ExtraMana

Channel Awesome Retrospective #1| AVGN ft: NobleAbsinthe 

First, I should note that, despite how it begins, this VN turned out to not be a nukige.  However, it is definitely not a 'pure love' story from beginning to end.  A literal translation of the Japanese name would be 'The warped lie and love letter' with 'letter' being interchangeable with the word for a stereotyped reputation.
Second, I should warn anyone who plays this to either do Saeko's path last or read only her path.  It is just too hard to pick another heroine after picking Saeko.  I did it, but I can honestly say that I felt like I was abandoning Saeko the whole time.
This game's setting is like this:  The protagonist as a child was a little... mature for his age.  He and his girlfriend at the time (Saeko) even went so far as to have sex (without really understanding how society would see their actions), and eventually a rumor went around that he had raped her, even as she moved away.  This left him bitter and feeling betrayed, the rumors destroying his family life and isolating him.  The young man at the beginning of this story has basically accepted his false reptutation and chosen to act it out, forming relationships with multiple young women (who are the heroines of this story).  Then, Saeko returns, stating a desire for him to 'dirty' her again.
A lot of this game is about the protagonist slowly overcoming his past and forming a more honest relationship with the girls despite the rather warped way it begins (thus the name of the game).  Saeko's path can be considered the 'main' path, because it deals most directly with the protagonist's past.  However, regardless of the path, the protagonist manages to get past his trauma and rise above it, if you pick the good ending, lol.
Anyway, this game surprised me with its quality of storytelling.  I honestly enjoyed the interplay, and the protagonist's change of heart is portrayed with surprising subtlety for a Japanese writer (most Japanese VN writers tend to like the 'sudden overwhelming flood of emotion' way of doing things).  While there is plenty of h content in the game, it is not overwhelming, though it is definitely more than the average charage. 
Overall, this game is not suited to someone looking for straightforward relationships and love with relatively pure beginnings.  The characters in this VN are all scarred or damaged in some way, which becomes obvious as you play.  Nonetheless, I found it an immensely enjoyable experience.
Edit: Oh, and if you dislike sado-masochistic relationships, you should probably avoid this VN.  While it doesn't go to the real extremes like mutilation or electric shock, it does touch on more 'normal' SM activities. 

Foreword: This is Kanno-san's scenario and I could not miss on it. There are a lot of good English reviews on the game so I'll try to just add some additional thoughts I have on top of those reviews.

Title: Exodus Guilty
Developer: Abel
Date: 1998-07-31
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v172

 Synopsis:The year 2000. Kasumi Shindo is at first glance a run-of-the-mill high school student in modern-day Japan. However, beneath his normal appearance, Kasumi is in fact a top-notch treasure hunter. This time, Kasumi is aiming to seek out the lost 11th Commandment of Moses. Kasumi discovers that his childhood friend, Reina Tachibana is in southern Europe participating in an archeological dig. Pretending to be a tourist, he visits the excavation area and manages to get put on the excavation staff. But he is not the only treasure hunter looking for the Eleventh Commandment of Moses and before he knows it, he's embroiled in a dangerous adventure.

Structure: There are three stories - one 1200 B.C. fantasy story, one 2000 A.D. treasure hunting adventure and 13,800 A.D. future anti-utopia fantasy. Story-lines exist pretty much separately only to be loosely connected by girl Will and flashbacks from the other time to help on puzzles. All the lines coincide in the last chapters of last "Future" Volume 3. So basically I consider first two stories to be preparatory and I'll focus only on 3rd Future story. I feel that the chosen composition is wrong - it's 1st chapter of Past, then 1st chapter of Present, then 1st chapter of Future, then full Present, then full Past, then full Future. In my video walkthrough I went for showing full Past, then full Present, then full Future. This really feels more logical to me since all the roots and the Will story are in the Past. And when seeing all those first chapters one by one and then Present my head was already blowing up from the characters and the kind of mess it created.

Length: 21 hour
Game type: Epic multi-story ADV with minimal interaction (speaking of DVD version only, ofc)
Difficulty: DVD version is supereasy, but I got stuck once at a puzzle that was not properly described. I left a link at VNDB discussions page of the game to prevent other people from wasting time.
Character Design rating: 10/10
Protagonist rating: 8/10
Story rating: 9/10
Game quality: 8/10
Overall rating: 9/10
Rating comments: Why such a high score again? Well, VNs are akin to literature, what matters is whether I like it or not. And if I like it, there's no point thinking which one is better. I really loved the story here - arigato, Kanno-san! And that might easily be 10 if I played Japanese pc version. There are a lot of protagonists in this game and I have grudges to some of them. I think I'll develop on it in characters section. I also blame the structure as video is not as engaging as game and pouring all three story lines all at once was very confusing and only belief in Kanno-san actually made me unwind this mess. But when things get clear, it's a very engaging story - thus the high scores.
Protagonist: There are too many of them.
Characters: There are three sets of characters. The setup of characters on the screen changes a lot with the story. Let's look at characters in bulk, according to their epoch.
 

Past: Main characters cast are a swordsman Ales and his foster mother Masa. Masa bears some strange tattoo and she sends Ales to find Will - another girl with such tattoo since their fates were linked and Mother Spirit was calling to do that for some reason only Gods could understand. But in order to pay a visit to the God one needs to gather sacred books of elements and oracles of those elements. That's pretty much what we do during the whole Past chapter. Of course we find Will as well under strange circumstances. So Ales is a pretty straightforward swordsman who fulfills the will of his mother and who protects those who are dear to him and... pretty much everyone else, even his enemies, lol. This is a traditional fantasy story, so there's no need for quirky characters, but without some gameplay it's quite boring to watch. Well, some of the four oracles are pretty cool/funny so they ease the tensions and their interactions basically save the narration. This part is seinen enough, but it gets to be pretty dull due to very serious characters and lack of fights. 
 

Present: From left to right we have Kasumi, Ai's sister Reina and fiance Ai. Reina is much older and already divorced - she is always flirting making Ai mad. Kasumi and Ai actually only met 10 years ago and they they fight all the time over everything. Kasumi is basically interested in money and treasures and he does not really encourage Reina moves. Ai is also quite stingy and only Reina moves bring her tolerance to the brink and she starts acting aggressively to any "oppai" girl near Kasumi. That creates some comical situations, but at the same time is an eternal source of drama. And the further it goes, the more drama it is. So at times it was really nauseating. And at some point I got somewhat disappointed in Kasumi as well. It was at one scene where Kasumi was getting down to the den on a rope. Ai threatens to jump down from that insane height if Kasumi does not take her with him. Here's the exact extract:
- If not, I'll kill myself.
- Then die.
- I will die.
- Die right now, here. In less than 10 seconds.
- Meanie. I'm going to cry.
- Cry if you can. Cry.
It's presented in a comical manner, but it was not funny for me. Too much relations hustle, predictable characters' behavior and lack of intelligent talks did not let me enjoy this volume. So it's a great shounen story, but I can only appreciate seinen stuff.

Future: The cast from left to right is scientist Titi, secret royal family descendant Sui, self-supporting town boy Tatsuta and Sui's bodyguard Laily. Oh, and don't foget this animal... something (squirrel?) Railulu. Sui basically plays the role of straightforward and cheerful bakagirl while Laily is reserved and she does everything right. Titi is a chatterbox, she usually supports Sui in everything and provides scientific advice when needed. Tatsuta is a usual town boy who lives alone and who this time allows girls to have food and shelter for a mere trifle - wedding Laily! He's pushy and manages to win her heart little by little and this sideline is really nice. 

Story: I seem to have tackled a lot on story already, so let's finally focus on the main part as I see it - Future 13,800 AD. For 40 years earthquakes and acid rains devastated the Earth burying the scientific civilization and the remaining humanity declared science outlaw in order not to repeat previous mistakes. The royal house monopolized the right for science as people needed to survive somehow in this barren wasteland. Royal house suffers from a spree of coup d'etats and this last king is a very cruel man who's seeking for descendants of former family and especially for a girl matching Sui's description. Sui and Laily's foster mother asked them to find some Uu person and give him the Key of Will. And they have no idea where to search for those. That takes first half of Future story and the second half is meeting the guys from Past and Present and together facing their fate. 
 

CG: I seem to be not demanding towards CG quantity but this game has a whole ocean of CG - even many small actions have one. Game really tried to look like an anime so it has some animated sequences and a lot of screen changes. Outside of my habit, I'm not going to post gore CG this time since there aren't many of them and they can be spoilers.

HCG: None since it's initially a PS1 and dreamcast game and only much later it got PC version version. It's a very funny version to see since usual CG have low resolution and PC HCG are of very high resolution.

Sound: The good part is that it's full voice even with all the protagonists voiced. The bad part is that some lengthy conversations with side characters aren't really voiced or voiced up to 3-4 phrases. It does not hurt at all, but just for the justice sake let's say that it's only about 85% voiced.

Humor: Future part is culmination and it has quite much humor in it. One example is that Layla always apologies to Sui and says "It must be in my character". For the first times it looks ok, but later she tells the same thing to the very little notices like you look moody today or is it you stomach growling. 
There was one fabulous joke when Titi, Sui and Laila with Railulu needed to see guards out and they consequently tried to use sex appeal on them. First Titi failed with her charms, then Sui was ignored and sent off and then came this.

Game also uses repeats wisely. In this very scene the fourth try was Layla's and her appearance actually melted men's hearts and maybe something else as well. In another scene later on the three girls were trying to get food and shelter from Tatsuta and he asks a girl to become his wife. Titi and Sui blush and say they're not ready and here's the except:
- But let me tell you something, I have no interest in cow breasts or eyeglasses monkeys.
- ....Raylulu? What, are you...?
That was pretty awesome. 
Themes: It's mostly and adventure work with pretty straightforward characters, but there are couple themes that I was able to discern:
1) God's will VS human logic. This is the major theme of the game. All the time we're asked to do weird things. Seemingly horrible events occur due to some god's will without much explanation. The future part is the one where this conflict becomes the culmination of the game and heros are confused what to do - blindly follow God's will or send the Gods to hell and try to preserve humanity as it is. You can guess from the game's title which side wins.
2) Sacrifice. There are quite a lot of sacrifices in the game. Sacrifices are the least logical thing to do and yet so many characters choose it over persecuting their own goals. As one of the character explains: "Death is not the end. It's the beginning". Well, it falls in perfectly with the first theme. After all, it's the game about God's will and it's a difficult topic to develop since irrational actions won't get much appeal. Still the game does its best in that and sacrifices are seen as fulfilling some selfish-less desires for the greater good of others and at least look organic with the setting.
Overall comments: By now it should be evident that Guilty Exodus was much to my liking even though I tend to dislike religion and shounen stories. My first reaction was akin to that depicted in beliar review. Too much information poured at once, seemingly meaningless dull talks, false drama, religious preaching, random events, lack of gameplay. It's a different work that we usually get to see in visual novels. We got the worst release of the game translated - DVD video one. If it was a different release - it'd be a perfect game and I would not need to rant at all. If it was a different release, we'd need to pay great attention to game progress because it would be a gameplay issue. DVD release is basically a video with just a few meaningless choices so it's easy to get distracted, listen to it only as background and inevitably compare it with compact and fast-paced anime works. Guilty Exodus is very demanding to the player right from the start. It's easy to get confused with all that information. But if you take it seriously, you'll be able to enjoy one of the best stories written by Kanno Hiroyuki, on par even with YU-NO.

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I wanted to wait until the year is over before I write my list for this year, but of course I haven't had the time to actually look at the December releases and now the year is over. Luckily, there isn't much interesting for me anyway.
Before we start, just let me mention some noteworthy December titles:
Venus Blood Ragnarok could be a nice game, but I don't really like the Venus Blood series, and as some kind of sequel it probably won't win me over anyway. I have played the trial of Meguru Sekai de Towanaru Chikai wo and it really didn't impress me. Looked like an even cheaper version of Izumo 4. And Izumo 4 was already a letdown last year. The RPG mechanics of Izumo 4 are very simple and Meguru Sekai de seems even simpler. But that is not all, contrary to Izumo 4, this time the game also looks pretty ugly! It that the reason why Yamamoto Kazue changed her name to  Yamamoto ☆ Kazue for this? Well, I probably will play it nonetheless because I don't like to judge something I haven't really played, but eh, not in the near future. That's it for December. The rest doesn't interest me or I already know it will be bad (You can't fool me Moonstone!). Did I just say I don't judge something I haven't played? Eh, whatever...
But now some honorable mentions of games that actually looked interesting but I haven't had the time to read them, so they won't be in my 2016 list:
Dungeons & Daimeiwaku: I've read the trial, but haven't found the time to read the actual game. I'm sure it's good but it's kind of demotivating for me to read an RPG without any gameplay, heh. Iwaihime: Ryukishi07 and horror should be exactly what I'm looking for but for some reason I have this untouched on my hdd for a year now. Maybe I miss the Ryukishi07-art, since it doesn't look as good with generic moeblobs. Trianthology: Now I have the art, but not a full Ryukishi07 game, haha. Still, I have to read this sometime soon. Kanojo ＊ Step: This could probably be the "Best Charage" of 2016 as far as I have seen it. The humor is great, something that's really missing in pretty much every other modern charage. It's a shame that the genre charage has such a low priority for me, so I haven't really read much of this VN so far. Now I mention some games people might expect in my list of 2016's best eroge, but I actually found them to be only mediocre:
Shi ni Iku Kimi, Yakata ni Mebuku Zouo: Yeah, I wasn't as excited about this as everyone else. I do not fetishize gore. I like death as an element of a thrilling story, but death in Nikuniku has no impact. There is no meaning in killing someone when they can't die. Baka Dakedo Chinchin Shaburu no Dake wa Jouzu na Chii-chan: This game has a Genre-Shift tag of 3.0 on vndb and some people claim it would be different than what you expect it to be.
Spoiler: It's exactly what it looks like! WTF are the people talking about? lol Maitetsu: Borefest and not even usable as a lolige. Really only interesting for train otakus.  
Now let's start with the list of maybe not necessarily the best but the most impressive eroge of 2016, for me at least:
Eroge of the Year: Natsu no Kusari
Best game without a doubt, there is no other contender here. If I would make a Top 5 of 2017, the second place would already be many, many levels under this one. It's so good (or all the other recent games are just so bad, lol).
I have already written walls of text in other threads about this game so I won't repeat myself here. I will just say that this game is exactly what I'm looking for when I read an eroge, the reason why I even started with this medium.
Great characterization and the perfect use of narration, music, visuals and voices makes this one of the most compelling short stories I have read in years.
 
Best NTR Eroge: Dearest Blue
The lack of elf is really showing and I certainly can't say that any LiLiM game is really good, but at least with Dearest Blue LiLiM improved on their formula and made it its best game so far.
We still have some obvious "Do you want to get NTR'd"-choices, but they are not as in-your-face as in previous titles. Some choices make you wonder what will actually happen if you go this route and that at least is an improvement. In some instances there is some believable drama and especially one route is good where you can cheer for both, the protagonist and the rival because both characters are likable. The main heroine is also well-characterized, being an independent and strong woman without going too bitchy or slutty.
Still, not everything is good. Pretty much every male character except the aforementioned one is a one-dimensional evil villain. The biggest problem however is that the story is build around some kind of NTR/death-game where all the players need to outwit each other ... but in the end there are no mind games or twists happening! Heck, even I could probably win this game because every other character is so bad at this, not having a plan or making retarded moves. What a disappointment! Read this for the relationship drama, not for the death game.
 
Best Modern Oldschool Eroge: Ryuudouji Shimon no Inbou
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really think that the writing in many of the latest Mink-games is topnotch. Really, if Mink-games weren't conceptually so limited (being only nukige), they could be really great.
Why is that? Is it because Mink is such an old company that they still carry on old writing traditions which were established in the Golden Age of eroge? That at least would explain why Ryuudouji Shimon no Inbou is so good when it conceptually shouldn't be!
Don't misunderstand me, Ryuudouji Shimon no Inbou is not a good slave-training eroge. There is no real SLG gameplay here, instead the only choice the player has is to visit 1 of 20 locations every day hoping that some kind of event happens there. There is no indication which area you have to visit, neither in script nor in the interface, it's completely by chance. Save-scumming and blindly gathering events at its finest, huh.
But if you can look behind this (preferably with a walkthrough), you will find a game that feels like the late 90s. Mainly because this is a blatant clone of 99's Yakin Byoutou. It's pretty much "Night Shift School Girls". Aside from the setting that is now a school, we have the same kind of characters, the same storyline and the same development Yakin Byoutou had. And it's great, because that formula still works 17 years later! The ugly main character, who has just enough understanding of the human psyche to get what he wants, the pure maidens who fall into his traps, not because they are sluts but because they are believable corrupted, and the evil female mastermind who is probably even worse than the main character. It's beautiful. The nostalgia is strong with this one.
 
Best Dark and Edgy Eroge: Tokage no Shippo Kiri
I'm cheating here a bit because the game was released in November 2015. But since the fandisc was released in January last year which means the full experience was only available to us in 2016, I see it as 2016 game.
There is not much to say here, what Derg not already said. Games like this prove that even low-budget publisher can make good games, if they just try. CYCLET is not Black Cyc, but it tries nonetheless to be something special and succeeds in setting itself apart from all the other low budget publisher. Maybe that is the reason we only had one CYCLET game in 2016; they emphasize on quality, not quantity.
 
Best RPG: Dungeon of Regalias
Let's not talk about the story and the characters. They are terrible, like in every Astronauts Sirius game. But damn is the gameplay addicting and actually good. Like in, really, really good.
This is probably one of the best ero-dungeon crawler existing. They did everything right with this one. Hard difficulty available from start. Skills as "items" which can be equipped so you can change your build without any resetting of skill points like in other games. Monsters who all act differently thus forcing you to change your strategy and character builds and party constantly. Great game.
 
 
Best SRPG: Sankai Ou no Yubiwa
I'm probably the only one, but ... I actually liked 2016's Eushully game. Yeah, really. Ok, it wasn't really a good SRPG; it actually had many flaws, like being far too easy and exploitable and the routes being too similar to each other... but... I liked the concept. Having six main characters who all represent a different kind of approach to the Ero-RPG genre is really something I wish more games would do. I hate the good guy, the antihero and the maou archetype, and sadly most Eushully games have one of these three as their main character. But Sankai Ou has also three other, more interesting protagonists to choose from. For example, I always wanted the angels to win in an Eushully game, and finally I have the opportunity to do this because the obligatory fallen-angel storyline is already covered in the other routes. Nice.
 
Biggest disappointment: Extravaganza ~Mushigurui Hen~
I was so hyped for this one. The first true Black Cyc game after 5 years of absence. Written by Banya Izumi who we could trust with the task of continuing a beloved series, right? Right?
No, it's awful. This game turned out to be an abomination which is quite remarkable because Black Cyc already milked the Extravaganza series with bad sidestories back when Black Cyc was still good for the most part. And Mushigurui Hen is even worse than these cheap nukige spinoffs. At least with cheap nukige fandisc, we know we get something bad. Mushigurui Hen on the other hand could have been good. It could have been awesome. But it wasn't.
So what went wrong? You have these great characters with their epic background stories, but what do they do with them? Putting them in school, because school life is, as we all now, the most important thing ever. And if a character is too old for school, just make them into rich snobs whose only problem in life is being too old (meaning being 23 years old) and lamenting about not having the time to go to the cinema with friends because work (meaning being CEO and chilling all the day in the office).
And if that wasn't bad enough, they also retcon a character death because this character was very popular back then and we need him for funny slice of life scenes now, yay.
The most offending thing however is how this "sequel" actually takes place after the second arc of the original Extravaganza, which means before the last third of the original game. And all the important character events in the third arc which really were the heart of the Extravaganza story apparently don't take place in this timeline. Instead, we get inferior and meaningless drama with derailed characters in Mushigurui Hen which is apparently now the canon timeline. Hurray.
 
Biggest insult: Everything released by Akabei Soft 3
I'm not going into this now, but literally every AKB3 game this year greatly offended me, just as Silky's Plus' games did last year. Let's just say that AKB3 makes games which represent everything that's wrong with modern eroge and have nothing left of what made eroge once great. (I might write a post explaining this statement in the near future.)
It saddens me how popular these games are. A dark prospect for 2017.
 

This is an introductory post and since I probably don't have to introduce myself anymore (you already know me ), I guess I advertise my future blog texts instead.
Tyrviews are not reviews. Instead of writing reviews, I'm more interested in discussing and exploring the themes of an eroge and talking about all the related topics like the writing, the tropes or the history of eroge or the Japanese entertainment industry in general. I might also talk about anime, j-dorama, games, movies, books or JAVs.
I'm sure you will find something new or interesting when you read my articles. You may not necessarily agree with what I have to say (and if you find the strong urge to comment, please do so, and you can be sure I will respond), but I'm certain you will find at least some new ideas worth thinking about.
When I write about a certain topic I’m interested in, I'm often using specific products (which inspired me to think and write about this subject in the first place) and these will serve as an example to verify the points I make.
With that said, unless I explicitly state that a Tyrview contains spoilers, it won’t. However, I might give away some directions a certain game will take. Nothing, you wouldn’t also find on the official website, but if you are like me and you would rather read an eroge without any a priori knowledge, it might be better if you come back later after you have finished the game in question.
The first blog text will be about my favorite games of 2016. I also have an article about Black Cyc in the pipeline since I have recently finished most of their games and am now looking forward to their newest release this month. I will probably also write my impressions about some anime I recently watched which are worth talking about.
If there is anything you would like me to write about or you want to read my opinion on something, I will be open to suggestions.
I will end my introduction by showing you a picture of my bathroom, so you get some value out of this pointless blog post.
Please rate it, I think it's pretty kuso which I've chosen as the theme for my toilet room. Do you get it?
Thanks for tolerating me and happy new year~~ 

When Shigeru Miyamoto created the concept for Zelda he probably had no idea the legacy that will follow after that first legendary game. There were many similar games before but never quite like it. Instead of leaving you puzzled not knowing what to do the game’s design focused on exploration and discovery, instead of frustrating enemies it had a slow strategic anticipation of enemies’ movements, instead of mostly unfair puzzles the playr instead was rewarded with new areas to explore. Many tried to copy the Zelda formula but gave up as the design wasn’t as simple as it first appeared. One game that managed to copy the formula with a few tweaks is Golden Axe Warrior.
The game was released in 1991 for the Master System, it is a side story to Sega’s popular Golden Axe series and looks very much like a Zelda with upgraded graphics. Or at least that’s what it appears to be at first glance. Indeed the game was inspired by Zelda with green grassy areas with just as green colored bushes, yellow sand colored beaches, squashed player character, very Zelda like dungeons and Zelda like dungeon maps, the inventory screen, the warping camera from one side of the screen to the other side of the screen. It is definitely a game for the Sega Master System owners who didn’t have a NES to seek their teeth into. At the time of its release almost every magazine pandered it simply for being an exact copy of the favorite and very popular The Legend of Zelda.
A copy doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a worse version of the original. Plenty of really bad Zelda wannabes were released over the years but very few could replace or even improve on the formula as much as Golden Axe Warrior was able to do while still keeping its own identity as a good Zelda clone with a bit of a different spin on the usual gameplay.
Unlike Legend of Zelda’s almost completely barren world except for a few caves somewhere in the overworld with some old man lodging inside giving you incomprehensible advice or selling you items, Golden Axe Warrior has real towns you can visit and houses you can enter with living NPCs that give you clues where to go and what to do. There are even stores where you can buy items, weapons, rest, and save. Yeah, a save system, without the confusing holding the reset button method in Zelda and confused a lot of players who had to restart the entire game from scratch every time they wanted to play.
The gameplay differs from Zelda in one basic design choice, the game moves much faster. The player and the enemies move at a faster than expected speeds. In Zelda everything usually moved at pretty slow speeds giving the player enough time to account for enemy’s movement and judge the next action to take in order to attack or avoid fighting altogether. But while in Zelda the player had to make quick decisions, in Golden Axe Warrior the player has to think even faster as every enemy group can surround you or shoot at you from afar while quickly moving in very fast patterns. It sounds very difficult but in actuality it’s pretty simply once you get used to the speeds especially if you just came from playing Zelda.
This small design tweak carries a Zelda on steroids like tone that lacks in many Zelda clones and even the Zelda games themselves lack that fast movement. Certainly the Zelda games aren’t built to move at such speeds and they are very meticulously designed, almost to perfection, but Golden Axe Warrior shows that a subtle change can change and redefine how a game feels. Golden Axe Warriors doesn’t hide its self as a Zelda clone, it knows it’s a damn good one and proudly shows off what it’s got.
There aren’t too many weapons and items but most have some kind of importance, you begin with a forward stabbing sword but very soon find an axe with a slower but wider attack radius and allows the player to cut down the trees on the overworld. The axe works similarly to how Link slashes his sword in A Link to the Past, which is very interesting, almost as if Nintendo copied the idea back from this game.
Golden Axe Warrior also has a magic system as well, though a very basic one acting as sort of an alternative to sub weapons but the magic has its own meter that you can replenish any time. There are also healing items you can use to prevent unfair deaths when you’re running out of health and the enemies don’t give you any health replenishing items either.
There are of course plenty of hidden underground passages, once again, just like in Zelda, the stairs down underground even look very similar to Zelda. The dungeons are very similar to Zelda too with the player walking from one room to the next looking for keys to open doors all the way to the final room for a boss encounter or some kind of an important item at the very end.
Just like Zelda is a product of its time so is Golden Axe Warrior and carries with itself the same old design decisions as well. It can get pretty tough to know where to go and what exactly you should be doing leading to some really frustrating situations, just like the original Zelda had. It’s great to try this game if you are curious but perhaps it’s better to stick to A Link to the Past or any of the portable Zelda games, they are way better designed and less frustrating.
Just as a side not, interestingly enough Sega also released Ax Battler – A Legend of Golden Axe for the Game Gear around the same time as Gold Axe Warrior, only this time it was a combination of Zelda 2 clone for the overworld and the action levels, with a splash of Dragon Warrior for the similar looking towns (a lot of older jrpgs look similar anyway). The player character in Golden Axe Warrior looks sort of like the playable character in Dragon Warrior too.

The first Keio Flying Squadron was a SegaCD exclusive side scrolling shooter with funny wacky premise about Keio and her family worshiping a big golden key and her journey to bring it back after it was stolen. The game opens up with a grainy almost colorless animated anime opening, beginning with a history lesson and suddenly moves to the main part of the story, the history lesson had nothing to do with the main story. The English dub wasn’t good but strangely they did not dub any of the voice clips playing during the gameplay so you still hear the Japanese voices. Overall it was a short but a very fun game with a very good cartoony style to it.

Keio Flying Squadron 2 was a different game entirely which came as a shock to those few who played the original. Instead of a side scrolling shooter it was turned into a side scrolling 2D action platform game. It is practically unheard of for the sequel to have such a radical change from the original in so many ways. But it is a change for the better, it allowed the game to keep the same presentation style while making something new and different. Something tells me the developers wanted to start fresh as if the first game doesn’t exist even though there’s a 2 in the title.
First thing first, the game opens with another fully animated anime opening. This time due to Saturn’s higher color palette things look much more bright and colorful however it is also very grainy much like it’s predecessor, the Saturn unfortunately didn’t have a dedicated video decoder and the developers were left on their own to come up with something. The dub voices still aren’t very good but once again, just like its predecessor, it does its job. The story is that once again Keio’s family has another holly object stolen, this time it is some kind of magical orb, and Keio must retrieve it from the bad guys. And thus another wacky adventure ensues.
As the game begins we are treated to some beautiful lush and colorful graphics and smoothly animated sprites with some really cool rotation and scaling effects that shows the 2D capabilities of the Saturn. There are even transparency effects which isn’t easy to achieve on the Saturn. There isn’t much here that would be considered as pushing 2D graphics to their limits as the Saturn is barely breaking a sweat rendering those images on the screen but visual aesthetics and design are much more important than a technical showcase.
One strange or perhaps unique aspect to this game are the controls. In general they are the same as any other platform game but the developers played with the formula a bit. When Keio first starts moving she moves very slowly but after a few steps she gains momentum and starts running faster and jumping farther. But unlike other games, when she stops at a complete standstill still retains some of her momentum so if you stop for a second, or even just climb a ladder, and then start moving again she doesn’t start at a slow speed but instead dashes at a fast speed. This can be a little disorienting because of inaccurate controls and can lead to many frustrating situations and even deaths because you’re not always sure at what speed you’re going to move at. This is one formula that didn’t need fixing.
Thankfully, in the options screen you can change how you want Keio to gain momentum. The default is just holding and moving in either direction but you can change the controls to double tap in the left or to the right directions or hold the L+R buttons while moving. However, once again this is not so useful because Keio’s slow speed is really slow, almost as if she’s pushing something heavy forcing the player to hold another button down almost all the time which kind of defeats the purpose of changing controls. Once again, the controls will take some time to adjust.
Keio can also pick up and throw objects at enemies. There are many objects in the background she can pick up including statues and sign posts. But there are also all kinds of weapons available for her to pick up. There is a hammer to hit enemies with, an umbrella that can be used both as a weapon and as a parachute to glide over obstacles, a bow and arrow to shoot enemies from afar. Keio can only carry one weapon at a time and if she’s hit she loses it but can grab it again before it disappears. The weapons act as a second hit point, kind of like rings in Sonic, and you’ll need to find weapons as soon as you can because one hit kills you instantly, so save yourself the frustrations as quickly as you can. Keio can of course jump on her enemies as well like every other platform game out there.
Depending on how you play and how you kill enemies you gain or lose points. These points unlock some bonuses like images in the extra menu. It’s nothing to fret about but a fun little incentive for those who want to unlock everything the game has.

Besides the platform levels the game also has some shooting levels similar to the original game. They have a very samey feel to them and those who played the first game will feel right at home. There are power ups to collect and a lot of enemies to shoot. The game’s presentation is unlike that of Konami’s Parodius games with similar wacky humorous images in the background and funny enemies to shoot.
But the real show stealer is the presentation. The localizers didn’t bother to change much except for the menu, the user interface, and the voices which this time even the in game voice clips were dubbed into English, go figure. Call it lazy or not but this helped the game keep it’s distinct wacky Japanese flavor intact, they didn’t change any of the Japanese foods and even left all the Kanji graphics in. Maybe they trusted the idiot gaijins to know that some games come from Japan, who knows. There are lots of very humorous moments going on with some funny bosses thrown in into the mix. One of the bosses is a sumo wrestler who is then replaced by some mascot that spins around on a big pencil and then feels sick and starts barfing giving you an opportunity to hit him. Yeah, you read that right… It really happens. The game feels a bit like something from Konami’s Goemon because of it’s style but unfortunately it’s not as polished as what Konami’s games used to be.
I recommend the game for those who want something fun to burn their weekend with. The game can be a little frustrating at times but it’s definitely a fun experience and has quite a few surprises up its sleeve.
Edit: I said that the localizers left everything intact but this is a mistake on my part. After playing the Japanese version I notice that they did some Japanese into English but none of that removes the developer's real intention as even the things that have been turned into English continue to retain the original Japaneseness of the game. Even better, none of the sexual and religious stuff were censored. Some of the dubbed lines have been changed here and there.

Howdy! The ones who follow us know that I haven't been updating things personally neither in the website nor in Fuwa even though the individual threads for each project in Fuwanovel have been updated weekly or so. This has been like this because college has started for me and some of my teammates, and that means that things have been busier than before, so we have less time to devote to the projects (although that doesn't mean that we're slacking off). Besides, let's be honest here, I felt a little bit lazy to do the update.
We have a new website now! Yes, this will be the last update I'll be posting on the old website of Luna Translations and from now on we'll operate on the vntls platform, if you have a tl team and want a website with all the perks that Wordpress Premium offers but for free be sure to contact them, they're really nice guys and I appreciate their effort for making it come true. I also want to thank @Asonn, the one who made my website, who will be rewarded with a physical copy of Majo Koi, thanks for everything! New websites' link: https://lunatl.vntls.com/.
DISCLAIMER: Some progress bars in the new website (such as Majo Koi's) are still outdated, so please be aware of that.
Regarding new titles, we've added one to our roster, but since the leader of it doesn't want the title nor the project mentioned yet I won't do it until I'm given permission to do so.
To the ones who follow Kanojo to Ore to Koibito to (or "tototo" in short), we have decided to put the project on HIATUS until the translators that are supposedly in the team working on it reappear. There has been no progess tl-wise regarding in project for several months now, so after a lot of thinking I decided to stall the project until I have more news about the people that are involved in it. Editing and proofreading of the prologue (which is completed) will continue and we will hopefully release at least the trial version of the game as a partial patch, though I don't have an ETA for that, you'll just have to wait.
Majo Koi is close to the 50% mark, progress has been steady and there have been no major changes whatsoever regarding this project. Everything seems to be going nicely and we're pretty much good on this front.
https://lunatranslationstestsite.wordpress.com/projects-2/projects/progress/ (Majo Koi progress bar)
Witch's Garden keeps going, but very slowly, since one of our TLC's is doing school-related stuff and another one is having a vacation in Japan for some weeks, so for now only one TLC is active. Things are progressing and retranslation for the common route is around the 70% mark. All the other fronts won't have any progress until we completely finish the TLC of the common route.
Tsui Yuri is at the 81% mark translation-wise. The editing keeps advancing at a steady pace and there have been no bumps or problems whatsoever regarding this project either, everything seems to be going fine.
https://lunatl.vntls.com/tsui-yuri/
Anyways, that wasn't a lot, but I wanted to make this at least to show that we're very alive and still kicking, we just have our plates full now and we barely make time to progress on things at the moment.
Have a nice day, everyone.
 
 
 

Video Game History - Blood
 
Blood Pc-Dos game box art

    In January 1996 Duke Nukem 3D was released and at the time it sported revolutionary new graphics using Ken Silverman's Build engine. First person shooters had become incredibly successful thanks to games like Duke Nukem 3d and of course Id software's games Wolfenstein 3d, and Doom. In June 1996 Quake was realised and once again revolutionized the already very popular genre of first person shooters. Not only did it feature jaw dropping full 3d visuals but it sported a multi-player component that took the world by storm. Even though the Build engine was now outdated other game companies still wanted to capitalize on the success of the first person shooter genre. Duke Nukem 3D had taken inspiration from classic action films with Duke quoting lines from Evil Dead: Army of Darkness,Die Hard, terminator. John Carpenters film 'They Live' and a host of others.

 After the success of Duke Nukem 3d. 3d realms started work on two new first person shooters using the build engine. Blood and Shadow Warrior. 3d realms would later sell off the rights to the game Blood to Monolith who would finish production. Both games would take inspiration from classic films just as Duke Nukem 3D had done. With Blood's hero Caleb referencing horror films like the shining, and Shadow Warriors hero Lo Wang referencing martial arts films. The build engine although now outdated had been enhanced for Blood. It now featured Voxel graphics, which essentially allowed the weapons, keys, ammo and other pick-ups throughout the game to appear in 3d. As the name suggests, Blood is an extremely gory game. It featured blood and gore all over the walls and floors and there was even a physics element to the games gore. The most noticeable of which is that not only can you dismember certain enemies. But the Zombie for instance once you dismember his head you can kick it around by walking over it. Delightful.

Blood also featured another fairly innovative aspect a secondary fire mode to the weapons. This was pretty unusual for 1997. An example of this is that the sawed off shotgun inspired by evil dead allows you to fire a single shot with the primary fire mode or give the enemy both barrels with the secondary fire. Other guns in the game included the pitchfork as your starting weapon, flare gun, Thompson machine gun,a voodoo doll and rocket launcher. My favourite was the shotgun unsurprisingly. Enemies in the game featured rats, flying gargoyle demon type things, cultist members with machines, zombies and the like. And they where all surprisingly deadly, for instance the zombie if you don't finish him off will get back up and drive his axe into your back. This is one of those classic first person shooters where death is literally around every corner so get ready to save often unless you're truly hardcore.

Blood Pc Dos gameplay screenshot

To progress in the game you had to turn switches, blow up explosive barrels to access new areas and of course find keys. Unlike previous first person shooters you had to find up to six keys not 3 in order to complete a level which can become quite a chore especially as you delve into the later chapters of the game.
The story of the game Blood isn't told through occasional text screens like in Doom but rather cut scenes. The plot is not very fleshed out and is very forgettable it has something to do with a cult named 'the cabal' who worships the god Tchernobog who was voiced by Monolith's CEO Jason Hall. There's something in there about betrayal but really nobody buys a game like this for the plot. the time period isn't very specific, personally I would of guessed the game had to be set in the late 1920's, or 1930's or 40's because of the fact it has a Thompson sub-machine gun in it. But Blood was retroactively dated in 1928 in it's sequel Blood 2:The chosen. Not that it really matters.

Throughout the game you'll visit haunted mansions, sewers, lumber mills, mortuaries and just about every cliché' horror location you can think of. The game is very tongue in cheek to say the least. Blood released in 1997 and did not sell particularly well despite being a blast to play. It received two expansion packs: 'cryptic passage' that was developed by Sunstorm Interactive and published by WizardWorks Software. and Monoliths own expansion 'plasma pak'. Until recently tracking down a copy of Blood and it's expansion packs was a little tricky due to the poor sales of the games. But it's now available with it's expansions from good old games.
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/comicconreviews/  

Video Game History - Deus Ex
 


















Deus Ex Cover art

By the mid 1990’s Warren Spector had already made a big name for himself from his involvement on the first person role playing games ‘Ultima Underworld’ and ‘System Shock’. Ultima Underworld released in early 1992. It was a technological revolution as it was one of the earliest games to display texture mapping in first person.  Spector had gotten his first taste of working on a science fiction game with 1994’s smash hit: ‘System Shock’ and now wanted to take the simulation experience. For Spector this would become the start of the long and torturous struggle that would be Deus Ex’s development. Spector’s first attempt at Deus Ex was a project called ‘TroubleShooter’. In the game the player would take on the role of a Dirty Harry inspired-ex-cop-turned security specialist. The project fell through so Spector tried again with a new concept called ‘Shooter’. In ‘Shooter’ the player would take on the role of Adam a bio-mechanically enhanced government agent tasked with defending the World against terrorist threats in a dystopian future. This project also fell through. But third time round was a charm for Spector. In the late 1990’s he started pitched a new game titled ‘Majestic Revelations’. Inspired by ‘The X-files’ this new game was set to take the player into a World of conspiracies, government cover-ups and a shadowy group named ‘Majestic 12’. Years had passed since Spector’s first attempt to make a science fiction game. When System Shock launched in 1994 consumer grade computers simply weren’t powerful enough to render graphics in 3D. But this now no longer the case.   Spector leased the powerful ‘Unreal Engine’ and expanded his team from 6 to 20 people. With this expanded team came internal power struggles that pulled the project into different directions. Individual members of the team all had opposing ideas about what the game should be. Some thought the game should be a violent fast-paced first person, others wanted an in-depth simulated role playing experience and some even wanted a strategy game. To make matters worse Spector the game to have massive outdoor levels based on real World locations. But the Unreal Engine simply didn’t have the raw power to deliver his vision. Worse still when the started early play-testing began they found that a realistic looking World was simply too boring. ‘Deus Ex’ needed to be more fantastical. The player had to become immersed in this World of conspiracies and dark cyber punk not bored by realism. The levels where changed to accommodate the limitations of the unreal engine. Also more robots and alien looking creatures including the ‘greazel' where added to make the game more fantastical.    Spector’s struggles where beginning to pay off as Deus Ex neared closer to the finish line but there were still some glaring issues. For one the source code for artificial intelligence in the game was built on top of that used for Unreal Tournament. Deus Ex was supposed to allow the player to approach combat in any way they desired. The game needed to accommodate multiple play-styles from stealth, to all out carnage. But Unreal Tournament was designed to fast-paced shooter. Fixing the AI became a nightmare for the single player campaign. But for multiplayer it didn’t turn out to be much of a problem. As the multiplayer ended up with giving players an experience that echoed Unreal Tournament’s.
  In June 2000, 5 years after Spector’s journey began, Deus Ex released. Those years of struggle had been worth it as critics lavished the game with praise and awards, securing Deus Ex a place in video-game history. As time passed it became a classic in the eyes of Pc gamer and in late 2015 two teams of dedicated modders put out their final attempts to breathe new life into the game. Caustic Creative’s ‘Deus Ex Revision’ sought to expand the levels, mechanics and even include a new soundtrack. Whilst Totalitarian’s ‘GMDX’ mod expanded animations, interfaces, and more without changing the core experience. With these mods Deus Ex now became more accessible to an entire new generation of gamers. Making sure it’s place in history remains secure for years to come.   YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/comicconreviews/

Video Game History - Duke Nukem 3D
 
Duke Nukem 3D box art

    In the mid 1990's id software was the most prominent company when it came to first person shooters. However a man named Ken Silverman had been producing a new game engine called the 'build engine' that would allow for more advanced graphics than id's games. Ken's build engine would be more powerful than id's tech, as it would allow for destructible environments, sectors that could overlap each other and more. In 1993 just a month before Ken was due to attend his first semester at college he had signed a contract with Apogee software to create a new 3D engine. Soon his programming would overtake his college classes and he would work on the engine full time. It would took Ken 3 years to finish the 'Build Engine' that was to be used for 'Duke Nukem 3d'.   Ken Silverman   For the game apogee decided to give the Duke his own personality. When the first 'Duke Nukem' was released in 1991, Duke's character had been inspired by comic book heroes and 1980's action movie stars but due to technical limitations they couldn't flesh out the character fully. Thanks to the power of Ken Silverman's build engine however Duke would now be able to speak and never before in a first person shooter did you have a character who could speak and react to the world around him during the actual game play.    To breathe life into the character Jon St. John was hired to do voice acting for Duke. Jon St. John was instructed to think of Clint Eastwood's performance in Dirty Harry but with a lower pitch to reflect Duke's larger physique. It was one of Jon St John's earliest roles in the video game industry and by far his most iconic. Like Id Software's games, Duke Nukem 3d stuck to the typical first person shooter formula of collecting key cards to progress throughout the levels.   However Duke Nukem 3d would feature real life locations to make it stand out. Throughout the game Duke would visit many real life locations such as cinema theatres, bookstores, and strip clubs. You could also interact with certain objects in the game. Using a urinal will give you ten points of health for instance. You could also use items in your inventory such as night vision googles, med-kits,a jet pack, and scuba gear. Throughout the game Duke would quote one-liners from numerous movies most notably the evil dead series. And the cover of the game bears a heavy resemblance to the cover of the film 'Evil Dead army of Darkness'.   The game would create some controversy by including sexual content meaning the game would be given an M rating. Because of the sexual content Germany and Brazil banned the game, and the game received plenty of criticism for it's objectification of women. However the game still sold over 3.5 million copies. Duke Nukem 3d did eventually receive a sequel named 'Duke Nukem Forever' which is better known for having one of the longest production times in video game history, than for it's actual gameplay, which was poor. But in any case Duke Nukem 3d will be forever known as one of the most important games in video game history because it helped to popularize the first person shooter genre alongside id software's games.   YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/comicconreviews/

Retro Review - Clive Barker's Undying (Pc)
    Clive Barker's Undying box art     Clive Barker’s Undying is a survival horror game that has a deeply gothic look and feel to it. While I’m not all that familiar with Barker’s work apart from his most iconic book ‘The Hellbound Heart’ and the film adaption ‘Hellraiser’, I am very familiar with the works of H.P Lovecraft. Lovecraft is my favorite horror writer and someone who greatly inspired Barker’s writing. Starting Undying you’ll find yourself in this huge gothic mansion, which of course has a lot of locked doors that require hunting for the key through copious amounts of backtracking. This first impression of the game might make you believe it’s going for the classic puzzle route for survival horror in ode to classics like ‘Resident Evil’. But this first impression would be wrong as there a number of things that set Barker’s Undying apart. First off you dual wield weapons in this game. A trusty firearm like the pistol in your left hand and magic in your right.    Magical abilities get gifted to you throughout the campaign and can be quickly toggled through depending on the situation. At points you can use your magic to uncover the truth behind certain objects throughout the mansion, and you’ll even be able to resurrect dead foes to fight for you. You can check up on the specifics of your magical abilities in your journal which also logs objectives and holds all the cryptic clues you’ve picked up. Journal entries are written in a typical Lovecraftian style, all in first person detailing every horror as it happens in real time from the perspective of the note writer.
   
  Clive Barker's Undying gameplay screenshot   Unlike classic survival horror games, the puzzles and level layouts in Undying are usually pretty straight forward and won’t require a razor sharp mind to decipher. Personally I found this a refreshing change, but then again I always found games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil to burden you with frustratingly abstract puzzles that I had no luck solving without peeking at a strategy guide.
After you brave the mansion starting area, you’re then free to explore the lands using a boat. You’ll also use your magic to cross barriers to other realms. These other realms feature the richest atmosphere in the game. The sound and art design there is absolutely top-notch. Although these realms are often a cliché’ version of a gothic hell they still remain very enticing. Deep rumbles of thunder, red hellish skies and warped broken architecture all floating in some strange inter-dimensional plain make for some truly unique levels that are a lot of fun to wade through. Platforming in first person games of this time tends to be a pretty teeth grinding affair but in Undying, It really isn’t all that bad.   Outside of these other realms your eyes will always be picking out some creeping noise in the background, be it the whistling of the wind, the distant shrieks of a demon, and your own footsteps echoing throughout the twisted gothic buildings. Human enemies can break this creepy atmosphere though, there just isn’t anything all that terrifying about a monk yelling at you. Otherwise the bestiary is pretty great, with all kinds of gothic monsters and demons that look like something from the front cover of a H.P Lovecraft novel.     Clive barker's Undying - platforming   The combat is probably the weakest part of Undying. Combat can get very repetitive very quickly as the game seems keen to throw something at you around every other corner. But you can sometimes break up the monotony getting creative, combining defensive weapons is offensive magic. For instance resurrecting a dead enemy to pit against your remaining foes as you retreat firing a gothic Chinese ice canon at any stragglers left in your path. It’s a shame that you all too rarely get a break from the combat, because the scrolls you pick up in the game make for a fine read and give clues as to the lore of this game World. Picking up this game you’ll need to account for the fact it’s a bit dated graphically. But if you think about it in context of its release date in 2001, it holds up fairly well. The Unreal 1 engine whilst now very creaky looking, provided some of the best lighting and shadowing at the time, which gives off just the right atmosphere when you’re indoors. The real age of Undying starts to show in some of the outdoor sections however. Whilst I wouldn’t say they look terrible for the time, they are in stark contrast to the more lively interiors. Clive Barker’s Undying is a compelling game, not least for the fact that Barker not only had a hand in writing it but also got to make some of the design decisions during production along with voicing one of the characters. My biggest complaint would be how repetitive the game becomes as you get closer to the end but if you’re willing to endure a little tedium than this game is definitely worth going back too. Dodd, R. (2013). ComicConReviews: Retro Review - Clive Barker's Undying (Pc). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/retro-review-clive-barkers-undying-pc.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].  

Review - Fairy Fencer F (PS3, Pc)
  Fairy Fencer F box art     The story in this game is in one word ‘fairies’. You see, you have a fencer who controls the fairy when wielding them in battles. Naturally you have some evil villains who want to control all the fairies for World domination or some such thing. But all you really need to know is that this game is trying to be kind of edgy, which doesn’t work out at all, because it’s about fairies. Anyway the characters are pretty 2 dimensional as you might expect and although the art style is nicely detailed, the actual character design is kind of anodyne, and the main protagonist in the game called ‘Fang’ is a bit on the tiresome side. As for the rest of the characters, they do have some vaguely witty dialogue in cut scenes sometimes but the rest of the time they spend reminding you of what cardboard cutout their personality is supposed represent. When you stack up the visuals of Fairy Fencer F to say Hyperdimension Neptunia MK2 you can see they look pretty similar. This is because Compile Heart is still using the same game engine in 2014. Considering that this game looks like a PlayStation 3 launch title, this is not good at all.      Fairy Fencer F(left) compared to Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2(right)   Now mediocre visuals don’t really bother me but tin his case it reminds of when Fallout 3 came out on the old Oblivion engine and everyone bitched about it, and then when New Vegas came out on the same tired old engine people where even more pissed off. The difference is that Compile Heart have released 4 games on their now archaic engine, to add insult to injury, even if you decide to do the optional 3.5gb install for the game it still chugs. That’s right a game that looks like in 2014 cannot manage a consistent 30 frame per second. In the positives for the visuals department, the special attacks in this game are glorious, you will feel like your power level is over 9000 guaranteed. The biggest strength of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series was in my opinion the sound. However the soundtrack in this rather less successful in this game. While the battle music is usually quite upbeat and fitting, for some insane reason compile heart decided that using songs with lyrics was a good idea, and this really takes away from the experience. The voice work is passable to fairly good, the female voice actors tend to do a slightly job than their male counterparts although this seems to be almost always the case in video games for some reason. Early on cut scenes will be interesting, the ones that are voiced anyhow but because the plot is dull and edgy you’ll probably ending up skipping a lot of the cut scenes later on.     Fairy Fencer F cutscene   As for the gameplay itself, well the battle system in this game is basically a polished version of that seen in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. Only now you don’t have to worry about using buffs and de-buffs all the time in order to defeat the enemies. This game uses an active turn based battle system so whilst there is clearly a turn order you can move around during your turns in order to line up Area of effect special attacks and the like, you’ll also be able to pull off lightening combos where you get to attack with all of your party though this feels mostly random. The biggest aspect of battles is to build up your combo meter, the little purple bar at the top. This will allow you to ‘Fairize’ which gives you hyper powerful attacks and better combos. You can also use spells to deal extra damage to enemies who are weak to certain elemental based attacks, although the enemies with the exceptions of bosses are generally pretty easy so you’ll end up mashing buttons far too much of the time. It only takes a couple of hours before what, I would like to call ‘battle fatigue’, sets in. This is where you pretty much aren’t paying any attention to stats, and are reliant on audio cues to tell you when it’s time to use a potion to heal or whatever the case may be, this because you’ll be so damn bored from having played out 100 similar battles in a row.      Fairy Fencer F gameplay screenshot   Outside of battles you can explore the map using world transform which is basically where you stake fairies you’ve gained through the campaign. It’s very basic, and you can even pay for the information on where to get fairies. It’s really pointless since all you’ll end up doing is beating dungeons in an order that is pretty much pre-set. The game does allow you to customize your characters stats to by using WP points, so you’ll be able to increase your attack, defines and learn stronger spells through the menu as you progress, there is also an option to synthesize potions and other items in the main towns shop but it’s not exactly a big part of the game. Lastly you have side missions, and sure they do add more game time, but they always consist of either killing X number of this monster, or fetching this random item from dungeon Y. Half of the quests are even labelled ‘fetch’. Ultimately I found Fairy Fencer F to be incredibly shallow, and whilst the battle system was improved over Compile Heart’s Hyperdimension Neptunia series, the gameplay is still so similar it feels more like an update patch then its own thing.   Dodd, R. (2014). ComicConReviews: Review - Fairy Fencer F (PS3, Pc). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/review-fairy-fencer-f-ps3-pc.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].  

Review - Fairy Fencer F (PS3, Pc)
  Fairy Fencer F box art     The story in this game is in one word ‘fairies’. You see, you have a fencer who controls the fairy when wielding them in battles. Naturally you have some evil villains who want to control all the fairies for World domination or some such thing. But all you really need to know is that this game is trying to be kind of edgy, which doesn’t work out at all, because it’s about fairies. Anyway the characters are pretty 2 dimensional as you might expect and although the art style is nicely detailed, the actual character design is kind of anodyne, and the main protagonist in the game called ‘Fang’ is a bit on the tiresome side. As for the rest of the characters, they do have some vaguely witty dialogue in cut scenes sometimes but the rest of the time they spend reminding you of what cardboard cutout their personality is supposed represent. When you stack up the visuals of Fairy Fencer F to say Hyperdimension Neptunia MK2 you can see they look pretty similar. This is because Compile Heart is still using the same game engine in 2014. Considering that this game looks like a PlayStation 3 launch title, this is not good at all.      Fairy Fencer F(left) compared to Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2(right)   Now mediocre visuals don’t really bother me but tin his case it reminds of when Fallout 3 came out on the old Oblivion engine and everyone bitched about it, and then when New Vegas came out on the same tired old engine people where even more pissed off. The difference is that Compile Heart have released 4 games on their now archaic engine, to add insult to injury, even if you decide to do the optional 3.5gb install for the game it still chugs. That’s right a game that looks like in 2014 cannot manage a consistent 30 frame per second. In the positives for the visuals department, the special attacks in this game are glorious, you will feel like your power level is over 9000 guaranteed. The biggest strength of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series was in my opinion the sound. However the soundtrack in this rather less successful in this game. While the battle music is usually quite upbeat and fitting, for some insane reason compile heart decided that using songs with lyrics was a good idea, and this really takes away from the experience. The voice work is passable to fairly good, the female voice actors tend to do a slightly job than their male counterparts although this seems to be almost always the case in video games for some reason. Early on cut scenes will be interesting, the ones that are voiced anyhow but because the plot is dull and edgy you’ll probably ending up skipping a lot of the cut scenes later on.     Fairy Fencer F cutscene   As for the gameplay itself, well the battle system in this game is basically a polished version of that seen in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. Only now you don’t have to worry about using buffs and de-buffs all the time in order to defeat the enemies. This game uses an active turn based battle system so whilst there is clearly a turn order you can move around during your turns in order to line up Area of effect special attacks and the like, you’ll also be able to pull off lightening combos where you get to attack with all of your party though this feels mostly random. The biggest aspect of battles is to build up your combo meter, the little purple bar at the top. This will allow you to ‘Fairize’ which gives you hyper powerful attacks and better combos. You can also use spells to deal extra damage to enemies who are weak to certain elemental based attacks, although the enemies with the exceptions of bosses are generally pretty easy so you’ll end up mashing buttons far too much of the time. It only takes a couple of hours before what, I would like to call ‘battle fatigue’, sets in. This is where you pretty much aren’t paying any attention to stats, and are reliant on audio cues to tell you when it’s time to use a potion to heal or whatever the case may be, this because you’ll be so damn bored from having played out 100 similar battles in a row.      Fairy Fencer F gameplay screenshot   Outside of battles you can explore the map using world transform which is basically where you stake fairies you’ve gained through the campaign. It’s very basic, and you can even pay for the information on where to get fairies. It’s really pointless since all you’ll end up doing is beating dungeons in an order that is pretty much pre-set. The game does allow you to customize your characters stats to by using WP points, so you’ll be able to increase your attack, defines and learn stronger spells through the menu as you progress, there is also an option to synthesize potions and other items in the main towns shop but it’s not exactly a big part of the game. Lastly you have side missions, and sure they do add more game time, but they always consist of either killing X number of this monster, or fetching this random item from dungeon Y. Half of the quests are even labelled ‘fetch’. Ultimately I found Fairy Fencer F to be incredibly shallow, and whilst the battle system was improved over Compile Heart’s Hyperdimension Neptunia series, the gameplay is still so similar it feels more like an update patch then its own thing.   Dodd, R. (2014). ComicConReviews: Review - Fairy Fencer F (PS3, Pc). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/review-fairy-fencer-f-ps3-pc.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].  

Review - Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 (PS Vita, Pc)
    Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 cover art     If you’ve been a fan of Japanese role playing games in the last 5 years chances are you’ve heard of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. To date there is a trilogy of games on PS3, a manga series, an anime series and another manga series based on the anime. It also has 3 spin off games, 3 remakes the first two of which are already out in the West, and more games currently in development. Needless to say the franchise has become pretty popular. Re;Birth 1 overhauls a lot of problems with the original Hyperdimension Neptunia. For one it uses an enhanced battle system from Hyperdimension Neptunia: Victory. The story sequences in the original game used 3D models whereas in Re;birth they have been completely redone in 2D animation. The story itself focuses around the fantasy land of GameIndustri. A place divided into 4 kingdoms ruled by goddesses who gain there powers from share energy a sort of metaphysical equivalent to the democratic process. The Moe goddess Neptune loses her memory and so the bulk of the plot centers on exposition. Tonally the game is very light, the series is about meta humor, breaking the 4th wall a lot and of course being kawaii, and yes there is plenty of fan service that should go without saying. There are a lot of references to otaku culture in general in this game even which includes discussions of ‘2d-husbandos’. Since I started this review the game has since been ported to PC. However the move to PC doesn’t have any graphical advantages except higher resolutions .Which Given that this game was designed for the limitations of the Vita this shows, whilst the dialogue sections look great no matter what you’re playing on; The low resolution textures of the environments are going to look pretty rough on PC.            Hyperdimension Neptunia - 3D models cutscene(left) Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 - 2D animated cutscene (right)   Where the visuals shined at least on the Vita was the character models they were nicely detailed and the animations for special attacks are the high point even if they did cause the game to did cause a few dropped frames. First off this game does feature dual audio so you hardcore RPG fans aren’t going to have a problem with the voice acting. I’d wager the English dub is of a high enough quality to warrant using. Even as someone who doesn’t consider himself an elitist I must concede that my jimmies get pretty rustled if I don’t have the option switch to Japanese. The advantage of the original Japanese is that Neptune’s character sounds far more believable as Moe whereas the English voice actress sounds much older. Also the soundtrack is flat out incredible, all the main characters and locations have their own theme. One of the most used tracks called 100 dollars is so damn addictive that I’m not kidding when I say I’ve spent hours listening to it when not even playing the game. The soundtrack manages to encapsulate the high technology meets fantasy vibe of the game, and I’d be hard put to try and find any fault with it. Rebirth 1 has completely overhauled Hyperdimension Neptunia’s battle system making the movement more fluid. The game using an active turn based battle system, it’s actually more or less identical to Fairy Fencer F which I previously reviewed.    There is one serious gripe I have with the game and that is one of its core mechanics that is the EXE drive does not become available until you are over 10 or so hours into the story by which point you would have done some serious grinding since the game is mostly focused around this. The EXE drive is a gauge that fills every time you get a hit on an enemy the more hits you combo the faster it fills. Once the gauge is filled you can use some very powerful one hit attacks. The problem is that the EXE gauge is on screen being filled for at least 10 hours before it’s unlocked for use. Now with the EXE drive you may be thinking big deal who cares? Well put it this way battles in this game are very freaking repetitive. You combo your standard moves, you break the enemies guard then maybe you finish them off with more powerful special attack linked to your MP; All very standard fare.   If you want to get fancy during harder battles you can use buffs, and de-buffs but it’s impossible to claim there is much variety during the long hours of grinding you’ll need to do in order to beat the end level boss and progress to the next hilarious story cut scene, EXE drive adds that much needed variety.     Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth gameplay screenshot   Outside battle you can take on fetch quests for more money which you can spend on buying better weapons and buffs for your characters. There is a decent amount of customizability here I was able to more than double some of my party’s HP using the more expensive items bought in shops, and of course give them some kawaii accessories because why not? You can also change your individual characters move sets allowing basic attacks to inflict elemental damage, or vary the total damage done and effect radius of a move-set. It’s a great little system and a lot of fun to use, it helps to give your party some much needed customizability. The last feature worth mentioning is ‘Disk Dev’. Which allows you to change data in dungeons which in turn can modify enemy types, enemy levels, and items found in dungeons. You will probably find yourself earlier on in the game more than later where it begins to feel more like window-dressing. There are plenty more little systems I could talk about in Hyperdimension Neptunia that would bog this review down with some serious technical jargon. So instead I’ll just wrap it up here. Re;Birth brings a much needed update to the battle system and facelift to the tremendously ugly original game and makes for a decent starting point for newcomers to the series.   Dodd, R. (2015). ComicConReviews: Review - Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 (PS Vita, Pc). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/review-hyperdimension-neptunia-rebirth.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].

Hello everyone, Aizen-Sama here. I’ve been only around this community and forums for around 6 months by now, and even though I may not be the most knowledgeable when it comes to VN’s in general, I think that I possess enough knowledge about the translation scene. That’s right, today I’m not writing a post about Luna Translations, but one about my opinion on the translation scene, translation groups, and the community revolving them.

Let us establish how this community and market actually exist in the first place. Piracy and fan translating, they are both mutually exclusive to each other and they are the foundations of what we consider as the “western visual novel community”.
After some years where piracy slowly started to decrease and official releases started to be a thing I can safely assume that there are three types of people now, one who will support every single game localization and buy the Visual Novels instead of pirating them, one who will pirate everything and anything, or one that will mix between these two because either there is no other access to the game in Japanese to apply the English patch (in other words, you can’t buy the game legally because the Japanese market is already a very difficult place to access with Western VPN’s, mostly because Japanese publishers block them to not let people outside Japan buy these games online, which is usually the only way to get them in the first place) or the individual simply doesn’t support some releases or companies that release VN’s in particular (I’ll set people that want to buy legally a game with a fan-translated patch but can’t do it, so they have to pirate the VN even if they don’t want to as an example).
This last example leads to another concerning issue, the relationship between translation groups and the community itself. It’s partly human nature; when a group establishes itself and releases a patch (no matter whether it’s full or partial) we automatically create what is called a “power level” between these two types of people, the users that translate and work on translating games in one way or another (editing, QC’ing, etc…) and the users that simply play the releases made by the first ones.
This so called “power level” is what should be avoided at all costs, sometimes the community must remember that the people that belong to translation groups (whether they are official or not) are part of the community as well, and have their own stances and way of doing things.
Those “power levels” are automatically made, and they are the primary reason of this community’s fragmentation into several “sub-communities”, which is a problem mainly for the translation groups. What I’m trying to say here is that what is constantly happening right now is that what this “power division” has made is to categorize groups by number of patches released (the more they have released the more praised they are) and that has ultimately lead to two things; groups distancing themselves from the community, which is a very bad thing for both of the parties involved, and groups distancing from each other.
What I mean by this last statement is that there is no communication between teams, which leads to what is happening in the actual society that we live in: the individualization of people (Tl-teams in this case). But regarding that aspect, some groups have managed to find a solution to this matter. Let’s put @Arcadeotic's (Euphemic Translation) and @oystein's (Elevator TL) groups for example; both of them have found a way to make the community feel closer to their groups thanks to their “Public Discord Server Policy” (that’s how I call it) and both of them are in the TL Leaders Discord Server (basically a group to try to unite translation teams more, an initiative from Arcadeotic and I). That group has opened my eyes in many aspects regarding team stances towards piracy as well as opinions about the community and it's relation with the Tl teams. This group has also helped me in getting to know people that otherwise I would have never met even if we were active members of this forum and interacted with each other sometimes, like for example Dergonu, Oystein, Kardororororo, and many more.
What I’m ultimately trying to say is that banding together is a rare thing for groups now, and this is the first step to create a community feel again, something that, in my opinion, is being lost little by little and needs to be stopped.
I’ll mention another issue that many people find itchy, and that is the topic of “the sense of entitlement of a loud minority”.
I’d like to make myself very clear about this; I know that there is a silent positive majority, and that compared to the amount of people that complain about things about projects and English patches this majority vastly overcomes the “minority”, but the matter of fact is that this “loud minority” is what gives people that are new to the community a bad impression about it from the start.
I’ll set two examples to demonstrate the last point I mentioned: firstly, I’d like to address the Koiken Otome Project, one that took approximately three years to finish. It’s a topic full of controversy, firstly because people firstly speculated that Flying Pantsu was going to “definitely sell out to the localization companies” and they made a ruckus about it.

First of all, what if they really “sold out” to one of them? That is, in my opinion, a good thing (primarily because I belong to the “buy everything” type of guy instead of pirating unless it can’t be avoided and tend to support official releases), but mostly because, the fact of the matter is that they spent working on an English patch of a game that contains more than 40K lines three years, and the entire effort is theirs, that means that even if they decided to not release the patch for whatever reason, I would have been totally in favor. Why? Because it’s THEIR work and THEY did it, not the people that feel entitled to have the English patch.
Same goes with the problem that revolved around the time of release. Again, I’ll repeat, the matter of fact is that they could’ve released that patch whenever they wanted because since THEY did the patch, they decide when to release it, simple.

The second example I’ll highlight in this post talks about Shinku Translations and the controversy that revolved around the SakuSaku patch. If you don’t know what happened regarding this project I’ll quickly sum it up: Shinku Translations made a deal with Sekai Project to release the game officially, what ultimately made people who were waiting for a fan-patch very pissed. The comments on their website were mostly full of “sellouts” and “I already bought the game in Japanese, now I’ll have to buy it again, gg boys” and many more that blew my mind. That was the perfect demonstration of the entitlement that people slowly begin to have when a project is close to being finished.
 I’ll repeat myself once again, just like Koiken Otome and Flying Pantsu, it was THEIR work, so they had the right to make a deal with Sekai Project and do whatever they wanted to the patch. And, as Akerou explained in one of the comments, it could lead to more titles being localized, which, in my opinion, are good news!
 People have to start realizing that sooner or later, the entire scope if not most of the translation scope will shift towards official releases instead of fan-patches.
As a last argument regarding this matter, I’ll mention a couple of YouTube comments that I found in the official OP video of SakuSaku published by Sekai Project’s YouTube channel, they basically said this:
“That's a low punch SP. That's just low. The guy translating it is almost done. If you buy the translation from him and release it in the next 2 months I might forgive you. If you do it less than a month you are forgiven.”
“Well just pirate the release when it comes out. This is one of the cases when piracy is completely justified.”
These two comments are part of the “entitlement problem” that I’ve addressed before, and I hope they highlight what I’ve been trying to tackle (take into account that these comments are just the surface, just look at the ones in Shinku’s page and you’ll get a grasp of what this community broods sometimes).

Last but not least, I’d like to address Fuwanovel as a platform for translation projects and my opinion about it as a Leader of a translation group (in this case, Luna Translations).
Don’t get me wrong when I say that. I love Fuwanovel as a site. It’s one of the principal, if not the main responsible for the appearance of a community that revolves around Visual Novels in general. I love this site, and I appreciate the people that back this site paying monthly (I hope I can do it as well when I get the chance) and the mods for doing their jobs correctly and every other person that supports this site. But, I’d like to tackle the issue of trying to host translation projects in a forum-based website.
 I’d like to point out that the system created in Fuwa worked very VERY well at the beginning stages of the creation of this community. Basically, the “Fan Translator Skills” thread and the “Translation Projects” thread were probably very useful and effective back when the community was niche and not a lot of projects and teams crowded the scene (I’m not directing this towards the “Fan TL Discussion” thread, by the way).
But, as a leader of a translation team (and I’m sure that many people will agree with me on this) I just think that Fuwa’s way of hosting projects is not as effective as it was probably two or three years ago.
What I’m trying to say here is that, just like VNDB exists, a platform that focuses solely on helping teams and individuals to work on projects will certainly appear at some point, or at least needs to appear at some point. Summing up, Fuwanovel as a forum focused on the discussion of Visual Novels and the fan translation scene is a very good and positive website, and it’s totally needed for the community to keep growing, but! Fuwanovel (the forums) used as a platform to support projects and teams may have been very effective in the past but not anymore, since now the scope is very broad and more complex compared to when all of this started.
Finally, to close this rant, I’d like to say that if I had to sum up things probably the most important issue would be that the community is losing the sense of being together, and groups, as well as individuals, are distancing themselves from each other, which is something that has to be avoided at all costs. I’ll personally try to do whatever I can about this matter and little by little this problem will hopefully be solved in the future, because together we can do great things.
Let’s try to make the translation world great again, as Trump as it sounds.
 
 
 

The alpha of my Doom II mod is now ready to download.
Hope you enjoy, any feedback on what needs to be changed for the final build of the map is highly appreciated (^-^).
 
Mod download:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/extramana/downloads/extramana-alpha-085
 
Developer page:
http://www.moddb.com/company/black-lagoon-company

Review - Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3)
                                                  Atelier Shallie Alchemists of the Dusk Sea cover art     The Atelier series unlike other JRPG’s doesn’t focus on combat. Instead the games are about gathering items and synthesizing them using magic. Another unique aspect to the franchise was the clock. If you let it run down before completing all your tasks it was game over. Atelier Shallie removes the time aspect entirely giving you as long as you want to finish objectives, which must off put some hardcore fans of the series. In Atelier Shallie you can play as either Shallotte, or Shalliesta. No seriously there is a playable character named after a type of onion. Shallotte is the obvious choice since Shallistera has about as much character as a plank of wood. So if you picked best girl your story will revolve around learning the basics of alchemy, gathering items, synthesizing them and some typical RPG battling and exploration although I assume it isn’t much different with Shallistera. Shallotte has a lot of scenes where we get to hear her thoughts which is actually adds a little bit of depth to an otherwise fun yet predominately one-note character. Otherwise the narrative won’t surprise you, it’s very much by the numbers for a Japanese role playing game.
  The soundtrack in Atelier Shallie is terrific. You’ll hear some of the same tracks dozens of times as you explore the hub that connects everything in town or explore the World map. The last atelier game I played was Rorona plus on the Vita and I found the English dub to be pretty poor so far Shallie I just stuck to the original Japanese language for the whole game and found it to be good Shallotte especially so. Like with every other Atelier game on the PlayStation 3 way more attention is payed to the character designs then to the environment. The series didn’t even embrace full 3 dimensional graphics until 2009 so this is hardly a surprise. That said Atelier Shallie has some definite improvements over past games in this series. Whilst the environments are still under-detailed there is some half decent lighting and shadowing. This is put to especially good use in the mid ground and background, giving us a pretty clear delineation of space. Instead of having the playable area just sort of disappear into a fog like it did in some of the earlier games. Battle animations are also better than they have ever been. The animation for lip synching could be a whole lot better, mouths just kind of open and close without a variety of different movements to express particular sounds. I wasn’t expecting anything realistic and I have seen worse but you can’t help but notice this during the cutscenes.
      Atelier Shallie Alechemists of the Dusk Sea gameplay screenshot   The in-game environments are still under-detailed but there is some half decent lighting and shadowing. This is put to especially good use in the mid ground and background, giving us a pretty clear delineation of space. Instead of having the playable area just sort of disappear into a fog like it did in some of the earlier games. Battle animations are also better than they have ever been. The animation for lip synching could be a whole lot better, mouths just kind of open and close without a variety of different movements to express particular sounds. I wasn’t expecting anything realistic and I have seen worse but you can’t help but notice this during the cutscenes. The battle system is paired down in this game compared to other JRPG’s. You can’t customize your parties’ attacks and spells in anyway whatsoever, you just have to rely on what abilities you get given when you level up. To mix things up a little you have a burst meter which builds up for every attack you make. This can give you the edge in longer battles by increasing your damage when the meter is filled. You also have some quick time style events in battles where you can swap the character about to receive a hit from the enemy by using an on screen button prompt. Basically this comes down to allowing one of your party members to tank more damage. The battling is completely turn based, there is no movement so the burst and QTE mechanics are extremely important for strategizing.  

 
                 


                  Atelier Shallie Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - synthesis   The meat of the game is synthesizing. For every item you pick up in the game World the item meter fills. Once this meter is full you can choose what special item you receive such as a relic from the past, increase the number of a particular item and so on. It cuts down on the item collecting and adds a bit of a random element to which is much needed since you will collect many hundreds of similar items. Atelier Shallie does a good job of explaining all the nuances of synthesis through its in-game tutorials and you’re never expected to learn too much at once. Even so a lot of synthesis is basically tedious grinding to increase your alchemy level, and there will be times when you’re number-blind from going through the same steps ad-nauseum.  Even so by removing the time aspect and including in-depth synthesize tutorials, Atelier Shallie sets itself up as a good entry point to newcomers who may have been intimidated by the difficulty of the previous games in this franchise.   Dodd, R. (2015). ComicConReviews: Review - Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/atelier-shallie-alchemists-of-dusk-sea.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].  

Peter Payne, owner of VN publisher JAST and the J-List empire, made the following comment in their official forums:

JAST's experience with RPGs

JAST has released several RPGs over the years, including the Raidy series, Brave Soul, Aselia the Eternal, and most recently Yumina the Ethereal. JAST has said hinted before that the Raidy series did very well for them, and they seemed quite eager to work on Raidy 3, so I'd infer that it's not included in this assessment. Brave Soul was heavily pirated, as evidenced by the repetitive posts in the old forums asking how to save (which was explicitly outlined in the short paper manual that came with the game). The release of Aselia the Eternal was mired by issues, including a widely available fan translation patch, JAST's decision not to release a version with the original 18+ content due to concerns about the sexual portrayal of children, failure to pursue a Steam release, and the fact that by the time JAST got around to releasing it 8 years had passed and the game's graphics (640x480) and battle system were horribly dated. I previously discussed how Yumina the Ethereal's marketing was poorly handled, although eventually they did release a playable trial at least. Since Brave Soul was released 12 years ago and Aselia the Eternal probably didn't cost much to localize due to the existing fan patch (JAST worked with the same group for the official release), I presume JAST's statement is based largely on Yumina the Ethereal's sales.

Seinarukana: JAST's most ambitious RPG license to date

Synopsis

Seinarukana follows the dimension-traveling adventures of Nozomu and his band of friends. The story opens in a typical high school in Japan. Nozomu's everyday life is shattered when the school is suddenly attacked by strange invaders from another world wielding medieval weapons and fantastic magics. Amidst the chaos he and others awake to supernatural powers that had long lied dormant--powers inherited from a previous life. When the dust settles the entire campus has dimension shifted, and the students find themselves stranded in an alien world. While at first Nozomu and his friends simply seek to return to their world, they gradually become entangled in a dimension-spanning intrigue that threatens the entire multiverse. In the process, they discover the nature of their powers, and memories of their former lives begin to awaken.

Story and gameplay

The premise is reminiscent of its prequel Aselia the Eternal, though it has lighthearted school comedy elements that more resemble spiritual successor Yumina the Ethereal. The gameplay system is an evolution of the strategic overland map movement and tactical combat found in Aselia the Eternal, streamlining leveling, adding greater complexity in the form of separate physical defense and magical defense, and introducing a large cast of playable characters with unique skills. Skills are awarded as map completion objectives, with faster and more complete conquest rewarded with rare and powerful skills, giving players incentive to master the gameplay. You can see screenshots of the gameplay on its VNDB page.

Evaluation

I've played through the entire game, and the gameplay is a blast. The story mixes typical high school comedy with a fascinating sci-fi / fantasy setting, but the blend is smoother and more convincing than Yumina the Ethereal, with the plot and setting gradually introduced rather than dropped in your lap halfway through like with Yumina. Unlike Yumina, there's no grind or random encounters, which I appreciate. Seinarukana is currently rated 8.4/10 with 151 votes on VNDB, ranking it #3 in untranslated RPGs below Eushully's epics Ikusa Megami Zero and Ikusa Megami Verita.

English Release

Insider information suggests Seinarukana is planned for a 2015 release, likely timed to coincide with Anime Expo in early July. Unfortunately, JAST appears to be heading for a repeat of the mistakes they made with Yumina the Ethereal: taking a high-caliber RPG, hurling it at fans, then expecting the game to market itself.

RPGs require special marketing at a different audience

Ask existing VN fans (JAST's typical customers) to buy an RPG, and they're going to whine that there's gameplay getting in the way of their story. RPG fans don't necessarily frequent VN sites, because they don't like VNs especially--they like RPGs. On top of that, when RPG fans are looking for RPGs to buy, they're looking for promotional materials that highlight the gameplay: gameplay screenshots, gameplay videos, and playable demos.

Reviews are important

RPG fans tend to read reviews before they buy, which means RPG review sites need to be engaged and persuaded to review these games. I never saw any reviews of Yumina the Ethereal on RPG sites, which was probably the #1 reason it didn't do as well as JAST had hoped. There's a huge potential audience for VN-style RPGs with strong gameplay, but it's going to take more effort to tap than JAST is probably used to. But if they're going spend the considerable resources to license a long high-caliber RPG like Seinarukana...why wouldn't they market it the best they could?

Seinarukana is a Steam dream come true

Seinarukana has to be released on Steam. Absolutely. Positively. If the game can be listed on Steam, priced affordably, and it gets noticed--the game will sell like hotcakes. I've played Seinarukana, and the gameplay is a blast. Steam users will eat it up. Censoring the H-content in Seinarukana will be no issue because there's hardly any to begin with. And with a censored version, sites like RPGFan and RPGamer should be willing to review the game, which will multiply sales. Getting these sites review copies before release, to boost pre-release hype, is a key aspect of proper marketing!

My message to JAST

Disappointing sales of your RPGs is your own fault. You're dropping the ball. Put some effort into the marketing this time around and you'll get results! You have talented people working for you on Seinarukana that know what it takes to market RPGs. Talk to them! Throw money at them and give them the authority to do what it takes to make this release successful!

My message to readers

It's outside the scope of this article to convince you that Seinarukana is awesome. You'll just have to take make word for it. Regardless if you agree, if you care about visual novel style RPGs then I have a message for you: JAST needs your help. They're at a fork in the road where they're debating if high quality RPGs are worth the effort of releasing. They don't realize they're sitting on a gold mine; all they see is a caved-in tunnel that is taking forever to clear. And if they don't dig down, they'll never realize it.

I want YOU, the RPG fans, to help me tell JAST what they're doing wrong. Here's a pre-release thread for Seinarukana on the JAST official forums. Tell them what they need to do to reach RPG fans like you and me and make Seinarukana and future awesome RPGs a success. Do you want to see shining gems like Eushully's Ikusa Megami Verita in English? First we have to convince Japanese developers like Eushully that there's a market for these games in English, and we have to convince localization companies like JAST that translating a 100hr epic like that isn't going to bankrupt them.

I leave the sword in your hands, RPG fans.

Review - Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 (PS Vita, Pc)
    Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 cover art     If you’ve been a fan of Japanese role playing games in the last 5 years chances are you’ve heard of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. To date there is a trilogy of games on PS3, a manga series, an anime series and another manga series based on the anime. It also has 3 spin off games, 3 remakes the first two of which are already out in the West, and more games currently in development. Needless to say the franchise has become pretty popular. Re;Birth 1 overhauls a lot of problems with the original Hyperdimension Neptunia. For one it uses an enhanced battle system from Hyperdimension Neptunia: Victory. The story sequences in the original game used 3D models whereas in Re;birth they have been completely redone in 2D animation. The story itself focuses around the fantasy land of GameIndustri. A place divided into 4 kingdoms ruled by goddesses who gain there powers from share energy a sort of metaphysical equivalent to the democratic process. The Moe goddess Neptune loses her memory and so the bulk of the plot centers on exposition. Tonally the game is very light, the series is about meta humor, breaking the 4th wall a lot and of course being kawaii, and yes there is plenty of fan service that should go without saying. There are a lot of references to otaku culture in general in this game even which includes discussions of ‘2d-husbandos’. Since I started this review the game has since been ported to PC. However the move to PC doesn’t have any graphical advantages except higher resolutions .Which Given that this game was designed for the limitations of the Vita this shows, whilst the dialogue sections look great no matter what you’re playing on; The low resolution textures of the environments are going to look pretty rough on PC.            Hyperdimension Neptunia - 3D models cutscene(left) Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 - 2D animated cutscene (right)   Where the visuals shined at least on the Vita was the character models they were nicely detailed and the animations for special attacks are the high point even if they did cause the game to did cause a few dropped frames. First off this game does feature dual audio so you hardcore RPG fans aren’t going to have a problem with the voice acting. I’d wager the English dub is of a high enough quality to warrant using. Even as someone who doesn’t consider himself an elitist I must concede that my jimmies get pretty rustled if I don’t have the option switch to Japanese. The advantage of the original Japanese is that Neptune’s character sounds far more believable as Moe whereas the English voice actress sounds much older. Also the soundtrack is flat out incredible, all the main characters and locations have their own theme. One of the most used tracks called 100 dollars is so damn addictive that I’m not kidding when I say I’ve spent hours listening to it when not even playing the game. The soundtrack manages to encapsulate the high technology meets fantasy vibe of the game, and I’d be hard put to try and find any fault with it. Rebirth 1 has completely overhauled Hyperdimension Neptunia’s battle system making the movement more fluid. The game using an active turn based battle system, it’s actually more or less identical to Fairy Fencer F which I previously reviewed.    There is one serious gripe I have with the game and that is one of its core mechanics that is the EXE drive does not become available until you are over 10 or so hours into the story by which point you would have done some serious grinding since the game is mostly focused around this. The EXE drive is a gauge that fills every time you get a hit on an enemy the more hits you combo the faster it fills. Once the gauge is filled you can use some very powerful one hit attacks. The problem is that the EXE gauge is on screen being filled for at least 10 hours before it’s unlocked for use. Now with the EXE drive you may be thinking big deal who cares? Well put it this way battles in this game are very freaking repetitive. You combo your standard moves, you break the enemies guard then maybe you finish them off with more powerful special attack linked to your MP; All very standard fare.   If you want to get fancy during harder battles you can use buffs, and de-buffs but it’s impossible to claim there is much variety during the long hours of grinding you’ll need to do in order to beat the end level boss and progress to the next hilarious story cut scene, EXE drive adds that much needed variety.     Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth gameplay screenshot   Outside battle you can take on fetch quests for more money which you can spend on buying better weapons and buffs for your characters. There is a decent amount of customizability here I was able to more than double some of my party’s HP using the more expensive items bought in shops, and of course give them some kawaii accessories because why not? You can also change your individual characters move sets allowing basic attacks to inflict elemental damage, or vary the total damage done and effect radius of a move-set. It’s a great little system and a lot of fun to use, it helps to give your party some much needed customizability. The last feature worth mentioning is ‘Disk Dev’. Which allows you to change data in dungeons which in turn can modify enemy types, enemy levels, and items found in dungeons. You will probably find yourself earlier on in the game more than later where it begins to feel more like window-dressing. There are plenty more little systems I could talk about in Hyperdimension Neptunia that would bog this review down with some serious technical jargon. So instead I’ll just wrap it up here. Re;Birth brings a much needed update to the battle system and facelift to the tremendously ugly original game and makes for a decent starting point for newcomers to the series.   Dodd, R. (2015). ComicConReviews: Review - Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 (PS Vita, Pc). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/review-hyperdimension-neptunia-rebirth.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].