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I just finished Shinigami no Kiss wa Wakare no Aji. And it isn't easy to rate it.

It's rather short VN, with only three routes (with the third being unlockable true route). There is only one choice, that selects the route, so there is no need to repeat the common.

I started with Shizuku's route - she was interesting tsundere-imouto character, but the route felt pretty weird, especially h-scenes, filled with bad hentai cliches :P However there were some nice emotional moments too.

Honoka's route was much better, there was actually some nice love there ;)

However, whole thing felt underdeveloped - there were few locations and characters, and whole world felt rather empty. It was almost as taken out of the conversation Kouhei had with Tsubaki in YMK, when he lamented the fact that, in contrast to eroge, in real life you can't just create world for two people ;) 
Also, I mentioned h-scenes earlier - they, especially in Shizuku's route - were full of hentai cliches, like hero's unlimited stamina ;) or

Spoiler

Bondage with your stepsister? Gimme a break...

And of course Kohaku, main heroine and shinigami HAD to be loli... It was slightly jarring, because especially in true route writers attempted to make nakige. It looks like they decided to take after ONE, Kanon and AIR, but didn't make it to Clannad in their research ;) Mind you, sex scenes weren't nearly as bad as those from Kanon or AIR, but still created some dissonance. (except for Honoka's route, they were sweet and loving there)

// side note:
there is this term for videogames, "ludonarrative dissonance", when gameplay elements in some way don't align with a story or contradict it. Maybe we should apply something similar to h-scenes in VNs? "Ero-narrative dissonance"? ;)
//

If that was all there is to this VN, it would be somewhere between 6.5 - 7 on my scale. Nice art and likeable heroines, but nothing special. However, true route is reedeming quality for this VN. Despite some dissonance created by turing MC-kun into lolicon, it was filled with feelings, and ending managed to squeeze some tears from my eyes. It actually followed KEY formula pretty well.

Spoiler

We even got some miracle involving time-travel at the end ;) And the story of Hiyori sacrificing herself in order to save Makoto by making contract with shinigami, and then Makoto offering his life back for her was really touching.

Translation was pretty good - not overly literal, and without glaring errors.

So, thanks to the true route the final score settles at 7.5/10 (lolicons and siscons can raise it even more for themselves :P ) You may give it a try, it's short. I'd say about 15-20 hours max.


 

Edited by adamstan
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3 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

Hmmm. Interesting thought. I know it happened to me a few times when I suddenly liked some VN when I tried to reread some parts of it after I already finished it. Still, don't know, I don't really feel like that's the case here.

Maybe it has to do with you already knowing where it's going so you notice more of the clever foreshadowing the writers are doing? I still wouldn't want to revisit Extra. Tama's stupid reaction sprites and the bad physical humor are just too much for me. And when you think that the common route is finally finished after the cook-off they add the lacrosse tournament just to annoy you with another anime trope. God I hate Extra. Which makes it even more amazing Alternative managed to make me want to be able to just go back to the innocent world of Extra.

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8 minutes ago, alpacaman said:

Maybe it has to do with you already knowing where it's going so you notice more of the clever foreshadowing the writers are doing?

Hmmm, I don't think it has anything to do with foreshadowing, because even though there's a lot of it, it's not like it appears in every single scene. It was more like, this time the whole VN was just a lot more pleasant to follow than the first time. About expecting where it was going, yeah, this could be the case.

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Just started Root Double a day ago, but... the SSS system seems like a rather pointless interface to replace your traditional dialogue system... so far anyway. I'm informed by the game that the SSS choices will get more complex down the line, but so far, it seems that you could easily avoid Bad Ends by trusting everyone, shifting their "Impression Level" to the max. Seems like a cheap way to earn those social points you would have otherwise earned in Ever17 by picking the correct dialogue option.

And even if later choices require that you not trust Character A or B to avoid a Bad End, it still seems like a rather awkward system where you have little to no idea what the exact context of what the MC is going to do next. I'd much rather see a text choice than make a decision that's so vague and arbitrary.

When I have no context as to the kind of decisions I'm making other than "have more confidence in Person A or Person B," that just seems like a rather poor and shallow decision-making system compared to the traditional VN choices, where I have specific details as to what I'm going to say next.

 

Edited by LemiusK
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To quote my impressions of the choice system when I read Root Double:

On 3.9.2018 at 9:06 PM, alpacaman said:

The only thing that's really annoying me so far is the choice system. Instead of just presenting you with multiple choices there is a mechanic where you pick a value from 0-8 for every character affected by your next action with a higher number meaning you having "higher senses" for them. While sounding interesting in theory it's never quite clear beforehand if having higher senses for someone means trusting them more, caring more for them, having confidence in them or whatever and depending on the situation this can lead to the protagonist doing the opposite of what you wanted him to do. And there are nearly no decisions where you need other values than 1, 4 or 8 to progress, so having such a nuanced system seems like a waste.

Looking back, most of the times the text prior to the choice indicated what a high value would probably mean and the way it works even gets something like an in-universe explanation somewhere down the line but imo it's still worse than just having straight up choices imo. The only thing you can really change by using values other than 1, 4 or 8 is whose character mini-ending you get which amounts to a short scene and a CG, except for one or two decisions.

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29 minutes ago, alpacaman said:

To quote my impressions of the choice system when I read Root Double:

Looking back, most of the times the text prior to the choice indicated what a high value would probably mean and the way it works even gets something like an in-universe explanation somewhere down the line but imo it's still worse than just having straight up choices imo. The only thing you can really change by using values other than 1, 4 or 8 is whose character mini-ending you get which amounts to a short scene and a CG, except for one or two decisions.

Yeah, definitely seems like a poorly thought out and a poorly designed system to me. I think the fact that the player is able to acquire the character mini-ending they want by relying on some numerical value removes the emotional context the player would have experienced if it's a text choice instead. Think about it.

In normal VNs, you pick which "girl route" you want to enter by being nice to that girl. It's almost as shallow, simplistic, and binary as this SSS system. However, there's a fundamental difference - you have textual context behind those choices. You have texts telling you whether if the MC is saying something nice or doing something nice for the girl you want to enter the route of. I think this small difference makes a bigger impact for me personally. It just feels more realistic and organic, like I'm having an actual conversation.

To replace that with an unreliable and unclear choice where I wouldn't even know if I would get this girl's mini-ending or not, it's just awkward and almost makes me unsatisfied even if I do get the ending. Feels like I only got the ending by sheer luck, not because I made a conscious decision. Bad Ends become even more meaningless in this game when you're also relying on sheer luck to determine your MC avoids a nasty fate. It feels unrealistic to make a life-and-death situation with such an arbitrary decision.

I understand that the SSS system of Root Double also has context behind its choices - the context being whether if you trust Character A/B or not - but the problem is, it's a very unreliable context. As alpacaman has indicated,

On 9/4/2018 at 3:06 AM, alpacaman said:

it's never quite clear beforehand if having higher senses for someone means trusting them more, caring more for them, having confidence in them or whatever and depending on the situation this can lead to the protagonist doing the opposite of what you wanted him to do. 

It's a very vague context, and causes more problems than it solves.

VNs with dialogue choices can already be difficult to design, because sometimes, even with texts and dialogue, the choices are STILL unclear to the player! Think about it. How many times in VNs, you pick a dialogue choice, and the characters you're talking to react differently than what you would expect? People in real life already have a tough enough time trying to figure out the context of each other's words without entering some misunderstanding, so to blur that line even further with such an obtuse decision-making system, it just seems impractical.

Edited by LemiusK
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Quite a lot of page that we got here (At 600 pages). Anyway, as for the topic currently I'm already finished with Hatsukoi Sankaime Yurino's route who is Taichi's (The MC) crush. By the way Yurino here is rich girl/ojousama character), and compared to Emilia's route there's no main story because it's mostly just tell of how Yurino's learn of how to open herself to communicate her feeling to Taichi, moreso because of her route problem was stemming up from the lack of communication. Also while I'm at Sankaime here, I did find that Togawa here was very bland as MC's male character friend because we didn't even know some of his life story, which is quite contrast seeing that in many VNs we did know of what male best friend characters interest are, although I may be too hasty on Togawa here seeing that I just managed to finished two routes here. As for the next route, I'll play Sui's route in which she's Taichi's little sister by blood.

PS - As for Yurino's seiyuu, compared to Momoi Ichigo who voiced Emilia her CV was still little so more or less she's newcomer eroge seiyuu. That said, if you like Kirikoi you should recognize her role as Princess Sylvia (Her long name is too mouthful lol).

Edited by littleshogun
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I agree with the sentiment on Root Double. It's one of those situations where you can clearly tell the wanted to do something cool and interesting, but the reason people stick to a choice system is because trying to get funky tends to fail. The obvious desire is to create a more diverse system of choices, but until we create free thinking AI, the choice will always be binary. 

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8 hours ago, Thyndd said:

It might've been the translation, it might've been the fact that you were already emotionally invested in the characters the second time around, it might've been that the first time you just were not in the right mood for it, or you know, some combination of all these factors. If you ask me, for me the most relevant would be the latter mentioned. I've lost track on how many times I've watched or read something that had a great impact on me the first time only to find it interesting at best the second time, or viceversa. Experiencing something just on the right time, with the right mindset, could mean a world of difference. At least for me, that is :yumiko::leecher:

It's true that this can be chalked up to a large variety of factors, but it's also true that the translation is dramatically better in just about every conceivable way. I had a similar experience. Degica's Muv Luv Extra made me laugh several times an hour while I maybe laughed once or twice the entire time reading Ixrec's Muv Luv. Translation is strange in the way it can have huge effects on how readers react to a work in ways that are completely invisible to the reader. Oftentimes when reading a substandard translation, the reader will enjoy themselves less without ever realizing why, or that the translation is substandard. That's one of the reasons translation quality is so important, even for people who only care if "they can understand what's happening."

 

ANYWAY, I've been reading Re;Lord lately. It's surprisingly good, as long as you can tolerate a terrible protagonist who is meant to be laughed at instead of related to. It's just good dumb fun, and probably one of SP's best-translated games, in all honesty. It's a little short and very much an incomplete story (with part two coming out eventually, hopefully soon), but I recommend giving it a shot.

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4 minutes ago, Decay said:

It's true that this can be chalked up to a large variety of factors, but it's also true that the translation is dramatically better in just about every conceivable way. I had a similar experience. Degica's Muv Luv Extra made me laugh several times an hour while I maybe laughed once or twice the entire time reading Ixrec's Muv Luv. Translation is strange in the way it can have huge effects on how readers react to a work in ways that are completely invisible to the reader. Oftentimes when reading a substandard translation, the reader will enjoy themselves less without ever realizing why, or that the translation is substandard. That's one of the reasons translation quality is so important, even for people who only care if "they can understand what's happening."

Yeah, I have to agree. And as Dreamysyu was saying, translation quality is all the more noticeable when it comes to comedy. When you think about it, translation is all about meaning and form. A decent translation will preserve the meaning, while a great translation will also word the message in a way that a native speaker finds compelling and suited to the context. 

Comedy is all about form. Trying to make comedy out of meaning alone is like trying to make people laugh by explaining why a joke is supposed to be funny. It's no big surprise then that this is when translation quality shines the most.

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Been reading Princess Evangile.

One thing that really stands out are the jealousy skits :wahaha:

Already completed 2 routes. My thoughts.....

* Ayaka.

Spoiler

For a woman which has curves for days, she somehow manages to be cute looking too! I love her playful nature too. Most of her hentai CGs are awesome too.

* Ritsuko.

Spoiler

Man, her voice is so calm (she sounds similar to Sachi from Grisaia ....... but the difference was, Sachi was a real banshee in her erotic scenes).

Her route had a lot of drama. The headmistress is a real bitch.....

 

Started Chiho's route. This seems to be the "childhood friend/love triangle route". Which probably equals tons of drama and jealousy skits....

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Well, they say that it's best to read Ayaka after Ritsuko - there are some minor spoilers for Ritsuko in Ayaka's route. Also, Ayaka's route is the one that explains headmistress' behaviour. But it isn't that big issue. I went with Rise > Chiho > Ritsuko > Ayaka. But saving Rise for last may be good too - if you like her. (I did, but some apparently don't)

26 minutes ago, r0xm2n said:

the jealousy skits :wahaha:

Yeah :D Ritsuko hiding behind potted plant in cafeteria was absolutely hilarious :wahaha:

Spoiler

hqdefault.jpg

I think Chiho's route was the weakest (but not bad), however I loved her epilogue.

Edited by adamstan
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And finally, Yumiko's AS (and also my final AS) comes to an end in "The Labyrinth of Grisaia". I definitely have mixed feelings towards it. On one hand, it's a very fitting ending where 

Spoiler

all the heroines you've come to love come together for one comedic feel-good finish. It's sappy and heartwarming, and shows the happiness these characters have while spending time with each other.

On the other hand, it's way too fitting for an ensemble cast story, almost to the point of being generic. It feels like the typical ending you'd see in anime with a large diverse cast of characters. Much like the rest of Yumiko's route, her ending is so predictable and lacks any interesting variety. There's even a

Spoiler

fireworks display!

That said, it's not a bad ending, and as I've said in my blog post regarding the parallels of Michiru and Yumiko, her route almost felt like an improved version of Michiru's route. She still gets made fun of at her expense, but she also grows as a person at the same time, which Michiru didn't. There's a mix of comedy and slice-of-life drama, so it's very balanced. Furthermore, both of them also

Spoiler

had their dating plans ruined, albeit through different methods. But for Yumiko, she actually admitted that she had fun in spite of the plans being ruined. Michiru, on the other hand, just seemed to be constantly whining even 'till the post-credit scene that "This wasn't the date she had imagined."

Such a tragic difference that makes Michiru's character look that much worse, and Yumiko's character that much better. Sigh. Oh well.

Anyway, enough of lamenting over things we can't change - time for the Grand Route, The Caprice of Mayu!

Edited by LemiusK
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Things are finally picking up in Aoishiro for me. I know I complained about its infodumping in my blog, but... I guess the story does require a bit of tolerance before the 'good stuff' happens. That said, there's still quite a lot of Japanese jargon I have no understanding of, but by this point, I'm pretty much skimping through such texts, ignoring the context or meaning behind them. Can't do anything about it.

Reached a bad ending just now, and after looking at the flowchart, I noticed that the routes are designed in such a way that even trivial decisions like whether to return AFTER you chose to chase someone can lead you to a result that's entirely different from if you chose not to chase him to begin with during the first decision, or if you chose to keep chasing him. It's fascinating how intricate the branching of Aoishiro is, and this leaves me impressed. I haven't seen this complex of a branching route since School Days, or maybe Shibuya Scramble. Not bad. Very realistic.

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4 hours ago, ciel_yuri said:

Do you like it? I have it on Steam for some reason, but I think it's the all ages version. I wonder if I should even bother with this one.

 

I liked PE very much, it is near the top of my VN list, with score of 8.5 :)

I plan to reread all-ages version some day, as I bought it on Steam too. 

All-ages version is direct port of console version, with some replacement content for h-scenes. (that's why, unlike with the fandisc, there's no +18 patch from Mangagamer, as the versions differ too much). I think it should be good in this version too - while h-scenes were actually quite nice in this VN, not showing them shouldn't harm the story, assuming it's only the actual sex-scene being cut, like in Sanoba Witch.

But if you don't like moeges or anything close to them - obviously don't bother with it, as it is just sweet romance story.

Edited by Dergonu
Arrrr'
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4 hours ago, adamstan said:

 

I liked PE very much, it is near the top of my VN list, with score of 8.5 :)

I plan to reread all-ages version some day, as I bought it on Steam too. 

All-ages version is direct port of console version, with some replacement content for h-scenes. (that's why, unlike with the fandisc, there's no +18 patch from Mangagamer, as the versions differ too much). I think it should be good in this version too - while h-scenes were actually quite nice in this VN, not showing them shouldn't harm the story, assuming it's only the actual sex-scene being cut, like in Sanoba Witch.

But if you don't like moeges or anything close to them - obviously don't bother with it, as it is just sweet romance story.

I actually got mine in that humble bundle deal awhile back. I guess I didn't really pay enough attention, because I was kinda disappointed that I ended up with a few all ages versions. That really doesn't sound too bad though. When it's just removing scenes there's not much incentive, but if the new scenes are any good I might even prefer this version. (I just hate how some VNs the H scenes feel so random and kinda tacked on.) Thank you though. I think I'll definitely give it a shot. ^_^

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I haven't read that version yet, so I don't know how much new content is there, and where is it placed.

I just rely on descriptions from VNDB:
for PSP release: " Contains new CGs and improved graphics. "
for all-ages PC release: " Contains improved graphics and additional CGs from PSP version. "

BTW, it seems that adult version is currently on sale at Mangagamer, being almost 50% off, going for $25 instead of regular $45.

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3 hours ago, ciel_yuri said:

I actually got mine in that humble bundle deal awhile back. I guess I didn't really pay enough attention, because I was kinda disappointed that I ended up with a few all ages versions. That really doesn't sound too bad though. When it's just removing scenes there's not much incentive, but if the new scenes are any good I might even prefer this version. (I just hate how some VNs the H scenes feel so random and kinda tacked on.) Thank you though. I think I'll definitely give it a shot. ^_^

For what it's worth I'm a really big PE fan, got the VN during the Humble Bundle sale, and read the all ages version. I haven't yet read the 18+ release yet but the all ages release didn't feel like it was missing anything and I didn't feel like it was cut, or frankly even notice the edits. Like adamstan said, if you do want to read the 18+ version it's on sale so may as well get it while it's discounted, but I don't think there'd be as drastic a difference between the releases to the point where one is clearly superior over the other. IMO it'd definitely be worth a read if you like the premise, and it's my third favorite VN (I'd give it a 9 out of 10). 

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I hate to beat a dead horse but... after barely making through my second Bad End in Root Double, my feeling that this SSS system is clunky is further reinforced than before. During that moment that 

Spoiler

Kazami suddenly knocked Watase against the wall for acting like a reckless goof, Watase had claimed that he wanted to "protect her," which was why he recklessly grabbed the fire hose instead of letting her do her job. 

And that made me wonder if I had messed up somewhere with my previous choice, because that was definitely not my intention during that previous SSS choice.

And through trial and error, I did eventually discover that it was indeed my mistake. Because the system is so vague and uninformative, I had accidentally maxed out Kazami's senses bar because I thought it meant that Watase would put his trust in her, since that seemed to be what "maxing out the senses bar" seemed to do earlier on in the game. Now the game is telling me "maxing it out" means something completely different, and this led to Kazami calling me out as 

Spoiler

an arrogant chauvinist male trying to protect Kazami because she's a woman

which just felt totally unsatisfying and frustrating, because it's not what I had intended, and it's as if I have no control at all over the protagonist's actions, unable to prevent him from acting like an idiot.

This wasn't the first time the SSS has led me to a random result so far, and if the rest of the game is like that, I'm afraid I would definitely have to leave a negative review for it at its Steam page. It's not some unrelated issue like translating error (which can be blamed on the translators, not the developers); it's a gameplay issue that has to do with the design.

So, I guess I might as well just follow the walkthrough. I usually really, really hate using a walkthrough for VNs, because I like making dialogue choices by myself, but in this case, with how broken the choices are, I think I have no other option. Otherwise, the rest of the game will be filled with similarly unpleasant surprises.

Anyway, following the walkthrough means that all the decision-making process is pointless, since I would already know what is the "correct" choice to make. It will make my reading experience much more mundane and mediocre, but oh well.

Edited by LemiusK
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3 hours ago, snowbell55 said:

For what it's worth I'm a really big PE fan, got the VN during the Humble Bundle sale, and read the all ages version. I haven't yet read the 18+ release yet but the all ages release didn't feel like it was missing anything and I didn't feel like it was cut, or frankly even notice the edits. Like adamstan said, if you do want to read the 18+ version it's on sale so may as well get it while it's discounted, but I don't think there'd be as drastic a difference between the releases to the point where one is clearly superior over the other. IMO it'd definitely be worth a read if you like the premise, and it's my third favorite VN (I'd give it a 9 out of 10). 

Wow, you guys are getting me pretty excited to read this. I thought it looked fun, but for some reason I didn't think it was supposed to be very good. I'll probably start this next once I can finish something else.

I've been jumping back and forth between so many things that soon I should be finishing a lot of stuff. I'll report back soon.

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3 hours ago, LemiusK said:

I hate to beat a dead horse but... after barely making through my second Bad End in Root Double, my feeling that this SSS system is clunky is further reinforced than before. During that moment that 

  Reveal hidden contents

Kazami suddenly knocked Watase against the wall for acting like a reckless goof, Watase had claimed that he wanted to "protect her," which was why he recklessly grabbed the fire hose instead of letting her do her job. 

And that made me wonder if I had messed up somewhere with my previous choice, because that was definitely not my intention during that previous SSS choice.

And through trial and error, I did eventually discover that it was indeed my mistake. Because the system is so vague and uninformative, I had accidentally maxed out Kazami's senses bar because I thought it meant that Watase would put his trust in her, since that seemed to be what "maxing out the senses bar" seemed to do earlier on in the game. Now the game is telling me "maxing it out" means something completely different, and this led to Kazami calling me out as 

  Reveal hidden contents

an arrogant chauvinist male trying to protect Kazami because she's a woman

which just felt totally unsatisfying and frustrating, because it's not what I had intended, and it's as if I have no control at all over the protagonist's actions, unable to prevent him from acting like an idiot.

This wasn't the first time the SSS has led me to a random result so far, and if the rest of the game is like that, I'm afraid I would definitely have to leave a negative review for it at its Steam page. It's not some unrelated issue like translating error (which can be blamed on the translators, not the developers); it's a gameplay issue that has to do with the design.

So, I guess I might as well just follow the walkthrough. I usually really, really hate using a walkthrough for VNs, because I like making dialogue choices by myself, but in this case, with how broken the choices are, I think I have no other option. Otherwise, the rest of the game will be filled with similarly unpleasant surprises.

Anyway, following the walkthrough means that all the decision-making process is pointless, since I would already know what is the "correct" choice to make. It will make my reading experience much more mundane and mediocre, but oh well.

Yeah, the SSS system is a mess. There are way too many options available to the player (why do they give like nine settings per character??) with no indication on what any of them actually imply at the various branch points in the story. I don't have too much of a problem with inadvertently hitting bad ends, but in Root Double, getting the good ends requires way too much trial and error. I resorted to a walkthrough after running into the same situation you posted about with Kazami.

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8 hours ago, LemiusK said:

Anyway, following the walkthrough means that all the decision-making process is pointless, since I would already know what is the "correct" choice to make. It will make my reading experience much more mundane and mediocre, but oh well.

Which walkthrough are you following? The steam walkthrough has a few missing choices so it's best if you proceed with caution. As for the SSS system, yeah it's irritating but don't let it get to you too much since the story's pretty good.

Edited by wei123
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1 hour ago, wei123 said:

Which walkthrough are you following? The steam walkthrough has a few missing choices so it's best if you proceed with caution.

I'm following the Fuwanovel one.

 

1 hour ago, wei123 said:

As for the SSS system, yeah it's irritating but don't let it get to you too much since the story's pretty good.

Yeah, I know that the writer for Ever17 wrote this or something, which is the only reason why I'm still giving it a chance instead of dropping it. That being said, even Ever17 didn't exactly grab me as much as much better written stories with better pacing like Umineko or Fate/Stay Night (or even Grisaia for that matter), especially when you consider the criticisms I've posted earlier (regarding Sora's route in particular), and honestly, Root Double's story isn't that exciting either so far (and I'm starting with Root After too). Furthermore, I read that the final route is 90% flashback or something with repeated storyline... yeah, not having a good feeling about the story.

Edited by LemiusK
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