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Visual Novel Translation Status (08/14/2016)

This week’s header image comes from Narcissu Zero (Sekai Project) which was released on Steam.

Hey everybody. Thanks for your patience waiting for this week’s VNTS: we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss any Otakon. That said, I know you’re all anxious to hear the latest, so get to it! (Oh, and much thanks to Decay for handling almost all the tables for me this week whilst I was away)

Anyway! Welcome to our weekly VNTS (Visual Novel Translation Status) series, in which we track visual novel translation updates in-house (we don’t rely on /jp/ posts on 4ch, for example) and post it for your enlightenment and enjoyment each Saturday. If you find any errors, or you think a project is missing from this list, please let me know in the comments.

The Short Version: Only the New Stuff

New Releases!

Removed from the List This Week

All the Game Updates:

Fan Translation Projects

Fan Translation Projects

[wpdatatable id=21]
JAST USA Projects

JAST USA (Updates; Archive)

[wpdatatable id=22]
Other
  • Starless – Script check 10%, added new mosaic to fix list.
MangaGamer Projects

MangaGamer (Updates)

[wpdatatable id=23]
Other
  • Rance 5D, Rance VI, and Rance Quest fan translations on hold in anticipation of potential official release by MangaGamer.
Sekai Project Projects

Sekai Project (Update Page)

These percentages should be seen as vague indicators of progress, and are not entirely accurate due to a variety of reasons.

[wpdatatable id=24]
Other
  • Here’s a handy link to sort Sekai Project’s Steam releases by release date: link
Misc. Projects

Other Projects

[wpdatatable id=25]

Funny-Commentary-Section

— Commentary Section —

Zakabox™ Commentary

「 Oh, what a time to be alive! Otakon’s coming up, and I’m in a tent in some French backwater (TL note: Carnac, a rather Briton place known for its big field of standing stones, which I’m sure was impressive 1000 years ago). Not only does this camping not have free wifi, but they have the audacity to ask for 15 euros for a week’s usage. Heeeeelll no. I’m sending this through Twitter DM to Tay for the second time (last time he just ignored it, the bastard… maybe he won’t this time) as I doubt the mobile network I’ve ended up using (roaming – a mere 5 cents per megabyte, truly amazing) uses any encryption. Not only that, but I’ll be traveling to somewhere new on Sunday. Mum said something to the effect that there might be free wifi there, but I remain doubtful. At this rate, who knows if I’ll even have mobile reception in the area? …uhh, I guess Internet withdrawal is taking its toll. My apologies.

Anyway, I’m writing this on Friday and I’m out of touch with current events, so let me instead talk about some interesting VNs I’ve read recently. First off I read through the demo for Anomie, a dystopian VN I’ve mentioned before. The prose is a /bit/ shaky – I believe the writer’s Swedish, and while it’s by no means bad or uninspired, there are a few too many places where it’s just a bit off for me to be entirely comfortable with it. I’m sure half of you wouldn’t care at all, but I’d be happy to see a good editor give it a thorough once-over, or for the current editor to step up their game. The actual plot looks like it’s going places I enjoy, so whatever my reservations about the writing I’m still quite interested. Its Kickstarter was a success, so presumably we’re now in for a three-year wait or so before it actually releases.

Speaking of three-year waits, Errant Heart, one of the earlier VN Kickstarter projects, finally came out recently. I haven’t read much of it (my poor faptop can’t handle the animations, and the developers made a point of saying they’re an important part of the experience), but it looks interesting from what I did read. It’s downloadable for free if you wish, though it uses a pay-what-you-want system if you feel like supporting the developers.

The third thing I want to talk about is Eike Bentley’s historical fiction VN Because We’re Here. I haven’t gotten through the entire demo, but the 2 hours or so I did read utterly charmed me with its writing style. I know it’s had a successful Greenlight campaign, but I’m not quite sure what’s happened after that – it might even be released already, in which case I apologize (I don’t want to use more mobile data than I have to for research). Do give it a try.

Since I’m already in obscure recommendations mode, I might as well list my usual candidates: Autumn, a translated Czech language VN which just has that intangible something different about it; Blue*, a VN with both fun and drama I really should finish that actually fits into the “literary” category; Brass Restoration, a pretty funny VN about a musician coming to terms with losing his arm and with that his purpose in life (as you might expect this creates a decent bit of drama too); True Remembrance, an excellent work of magic realism revolving around memories and how they shape us; and for those of you who can read Japanese, Watashi no Real wa Juujitsu Shisugiteiru (“My Normie Life’s Way Too Fulfilling!”), an otome game about a girl who acts the perfect, kind, diligent girl at school, even being the student council vice-president. That all would be boring if she wasn’t actually a mean-spirited, narcissistic otaku in disguise. If you ever wanted to see a girl protagonist playing otomege and firmly declaring that 2d>3d, this is your game. All of the novels I just mentioned are free, by the way.

Right then, that’s enough sperging about doujins for now – it’s time to say goodbye for today. I’ll be looking forward to not being able to follow the Otakon announcements live these following days. I am in no way bitter about this. Nope.」

Decay’s Musings

Well hello everyone! Sorry for being a day late, but we decided that this time we wanted to delay the VNTS until after the con announcements have been made, and I’m glad we did. MangaGamer certainly announced plenty of fan pleasers. Between Otakon and AX, I feel like they announced something for everyone. Pretty much everything announced last night was a lengthy, often requested title. And predictably, most people seem to have declared MangaGamer the winner. They certainly have a powerful lineup for the next eighteen months.

Hapymaher is probably the most popular of the pure VNs announced. I noticed it years ago as I was idly browsing VNDB and immediately took an interest in it. It’s interesting how the developer, Purple Software, also has a game in translation with Sekai Project. There’s some speculation about how this came to be with some conspiracy theories floating about, but reality is probably much simpler and less dramatic than what most people expect. SP is taking longer than expected on Chrono Clock and still isn’t close to finished on it, so I heavily suspect that Purple went with MG purely for scheduling reasons.

Sona-nyl is also a pretty awesome announcement. I quite liked Inganock and Gahkthun (I still haven’t played Sharnoth. I know…), so I really want to see what the supposed best entry in the series is like. I’m not exactly a WAB superfan or anything, but I’ve always liked the style and general storylines. I wonder if Sona-nyl will be able to live up to the hype.

Oh, and Rance! The Alicesoft partnership seems to have panned out exactly as was promised to us, and that’s always good to see. Beat Blades Haruka was a good seller for MangaGamer and so now it seems like MangaGamer finally gets access the Holy Grail of Alicesoft’s lineup. To be honest, though, I never really liked the Rance series. Don’t like the protagonist, don’t like the humor, and the gameplay has never been anything to write home about. But hey, I’m happy for all the Rance fans out there who have been waiting for this to happen. Who knows where things go from here.

I hope MG doesn’t focus on the Rance series exclusively, however. Alicesoft has a pretty large variety of titles to choose from, many of which look like they may align with my tastes much more than Rance. Evenicle for starters is a really popular RPG released last year by Alicesoft that looks pretty cool. The Pastel Chime series is an SRPG series that looks like it has potential. Oyako Rankan isn’t my thing but seems popular with the milf and NTR lovers out there. And even Drapeko doesn’t look half bad, although really I’m just mentioning it because I think the main heroine looks entertaining and cute. Evenicle is the most widely requested of these but really, I’d take any one of them. There’s even more cool stuff than this from Alicesoft, too. I hope MangaGamer finds the time for some of it.

And of course, Sekai Project had a panel, too. Most of it was dedicated either to previously announced stuff, or non-VNs, however. We got some new trailers, we’re getting some console ports for Narcissu, and we’re getting a new VN from the developers of Sound of Drop, which I never played. Not very exciting overall. What people are talking about more seems to be the lack of certain news, that being the 18+ stuff. Leading up to AX, every time someone asked about 18+ versions of their games, they were told to wait until AX. AX came and went with nothing, we were told they ran out of time and will reschedule it for another con. They’ve had two con panels since then and we still have heard nothing.

I’m not one of the dedicated 18+ or bust guys and am generally patient, but even I’m getting pretty annoyed at being jerked around like this. If SP wishes this topic to go away by ignoring it, then they should actually ignore it instead of stringing people along. If the ultimate answer will be “no 18+ versions” then just come out and say so instead of giving everyone false hope only to crush it later. If they actually have good news, then please share it! Your fans want to know. And if you actually don’t know yet, then be more transparent with that. People probably wouldn’t like that much, but it at least feels better than the feeling of being misled. This current situation doesn’t feel good for anyone except those who revel in schadenfreude. Please, Sekai Project, put an end to it.

 



TAYsteful™ Thoughts

Have a good week, everybody.

Tay

I'm the Fuwanovel community admin and a big fan of Visual Novels. The easiest way to get a hold of me is via a PM on the Fuwanovel Forums, by twitter (@ArchmageTay), or by email.

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poi
poi
7 years ago

aokana hype

Solidbatman
7 years ago

dannnng calling my salty ass out like that. Why you gotta be like dis deccy.

Zakamutt
Reply to  Solidbatman
7 years ago

#rekt

JJ
JJ
7 years ago

Good collection of announcements by MangaGamer. There are at least nine total MangaGamer titles that were announced at this year’s conventions that I’ll be purchasing. That is just an amazingly high number.

Can someone explain the Rance series and how these two titles relate to it? I know some of the low numbers are really old technology that MangaGamer probably wanted to avoid. And I had heard that Rance VI was a decent place for beginners to get into the series. So, I wasn’t expecting 5D at all. If I were to play them in English, do I need to start with 5D? Do I miss anything by never playing the earlier games?

I don’t think Sekai Project is doing anything different with 18+ versions than they have always done. It has always seemed like they want to approach 18+ versions in a much worse way than MangaGamer and JAST do. They generally don’t use uncensored images and don’t answer questions about why not. They have completely ignored talking about why they released only all ages versions of some games where 18+ versions exist. When they actually do release 18+ versions, there are always “unexpected technical difficulties” and the 18+ versions come out much later than the all ages versions. Their latest antics just fit into their pattern of behavior.

littleshogun
littleshogun
Reply to  JJ
7 years ago

No comment about Sekai here, but for Rance I think you could just view the LP at some forum for earlier one. 5D was the start where Rance will be differ compared to Kichikuou (Kichikuou was supposed to be Rance series last entry for the series before it was becaming big success and since then Alicesoft expanding Rance story iirc). Overall, I think you will not miss anything by not playing their earlier games, but it could be fun experience though for knowing each character in Rance series came from imo.

littleshogun
littleshogun
7 years ago

My VNTS Review this week. I made that earlier here. For more trivia about the title, I did want to made the title based on hanakatoba from Narcissu here, but since I figure that I’d also write about the Otakon, I think that maybe the title from Otakon will be more appropriate there.

http://forums.fuwanovel.net/blogs/entry/1383-the-lucid-memories-review/

Oh, I also interested in both of Hapymaher and Sona-Nyl like Decay here (Also Sorcery Joker). For Sekai, I agree that was underwhelming.

dilworks
7 years ago

> A Kiss From the Petals – The New Generation (MangaGamer) – Announced at Otakon!; Official site here.
yay~!

> Platform: , Linux
YAY~!

> Content: 18+
> Graphics: 800×600, uncensored
ALL OF MY MONEY. NOW!

Oh wait, I live in Soviet Venezuela. Damn :/
plz send the nukes so I can recover democracy AND be able to afford more SonoHana delish~

Sylphritz
Sylphritz
7 years ago

It still pisses me off that MG is still keeping quiet about DC3. There hasn’t been any announcement aside from “Yay! DC3 is now fully translated!” they tweeted a while ago. At least give us a date or something. I’ve been waiting for years for this VN.

abc
abc
Reply to  Sylphritz
7 years ago

The game is now in scripting, you can follow doddler on twitter if you want to have a general idea of were things stand, after he is finished they have to do the beta testing, if everything goes well the game might be released by the end of the year…

Decay
Reply to  Sylphritz
7 years ago

They probably don’t have a date to give. There is still lots of work to be done on VNs that have finished translation. Right now their tech guy Doddler is working on porting it to a new engine, a necessary step for games that don’t natively support English operating systems (more common than you’d think). He’s been publicly posting his progress on his twitter: https://twitter.com/The_Doddler

After that is done, they still have put it through testing. This means testing the new engine code as well as the English script, making sure it’s free from errors. This can end up being a pretty long process as well. All told, you probably shouldn’t expect it for a few months, and it’s understandable that MangaGamer doesn’t really know yet exactly when it will be finished.

Sylphritz
Sylphritz
Reply to  Sylphritz
7 years ago

Ah, I see. I didn’t know there was a twitter of the guy dealing with the programming part. Thank you guys for letting me know. 🙂

I’m fine with waiting. Just wanna know the progress.

Rizuki
Rizuki
7 years ago

Wow Mangagamer so aggressive. Never though Happymaher will be translated.

TrickZZter
TrickZZter
7 years ago
Decay
Reply to  TrickZZter
7 years ago

Although we haven’t been the most consistent about it, I generally don’t favor tracking translations that have already been released on other platforms. The translations are already out there and it just ends up bloating the list to even larger sizes. I suppose we missed Super Star, but I don’t know how much of a VN it actually is. Thanks for the tips.

no
no
7 years ago

missing sayooshi

Awawawa
Awawawa
7 years ago

Clover Day’s
Hekiru TL: 10.25% > 25%