One of my biggest pet peeves is games with ‘choices’ where the outcome makes little to no difference, and LTE is a prime example of this:
Up to a certain point in the game, failing mini-games or giving a ‘bad’ choice leads to the same outcome, just with less information reached along the way, which affects the ending(since the protagonist can’t determine who she kissed the night before without enough evidence).
There are some mini-games sprinkled in amidst the drama, though, which are probably the highlight of the game(when they’re good):
The first one, the barista/cafe sim, is easily my favorite.
The rest are passably basic, like the simple rhythm game shown after, but they have their charms.
The real problem is the localization/editing, or lack thereof, often using words that don’t even EXIST, so a simple spellcheck should’ve done the trick.
Beyond that, the game is enjoyable enough, if you can tolerate the poor editing, which is even more glaring when it pops up, since most of the editing/writing reads just fine.
It has a fun cast, and solid production values, so it’s at least worth a look.
Also, the best potential pairing for Yeonwoo is her bestie, Seorin, but any fellow yuri-fans hoping for that is setting themselves up for disappointment, sadly(even though she gets her own ending).
Sorry for the wait. As you may or may not know, Fate/Extra CCC has (finally) proceeded into the final testing phases.
That means the game is currently playable from start to finish, everything translated and edited.
This is basically the point where we’re fine-tuning the script to check for bugs, grammar errors, typos, things NISA would ignore, etc.
Some of our testers have already finished the game, but since there’s a total of eight possible routes(four servants, male/female PC), not to mention NG+ stuff, it’s a time-consuming process.
Yours truly is also the one tasked with the ever-popular Tamamo route, so here’s a sample:
We aspire to have the translation released by Christmas, so without further ado, I’ll let Aria take it from here:
100% 2,499/2,499 pages complete.
A video has been prepared for your amusement and information.
The problem with something being considered the “best” of its genre is that it often gets unfair expectations which a game can’t possibly live up to.
This is one of those games.
For posterity, this is a review of the PC version, which was a combination of the original game with the voice acting from the Saturn port. I wouldn’t touch the remake if they paid me, but I’ll get to that later.
Yu-No is, in a word, problematic. The plot, legendary as it is, takes forever to get going. The core premise is nothing particularly noteworthy, at least not on the tin: the protagonist’s father disappears under mysterious circumstances, and Takuya has to navigate a convoluted labyrinth of branching paths, intermingling dimensions, and numerous women to find out the truth.
Of course, therein lies the biggest problem: the game wears its perverted dating sim influence on its sleeve. It’s one thing to have every woman in a mile radius falling all over themselves for the lead, it’s another to have it happen with no rhyme, reason, or even notion of restraint or common decency.
(And here’s where we get into unavoidable spoilers yo, so bail out here if that concerns you.)
Two of the options that Takuya winds up intimately involved with, whether you like it or not, are, respectively, his stepmother and, later, his own biological daughter.
The first is problematic enough on its own, even if technically not too far outside of the realm of common decency, it’s still kind of gross. The second is just far beyond the pale in terms of good taste. By that point, I was nearly done with the game, so I just held down the fast-forward key and got past it for sake of finishing the story. (I’m aware the Saturn versions and remakes excise the adult content entirely, but the version I had access to was the PC port of the game, which was basically the original, warts and all, though I believe it had some editing of the more obscene elements, which I have no interest in, anyway.)
So how about that plot?
Yu-No requires dozens of hours of reading, maybe even 100+, even if you’re a speed-reader like I am. It’s a very, very, VERY long game, so you had better be very invested in the plot and characters if you’re going to see it through. Frankly, apart from a couple standout unique personalities like Ayumi and Mio, I found the cast largely uninteresting, paper-thin, and full of irritatingly predictable tropes. The protagonist is ESPECIALLY insufferable, often not realizing plot elements until they’re vividly beaten into his head(sometimes literally), and making the player examine areas multiple times until he gets the hint and moves on. (This is often made even worse by the fact that he breaks the fourth wall and ridicules the player for trying to leave an area prematurely, only to later reveal that you are, in fact, supposed to move on.)
Let me be crystal(bdmtsh) clear on one thing: this is in no way a fault on the incredibly talented fan translation team. The writing is very good, especially considering the sheer amount and depth of text in Yu-No. To ensure it was as consistent in tone as it was across the board, not to mention sharply written, and engaging with wittily localized jokes to ensure humor isn’t lost in translation. It’s especially impressive considering how much this game drags at a certain point, that I still had to admire the vivid amount of talent the translation team had to put in.
So if you’ve gotten this far, you’re at least curious with or familiar with the most noteworthy thing about Yu-No: the zero-hour twist that completely changes the setting and narrative.
In the last act, or “epilogue” of Yu-No, Takuya finds himself transported to a fantasy realm populated by knights, princesses, emperors, beasts, and all manner of otherworldly things.
Is it a welcome breath of fresh air after spending 60+ hours navigating the ‘real’ world and constant branching paths to find the true ending? Absolutely. Did it make it all worth it? Hardly.
This image of the official in-game map does not do the labyrinthine nature of this game’s convoluted path system justice.
Try this, the hint map that’s included with the fan translation, including my notes for reference:
I think you can see how this can get INCREDIBLY frustrating and time-consuming, and that’s even if you understand the game’s “gem” system, which lets the player leave ‘checkpoints’ of sorts to which you can go back and explore alternate routes. However, you still have to ensure you make the right choice to go back onto the correct branch and acquire the correct item, so you can’t just fast-forward the entire game.
So while the game does spin a compelling narrative and offer some fascinating ideas, it is in no way worth what the player has to suffer through. Yu-No tells a story in 100+ hours that could have been easily condensed to take 40-50 hours, tops. The writer badly needed an editor, and it shows. (The show was also adapted into an anime, which I gather also told the entire plot in 24 episodes or so, so I imagine it is very doable.)
My thoughts on Yu-No aren’t all negative, though. Firstly, the artwork is nothing short of incredible.
Despite wearing its perverted intentions on its sleeve, frequently and often, the talent on display is beyond compare. The backgrounds are full of intricate details, well-designed vistas and settings, and every character is full of unique touches, standing out despite their fairly predictable personalities. (One of the characters has an alter-ego, and you can probably guess it the very first time you meet them, despite Takuya constantly staying in the dark, as he often does.)
(Thanks, captain obvious.)
So how about the other legendary aspect of Yu-No: the music?
I can clearly see why the OST is regarded as highly as it is. The chip-tunes are distinct and full of personality(RIP Ryu Umemoto), but honestly, the melodies tend to get repetitive before long, and are more for mood than anything. Very few felt catchy or memorable, and the OST is hurt even more by the fact that you’ll be hearing the same tracks over and over and over again before the game draws to a close. (The music used during the Epilogue does have a different vibe, though, which was very welcome, and a massive improvement over the content of the main game.)
Now, the elephant in the room: the remake.
That’s right: somehow, the game not only received a full-on remake, complete with brand new art and remixed music, but it even got localized.
Not only is the art completely redone(care of the artist from Ar Tonelico, who has a pretty distinct style), some of the characters are near unrecognizable.
The differences are so drastic that you’d almost think they came from a different game, and it’s a massive insult to the talent of the original team, despite the art itself being passable in quality. (Also, very few if any of the original team get credited in the remake, which is sadly par for the course in the industry.)
It might have been more forgivable if they had at least offered the original art as an option, a la the recent ports of Langrisser 1 & 2, but sadly, this is not the case.
On the bright side, the localization(much like that of the fan translation) goes above and beyond the call of duty, but again, it can only do so much with a mediocre core plot.
The other positive I can give the remake is that Umemoto’s OST was given the original sound as an option, in addition to the remixes, but I imagine the team knew removing his original music would be considered a blasphemous move at best, unforgivable at worst.
The remixed OST isn’t nearly as big an affront as the new art, so it’s still well worth a listen.
In short, Yu-No is a game that’s very much a product of its time. I respect the influence and legendary status that it holds in the industry, but it’s the type of classic you’re better off learning about in brief referential terms, not playing in its entirety. It does not respect the player or their time, so nor should they respect it.
Where do I start with this crazy game? Serial Experiments Lain was made in 1998 as a companion piece of sorts to the legendary anime of the same title.
The game follows the same basic premise as the show: a disillusioned young girl slowly becomes more engrossed with the internet, and eventually finds it takes over her world entirely, both in the literal and spiritual sense.
What makes the game version different is that it takes place entirely in a virtual world of sorts, where you access datalogs, interviews, and diary entries sprinkled with occasional animated sequences to try and piece together Lain’s story and unravel the mystery of her existence and those she interacts with.
While most of the entries are in chronological order, some are locked out until you access others first, or aren’t visible at all. Some don’t even let you see them until after you reach the ‘end’ of the game(more on this later).
First, I can’t continue any further without giving credit to a massive undertaking: the team responsible for translating the entire game and putting it up as a website. https://laingame.net/
This takes what was thought to be an untranslatable game, due to the massive amount of dialogue-only sequences with no subtitles, and not only making it accessible to a non-Japanese speaking audience, but doing it well. The translation work is spectacular, and even makes it so you can access any of the numerous audio/video sequences on the fly, so mad props to the team for an incredible effort: I can’t stress enough how much they knocked it out of the park.
As for the interface itself, a virtual depiction of Lain is shown moving through the virtual world to navigate the numerous entries, accompanied by colorful expressions, idle animations, and even whimsical pratfalls when the player tries to access an unavailable datalog.
The cutscenes have a visual style all their own, surprisingly by the same studio that did the 1998 anime, albeit with a completely unique look.
The writing is the highlight, as well as the artwork, contributed by two of the most important members of Lain’s team: the writer(Chiaki J. Konaka) and of course, the inimitable artist: Yoshitoshi ABe. The game is also fully voice acted, with Lain’s actress reprising her role. There’s only a handful of other voice actors, but all their work is excellent, especially that provided by Touko.
ABe’s artwork is seen as backdrops for several events in the game, often depicting mundane things like Lain receiving her first computer, accessing email, or even giving her psychiatrist, Touko, some cookies.
Touko is also a crucial part of the game’s narrative. Touko arguably has the most multi-faceted personality in the game. Some entries are her attempts to diagnose Lain’s increasingly unstable state of mind via their psychology sessions, some are her professional observations through personal notes, and others are even her private diary entries. Through these recordings and those of Lain herself, the game allows an intimate view of both an unstable subject’s bouts with mental illness, and how it comes to affect those around them, especially as the worlds of the internet and the real world begin to blur, much like in the show.
It bears warning that Lain PSX deals with very heavy subject matter in addition to its already delicate subject of mental illness. Hallucinations, schizophrenia, unrequited love, parental conflicts, alcoholism, abandonment, abuse, bullying, and even suicide are all fair game for Lain’s narrative, so sensitive viewers need be warned.
That said, if the player has the patient for the game’s sensitive subject matter, it spins a narrative just as engrossing, unique, and often startling as the anime, especially when it goes to darker realms that the anime only touched lightly on. (It’s worth noting that while suicide is also a factor in the story of the series, it happens at the very start of the series, while it doesn’t become an element until much later on in the game.)
Lain is an experiment that takes much patience to experience, and requires just as much thought to fully take on an understanding of the narrative. Also, much like the anime, it’s bound to leave an impact long after the credits roll.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
After the final diary from either Lain or Tohko, and Lain is fully ‘integrated’ into the wired, you unlock most of the missing datalogs: little snippets of wisdom(?) and advice from Lain in a virtual form, suggesting that you’ve been using her digital medium to access all the information you’ve been reading thus far.
While these post-game snippets are hardly mandatory, they’re fascinating, and a vaguely Monika-ish epilogue worth glancing at here and there.
I love FMV games. Been playing them since the ancient times of Night Trap and Sewer Shark and well into the modern FMV renaissance, from high production value gems like Late Shift to no-budget schlock like Press X To Die.
It’s about time Japan threw their hat into the ring.
As has probably been known, this quirky experiment was written by Kazutaka Kodaka, the lunatic behind the Danganronpa games, a weird VN/murder mystery series known for having the characters die in elaborate ways while trying to solve an elaborate mystery.
Death Come True is basically that, except the protagonist is the one doing (most of) the dying.
Makoto Kuraki wakes up in a hotel with no idea of who he is, what he’s doing there, why he keeps dying, or why everyone thinks he’s… a killer!?
Like most FMV games, Death Come True boils down to making choices… and, uh, that’s literally about it.
I finished the game in about two hours, give or take. It’s VERY short, and far as I can tell, there’s not a whole lot of replay value. It has a few neat twists and turns, high production values, and good acting, but nothing too shocking. In fact, it’s a little predicable, knowing what the writer’s penchant for certain types of tropes and storytelling swerves.
I still had a fun time with Death Come True, but I would suggest waiting til it hits the $10ish mark for maximum enjoy. It’s nice to see FMV games from Japan, especially with a budget and big names thrown at it, just hopefully next time it’s something a bit meatier.
This effort is nothing short of astonishing. The team remade the game from the ground up, then hardcoded subs to translate what was thought to be an untranslatable game due to the biblical scope of what’s an exclusively voice acted experience.
Serial Experiments Lain was developed concurrently with the series, and designed to be its own thing, though you could probably make a case to tie it into the show, if you wanted.
It’s not so much a game as it is an A/V experience. You explore diary entries, listen to interviews between Lain and her psychologist, and spiral further down the rabbit hole until you learn the truth: both literally and figuratively.
If you’re even a cursory fan of the series, or a hardcore obsessee like yours truly, it is a must-play.
We have a short update for you today since we’ve mostly been pushing forward in translation progress rather than anything flashy. Though speaking of flashy, Kotcrab has set up a progress tracking page where you can see an estimate of our project updated in real time! You can view that page here –
In terms of translations, we have some updates here:
– Chapter 6 has been fully translated!
– In dungeon translations are now underway
– Over 530 audio files have subtitles now (including misc areas of the game like in Kotomine’s shop, My Room, and the Secret Garden)
– Misc bug fixes encountered in playtesting
As always, thank you for your patience as we push the translated line count higher and higher!
(Disclaimer: please don’t be liberated from your money.)
Hello, Aria here! Hope everyone is staying warm and opening hundreds of loot boxes in FGO (wait, did we miss Christmas? Pretend it’s still Christmas! Padoru!). Not to distract you from the necessary grinding, but our Fate/Extra Perfect Patch is here, which includes battle dialogue, ruby text, berserkers going berserk, and more! This patch was a long time coming, so I thought I’d talk about the battle dialogue process a bit!
When I first joined up with the project, I had never actually finished Fate/Extra before. I played on PSP when it came out and rage quit a couple rounds in after dying instantly to some mobs. So, my first task was to play through the game and subtitle the battle lines along the way. All the character voice lines are labeled like “ner_1700” without much additional context, which made things a little tricky. This includes non-battle dialogue as well, which we don’t want to translate. Thankfully, Kotcrab set up a debug message that appears on the bottom of the screen that displays the name of the currently playing file.
(You won’t see that message in the bottom left, but it made my life much easier~)
With that, I was able to figure out the general number range of what’s battle dialogue and what’s story dialogue. I started by translating as many Nero battle dialogue lines as I could, then continued playing the game. From there, I’d beat a boss, then translate their lines. All was fairly smooth…
…until this fucking guy.
Now remember, I’m doing all the subtitles with audio only. I just remember sitting in the library on my laptop, shaking my head in utter confusion as to what the fuck this guy was saying. His dialogue blends several religions into one to make his “true” religion, also known as a nightmare to my ears. I was in such a desperate state of despair that I just googled what I could make out and prayed. What answered my prayers…
…was a devote follower who created a Twitter bot that regurgitates his lines every hour or so. I managed to find the line in question typed out! It was a godsend, until the next line didn’t exist. But that one led me to a Japanese wiki with every line in the game typed out! (Well, it turned out to be more like 70%, but it was still an amazing blessing). Using that Japanese wiki, I was able to recreate it on my own local wiki and organize all my notes:
Each line had context written out as well, and with its help, I was able to match line numbers to specific actions, such as break attacks, master healing servant reactions, and more! With this new tool, I was able to check my previous translations, then advance much more smoothly into the horizon, with the crazy fanatic Gatou now defeated.
Now until that point, I was using our editor to translate without seeing anything in the game. Just before Gawain, everything was set up to add my translations into a patch. I pre-translated all of Gawain’s lines, then did his battle for the first time. It was the most intense battle in the whole game, improved immensely by having the battle subs working as he slammed his Noble Phantasm into me two turns in a row. I knew it was coming too because every enemy Servant has a “tell” line that announces their intention to use their Noble Phantasm that turn (it’s always line #1752 for anyone curious, with #1753 being a “you survived!?” follow-up). I had just translated Gawain’s, so I knew exactly what to look out for:
I recorded the battle as an early test to show the rest of the team the subs. I should have died in that fight with how sloppy I played, but damn if I didn’t win first try white knuckling the entire time. You can watch that terrible test video here (Keep in mind that since it was an early demo, the lines are unedited with some technical issues present that are now fixed. Timestamp is when things start going crazy – https://youtu.be/jomlQ6cx9uw?t=238 .) There’s no mic audio, but you can feel my spirit break when Leo announces a second Noble Phantasm. It just gets worse from there.
During the cutscenes before that battle, we also noticed an issue with battle subtitles playing during the pre-combat smack talk conversation. Turns out people say battle lines outside of combat for dramatic effect! Thankfully, Kotcrab had no issue hunting down a variable that would let us know if we were currently in battle. With that, subs would only play if we were in combat. BUT we also subtitled level-up lines post battle and those aren’t in battle! We settled on a set of flags in the timing, with one of the flags meaning “play only in battle” if true. Whew~
After that, the game was defeated, Holy Grail obtained! No strings attached, they just gave me the Grail and wished me on my way~ Next steps were to translate the rest of Nero’s lines plus Archer, Tamamo, and the Rin route servants. Sprinkle on some sound effect translations as well (those ended up being stored separately as we learned, requiring some more code tweaks to get just right), then it was time for Archer!
Wait that’s not right.
There we go, that sounds more correct. At this point, I’m mostly getting to just enjoy the game, while spotting a missing line now and then. Most of these lines are battle victory lines, separated into “servant doesn’t give two shits about you” (first half of the game) and “servant will die for you” (later half of the game). When I got to Alice’s fight on Week 3, I asked if colored subtitles were possible.
ItsumoKnight: “What’s so hard about it, it’s just Alice and Alice”
Turns out the color codes should just work since the subtitles use similar code to the game!
…okay not quite. It initially caused some interesting text glitches which made the following line even more creepy than before. With some quick debugging by Kotcrab, we got everything working:
Along that same line, we wondered if we could do the Berserker scream, which ended up being easier than expected. There are 4 possible Berserker noise characters, so I wrote a quick python script to randomize different combinations at different lengths, then I matched them to lines that seemed to fit and added “!” marks as appropriate.
The last major improvement we added was adding ruby text support. Kotcrab went into detail about this in an earlier post, but essentially it lets us add the small subtitle above certain skill names that CCC uses.
In this case, it adds “Rho Aias” above the skill name for that extra touch.
With Extra moving into an editing and playtesting phase, I was free to move onto CCC. It’s hard to give actual progress numbers with the battle dialog since there’s a lot of non-battle dialogue mixed in, but I’ve translated the lion’s share of Nero, Archer, and Gilgamesh’s dialogue. Once I finish with Tamamo’s (nearly there), I can play through CCC and translate missing lines as they come up. This will include the in-dungeon subtitles as well, with context! Sadly, the Japanese wiki for CCC is much more incomplete, so most of the lines will be by ear, but on the other hand, the line numbers have the same meaning as Extra! So with that, I’ll know when a line is a counterattack remark, an “I just died” line, or a “chiding the player for playing terribly” line.
Lastly, thank you for all your patience! This has been a tough year for all of us, and I hope that you can enjoy the work we put into vanilla Extra while you wait for CCC!
PS: I suppose you want to download this patch, huh? F-fine, it’s not like I want you to play it or anything!
UPDATE:
Now with Mac/Unix patching options and various Aksys translation fixes mentioned by the community!
(Editor’s note: Fate/Extra is very special to me. It was my exposure to Fate, and without it, I wouldn’t have become the fan I am today. It also lead to me neglecting a blind date, and in retrospect, the game was the better choice, but that’s a story for another time.
If this is your first go at F/E, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and still do. Especially the amazing Shinji Hosoe OST. -cj)
Actual depiction of most 2020 social life, I imagine
Thankfully, we’ve been busy, so here’s where a few things stand.
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
As you may or may not know, I was able to test out the first playable build earlier this year.
Unfortunately, it only gets me so far, so I’ve been asked to keep it on hold until the rest of the gameplay text can be finished. This is fine by me, as it will make testing worlds easier on me, my Japanese is NOT that good.
Fate/Extra CCC
Thankfully(?), the updates are largely handled by the CCC team, so be looking forward to that soon-ish.
Things That Were Completed
(disclaimer: iwakura.p was only cursorily involved in some of these. Napple Tale and YaruDora in particular are the results of hard work by people I’ve worked with and am more than happy to signal boost.)
Napple Tale, c/o Cargodin and EsperKnight:
A quirky Dreamcast RPG with a devout cult following.
One of Suda 51’s first outings as writer/director, a precursor to The Silver Case and the Kill The Past series. Suda is in full unhinged crazy town. If you think you’ve seen madness, you have NO IDEA.
Castle Shikigami 2
The sequel to the original, and IMO, one of the best shmups of all time… with one of the worst translations ever. Which, I for one, have no intention of abiding.
Here’s hoping 2021 will be better than 2020. It’ll sure be an exciting one, I think.
Kotcrab has been kind enough to provide an update. Have an enjoy! Stay cool, and stay safe. – cj
Kotcrab here with this month’s update to tell you more about the tools we use for this project! Let’s start with the script editor. We’ve come a long way with this one. At the beginning, there was a big spreadsheet with all the text from the game.
From there, we moved to a simple application with three text fields: Japanese, English and notes. We wanted to add more functionality to the editor, but since we didn’t have the source code for it, JS created the new app you can see in the screenshot below.
It’s packed with features, but most notably it allows us to see a live preview of how the text will look in the game as you type. You can play audio and see the image for the character speaking the line. When editing subtitles, we can adjust the timings and simulate exactly how it will look in game.
This worked great assuming that only a single person was working on the script at a time. With more people joining the project, it wasn’t sustainable as merging two versions of the script was a time consuming process. The next step was to create a central database for the editor. Once we finished that feature, multiple people could work on the same script in real time. We’re able to track change history for each entry, suggest changes, and mark completed entries or ones requiring more attention.
We also designed tools to extract and repackage the game. The tools understand how to parse the game files and make all the necessary changes. They also assemble and apply code patches.
Both Extra and CCC make extensive use of archives. First you have the game ISO file which contains the main archive. This archive contains smaller PAK archives, which can either be the actual game files or more archives. For example, a texture bank file will contain multiple textures. Due to various reasons, a single file can be duplicated across many PAK archives and a PAK archive can be repeated multiple times in the main archive. Our tools fully automate the management of these archives webs. After changing a file or adding a translation, the tool figures out what needs to be changed and replicates the changes to the proper places.
Finally we have the patcher tool. Its main purpose is to take the patch file and input ISO then create a patched ISO. It’s a fairly recent addition to the toolkit, but it had to be made. At first, we used xdelta, but this produced huge patches due to how the games are packed. The first Extra mod was over 500 MBs and the CCC patch was estimated to be even bigger. With the new tool, the patch for Extra is just 11 MBs. Thanks to it, we can also provide an option for selecting which Meltrylis name to use.
To sum up, a lot of custom stuff was written for this patch. Some of it is already finding use in other projects. Hopefully we’ll be able to reuse more and more of these tools going forward.
Now for some progress updates~
The initial translation pass for the Extra subtitles is finished. It adds almost 800 subtitles for the in-battle dialog. Of course, this patch also includes all the changes from the first mod.
(don’t worry, this file is automatically generated)
Thanks to the help from our image editors, we have finished and tested all of the texture edits for CCC. This is 436 edited images. The last ones were the textures used in the prologue.
The CCC script translation efforts are going smoothly. According to our database stats, we have over 1000 edits per month on average to the main script. Let’s take a closer look:
Script source
Tools (extraction, insertion)
Translation
DAT (the main script)
Done
5 out of 7 chapters done
EBOOT
Done
Done
Indungeon
Done
Not started yet
Infomatrix
Done
Done
Items
Done
Done
Interface
Done
Done
SG
Done
Done
Subs
Done
In progress
Finally, it’s likely we will post smaller updates on our Discord. Last month, I shared updates on the two technical issues; check the pinned messages!
And beware the gatcha! Unless it’s for Ishtar, then it’s okay. Maybe.
iwakura productions 