What Cross†Channel has a translation patch? – Impressions

…Although just 50% so far. I will say though that this guy has been super fast so I suppose the conclusion 50% will be done in no time.

I honestly had no idea the game was getting translated until I found a post regarding recent visual novel translation on /jp/ which I have been frequenting a little more lately out of loneliness. So, yeah Cross Channel. Ever since I heard about this game during my senior year of high school, I have been interested in it. I don’t know why. I think mostly because at first glance it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a game that makes you think about things and two it was, to be honest, my first eroge experience. My blog is called Cross Channel although not in English like in the game. Also, I use the light blue and white colors that make the Gunjo Gakuen’s uniform for the colors of this blog, and finally my profile picture is of Taichi the main character.

I love Iris Chateaubriand – Loli Appreciation

“That ribbon really suits you, and the way you make your hair in little curls is cute. Your blue eyes are very beautiful.”

“Heheh. I was praised by Oniichan. Hey, Iris will become Oniichan’s girlfriend?”

“Eh?!

Just some lines from the Sakura Taisen 1 remake on the Playstation 2 that I feel would shed some light onto Iris’s character. Oh where do kids learn these things? I first encountered Iris in the Sakura Taisen OVA released by ADV in 98. It was the English version, and at the time I had no idea what Sakura Taisen was about or anything. Then over the years I gradually got the entire game series on the Dreamcast and what not. She was the first character I finished Sakura Taisen 1 and 2 with. It’s been years since I played these games and at the time I knew zero Japanese so I can’t really comment on her back story sadly.

Regardless, I really like Iris and a classic loli character worth mentioning along side those of say Ruri Hoshino, and Sakura Kinomoto. She is most certainly the token loli of the first 2 Sakura Taisen games, but I personally think she is the best of the 3 in the franchise. Coquelicot & Rika just can’t match Iris’s natural loli appeal which is cute, but she is extremely (read: dangerously) precocious for her age of 9. Short blonde hair, blues eyes, and very childish clothes. Not to mention, Iris is just going to grow up to be drop dead gorgeous as seen in her dream sequences in Sakura Taisen 1.

I really prefer Sakura Taisen 1 Iris not because she is the youngest version :3 but because I think the green dress and pink ribbon is better than the outfit she switches to in 2 and for the rest of the series (wtf?). The new outfit is a little cuter, but I mean it’s kinda all the same color. It’s like orange, yellow and white on a character who already has blonde hair. Are you trying to make me go blind?

Sometimes I wonder if Ohgami is just humoring Iris half the time, but it does seem kinda strange when you can choose to say rather grown up things to Iris. It usually gets some very humorous results from the peanut gallery though. It is so LOL to see Sakura get all jealous over Iris, who is just a child, getting praised by Ohgami. I swear the first time I saw Iris’s (blushing?) face on the PS2 version, I kinda had a raised eyebrow because she looks like she’s ready for some. Eh, I dunno. It just looks more like a kind of face you wouldn’t see on a kid, I guess. Haha.

I’m really looking too deep into these things. It’s predominately a comedy game, and not meant to be anything on the pron side. Maybe a little suggestive though…

I tell you guys. I’m happy Sakura Taisen 5 is getting brought over in English for many who have wanted it to be over for years. Many who don’t know any Japanese at all. I can’t help but feel a bit of sadness that 5 is going to be their first experience. 5 is going to bring them into the franchise, and that is why I weep a little bit on the inside. The Sakura Taisen franchise is classic, and one of my favorites, but 5 is crappy. The first 4 is what makes Sakura Taisen what it is. If you ever get the chance try the other ones out too. They’re all practically fan translated anyway.

Although, at least NIS is releasing 5 with English AND Japanese audio on two separate discs for a relative cheap price. So props to them for that, and a great thing actually.

My Iris and Hanabi, two favorite characters in the series, drawn by that lady I think has no talent since all her faces look the same.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – YES NO BLACK BLOOD HERE

I watched this entire episode in Japanese without subs for listening comprehension improvement purposes so I can’t really comment on what was going on too much (it all went downhill when Maria started to read that letter), but oh boy they delivered in this one! GORE and BLOOD. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NIIIIIIIIIIIIICE! NIIIIIIIIIIICE!

Did anyone notice Rika and Hanyuu on the TV that Maria was watching. LOL

Shugo Chara – He likes her but not her

And thus I am reminded of Ranma 1/2.

This kinda makes me dislike that kid. I mean, that’s kinda low. That’s like saying I only like when you’re drunk.

Eberouge – Have you heard of it? Didn’t think so

The only image I could really find…

Yeah, I dunno. This game was one of the random buys out of many I wanted to do while in Japan but I only ended up with this game in the end because I never had enough money to get anything else before I left. Oh well, so about this game. It was originally on the Saturn but probably due to the Saturn dying gradually they ported it over to the Playstation. It looks to me to be a direct port. I kinda wish that they at least would have improved things like character designs, and just the graphics in general because the Playstation was such a great powerhouse at the time for those things.

So, I really don’t know what the plot is. The game explains it in an opening animated sequence right when you put the game in, but my listening comprehension is horrible, and I haven’t bothered to read the manual because lazy. But according to Wikipedia, this is what the game is about…

The story happens in a parallel world named EbeLand. The setting is similar to the medieval age in Europe. Magic is common and is a common subject taught in colleges. In this world, the ecosystem is originated and supported by a central huge tree. However, due to the overdevelopment of industries and use of fossil fuel, global warming is rampant. The huge tree is dying, which endangers the game world.

Long ago, this land was saved by the Goddess Ebe from total destruction, but years later, an archeologist among the survivors felt the balance of the land tipping again. So he created institutes to train a student that can create magic, as the Goddess did, to save the land once more.

Yeah, so you play this kid named Qualenac Russiyoung. Yeah, you read that right. All the characters in this game have weird and long names that make no sense. Anyway, you first see this opening sequence of his father taking him to this school where the game takes place. His father hugs him and leaves. He has a room mate named Noische Amolphy who is either a male or female. I’m a little confused and trying to figure this out myself. S/he’s images in the manual look like a girl but the in game graphics look like a boy. The voice is obviously a female but that doesn’t mean anything. I’m leaning more towards it’s a girl, and probably a hidden character.

The characters in general are… They have personality, I guess, but totally unlikable. Nothing on the level of say Tokimemo or True Love Story. One female character was complaining how guys are never straight forward. Ugh, bitchy. Another female character was just plain bitchy when she asked me to vote for her in some kind of beauty contest and I picked no, and he said to her that he’ll think about it. She’s like,”Oh, so that means you’re not voting for me.” I still went to this contest where she won and she got all mad over that I went to it even though I didn’t vote for her. The protagonist thought to himself, “Boy, girls sure are difficult.” That made me laugh actually. On the whole, they all seem to have fit the standard archetypes, and nothing better than that.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like how the characters are introduced. They just seem to be introduced in a way that you’re already supposed to know who they are. I also dislike that there is a severe lack of content and events, but this might not be something that is just a problem in this game. In seems like a lot of early date sims were like this. Tokimemo 1 has only few per character, and True Love Story has a few per season.

So basically the game play is a lot like Tokimeki Memorial where you spend a lot of your time learning various subjects and meeting females except instead of learning ordinary things you’re studying things like martial arts, magic, and such. If they have some kind of greater purpose or something later in the game I’m not sure because to be honest this game is crappy so I shut it off after a few hours.

I hope you have music laying around to listen to because the music in Eberouge is going to get old very fast. There literally must be only two tracks in this entire game. Didn’t it ever occur to them to change the music occasionally? I mean no matter what season it is you’re going to hear the same tunes on the main screen when you’re picking your schedule for the week. At least Konami had the decency to change the music for each season so it didn’t feel like it ever got annoying or whatever.

If you know well over 1000 Kanji and have a good grasp of grammar this game should be pretty damn easy to play for you. …But it’s not like date simulation games are rocket science anyway. Hahah. But seriously stay away from this game it’s horrible. If I would say that Tokimemo and True Love Story are god tier franchises than Eberouge is shit tier. I never even heard of the game company, Fujitsu, before.

Maybe I am just being too critical and looking at it from the eyes of someone who has played such great and more polished games that were made, but then again this was made in 97 and Tokimemo 1 was released on the Playstation in 95 so I can’t say there is any excuse for some of the unpolished elements in this game. Perhaps this is just a trashy game that might have been made to just rip off Tokimemo’s success?

Umineko no Naku Koro ni 01 – SHOULD HAVE WAITED UUUUUU

If someone wasn’t going to shut her up I was going to with my DICK fist.

My goodness. So bad. So BAD! Horrible first episode. I knew I should have waited for a few more to come out but my interest as been building for so long I couldn’t resist to come out from under my rock and look into this. At least over 12 characters were introduced in such a short amount of time and the excessive UUUing were my main problems.

Whoa! So this is where Philemon has been hanging out since Persona 2.

I only played a little bit of the sound novel in Japanese and I know the anime isn’t the game but… BUT there was so much dialogue and back story before them going to the island if I recall. Why skip all that? Pointless maybe but at least it got you to understand the characters a little more. Definitely would have been a little better than what they just did in this episode.

This is 13 episodes too? I… I don’t like where this is going at all.

On the plus side a lot of the female characters look cute. :3 I never did like 07th Expansion’s character designs, but big hands and goofy expressions are their trademark in other words not moe designs.

Could use less UUU and more NI~PAH, but if this is the only episode that UUU phrase gets overly done I can tolerate it. I like her lolita outfit she has going. Very cute.

Jessica is kinda cute, but I only want to mention that I REALLY like the color scheme she has going on. Her blonde hair, purple blouse and red skirt all really come together to make some nice aesthetic thing for the eyes or whatever. Well, I like it.

Quiet and reserved meido-san. Probably a closet nympho.

The OP song is definitely cool but the ED song is awful. Shrieking men for the lose.

I think I am going to come back after half the series is out or better yet when all of it is out like I usually do…

Shuffle, Demonbane and Higurashi games licensed? – COOL

Sometimes pictures speak louder than words.

Wow, totally unexpected. I would never have expected such licenses 5 or 6 years ago. Truly shows how far anime has come since when I started to like it. People are willing to try and get a market for this stuff plus not to mention people ARE interested in this stuff. I looked at the websites to the guys who licensed them, JastUSA and MangaGamer, and I must say that MangaGamer really hasn’t even released a whole lot to begin with.

So these games are a pretty lucky break for them. I hope they sell well and people don’t end up just stealing them via torrents but it’ll happen I know. I don’t understand it. If you like it then support it. If you do that then better quality games will get released more and more, and not just another average Mother Rape over 9000 kinda eroge that makes up 99% of JastUSA’s releases. At least support it for now since it is so niche and taking its baby steps.

I dunno. I guess I just wanted to write up a little note about this, and how I reacted to the news. I think it’s great, and I am all for these kinds of things. Even though I am more interested in reading them in their original language, this is definitely good news for those that aren’t interested in learning Japanese and fans of those series.

Information found at ANN.
Release of Shuffle and Higurashi by MangaGamer.com

JAST USA licenses Nitroplus Games

Persona 4 beaten – Final Thoughts

You can read most of my previous thoughts which could be considered a preface to this entry. There are some major spoilers in this entry.

After 121 hours of playing I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy myself. Persona 4 is definitely a solid game that polished all the elements used in Persona 3. I am going to have a hard time playing that now that I experienced all these improvements.

In the beginning I really didn’t latch onto the Persona 4 characters much, but after a while I just really started to like them all. They’re a great bunch, and Persona 4 does an excellent job making you feeling like you’re all friends and came a long way together. There were far too many times I laughed. A lot of the NPCs were great too. I specifically liked Dojima and Nanako. I actually shed some tears at her death during the bad ending and shed some more when she didn’t die if you don’t throw Namatame into TV. I actually thought she died regardless of what ending you choose. So I was happy that she didn’t die.

I felt the plot got kinda hokey by the point you can choose to get the bad ending or not, and got even more so when you fight Adachi. There were a lot of points in the game where I felt like it should have just started to end. I felt Naoto’s addition to the party as tacked on or maybe should have come before that one Void Quest dungeon. The real final boss, Izanami, felt like fighting the end boss to Final Fantasy 9. The ever present true end boss that makes you feel, “Um, where did you come from?” I liked the true ending. Sad, but happy. I don’t know what it is about Japanese media. It’s always the coming together as friends, forming bonds and working towards a common goal that make up a large amount of their stuff and it never really gets old.

I’m sad I didn’t at least finish the social links for all my party members even at least Rise and Kanji because I liked them fairly much. I wouldn’t have minded it if just Chie and Naoto were the only ones I never maxed out because I really didn’t like them AS MUCH as the other characters. Chie because I’m not a fan of tomboys and Naoto because she just came too late in the game for me to get into her character.

I am extremely satisfied with the difficulty. I played on normal but even that had its challenges and I found myself dying a few times on random encounters and bosses, but nothing a little grinding couldn’t solve. Although I found myself at a low level most of the time I think. I beat the game at level 77 and most people say it’s around the 80s. I tried fighting the end boss (Izanami) at 75 but I couldn’t do it. I don’t know how two levels really made a difference…

I really caught on late to the fusing new Persona. It’s too bad because it was only at the end where I tried doing things, but after awhile I got kinda bored. I only really ended up fusing Alice because undead loli. I actually ended up using just one or two of the same Persona during the entire game. I forget which one I used up until the halfway point but once I fused Black Frost, I just used him the entire game. Mind Charge and Agidyne got the job done on most bosses. Besides I found most bosses used Bufu or Agi skills more than anything else, and Dark resist is always good.

Well now that Persona 4 is over I’m going to take some time to get my life back together because I’ve been kind playing it nonstop just to get it done. I started up Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne though. I wonder what ending I’ll get in that? Also disappointed it has no Alice fusion. I was kinda looking forward to having Alice on my team. I guess I could always try and get her in the online game. I would seriously replay Persona 4 again though but to be honest I think Persona 4 is really lacking in extra content. Sure you get to breeze through the game and have access to all your old Persona but there really is no reason to. Maybe if there were more than just one added secret boss I might be more willing to clock in some more hours. Regardless, it was a fun game.

OH NOES! Not a side story to Final Fantasy 1!

I was looking forward to that countdown on the SE website. Maybe just maybe it could have been something cool like a new Mana game or Saga game or something new. Nah. Instead it’s just a side story to the first Final Fantasy. I don’t know much about the details but how much can you tell about something that seemed so final in the original game? Obviously being made to cash in off old fans, and not to mention the graphics seem to play off the 8-bit era. I can’t say for sure since it is just magazine scans, but man the graphics look poor. I mean what is so hard about just doing sprites like the old days? NOW THAT would be cool.

Square-Enix games are so horrid. Definitely could not pull through after the PlayStation 1 era. To this day I still wonder just what the hell happened?

Now if only Atlus could start remaking/releasing for an English audience their earlier Shin Megami Tensei games I would readily praise them since their games overall have solid.

Scan taken from RPGamer.com

Do you like your Kanon old or new?

This fan artist apparently had fans of either the Toei version or the Kyoani version in mind. Very creative.