Yeah, it seems like everyone knows Japanese ;)
Yeah, that’s the whole script including all paths, good and bad endings, extras and whatnot.
But is the repetition significant? I mean, take FSN, it has the three paths but I think they diverge completely. Are there scenes that repeat between the three?
And in general, if a scene is exactly repeated between paths doesn’t it make sense to just index it and replay instead of pasting it all over the game?
You’d be surprised. Many games that boast multiple heroines/story lines actually share 80% of the same scenes.
Even Fate has an overlap of 15-20% or so, and Fate is definitely one of the exceptions to the traditional Visual Novel formula.
I’ve worked on a number of game scripts in the past as a past life as a translator and depending on the script engine used it can be properly indexed and only used once in the actual game script while in others you’ll see the same lines being repeated across the different paths so it’s hard to generalize based on just this information.
Repetition in Baldr Force .EXE was definitely significant. I took a look at the raw text to judge how much work translating it would be (answer: more than I was willing to put in!), and there were a lot of duplicate entries for slight variations down the same path.
And thanks for mentioning Baldr Sky, Thasero. I may need to look that one up; I really did like .EXE. At least the bits that didn’t have horribly creepy sexual nastiness in them.
Yeah, I should probably stop and note for everyone following along at home that “awesome branching storyline coolness” is only a feature for visual novels that are actually good. The average visual novel is average, which the thesaurus reminds us also means “mediocre”.
The nice thing is that there’s a tendency to have an introductory section where all of the character introductions and world-lore are filled in for you. Fate/Stay Night’s 15-20% overlap definitely falls in that category; you meet Shirou, his friends, his enemies, his magical minion, etc. Then you troop off to a church where the plot slows down to molasses as a character viciously smites Our Hero in the noggin with a Warhammer of Plot Exposition +3. But that’s OK, because you have the visual novel standard feature where you can fast forward through text automatically once you’ve read it once, and for the entire rest of the visual novel you will already know the lore and all of the “rules” of the magical mischief. The other 80% of the novel is what you actually spend time on after the first playthrough.
For other VNs, it can vary as to how much is on the “trunk” and how much is on the “branches” of the storyline. Sometimes the only difference is which character gets kidnapped by the villain and must be rescued at the end of the story. This is one of the reasons it’s a good idea to check out reviews before picking up a VN, since “6 story routes and eleventy-three endings!” can be a bullet point on the box even if the only real difference is the denouement.
malkav11: Sorry, but yeah, you’re out of luck. =/ English fan translations do happen, but they also take a long time. Baldr Sky has been released in Japanese only in the past two years so there’s no fan translation. A quick search says that the previous games in the series don’t have patches either, although it might be that my Google-fu is weak.
Anyone passionate about games should learn Japanese anyway. There are tons of gems that never get translated (in general, not just the VN genre).
Besides, learning a new, completely different kind of language is a really rewarding experience in itself.
</derail>
Well I just “played” umineko to the most recently translated episode and I think it was a very interesting experience. I really pulled me in and I put off watching some tv shows and playing other games I had been really enjoying.
Now when I was just reading a “normal” book I caught myself thinking how awesome it would be if that book had a built in soundtrack to intensify the atmosphere and not leave everything to my imagination.
I would advise anyone who likes to read a book or two to give a VN a shot.
This and the other thread.
Bump to point out that YU-NO english translation + full voice patch is out.
This is relevant because, while this VN is old, in Japan is still considered today the best ever released in the genre. From what I heard because of plot and a very good ending (it’s also one of the longest, 44 hours on average to complete).
The VN in the second place is Steins;Gate, and the english patch is almost done. The translation is complete and already available, but it’s waiting for a pass of polish and editing.
Anyone here been following Katawa Shoujo? Dating sim set in a school for the disabled and started on 4chan? I haven’t been aware of it for long, though checked out the Act 1 preview and this comment from YouTube summed up my thoughts
Anyway, it was started back in 2000 apparently (though it looks like the real work started in 2007) and it’s coming out 4th Jan 2012. Finally.
Ah, found a blog post covering the history of the project - Katawa Shoujo Dev Blog: A Long History of Katawa Shoujo
An ancient project based on a doodle from over a decade ago that is finally reaching completion. I may or may not have been waiting to see what would become of it for years, especially given the outlandishness of the original concept and the generally questionable intentions and abilities of typical 4channers.
The demo certainly demonstrated that this was going to end up a much classier production than I’d anticipated.
Steins;Gate is a nice genre piece. It wouldn’t, say, shake anyone’s world.
I finished Yu-No using the English patch two months ago, so here’s a review, for HRose at least. Keep in mind that I have spent more time researching the history of visual novels than actually reading them, and I’m still learning Japanese, so much of my VN knowledge is obtained from Chinese sources.
I think it’s something that has more historic value than actual merit, more youthful ambition than realized potential. The problem arises when a site like Hardcore Gaming 101 run a gushing Yu-No article that oversells it, praising it as something it isn’t. I fear it may give people the wrong impression.
As I said, this is clearly the work of an ambitious young writer who still hasn’t fully mastered the craft of writing, and judging from the reputation of his later works, probably never did. The overall ideas, and some portions of the story do shine, but between them are large parts of generic writing, without much character or color. It’s a good thing the voice acting is so great it elevates the script (except for the eponymous character, who gets the usual nails-on-chalkboard voice), because otherwise these bland parts would be difficult to wader through. I can’t say the big ideas are effectively presented, or seriously examined, either.
One idea Yu-No used to impress people - the A.D.M.S. system, supposedly a roadmap of parallel universes, is also not as rigorous as the story claims. There are pointless U-turns that only exist to make the tree appear more complex than it is, on a graph where Y-axis is time; there are overlaps that plainly violate the definition of the tree. But compared to the bigger problems of the piece, this is nitpicking.
I imagine Yu-No made such an impact because 1) it was one of the first eroge to even dare to harbor such narrative ambition; 2) the otakus of that era were more familiar with the sciences than with the humanities, and weren’t very good judges of writing. I have seen good writing in early 1990s eroge, but not in Yu-No.
Now I think what’s really influential about Yu-No is this - it established a very powerful structure for multi-ending narratives, one that will be used in many later Japanese games, from Konami’s Shadow of Memories (Shadow of Destiny in the US) to Clannad:
-The protagonist is put at the beginning of an expanding tree of possibilities, which may or may not be a time loop.
-At the end of each branch is an ending which may be good or bad, but doesn’t deal with the root of the problem.
-The protagonist is not fully aware of the limitedness of each path. If the story is a time loop, the protagonist would not be able to retain memories from each loop.
-When the player has completed every route - which for the protagonist, means experiencing everything there is in this Samsara-like progression, the protagonist would finally obtain enlightenment, and to some degree, gain the same perspective as the player. This is the true ending.
Umineko episode 8 is also translated now (the project finished 2 days ago).
There’s still a booklet covering explicit revelations about all the mysteries coming, but the visual novels are now fully translated.
Re: YU-NO
I’m not sure how you can judge a writer’s ability when you’re going off of fan translations and not the actual Japanese…
Kanno Hiroyuki’s is the same designer/writer one who did Eve: Burst Error,Desire, Exodus Guilty, and the Mystreet series so I’m not sure how you can bash his work…he’s probably one of the most influential designers in the genre.
First of all, Kanno Hiroyuki, the writer of Yu-No and other games, has passed away on December 19 at the early age of 37. May he rest in peace.
Bashing? No, not at all. I certainly don’t regret reading through Yu-No, and it indeed has lots of admirable qualities. I’ve already tried to acknowledge his contribution to Japanese interactive storytelling. Also, from what I can gather, he’s a very good person, unfairly treated by the industry. But none of that makes his masterpiece a sacred cow.
I happen to know enough Japanese so that for me the translation is more like an aid for listening to the voice acting, which do comprise most of the writing in Yu-No. But that’s beside the point, because a writer’s ability can often be judged through imperfect translations.
A-Rise.
This is kinda slipping under the radar, but World End Economica Vol. 1 is up on Steam as an early access game. It’s effectively complete but remains early access until they fully integrate the Steam Overlay and get OSX/Linux support running (along with whatever non-Japanese/English languages they’re adding). It’s the full first volume and apparently has something of a self-contained story, so it’s not the sort of thing where it’ll end on some huge cliffhanger while you wait for the next volumes. Story’s written by Isuna Hasekura, author of Spice & Wolf, so expect something along those lines with less fantasy and more sci-fi. I’m about two hours in and have been enjoying it so far.
Also, the English version of Steins;Gate is apparently finally out!
Narcissu also went up on Steam recently, also as early access for a similar reason to World End Economica. Still free.
(I have the English Steins;Gate LE sitting on my desk, so yeah, it’s totally finally out.)
Are the Rance games fan translated? I’ve been playing the newest game, Rance 9, recently and the world building is fantastic. I prefer the strategy games (Kichiku Ou Rance & Sengoku Rance) over the RPG ones though…although Rance VI was great.
Some are. Rance 1 (only the original, sadly), Rance 02 (the remake from Alice 2010), Rance 3, Rance 4, Rance 4.1, Rance 4.2, and Sengoku Rance are all fully translated; furthermore, AliceSoft is really cool about their older games, and all of the above titles except Rance 02 and Sengoku Rance have been released as freeware. Kichikuou Rance (also freeware), Rance 5D, Rance 6, and Rance Quest also have translations in progress. Several non-Rance AliceSoft titles (including some freeware titles) have also been translated.
Speaking of gameplay VNs getting translations, this time in an official capacity: Eiyuu Senki’s PS3 port is getting an English release. I probably won’t play it!
Been meaning to play some of the other Rance games. I loved Sengoku Rance and was surprised how much I enjoyed the actual game parts. It felt like I had a ton of freedom and that the game was absolutely massive when I played. Massive cast of well designed characters reminded me of Suikoden. Oh, and the music. My Glorious Days is burned into my brain. Rance being an obnoxious asshole felt refreshing compared to the standard JRPG protagonist.
Finished up Steins;Gate the other day. Took around 40 hours to go through all the routes and the see true ending. This one may have ruined me for other VN’s. Total masterpiece, easily the best VN I’ve played. I had tried watching the anime a couple years ago, but never made it past episode 4 or 5. I found it really slow. Booted up the VN and figured I’d check it out for an hour which turned into reading it the whole night. Found it to be absolutely engrossing from the beginning. I loved how grounded in reality it was for the most part. The fan book that came with my copy shows an Akihabara map with all the locations in the game and you can find pictures of their real world counterparts. Here’s an even better one on Google Maps, though spoiler text is on the left of the map. Hearing Kurisu’s speech about the 11 theories of time travel in the beginning of the game, as well as all the John Titor stuff hooked me pretty easily. I had no idea the John Titor stuff really happened until after finishing the game.
The characters were all well developed with the standout being the main character Okabe. He has a pretty satisfying arc thoughout the game. The other characters could have easily been shallow caricatures, but instead they were developed to the point where I really cared about them. Some may be put off by the extreme personalities of Okabe and Faris, but they never bothered me. The voice acting was perfect. I could have gotten through the whole game faster, but I enjoyed listening to each character. They really brought them all to life and made each character memorable. I was worried at first that it might be too otaku friendly for me and I wouldn’t understand many of the references, but I did for the most part. The game has a really well done glossary and when you run into certain words or phrases you can look up the meaning behind it. I loved the character art, it’s gorgeous. All the character expressions are perfect, especially Mayuri. After finishing this game I looked up Robotics;Notes and just about cried when I saw they weren’t using 2D art. The soundtrack was wonderful as well and never grated on me during the playthrough. I especially enjoyed the main theme and the ones with vocals. I ran into orchestrated versions of some of the songs on youtube which are awesome.
The story as a whole was pretty stellar. There were a couple of areas I thought could be trimmed down. Some parts bothered me at first, but later knowledge ended up causing those parts to make better sense. Some twists were easy to figure out, while others caught me off guard. A few times I would think to myself “Well why don’t they just do this?” and that would literally be the next thing they said to do, which was an awesome feeling. It was great how they took their sweet time building the story. When the shit eventually hit the fan I actually felt somewhat disappointed at first because I was enjoying the build up so much. It’s so gradual and mysterious, I was glued to my seat as they learned every little thing about the PhoneWave (name subject to change). I really loved most of the individual character routes. They didn’t make me feel like I screwed up and picked the wrong options and now the game was punishing me. Instead they were quite satisfying in their own regard, though all were bittersweet. I gotta say, I don’t really get too emotional during games and VN’s, Kana: Little Sister did next to nothing for me, but some of those Steins;Gate endings brought on major feels. The true ending hits it out of the park and was the perfect end to such an amazing experience.
As for the bad I only have a couple complaints. Being able to fast forward through text you’ve already read is nice, but even with the fast forward it takes a long time to get through the game. I wish it just skipped to the next decision, instead it’s like fast forwarding a 40 hour VHS tape, stopping every now and then to pick an option. The whole flag system which you trigger by replying to emails or ignoring them is pretty awful. You reply to messages you get by picking certain highlighted words, but it seems there is no way to see what message you are going to send beforehand before you send it. So it’s either guessing, or using a guide. Picking the right ones helps decide what ending you receive and leads to more information about the person you are talking with. Aside from that I can’t think of much else that bothered me. It does sort of shoehorn a few characters into the main story, but it isn’t as absurd as the last VN I played, Kara no Shoujo, where every freaking person you meet is connected somehow.
Anyway, if you love other VN’s like 999 and VLR, or are looking for an awesome time travel story that takes its time to explain itself and has a cast of loveable characters, then this one is for you. Hell, if you like reading in general check this out. I’m going to watch the anime. El Psy Congroo.