Do you approve of translations of eroges you like?

[Asceai]

Originally Posted by dorkatlarge

And I'm quite aware that Sturgeon's Law ("ninety percent of anything is crud") makes this frustrating -- since only a few VNs are translated or written every year, only a small number of them will be worth talking about.

What are you talking about? There's heaps of VNs released every year, there's hundreds. Film industry can't keep up, video game industry can't keep up. That 10% of not-crap turns into over fifty eroges every year

That said, Sturgeon's Law is about observation. 90% of everything is crap, no matter how good 'everything' is because people's expectations are based on the mean. The standard deviation above then looks good. So, see, even if you only translate, say, the 5 best titles that come out each year, 90% of those translated titles will still be crap because 90% OF EVERYTHING IS CRAP. How do you solve this for the good games? Well, the answer is to translate more crap. How about this: NEW RULE- whenever you want to translate a Sharin no Kuni or Cross Channel or anything like that, first you must translate nine Shuffle!s or To Heart 2s or something like that. Flood the translated eroges scene with crap, then the good titles will stand out!

[kaimax]

I'm all the way for both Fan and commercial translation.

Both of them can be good and bad at the same time, there's no significant difference in those 2 .

More translated VNs is better, why would you hold them back.

The problem is we can't "directly control" which VNs that are going to be translated. I even once raged when Amatersu TL's last vote-out, since I wanted Baldr Sky, but people kept voting Rui Tomo... >_>

Personally I want to see my Favorite Vns translated.

one more thing that irks me, is that the majority of people now, only wants to read VNs that are deep in story, fill with plot twists and basing their judgment solely by that.
ex question: "Is is as epic as fate/stay night, Cross Chanell?"

VNs was made based of Dating sims and love storie, and those genres are ironically being forgotten.

[ultama121]

About that last point; I think the majority of the community will agree when I say the following:

A. Visual novels may have stemmed from dating sims, but they're a *mostly* different animal now.

B. Dating sims and sex romps are for kicks and fapping. Not much more than that. Sure, either type can be fun, but story is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more important. In some horrid, messed up, alternative universe in which we had to pick between Cocktail Soft and Liar-soft, I pray to whom it may concern that we'd pick Liar-soft. >_> (Okay there was an element of subjectivity in that sentence, but I think my idea is clear) I'm also plenty aware that some dating sims have good stories... but I'd really categorize them as visual novels, as the word dating sim seems to have a dubious connotation. In my eyes, dating sim usually=/=good story.

C. No one really cares that much about dating sims. Yes, this is kind of a reiteration of my previous point, but here's a different way to look at it: No one wants to translate hours and hours of generic* romance/sex and the demand for it isn't too great either. Once again, kicks and fapping.

*In your earlier point you mentioned that depth of plot is unnecessary for a good eroge, so I'm under the impression you were referring to eroge that excelled in other departments aside from story... in which case I sort of agree with you, but once again, kicks and fapping. Oh and hopefully by "deep" you didn't mean 'DEEP' because its certainly possible to make a good story without making it 'DEEP.'

Oh and about "love stories": I think "good love story" goes hand in hand with "good story", so uhhhh, I don't quite see your point there.

[Asceai]

ultama121 hasn't played a modern dating sim and has no idea what they are like. Just Sayin'

(hint: try Sugar+Spice)

Also, Circus spawned MOON STONE and MOON STONE brought us Ashita Deatta Shoujo and Doko e Iku no, ano hi before they went and started making crap. Also, Circus brought us Suika, which is pretty good and one of Kure's better non-MOON STONE games.

There's also many ways for a story to be deep, thought-provoking and intelligent, and they don't need to be fantastic/supernatural to do it. Ashita no Yukinojou 2 is probably a good example of what many would regard a 'traditional eroge' but has very high quality characters and a very high quality story.

[ultama121]

Ah, and you've exposed my ignorances. :<

This is what happens when you base your arguments loosely, I guess. :V

E: I realized Circus was a bad example and replaced it.

Oh and I didn't mean to imply supernatural/fantastic elements are the only possible way to make a good story. Sorry if it seemed like that.

Once again, I apologize for any ignorances, pretend you're talking to a child... or at least a person who doesn't know Japanese, heh.

I like and encourage translation, simply because I don't understand japanese but love anime and eroge and similar japanese arts. Not even english is my mother language, but atleast that I can understand. I would also like to use this chance now that I post, in case any translators or project members reads this, that I am very grateful for their work as long it is done properly.

The only thing that bothers me is if translators try to censure the original game and remove parts from it, one such example is a project going on for Fate/Stay Night, thankfully there are also groups that seek to do the opposite and put together uncensoring patches. Sometimes translator groups who start out great become "tainted" later on, an example of this is the group that made the great translation for Tears to Tiara, but then decided that their next project will only translate a censored/cut version of the game instead of the real eroge one.

Originally Posted by JD

The only thing that bothers me is if translators try to censure the original game and remove parts from it, one such example is a project going on for Fate/Stay Night, thankfully there are also groups that seek to do the opposite and put together uncensoring patches.

If you are talking about this project:

http://rnpatch.blogspot.com/

then you've got it wrong.

They are not "censoring" fate/stay night. Rather this is a project that is inserting CGs from the Play Station 2 version of the game. As you may or may not be aware, adult content is not permitted in PS2 ports of vns, so when games such as Fate/Stay Night, Cross Channel, Kanon and ef were ported to PS2 the H-Scenes were removed. The above project has been working on translating and inserting the H-Scene alternatives from the PS2 version into the PC version of the game, thus creating a fully translated all ages version of Fate/Stay Night for the PC. It's not about "censoring" rather it is about creating an alternate all-ages version, some people actually consider this a good thing.

[Asceai]

I think he's spot on re: Eien no Aselia, though. Even though the all-ages version of Eien no Aselia does improve on the original in some respects, I don't think it's worth having to buy a specific release of Seinarukana just to get it, especially when the original Eien no Aselia can be bought standalone for cheaper, or even bought off the Internet at places like DLsite. And I, for one, very much thought the route that was removed was an important part of the story and necessary to contrast the other routes with.