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HoshiMemo review discussion


Fred the Barber

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On top of this, Leyline also had unTLed lines in the localized version. Do they even QC their games? I bought Grisaia no Rakuen because I love that series, but I won't be buying any more games released by SP until they fix their crap. This is just not acceptable quality from a professional localization company.

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Thanks for this review. I've heard that HoshiMemo was released in a poor state, but I had no idea it was this bad.

I understand from your blog that you have some experience in the translation / editing business, Fred, so I'd like to pick your brain on this.

How does this even happen? I was under the impression Sekai Project is a professional company so it boggles my mind how something can be released in this state without anyone noticing. Is it a total lack of QCers, hiring incompetent editors, lacking a proper budget or what? I can understand a sub-par translation but not one that is blatantly incorrect with untranslated lines.

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While I'm fairly tolerant with translation quality, untranslated lines is something that really shouldn't happen. I think the last time I saw that was the My Girlfriend is the President fandisc. The thing that's pissing me off about untranslated lines is that it indicates that there was neither an editor nor a simple proof reader - it's pure laziness. Makes me wonder if the new translation is really better than the old one - at least that one didn't have untranslated lines. <_<

And nice that you finally found a moege you don't like too. ^_^

Personally I liked Hoshimem (loved the twins and Mare), but it's also years ago that I read it and it certainly had its fair share of issues too. Though most of the criticism about the bland routes would also apply to Chrono Clock (with the exception of Makoto's route maybe). But that's the thing with moeges - everything depends on if you like the characters.

Edited by ChaosRaven
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7 minutes ago, Zander said:

How does this even happen? I was under the impression Sekai Project is a professional company so it boggles my mind how something can be released in this state without anyone noticing. Is it a total lack of QCers, hiring incompetent editors, lacking a proper budget or what? I can understand a sub-par translation but not one that is blatantly incorrect with untranslated lines.

These kinds of questions are generally really hard to answer unless you're intimately involved with the project, or at least the company, which I'm not. I will say that localization is really hard in general, and that in cases like this, it's usually a combination of many things going wrong, rather than something you can lay on any one individual's shoulders. One thing you learn from professionally doing pretty much anything is that you're better off blaming processes, rather than individuals. Sekai Project's localization process wasn't working very well in this case, which could have led to this kind of result through any number of avenues. Some of the possible things that could have resulted in include:

  • insufficient time given to individuals to complete their work (I would guess this is the most common contributor to game localizations gone awry in general)
  • insufficiently experienced individuals working on the project (probably the second-most common)
  • insufficient oversight and checking of individuals' work (because everybody makes mistakes, so you need enough checks and balances across the board to keep things in line)
  • too many people working on the project without enough centralized decision-making power to steer it in the right direction

And probably there are tons of other things I'm not thinking of. I have no way to know if some or any of these are applicable to this particular case, but probably.

The money is probably a big part of explaining the root cause for these problems. It's easy to look at the HoshiMemo Kickstarter numbers and assert that SP must have made tons of money, but a pretty huge portion of their actual take from Kickstarter funds goes towards paying for the goods. For the remainder, well, localization takes a whole lot of people a whole lot of time. Most of the people doing translation and editing work on visual novels (and probably other roles as well, though I'm less familiar with them) are making somewhere in the ballpark of minimum wage, or less, in spite of it being a highly skilled profession.

Evan (lead translator for Muv Luv) had good comments on this topic (click through for a couple more replies closer to the "what could have gone wrong" question):

 

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28 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

While I'm fairly tolerant with translation quality, untranslated lines is something that really shouldn't happen. I think the last time I saw that was the My Girlfriend is the President fandisc. The thing that's pissing me off about untranslated lines is that it indicates that there was neither an editor nor a simple proof reader - it's pure laziness. Makes me wonder if the new translation is really better than the old one - at least that one didn't have untranslated lines. <_<

And nice that you finally found a moege you don't like too. ^_^

Personally I liked Hoshimem (loved the twins and Mare), but it's also years ago that I read it and it certainly had its fair share of issues too. Though most of the criticism about the bland routes would also apply to Chrono Clock (with the exception of Makoto's route maybe). But that's the thing with moeges - everything depends on if you like the characters.

Yea It's kinda easy to see the bias in his review though I very much agree with the disaster of the translation. 

 

The worst part is that they had a decent amount of time to translate and check. Untranslated lines should be the easiest to spot.

I speculate ( and this is pure speculation) that they are just trying to take on too many projects at once. While they try to be professional they are still a relatively small company so I'm guessing they didn't manage their time and resources and too on too many projects at once. Which is purely their fault.

 

If there's any consolation they did release an apology 

Hopefully they will fix this and learn from their mistakes....Definitely lost some faith 

 

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10 minutes ago, iamnoob said:

Yea It's kinda easy to see the bias in his review though I very much agree with the disaster of the translation.

Not meaning to jump on you here, but the word "bias" concerns me. Do you just mean I had something against the game? The game definitely just didn't work for me, which is certainly a big part of how the final rating shook out, and probably always will be for a moege, like ChaosRaven said, so if that's all you mean, that's totally fair. Just concerned that maybe you mean I was somehow unfair in the review, which I don't think I was. Personally, I think there's a lot of objectivity in the review, but I'll also be the first to admit that there's a lot of subjectivity as well; but I don't think any of it is unfair, per se. For what it's worth, I was honestly looking forward to playing this, going into it, so I don't think I brought any negativity to the table when I started it, but... well, you see how things panned out, at least.

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Problems like this almost always point to a management issue of some kind.  Sekai Project released 2 games that clearly weren't ready on the same day.  Then they released a third game like a week later.  Clearly they rushed these out, so they could get them out by the end of the year.  That's a management decision.

There could be a lot of reasons for this.  We've seen a lot of evidence that Sekai Project struggles with the day-to-day realities of running a company.  Their public communication leaves something to be desired.  They seem to have trouble juggling the huge number of projects that they're working on; many have experienced huge delays from their original projected timelines.

I suspect the root problem is that they're trying to juggle too many balls and are having trouble keeping them in the air.  And they haven't got enough pairs of eyes to keep on them.  Dovac's comments about untranslated lines in Leyline are telling.  It doesn't take six months to find untranslated lines and fix them.  (And yes, I write code for a living.)  It takes at most a few weeks to write a tool to generate a report with all the missing lines.  Then at most another 2 weeks (if that!) to get everything translated and a new build into QA again.

A good project manager would know that.  Sekai Project is managing so many different projects that they need a project manager.  These debacles tell me they probably haven't got one.  As for HoshiMemo's translation problems, that probably boils down to the choice of translator and editor.  Whoever was in charge of the project put people on it that shouldn't have been on it.  There could be any number of reasons for that.  Perhaps they didn't do a thorough enough job vetting them.  Perhaps this was the best they could do because all the good people were booked on other projects.  We don't know, and they won't say.

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I actually bought this VN 2 days ago.

 

Compared to the fan translation, is it bad? Should i actually ask for a refund?

 

I havent touched it yet, but i heard SP has promised to fix the typos and untranslated lines with a patch, do you guys know if they are usually good on their word?

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Pretty much expected from Sekai Project if you read comments on their different kickstarters. Sekai Project just seem to lack control of their projects and most are a mess in one way or another. These problems are things like poor communication with developers and kickstarter backers, long delays with physicals because it seems they have no clue how to get that done it time, making promises they have problems keeping like PS Vita ports, long delays for translation and now we can add poor translations with lack of quility control to the list. From what I can see Sekai Project is just a small disorganized company that takes on a lot more projects than what they can handle. It honestly just seems like they are an amataur group that had some good sales and good sucesses in the start by luck and as such have goten many titles even though they clearly aren't capable of handeling them.

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7 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

While I'm fairly tolerant with translation quality, untranslated lines is something that really shouldn't happen. I think the last time I saw that was the My Girlfriend is the President fandisc...

Did JAST ever fix that problem with untranslated lines in the fandisc?

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"The lowest-quality professional translation I saw this year" - Fred the Barber, 3th of January 2018

I will take this as a warning to not buy the game. Even though I'm not convinced I would not like the story and SP seemed to notice this quality just won't do,  I don't think I've ever heard about a VN translation being seriously fixed after this kind of shitty launch. Even if they correct the untranslated lines and some most obviously messed up ones, it will still be crappy forever... 

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1 hour ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

I will take this as a warning to not buy the game. Even though I'm not convinced I would not like the story and SP seemed to notice this quality just won't do,  I don't think I've ever heard about a VN translation being seriously fixed after this kind of shitty launch. Even if they correct the untranslated lines and some most obviously messed up ones, it will still be crappy forever... 

Pretty sure Libra is being retranslated so I gues that would be an example. Ofc it is not out yet so don't know about the quality, but seems like they are doing a complete overhaul.

Edited by bakauchuujin
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54 minutes ago, bakauchuujin said:

Pretty sure Libra is being retranslated so I gues that would be an example. Ofc it is not out yet so don't know about the quality, but seems like they are doing a complete overhaul.

Oooooh, ok, I guess I had even less faith in the publishers than they deserved. I would really love to see Libra fixed, really want to play it and Dergonu's warnings drove me away from buying it.

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To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Hoshimemo. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of creative writing most of the lines will go over a typical reader's head. There’s also Chuee's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into the characterisation of the heroines- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Leyline, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these lines, to realise that they’re not just badly written - they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Hoshimemo's Translation truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the deepness in the narrator's existential catchphrase “Mare's face is instantly shrouds in a hue of weariness,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Fred's favourite VN Karakara 2 (which he gave a 5/5, mind you). I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Chuee’s genius wit unfolds itself on their PC screens. What fools.. how I pity them.  And yes, by the way, i DO have a Hoshimemo tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for the waifus’ eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they’re within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 

Edited by Barry Benson
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31 minutes ago, Barry Benson said:

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Hoshimemo. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of creative writing most of the lines will go over a typical reader's head. There’s also Chuee's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into the characterisation of the heroines- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Leyline, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these lines, to realise that they’re not just badly written - they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Hoshimemo's Translation truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the deepness in the narrator's existential catchphrase “Mare's face is instantly shrouds in a hue of weariness,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Fred's favourite VN Karakara 2 (which he gave a 5/5, mind you). I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Chuee’s genius wit unfolds itself on their PC screens. What fools.. how I pity them.  And yes, by the way, i DO have a Hoshimemo tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for the waifus’ eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they’re within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 

Here come the memes

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58 minutes ago, Barry Benson said:

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Hoshimemo. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of creative writing most of the lines will go over a typical reader's head. There’s also Chuee's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into the characterisation of the heroines- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Leyline, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these lines, to realise that they’re not just badly written - they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Hoshimemo's Translation truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the deepness in the narrator's existential catchphrase “Mare's face is instantly shrouds in a hue of weariness,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Fred's favourite VN Karakara 2 (which he gave a 5/5, mind you). I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Chuee’s genius wit unfolds itself on their PC screens. What fools.. how I pity them.  And yes, by the way, i DO have a Hoshimemo tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for the waifus’ eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they’re within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 

What the heck did i just read?

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@Stormwolf Just ignore him and treat his (Barry Benson) post as the spam if I may suggest something

Anyway, as for this review I can't help but wonder whether Fuwanovel here dislike Hoshimemo for personal reason, because I find it that two of the reviews here gave the bad score. Although in the end, it's up to each people though to like it or not so it's not like I could say much about it (Or ban Fred if I'm the moderator here). Oh, and thanks for indirectly supporting my opinion that this release was super redundant there lol, because at least the fan translated version should have all the lines translated.

PS - By the way, according to one post that I'd read, Akerou himself was Germany so at least Fred was right in regard of the translator was non-native English speaker.

Edited by littleshogun
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