It was just a little but I tried again with a later part and hadā¦ better luck sort of! A lot more possible options but unfortunately most of them have only the line I searched for, or that plus a bit of garbage (yes this is after advancing to the next line). The one thing that is halfway there cut off a bit of the line I searched for, then in the next line has only the second half of it. It seems like theyāre getting split weirdly and I canāt find a result that actually has everything.
Ehh well Iām really not concerned about reading the script there; itās been easy. Itās just those files I grapple with for several minutes at a time. I unlocked 4 at once and groaned but Iāve made it to the other side haha. They are unfortunately pretty disruptive to reading whatās going on. Maybe theyāll get a bit less frequent soon.
Kind of off-topic from Japanese but Pathologic is a fantastic game. Havenāt played 2 myself, and still needing to go back and play the other 2 campaigns in Pathologic HD at some point, but playing through it was a real Experience. Also played it just as covid was beginning so uh, that was fun lol
You know, I admittedly only dipped my toes into the first, and that was after having played 2. 2 is as much a remake as a sequel (within the game world the āplayā that was Pathologic 1 failed and you are now putting it on again). A lot of the same ideas are there but it seemed like 1 didnāt quite have some of the systems that make 2 so good (and stressful heh), and the jank to deal with was much higher. Not that 2 doesnāt have its jank, heh.
You know, I can talk about whatever I want here, let's give the pretentious description of why I love my favorite game of all time: Pathologic 2
So Pathologic 2 is a (small) open world game set in an isolated town when a mysterious plague hits. Whatās funny is itās full of things I donāt generally like in games ā time spent traversing the town back and forth and survival meters (food/water/sickness). But everything works together because of how interconnected the systems are. Essentially, there is not enough time to do everything. Some objectives might even have a negative outcome or just accomplish nothing. Other times they might be important to keep NPCs alive, all that is up to your judgment. And in this game basically any significant NPC can die, potentially cutting off chunks of the story from you later. Once the plague starts all the NPCs start getting infected and youāre expected to manage your time running around the town administering medicine to not lose story NPCs, against completing objectives, against doing what you need to keep yourself alive. And all those supplies to heal others are the same things you need to prevent yourself from dying. The way the systems come together creates hard decision points constantly about what you can afford to lose. Then since thereās an element of permanence (you get small permanent handicaps every time you die, which was definitely controversial but I like it here), the risk/reward calculations have to be taken seriously.
Iāll spare gushing forever but thatās how the core of the gameplay works and what makes it compelling. Itās not so much fun asā¦ constantly high stress haha. Itās also just some of the smartest writing Iāve ever seen in a videogame, proper āartā stuff. Like the interlocking relationships between the characters and their place in the town goes truly interesting places (colonialism is pretty core to the way the town worksā¦), and ultimately I felt like it was a really touching story about continuing to try against the inevitability of death and failure, on top of a whole lot of other things. Iāve never found another game that I think is truly on its level as this sort of uncompromising piece of artā¦ but along with that does come a lot of people bouncing right off of it.
Slow going recently. Been posting about Paranormasight in the read every day thread but I wish I could move through it faster. Just varies based on the material if slowing down for Japanese is a big deal or not. Reading Tears of the Kingdom has been going fine enough; itās not a serious impedimentā¦ but I kind of, uhh, donāt like the game at all? Some of this post is just an excuse to get my thoughts out there without using the videogame thread because generally showing up where people are excited about a game to complain isnāt super appreciated and Iām not looking to get into game arguments. Just kinda collecting my thoughts, because thus far Iām really disappointed for how much I was looking forward to it. Maybe Iām a grumpy old man. My lowered interest is genuinely making going through the effort of the Japanese reading a little harder though, so thereās that.
Tears of the Kingdom
I gotta preface this by saying the way the game works is a bit of a miracle, the way it runs and is bug free while allowing for free movement of practically everything, the ability to reset things to their previous placement, all of these systems working togetherā¦ itās a lot. The core systems are wild. And I see where the fun lies for others in being able to break the game open the way you can. But itās a lot more fun for me to look at Twitter clips than play the game and Iām sort of already bored with it.
Part of that is just on me; Iām not that into sandboxes and custom creations. Iām trying to engage with the building but mostly finding for me itās just placing some wheels and a fan or a rocket on a big platform and then riding it. The build controls are a little finnicky and slow so thatās mostly done where I really need to go vertical, or I just ride a thing and make up the time I spent making it heh. Everythingās a little finnicky ā going through a giant menu you can only scroll one at a time to add items to arrows or weapons is starting to be a thing I dread.
As much as I appreciate the commitment to letting you deal with things in virtually infinite ways, in practice having 10 methods in mind that I can trivialize reaching a place feels like it takes away from my interest. Itās just too much power. And the world is too familiar. It really does feel like Iām just replaying BOTW again, but with mods installed, the sort of mods where I can do ridiculous things. but because I can do anything, it feels like carefully designed challenges or situations just cease to exist. Meanwhile sky islands are a little plain and small and the underground area felt monotonous almost immediately. I eventually found one quest there but it seems like enormous spaces with nothing but enemy camps and all one singular aesthetic.
Maybe the worst part for me so far are the shrines. Iāve done a couple dozen roughly and I think Iād say 2 contained puzzles. The vast majority want to be tutorials for things these new systems let you do. Take the last shrine I completed: you fight an enemy with a flamethrower on his shield, then use that to melt an ice block. The next enemy has a shield that blocks fire, and you use that to walk through some fire. Then you get a room with rockets and shields, so you attach a rocket and fly upwards. Shrine over. Thatās just going through the motions.
I dunno, Iām just finding it exceedingly hard to care, and I wish I wasnāt! Itās not a bad game. I have to imagine Iād like it more if I hadnāt played BOTW. I donāt think Iām the kind of person this is for, though.
I havenāt bought it yet, and ignoring my technical qualms I have to ask if paying $70 for more BotW is really worth it to me. I loved BotW and it was a refreshing experience after the Zelda series had gotten pretty formulaic, but thereās a reason why critical takes on the game have gotten so popular after the hype (and fanboys) cooled off. It was a fairly bare bones sandbox, but replacing it with a bigger sandbox that has a few more toys doesnāt fundamentally change things. The novelty of playing in the sand the first time is gone.
Honestly, Iām not all that great at or interested in making sand castles. I do love seeing the ones other people make though. Thereās probably a lot of us that feel that way.
edit: you literally said this isnāt the video game thread and I still made that mistake. dāoh
Yeah BOTW had some significant shortcomings; it just focused in so hard on doing certain things well and I really liked how that turned out. But that feeling of brand new discovery played a huge part; Iāve never replayed the game because it feels like it wouldnāt be the same. Itās not like they havenāt made efforts to change the world here, but it doesnāt change the fact that it is still the same world. I think for me, a brand new world focused much more on density of interesting things even with very few new gameplay elements would appeal more than this gameās way of kinda taking the opposite approach. I get why others like this way though. Itās fine. Though there is a trend of franchises I love making popularly extremely well regarded games with open worlds that I end up disappointed in. AAA type games are moving in directions I just donāt prefer, but at least I have indies.
Itās been actually really interesting to me how I never particularly minded weapon durability, and now that you can fuse to weapons the common take is that this extends their durability and whatnot so the system is less intrusive than ever! Whereas for my side, in order to make a weapon useful, you absolutely have to fuse itā¦ so Iām finding the weapon durability finally detracts from my experience because you have to put at least a little actual effort into everything you want to use.
Itās an obviously well designed game so Iām downplaying the positives a little because Iāve been disgruntled, but hey, canāt please everyone. Games just take so long to make now so it kinda sucks when the big ones donāt land for you, but ä»ę¹ćŖć. Itās a good sign when a study log can successfully fool people into thinking itās a different thread not at all about Japanese, right? Daisoujouās Random Nonsense Log
Tbh those are the best kinds of study logs. Personally I love tricking people into learning about my fave wrestling stories .
In all honesty, I think study logs allow for more measured and reasonable discourse on complicated subjects because the only people who visit them are people who care about your personal opinions on things, haha, so itās way less confrontational than bringing up the same topics in actual dedicated threads.
Iām so sad youāre not liking TotK that much. In that way that we want people to genuinely enjoy the same things we do, and wishing we could impart the way we feel about something to another. Basically I wish you could be having as much fun playing TotK as I have, not because I think you need to like TotK but because I want others to have as much fun as I am having.
But every game isnāt for everyone, so sad to hear this is turning into a dud for you. I was honestly afraid it would feel too much like same old, same old for me too, but so far it hasnāt for me. Peppar, peppar, ta i trƤ. (One of those short charms to ward off something bad you just said. Translation: pepper, pepper, touch wood. (Pepper of the salt and pepper variety, not bell peppers (paprika in Swedish) or chili peppers (chili in Swedish).))
Yeah I think thatās a good way to put it! Overall itās not like itās something I really felt the need to discuss too much with others cause videogame arguments are silly and the other alternative is people trying to suggest how to enjoy it more and while the intent is appreciated, I think Iāve introspected about it enough to get where the appeal lies and where Iām not matching up. But it helps to get thoughts out there.
Thank you! Iām still giving it a shot anyway. I did like the tutorial island quite a bit when everything felt new and exciting (and particularly curated). I just did my first dungeon and the dungeon itself felt a little too much like the divine beasts, which were always my least favorite part of BotW ā but both the journey to reach it and the boss were pretty cool. So Iām finding bits of joy where I can. Still hoping it can hook me a little better if I try to work with it. Learning that phrase was interesting too! Itās like āknock on woodā ā apparently thereās something about wood.
I donāt feel like cluttering the VN thread more right now so Iām just gonna ask while Iām here ā @AzusaChan I remember briefly talking about Fata Morgana before and I think you implied you had read it? Iām starting to really get in the mood for a Japanese reread of that; itās been quite a while for me and it was so good. Plus I never read that after story thing, though for the club purposes it seems a little too long by our current guidelines. So I think itās a no-go regardless for a main pick just now, would have to be something more like 30k per week to fit into the amount of weeks listed ā but also I know you just sat out of 999 because you had read it too recently and I donāt want to keep having that happen to you haha. I did at least check and it seems perfectly texthookable, and Iām not sold on it being SO hard (jpdbās 7/10). The average sentence length is hardly worse than the stuff weāre reading now and I scanned through some of the maidās dialog and the writing through the first door and it looked fine. I think it just uses somewhat obscure kanji, but texthooking really eliminates that problem.
Yeah, I actually read that one even more recently than I have 999 It was like one of the last VNs I read in English back in late 2021 before I got back into studying jp. I do love the series a lot though, its near the top of my favorite VNs. The sequel is really good too and even has voice acting, I wish they would have done a āremasterā and voiced the original game too.
But yeah, while I do love the game a ton, Iām not sure if Iād want to reread it right now. Iām not against the idea of rereading stuff but I like to wait until I forget a bunch of stuff about the game before I reread it
I am always iffy on jpdbās ratings too but I think majority of stuff Iāve read has been rated 5 or lower on there. I did try to read some stuff rated as a 6 though and did notice a huge increase in difficulty. Hard to say if there is actually a noticeable spike at 6+ or if it was just the games I tried and had to put down for later.
Thatās no problem! Of course Iād like to read new stuff with the club but these are great games so it is nice seeing other people trying them out. If people were fine with the length I think itād be a good nomination to potentially test out how people fare with more difficult VNs since the ones weāve read (or Iāve participated in at least) have been on the easier side. Plus the Fata series is amazing, I think everyone would love it.
Right, knock on wood. I should have remembered that and referenced that. Ah well, brain doesnāt always brain well.
I kinda get what you mean about the dungeon, Iāve also only done one. The one I did felt better than the divine beasts, but I agree on the similarity. And I definitely know for myself when it comes to TotK (and BotW), I have to make sure to do enough main story content to feel like Iām making progress. So those people who manage to go do all the side things, ignoring main story for a long time, nope, not one of them.
Ah, how to make this next comment as spoiler free as possible. If you just finished the dungeon and stopped right after, you might want to revisit certain places because at least after this first one, things actually progress and things change/new things start. I guess the benefit of not letting you run at Ganon from the moment you get out of the tutorial area. (Still not naming specifics, but donāt know where you at and would feel even about vague spoilers.)
Anyway, you probably played some more so maybe youād already noticed, but I thought it worth mentioning in case. It certainly makes it more exciting to progress the main story too.
I might have to do some TotK gushing/talking/speculating on Sunday when I update my own log, just so I can get some of it out of my system.
Itās one of those things where I think it would be interesting to see them partner up with learn natively or something. The way they get those numbers is a bit interesting: Frequently asked questions ā jpdb
Iām still fairly skeptical, for instance can this model comprehend puns? How does it balance out things like narrative and dialogue? What about normies and chuuni characters? Regardless it sounds cool on paper and Dies Irae is apparently 9/10 difficulty so itās probably at least somewhat reasonable.
Edit: I should also point out that the data they use is based on ripped game scripts from what Iāve seen. This would cause a problem where games might say, use an ancient font (instant infinitely high hurdle for me) or have text embedded in images that could drastically alter perceived difficulty by users where the script itself might be high approachable.
Yeah Iām still throwing it around in my mind ā weāll see, something to push off a little later anyway. You essentially contributed to the founding of the whole club so I donāt want you left out TOO often though! I do want to get the club reading a really incredible VN sometime, just seems like the ones that come to mind for me keep being too long or having sexual content or something. I mean for some people thatāll be 999 but I think Iāve been cooling on that one over time. Itās still quite good, but it was really novel to me when I read it (one of my first VNs and I read it much closer to when it came out), and now that sort of stuff is a little well worn and less impressive. Still respect it though.
I did always love the dungeon design so that part was a bit disappointing to lose even in BOTW. Iām hoping we get another 2D Zelda someday. The one I did was around the Rito village, decided Iād listen to the way the game clearly wanted me to start by going that way. Wonāt say too much about it in case thatās not the one you did, but yeah. It was nice.
Glad youāve been enjoying the game so much! Iām looking forward to hearing what you have to say about it.
Yeah this system is really interesting but I just havenāt read enough to have any grasp on how accurate I think it is. Iāve capped out at reading 5s so maybe looking at a 7 is me pushing myself harder than I think, who knows. I do think I trust human rating based difficulties more, but itās always going to be hard to determine for so many reasons. Often language progress is nearly invisible and some of the stuff that was hardest for me to read was some of the easiest material. And itās so hard to weight what parts of difficulty matter. The existence of a tool like texthooker warps difficulty discussion so hard ā something that uses a ton of unusual words and kanji is one sense rather hard to read, but if we presume tools are on hand, thatās a pretty tiny contributor compared to complicated sentence structure or something. All this is just making me even more curious about Fata Morgana because it just didnāt look all that hard to me and the stats about it donāt seem bad on their face. It has some extreme setting changes; maybe there are spikes? Who knows.
I do agree that having texthook makes it significantly easier when reading things with uncommon words/kanji but I do think if there are too many unknown words it does add a lot to the difficulty even with having yomichan on hand. I think I mentioned it a few times before but when I tried to play Ever Maiden, I never seen so much furigana in a VN before since that game used a lot of rare kanji. Having to look up like 6 words or something in a sentence compared to just a couple can increase the difficulty a lot for me even with yomichan since I have to try and juggle all the new meanings in my brain at once while comprehending the grammar etc.
I struggle with narrative sections a lot more than dialogue as well and that VNās narrative sections felt a lot more novel-like and āfloweryā. Most of the prose in the VNs weāve read in the club so far have been very straight forward and repetitive. It would be interesting to read something that jpdb considers more ādifficultā in our club though just to see what everyone thinks
That is the one Iāve done so far too. I know which one Iām going for next, but I have a plan to do a pile of other things first, and I feel like that pile never actually decreases, lol.
And I know what you mean. The 3D Zeldas (before BotW) also have several good temples, and I really donāt get why they arenāt pulling some of that in. It isnāt like they havenāt done it so many times before. Not every temple in every game have been great, but they have a catalog of so many good ones. Such a waste to not include that in BotW and TotK.
Oh yeah thatās definitely true; I know the working memory strain of trying to hold all of that in your head at once. There are definitely problems when it comes to density. I just think it still makes a substantial difference in where that line is if you can instantly define them.
Iād agree narrative sections tend to be harder. I might have a little more experience reading actual books than you so that helps? But unless a characterās speech is particularly unusual, itās true all the same. Iāve just been flipping around this video of the first 2 hours and there is at least one instance where the native player canāt remember the reading so thereās that haha, but Iām not overall feeling like this looks all that hard yet. Maybe Iām good at Japanese now?
Haha yeah I know that feeling. I think itās been long enough Iām gonna jump back down to the underground soon (I assume youāve at least seen it down thereā¦), feeling a bit stronger and the one quest of sorts I have did look pretty appealing. Just been wandering a little more to the south so maybe Iāll go southwest next when I get back to the story? Who knows.
I can definitely understand that itās hard to design good dungeon challenges with how much power the player has, especially now that they let you straight up jump through the ceiling. Still, yeah, I believe these devs can make them a little more interesting. I always found rotating the beasts a little annoying so I did actually like this one quite a bit more because I had no issues with it, but it felt like it was primarily about just figuring out where the openings were, plus a few extra little physics bits to manipulate. Fun boss though, fun ability, fun trip up there ā one of the better times Iāve been having with it for sure.
For a while, I had (almost) literally every NPC mention Woodland stables, driving me bonkers with how many different things it wanted me to remember was around there. (I finally caved and went there to clear some things off, but I want to continue on from there.)
So Iāll be going that direction (northeast). But yeah, Iām going back down into the underground again first and maybe wandering off southeast after that, before I actually go for my second phenomenon. And that is partly because now I have a ton of NPCs talking about that area. I just want them to shut up. xD
(Donāt get me wrong, I like that the NPCs are more lively and changing up what theyāre saying and pointing out interesting things I want to check out, but it is a bit frustrating when I was traveling northwest that all they wanted to talk about was some place far off to the east. xD)
I suppose if I go where the NPCs are directing me, Iāll just get them talking about somewhere else, so maybe second phenomenon first. Iāll play it by ear.
Also, feel free to tell me to shut up whenever. The people I talk to the most in my life donāt play Zelda, so I have no one to talk to about it. xD
Oh you actually reminded me, there was something else I wanted to look into and I think thatās the direction I was nudged for it? Iām operating with different names, and donāt want to spoil what I was sent in that direction for, but it was given by people around the stable on the way to Rito village. I imagine you mightāve had the same talk. Guess I might head that way first. Itās difficult to discuss a game this open ended.
My exploration has been so patchy and messy with the way the towers let you float off. I feel like I was a little more methodic with BOTW and here itās like, I go somewhere, find the tower, maybe I use that to go to a sky island, then Iām suddenly miles away from where I left off exploring the overworld. I must be missing so much.
Iām glad the NPCs are as active as they are too! Itās making for better Japanese practice. Thereās a certain set of vocab Iām getting a lot of practice with from that and the way the item descriptions are written. Glad I did it this way, and happy that Iāve mostly kept up with cutscenes. It has me really excited to just play random videogames in Japanese from here on.
I know the feeling of wanting to talk about this kind of thing, and Iām enjoying it so you donāt have to stop! Any time. I just need people I can do the same about Splatoon with. The new season is about to start with another big update! (hey @rikaiwisdom , Iāll still be here if you ever decide itās time to get that game )
Yeah as far as books go, Iāve only read like 3 light novels and thatās about it haha. So Iām definitely less experienced there. I always want to read more books but then I end up focusing all my time on VNs instead. All of the VN reading has made dialogue sections a lot easier for me though.
I watched a bit of that and flipped through it too now, it actually doesnāt look as hard as I was expecting. Some tricky sentences in there from what I flipped through and it does look harder than what weāve read so far but nothing that would be unmanageable, I think. I was expecting something more complex since it is rated a 7 but it wouldnāt surprise me if some parts of the game especially with Morgana in the later half of the VN are more challenging.
To be honest I think that playing TotK in Japanese might have gone a long way in helping me get through the NPC dialogue because it is rough coming off playing Trails to Azure recently where every NPC has unique and interesting things to say to this where all the NPCs have very dull single lines of dialogue. I do really want to dedicate some time to playing a game in Japanese though. Maybe now that I have a Deck to play it on I should really dig into Persona 2ā¦
.
It was like one of the last VNs I read in English back in late 2021 before I got back into studying jp. I do love the series a lot though, its near the top of my favorite VNs. The sequel is really good too and even has voice acting, I wish they would have done a āremasterā and voiced the original game too.
