Nerathim

That line from Coµ was so true that I already knew I was reading a great VN.



 
And more seriously, those 2 lines from Umineko ep 7 literally blew my mind
 

I recall a quote that translates to:
 
"there's mosaics in front of your eyes but none in your heart (imagination)"
 
It is said that those who play enough will gain the ability to see through mosaics.

Too bad it's an April's Fool, I would have liked another godlike soundtrack that only 07th Expansion can do.

Subarashi Hibi translation patch at 94% ! I'm so impatient, it will definitely be the VN that'll bring me back to the media.

Choices in visual novels are most of times completely useless, they're too obvious and are just here as a pretext for side routes to exist. I have nothing against routes in VN but my three favorites are kinetic, the story is often a lot more consistent and I read them much quickly because the scenario isn't splitted and something always keeps me in, that's a really strong point.

But conventional VNs are also good in their own way.

In short I think that characters-driven VN are far more suited to work with choices, even if they're obvious (Comyu,Rewrite and all the Key stuff for example) but it's the opposite if we're talking about story-driven (07th Expansion stuff, Muv-Luv Alternative....)

G-Senjou No Maou has plenty of useless choices for instance and the side routes aren't that good imo, even though I totally loved the VN I definitely think it would have been better in kinetic format.
The only good use of choices I've seen so far is in Tsukihime and FSN.

Choices in visual novels are most of times completely useless, they're too obvious and are just here as a pretext for side routes to exist. I have nothing against routes in VN but my three favorites are kinetic, the story is often a lot more consistent and I read them much quickly because the scenario isn't splitted and something always keeps me in, that's a really strong point.

But conventional VNs are also good in their own way.

In short I think that characters-driven VN are far more suited to work with choices, even if they're obvious (Comyu,Rewrite and all the Key stuff for example) but it's the opposite if we're talking about story-driven (07th Expansion stuff, Muv-Luv Alternative....)

G-Senjou No Maou has plenty of useless choices for instance and the side routes aren't that good imo, even though I totally loved the VN I definitely think it would have been better in kinetic format.
The only good use of choices I've seen so far is in Tsukihime and FSN.

People saying that h-scenes don't matter or are a good element in VN...well you never tried to recommend a VN to your uninitiated friends huh ? I can't count how many times I saw people looking for videogames with good plots and were always reluctant to read a VN not because of the absence of gameplay but because of h-scenes, maybe that's them being close-minded but it's definitely understandable, I am particulary fond of books and without 07th Expansion to dive me into VNs I would probably never tried one and I know a lot of people are like that. If you're used to pure litterature (or even an average videogame player who wants to see a scenario as much thrilling as Planescape Torment for instance) you will probably never be appealed by a generic character-design (95% of VNs) and even less the "weeaboo shit" (pardon the expression) such as the hentai and sexually weird humor. The best answer you could get from someone like that is a : "If I have time" (meaning that it's not a priority at all lol). This is sad because I'm sure VNs like G-Senjou No Maou, Tsukihime, Yu-No... could please anybody who has at least seen one anime in his life, but because of the sexual content it's another story...

No escape for me huh ?

 
 
 
 
Of course but it's written differently and you hardly get a chance to read this :

People saying that h-scenes don't matter or are a good element in VN...well you never tried to recommend a VN to your uninitiated friends huh ? I can't count how many times I saw people looking for videogames with good plots and were always reluctant to read a VN not because of the absence of gameplay but because of h-scenes, maybe that's them being close-minded but it's definitely understandable, I am particulary fond of books and without 07th Expansion to dive me into VNs I would probably never tried one and I know a lot of people are like that. If you're used to pure litterature (or even an average videogame player who wants to see a scenario as much thrilling as Planescape Torment for instance) you will probably never be appealed by a generic character-design (95% of VNs) and even less the "weeaboo shit" (pardon the expression) such as the hentai and sexually weird humor. The best answer you could get from someone like that is a : "If I have time" (meaning that it's not a priority at all lol). This is sad because I'm sure VNs like G-Senjou No Maou, Tsukihime, Yu-No... could please anybody who has at least seen one anime in his life, but because of the sexual content it's another story...

What is shocking are not the h-scenes themselves but the way they are written.

What is shocking are not the h-scenes themselves but the way they are written.

I was planning to make a topic about it once the official website is online but good job for creating it.
Anyways, you can add the development team if you want :



 
 
 
 
I know the guy personally and I can guarantee that he really knows how to write a good mystery, given that he's highly unsatisfied of the genre in general (be it books or VN) he has worked a lot on it.

You'll not get away with that, I guarantee it.

I wouldn't say I'm that type given the fact that obvious cheating from the protagonist can make me laugh and playing another route straight on doesn't bug me at all.

But I had that kind of feeling once, in Lucia's route (Rewrite). Dammit I never felt so involved, affected by a heroine than Lucia, her character is soo genuine that I can't possibly forget it, her past is astonishing and her development during the route turned me upside down to the point I didn't even took the time to play my usual role of sneaky bastard trying to pick minor flaws to criticize it just for the sake of it later (very mature of me indeed).
 
Now Lucia is my favorite heroine ever and I remember stalling Rewrite for a week after her route. I guess my answer is yes and no.

Obligatory addition to the thread: through Ayakashibito thus far, I've really enjoyed how unmanly Soushichi is in the conventional sense. Often times in otaku media the protag has unheard of intellect or some other crazy trait and they seem to "strong-arm" the heroine of choice into falling for them in the odd chance she didn't fall for him simply because he's nice (ugh). Soushichi readily accepts his weaknesses and is conscientious of his actions. His character is human. I can relate to his thoughts and feelings much better than the superhuman protags that somehow pass off as "normal people."
 
I've already spoiled the end of S3 of Legend of Korra for myself, for example, even though I'm stalled at around the halfway mark (not that the spoiler was very surprising).
 



 
Although Kyousuke fit into that "superhuman" protag category I mentioned above, I still thoroughly enjoyed his character. It was the moments that he was the weakest that made me respond the most to his character. While bad end Kyousuke always turned out to be a huge prick, he'd always let his softer side out near the end of routes otherwise. The comedic duo he formed with Haru was outstanding and Kyousuke x Mizuha was so cute I nearly hnnng'd to death.

Just finished Ayakashibito.
It was great. Suzu's route was great. Kuki was great.
That final battle though. It was kind of funny.
Anyway, I'm still missing 2 scenes in the scene replay and 3 CGs.
Now if I just knew what I was missing...

I apologize for the less than in depth questions above, but there's a limit to the questions I can make, so further questions will be answered with proper replies.
 
A Translation Team has various parts. It's a team because of it.
Translator - Translates the Japanese into English. That's all they need to do, but they can do more, depending on how fluent they are.
Translation Checker - Checks to see if the translation the translator made is accurate. Another way is for there to be two translators who compare notes, and see where different interpretations and fluency takes them.
Editor - Picks up the translation and makes it fluent in English, makes it consistent with the rest of the visual novel and makes it fit the context.  
Quality Checker/Proofreader - Among other things, their main function is checking whether the translation has a good level of English, whether it makes sense, and to find and remove typos.
 
Together, these heroes translate Visual Novels. For free. Yet, people still complain about translations. Here are some of the main points.
 
Faithfulness
A translation stops being a translation if it doesn't translate anything and just makes things up. But is that so bad?
No 2 languages are the same (wait no, you know what I meant).
I've tried translating to my native language, and it's not easy. Whether be it words you can find a synonym for, or expressions to which there are no equivalents, this tends to mean you cannot translate things easily. To add insult to injury, Japanese is a language with a completely different structure to English, so even translating literally will always get you ungrammatical or nonsensical sentences.
To maintain faithfulness, the main involved parties are the Translators and the Editors.
Translators can decide to just alter the meaning of a certain sentence, these are some possible reasons:
They cannot translate it fluently (implies being fluent at English, doesn't affect literal translators who leave everything to the editors); Lack of Japanese knowledge; Lack of existing translation; Cultural differences; Humor and references. I'll address some of these.
Cultural differences - This is up for much debate. Some people assume that since they are reading a VN, they must obviously already know all about Japanese culture.
Translator notes are one way too side-step these, but use them too often and people will start complaining too...
Otherwise, you can choose to keep purely Japanese things Japanese, or to change them slightly to a Western correspondent.
Humor - Some jokes, be them references or puns, are lost in translation. There is no readily available solution to this problem. You'll need to adapt these jokes to a western audience or keep the original and plague it with translation notes. Neither of these is very effective. 
Lack of existing translation - Because some things just don't exist on a western world. These are either kept with translation notes (yet again) or... removed? Ignored? Not many alternatives here.
 
Editors can decide to just alter a certain sentence, for similar reasons:
Cultural differences; Doesn't make sense; Consistency with rest of translation; Humor and references. Consistency - This is one of the least important issues, me thinks. Because you can't really notice it unless it's bad. Fixing this does not affect a translation negatively, except if a character's tone is altered because the translator failed to convey it properly.
 
TL;DR; This only affects people who know Japanese. I could tell you a certain sentence said "I think bananas are pornographic" when it actually said "Puppies are cute".
You wouldn't know. The only thing you can base yourself on is what other people say, and that's hardly trustworthy, is it?
Don't make a fuss about faithfulness, if you care about the original work so much, learn Japanese. Translations cannot faithfully adapt all things, know this as a rule of thumb.
 
Proofreading
It's actually really simple. Either it's well proof read, or it isn't. 
Proofreaders take care of the typos, grammar mistakes, and nonsensical lines which slip through. That is all, they don't ruin translations, and they don't make them any worse, although it gives off a feeling of unprofessionalism and lack of care. 
And it's all the fault of a sloppy proofreader, degrading a TL's rep.
 
Readability
This means, "can I read and understand the story like this?" 
If you do, then the translation did its most elementary job. You now know the story. 
Unfortunately, this isn't all a translation has to do to be "good". Being readable doesn't mean it's as emotional, funny or witty as the original. 
Striving to keep these factors is the editors' job. Just because it makes sense, it doesn't mean it's good. 
The flavour, the wittiness, the tone, the consistency. These all matter for a good translation. 
A good editor is required for these. "Being a native" doesn't make a good editor.
I'm a native in my language, but that doesn't mean I can edit books. I don't know enough vocabulary, or I can't make the connection between such vocabulary and another sentence. The fact that you understand complicated books, expressions and words doesn't mean you can write or make them yourself.
----
But that's what I think. What do you think?
   

Protagonist wise Yuuji is my fav. I don't really care about his combat ability, but his inner thoughts and conversations are just so funny and amazing by protagonist standards, which can be pretty low at times given Japan's love of shitty self-insert leads.
 
Side character wise Kenji from KS is an OG. I ended up on his "bad" end 3 times and didn't even care. Best character in the game.

Kuki is not only strong, his voice is godlike too and contributes to his great charisma. (same seiyuu as Archer but his acting is even better in Ayakashibito imo)

Want a good reason to play it?
The Slice-of-Life comedy filled common route.
 
Oh, wait. It seems you aren't enjoying it. Do you not see something fundamentally wrong here?
 
You can't ask for a 'valid reason' or a 'good reason' for these are all subjective. 
I, for one, never finished Terra route as I didn't like the shift in tone. I enjoyed most else, though I also had some issues with some routes (Kotori and Shizuru) and the supernatural parts of the common route, as I thought they were annoying (as it turned out, those parts are what was actually important for the rest of the game. Lucky me).
 
What this game offers:



^My best efforts at being objective and at describing things. Also a prime example as for why I never do it.