Kagura Douchuuki Censored

[sanahtlig]

I wrote a preview of this game, back when the Greenlight was announced, expressing concern about this release. As feared, the English release of the game has had much of the dialogue and CG removed. In addition, screenshots and promotional materials indicate a startling lack of professionalism with ridiculous machine translated English and flagrant spacing issues.

Preview[sanahtlig.blogspot.com]

Summary of the content cuts[forums.fuwanovel.net] by CeruleanGamer

Statement by Debonosu's Steam representatives[forums.fuwanovel.net] (rewritten by me since it was horribly garbled)

This is our first attempt to release a game overseas, as well as on Steam.

The content cut from the non-adult version includes a large chunk of the game's text / voiced dialogue, and thus translating the cut scenes / licensing the voices could be expensive.

We want to see how well Kagura Douchuuki sells on Steam before deciding whether to sink further resources into it.

We appreciate your understanding.

Steam announcement that the game was released on Steam in a state that it wouldn't even work on English OS's, and that they're using machine translation to communicate with English players:

We fixed the problem cannot be started in an English environment.
Try these steps if you are experiencing problems in your environment.
1. Delete local content of KaguraDoucyuuki.
2. Please install again.
Thank you.
(This is machine-translated. )

I'm trying to locate a copy of the game so I can verify if the game dialogue (or what remains of it) appears to be machine translated as well. Note that the screenshots show words without spaces between them, and the video shows obviously broken English ("Rogue-like RPG that miko girls fight"--these are the first words that appear in the English trailer).

[Jun-chan]

Okay.... Allow me to comment as someone who actually owns both the translated game (which a quick look at your steam profile shows that you do not, at least on the steam account you used to make this post) and the original game.
As for content being cut... yes, content has been cut. From the 4 hours I've played so far, the removed content has been the various sex scenes, but that's to be expected because Steam isn't a platform for sexual content. (just look at the steam versions of japanese eroge that have appeared, such as grisaia no kajitsu, nekopara vol 1, kono oozora/if my heart had wings and princess evangelie)

As for the translation. I'm not going to mince words here. The translation isn't perfect and there are some issues but it's by no means a machine translation. Again, this is my opinion that's been developed from A) actually owning the game and B) actually playing it.

Now then... Next up I suppose I should address the bugfix.

Originally posted by sanahtlig[url=http://steamcommunity.com/app/378790:

Steam announcement[/url] that the game was released on Steam in a state that it wouldn't even work on English OS's, and that they're using machine translation to communicate with English players.

We fixed the problem cannot be started in an English environment.
Try these steps if you are experiencing problems in your environment.
1. Delete local content of KaguraDoucyuuki.
2. Please install again.
Thank you.
(This is machine-translated. )

No.... No, no, no, no, no!
This game certainly wasn't released in a state where it wouldn't work on an english OS, and even if it was, there were ways to work around it even before debonosu released their patch.
Method #1) Change language for non-unicode programs to japanese.
Method #2) read my post in this thread for tools that do the same as applocale but are better.
Yes, it's not an ideal fix but it certainly doesn't qualify as the game being released in a state where it wouldn't work on an english OS.
BTW, I bought the game at release (about 2:20am BST) today and tried it as soon as it installed. It worked, and this was before the patch was pushed.
Now... the issue about using machine translation to communicate...
debonosu are a Japanese company, owned and staffed by Japanese people and it's obvious that they did everything in-house and released the game without using a company like mangagamer. If they don't have anyone who is capable enough with english to communicate with us foreign devils then of course they'll have to machine translate. But here's the thing you're clearly ignoring, the fact that they are even attempting to release one of their games in english for us foreign devils and not only that, but they are also attempting to patch the game to make our experience of playing the game as enjoyable as possible.

From where I stand, posts like yours don't do anything constructive and only serve to spread FUD, especially when the person writing the post doesn't even own the product in question.
Debonosu saw steam as a possible market and source of revenue so they're testing it out. Why is that such a bad thing? Also, they've made mistakes and done things that people haven't liked, but don't you think that maybe this release has served as a learning experience for them and they won't make the same mistakes next time?

As a long time fan of JRPGs and Japanese Visual Novels, I think the fact that another company has decided to release games for foreign devils and test out steam as a distribution platform is a good thing and should be encouraged. People who spread FUD and people who say 'This game isn't worth the price so I'm not buying it/I'll wait until it's 99.9% off in a sale.' are undermining this positive thing.

Apologies for the wall of text.

[Imban]

The actual translation in game isn't terrible. It's got odd spacing and some stuff (the tutorials, the Tsume Kagura missions) is inexcusable gibberish, but the dialogue and stuff was done by someone who MOSTLY knew what they were talking about.

Saying someone has a "graveyard" expression on their face might still go down in the legends of Engrish, but it was one of the only mistakes like that I caught so far.

EDIT: Also, they fixed the locale thing already. It's probably just that they didn't remember to test for it.

[Jun-chan]

Originally posted by Imban:

The actual translation in game isn't terrible. It's got odd spacing and some stuff (the tutorials, the Tsume Kagura missions) is inexcusable gibberish, but the dialogue and stuff was done by someone who MOSTLY knew what they were talking about.

Saying someone has a "graveyard" expression on their face might still go down in the legends of Engrish, but it was one of the only mistakes like that I caught so far.

EDIT: Also, they fixed the locale thing already. It's probably just that they didn't remember to test for it.

The 'graveyard' expression was one of the 'issues' i was referring to in my post, but yeah, agreed.

[sanahtlig]

Also, they've made mistakes and done things that people haven't liked, but don't you think that maybe this release has served as a learning experience for them and they won't make the same mistakes next time?

What exactly have they learned? I already communicated to them before the release that there were issues. Sekai Project told them there were issues. They ignored me, they ignored them, and here we are.

While it's good that the game dialogue appears to be in better shape than the promo materials, it still says a lot about their professionalism that they didn't even bother testing the game with system locale set to English. That's incompetence. Blatant spacing issues, promo materials that read like a machine translation, and a game that's been chopped apart clearly show that they just don't CARE.

I've played some of Debonosu's titles in Japanese, and while they're not exactly best-in-class they're better than a lot of the trashy amateur VNs that somehow get sales on Steam. Shoddy releases like this that show such a blatant lack of effort are a disgrace, and Debonosu should be ashamed.

It would appear that Debonosu shunned traditional channels because they're arrogant and they don't want to share profits with anyone else. There's ignorance, and then there's willful ignorance. The former can be cured. The latter can't--at least not without a good slap. An amateur group like FruitsJam can be excused for leaping in over their heads. Debonosu is a professional outfit led by an industry veteran. She should know better, and even if she didn't, she should've listened to those that do.

[Crescens]

sanahtlig: The whole thing with the game not working in a non Japanese locale is easily explained, in fact, you just showed that you are exactly the same. Did you notice how you only mentioned the system locale set to English? How many people who use steam don't have their locale set to either Japanese or English? Did you really mean to come across there as "as long as it works for me, I don't care?"
I know this seems to be picking on something stupid, but normally people don't do well with locale and timezone related things. For software bugs, locale related issues and timezone related issues are quite common. One amusing one is the bug with a fighter jet, when it was in the southern hemisphere, the map it displayed was a flipped northern hemisphere map.
So I would be careful with this kind of complaint, since usually it is hard to break out of the whole thing that locale is an invariant, and it is always easy to see it when things go wrong.
So, what have they learnt? First, test localisation stuff.

As for them shunning "traditional channels because they were arrogant", again, that is something that is easy to throw around but have you really thought about what it means for a company to distribute? It is a huge risk financially and you even see well known companies having issues. IMO one of the most well known was XSeed with Trails in the Sky FC. For a purely Japanese company to want to break into the western market would be a massive risk.
So at the very least, I think you should go away and reflect a bit. Yes, this isn't anywhere near ideal, but as a first attempt, they should be met with more positive criticism than just outright negative statements.

[sanahtlig]

Alright, so I played a few minutes of the intro.

Third line in:
"Girl, Ibuki Arashiyama looks up at the blue sky as she wanders along."

There's weird lines like that, but actually most of the intro seems to be more or less serviceable, if somewhat poorly edited, English. There's also frequent spacing issues and dialogue box text is in weird lowercase, but these are mostly cosmetic flaws.

In any case, it's not machine translated. It's just the promotional materials that look machine translated.

[sanahtlig]

Did you really mean to come across there as "as long as it works for me, I don't care?"

Don't be stupid. They're releasing a game in English. Obviously it should work in an English OS environment. Fixing the Japanese -> English locale issue is a standard part of the localization process. Anyone familiar with localization, or even fan translations, knows that.

that is easy to throw around but have you really thought about what it means for a company to distribute?

Actually yes. I've been doing it for over 10 years.

[Crescens]

Originally posted by sanahtlig:

Don't be stupid. They're releasing a game in English. Obviously it should work in an English OS environment. Fixing the Japanese -> English locale issue is a standard part of the localization process. Anyone familiar with localization, or even fan translations, knows that.

Hmm, interesting. However, you seem to have assumed that they didn't do it or try. It is more likely that they did the work to getting it runnable in a non Japanese environment, and forgot something that you wouldn't normally think of. If I remember rightly, the biggest issue with getting the Japanese versions of these games to run on a non Japanese system, besides the text, was actually the system formats for date/time. Not only did you have to set the language for non Unicode programs to Japanese, but you also had to set the date/time formats to Japanese too.
What this still tells me is that they are inexperienced and simply put, will not make that mistake again. And again, this is one of those things that we often see as invariants but really aren't.

Originally posted by sanahtlig:

Actually yes. I've been doing it for over 10 years.

Then I wonder why you are being like you are about it. Well, since I want to keep from ad hominem stuff, I'm just going to leave this there.

[EXA_PICO]

Originally posted by Jun-chan:

As for content being cut... yes, content has been cut. From the 4 hours I've played so far, the removed content has been the various sex scenes, but that's to be expected because Steam isn't a platform for sexual content. (just look at the steam versions of japanese eroge that have appeared, such as grisaia no kajitsu, nekopara vol 1, kono oozora/if my heart had wings and princess evangelie)

The difference here is that the games you've listed have content restoration patches. The reason those patches exist is because the games have offsite R-18 releases that coincide with their Steam releases, it is all translated prior to releasing the game.

That's not possible for Kagura Douchuuki because it does not have an offsite R-18 release, Steam is the only English release and the cut content is left untransalted.

Cutting out the main reason to buy the game and saying you'll translate and release it if the game sells is counterproductive. Since this is their first time releasing a game in the west, they'll likely see poor sales due to releasing a mediocre game with cut content, think it's not worth it and pull out. All because they're new and shot themselves in the foot when they started.

[Jun-chan]

So, OP edits his objectionable post and appears to be suffering from a severe case of butthurt and Captain Obvious not only strikes but shows that he's one of the 'This game isn't worth the price' crowd.. My work here is done. I'm out, peace! and all that.....

PS. Could some kind mod please close this useless thread?

[EXA_PICO]

If you're referring to me as "Captain Obvious" then, no, I am not in the 'This game isn't worth the price' crowd. I am in the 'This game's main draw is hentai and cutting that out is going to hurt sales' crowd. You're the only one in the thread that mentioned price.

Yes, close threads you don't like!

[sanahtlig]

Cutting out the main reason to buy the game and saying you'll translate and release it if the game sells is counterproductive. Since this is their first time releasing a game in the west, they'll likely see poor sales due to releasing a mediocre game with cut content, think it's not worth it and pull out. All because they're new and shot themselves in the foot when they started.

I agree exactly with this, however my attempt to give Debonosu the benefit of the doubt seems to have been misunderstood. The original quote is barely intelligible. There's no implication in the original that they'll release the adult version if the Steam version sells well. Here's the original quote.

It is first challenge for us Debonosu works to bring our contents overseas and with Steam, too.
Content cuts obtain R18 expressions and their translation may cost a lot.
We need to watch how Kagura Douchuuki goes on Steam as our first challenge here on global market.
We appreciate your understanding.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=448966774

[License Expired]

Originally posted by sanahtlig:

Did you really mean to come across there as "as long as it works for me, I don't care?"

Don't be stupid. They're releasing a game in English. Obviously it should work in an English OS environment. Fixing the Japanese -> English locale issue is a standard part of the localization process. Anyone familiar with localization, or even fan translations, knows that.

that is easy to throw around but have you really thought about what it means for a company to distribute?

Actually yes. I've been doing it for over 10 years.

What is the name of your company?

[sanahtlig]

I don't run a company. The quote in question referenced thinking about distribution. I responded I've been thinking about such things for over 10 years now. I follow the eroge localization business and write about it.

[License Expired]

Originally posted by sanahtlig:

I don't run a company. The quote in question referenced thinking about distribution. I responded I've been thinking about such things for over 10 years now. I follow the eroge localization business and write about it.

ahhhh, doing it.. Hentai no shio... i tried to land that.