Jang_Nari posted:

Hello! I would really appreciate it if someone can help me out.
Here's what I remember: The MC dated someone and then she found out that her present gf is actually her ex-girlfriend in highschool who left her. This girl left her without any notice, and after that, she heard lots of cheating rumours. As soon as she found out that they're the same person, she wanted revenge. MC then left this present girlfriend without saying anything. She also quit her job but the girl still found her and they became together again.

Sorry for any confusing thoughts, that's all I can remember >.< Thank you very much!

This.

EDIT/ Damn, ninja'd

last edited at Nov 8, 2020 5:12PM

Zormau posted:

or the English dub of Ghost Stories.

Just wanted to point out that GS wasn't actually bad or even unpopular in Japan. That's a myth. It's simply that Japanese publisher didn't think it'll be popular in west so they give translation team pretty much a free hand. There's a argument to be made that they were right, but it's a bit more complicated than "the sauce sux'd". Also for how liberally translation it was they were given rules. They had to keep names of characters and ghosts the same as well the ways the ghosts were defeated. Everything else was fair game though. So you could argue even Japanese still wanted to maintain some semblance of original plot. They just didn't expect Americans to go abridge on it (they did at least tried being serious at first, but with each new episodes voice actors were having more and more fun).

last edited at Nov 8, 2020 4:40PM

Best canon.

塞雷娅 posted:

Meh. I gave up trying to use those base skills. Every time I tried to cheat the system, I was getting different clue. I think operator with increased chance gave me the clue they increase chance for only like once. If it's never working, why bother.

Yeah, you're gonna also need someone to increase the chance of operators getting the clues they are biased for in the control center if you want better chances at that. I usually only do those if I've been missing the clue for a few days but I put Aak in the control center and then whatever operator with the clue I need in the reception center.

Nah, I did that too. With Aak&Leizi + relevant operators in reception combo. I never got the clue I was going for like that and I tried 3-4 times, so I decided to screw it. Too much effort and paying attention to timing for it to never work. And now that I maxed out my friend list with people from gamepress sharing thread I don't need to worry about clues anymore anyway.

last edited at Nov 8, 2020 4:17PM

@Kirin I thought I was clear, but you still appear to be talking about completely different game than I played.

"One of the greatest strengths of VNs as a medium, in my opinion, is to capture multiple perspectives and scenarios instead of adopting the absolute linearity of a paperback novel

My point was that Kindred Spirit is linear. Just like any book, comic, movie is. It shows you events from different angels and perspective, but said events do not differ in outcomes. So saying it should had have Yuna x Ano path is misunderstanding game, because it doesn't have any other "path". You can't play game once and have different experience than someone else playing the game. Every player will always see exactly the same story no matter what.

Which brings me to "Kindred Spirits actively uses this system, since we do get to inspect the same events from different perspectives in Calendar mode, so it's not like the writers were opposed to using the medium to lend the story depth."

They didn't. They didn't use medium at all. Not in the "only did the bare minimum" or "not as complex as other VN" or "could do more". They straight didn't take advantage of what VN medium has to offer.

"I think we have the same point, though? Kindred Spirits only did the bare minimum to explore multiple perspectives"

I do think they did pretty poor job using multiple perspectives, but seems like we're misunderstanding each other on more fundamental level.

"but in order to unlock some of the extra sections, you had to replay the game and pick different dialogue options."

We have different definition of "reply the game". In normal visual novel once you make the choice the game keeps on going. The events unfold based on choice you made. You make more choices, events split yet again. It continues until you finish the game and get either good or bad ending. Hopefully you unlocked the route you wanted, but it didn't necessary have to be the case. Only after you actually reached the end of the story you can then play again and experience entire story anew trying to pick different options and seeing how this changes story. Sometimes the changes are very little, but sometimes they can pretty much turn into different story altogether. This is completely missing from KS. Sure there are choices and you see slightly different dialogue, but they're not permanent. As I said before, you're not actually forced to keep on playing after making the choice until you reach the end of the game. You are in fact forced to go back to those choices the same month and reply them until you pick the one that unlock progression for given couple, because without doing so you are unable to progress with the main story. Something that never happens in any other VN. If you pick wrong choice, it locks you out from the path/event and in the worst case scenario leads you directly to bad end and you have to replay game from scratch (or from save but shhh). That's why I said for all intents and purpose KS has no choices, because game only give you illusion of choice and some flavor dialogue, but in the end you're forced to make the right choice immediately in order to progress the story further according to the way game wants the story to progress. Just like Kinetic Novels, but you're not given any choice to begin with.

"Is it anywhere near as complex as what others VNs do? Not by a long shot. But you also couldn't recreate the effect in a book or a movie unless you devoted fifteen pages or half-an-hour of runtime to psychological, hypothetical what-if sections that stem from one character saying something different and then leap into the mind of another character to explore the ripple effects, and do this four times for each week of a nine-month calendar without getting immensely confusing. It's not impossible, but it's the kind of thing that'd look ridiculously awkward in anything but a VN or videogame."

You have MC telling story from their perspective. It goes for 5 chapters. Then next 4 chapters are each told from perspective of 4 characters MC interacted in previous 5 chapters. Then it goes back to MC and rinse and repeat. Here, you just did exactly the same thing that Kindred Spirit did. You can switch it to chapters in comic or episodes in TV series.

Again you're describing the game that doesn't exist. The dialogue in couples stories doesn't change based on your choices in main story. There are barely any choices in main story to begin with. And once there is, if you pick the wrong one, couple story won't progress, so you can't read it, so unless you go and read the proper choice (and again, during the same game you can read all 3 choices without any penalty whatsoever) and only then you can read the couple story, so you have no idea how it would go if you picked the "wrong" choice, because you were never given the chance to experience that version, unlike in pretty much any other proper visual novel. Far cry from "hypothetical what-if sections that stem from one character saying something different and then leap into the mind of another character to explore the ripple effects". What you're describing is a true for non-linear VN and that's exactly the reason why they're so incredibly hard to adapt. KS on the other hand is not. It could be easily fit into 26 episode anime, probably even shorter.

Routes also aren't unique to VNs or games- there have been examples of books or movies being created based on what-if scenarios that follow from a previous instalment. VNs just polished the narrative device of a story route to a level unmatched in any other medium, but the existence of routes is still a VN tradition and not a feature.

Ok, that's just straight wrong. Reading a sequel or different interpretation of events is nothing like being able to actively influence story's progression while reading it and having vastly different experience to other people or even every time you play the VN/game (unless you always pick exact same choices, but then what's the point). No 2 play through are exactly the same, while every time you read the book or sequel or reinterpretation, you get exactly the same experience. Again, KS is a linear, kinetic novel you can't really experience differently. The end story will always be exactly the same. Interactivity and player input are like entire point of games and what separate them and make them distinct from other media, so I'm not sure how I feel about you trying to say those are not unique to them.

"I should say that I'm talking about the Final Chorus Edition of the game, so the whole replay the game and pick different dialogues for extra content might not have existed in older versions."

No. I played the game both before Final Chorus and after and all it does is adding voices to all characters. The gameplay itself doesn't change at all. And again, calling it "extra content" is awefuly generous since you get just like few different lines per choice and if you mean unlocking progression of couple story, it's more of actual content of the game, since you're required to unlock it, in order to progress further, rather than extra one.

"Basically, I do think we agree on the fundamental point that Kindred Spirits could have done more with the choice system, but chose not to for various reasons, which led to various pros and cons. I guess I should've been more specific about the fact that KSOTR used the choice and branching system in principle, but not to an innovative degree."

No. My point was that KS doesn't use choices at all and so it's weird to expect form choiceless game to include another path for Yuna and criticize it for it. I basically think your arguments about missing potential and lack of budget, are missing the point of what game actually lacked. I guess adding Yuna x Ano path would be adding choices to the game and addressing my complain (somewhat), so in that sense we would be agreeing.

Sorry if that sounds condescending or insulting, but I was trying to explain my stance as best as I could, but I do feel like we're talking past each other.

last edited at Nov 8, 2020 5:27AM

Fairypixie24 posted:

but that's exactly what the translators have been trying to do since the beginning: capture the feelings and the flavors, and make every voice distinctive, rather than doing a word-by-word translation.

That's really missing the point of translation. No TL is ever exactly word-by-word. Translators always have to take some liberities. How much and how visible it is, is often heavily depended on skills of translator and original work itself. And it's not translator job to make each voice distinctive. It's author's one. Good author will make each character have distinctive voice and good translator will translate it accordingly. I'm hard press calling someone good author when translator has to add unique voice to their character and vice versa when scanlator is adding a unique voice to character that didn't have one.

I said it before. I really appreciate and can understand the way SAD translate their stuff. Nobody can say their translations don't flow well and aren't fun to read. But whatever they're good translations in the sense of conveying the tone and meaning of original, that's definitely more debatable. They definitely nailed the way to localize translations though.

Norainhere posted:

Also, in addition to the super classy Manticore skin the next Contingency Contract store will also have 15x Aketons, so you probably don't need to worry too much about farming them on TW-7 too much.

Unless you need way over 15. Like me. And there's never too much mats. Also it assumes I will have points from CC to spare on buying them after I'll first buy all the more important stuff.

@Kirin "One of the greatest strengths of VNs as a medium, in my opinion, is to capture multiple perspectives and scenarios instead of adopting the absolute linearity of a paperback novel. Kindred Spirits actively uses this system, since we do get to inspect the same events from different perspectives in Calendar mode, so it's not like the writers were opposed to using the medium to lend the story depth. "

Ok, I actually have to disagree with that. It's true that VN's biggest strength is being able to tell different stories and show different outcomes depending on your choices, as in, it's still a interactive experience compare to movies or books (as opposed to Kinetic Novels, where you pretty much just read and have no choices whatsoever), but Yurirei does not take advantage of it. I have few issues with the game on my own, but probably the biggest one is exactly that for all intents and purposes, Kindred Spirits is a Kinetic Visual novel. Your choices don't matter. All routes go the exact same way no matter what and you have no actual influence on the outcomes. There's 1 set path for all parings and that is the same for Yuna x Hina. Sure games sometimes ask you to make a choice, but you can't progress unless you read all other couples path and you can't read them unless you unlock them and you can't unlock them unless you pick the right choice, so game forces you to go back and find right choice before allowing you to move forward. So there not being Yuna x Ano route makes perfect sense, because Yuna x Hina is the only possible outcome in canon of the story and game never give you impression otherwise.

What creators did with Calendar mode is no different than dedicating different chapters to telling story from different points of view. It's nothing that books, comics or movies can't do right now. Having Yuna have to choose who she helps, because events take place during the same time or you need to spend time preparing to help one couple, so you can't stalk check on others, would actually make game much more interesting. Couples getting together or breaking up depending who you help. Now that would be taking advantage of the medium. I was really disappointed that wasn't the case, but I guess if not every couple ended up happy it could risk giving game a much darker and bittersweet mood instead of pure fluff we got.

BTW. I love Yuna x Hina and wouldn't see it otherwise.

last edited at Nov 8, 2020 3:41AM

random posted:

(also, lessens the frustration of getting those blasted Clue #4s doubly so if you have Absinthe from the event)

Meh. I gave up trying to use those base skills. Every time I tried to cheat the system, I was getting different clue. I think operator with increased chance gave me the clue they increase chance for only like once. If it's never working, why bother.

myrrhmidon posted:

The best part is that there's a special cutscene if you let him through the blue box. Perhaps he might be playable in the future??? Also the reveal that he's actually a bird. It wasn't obvious but I guess the whole singing thing was a big hint.

Meh. Personally from Reunion leaders I liked FrostNova the most and she actually officially joined Rhodes Island, so theoretically she has the least reason to not be playable and yet she isn't.

CC is next week btw. I will have my Angelina with M3 skill 3 on support for it.

Really? That sucks... I only barely started E2 my operators and mastering their skills. I hoped I'd have a bit more time to prepare before next CC ;/

random posted:

nobody cares about edgelord Flamebringer being kinda terrible

If you even have him in the first place 8D

neuguy posted:

Is there a way to spoiler an image?

I don't think so. At best you can do this https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.oSFxxYxnq3P-Vvn11sCLUAHaHZ%26pid%3DApi&f=1.

last edited at Nov 8, 2020 2:05AM

I'll excuse myself.

Lilliwyt posted:

Hurt ? I never talk to BD outside of Dynasty and we were not really best friends. Merely acquitances.

You're not openly against BD and your post can be vaguely interpreted as defending them. It's enough to label you as BD's bestest pal ever according to them.

And even if it's part of culture or something, it doesn't mean it's a good thing and can't be changed.

I mean I never really cared about spoilers so?

Kirin posted:

I got the same vibe, but then decided to assume that Shizuru wasn't the short-haired person on the first page, simply because Kei's attitude seems somewhat different on both pages, even considering that the circumstances are different.

Tbh, words said by character on page 1 seemed to be way too harsh for someone even with low self-esteem to say, but I just chalked it up to character being incredibly depressed.

Also, I don't think trans issues are that well-known in Japan, so authors tend to be more obvious while signalling that a particular character is trans,

While it's true for the most part, it definitely changed somewhat into positive direction nowadays. That being said, while when author wants to explore trans characters, they're usually pretty blatant about it, if author wants to include them, without really making them the focal point, they can be pretty sneaky and subtle about it. Just like we have a lot of subtext that to anyone well attuned to those things is pretty obvious, it's often still written in a way that's just vague enough that can be easily dismissed by people denying it or overlooked by people who are not familiar with the signs. So I wouldn't throw away that possibility in Japanese works that quickly.

not to mention the potential for samefacing in art, which has led to more 'actually, these are characters might be related' theories then I'd care to list here.

Oh yes, definitely. Especially in manga where author always use the same proportions and the same face/eyes shape without much details, it can be really easy to mix characters up. That's why they're often given distinct cloths and hairstyle/hair color, so viewer can tell them apart. When I was translating chapter 2 of Nutmeg, I was sure in first pages it was MC talking to the girl and story was just told out of order and we were seeing future events. Only after my editor told me it was completely different character I realized it. The face and hairstyle was pretty much identical and while hair had different color, I just assumed it was some kind of shading or something.

I do feel like your interpretation adds a significant amount of depth and possible context to the events of this story, though, and I'm glad you took the time to type it out.

Thanks, but I have no issue with admitting when I'm dead wrong and that's the case here. I did feel like character from page 1 and Shizuku looked nothing alike, but because both have black hair it apparently was enough proof for me to came to conclusion that they must be the same person. Since the work is really short I was thinking that everything author included must be important so I tried to came up with explanation how character from page 1, became character from page 2, but assuming that only "logical" explanation was that Shizuku was trans was way too much of a leap. Still I'm glad I did end up writing it, because after your comment and checking work again, it all finally makes sense to me.

So Kei is in love with Shizuku. Seems like Shizuku has terminal illness or some other kind of serious condition. It seems that Kei didn't confess her feelings to Shizuku. Part of it seems to be because she wouldn't take them seriously or understand them. Maybe she doesn't think Kei and/or anyone would love her, maybe she just wouldn't understand concept of love between girls. So Kei is suffering because of it, unable to discuss it with Shizuku, so she tries to date someone else. She dates guy from page 1, but because her heart isn't in it, the guy doesn't feel loved and breaks up with her. He sees Kei as perfect and feels inferior next to her, which strikes a nerve with her, because she isn't perfect. She can't even safe the person who she actually cares about the most.

Hard to say since we don't really know if Shizuku is hospitalized or not, but seems like they took a break for her to have some pleasant experiences. Idk if I'm looking too deep into it again, but Kei's line "Don't run, you'll trip" might suggest Shizuku is physical weak? Anyway, Kei asks if she feels drained with her and Shizuku denies, going back to previous conversation. Apparently Kei seems perfect to everyone she's around and so people tend to drift away from her or not want to get too close, but Shizuku is the only one who doesn't view Kei like that, hence why she sees her as someone irreplaceable and is terrified of inevitably losing her. Kei asking Shizuku if she wants to die seems to again go back to her potentially having incurable disease she's sick of and wants to end her suffering, but again it might as well just be her copying mechanism and Kei might be aware of it, but that's unclear.

Ultimately Shizuku doesn't think highly about herself and think Kei will easily move on after her death, unaware that Kei is actually feeling alienated and she's the only person she can be herself with, so Shizuku's death will be devastating for her.

Could be told a bit clearler or longer, but meh, I think it's relatively easy to understand, once you won't mistake guy from page 1 for trans girl stares

last edited at Nov 7, 2020 4:03PM

塞雷娅 posted:

^ If you have Ifrit, she basically just fucks up everything so... There's an Ifrit tile where you can drop her down and let her work.

I know which tile you talk about and I did notice it, but since I'd need to put her last, I was afraid she won't survive 2 seconds with all the aggro and no medics healing her, so I didn't even try.

there's Gitano and Silverash, and I think Blue Poison with S2 will work.

I don't have SA, so I can't auto with him. BP could actually be worth trying. I'm actually already using Gitano. My current strategy is from bottom: Lappland facing up with S1 so she works as bonus dps. I used Jessica, but near the end when I was figuring out how to handle last 50 kills, I started using Exusiai instead with S2 (I have lvl and all mats to E2 her outside of sniper chips and since event started then, I focused on spending ap there, so no S3 yet) for more burst for Leader Junkmen, Perfumer, Texas later swapped for Gummy (I easily get 300 DP before removing her), Nearl, E2 Meteorite killing everything, Executor defending 2 lines and Chen, mostly because it really doesn't matter who is on top and when I had Meteorite and Jessica her passive made more sense, but I guess it still helps with Meteorite blowing stuff up faster. Once I reach 350, I switch Exusiai for Gitano after she kills all bottom MK2(?) and use her S2 to kill bottom 3 Crushers, so I only really need to handle top. During time it takes for Gitano to charge her skill and kill Defenders, Exusiai can be used again, so I redeploy her immediately. For top, I switch Meteorite for Eyja once first Defender starts to moving, but I'll try using Ceobe next time. With her S2 she should go pew, pew on them and kill them easily.

I'm halfway done with EX and challenges. 1 thing that really annoys me is that whenever you finish playing challenge it switches back to normal and you need to remember to switch it back. It's especially annoying when you keep trying and forget to switch it once and win practice and then try to beat it thinking you worked out strategy to then constantly lose and be puzzled why it doesn't work anymore. I lost 80 ap like that today, before I realized I must have won normal practice, not challenge...

So all future events are going to look like that? Because I love it. Sure it was nice before, 6-8 stages to beat + challenges, but after a while it kinda felt lacking so now having so many different ones to beat is really fun. Also new mechanic really makes it a challenge to figure out all the maps. Projekt Red already helped me beat EX-5 and challenge. Really happy I finally got her.

While idea of Satou being inside job is pretty plausible, my taken on it is that Satou likes new, inexperienced girls. She was happy when Rin acted clumsy and in fact wanted to cut date short to jump to fucking cuddling. She most likely like taking care of others and so she enjoys when new girls are not yet good at the job and aren't doing exactly well, so she needs to help them out. That's why she immediately checks every new girl. As soon as she saw Rin preparing bed beforehand and taking initiative with bath, she lost her boner and it wasn't her fetish anymore interest in Rin and no longer felt like it was what she expected. If that really is the case, I think it's really stupid, if only for the simple fact that at any professional place even if someone is new, they should be trained well enough to know what they're doing, but maybe she's regular at this place, exactly because owner just hires girls left and right and send them to work without any training whatsoever. But that's only a wild guess stares.

I'm probably reading too much into it and I agree the work could definitely use being a bit longer and flesh out some details, but from the way Shizuru is presented on first page, short hair, face obscured, dressed rather manly, I feel like she's transgender and that's the reason for her depression, low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. On page 2 we see her assumingly after hormone therapy/operation, where she's in much better place in life and visibly more happy (we can finally see her face), hence why Kei asks if she still wants to die. And as was already pointed out, suicidal thoughts don't just go away like that.

Answering some people pointing out getting help, again, assuming Shizuru is trans and got at least hormone therapy, it'd mean she saw some specialist, but mental help in Japan is utter trash. Ignoring the stigma of going to therapy or being diagnosed with mental illness (which is still a issue even in the west), most Japanese specialist simply prescribe you meds and hope it'll solve everything, good luck having a good, positive conversation about your issues. So, again, assuming Shizuru is trans, I can imagine that even if she's in better place now, it's still nowhere perfect. Another clue is with Kei asking if she feels drained from being with her and Shizuru says no. It implies that being with other people drains her, most likely either, because people try to be polite around her, but don't really accept her gender identity or because they straight don't accept it and give her hard time.

I'm not saying constantly talking about dying or asking people who care about you which way would be best to die is healthy or pleasant, but we're not really talking about someone of sound mind. Even if she doesn't mean it, talking about death could be a copy mechanism of sort for Shizuru to let out of her negative emotions and keep on going. The same way like, ranting and talking to someone how shitty your life is can help you, talking about wanting to kill yourself brings attention of others to you and might be cathartic in a way, while at the same time giving you impression you're actively thinking about ways to end your life and misery, when in fact you're all just talk and don't really want to kill yourself and talking about it is your way of push the idea away. People only really kill themselves when they reach absolute bottom and see no other way out. As long as the number of reasons to live won't reach zero, they'll keep pushing through and having 1 person not wanting you to die, might just be that 1 reason.

Only thing I'm not really sure about is Kei's thought "She doesn't even realize I'm afraid of the end that's coming". Whatever it refers to Shizuru simply finally killing herself or it means she actually has some kind of incurable illness and all my theorizing is full of crap.

Rye posted:

^ Since you got Eyja, you just need a sniper for and a healer for the other lane. You can use your Liskarm to charge skills as well.

Yes, I mean I already beat it with 400 kills, but thanks anyway x3. Good point with Liskarm though. I forgot you can do it. I'm using Nearl and Gummy for additional heals. I'm not entirely happy with my run, but nothing I can do about it with my current operators and it should be reliable to auto. Actually Eyja turned out to not be as good as I thought, since she can't reach all Defenders with volcano and they come in 1 by 1, so I ended up actually using S2 and then she actually kept targeting Junkmen instead of Defenders... I'm considering switching her for Ceobe since she should do better job + she focuses highest def enemies with her S2 on.

塞雷娅 posted:

Also I've been farming TW-6 and TW-7 and they're both really good farming maps. Literally getting the dropped mat like, almost every run. I run out of aketons really easily so I'm glad I can stock up on that.

Yea. The drop rates for TW-6, TW-7 and TW-8 are like around 60%. I just finished grinding 50 grindstones, so they should last me some time (I farmed 50 Loxic Kohl during Ancient Forge and didn't run out of them yet) and will be farming Incandescent Alloy next.

Norainhere posted:

Speaking of spoilers, if anyone's managed to make it to TW-S-1 and TW-S-2 stages you might've noticed a couple of new operators. Well, that's what happens when events are done out of order lol

Yea, I was a bit confused about Phantom and thought it was just operator I didn't see yet. I have to say he's pretty cool and I like his gimmick, but I absolutely hate the fact that his shadow uses up DP limit. It seriously invalidates his uses outside of some gimmicky strategies/CC contracts and such.

last edited at Nov 3, 2020 9:15AM

Got Projekt Red from guarantee 5+ star, so exactly as I wanted. Also finally decided to give Anni 3 a shot again. I was thinking about playing it again for some time now, especially after I finally E2 some operators. I managed to get to 395 pretty easily on first try, so it was just matter of working out details.

last edited at Nov 3, 2020 8:42AM

Lilliwyt posted:

What does OS mean?

One Shot

Ah! I couldn't figure out what abbreviation it was for.

Lilliwyt posted:

on innocent OS

What does OS mean?

myrrhmidon posted:

Folinic is a 5 star so I do want to E2 her for the stat boost and of course the cool E2 art.

Ah, right. I was just thinking in terms of you only need to E1 her to unlock her second skill to do what you were referring to, but of course if you like it you'd want to actually use her and that means E2 her eventually.

Norainhere posted:

God, TW-8 gave me so much trouble that I had no idea how I'd beat it with just 6 operators.

I managed to almost figure it out on my own. I did the same set up as Eckogen, just needed a hint to use Gravel to speed up capturing gramophones. My team was made of Eyja, Silence, Jessica, Warfarin, Liskarm (S2) and Gravel.

myrrhmidon posted:

Folinic can hang out with Scavenger comforting each other about dead gfs. I do want to E2 her too just cause the gameplay effect of having a medic that can attack enemies.

Don't you mean E1 her?

last edited at Oct 31, 2020 7:23PM

Murasaki_Yuki posted:

...why was i feel like there's supposed to be more updates after chapter 39 and chapter 45?? >﹏< ugh... did i miss something, somehow?

4s didn't translate extras yet apparently. Other group did, they're on mangadex.