Project #3 Announcement
To the surprise of absolutely no one, we're doing MuvLuv and MuvLuv Alternative.
To clarify: this does mean the entire text of MuvLuv (all routes of Extra and all endings of Unlimited) as well as the entirety of MuvLuv Alternative will be translated into English.
I will be starting on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010. For now, I will aim for a speed of at least 20 kb per day. Depending on how easy/hard this project and my college classes are, it may very well be increased later.
Rui wa Tomo wo Yobu Review
Easily one of the funniest things I've ever read.
At its best, the writing style and characters of RuiTomo are side-splittingly funny. All of the humor feels fresh, much of it could even be called elaborate, and it never once feels forced because the characters play off of each other just so well. Expect Cross Channel-tier vocab spam, run-on sentences, unpredictable callbacks and broad cultural references, yet with significantly more variety and less perversion.
At its worst, the actual plot is marred to the point of mediocrity with failed spot checks, long discussions which state nothing but the obvious, irritatingly predictable "twists" and in some routes rather hollow conclusions. Considering the fact that the actual curses and powers (ie the premise of the story) are genuinely clever, it's a crying shame that more effort wasn't put into fleshing things out. Thankfully, there are a handful of genuine surprises in every route, no breaks in character (at least not for the route heroine), no blatant plot holes, and a handful of the endgame revelations are actually quite impressive. Overall I'd say it averages to "not bad".
This makes actually rating the game rather challenging. While the comedy is undeniably awesome, it sometimes has to take a back seat to a lackluster story. However, most of the time the two aspects of the game are simply competing for attention. It's quite uncommon to go several minutes without a good joke of some kind (and many of the times it does happen are when the plot is actually being interesting). So, this is the end result:
Score: 8/10
Polarization: Mild (+1/-2)
As should be obvious from what I've said before, your personal opinion will depend largely on how much you value plot vs comedy.
Sekien no Inganock Webnovels
http://amaterasu.is.moelicious.be/webnovel/
All eight webnovels are now available in English.
Sekien no Inganock Complete Patch Released
Yes, we're finally done with it. Enjoy.
http://amaterasu.is.moelicious.be/index.php?page=downloads
Also, I am going to translate the webnovels during my break, probably about one every week.
MuvLuv Alternative Review
Best mech anything ever.
That should suffice for an intro.
First, MuvLuv Alternative's most obvious and consistent way of amazing you is its unparalleled production values. Normally, when you read a VN, there are always a handful of moments where you think "they really should have used another sprite for this line/character" or "that'd have been just a bit awesomer if they used another event cg there." In MLA, you will never find such a moment, no matter how hard you might look.
Of course, graphics mean nothing if the plot can't match them, but MLA's plot is no less amazing. The first 5-10 hours are effectively just more of Unlimited, but once the coup d'etat arc begins it rapidly gets awesome, and barring a few short lapses it never stops being awesome. Though the initial premise of fighting off aliens with mechs to save the world is nothing new, there is plenty of detail put into the aliens, the mechs, the history of the war, each of the Alternative plans, the relevant theories on multiverse physics, and all of humanity's backroom politics on those subjects, not to mention the dozens of genuinely moving speeches about what everyone is fighting for. As a result, every single plot twist is immensely plausible, and often potentially heartbreaking.
While the graphics and plot detail work together to produce a great sense of scale and build up to a flawless conclusion, there are some flaws. First, some scenes (especially protag monologues) are needlessly lengthy or redundant. Second, although the biggest reveals are impossible to predict, a lot of the death scenes and smaller twists can be easily seen coming if you're paying attention. Third, as you probably know, you have to play through Extra, Unlimited, and the early part of Alternative in order to get the full experience.
Score: 9.5/10
Polarization: Low (+/-1)
Although the extreme detail is great, some may feel that watching the characters talk about stuff for hours on end takes too much time away from actual combat and plot development. But that's the only subjective issue. I really don't think it's possible to dislike this VN.
Inganock Update
Partial patch for ch1-8 is out. The usual link:
http://amaterasu.is.moelicious.be/index.php?page=downloads
Poll #3 Results
http://amaterasu.is.moelicious.be/poll/
We are convinced that the results of the poll do not accurately represent the will of the VN community, therefore we will decide between the top candidates ourselves after I've played them.
Project #3 Update Regarding Finalists (yes, another one)
A project for Swan Song has now also materialized out of thin air...so yeah, new list:
*edit*
Oh yeah, and Osadai staff finally decided they wanted to denominate it, so...
11eyes
Baldr Sky Dive1 "LostMemory"
Eden* They Were Only Two, On The Planet
France Shoujo ～Une Fille Blanche～
I/O
Katahane
Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
MuvLuv Alternative
Narcissu Side 2nd and Narcissu 3rd Die Dritte Welt
Rui wa Tomo wo Yobu
Project #3 Final Poll Date
I finally made up my damn mind, so...
The final poll will start on November 23rd at 6:00 PM US Pacific Time and last for 24 hours.
Same url as the prelims: http://amaterasu.is.moelicious.be/poll/
Project #3 Update Regarding Finalists
A project for Kara no Shoujo has materialized out of thin air. Thus, the finalists have changed.
Kara no Shoujo will be dropped from the finals, and the candidate which used to be 11th place will now become a finalist.
The new list of finalists is as follows:
11eyes
Baldr Sky Dive1 "LostMemory"
Eden* They Were Only Two, On The Planet
France Shoujo ～Une Fille Blanche～
I/O
Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
MuvLuv Alternative
My girlfriend is the PRESIDENT
Rui wa Tomo wo Yobu
Swan Song
More detailed results will not be posted until after the finals, which will take place in a few weeks after we finish reediting all of Inganock.
Also, the Osadai staff has been asked, and they did not want to disqualify the project, so it remains eligible.