and which order. I don't really get the "who won AX". I don't think that much about publishers. I think in terms of individual titles and for the most part, it's one title from each publisher (if any). I consider AX itself to be the winner. I remember being disappointed with Anime Boston since I'm not really interested in anything released there. I have a completely different feeling with AX. I can't say I saw major surprises though. More Rance announcements, but it was to be expected, particularly with a guest from Alicesoft. As I wrote on page one, we kind of knew the announcement from an old partner would be Alicesoft and most likely Rance. The question was which specific title. Majo Koi Nikki is another one to look forward to and while I was a bit surprised that Denpasoft announced it with them as publisher, it is a title we all knew as an upcoming release. In other words no big surprises regarding great titles coming out of nowhere, but at the same time it is likely the release event that I'm the most happy with out of all the events I have paid attention to while they were in progress.

Sorry already sending death threats to MG ceo for licensing all ages shoujo ai instead of porn

Attendee: "Any plans for future 18+ otome games?" Kouryuu: "Absolutely. The year isn't over. Wait and see what we've got in store."

To be honest, it's a little hard to get excited by new Rance announcements when MangaGamer still has two other Rance games in their backlog waiting to be released. And we all expected these announcements to happen at some point anyway. For people wondering about 01/02/03, those games are fairly short and we probably won't see X for at least two more years, maybe even more. I wouldn't be surprised if the remakes get translated and released before X, even though X was announced first. I really hope MangaGamer at least releases 03 first. I think 6 is the start of a new story arc and works on its own, but it comes bundled with 5D and that one is very short and introduces a few of the characters in 6, so you may as well start with 5D.

Oh so MG also just announced Rance 10 (in addition to 9)...so it seems we're getting the full second half of the series. Not really surprising though.

Aight, so, Fata Morgana round 3 after overwhelming majority vote in my recent 'what should i read next' thread First off, my last attempt was apparently dated from February of last year, wow does time fly >.> Second off, Fata Morgana really is good stuff; the shilling that happened when it came out is all justified, and I just need to stop being a slacker and finish this already because IT'S GOOD STUFF!@###INdoCTriNaTEdSHILL I was making decent progress today too, but unfortunately i'm FORCED to take a break from reading and type out this mini-first-impression-review thing because the climax of the Second Door kind of broke me (!HO1!!W C!OU!LD T!HE!!Y D!O T!HAT T!1O P!OL1L1Y OMFGGGG ;----; ~~ Fata Morgana's basic premise is you wake up as some amnesiac dude in some eerie mansion and are greeted by The Maid who claims you are the current Master of the mansion (which is apparently cursed and leads to unfortunate fates for all of its inhabitants, gg). She is surprised that you are amnesiac, and so she invites you to experience the history of the mansion in order to unlock your true memories or something. This leads to an episodic flashback narrative, where you view prior-residents-of-the-mansion's lives and events that lead to their imminent demise. Due to the episodic nature, it can take a bit to fully immerse yourself with each story arc since it has to develop these new characters and settings, but once you finally are committed and things are looking up, BAM the inevitable tragedy strikes and it's off to the next arc : ) The arcs themselves cover themes on the more mature-dark tragedy spectrum, with the First Door featuring one sided incest and the Second Door focusing on being a human vs. being a monster. The characters in these arcs will all try very desperately to find some sort of middle ground they can be at peace with regarding these conflicts, and they do seem to find some solace once a certain mysterious reoccurring, red eyed, white haired, pale but beautiful woman comes into the picture, but unfortunately this light at the end of the tunnel also happens to be a double edged sword primed to place that final nail in the coffin.. Speaking of final nail in the coffins, Fata Morgana's climaxes are superb. You have all the right elements: dark themes/conflicts, messed up characters, a cursed mansion that ruins the lives of all its inhabitants...you KNOW shit's going to go down in these arcs, it's just a matter of when and how the characters will break. And man when they inevitably do, even though you knew it was coming, Fata Morgana manages to execute these climaxes in ways that maintain the "OH SHIT" shock factor and ultimately leave you with a satisfying(?) tragedy. Artwork is okay, takes some time to get used to the goth style or w.e if you're like me who's more used to and prefers the current day moege style #yesihavebadtastestoobad Soundtrack/BGM is great. I really like the BGMs during peaceful/tranquil moments when they occur, they really give a nice moment of reprieve from the perpetual ticking doomsday atmosphere of Fatamorgana. BGMs during horrific revelation moments were also on point in capturing the essence of the situation. The vocals were a good idea. ~~ As for the specific moment in Second Door that made me Alt-F4 and take a break, it was this(spoilerz obviously): OK, I FEEL BETTER NOW, TIME TO SOLDIER ON, THIS WAS JUST THE FIRST TWO DOORS I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE WHAT'S NE- ~~ update: Third Door Unbelievably frustrating to slog through, manipulative plotlines are always disgusting to read especially when you have an utter moron like Jacop getting completely suckered for the entirety of it, jesus this guy was soooo hopelessly bad, it's pathetic because how he treated the wife was terribad even before the manipulation BS so i just couldn't accept the end game "i just wanted y'all to be happy"

Oh damn that makes life easier. Bless whoever did that lol. Ill start figuring out how that shit works tomorrow. \ 7

Eeerrr... the original name of this VN is ゾンビのあふれた世界で俺だけが襲われない that literally means "I am the only one who is not attacked in the world filled with zombies." Anyway, I somewhat enjoyed the first one, it was okayish, but the second one is quite boring so far. Like Walking Dead after they settle up in the prison, it's more about the character's relationship and less about the zombies... (Might change, I was half way through but I stalled it) But you couldn't be more right on this one. If you dropped it after Kurose's scene, you did yourself a favor. He's even worse after that.

Agreed. People want instant entertainment and a win here and now. We see a move from movies and certain computer game genres towards casual gaming on mobile devices. A game like StarCraft 2 is no longer as popular as it once was. It shifted towards games like League of Legends. At first glance something of the same nature, but it's fast phased and games ends quickly. You aren't stuck on the same map for hours and you don't save and return the next day. This move towards short and fast interactive entertainment means people click fast rather than stop and think. Visual Novels are the polar opposite. Nothing happens. It takes days to complete and you have to remember what happened to fully understand what goes on later in the story and well written stories will force you to stop and just think about the story without progressing. Apart from having missed the chance to be big (if it ever existed), I would say the genre is doing better than it used to. It has more mainstream awareness compared to just a few years ago. It used to be something obscure nobody heard about, yet now they are on steam and at least it has public awareness. A lot of people might not like VNs, but at least now millions of people will have an idea of what it is when you mention "Visual Novel". Steam recently made an announcement of policy change and visual novels were mentioned explicitly. Also VNs shows up in places you don't expect, like here (talking about new steam policy): In other words the public awareness is much bigger than ever before. Availability is like never before because now shops let's you download and the titles will never go out of stock. Multiple stores carries VNs (steam being the dominant one in the public eye). VNs will never be big like FPS or MMO, but relative to what VNs used to be, right now seems like much more public exposure than even the wildest dreams 5-10 years ago.

Happy birthday @Emi! Also, happy belated birthday to @Darklord Rooke and @Jun Inoue! (/ω＼)

It's pretty common to keep the game running in the background when translating, so you can check what's going on for context, be it voiced lines, CGs, what have you. I can't speak for other translators, but I'd never translate a game without having a copy of it at hand, in case I want to check something.

Make more skilled people interested in expressing themselves start creating their own visual novels.

Hi folks! Bumping this thread since I Walk Among Zombies volume 1 was quietly released last night! This was announced at the Denpasoft panel, but I haven't seen a tweet about it yet... at any rate, get it here: https://denpasoft.com/products/i-walk-among-zombies This is the first game I worked on to get an official release, so I'm excited to hear what you all have to say about it!

Uhh, we're specifically talking about the elementary-aged girls in the game. What you're trying to say is that girls this age should be talking 'erotically.' Do you see what's wrong with that? Also, in case you're wondering, ochinchin is the Japanese equivalent of saying wee-wee or pee-pee. This is the kind of thing that small children will say. Here's your proof: https://www.weblio.jp/content/おチンチン Notice how it says 幼児語 which means 'baby-talk'