zoom909

It's easier for me to communicate with 2D girls in a foreign language than it is for me to communicate with real girls in my own language. Now you tell me, what exactly am I supposed to feel superior about?

I decided it was time for Rez again. I only ever got the normal ending, so there's room for improvement Sakamichi: that song Sweet Dream gets the Zoom909 Seal of Quality

Well, console VNs are important to me. So I want them to become enjoyable to read, like PC VNs. Right now, I'm also lazy, so I keep choosing to play PC VNs over console VNs...because of Jparser. -I want to play the enhanced versions...for example, Lamune for PS2 has Hiromi and Misora as playable characters, plus a bunch of new event CGs. To Heart 2 DX Plus, etc. Sometimes the enhanced versions get ported back to PC, but, sometimes they don't. -I want to quit ero eventually...console VNs will help me do this. I can play Nanatsu-iro Drops Pure or Akane-Iro ni Somaru Saka Parallel. -Other non-PC titles I have like Iinazuke, Kimikiss, Aria the Origination, etc. YMMV, ymmv.

Hi there, epeldoll, Just looked at your VNDB...you gave "Mirai no Kimi to Subete no Uta Ni" a 9, so you're OK in my book!

Yeah, the mouse-over lookup approach is really fast, and is part of what makes Japanese VNs playable at a decent speed, but conquering VNs without the auto-parsing/text-hooking is the next step I should take. Because I want to play console VNs, and they have none. Of course, I'd be thrilled if a text-hooking feature were added to PCSX2. But that only postpones the problem... But I'm not ready for that yet. I feel like I want to get even more reading speed and experience (with the JParser) first. Like another couple years' worth. Meanwhile, I'm testing the waters with manga w/o furigana. That's giving me experience in how to manually look up the information that JParser gives you.

Well I still have XP installed here, but... Last year another version of Muv-Luv was released speifically titled "windows 7 support edition." (It takes some effort to program for Windows with future-proofing, and I get the feeling it wasn't a high priority for them) Maybe the windows 7 version will work on windows 8...

I'm at an intermediate, not an advanced level, and I can vouch for the readability of: Flyable Heart Lamune D.C.P.C. Nursery Rhyme KanojoxKanojoxKanojo Brighter than Dawning Blue Kanon Memories Off Kanogi those Miku VNs But that question from Moo suddenly got me curious: what IS the corresponding level of these kinds of VNs on the JLPT scale? So I've been reading all the sample articles/stories on http://chokochoko.wordpress.com/the-great-library/ during my lunch hour etc. Also I'm curious to find out how high I can go before stuff becomes unreadable. Well I can tell you that N5 is way easier than VNs. N4 is a little closer, but still not similar enough. Right now I'm on the N3's. Still seems too simple in comparison, but I've only read the first two. Now I'm anxious to see what N2 and N1 will be like... more like, it will open Pandora's Box

Hmm, sorry to disagree, but... I think, following The Mythical Man-Month, use as few people as possible that can still get the job done (a judgment call to be sure), because more people involved in a project increases the risk of organizational overhead and communication problems. I don't usually see that happen, though. Having worked as an editor on a questionable script, I can tell you that it's not always easy to go back and fix. I say do it right the first time, and avoid a mess later on.

Oh, I totally forgot about this one! Great cyber-scifi show that starts out like a gentle slice-of-life show about little kids in the near future, but then very slowly builds to a climax and by the end of the show I was on the edge of my seat watching it

Yeah, mine is actually taken from novels, and I'll post it on here a little later, but I don't recommend it for beginners

Interesting, we were just talking about this on chat yesterday. Here are my suggestions, ymmv: a. learn kanji in order of most frequently occurring. Basic Japanese grading system should suffice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%8Diku_kanji) b. try starting with flashcards for first few hundred kanji. Learn them a little at a time, in groups of 10 or 20 or 30 etc. Better yet, make the flashcards yourself, carefully writing each kanji onto one side of the card. c. instead of learning all the readings, try just learning the most common meaning plus the most common reading. For example, the kanji when it stands alone, or followed by hiragana. d. once you start getting "used to" learning kanji, start learning the kanji that go with vocabulary words you've learned (flashcards with kanji compounds or kanji+hiragana on them). May want to switch to computer flashcards once cards become numerous. e. read as you go, using manga or some other Japanese with furigana by the kanji. Pay attention to the kanji you see, it will help put them in context. f. sooner or later you will have to know every kanji meaning and every reading, including the dreaded On readings, particularly amongst the kyouiku kanji. Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary really helped me get on the right path with that. As for writing the kanji correctly/proper penmanship...I don't write much kanji, and most Japanese people don't much anymore either (spoiled by email and cell phone mail, you see). But I just googled for "how to write kanji" and immediately I saw some sites where they showed you the stroke order

Yesterday I went to a friend's place for all day anime watching. We watched (usually 3-4 episodes at a time): Busou Shinki ("Install Dream~~!") Yawara: A Fashionable Judo Girl Mobile Suit Gundam 1st series Tari-tari (finished) Kimi to Boku II (finished) Tasogare Otome X Amnesia Nozoki Ana OVA (don't blame me! my friend picked it) Ranma 1/2 Fairy Florence movie (I didn't pick this one either, but it was worth seeing once)

Yoroshiku! You can look in to see more about what people are playing (and update it yourself)

First of all, this is why programming a computer to understand human language is so hard. Sooner or later, human languages become illogical and stop following their own rules. Secondly, remember: There may be more than one way to express the same idea. Sometimes two different expressions in Japanese map to the _same expression_ in English or other languages. Sometimes the _same expression_ in Japanese maps to _two different expressions_ in English or other languages, depending on how it's being used. And so on. In this case, when I see "onaji hoshi ni umareta" I immediately think "born under the same star" because that's how you tell someone in English that you were born in the same period of the zodiac. "Born on the same star" doesn't mean much in English, neither does "born in the same star". Unless you're a solar flare. But if it had said "onaji hoshi de umareta" I would've thought the same thing. This business of which verb goes with which particle/preposition/auxiliary/whatever is called "collocation" and it's a major part of learning any foreign language. In this case, grammar does not help so much. What helps is your experience that both "ni" and "de" can be used with "umareta". Even though the meaning might be the same. In English, there's a lot of stuff you have to memorize like this, like "I live IN Alabama" or "I work AT Chrysler." I can't easily tell you why IN is used in one and AT is used in the other. It just is. So to do English properly, you just have to learn "this verb goes with these prepositions". To do Japanese properly, you have to learn "this verb goes with these particles." Have you learned the difference between "ki ni suru" and "ki ga suru" yet? That'll be hard to explain in terms of grammar. But if you memorize them as idioms, you'll be ok.

I am always lazy about IME, so please read it in roumaji. You are right about the conjugation, if you want to be more exact you can preserve the tense of "mainichi yatte ita": "I've been doing it every day," But still the "ja nai (ka)" part needs to be understood as "haven't I" or "don't I". Is it confusing you that they didn't say "ka"? People sometimes leave out "ka" casually. If it helps, think about what happens in English. I might remark, "Steve really likes lolis, doesn't he..." You don't hear my voice giving you a question mark, because I already know the answer. If that doesn't help, well anyway just remember to watch for "ja nai" at the end of a complete sentence even without "ka". In fact, you might here people just say "jan." "Ii jan!" -> "It's fine, isn't it?"

I snipped things out and put my answers within the quote The game, by the way, seems to be "The Absolute Little Sister Supremacy Principle" Not some pretentious weepy arthouse VN, but a good old-fashioned galgame, heh heh... Do you talk to Steve on teamspeak? I'd like to ask if he's played SISTARS...

Well I don't think there's a time limit on it. I think you just announce your intent to start, and then follow the directions in the 1st couple of posts on the 1st page. And, you are supposed to start a thread where you post your progress reports. After that, it's a matter of rigorous study. Or, even if you decide not to do the Super Challenge 2013, you can still learn Japanese the easy way, like I did. It'll just take longer, I guess. When you say you studied Chinese words, does that mean you already know all the Chinese characters? Have you learned any Japanese words or phrases from anime?

Wow that is rare. I know the one you mean, but I don't think I've seen anyone get it yet. Certainly I never got it myself. And to get 6x I think you have to have all unique tiles in tenpai, and match one of those on the last draw. My feeling is, remember all the 1x and 2x multipliers first--they're the ones you normally have a chance of getting. And combined with reach and dora, you can still win. You've probably noticed that some games let tanyao be open, others make it be closed... My favorite ones right now seem to be toi-toi or chi-toi-itsu. Or fanpai if nothing else. I did get a rare hand once in Final Romance I think...it was dai-san-gen. Both are good; online and video games. For online, I used tenhou.net; I wanted a no-nonsense site that would not make me download a client, made registration easy, and had snappy performance, rather than slower 3d graphics. (There are other sites you can use if you want 3d graphics.) I'll tell you one thing: real players -do sneak attacks -won't discard things they think you need -take instant advantage of things you discard Whereas the 2d girls aren't programmed to do that. The computer just gives them better and better probability of good tiles as the game goes on, it seems. It's also a lot harder to track the moves of 3 other players instead of one. But it's fun. Yeah, I got もえじゃん(MoeJong), it was fun for a while. Never got around to getting Saki. But for full table, Dream Club just blows them away, I think it's the coolest full table game ever. The ice cream pic is from Final Romance R. Final Romance R and Final Romance 4 are my favorites in MAME. My 2nd favorite is Jan-Jan Shimashou.

Oops. Yeah they vary quite a bit from country to country. I think the Japanese rules have the highest strategy-to-luck ratio. Whereas American rules are almost all luck. Which maybe is why no one cares about mahjong in America outside of anime fans. The kanji do look a little old style, but playing video game mahjong helped me get past the kanji recognition problem. If you play mahjong in MAME, you can pause it to study the tiles so your timer doesn't run out. If you play mahjong in Dream Club, girls will complain if you take too long, but you can disregard it, because the outcome is unaffected. Now, I can recognize them immediately. Well this ain't your mom's mahjong...or maybe it actually is, if they are playing by the Japanese rules... The images look ok to me in firefox. Maybe you can view them manually by right clicking to get image info, and paste the URL into the browser's address bar.

Well I was born at the wrong time in the wrong country for Time Gal in the arcade, but it's awesome now running on my PC -- thanks to the magic of LD rips and emulation. Then, let's hope that with this game, they learned from the past animated galges and made an animated game with good writing. I really like the title, anyway... "Qualiaffordance" does not sound like a galgame at all. It sounds like a....economic simulation game or something.

Mahjong is that game they played in the anime Saki ? It looks like this: and has anime cutscenes like this: Or if you have a PS3 or 360 maybe it looks more like this: Of course you can also play "real" mahjong online. I played for a bit some years back, before I started doing translations and stuff. Japanese is not required to play, but it helps. Especially if you've memorized the kanji for #'s 1 thru 9 that will help a lot.

Ooops. Hehe, you're right, it just suddenly stops!...It would have been nice if they had some sort of looping animation while waiting for the player to read (again, blinking comes to mind!) And I discovered another jarring issue...no voice for the player character. I couldn't care less about voice for the player char. in a normal VN, but here where it actually shows him on screen during the event CG'scutscenes, the effect is that the player character has lost his voice! As for 720p...well, I don't see the level of detail in the art to really benefit from 720p. And the animation quality is "average". I would like to see more OVA/movie high quality animation. Like in Time Gal, the animation was gorgeous and fluid. For interaction with the player, I still like the "2D->3D" approach of Dream Club, or Idolmaster 2 (or Time Leap? which I never played). It's much easier for the characters to change expressions, react quickly and fluidly etc. I suppose I could say, well, why not just go watch anime. But actually I'm interested enough now to add this game to my playlist.

Well, Project Diva F is coming out shortly. So, maybe it's finally time to get a PS3. I'm big on retro gaming, but more of the arcade/console variety. But, I recognize all those. Except Wacky Wheels Ever play Lode Runner TLR? That was my favorite DOS game.

This is classic, and I almost missed it! Apparently I ignore threads on here at my own peril.

I looked at the demo movie too...so I don't mind that style of art at all as long as it's fully animated...but as you guys pointed out, it's not. Only the event CGs are animated. The standard scenes the only part that I see in continuous animation is their mouths. Couldn't they at least have made their eyes blink?? I've seen several gal games where they did that...and it really creates a weird feeling for me to see their mouths moving and the rest of the face not at all...make them blink!