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Deep Blue

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  1. Like
    Deep Blue got a reaction from SaintOfVoid for a blog entry, Fruit of the poisonous tree (?) random thoughts.   
    So, this time I'm going to ramble about something that really bothers me in VNs, this also applies to any genre not just VNs.
    While I was doing a review about ashita no yukinojou and another VN.. I kept thinking about this on and on and then I remembered yet other VNs that did the same thing (Tyr talked about one of them)
    So, I scraped everything out just to write this. 
    Here is my issue: If the core part of the plot is badly written and doesn't make sense or has serious flaws then even if the overall VN is good it cannot be saved and it will be bad no matter what, that's why I'm going to use the fruit of the poisonous tree analogy xD "The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the "tree") of the evidence or evidence itself is tainted, then anything gained (the "fruit") from it is tainted as well." from wikipedia lol
    Spoilers of ashita no yuki ahead (sorry but you will need to spoil yourself with the plot or you wont be able to understand my point, I tried to simplify it as much as possible)
    Now, bare with me a little, I know this is a VN so it doesn't have to be 100% realistic buuuuuuuut if you are going with the "realistic plot" then you cannot write this kind of crap and then expect the reader to ignore it when it happens.
    Does it always have to be like this? No, it's all about the context itself, but there is one thing you cannot ignore, if you are working with humans as characters (and not with orcs, neko girls, or some random alien civilization) then you cannot ignore some basic stuff. Humans use reasoning or so I want to believe, so if you are trying to tell me that you raised a person, lived with her just to use it as a sacrifice or you give me a moral speech about how I didn't rescue someone but at the same time you didn't call the police then go fuck yourself.
    It doesn't matter if the plot has some fantasy settings, sci-fi, etc if you are dealing with humans you need to apply the basic reasoning that a human would apply to that situation itself or else I cannot take it seriously.
    But wait there is more! Using the "human" as the only characteristic is a bit too broad and wide and not always can be applied... the second thing and the most important one is: 
    Is the plot trying to take itself seriously, does it really want you to believe what it's going on or is just an excuse to keep the story flowing?
    If it's actually taking itself in a serious way, then it is without a doubt a garbage crap, written by a moron.
    Now, opinions and interpretations are a very subjective thing so probably we won't agree in many VNs regarding if you can or cannot apply this (specially some of the vns I've read and voted with a high score that might fall into this category) and I know that some readers don't want realism in VNs to begin with, so this is something they will never understand or even want in the first place and I can understand that but then again these are just some random thoughts and complains that I have and I wanted to share them, nothing more. If you don't agree with them I'm ok with that.
    Sorry if this is just poorly written and seems a little rushed (it is xd) I was going to write a more extensive text but I'm too lazy and tired for that.
    Have a nice day.
     
     
  2. Like
    Deep Blue got a reaction from XReaper for a blog entry, Fruit of the poisonous tree (?) random thoughts.   
    So, this time I'm going to ramble about something that really bothers me in VNs, this also applies to any genre not just VNs.
    While I was doing a review about ashita no yukinojou and another VN.. I kept thinking about this on and on and then I remembered yet other VNs that did the same thing (Tyr talked about one of them)
    So, I scraped everything out just to write this. 
    Here is my issue: If the core part of the plot is badly written and doesn't make sense or has serious flaws then even if the overall VN is good it cannot be saved and it will be bad no matter what, that's why I'm going to use the fruit of the poisonous tree analogy xD "The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the "tree") of the evidence or evidence itself is tainted, then anything gained (the "fruit") from it is tainted as well." from wikipedia lol
    Spoilers of ashita no yuki ahead (sorry but you will need to spoil yourself with the plot or you wont be able to understand my point, I tried to simplify it as much as possible)
    Now, bare with me a little, I know this is a VN so it doesn't have to be 100% realistic buuuuuuuut if you are going with the "realistic plot" then you cannot write this kind of crap and then expect the reader to ignore it when it happens.
    Does it always have to be like this? No, it's all about the context itself, but there is one thing you cannot ignore, if you are working with humans as characters (and not with orcs, neko girls, or some random alien civilization) then you cannot ignore some basic stuff. Humans use reasoning or so I want to believe, so if you are trying to tell me that you raised a person, lived with her just to use it as a sacrifice or you give me a moral speech about how I didn't rescue someone but at the same time you didn't call the police then go fuck yourself.
    It doesn't matter if the plot has some fantasy settings, sci-fi, etc if you are dealing with humans you need to apply the basic reasoning that a human would apply to that situation itself or else I cannot take it seriously.
    But wait there is more! Using the "human" as the only characteristic is a bit too broad and wide and not always can be applied... the second thing and the most important one is: 
    Is the plot trying to take itself seriously, does it really want you to believe what it's going on or is just an excuse to keep the story flowing?
    If it's actually taking itself in a serious way, then it is without a doubt a garbage crap, written by a moron.
    Now, opinions and interpretations are a very subjective thing so probably we won't agree in many VNs regarding if you can or cannot apply this (specially some of the vns I've read and voted with a high score that might fall into this category) and I know that some readers don't want realism in VNs to begin with, so this is something they will never understand or even want in the first place and I can understand that but then again these are just some random thoughts and complains that I have and I wanted to share them, nothing more. If you don't agree with them I'm ok with that.
    Sorry if this is just poorly written and seems a little rushed (it is xd) I was going to write a more extensive text but I'm too lazy and tired for that.
    Have a nice day.
     
     
  3. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Flutterz for a blog entry, Reading Ginharu Very Slowly #2   
    There's something about VNs with snowy settings (Kanon, DCII, hell, even Yukizakura to some extent) that greatly appeals to me. Hard to say why, but regardless Gin'haru just happens to be a VN with a lot of winter themes, which is great. Also I really like all of the characters. If I wasn't completely biased towards Bethly, I'd have a hard time deciding whose route to do first.
    The events from my previous post all took place on the first day, and pretty much spanned the entire day. Basically the only thing that happened after was Yuzuki thinking about how nice her brother is, and deciding she wants to start calling him Onii-chan.
    The next day we find out Momiji is a huge bookworm that likes to read fantasy novels
    Then later on Yuzuki, Aoi, and Yukito all go visit Mizuha at the ice rink, but she seems to be upset about something (couldn't possibly be that promise the protag forgot, could it? )
    After Aoi fangirling hard about Yukito being osananajimis with a famous figure skater, the (much shorter than last time) day ends, but not before Yuzuki does her best
    The next day we meet Aoi after class, turns out she's pretty genre-savvy
    Then after a little bit she abruptly drags you into a nearby empty classroom
    The next day (or maybe not the next day, I kinda lost track of time) we see Momiji suspiciously sneaking into an empty classroom on her own, after a bit of spying and eavesdropping turns out she was practicing a one-man play.
    Fast forward to more of the flashback with Mizuha, turns out their promise...
    Of course, Yukito immediately rushes to see her
    Finally, it's Saturday and Aoi comes to visit Yuzuki first thing in the morning
    Now, onward to reading!
  4. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to ExtraMana for a blog entry, Video Game History - Blood   
    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/  
  5. Like
    Deep Blue got a reaction from Mr Poltroon for a blog entry, Gin'iro Haruka general thoughts.   
    Bethly

    After many...many...many hours of reading I finally finished one route which I think is enough since one route in this VN feels like finishing a long VN on itself, also picking a different girl feels incorrect at this point, like I'm cheating someone... (forgive me Bethly ) 
    Giniro is a pure love story, slice of life with some very mild drama(almost non existent), most of it consist on developing the bonds between the main character and his group of friends(only females)  and later on the girl you chose from that group.
    This VN shows you that each one of the girls has a great potential inside of them but they wont be able to use it on their own, they are like rough diamonds, with the help of the main character will "unleash" they full potential(it sounds like an action vn xD), is not like they will turn out to be unhappy or anything like that but each one of them wont fully accomplish their respective dreams or reach their full potential on their own.
    This might be a little spoilerish but Yuzuki wont become a great chef, Mizuka wont reach the first place in the figure skating thing she does, Bethly wont become a famous illustrator, Hinata wont even be able to realize what her true dream is in the first place, finally Momiji won't become a great actress. 
    Another thing to point out is that while all the girls hang around the main character they actually dont love him in secret or anything, in fact it's a long process for each one of them, the only exception to this is your non blood related sister, which is kind of sad since she starts tearing up every time she realizes that she wont be able to be with the person she loves.
    The first part, which is the common route is really long and from there you go into the heroine route which is again really long. It's so freaking long that the vn itself thinks that you are an idiot without memory and re-introduces you the characters like 3 times at some different points... 

    There are 5 heroines to chose from:

    *Yuzuki, your non-blood related sister, she is really shy and probably the "loli" of the group but she works very hard and even though I admit I hate the imouto heroine type this one didn't feel that bad.

    *Mizuha, your childhood friend, again the VN surprisingly didn't go for the cliche thing of the "childhood promise" or anything like that (well, it did but it was pretty subtle and it was also resolved very early in the game without forcing you to pick her just out of pity) she is some kind of figure skating star, to be fair I found her to be the most boring character, specially because I have 0 interest in what she does, so meh.

    *Hinata, the best friend of your sister, she is amazing and really charming, has this quirk way of speaking and expressing herself, most of the users on the internet hate her and her voice acting for some reason, she loves everything about girl stuff (like clothing, hair, how a girl should act etc etc) very sharp and lively, a true energetic type of character.

    *Momiji, she goes to the same class as the MC and thus they become friends, she loves acting and has a very normal character overall, still I found her to be one of the most interesting character... I almost do her route but at the last moment I went for...

    *Bethly, she is probably the character that most of us will chose because she is the foreign girl, she is from Canada and at first she doesn't speak any Japanese so it's kinda of funny to see how she struggles in every situation (the vn doesn't really do a good job portraying this...just a decent job.) She likes to draw, has a really calm personally and a great sense of morality, she is also very stubborn, finally she is the girl I picked.

    *Finally the MC (Yukito or whatever name you used for him, I recommend to leave his default name), he is for my taste.... a bit too perfect, he is a perfect student, friend, son, boyfriend, husband, father..you name something and he is perfect in that, not because he does everything in a perfect way but because he doesn't have a glimpse of malice or egoism in him, which is hard to believe.
    He has a very strong sense of duty and morality and wants to help anyone that needs it, very proactive, he is not naive and doesn't behave like a retard in front of the opposite sex... he is... yep perfect, which was a bit of a let down for me.. because him being that way takes away many opportunities from the novel thus the drama in the VN it's almost non existent or very predictable.There is a reason why he is like that but still I didn't like it.

    The pace in this vn is slow, really slow, for example you won't kiss the heroine until much much later on into the story(let's not even talk about having sex xD), if you don't enjoy slice of life then you will hate this vn because that's pretty much what it is.
    It's hard to compare anything with this or find some equivalents but the closest thing that I can think of is nagisa's route in Clannad (if you take out the funny parts with sunohara and pretty much everything else) and all the heavy drama.
    It does have some funny parts here and there (most of them are generated either from Hinata or an school teacher that you find later on and occasionally from the MC's biological mother.)
    I chose Bethly and later on I regret it, I really wanted to pick momiji or hinata but at that point it was too late...
    Bethly's route was ok, but her inability to speak Japanese was what it kinda ruined it for me, I came to hate the words うれ fucking しい and おいしいい, you will hear those words probably more than 500 times in the novel (or more and no I'm not joking), yes, it's tasty and yes you are happy "I got it" I really do but just stooooooooooooooooooooooooop, this again is something that makes sense in the context of what it's going on but it just pissed me off really bad.

    On the other side, it's really interesting to see how the characters grow(mentally and physically too) and how your relation with the main heroine gets stronger by the passage of time, it reminded me a lot of my own experience with my ex lol so in that sense it's pretty realistic and also maybe boring for some readers.

    Now I will force myself to finish momiji's route even though I'm not very sure if I will be able to do so 
    What I liked it:

    The music.
    Very rich characters development.
    Amazing art.
    Some really good and interesting characters that I won't be able to enjoy xD at least not right now.
    Amazing voice acting.

    What I didn't like:

    A bit slow.
    Too long for its own good.
    The main character.

    What I hated:
    Repetition, specially of some words.
    Not enough strong drama.
    One awkward and very unfitting scene in the story.
    How difficult is it to read?
    Really easy, you can read this as as your first vn without any doubt, I wouldn't recommend Hinata's route for someone new because of the way she talks (not hard at all but still be careful)
    I rate this vn:  Snowman out of 納得.
    EDIT: a little spoiler part to actually point out what was really boring, unfitting and what was actually pretty good.
     
    Hinata
    Since I don't want to create another topic about hinata's route I will keep adding info here, 
    So Hinata's route has a really different dynamic and it has a lot more of comedy than bethly's, the combination between hina and yuzuki is amazing. I won't say that bethly's route was bad but so far hinata's is overall way more enjoyable.
  6. Like
    Deep Blue got a reaction from melo4496 for a blog entry, Gin'iro Haruka general thoughts.   
    Bethly

    After many...many...many hours of reading I finally finished one route which I think is enough since one route in this VN feels like finishing a long VN on itself, also picking a different girl feels incorrect at this point, like I'm cheating someone... (forgive me Bethly ) 
    Giniro is a pure love story, slice of life with some very mild drama(almost non existent), most of it consist on developing the bonds between the main character and his group of friends(only females)  and later on the girl you chose from that group.
    This VN shows you that each one of the girls has a great potential inside of them but they wont be able to use it on their own, they are like rough diamonds, with the help of the main character will "unleash" they full potential(it sounds like an action vn xD), is not like they will turn out to be unhappy or anything like that but each one of them wont fully accomplish their respective dreams or reach their full potential on their own.
    This might be a little spoilerish but Yuzuki wont become a great chef, Mizuka wont reach the first place in the figure skating thing she does, Bethly wont become a famous illustrator, Hinata wont even be able to realize what her true dream is in the first place, finally Momiji won't become a great actress. 
    Another thing to point out is that while all the girls hang around the main character they actually dont love him in secret or anything, in fact it's a long process for each one of them, the only exception to this is your non blood related sister, which is kind of sad since she starts tearing up every time she realizes that she wont be able to be with the person she loves.
    The first part, which is the common route is really long and from there you go into the heroine route which is again really long. It's so freaking long that the vn itself thinks that you are an idiot without memory and re-introduces you the characters like 3 times at some different points... 

    There are 5 heroines to chose from:

    *Yuzuki, your non-blood related sister, she is really shy and probably the "loli" of the group but she works very hard and even though I admit I hate the imouto heroine type this one didn't feel that bad.

    *Mizuha, your childhood friend, again the VN surprisingly didn't go for the cliche thing of the "childhood promise" or anything like that (well, it did but it was pretty subtle and it was also resolved very early in the game without forcing you to pick her just out of pity) she is some kind of figure skating star, to be fair I found her to be the most boring character, specially because I have 0 interest in what she does, so meh.

    *Hinata, the best friend of your sister, she is amazing and really charming, has this quirk way of speaking and expressing herself, most of the users on the internet hate her and her voice acting for some reason, she loves everything about girl stuff (like clothing, hair, how a girl should act etc etc) very sharp and lively, a true energetic type of character.

    *Momiji, she goes to the same class as the MC and thus they become friends, she loves acting and has a very normal character overall, still I found her to be one of the most interesting character... I almost do her route but at the last moment I went for...

    *Bethly, she is probably the character that most of us will chose because she is the foreign girl, she is from Canada and at first she doesn't speak any Japanese so it's kinda of funny to see how she struggles in every situation (the vn doesn't really do a good job portraying this...just a decent job.) She likes to draw, has a really calm personally and a great sense of morality, she is also very stubborn, finally she is the girl I picked.

    *Finally the MC (Yukito or whatever name you used for him, I recommend to leave his default name), he is for my taste.... a bit too perfect, he is a perfect student, friend, son, boyfriend, husband, father..you name something and he is perfect in that, not because he does everything in a perfect way but because he doesn't have a glimpse of malice or egoism in him, which is hard to believe.
    He has a very strong sense of duty and morality and wants to help anyone that needs it, very proactive, he is not naive and doesn't behave like a retard in front of the opposite sex... he is... yep perfect, which was a bit of a let down for me.. because him being that way takes away many opportunities from the novel thus the drama in the VN it's almost non existent or very predictable.There is a reason why he is like that but still I didn't like it.

    The pace in this vn is slow, really slow, for example you won't kiss the heroine until much much later on into the story(let's not even talk about having sex xD), if you don't enjoy slice of life then you will hate this vn because that's pretty much what it is.
    It's hard to compare anything with this or find some equivalents but the closest thing that I can think of is nagisa's route in Clannad (if you take out the funny parts with sunohara and pretty much everything else) and all the heavy drama.
    It does have some funny parts here and there (most of them are generated either from Hinata or an school teacher that you find later on and occasionally from the MC's biological mother.)
    I chose Bethly and later on I regret it, I really wanted to pick momiji or hinata but at that point it was too late...
    Bethly's route was ok, but her inability to speak Japanese was what it kinda ruined it for me, I came to hate the words うれ fucking しい and おいしいい, you will hear those words probably more than 500 times in the novel (or more and no I'm not joking), yes, it's tasty and yes you are happy "I got it" I really do but just stooooooooooooooooooooooooop, this again is something that makes sense in the context of what it's going on but it just pissed me off really bad.

    On the other side, it's really interesting to see how the characters grow(mentally and physically too) and how your relation with the main heroine gets stronger by the passage of time, it reminded me a lot of my own experience with my ex lol so in that sense it's pretty realistic and also maybe boring for some readers.

    Now I will force myself to finish momiji's route even though I'm not very sure if I will be able to do so 
    What I liked it:

    The music.
    Very rich characters development.
    Amazing art.
    Some really good and interesting characters that I won't be able to enjoy xD at least not right now.
    Amazing voice acting.

    What I didn't like:

    A bit slow.
    Too long for its own good.
    The main character.

    What I hated:
    Repetition, specially of some words.
    Not enough strong drama.
    One awkward and very unfitting scene in the story.
    How difficult is it to read?
    Really easy, you can read this as as your first vn without any doubt, I wouldn't recommend Hinata's route for someone new because of the way she talks (not hard at all but still be careful)
    I rate this vn:  Snowman out of 納得.
    EDIT: a little spoiler part to actually point out what was really boring, unfitting and what was actually pretty good.
     
    Hinata
    Since I don't want to create another topic about hinata's route I will keep adding info here, 
    So Hinata's route has a really different dynamic and it has a lot more of comedy than bethly's, the combination between hina and yuzuki is amazing. I won't say that bethly's route was bad but so far hinata's is overall way more enjoyable.
  7. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, Why the Nostalgia?   
    If some of you failed to notice, I've been going back over my list of ancient favorites amongst the moege/charage/slice-of-life genres.  Why am I doing this?  I actually have some good reasons, other than whims.
    First, I keep recommending these things to people, but when you start talking about a VN you last played five years ago, people tend to let it in one ear and out the other.  I mean, my long-term memory for games and books is pretty good, but my brain is fairly compartmentalized, so I don't remember them actively unless I go through the effort to refresh that memory.  Can I continue to say that I honestly recommend something without playing it in the recent enough past that I can compare it to other, more recent VN experiences, through more jaded eyes?
    Second, I want to know just how much nostalgia is coloring my viewpoint.  To be blunt, the longer you are away from your favorite games or VNs, the more the memory gets beautified by distance in time.  When I recently did a speed replay of G-senjou, I reaffirmed why I disliked the story structure while at the same time realizing that I didn't always do it justice due to my biases (no, I didn't blog on it, but I was mostly doing it for my own edification, anyway). 
    Third, I like to think that I try to be as objective as possible, so I wanted to reexplore my VN roots when it came to my attitude toward charage/moege.  One thing I've noticed as I replayed certain charage from the past is that the best of the older generation wasted the least time on 'everyday' slice-of-life, ironically.  The gradual shift to put an excessive emphasis on the everyday life aspects of charage and moege is a relatively recent phenomenon, from what I've re-experienced.  A part of this is that, as the audience in Japan has aged, so has their nostalgia for an 'ideal youth' become much stronger.  The fact is, a lot of the 'devoted' moe-gamers in Japan aren't young people (at least not the ones who are also erogamers).  They are older people who want to experience an idealized version of youth through a non-person protagonist's viewpoint.  Ironically, this seems to be the reason why the market is shrinking, since younger generations don't find that kind of stuff as accessible as the older generation does, so you can tell to some extent what generation a company is appealing to by how weak the protagonist is and/or archetypical the characters are, lol.
     
  8. Like
    Deep Blue got a reaction from Kawasumi for a blog entry, Gin'iro Haruka general thoughts.   
    Bethly

    After many...many...many hours of reading I finally finished one route which I think is enough since one route in this VN feels like finishing a long VN on itself, also picking a different girl feels incorrect at this point, like I'm cheating someone... (forgive me Bethly ) 
    Giniro is a pure love story, slice of life with some very mild drama(almost non existent), most of it consist on developing the bonds between the main character and his group of friends(only females)  and later on the girl you chose from that group.
    This VN shows you that each one of the girls has a great potential inside of them but they wont be able to use it on their own, they are like rough diamonds, with the help of the main character will "unleash" they full potential(it sounds like an action vn xD), is not like they will turn out to be unhappy or anything like that but each one of them wont fully accomplish their respective dreams or reach their full potential on their own.
    This might be a little spoilerish but Yuzuki wont become a great chef, Mizuka wont reach the first place in the figure skating thing she does, Bethly wont become a famous illustrator, Hinata wont even be able to realize what her true dream is in the first place, finally Momiji won't become a great actress. 
    Another thing to point out is that while all the girls hang around the main character they actually dont love him in secret or anything, in fact it's a long process for each one of them, the only exception to this is your non blood related sister, which is kind of sad since she starts tearing up every time she realizes that she wont be able to be with the person she loves.
    The first part, which is the common route is really long and from there you go into the heroine route which is again really long. It's so freaking long that the vn itself thinks that you are an idiot without memory and re-introduces you the characters like 3 times at some different points... 

    There are 5 heroines to chose from:

    *Yuzuki, your non-blood related sister, she is really shy and probably the "loli" of the group but she works very hard and even though I admit I hate the imouto heroine type this one didn't feel that bad.

    *Mizuha, your childhood friend, again the VN surprisingly didn't go for the cliche thing of the "childhood promise" or anything like that (well, it did but it was pretty subtle and it was also resolved very early in the game without forcing you to pick her just out of pity) she is some kind of figure skating star, to be fair I found her to be the most boring character, specially because I have 0 interest in what she does, so meh.

    *Hinata, the best friend of your sister, she is amazing and really charming, has this quirk way of speaking and expressing herself, most of the users on the internet hate her and her voice acting for some reason, she loves everything about girl stuff (like clothing, hair, how a girl should act etc etc) very sharp and lively, a true energetic type of character.

    *Momiji, she goes to the same class as the MC and thus they become friends, she loves acting and has a very normal character overall, still I found her to be one of the most interesting character... I almost do her route but at the last moment I went for...

    *Bethly, she is probably the character that most of us will chose because she is the foreign girl, she is from Canada and at first she doesn't speak any Japanese so it's kinda of funny to see how she struggles in every situation (the vn doesn't really do a good job portraying this...just a decent job.) She likes to draw, has a really calm personally and a great sense of morality, she is also very stubborn, finally she is the girl I picked.

    *Finally the MC (Yukito or whatever name you used for him, I recommend to leave his default name), he is for my taste.... a bit too perfect, he is a perfect student, friend, son, boyfriend, husband, father..you name something and he is perfect in that, not because he does everything in a perfect way but because he doesn't have a glimpse of malice or egoism in him, which is hard to believe.
    He has a very strong sense of duty and morality and wants to help anyone that needs it, very proactive, he is not naive and doesn't behave like a retard in front of the opposite sex... he is... yep perfect, which was a bit of a let down for me.. because him being that way takes away many opportunities from the novel thus the drama in the VN it's almost non existent or very predictable.There is a reason why he is like that but still I didn't like it.

    The pace in this vn is slow, really slow, for example you won't kiss the heroine until much much later on into the story(let's not even talk about having sex xD), if you don't enjoy slice of life then you will hate this vn because that's pretty much what it is.
    It's hard to compare anything with this or find some equivalents but the closest thing that I can think of is nagisa's route in Clannad (if you take out the funny parts with sunohara and pretty much everything else) and all the heavy drama.
    It does have some funny parts here and there (most of them are generated either from Hinata or an school teacher that you find later on and occasionally from the MC's biological mother.)
    I chose Bethly and later on I regret it, I really wanted to pick momiji or hinata but at that point it was too late...
    Bethly's route was ok, but her inability to speak Japanese was what it kinda ruined it for me, I came to hate the words うれ fucking しい and おいしいい, you will hear those words probably more than 500 times in the novel (or more and no I'm not joking), yes, it's tasty and yes you are happy "I got it" I really do but just stooooooooooooooooooooooooop, this again is something that makes sense in the context of what it's going on but it just pissed me off really bad.

    On the other side, it's really interesting to see how the characters grow(mentally and physically too) and how your relation with the main heroine gets stronger by the passage of time, it reminded me a lot of my own experience with my ex lol so in that sense it's pretty realistic and also maybe boring for some readers.

    Now I will force myself to finish momiji's route even though I'm not very sure if I will be able to do so 
    What I liked it:

    The music.
    Very rich characters development.
    Amazing art.
    Some really good and interesting characters that I won't be able to enjoy xD at least not right now.
    Amazing voice acting.

    What I didn't like:

    A bit slow.
    Too long for its own good.
    The main character.

    What I hated:
    Repetition, specially of some words.
    Not enough strong drama.
    One awkward and very unfitting scene in the story.
    How difficult is it to read?
    Really easy, you can read this as as your first vn without any doubt, I wouldn't recommend Hinata's route for someone new because of the way she talks (not hard at all but still be careful)
    I rate this vn:  Snowman out of 納得.
    EDIT: a little spoiler part to actually point out what was really boring, unfitting and what was actually pretty good.
     
    Hinata
    Since I don't want to create another topic about hinata's route I will keep adding info here, 
    So Hinata's route has a really different dynamic and it has a lot more of comedy than bethly's, the combination between hina and yuzuki is amazing. I won't say that bethly's route was bad but so far hinata's is overall way more enjoyable.
  9. Like
    Deep Blue got a reaction from Flutterz for a blog entry, Gin'iro Haruka general thoughts.   
    Bethly

    After many...many...many hours of reading I finally finished one route which I think is enough since one route in this VN feels like finishing a long VN on itself, also picking a different girl feels incorrect at this point, like I'm cheating someone... (forgive me Bethly ) 
    Giniro is a pure love story, slice of life with some very mild drama(almost non existent), most of it consist on developing the bonds between the main character and his group of friends(only females)  and later on the girl you chose from that group.
    This VN shows you that each one of the girls has a great potential inside of them but they wont be able to use it on their own, they are like rough diamonds, with the help of the main character will "unleash" they full potential(it sounds like an action vn xD), is not like they will turn out to be unhappy or anything like that but each one of them wont fully accomplish their respective dreams or reach their full potential on their own.
    This might be a little spoilerish but Yuzuki wont become a great chef, Mizuka wont reach the first place in the figure skating thing she does, Bethly wont become a famous illustrator, Hinata wont even be able to realize what her true dream is in the first place, finally Momiji won't become a great actress. 
    Another thing to point out is that while all the girls hang around the main character they actually dont love him in secret or anything, in fact it's a long process for each one of them, the only exception to this is your non blood related sister, which is kind of sad since she starts tearing up every time she realizes that she wont be able to be with the person she loves.
    The first part, which is the common route is really long and from there you go into the heroine route which is again really long. It's so freaking long that the vn itself thinks that you are an idiot without memory and re-introduces you the characters like 3 times at some different points... 

    There are 5 heroines to chose from:

    *Yuzuki, your non-blood related sister, she is really shy and probably the "loli" of the group but she works very hard and even though I admit I hate the imouto heroine type this one didn't feel that bad.

    *Mizuha, your childhood friend, again the VN surprisingly didn't go for the cliche thing of the "childhood promise" or anything like that (well, it did but it was pretty subtle and it was also resolved very early in the game without forcing you to pick her just out of pity) she is some kind of figure skating star, to be fair I found her to be the most boring character, specially because I have 0 interest in what she does, so meh.

    *Hinata, the best friend of your sister, she is amazing and really charming, has this quirk way of speaking and expressing herself, most of the users on the internet hate her and her voice acting for some reason, she loves everything about girl stuff (like clothing, hair, how a girl should act etc etc) very sharp and lively, a true energetic type of character.

    *Momiji, she goes to the same class as the MC and thus they become friends, she loves acting and has a very normal character overall, still I found her to be one of the most interesting character... I almost do her route but at the last moment I went for...

    *Bethly, she is probably the character that most of us will chose because she is the foreign girl, she is from Canada and at first she doesn't speak any Japanese so it's kinda of funny to see how she struggles in every situation (the vn doesn't really do a good job portraying this...just a decent job.) She likes to draw, has a really calm personally and a great sense of morality, she is also very stubborn, finally she is the girl I picked.

    *Finally the MC (Yukito or whatever name you used for him, I recommend to leave his default name), he is for my taste.... a bit too perfect, he is a perfect student, friend, son, boyfriend, husband, father..you name something and he is perfect in that, not because he does everything in a perfect way but because he doesn't have a glimpse of malice or egoism in him, which is hard to believe.
    He has a very strong sense of duty and morality and wants to help anyone that needs it, very proactive, he is not naive and doesn't behave like a retard in front of the opposite sex... he is... yep perfect, which was a bit of a let down for me.. because him being that way takes away many opportunities from the novel thus the drama in the VN it's almost non existent or very predictable.There is a reason why he is like that but still I didn't like it.

    The pace in this vn is slow, really slow, for example you won't kiss the heroine until much much later on into the story(let's not even talk about having sex xD), if you don't enjoy slice of life then you will hate this vn because that's pretty much what it is.
    It's hard to compare anything with this or find some equivalents but the closest thing that I can think of is nagisa's route in Clannad (if you take out the funny parts with sunohara and pretty much everything else) and all the heavy drama.
    It does have some funny parts here and there (most of them are generated either from Hinata or an school teacher that you find later on and occasionally from the MC's biological mother.)
    I chose Bethly and later on I regret it, I really wanted to pick momiji or hinata but at that point it was too late...
    Bethly's route was ok, but her inability to speak Japanese was what it kinda ruined it for me, I came to hate the words うれ fucking しい and おいしいい, you will hear those words probably more than 500 times in the novel (or more and no I'm not joking), yes, it's tasty and yes you are happy "I got it" I really do but just stooooooooooooooooooooooooop, this again is something that makes sense in the context of what it's going on but it just pissed me off really bad.

    On the other side, it's really interesting to see how the characters grow(mentally and physically too) and how your relation with the main heroine gets stronger by the passage of time, it reminded me a lot of my own experience with my ex lol so in that sense it's pretty realistic and also maybe boring for some readers.

    Now I will force myself to finish momiji's route even though I'm not very sure if I will be able to do so 
    What I liked it:

    The music.
    Very rich characters development.
    Amazing art.
    Some really good and interesting characters that I won't be able to enjoy xD at least not right now.
    Amazing voice acting.

    What I didn't like:

    A bit slow.
    Too long for its own good.
    The main character.

    What I hated:
    Repetition, specially of some words.
    Not enough strong drama.
    One awkward and very unfitting scene in the story.
    How difficult is it to read?
    Really easy, you can read this as as your first vn without any doubt, I wouldn't recommend Hinata's route for someone new because of the way she talks (not hard at all but still be careful)
    I rate this vn:  Snowman out of 納得.
    EDIT: a little spoiler part to actually point out what was really boring, unfitting and what was actually pretty good.
     
    Hinata
    Since I don't want to create another topic about hinata's route I will keep adding info here, 
    So Hinata's route has a really different dynamic and it has a lot more of comedy than bethly's, the combination between hina and yuzuki is amazing. I won't say that bethly's route was bad but so far hinata's is overall way more enjoyable.
  10. Like
    Deep Blue got a reaction from Narcosis for a blog entry, Gin'iro Haruka general thoughts.   
    Bethly

    After many...many...many hours of reading I finally finished one route which I think is enough since one route in this VN feels like finishing a long VN on itself, also picking a different girl feels incorrect at this point, like I'm cheating someone... (forgive me Bethly ) 
    Giniro is a pure love story, slice of life with some very mild drama(almost non existent), most of it consist on developing the bonds between the main character and his group of friends(only females)  and later on the girl you chose from that group.
    This VN shows you that each one of the girls has a great potential inside of them but they wont be able to use it on their own, they are like rough diamonds, with the help of the main character will "unleash" they full potential(it sounds like an action vn xD), is not like they will turn out to be unhappy or anything like that but each one of them wont fully accomplish their respective dreams or reach their full potential on their own.
    This might be a little spoilerish but Yuzuki wont become a great chef, Mizuka wont reach the first place in the figure skating thing she does, Bethly wont become a famous illustrator, Hinata wont even be able to realize what her true dream is in the first place, finally Momiji won't become a great actress. 
    Another thing to point out is that while all the girls hang around the main character they actually dont love him in secret or anything, in fact it's a long process for each one of them, the only exception to this is your non blood related sister, which is kind of sad since she starts tearing up every time she realizes that she wont be able to be with the person she loves.
    The first part, which is the common route is really long and from there you go into the heroine route which is again really long. It's so freaking long that the vn itself thinks that you are an idiot without memory and re-introduces you the characters like 3 times at some different points... 

    There are 5 heroines to chose from:

    *Yuzuki, your non-blood related sister, she is really shy and probably the "loli" of the group but she works very hard and even though I admit I hate the imouto heroine type this one didn't feel that bad.

    *Mizuha, your childhood friend, again the VN surprisingly didn't go for the cliche thing of the "childhood promise" or anything like that (well, it did but it was pretty subtle and it was also resolved very early in the game without forcing you to pick her just out of pity) she is some kind of figure skating star, to be fair I found her to be the most boring character, specially because I have 0 interest in what she does, so meh.

    *Hinata, the best friend of your sister, she is amazing and really charming, has this quirk way of speaking and expressing herself, most of the users on the internet hate her and her voice acting for some reason, she loves everything about girl stuff (like clothing, hair, how a girl should act etc etc) very sharp and lively, a true energetic type of character.

    *Momiji, she goes to the same class as the MC and thus they become friends, she loves acting and has a very normal character overall, still I found her to be one of the most interesting character... I almost do her route but at the last moment I went for...

    *Bethly, she is probably the character that most of us will chose because she is the foreign girl, she is from Canada and at first she doesn't speak any Japanese so it's kinda of funny to see how she struggles in every situation (the vn doesn't really do a good job portraying this...just a decent job.) She likes to draw, has a really calm personally and a great sense of morality, she is also very stubborn, finally she is the girl I picked.

    *Finally the MC (Yukito or whatever name you used for him, I recommend to leave his default name), he is for my taste.... a bit too perfect, he is a perfect student, friend, son, boyfriend, husband, father..you name something and he is perfect in that, not because he does everything in a perfect way but because he doesn't have a glimpse of malice or egoism in him, which is hard to believe.
    He has a very strong sense of duty and morality and wants to help anyone that needs it, very proactive, he is not naive and doesn't behave like a retard in front of the opposite sex... he is... yep perfect, which was a bit of a let down for me.. because him being that way takes away many opportunities from the novel thus the drama in the VN it's almost non existent or very predictable.There is a reason why he is like that but still I didn't like it.

    The pace in this vn is slow, really slow, for example you won't kiss the heroine until much much later on into the story(let's not even talk about having sex xD), if you don't enjoy slice of life then you will hate this vn because that's pretty much what it is.
    It's hard to compare anything with this or find some equivalents but the closest thing that I can think of is nagisa's route in Clannad (if you take out the funny parts with sunohara and pretty much everything else) and all the heavy drama.
    It does have some funny parts here and there (most of them are generated either from Hinata or an school teacher that you find later on and occasionally from the MC's biological mother.)
    I chose Bethly and later on I regret it, I really wanted to pick momiji or hinata but at that point it was too late...
    Bethly's route was ok, but her inability to speak Japanese was what it kinda ruined it for me, I came to hate the words うれ fucking しい and おいしいい, you will hear those words probably more than 500 times in the novel (or more and no I'm not joking), yes, it's tasty and yes you are happy "I got it" I really do but just stooooooooooooooooooooooooop, this again is something that makes sense in the context of what it's going on but it just pissed me off really bad.

    On the other side, it's really interesting to see how the characters grow(mentally and physically too) and how your relation with the main heroine gets stronger by the passage of time, it reminded me a lot of my own experience with my ex lol so in that sense it's pretty realistic and also maybe boring for some readers.

    Now I will force myself to finish momiji's route even though I'm not very sure if I will be able to do so 
    What I liked it:

    The music.
    Very rich characters development.
    Amazing art.
    Some really good and interesting characters that I won't be able to enjoy xD at least not right now.
    Amazing voice acting.

    What I didn't like:

    A bit slow.
    Too long for its own good.
    The main character.

    What I hated:
    Repetition, specially of some words.
    Not enough strong drama.
    One awkward and very unfitting scene in the story.
    How difficult is it to read?
    Really easy, you can read this as as your first vn without any doubt, I wouldn't recommend Hinata's route for someone new because of the way she talks (not hard at all but still be careful)
    I rate this vn:  Snowman out of 納得.
    EDIT: a little spoiler part to actually point out what was really boring, unfitting and what was actually pretty good.
     
    Hinata
    Since I don't want to create another topic about hinata's route I will keep adding info here, 
    So Hinata's route has a really different dynamic and it has a lot more of comedy than bethly's, the combination between hina and yuzuki is amazing. I won't say that bethly's route was bad but so far hinata's is overall way more enjoyable.
  11. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to ExtraMana for a blog entry, Video Game History - Deus Ex   
    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/
  12. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to ExtraMana for a blog entry, Video Game History - Duke Nukem 3D   
    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/
  13. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Dergonu for a blog entry, Shi ni Iku Kimi, Yakata ni Mebuku Zouo   
    Hey, it has been a while since I wrote a blog entry. I did make one not too long ago, when the Maggot Baits TL got announced, but thanks to the forum rollback, that got purged. (Thanks a lot Nosebleed. Yeah, we know it was you!!!)
    Anyways, in this blog entry I'll be talking about the guro game that got released by Bug System about 3 weeks ago, Shi ni Iku Kimi, Yakata ni Mebuku Zouo. I picked this up after @Kawasumi told me about it and asked if I wanted to read it with him, (thanks for that by the way, love you <3), and I was completely hooked after just a few minutes in the game. Now, I know guro isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I just really wanted to write something about this game, so here we are.
    The game has a very simple but effective plot and story, though it was a lot longer then I was expecting. (The 2-10 hour marking on VNDB is right on the edge; the game is a hell of a lot closer to 10 than 2. Depending on your reading speed, it could definitely feel like a medium game.)
    At first glance, I thought this was a mere guro nukige, but that was not the case at all.
    A few small details before we start: The game is NOT translated, at least not at the moment. The difficulty of the game is honestly not very high. I'd say beginners can give this a go without running into many issues. You'll find some words you aren't familiar with unless you read a lot of guro, but it's not very hard to understand it if you use a text hooker and parser. Honestly, if you really want to try out the game, you might actually be fine with a machine translation. Test it out and see for yourself. Main point is, the game isn't very difficult to read.
     
    Let's get into the story:
    It happened without any warning.

    In a world that was peaceful, superior beings suddenly appeared.
    They one-sidedly massacred humans, and the world was swallowed by a whirlpool of chaos.

    While our heroine Mia was shopping with her family, she also fell victim.
    With her father, mother, and older sister dead, she desperately tried to escape, but before she could a different superior man appeared before her.
    Falling into desperation and prepared to die, Mia took up a knife and stabbed the man.

    The next second, she lost consciousness.
    Not knowing what had happened to her, she felt a great pain on her stomach.

    "You hurt my body, now I can't allow you to die easily. Your sin... deserves ten thousand deaths..."
     
    Pulled from the VNDB description. Basically, Mia stabs a "superior-man" (that is literally what they are called in the game,) and he swears she will die ten thousand times as punishment for her grave sin.
    Some more information on these "superior beings", they look like humans, but are seemingly immortal, can use magic, feed on humans and the lot of them are just a gang of messed up bastards.
    Mia wakes up in a mansion, and soon finds out that this mansion has been taken over by the superior-man she stabbed. He explains the "rules of the mansion" to her in a completely calm and collected tone of voice. (Then crushes her arm to bits after the explenation. What a nice guy!)
    To sum it up, Mia can do whatever she wants inside the mansion and no one will try to stop her, (she can even try to escape if she wants, but it will be futile, as a barrier has been put up around the house, and the only way to turn off the barrier is to kill the man.) Mia's room is "magic", and it will heal any injury, no matter how serious it is. Basically, even if Mia is dead, as long as a part of her corpse is brought up into her room, it will heal over time and bring her back. The reason this room exists is simple: the man will do horrible things to Mia whenever he feels like it, torturing and killing her, and the only way to stop the loop of her being murdered then resurrected is to kill the man with her own hands. Now the game begins; Mia has to look for a way to kill the Superior-Man in order to stop the loop. Also, one small detail that is important to add in is that whenever Mia dies, her memories get all messed up. (The ressurection magic isn't perfect.) This means that you as a reader will be confused as hell a LOT of the game, because you see things from Mia's point of view, and many times she will wake up having forgotten lots of things while the game kept on going, which means you won't get what the fuck is going on at first. (This is a good thing though, as the confusion adds to the suspense in the game when Mia walks around trying to figure out what is going on and how she can save herself and the others trapped in the mansion. Of course, all the confusion is cleared up in the end, so if you stick with it, you'll get all the answers you want.) Sadly, it did also make the game repeat itself a lot, which wasn't a deal-breaker, but it did get a bit boring after a while. "Mia wakes up, wonders where she is, puts on clothes, walks out into the hallway, goes down to the dining hall." Rinse and repeat.
     
    The art, music, CGs and backgrounds used in the game are all freaking stellar. It's very high quality stuff. The music is great, and adds to the feeling you have of being trapped in a mansion with a psycopath walking around. It's such a simple horror setup, but it's pulled off so well in the game. The art is quite hilarious actually, because it has a strong moe feel to it. (But, this game is not a moege, obviously )
    Here is a CG from the game, so you can see the amazing moe art in all its glory:

    And to get a taste of the dark elements, and the great music in the game, here is the game's opening. (The censored youtube version.)
     
    Anyways, like I mentioned in passing earlier, there will be other people in the mansion as well. These people are humans the Superior-Man caprutres for food, and some of them he chooses to use for toys, kind of like Mia. During the game, you get several choices that will let you choose Mia's and the other girls' fate in the mansion. Make a wrong turn, and ... well, you'll figure that out on your own if you choose to play the game
    Some of the other characters will try to help Mia plot out a plan to kill the Superior-Man, and you will be able to decide how you proceed with the plan and so on. Some of the choices will "reward" you with unique CGs and scenes that you cannot get otherwise, making for some decent replay value. The game also has a large amount of endings, (I believe it has around 7 or 8,) so you can keep getting different outcomes depending on your choices.
     
    All in all, the game is freaking awesome for those who likes dark horror games. Of course, the game focuses heavily on H-content, and several of the scenes contain some fairly "spicy" fetishes, so it's not a game everyone will enjoy, but like I said before, this is not a pure nukige. There is a clear story and the game has a purpose. Everything that happens in the game adds to the story in some way, and as you continue to progress through it, you'll be dying to figure out what happens next.
     
    That's about it, (this might have turned out a bit messy, sorry for that. Just really wanted to write something about this game real quick.) I'll be trying to get out more blog posts in the future, as I have been way too inactive with my blog after I finished The Last GM Standing.
    Anyways, thanks for reading! Go play the game!
  14. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to ExtraMana for a blog entry, Retro Review - Clive Barker's Undying (Pc)   
    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].  
  15. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Arcadeotic for a blog entry, Bishoujo Mangekyou TL Update 30: Server's Faring and Same Old   
    Another week, another update.
    Just last week we launched the Discord server, and it's gotten quite a good reception, and I've had fun talking with you guys on there. So if you have questions, want to talk with me for some reason, or just pester me about the progress -- although there are weekly updates -- go on ahead.
    To this week's progress. We got a bit of QC done and a decent chunk of editing done, and I personally am happy with the progress this week. Things are going rather swimmingly, and the pace isn't slowing down drastically, either. Until next time!
    Progress:
    Translation: 100%
    Editing: 40%
    QC: 22,3%
    Proofreading: 0%
     
  16. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Arcadeotic for a blog entry, Bishoujo Mangekyou - Mistakes were made and Prologue patch 2.0   
    Well, as most of you know by now, I completely obliterated all the links concerning BiMan1's prologue patch. This was because of two reasons:
    Because it was terrible in every possible way to put it frankly. In order to make room for this post. The prologue patch was bad, really bad. The sentences were akward, spacing was weird, translations at some points didn't even make sense, etc, etc. That's why I've been fixing the first quarter of the script; retranslating, modifying and editing the script along with perfecting the engine this starting and last week. Doing UTF-8, some hex editing, final image editing and resource editing.
    It was quite rough, but I finally got everything according to my wishes, and the price for my naivety has been paid back. Anyways! I present to you my hard work and labor:
    Prologue Patch 2.0
    Probably another 10~ hours down to drain, but it was worth it. The new and improved prologue patch (or well, partial patch at this point, but whatever)!
    Features:
    - Completely polished and finished engine, fully translated by me. Includes all buttons, menus, extras and other minor things.
    - Music track names are translated, although I didn't intend on ever translating them.
    - Translates the dialogue all the way to the end of the first H-scene.
    - The two internal menus:
    Are translated to these:
    Things to note:
    - The dialogue text is not in its final version that it will be in the final release, so keep that in mind. The patch, however, shouldn't have any typos.
    - The amount of text ranslated in this improved patch is quite a bit more, because I wanted something more grand and of course, to make up to you for the travesty that was the original prologue patch.
    - The text after the first H-scene will continue as Japanese, unlike the gibberish it was in the original patch. Sorry about that.
    - All of the previous prologue patch download links are now going to be replaced with this version's link.
    Download Link:
    https://mega.nz/#!C8FDiagC!xeW7-MPcjsZWm5ebycEnEXJ66y-Ld7H6ojTa0yYF4b0
    Install instructions:
    Download the patch from the link above and open the .zip file. Drag & drop the new .exe into -呪われし伝説の少女-1, and data8.pack into -呪われし伝説の少女-1/GameData.  Launch the game through the new .exe file and have fun.
  17. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, A Belated Plug for True Remembrance (2X Ren’Py Port)   
    I’m on vacation, which as a dad, is usually more exhausting for me than not being on vacation. That means no rants about the evils of third-person direct address in VN translations this week — sorry! I just don’t have it in me.
    Instead, I thought I’d give a long overdue plug to a project I helped out on last year: ff80c38’s 2x Ren’Py port of True Remembrance. And by “helped out on,” I mean ff80c38 did everything; I simply pitched in with a little Photoshopping and typesetting at the very end. This was a total passion project on his part, and it shows.
    If you’re not familiar with it, True Remembrance is a short kinetic novel released by Shiba Satomi in 2003, then gussied up and re-released in 2006. (insani subsequently published a wonderful English-language translation of it two years later in 2008.) I’ve always had a soft spot for this VN, in part because it’s not afraid to be quiet and contemplative. It underplays its emotions rather than underlining them and, as a result, feels more like a found storybook than a modern trope fest. There’s a plot, of course — there are guns and spies and dystopian futures and unexpected twists — but to TR’s credit, it’s never about those. The visual novel’s gaze stays fixed on its characters, exploring their empty spaces and pondering how they might be filled, if ever.
    True Remembrance is not a perfect VN, not by any means. The art is on the simpler side, which some might consider a plus, and the game’s writing often stumbles when it comes to comic relief — pretty much any scene in the café, for instance. Still, its measured tone is a rare find, and for that, I treasure it.
    The original freeware release of True Remembrance only ran on Windows; this Ren’Py port adds Mac and Linux to the roster. It also supports higher resolutions, hence the 2X identifier. And let me just say that, across the board, ff80c38 approached this port with utmost respect for the source material. Not a letter of the script was changed, and great care was taken in resizing (or in some cases, recreating) graphics for the new resolutions.
    Finally, I can’t stress to you enough that this version is entirely unofficial, released late last year in hopes it might help a few more people find True Remembrance. So listen: if you’re not running Mac or Linux and/or don’t really care about higher-res assets, I urge you to pick up the original English release at insani’s site instead. It’ll do ya good. But if that's not feasible, for whatever reason, please think of ff80c38’s project as another snowy back alley into Shiba Satomi’s world.
    Download: Windows / macOS / Linux
    Postscript: Why-oh-why isn’t Mimei of the Transmission Tower, the author’s other VN, translated yet? Seriously. I know insani was considering working on it at one point, but that was years ago. This has long been one of my white whales, and I’d love to be able to read it in English before the world ends sometime in late November.
  18. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Arcadeotic for a blog entry, Bishoujo Mangekyou TL Update 23: 100% Translated   
    It's finally done.
    I finally managed to 100% translated Bishoujo Mangekyou in its entirety. Actually it happened quite early, 20th, if I recall correctly. It took me 5 monsths and 7 days to translate the whole scrip according to my calculations.
    It's ben awfully rewarding and I appreciate you all sticking with me along this project, my team and I will do our best to make sure the end product is of high quality.
    I'll say this now, this won't be my last transaltion project, but it sure will be my last 'double-translation', so all the following projects will be translated purely from the original script and some double-script translations.
    Anyhoo, now that the translation's done, I am now largely free, so I can return back to what I did before starting this project. The patch release date is still TBA, but it could be done in a few months' time.
    Progress:
    Translation: 100%
    Editing: 20,3%
    QC: 3,1%
    Proofreading: 0%
     
  19. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Saying sayonara to Japanese quotation marks (「」) in VN translations   
    Last time, we discussed how the casual ellipsis should almost always be considered punctuation non grata in VN translations. Today, we set our sights on a new target: Japanese-style quotation marks. Handling these couldn’t be simpler: If you see any in your text, replace them with English-style quotation marks immediately. No exceptions. No special cases. No mercy.
    A quick primer on Japanese quotation marks
    If you’ve spent any time looking at Japanese texts, you’ve likely seen 「 and its friend 」. These little guys are known as kagikakko (“hook brackets”) and function almost exactly like opening (“) and closing (”) quotations marks would in English. No surprise there; kagikakko were invented during the 19th Century to aid in translating Western texts into Japanese. Why use these instead the genuine article? Because a Western quote (“) looks an awful lot like a dakuten (゛), a common Japanese diacritical mark; it turns “ta” (た) into “da” (だ), for instance. The potential for confusion was enormous, so new punctuation was introduced.
    Less frequently seen are 『 and 』, known as nijūkagikakko (“double hook brackets”). These operate much like opening (‘) and closing (’) single quotation marks would in English — which is to say, for quoting things within quotes. (“You can’t just scream ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater,” he scolded.) In Japanese, they also moonlight as italics for things like book titles. Times are tough and they need the extra cash.
    The rules (You can quote me on these.)
    But all my friends are doing it!
    So here’s the rub: I see Japanese quotation marks everywhere. Fan translations, professional translations — everywhere. Why? Buggered if I know. I can only imagine it’s affectation that, over time, has become habit. Maybe TL teams think it’s more authentic? Maybe they’re convinced it makes the English text look more Japanese-y? Maybe it’s chemtrails? I just don’t know.
    Regardless of the reason, this is one seriously annoying trend that needs to be pushed off a seriously tall cliff. Starting now.
    UPDATE #1: As pointed out in the comments, I'm assuming the rules of U.S. punctuation here. I also eat my soft-boiled eggs little end up, just as The Lord God Almighty intended. If you live in the U.K. or one of its offshoots, however, feel free to reverse the order I've given — i.e., single quotes as your primary tool, double quotes for nested quotes and italics.
    And to be honest, if you look at how Japanese quotation marks are constructed, it seems pretty clear they're based off the British style. Point for the Queen. But ultimately, your editing decisions should be based on whether you're using U.S. or U.K. English for your translation in general.
  20. Like
    Deep Blue got a reaction from Gaijin Sama for a blog entry, Himeko's epilogue translation to spanish   
    I know nobody cares about this type of translation in this forum (for obvious reasons, for once the novel is already translated and second nobody really speak spanish in this forum xD)
    I'm doing a translation of himeko's epilogue and posting it here mostly to keep track of my own translation and have a place to share it.

    At first it was going to be an eng>spa translation but there are some huge mistakes on the translation itself (specially on the atogaki 1980 story) and also many sentences that don't make much sense or silly grammar errors that shouldn't be there even if they are silly (tons of these)... I don't know the guy who did the translation but it seems that he just rushed it and cut corners in some places because of time restriction, with more time and someone checking the script it could have been a good work. 
    I don't like to complain or shit on others work but come on they are charging for it...it's not a free fan-translation project.

    Second by looking at the files itself (again with the huge help of Schwarzstorch who is editing the images, creating the patch etc) we found:
    *Inside the files of himeko is almost the whole ame no marginal script  (untranslated) 
    *The game "hides" the UI in some lazy way but you can still active it, just turn the windows transparency up or down and it will appear.
    *They used the same engine from sorairo (probably in this whole 10th anniversary narcissu project and ame no marginal) they just changed the script and CGs (with same engine I don't mean majiro but they actually grabbed it as it was in sorairo and didn't change anything besides the script and CGs), this isn't so hard to spot, I mean check this image and if you check the menu you can still see options that don't make much sense in this game, like changing the color of previous choices (in a kinetic vn ) and so on.
    *There are some files from the Mahjong minigame and many more things but you get the idea.
     
    In conclusion, it's going to take more time to check line by line to see if there are errors than translating everything from 0 so in the end it's going to take more time than I thought, but it won't take more than a month, on a side note my original idea was to add 1993 short story into this patch but I don't know if that's legal or not (probably it's not) so I dropped it.
    それだけだ
     
    EN ESPAÑOL:
    Para hacerlo breve ya que no tengo muchas ganas de escribir xD voy a realizar la traducción del epilogo de Himeko, mi idea era utilizar la traducción en ingles y pasarla al español pero debido a los muchos errores que tiene, gramaticales y también simplemente de mala traducción - el traductor utilizó atajos en oraciones complejas y se nota! - también hay cosas mal traducidas, ejemplo de algo muy tonto "1980 中坊の日のこと。" como "The mid-1980s... those days..." en español es "En los mediados de los 80'... aquellos días" cuando debería decir algo como "Aquellas cosas que sucedieron en esos días de cuando era un alumno de secundaria en los 80'" xD queda medio feo así tan largo pero ya se dan un idea de lo que hablo. Ese kanji raro (difícilmente aparezca seguido en algún lugar viene de acá 中坊) es decir un estudiante de secundaria de ese periodo especifico, no de cualquier momento. (si no entendieron nada de lo que expliqué no importa!)
    La traducción va a tomar 1 mes, ma o meno - cachito más cachito menos xD , dependiendo de las ganas que tenga de traducir , calculo que voy a traducir unas 30 lineas al día y son casi 1000, y eso es todo por ahora.
  21. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, A Working Definition of the Visual Novel (v1)   
    A couple blog posts back, I argued that the story exploration game Gone Home can be considered a visual novel. After some great discussion there, it seemed only logical to tackle the much bigger question: “What is a visual novel?
    Which is why I’m not going to. That’s a spike-filled, snake-infested pit of a question if I ever saw one — and I already had spikes and snakes for breakfast. Instead, we’re going to attempt to answer a more nuanced question: “What are the minimum requirements something must meet in order to be usefully discussed as a visual novel?”
    That’s a slightly different but way more useful angle. Just about anything can be used as a chair, but not everything is a “chair.” As a society, we’ve agreed on a certain set of characteristics that chairs share in common. This lets us discuss chairs with one another and be pretty sure we won't be given a pineapple to sit on.
    We’ll do the same here. But for the sake of brevity, we’ll shorthand that question back down to “What’s a visual novel?” It’ll be our little secret.
    The VNDB standard
    The most obvious place to start looking for answers would be The Visual Novel Database (VNDB), home to info on more than 18,000 VNs. Here’s their answer, found in the VNDB FAQ:
    As a working definition, this leaves a lot to be desired. There are an awful lot of cans, mays, typicals, and usuallys. Worse yet, you could easily dream up a VN that meets almost none of the assumptions laid out here — perhaps an extremely short text-based story in which the words run around the outside of a woodcut illustration. There’s absolutely no background music and the player answers no questions, which results in the same plot every time she plays.
    A somewhat more satisfying answer can be found in VNDB’s list of requirements that titles must meet before being added to their database. For something to qualify as a visual novel:
    Better, but still somewhat problematic. For one thing, it conflates the commonly accepted with the essential. What if someone wants to present a story in a manner other than ADV (text in box below image) or NVL (text overlaying image)? What if they thought of a more innovative configuration of text + art? Tough luck, Billy; go suck eggs in the corner. (They don't seem to strictly enforce this, by the way. Digital: A Love Story is on VNDB, even though it eschews both ADV and NVL for a diegetic presentation.) Moreover, these guidelines can’t seem to decide if no gameplay is allowed at all, as the first two sentences suggest, or if up to 1% simple gameplay is okay.
    A title can also be added to the database if it’s a “visual novel/game” hybrid that meets the following requirements:
    Again, problematic. The ADV/NVL issue is still there, of course, but now a new wrinkle’s been added: the privileging of narrative over dialogue. The assumption here is that a novel can’t consist entirely (or almost entirely) of dialogue, so a title that doesn’t “consistently” rely upon a formal narrator doesn’t qualify. In truth, there are any number of novels that take this form — The Awkward Age by Henry James, for one. Besides, if Key suddenly dropped a 50-hour all-dialogue school drama that looked and played exactly like Clannad, do you doubt for a second that we'd all consider it a VN? Or that FuwaReviews would give it one star?
    But I don’t blame VNDB. They’re not looking to define the visual novel. They’re just trying to set up some semi-reasonable guidelines to help streamline their submission process. Without this, every staffer there would probably be eating gun-barrel sandwiches for lunch.

    Fine. Let’s build something better.
    I’ve sketched out the beginnings of a more general-purpose test for discussing something as a visual novel. I don’t consider this to be at all authoritative, and in fact, I invite you to critique it and build upon it in the comments below. It’s a starting point, nothing more.
    A 7-point test for visual novels
    1. It must be “read” on a digital device that outputs to a screen.
    Fairly self-explanatory. Computers, consoles, handhelds, phones, e-readers — hell, even a smart watch would qualify. A printed VN would be considered a graphic novel (or a choose-your-own-adventure book). An audio file of a VN would be an audiobook.
    2. It must convey a recognizable narrative.
    Again, fairly self-explanatory. A VN must be a spoken or written account of connected events. In other words, it needs to tell a story, fictional or otherwise. The entirety of the Detroit phone book displayed in Ren’py is not a VN, even if it’s accompanied by a whole chorus line of catgirls.
    3. It must use on-screen text as the primary avenue for conveying that narrative.
    At the heart of any VN is the act of reading — eyes looking at words and turning them into meaning. If any significant portion of the story is delivered as voice-over or action without on-screen text, it isn’t a visual novel. Watching Game of Thrones on your laptop with subtitles doesn’t suddenly turn it into a VN.
    4. It must have visuals paired with that narrative.
    A visual novel must have visuals. Crazy talk, right? It doesn’t matter if those visuals are 8-bit pixel art, hand illustration, 3D renders, photography, or video. Ideally, these images would be germane to the narrative, but even that’s not technically necessary. Having unrelated images wouldn’t keep something from being a VN; it would just make it a *bad* VN.
    5. It must be authored.
    In other words, the story must be an act of creative intention by its author(s). A VN cannot rely upon sandboxes, emergent gameplay, or similar mechanisms to generate its narrative arc (though they may be used to flavor it). Such experiences, while highly interesting, result in something other than a novel.
    6. Reading must comprise the majority of one’s experience with the title.
    This one gets tricky, because it cuts deep to the heart of another unresolved question: “Is a visual novel a game?” For the purposes of this discussion, I’d suggest there’s a continuum that looks roughly like:
    not a VN >> game w/ some VN qualities >> game/VN hybrid >> VN w/ some game qualities >> VN
    Roughly past the halfway mark, we can usefully consider something to be a visual novel for terms of discussion. Below that, we can consider it a game but usefully discuss its VN-like elements (or lack thereof).
    7. It must offer a deliberately framed reading experience.
    This one’s a little tricky. Here’s the problem: a plain old Word doc containing a short story + embedded images could technically satisfy requirements #1 through #6, but we’d be hard-pressed to call that a visual novel. I’m still tweaking the language for #7, but the general idea is that just as a film director frames a shot, controlling what the audience can see and hear at any given moment, so too does the creator of a visual novel. This is unlike our hypothetical Word doc, in which you could widen the window to see more text than intended, skip around the story out of order, scroll the window so that you can read a passage without seeing its associated art, etc.
    I briefly considered adding an eighth bullet point, but chose to leave it on the cutting room floor.
    Why did this get dropped? Well, I imagined a traditional novel that was rigged to turn its pages at pre-defined intervals. You can’t speed it up, you can’t slow it down; all you have is an on/off switch. Would that lack of agency suddenly keep this particular book from being a novel? I couldn’t think of a good reason why it would, so I removed the requirement. But I'm open to good arguments for bringing it back.
    Closing thoughts, for now
    You might note that I’ve avoided any mention of things like: story genre, branching narratives, art style, country of origin, sexual content, sound/music, etc. That’s by design. These things help inform what type of VN a title is, not whether it can be discussed as one.
    You might also note that my 7-point test would disqualify Gone Home from being considered a visual novel, invalidating my earlier argument. That’s also by design. Kill your darlings, amirite?
  22. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Darbury for a blog entry, Killing the ellipsis (“...”) in VN translations   
    Let’s not mince words here. The ellipsis is a blight upon English translations of visual novels. It must be uprooted and killed with fire.
    Before the slaughter begins, however, let’s review some basics. As the name suggests, the ellipsis represents an elision — that is to say, omitted content. It functions as the “yadda yadda” of the English language. It is the “Step 2: ???” before the all-important “Step 3: Profit!” A writer deploys those three little dots to indicate either the intentional removal of something that once was there, or the pointed absence of something that should have been there.
    That’s it. That’s what the ellipsis is supposed to do. You wouldn’t know this, however, by reading nearly any English translation of a Japanese visual novel. Ellipses are scattered across the text like so many rhinestones on the sweatshirt of a Midwestern mom. They’re at the beginning of sentences, the ends, stuck randomly in the middle — sometimes even chained end to end like a writhing Human Centipede of punctuation, each little dot in the chain crying, “Kill me now!” into the anus of the next.
    It’s an absolute abattoir in there.
    This particular road to hell is paved with good intentions, however. You see, all those ellipses are also present in the original Japanese and, in an attempt at faithful translation, the TL teams have left them all sitting there for you to enjoy. The original writer had a reason for putting them in, the reasoning goes, and it’s our job to offer the purest translation of his/her vision possible.
    This, of course, is bollocks. Punctuation operates differently in different languages. Japanese ellipses are used much more liberally than their Western forbearers, particularly in popular culture (e.g., manga. light novels, etc.) Want to indicate a pause? Ellipsis. Silence? Ellipsis. Passage of time? Ellipsis. Need to fill some empty space? Ellipsis. Is it Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday? Ellipsis, ellipsis, ellipsis. When ported over to English, most of these usages look less like carefully crafted sentences and more like a transcript of a particularly drunken Snapchat session.
    Put simply, what works in one language doesn’t always work in another. When I’m translating a Line of Text from German, for Example, I don’t capitalize all the Nouns because that’s how it was in the Original. I normalize it for English. The same needs to be done in any VN translation.
    My current rule of thumb while editing — I’ll bold it for you in red here — is as follows: Remove/replace all ellipses in a line of Japanese text unless doing so irreparably breaks the sentence or significantly changes its meaning.
    Luckily for us, English has a toolbox full of punctuation to get the job done. Commas, semicolons, periods, dashes — they’re all your friends. So let’s discuss some common situations in VNs and how we might handle them.

    The trailing ellipsis
    You’ll see lots of these littering the ends of sentences and lines, mostly to little effect. More often than not, they indicate a thought closing on anything other than a 100% full and decisive stop. Since they don’t hold the place of omitted text, we can almost always replace these ellipses with periods.
    There are a handful of situations, however, where keeping a trailing ellipsis makes sense. These include:
    The Pregnant Pause: 
    When something’s strongly implied at the end of a sentence/line, but left unsaid for dramatic effect.
    The ellipsis fills the place of the implied content, so it gets to stay. (Fun bonus fact: pauses are the only things that can get pregnant in VNs.)
    The “And So On”:
    When a statement is implied to continue for an unspecified length beyond the end of the sentence/line.
    The ellipsis here indicates there may have been a few more beers after Michelob, but the writer has decided to spare us and jump straight to Bob’s objection. Had this been more interruptive in nature, with Bob cutting Joe off immediately after “Michelob,” the ellipses would have replaced with an em-dash (—).
    The Trail-Off: 
    Similar to the “And So On,” but with the character choosing to let a statement taper off into nothingness, rather than the author.
    The opening ellipsis
    You’ll see these slightly less often, but they’re by no means infrequent. Typically, they indicate some slight hesitation at the beginning of a line of dialogue. But again, the nuance ends up being so slight and the impact so watered down through overuse that you’re almost always better off removing these ungainly beasts. An exception can be made for:
    The Reverse Pregnant Pause: 
    Just like the original Pregnant Pause, but it appears at the beginning of a sentence. Often holds the place of something a character doesn’t want to say.
    Rather than just pausing in passing, Joe is actively not admitting he thinks Joe is a jackass. That makes this line a strong candidate for an ellipsis.
    The mid-sentence ellipsis
    So, so many of these. You’ll close your eyes at night and they’ll haunt you. They’re almost always meant to indicate a slight pause in speech or thought, but trying to the read the resulting text is an exercise in frustration. There are... just so... many unnecessary... gaps. (Full disclosure: When writing scripts for TV, I’ll use ellipses like this a lot. But that’s for a very specific purpose: helping to communicate the particular rhythm of a line to the actor(s). I always avoid this in audience-facing text.)
    In almost all cases, unless there’s a marked pivot in thought, a comma will suffice.
    If the ellipsis is holding together two complete yet interwoven thoughts, a semicolon will do nicely.
    If the ellipsis is holding together two complete and independent thoughts, a period should be used.
    If ellipses are used to indicate an interruptive thought, one that breaks the main flow of the sentence, em-dashes can be used.
    Again, there are a couple situations where these mid-sentence ellipses can remain:
    The Ta-Da:
    When a pause is used for obvious dramatic effect, the ellipsis should be kept.
    The Shatner:
    When halting or stilted speech is intended for dramatic/comedic effect, ellipses may be retained.

    The empty line ellipsis
    You’ll see a lot of these. Holdovers from manga and light novels, they are explicit indicators of silence, being at a loss for words, holding one’s tongue, etc.
    In English prose, these silences would normally be held with narration — e.g., “Baconator just sat there, dripping ketchup.” You’d never see a sentence such as: ‘Harry Potter said, “...” and continued looking out the window.’ That’s because, unlike most VNs, traditional novels don’t have the crutch of character sprites and name cards appearing alongside dialogue. Due to such VN conventions, along with the technical limitations of translation — it’s frequently impossible to replace character dialogue with unvoiced narration — you should almost always leave these ellipses in place. Based on your best judgement, you can also choose to leave such variants as the questioning silence ("...?") and the excited/alarmed silence ("...!").
    It should be noted that such empty line ellipses can also be used outside of dialogue. Often, these will just indicate time passing. There’s also a long tradition in Japanese art of the “pillow” — a held moment of contemplative emptiness. It’s the bit of formal textual throat-clearing at the start of a poem. It’s the 10-second cutaway to a babbling brook that connects two scenes in a movie. In a VN, this pillow can evidence itself as a single line of narration, empty save for an ellipsis. There’s no good English alternative for this, so it should be kept wherever you encounter it.
    Extra credit: The multi-line ellipsis
    I saved this one for last, because it’s a bit of a special case. Against all my better instincts, it involves adding ellipses in places where the original text has none. It’s painful but it’s for a good cause.
    Sometimes, when editing or translating a VN, you’ll run across sentences that spill over onto two or more lines.
    Unlike in poetry, which uses line breaks to very deliberate effect, these multi-line monsters are almost always the result of the VN writer just running out of highway and choosing to keep on driving. Whenever possible, you should attempt to restructure such sentences so they don’t break across lines. Often, splitting an overly long sentence into two smaller ones will do the trick. If it resists your best efforts, however, maintain the break and indicate it with ellipses — one at the end of the first line, the other at the beginning of the second.
    How many dots? ALL THE DOTS!
    Another peculiarity of ellipses in Japanese VNs is that they don’t always have three dots. Depending on context and the arbitrary whims of the writer, you’ll typically see anywhere from two to six dots at a time. I’ve even seen 27 in a row once. I think it was a sex scene. Or a fight scene. Maybe both.
    Don’t let this worry you. If you’ve been following my advice, you’ve already purged most of the ellipses from the text. Of those that remain, almost all can be reduced down to familiar three-dot English ellipses. But as always, there’s at least one exception.
    Content-bearing pauses: In most cases, it’s of little concern to us whether an ellipsis consists of three, four, five, or even six dots. They’re all slight variations on the standard pause, but since English punctuation doesn’t make any such distinction, neither will we. An exception comes when the length of a pause not only adds flavor, but provides content. Consider the case of an ever-lengthening silence:
    The lengthening of the line suggests the passing of increasing amounts of time; the scene isn’t the same without it. Or consider an explosive outburst after a deafening silence:
    If you opt to stretch out an ellipsis like this, only do so in increments of three. If you’re musically inclined, think of three dots as a quarter note, six dots as a half note, etc., each one holding the silence just a bit longer than the last. Following the rule of threes keeps the text visually streamlined and helps if you ever need to convert a bunch of soft ellipses ( “...”) to hard ellipses (“…”) late in the translation process.
    A quick note about spacing
    I opt to keep things simple. If an ellipsis is at the start of a sentence or line, put one space between it and the first word. If it’s anywhere else, use no space before the ellipsis and one space after. If it’s a string of ellipses, it should be an uninterrupted series of dots with no spaces in between.
    There are also differing schools of thought as to whether an ellipsis at the end of a sentence should also be followed by a period, resulting in four dots total. Again, I opt for simplicity here and advise three dots in all cases.
    The mark of the beast
    It’s easy to tell professional translations from fan projects, it’s said; just count the number of dots. While not always true – plenty of slapdash commercial releases exist in the wild — there’s definitely something to this. More often than not, fewer ellipses are a sign that someone has taken the time to not just translate a text word for word, but thoughtfully localize it.
    Seriously, just dump the dots, folks. Your readers will thank you for it.
  23. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Arcadeotic for a blog entry, The Best Eroge Ever   
    Let's find out then, because I have way too much time to waste to do something ACTUALLY useful, and thus we arrive at this point, with a brand-new mistake I can lament about when I eventually get ripped apart by a group of ravenous 12-year old, overly sexually active fuccboi-weebs who can't see a difference between the totally obviously right opinion and their own.
    Anyways,

    It already seems like the greatest thing ever seen by man
     
    I remember when I played Kusoge. I also remember the gallons of dead cells I vomited and the amounts of fecal matter I 'outsourced' after I finished that, well, shit. Now I'm experiencing that joy and masochistic heaven again. Goody.
    But still, The Best Eroge Ever, or TBEE, which I'm going to adress it in the future because writing words are hard, is created by our very own omnipotent shitlord, hipster and Twitter connoseur, Moogy. And oh boy, did he do good. Where as Kusoge was a satire with actual effort put into it for god know what reason, TBEE is just a pile of flaming poop used as ammo for the hate- and sick-burn-catapultsTM for all things in the VN medium. From Jun Maeda to Nasu to Japanese culture (sort of. Melon bread and shit. I have no idea).

    Yeah. The game's pretty ruthless and it's funnier that way.
     
    The game follows some guy named Muugi, who's name totally doesn't reek of nihilism, who attends at Sugoi Gakuen (TL Note: Sugoi Gakuen means 'Amazing' and 'School' respectively). Nothing else is really built upon the character, except that he enjoys the lifestyle of screwing every shoujo (TL Note: stuff means girl, oki?) in sight. Apparently, every morning going to school, he fucks about five to six nekomimis or whatever along the way, so he has to leave to school an hour early, probably a pan (TLN: bread, you dirty weeb) in his mouth, possibly of the meron type. His parents also were killed by evil vampire demon zombies, so that's a thing. He also has some amounts of imoutos (little sisters), osananajimis (childhood friends), iinchous (class represetatives) and lolis (NO), possibly amounting in thousands each, but the largest we see is the MC mentioning Loli #71, but apparently there's over 9000 heroines and the script is over 5000 MBs. We never see more than 5 minutes worth of text, possibly amounting to 2 kBs, but hey, it's there.

    No words left to give. I'm pretty tired. FeelsBadMan
     
    All in all, I'd say the story is pretty goddamn ridiculous and all over the place, but it's all just a flaming shitstorm-inferno so I guess it's all par to the course. There's some sensei-fucking (meaning a black screen and a text 'And then we fucked.'), some utter pwnaged and fucking every girl in sight, and that's about it for the game. Sorry Moogy, I won't be giving you a hundred bucks.
    If I were to say which one is better, Kusoge or The Best Shitstorm Ever, I'd had to say Kusoge. While this abomination has more references specifically to the VN-scene, Kusoge just has better everything. I'm also pretty sure that this was made while not being high on thousands of different shrooms, which can't be said about Kusoge. This was a nice, maybe 5-10 minutes of wasting my precious life away for the sake of making this shitpost on my blog. Was it worth it? Nah, thanks Narcosis. Was it fun as hell? Well, yes, obviously. Play it and possibly donate 100$ to Moogy-sama.
     
  24. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Clephas for a blog entry, The spirit of an older gamer: Why I play games and why other people play games   
    I've been playing video games more or less constantly for over twenty-five years. 
    That's a very simple statement that holds a surprising amount of meaning, considering how much video games have changed since I first began playing them.
    It began with the NES, for me... with Mario, Luigi, and the ducks.  I shot ducks out of the air, I jumped Mario across gaps and on top of turtles, without ever really understanding what was going on.  As a kid, this was fun, seriously.  Understand, this is the biggest point I am going to try to get across here... the difference between addiction and fun with video games.
    I played rpgs, primarily jrpgs, throughout most of my first ten years as a gamer, starting with Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest), eventually reaching levels of true love with Final Fantasy II and III (IV and VI), Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, and Ogre Battle.  When the era of cd-gaming came, I played D&D dungeon-crawlers on a shitty dos computer setup, and I played every jrpg I could get my hands on, with a lot of shooters, strategy games, and sports games mixed in. 
    Throughout all of that, I was still having fun.  Fun was my reason for continuing (I've always been a story-centric player, so I tended to stick with jrpgs, but I did play a lot of other stuff) and my reason for playing in the first place.
    It was in the PS2 era that I first came to recognize the difference between taking pleasure in playing something and merely being addicted to it.  I picked up FFXI and started playing it on the PS2 (yes, it was possible to play it on the PS2), and for the first time, I knew addiction... for the first time, I poured hour after hour, day after day, into a game that I wasn't having any fun at.
    I was constantly irritated, constantly driven to continue, whether for social reasons (friends I'd made in-game) or simply because I felt like I was 'almost there'. 
    Then, one day, I suddenly looked up and realized... I was immensely depressed and not enjoying anything about the game.  The sense of having wasted my time... sent me into a funk that lasted the better part of a year.  I still played games, but the color seemed to leech out of the screen even as I played them.  I realized that I was seeing bits of FFXI in other games, and that was enough of a reason for me to actively hate them.
    No game hit me this way more than FFXII... because FFXII's battle system is essentially that of FFXI with some tweaks.  Visually, it was a nightmare, and the weak story and characters only made it worse for me.
    Ironically, it was the realization that I honestly didn't trust Squeenix to provide pleasurable games anymore that led me to start playing a lot of the weirder stuff out there... such as Eternal Darkness for the gamecube and the SMT series.  Ultimately, because I'd become very much aware of the difference between pleasure and addiction, I lost interest in games that I would once have jumped onto simply because they were jrpgs or done in a style I found interesting.  I started abusing Gamestop's used game 'seven-day return policy' to demo games, and I slowly but surely came to realize that I honestly and truly hate multiplayer games that aren't played in the same room. 
    I am now an unabashed solo gamer, even outside of VNs.  I won't play most multiplayer games at all, and I hate games where the social element is as or more important than the actual gameplay or story.  Of course, if a game has an interesting concept, I'll try it... but if I feel that sensation I used to get from FFXI, I drop it immediately, cancelling all subscriptions and discarding all related materials without a second thought, even if I paid a good deal of money for them. 
    To be blunt, life is too short to waste on playing something that is merely addictive (this coming from a VN junkie, I know).  That sensation of false social interaction you get from online gaming and the high you get from winning in competitive games is highly addictive... but are you having fun, really? I wonder, how many younger gamers actually know what it is like to enjoy a video game, rather than simply being addicted to one?  This is a question that seriously bothers me, as I saw my young cousin playing Call of Duty (whatever the latest one is) online, unsmiling, for two days straight while we were staying at their place a few months back.  He really, really wasn't enjoying himself.  He was angry, depressed, and frustrated, but I never saw even a hint of a smile when he won, only this vague expression of relief he probably thought was a smile.  Was that relief that his team-mates weren't treating him like a worthless noob or an incompetent, or was it simply because the match was over and he could relax?  I don't know, because I didn't ask.  I know from experience that the difference between addiction and fun is fine enough that most people don't even recognize it is there until they are forced to.
    What are your experiences, gamers of Fuwa?
     
  25. Like
    Deep Blue reacted to Arcadeotic for a blog entry, Bishoujo Mangekyou TL Update 20   
    GLORIOUS SUMMER VACATION

    Anyways, I'm somewhat sad about the lack of progress these past two, three weeks, so sorry 'bout that. But to somehow (not really) make up for it, you guys get an update a day earlier.
    Firstly, no progress on edting/QC/etc., only translation. My break started, but that's not the case for the most, so yeah. I aim the translation to be done in a few weeks, hopefully in one or two, but no promises. It's still rather surprising that I've managed to keep up with my self-proclaimed 'deadline'.
    Secondly, I redesigned the translation site, tell me how you feel about it. I switched the theme to something more 'stylized' and added a bunch of new header pictures. This is probably what the site is gonna look from here to the day Earth turns to dust, so tell me now, if ya want it changed. Hope you like it, nonetheless.
    Here's the update:
    Translation: 7/8 script files finished, 8th script file 16,4% completed (~86%)
    Editing: 9,2%
    QC: 3,1%
    Proofreading: 0%
     
    Till we see again, probably next week.
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