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Confession: Just wanted to post something on fuwa since I returned after a long gap, so there.

A short while ago I’ve reviewed PixelFade’s Crystalline, expressing my disappointment at what was a visually brilliant, but rather hollow experience, in many ways inferior to that studio's first project, Ace Academy. While AA, a mecha-themed game set in near future’s Japan, mixed convincing drama, a cast of archetypical, but compelling heroines and great SoL sections, providing a fairly balanced and enjoyable game, Crystalline focused much more on comedy and despite the fantasy adventure framework, failed to produce an engaging plot or characters interesting enough to make the whole experience satisfying. The genuine chemistry between Ace Academy’s characters and its compelling atmosphere let me even forgive its anticlimactic ending – PixelFade struggled heavily with that game's development, being forced to cut a large portion of the plot and rush the conclusion, infuriating many fans. The cuts and omissions were definitely visible, for me however, what was already there was simply too good to disregard and I still consider AA as one of the best EVNs I’ve ever read. As you can imagine, it was hard for me not to get excited when, shortly after Crystalline’s release, the studio announced Kaori After Story – a spin-off to Ace Academy, continuing the romance arc of Kaori, arguably the primary heroine of the first game. Using the Live 2D engine and animations from Crystalline, it promised to be another eye-candy, this time directed to the fans of PixelFade's debut title. What worried me, however, was that it was also described by the devs as primarily a comedy, most likely ignoring the bitter-sweet climate of the original and its somewhat ambivalent ending. Thankfully, as much as some might be disappointed with this game’s obvious disinterest in continuing Ace Academy’s main intrigue, connected to protagonist’s father’s scientific research and tragic death, there are many things here they should find highly satisfying – and even I, as reserved as I was when approaching KAS, couldn’t help but to enjoy it quite a lot. Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Keep us posted.

Don't allow yourself to be too fixed on Japanese sentence structure. They have a different way of writing. Once you start reading more JP, you start noticing that even the sentence order isn't like in English (like for example, introducing the fact first, and then the action that caused it). And you probably already know that the order of information present in JP sentences is often in reverse compared to their English counterparts (like how final verbs in JP are usually at the end, while in English they come right after the subject). Now that's an old VN right there. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The art does look MS-DOSish xD The thing is... ピカピカ is a common "to" adverb (I saw it in some of those 1000 most used Onomatopoeic words in JP). It just means "shiny" (remember Pikachu from Pokemon? ). However, it can also denote something being new (as in "a shiny new thing I just bought"). And that's the sense in which it was used there in that line. "I am a brand new, fresh, first year high school student." However, the MC added (死語) after the word, probably as a mild joke (ピカピカ is definitely not an obscure, archaic word that's gotten out of use). I think it's one of those Japanese sarcasm thingies you see from time to time. Someone more experienced would probably be able to explain it better than me. Yes, it is awkward. It's too stiff and I'd argue it may have been done by a JP native, not an English speaker xD ... However, I am not surprised. VN translations in the 90s were shit. I read Divi-dead, and yeah... that one was quite an experience to read through.

Shinfuji indeed sounds like a better name than Shindou. That being said... you didn't mention it, but is this VN voiced? If it isn't, you can go with either of the names which sound better. However, if it's voiced, I'd keep their names to how the seiyuu pronounce them. I feel so proud of myself, being able to understand this sentence just fine at my current level of JP xD I think the JP line held more punch than this, but it's okay. I would just rearrange the order to: "I'm Shuuji Yamagami. My new life as a high school student begins today." - it sounds more natural to me this way. Can't pinpoint why though xD That being said, if I had to TL it from scratch, I would have TLed it as: "I'm Shuuji Yamagami, a sixteen-year old, who just became a high-school student (today)." 死語 - too bad this had to be dropped xD I like how it sounded in Japanese. I guess the MC of this VN tends to joke a lot I didn't read this VN yet, but if you do manage to finish this project of yours, I'll be quite interested in checking it out

I have more or less completely finished Little Busters (including the after-content except for the hidden Saya endings). I really liked it. It has all the things people love about Key like a good cast, funny SoL, a great soundtrack, and a few of the obligatory crying-your-eyes-out-moments. Imo Clannad did most of these things a little bit better, but LB improves a lot on Clannad's weaknesses, primarily the paceing of the common route. The added gameplay and general setting of having a group of friends the heroines are integrated in makes the world seem a lot more lively. It definitely was a good choice to put the routes for the heroines who weren't part of the Little Busters into the after content, so you weren't forced to read content completely disconnected from the main plot to reach the true end like in Clannad, even though in LB's case this means keeping my favourite route (Sasasasasa) as well as my favourite heroine (Saya) out of the main game. LB has one major flaw though imo: nearly all routes have kind of messy third acts, including the true route. In many of them, the conflict/drama of the third act either isn't properly established or doesn't have that much to do with their respective heroine's arc, or the plot device causing the drama seems kind of artificial. In other routes, the resolution just seems rushed. The last part sadly is also also applies to the true route. The big tearjerker twist scene is one of the best Key has pulled of so far but after that

I have to say that I admire your madness. Sometimes reminds me of my own

A new public version is now available for download. We've set up an info page that includes the links as well as some additional details. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eYlJfS7avE7_N10Cvux9CzY5ImCLBnOQbSCSLxdAX_U/edit Hope you guys enjoy!

So, here are screenshots from current state: I wanted to post a video too, but MSI Afterburner has problems with framerate... I found original censored version too - had to look for FDD images instead of HD images with preinstaled game.