Sousaku Kanojo no Ren'ai Koushiki
THE SECOND PART OF THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVENT READ THE NOVEL WE ADVISE YOU TO LEAVE AND COME BACK ONCE YOU'RE DONE READING!!
The Idea of this entry is to give the team thoughts about the product, in two parts, a technical aspect intended for other aspiring translators or people interested in that part of translation! While the second one is spoiler talk, just our general feelings and thoughts about the product.
Translator Side
Another long ass project finally done!!
This game has been a great learning experience for me. I think this game alone allowed me to master the krkr engine as a whole, while being one of the easiest ones to use is also the most used, so that's a plus.
I've had the opportunity to work with a very, very dedicated team that has made the translation process so much smoother. Quick suggestions and helpful every time, I'm really happy on how it worked in the english side.
Other than that... Honestly, there's not much to say for this one technically, I'm at the point where I've done so many projects that I can reasonably solve anything that comes our way.
The one thing for this project was the spacing and font for textboxes. The game has a very cool font selector, but if we want to make sure the experience is similar for everyone, bearing in mind that some textboxes are filled to the brim, we decided to change the default fonts of the game to the one we used and advice people to not change it.
Althought... I'm sure someone is going to change it either way and complain somewhere about it... But that's how it goes with people that download a novel and don't read...
A fun project nontheless, and on to the next one... The one that has caused me severe burnout twice already(IYKYK), Dekinai.
Thoughts Side
A big one this time...
AngeVN, one of our QA's already posted his feelings in a review on VNDB.
While I do agree on most of the points of the review above, I also want to talk about it.
Now, do bear in mind that I've read this novel I don't know how many times at this point, translating it in two different languages is a crazy endeavor that I'm probably not doing again (at least simultaneously) That means I might be a bit more critical of certain aspects that I noticed a lot.
Common route was very entretaining, I particullary enjoyed chapters three and five (both Yumemi chapters coincidentally) because they really expand on the creation aspect quite a bit.
I think that, in the common route, every chapter has its charm, whether is the reveal of Kiriha's personality, Erena slowly liking people more or even something as simple as a fun game of life.
I really have no issues with this part of the novel other than the Yuina(Amahoshi) being shafted so hard. I think she's my favorite girl overall, her jealousy and frustration feels very real in my eyes and is something I can understand on a personal level.
From a much more techincal point of view the novel really has no outstanding flaws, voice acting, the sprites, the backgrounds, the UI is very clean and that makes inmersing in the story much easier, which is one of the most important things for me when it comes to a vn.
Now, the routes, I would probably rank them from top to botton: Aisa, Kiriha, Erena, Yumemi. With Yumemi's route specially being very, very weak. I never felt these two had feelings for each other in the common route and their relationship was, in my eyes, a familiar bond more than anything. Obviously they have that copout for her having feelings for him but it really feels inorganic and just kind of ruins it all.
Erena and Kiriha had a much more romantic relationship with the protagonist coming from the common route and that made the jump to being a couple much smoother, I don't think I have any issues with those routes, on their own they have a very clear path and a bump they both have to clear, really enjoy them.
Aisa is a complete 180 from the other three routes, maybe some people wouldn't be expecting this tonal shift from this novel, but I honestly enjoyed a lot. I think it kind of connects with the reason this entire translation team was created for. I don't think I'll die for my creations, but I can understand her passion for them, I don't hate that obsession that, in hindsight, we can see from the very first couple of chapters.
One thing I'd say the weakest point of this novel is the adult content, is very formulaic (one swimsuit scene, one lust overdrive one, their first pure time) and it comes to you all at the same time.... On top of that, the writing is horrendous(we did as much as we could to save it, I swear), I've been reading other novels recently and started thinking a bit about that, and I think the biggest issue is how much screen time the actual coitus has, I feel a 70-80% foreplay and a 30-20% actual sex scene is where it works the best for both the writing and the erotic appeal in itself. But these scenes, are not that, is like a 50/50 or even a 40/60... At that point, there's no way to go but to keep spouting vulgar sentences over and over, maybe Keisuke will read this and fix it for Unravel Trigger:Cold War...
Now, when I read this originally the year was 2021, July. At that point appends didn't exist. So I had to read them when I started this project.
And I don't like them much, to say the least. As we just talked about, I don't like Keisuke sex scenes, so all of the subheroines appends were not that good. I understand that doing a deeper append would take maybe more time and resources from them, so I don't blame them.
But, if that's what you were going to do, I would have loved to see maybe a couple of what if's with other potential heroines like Yuina and Shion.
The Aisa append is an interesting one, I don't hate it, but I do have some issues with it. The purpose of it is weird, is this a happy ending for the people that just want one? Is it a much more depressing view of things as Toshiki will never see this future with his own eyes?
Not sure, but I'll say this, I've never liked what if's where nothing of the same value is exchanged in return I guess... It just reminds me of this weird endings mangas and other media have, where they have a very real, maybe depressing ending, not a happy ending and then... they just do some weird reincarnation bullshit where the author is like 'Hey, no, is not a sad ending, look they're happy in a different life!' and I hate that.
Is not enough to have a big change of opinion in the novel, but I did ding it a point for it.
Overall I really enjoyed my time with Sousaku much more than I imagined, and I hope you did as well.
If you wanna share your thoughts too, or just talk about the novel, hop on the discord I want to hear you as well!