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Mephisto

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Everything posted by Mephisto

  1. A game about elementary school children who perform legit college tier astronomical research on top of an abandoned train car in an abandoned train station on the other side of a forest on the other side of a bridge in the middle of the night (right before 6:00 a.m)*.
  2. Not exactly like MGQ, although has some similarities. If you lose to an enemy with a purple heart, there's a kind of animated ero manga defeat sequence. The plot is a lot more serious than the one you find in MGQ, which is relatively juvenile the whole way through. Miniature Garden gets pretty dark at times, although it still holds on to a little bit of childishness.
  3. I voted for the male character although I don't even know what he does, because he's the only male there.
  4. Miniature Garden is a doujin game made by Sekilala (their first game) Link to game >> http://www.dlsite.com/maniax/work/=/product_id/RJ141831.html Link to circle >> http://circlesekilala.blog.fc2.com/ Back in elementary school I remember seeing a motivational poster that said "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll end up among the stars." Although this is a bit of a cliche phrase, it is rather accurate when being applied to Miniature Garden. The game was extremely ambitious in terms of plot and although in the end I feel it fell short, the game is still easily one of the best doujin games I've played. Overall the actual plot/story behind the game was pretty interesting and enjoying to read, but I feel there's quite a bit of lost potential in things they did not explore, as well as in their presentation of the plot points. The game was moving along at a pretty decent pace, and then suddenly hit the "Charlotte" button and all hell broke loose. I still ended up finishing the game due to wanting to know what was going on, although I didn't really like how a lot of the information dumps were presented. Now then, to the game itself. Although Miniature Garden is a doujin game and indeed suffers from problems doujin game makers have to deal with, it is still different from most doujin games. Miniature Garden is a scenario-based RPG game that actually attempts and to some degree succeeds at having a serious plot. The actual writing in the game in reference to style and character design is actually done quite well, and doesn't make me want to tear my hair out due to characters not making sense or just being plain stupid. I did indeed get frustrated at some parts with some plot elements, but I ended up going with it since I wanted to see where they were headed. The game play elements in the game are actually relatively unique, and follow the philosophy of skill > stats, which I enjoy. The art was pretty decent and quite high quality for a doujin game, especially one that wasn't 100% nukige, and I enjoyed the music as well as music usage since it was the type of music I like. A lot of the erotic content can be opt-out of by not losing, which is good since pretty much all the ero content is rape (if that's your thing, then you'll probably like the ero content in the game since it's pretty well done). I can't really say too much on that regard due to skipping most of it except for when some parts actually seemed plot related. Short Introduction to the Story I'll make an effort to not be too spoilerly, but if you intend to read the game, read as little as possible. This game is enjoyed best going in blind. Miniature Garden is a game that follows the story of a young human girl named Kureha, who has succeeded in the herculean task of not pissing me off despite being a character archetype I despise. A theme consistent in Japanese writing is a character that is just really nice that the readers can side with, and you'll see it in pretty much every game (example Eustia, from Aiyoku no Eustia). Miniature Garden actually succeeds in this department to an astounding degree by succeeding in creating this "nice person" character that the reader sides with without making the reader think "that's complete bullshit. why do you even exist". Kureha is actually important and does stuff, and her kind nature is kept in check by the realities of the setting instead of getting free plot armor so everything goes her way. Setting The actual world is quite interesting. Race is incredibly important in this game, as well as the social hierarchy between the different races. Each race has their own village, and for the most part the races all co-exist with each other (although of course there is conflict). Imagine a political setting in which there are an innumerous amount of factions divided along racial lines, with the faction at the bottom being naturally selected for extinction. That gives a general idea of the situation of the game. The factions near the top have a lot of power and don't really have too much to worry about except keeping their power. The factions in the middle are safe, but always need to be vigilant and keep close tabs on the balance of power in order to try to rise to the top, and avoid falling to the bottom. The bottom factions live under constant pressure with the threat of extinction looming over their heads, and pretty much lack the tools to improve their situation (there is a reason they are there in the first place). To give a glimpse at some of the social standings, elves are one of the top factions, humans are in the lower part of the middle factions, and goblins are among the bottom factions. This environment is probably one of the best parts of the game, as there is so much that can be done with a situation like this, and the game does explore some of the possibilities. Religion Religion is a kind of important factor in the game as it relates to the plot, although it isn't developed on too deeply. Monsters, demons, and angels exist in this world. Attending church and receiving the protection of the Angels is important to the survival of one's race. Angels are tied to the thoughts of virtue, while Demons are tied to lust. I won't go too much in to the church since it's mainly a plot device, although as always you can spout some religious symbolism bullshit and whatnot. Atmosphere I’m not entirely sure if many people actually care about this, however this is extremely important for me. It greatly affects how well I can enjoy a game, and thus I will talk about what I liked about the atmosphere in the game. To sum up the atmosphere of the story, is that it is governed by a strong contrast between the light and dark forces within the game. (this ain’t no moege!) The real world is a dark place, filled with irrational and the unreasonable. However, in order to maintain our sanity we turn our eyes away from such things and live to the best of our abilities. Miniature garden is a dark world, and the darkness is just around the corner, but we as a player for the most part turn our eyes away from this darkness and instead indulge in the relatively cheerful and hopeful environment that surrounds the main character and the story(before Charlotte button is pressed). However that is only during the day time, for darkness, terror, and cruelty rule the night. When the character goes to bed, we are once more reminded of the darkness of the world from which we are not released until night passes, and the character wakes up once more. The first half of the game is predominantly filled with nice stuff/light, while the latter half is filled with darkness. Main Characters Kureha A young human girl who serves as our main protagonist. She is extremely kind, as well as naive, but she is not stupid. One of the two important human characters in this world, she serves as the "adventurer" type who is able to fight monsters with modern day weaponry(literally the weapon you start out with is a submachinegun). Her work usually consists of collecting materials, fighting monsters, and helping people in need. She suffers from some form of amnesia, in which she is simply unable to remember anything. Due to this, she needs other people around her and she keeps a diary to help her remember what she has done. (Kind of a spoiler since it's kind of a plot point, but there's so much foreshadowing it's not hard to figure it out pretty early in to the game) The writers did a pretty good job making her likable and believable, and it's possible to make her memory loss believable as well if they turn it in to anterograde amnesia. Luna A fairy with a dirty mouth that is basically Bell from Cocoro Function. She was told to look after Kureha by Agriel since Agriel would not always be able to see Kureha due to other obligations. Although that was the start of the two's relationship, Luna grows fond of Kureha and they become close friends. She's pretty perverted, and quite helpful in combat. Agriel An elf onee-san like character who has a pretty powerful presence throughout the game due to her influence on other characters. She doesn't show up too often due to actually being quite busy and doing stuff, and not being able to see Kureha often due to the discord between humans and elves. I think I like her combat style the most. She uses a bow. Shion The other important human character in this world. Shion is a genius engineer who makes weapons and tunes them for Kureha. She is an important part of Kureha's support network, and is responsible for a lot of the more technical/practical needs that show up in the game. Best friend character. Noa/Noir A succubus with two personalities (twin sisters). Noa is kind of like a weaker version of Kureha, a sheltered frail girl that one wants to protect, while Noir is more powerful and has a stronger personality. Noir wants to shelter Noa, and has a deep convoluted role in the plot of the game that comes in to play after the Charlotte button is pressed. Gameplay The gameplay is scenario based with a two-stage combat mechanic. The first stage is the standard dungeon-crawling set up, with monsters you can see on the map. Monsters have a detection circle, and if you engage with them while undetected by their detection circle, you gain an advantage going in to combat. The character also has a certain number of ranged attacks (type changes based on character) as well as SP for skills. If a monster engages in combat with you from behind, you gain a disadvantage going in to combat. The second stage is real-time combat. You press the left/right arrow keys to switch between enemies targeted, z to shoot with your weapon, a s d to switch stances, and x to activate skills. When your ammo goes to 0, you need to reload, during which you need to wait for the gauge under your health to fill up. Some guns refill one bullet at the time, while the submachinegun needs to wait till it can refill all the way to full before you get any bullets back. (You don’t need to empty the canister before reloading). Each character combat mechanics are a bit different, but essentially you want to stay alive, and bring the enemy’s HP to 0. Enemies also have a “break” gauge, which if you max out by launching repeated attacks stuns the enemy. This resets the gauge to 0, and makes it harder to max out based on each successive stun. (Gauge cannot be built while stunned) A degree of skill is required to actually beat the bosses/harder monsters in the game, as you need to manage your skills/ammo and enemy break gauges well. One annoying combat related thing is your clothes, which breaks as you take damage. This damage is permanent on non-story missions, which is fucking annoying. If you run out of non-broken clothes to change in to, you can’t go back in to town and you’re basically just stuck if you press X to open the menu if you were moved back to town with broken clothes. You can avoid this by just taking off all your clothes at the start of every non-story mission, although this will cause you to take more damage from monsters. If there are any outfits you like, be careful not to ruin them. The game is very close to creating an extremely interesting/entertaining combat system, but falls short of actually completing what they started. The first stage of combat is new, interesting, and excellently done. The second stage is where the potential is unfulfilled. The part they get right is related to the basic combat mechanics. Fights are actually difficult, and your ability to get through the battles is related to how well you set up the battle beforehand, and how good you are with the mechanics of the game. Leveling up or whatever and improving your weapon does help, but your skill is much more important than your stats, which is how it should be. The part they fell short on is adding colorful/interesting elements to the second phase of combat. There are some special effects that exist which are interesting to a degree (oil + fire combination one of the more interesting ones), but the combat could be a lot more engrossing if they fully fleshed out the clothes mechanic. Right now the clothing mechanic is just kinda stupid and annoying, with your clothes disappearing as you take damage with them on. (Separate from HP). If they had the enemies have special/different attacks based on clothing, and made clothing repairable at least able to be remade if broken, the gameplay would be a lot better. (Maybe make clothing status apply special effects to the character as well.) There is some other stuff to say, but this is kind of getting long already. I might provide a plot summary later, as well as my thoughts on that portion of the plot for people who can't read japanese/don't want to read the game. Edit: Oh yeah, I just noticed, there's basically no fucking male characters in the game except for monsters. what the fuck man
  5. I've been playing a lot of doujin games recently and I figured I should post/review about them to give them some coverage. I don't know how that fuwa reviews or whatever crap works so I'm just going to post them in visual novel discussion. Doujin games are games made by small publishers and are typically pretty low quality and made to satisfy a niche (especially in terms of eroge). They are all basically nukige. Despite this, doujin games can be quite fun and a nice breather compared to long visual novels as doujin games are typically quite short, and some games are more than just nukige. There's a lot more that could be added on to this, but I'm too lazy so someone else can do that if they feel inclined to do so. Every Doujin game I play contains gameplay elements, as that is what I like. The first I will review will be Miniature Garden, as it is the game that has finally convinced me to do something like this. I was informed by the esteemed gentlemen over at that thing they call teamspeak that the game looked like hentai. While there is erotic content because it is a doujin eroge, the game has much more redeeming qualities than porn. Honestly, the images they chose to show on dlsite are quite poor representations of the game in my opinion, but hey maybe they thought it would boost their sales. They also are kinda spoilerly, because I didn't get to the darker parts of the game before I saw those images. Link to game >> http://www.dlsite.com/maniax/work/=/product_id/RJ141831.html Link to circle >> http://circlesekilala.blog.fc2.com/ >> Some teasers of some stuff in the review. Full review will be posted when I actually finish the game (here's hoping it doesn't dissapoint) Atmosphere: I’m not entirely sure if many people actually care about this, however this is extremely important for me. It greatly affects how well I can enjoy a game, and thus I will talk about what I liked about the atmosphere in the game. To sum up the atmosphere of the story, is that it is governed by a strong contrast between the light and dark forces within the game. (this ain’t no moege!) The real world is a dark place, filled with irrational and the unreasonable. However, in order to maintain our sanity we turn our eyes away from such things and live to the best of our abilities. Miniature garden is a dark world, and the darkness is just around the corner, but we as a player for the most part turn our eyes away from this darkness and instead indulge in the relatively cheerful and hopeful environment that surrounds the main character and the story(at least at first!) Gameplay: The gameplay is scenario based with a two-stage combat mechanic. The first stage is the standard dungeon-crawling set up, with monsters you can see on the map. Monsters have a detection circle, and if you engage with them while undetected by their detection circle, you gain an advantage going in to combat. The character also has a certain number of ranged attacks (type changes based on character) as well as SP for skills. If a monster engages in combat with you from behind, you gain a disadvantage going in to combat. The second stage is real-time combat. You press the left/right arrow keys to switch between enemies targeted, z to shoot with your weapon, a s d to switch stances, and x to activate skills. When your ammo goes to 0, you need to reload, during which you need to wait for the gauge under your health to fill up. Some guns refill one bullet at the time, while the submachinegun needs to wait till it can refill all the way to full before you get any bullets back. (You don’t need to empty the canister before reloading). Each character combat mechanics are a bit different, but essentially you want to stay alive, and bring the enemy’s HP to 0. Enemies also have a “break” gauge, which if you max out by launching repeated attacks stuns the enemy. This resets the gauge to 0, and makes it harder to max out based on each successive stun. (Gauge cannot be built while stunned) A degree of skill is required to actually beat the bosses/harder monsters in the game, as you need to manage your skills/ammo and enemy break gauges well. では、お楽しみを!
  6. I don't think it's that surprising. I'll try making up some numbers to see if a reasonable conclusion can be reached. Another game that is around 50+ hours is Aiyoku no Eustia. Aiyoku no Eustia has 65489 lines. 15% of 65489 lines is 9823.35 -> 9823 lines of h-scenes. The number differs based on game, but I think the average line count of a single H-scene is about 400-500 lines. Some games maybe have shorter ones. (This is not 400-500 lines of sex, this is considering the H-scene as the entire scene itself. Some story segments may be included in an "h-scene".) Under this conclusion, the game would have ~20 H-scenes. There are 7 heroines in this game. If each heroine has about 3 H-scenes (which is a pretty standard number for moege), that would lead to us having 21 H-scenes, which fits in the ball park. I think the VN I mentioned Aiyoku no Eustia has 1-2 H-scenes for each of the main heroines, as well as some other stuff in the extras section. (rip didn't see most of them since I just followed the true route). I can't check since I lost all my save files for VNs when I changed computers.
  7. Root Double is a 50 hours game, TL+ED will cost them 36k$ and it will be done by Lemnisca, they did good TLs previously, or so community say. [85 EGS]For the whole TLC/Re-TL/QC Muv-Luv wanted 57,5k$. It was supossed to be done by Ixrec/Alternative Projects and some other "experts" The length of ML/MLA is approx 80 hours [90 EGS]Libra on the other side will need 80k$ for translation, length of the game is approx 20 hours, forgive me if I'm wrong, saw only 2 reviews on EGS listing 12h and 15h. Translation is done by people inside. [70 EGS]TL;DR Root Double - 50 hours - 36,000$ - 85 EGS Rating ML/MLA - 80 hours - 57,500$ - 90 EGS Rating Libra - 20 hours - 80,000$ - 70 EGS Rating(Low amount of votes tho, might be not too accurate) Would also add Clannad/Grisaia etc. but I don't see a point... I still would like to play Libra and give it a chance, maybe if it'll be on sale on Steam for 20-25$ I'll consider buying it. Good Luck with the Kickstarter. Yowza! 20 hours?!?! Erogamespace is mistaken! Libra gameplay, the FULL uncut version, is 60 hours. The Steam version will be 15% shorter than that with the H-scenes removed. We have stated that that version will be around 50 hours. Also, could you please pass us a link where you saw this incorrect information on EGS or elsewhere. Thanks. UPDATE: We looked at EGS and found what we believe you were referencing for gameplay time. This just means that 2 people played the game for 11-15 hours. Maybe a player chose only one path and sped through the game like crazy, or another played Libra for 11-15 hours, quit, then decided to write a review. In any case, the full game is 60 hours. I suppose we could account for players with superhuman abilities. ;-) You mentioned that you've managed to cut costs a bit. What's the new initial funding goal? We'll be making the new, reduced (sodium) budget public next Thursday when we launch. ;-) Wait a second! 10 hours were cut due h-scenes? I'm not an expert regarding adult version of these games but that sounds a lot! I thought most h-scenes could be read in a couple of minutes so this strikes me as odd surprising news... I'm guessing these numbers are based on line counts. H-scenes are deceptively long when counted this way, because there are actually a lot of lines in an H-scene, albeit short lines/lines that are skimmed through extremely quickly. To quote an example, mare's route in Eternal Heart is about 5400~ lines, with another 1200~ lines of H-scenes. Based on line counts, nearly 20% of the route is H-scenes. I ctrl-ed through the scenes themselves so I can't say how long it would actually take reading them, but I wouldn't consider cutting the h-scenes as cutting 20% of the route, despite that being the case line count wise.
  8. *squints incredulously* You realize what the target audience for eroge is... right? Doesn't change the fact that having a strong male cast is pretty awesome. Most of my favorite characters from VNs have been male characters (and not limited to protagonist).
  9. I just read the text in the text box. Having sentences broken down in to different color schemes seems kind of like a headache, and would affect how you read the lines. I like running with TA open in the background somewhere for looking up words I don't know and actually want to know. I can see how it might be useful if you aren't comfortable with parsing sentences yourself, but the sooner you do that the more enjoyable reading becomes. Playing without machine assistance also feels a lot different than playing with, it allows you to focus much more easily on the game. My guess on why it shows up differently in TA/chiitrans is that whatever dictionary TA is using simply doesn't recognize that conjugation (doesn't have an entry for it), while chiitrans does. It would be a lot of work to write an entirely different parsing algorithm, and you can also see in that picture that for some random reason TA has an entry for ショックだろう while chiitrans does not. (God knows why there's an entry for that)
  10. the structure of clannad is cancer good luck completing that game without a walkthrough
  11. dramatic as fuck route with an ending in which nobody is happy
  12. 微妙すぎるイケメン イケメン = handsome guy (kinda slangish, but not always negative implication. イケメンにしかい許さないこと) 微妙 = in this case closest to 怪しい I like dowolf's Super-Iffy Hottie most, and can't really think of a better english translation at the moment.
  13. The gameplay elements in debonosu's games are actually not bad at all. I remember having a lot of fun with the dragon raising simulator one (although there were some story themes that pissed me off). The one in this game is decent as well, although I personally don't like restarting at level 1 just with better items every time you exit the forest.
  14. I'm not sure how important it is, but Fuwanovel decided to take down torrents at some point or another in that time span I believe.
  15. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm supposed to get out of this thread yet. It's leaving out a lot of important drama and instead focusing on inconsequential matters such as changes in site policy. That entire period where nobody knew where Aaeru went, and then the site started going down, and then Tay is like uh I'm not entirely sure what to do maybe I'm in charge, and then when Fuwanovel is just like dead, and then a new website is created with a different host, before jumping back to the old host again, and then that period where someone thought it would be a good idea for Steve of all people to be admin (because he couldn't get sued as easily). At some point around that time I think we came to accept the fact Aaeru was gone. I don't even remember when, but sometime in all that madness the administrators basically decided that spammers would make good administrators too, and suddenly we had Nosebleed and Kaguya as admins. I think that part worked out in the long run.
  16. so i'm reading subahibi and i'm going to have some nightmares when i go to bed. the mental shock when something you're used to suddenly takes a complete shift in the opposite direction is actually surprisingly powerful mentally.
  17. You say the vast majority but.... even with that being the case, there's easily at least 5 rape scenes that aren't defeat-rape or something similar to that. The premise is that you go out to save the village women who were abducted by the Youkai, but you always arrive too late so you have a chance to experience a rape scene between the abducted woman and the youkai, with a follow up h-scene with the priest/someone the person loves and the person that was raped by the youkai. masterful writing
  18. It might be beneficial to alter your way of viewing the situation. You say you want to get a "job" in gaming journalism. I personally think this way of viewing things is flawed. Gaming Journalism isn't something you get a "job" in. Gaming Journalism is "work" you do because you enjoy doing it for whatever reason, such as enjoying the game you are writing about/interactions with the fan base related to the community. However, while it is work, it is not work that is available for just anyone to do just because they feel like it. Much like how you aren't going to be allowed to touch the scripts of fan translation projects unless you've proven yourself able to contribute, you need to establish yourself and prove you are worthy of even doing the "work" you want to do. If you can get through the door there then you might be able to turn it in to a job, but it's not a profession having a college degree will help you much. It's also not a job you can just randomly decide to pick up/apply for. A lot of conscious and aggressive effort is required. The intelligent decision would be to work on two fronts with the "work" related to journalism as a side thing until you actually get yourself somewhere. Gaming Journalism isn't a thing you can dedicate full time to until you actually have connections anyway, and if you can't handle it part time, then you will at least know you tried. Please let me know if I'm not being harsh enough. Gaming is not a world you should get into without understanding clearly the realities of the industry.
  19. I literally can't imagine this game without the 18+ content since Debo writes the plot to facilitate the 18+ content. I never would of imagined this game being translated.
  20. Because the game is fucking massive and it would take forever to translate all the text and edit all the images.
  21. There was literally drama every day. There was also this legendary post. http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/1042-the-eroge-scene-in-parody-translator-baseball/?hl=baseball
  22. fuwanovel is dead long live fuwanovel
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