I own the original, fan translated, what are the real differences, no spoilers

[Albedo Piazolla]

I own the original version of extra unlimited, and have amateseru fan translation, what are the real differences here, and I havent bought alternative, I payed 80 something to get an actual copy of extra from 2004, and don't have that kind of money, so should I buy this version or is my physical copy enough? I plan on buying alternative though...

[Scars Unseen]

I'd say buy this version(though maybe wait for the 18+ patch if that's important to you). The old fan translation was bad enough that the new translation team found it quicker to start from scratch than edit the problems with it. Plus the guy who made the Grisaia translation read so smoothly did editing and translation checking work on this as well.

Basically, this version is the best reading version available, and if you go from the fan translation of Extra/Unlimited to the official translation of Alternative, the change is going to be jarring.

There are some other changes, mostly making the engine more stable and bringing the sprite improvements from Alternative to Extra/Unlimited. The engine improvements will be especially important if you ever upgrade to Windows 10, as the old engine is prone to crashing.

[Randomacts]

TL:DR Yes it is worth the $30 the translation is just that much better that it still is worth it.


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I'm going to be straight up about this instead of beating around to bush or trying to be nice to the muv luv team.

The main benefit of the new release is that the translation is much better then the old fan translation and the fact that they added better/new animations and sprites.

Also this version works perfectly on Windows 10 unlike the old one.

Currently the game does not have the h-scenes in it but it will be getting a patch at some point (most likely when the physical releases ship for the kickstarter backers)

The actual issues besides that though are the following.

The CG is cropped to fit a more widescreen like view. (almost 16:9) This is because the game is a port of the ps3 version and that is how it was.

The game has unlimited unlocked by default (non really an issue for a vet like you but it has caused problems for new plays accidentally starting with unlimited and getting spoiled)

There may? be some loss of 3D audio compared to what the old version had but I haven't seen anyone double check with a side by side but it most likely is true but honestly not noticeable for most people.

The GUI has been replaced with what they thought was good ... and I guess it is better then it used to be but it looks like bad phone GUI (you don't see it much so w/e)

The text boxes are gone although I prefer the way they are doing text in this as it looks exactly how it does in Alternative.

Some of the text scrolling is a bit janky for the conversions but I assume that will get fixed

A minor issue with the save slots being limited to 120 but the real issue with the new saves is you can't put put notes on the saves.. a crucial feature for VNs imo. They did add auto saves and improved save resuming stuff that is neat though.

(On this one I'm not 100% sure the details but more or less..) The openings have been changed to the PS3 versions.. I personally preferred the PC ones as those were the ones I knew.. but this really is only an issue for old vet players.


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Now I can actually think of things that they could improve the game on top of this stuff but this is really just comparing this version to the old one on PC.


imo I think the perfect release for me would be the old release + the new sprites + the new animations + the current translation

[Scars Unseen]

Originally posted by 《 ステフ 》:

The most noticable difference you can note is that since the assests are from the PS3 version, some CG is cropped for the 16:9 resolution. There isn't a 4:3 resolution option so you're kinda stuck with cropped images, but supposedly they're looking into it or something..

A note on that. It's not quite 16:9 ratio, as there are still black bars on the side. Also, and I haven't tried to confirm this myself, reportedly at least some of those CGs are scrollable(using your arrow keys), so the art is still there. Hopefully that means that a fix only needs to be made in the engine, and not on the art side of things.

As an aside, the "minor voice acting improvements" are in Alternative. I can't recall any English voice acting in Extra or Unlimited at all.

[Randomacts]

Originally posted by Scars Unseen:

As an aside, the "minor voice acting improvements" are in Alternative. I can't recall any English voice acting in Extra or Unlimited at all.

There may be some VA changes in extra/unlimited but not from the kickstarter.. it is just if there was anything changed from the PC --> PS3 release as this is a port of the ps3 version. But it isn't anything major... In Alt it was VERY much needed but we will have to see how well they did on it. We do know that it can't be worse then it was for the parts with English in Alt so it should be better =P

[Albedo Piazolla]

ehh 18+ nahh, money's the issue, I cant afford it now anyway, I don't have any moeny till the first and even then, this computer seems to cost more than its worth, I have had it for three months, and havent bough anything for it, but I have a large library of games that I bought but couldnt play on my last pc, so yeah, is the difference that massive?

[Randomacts]

Originally posted by stephenmatt90:

ehh 18+ nahh, money's the issue, I cant afford it now anyway, I don't have any moeny till the first and even then, this computer seems to cost more than its worth, I have had it for three months, and havent bough anything for it, but I have a large library of games that I bought but couldnt play on my last pc, so yeah, is the difference that massive?

On the translation quality? Yeah it is.

It actually makes Extra enjoyable compared to how it was. Meiya actually has characterization where she previously didn't really have any ect.

[Svenhent]

Originally posted by Randomacts:

Originally posted by stephenmatt90:

ehh 18+ nahh, money's the issue, I cant afford it now anyway, I don't have any moeny till the first and even then, this computer seems to cost more than its worth, I have had it for three months, and havent bough anything for it, but I have a large library of games that I bought but couldnt play on my last pc, so yeah, is the difference that massive?

On the translation quality? Yeah it is.

It actually makes Extra enjoyable compared to how it was. Meiya actually has characterization where she previously didn't really have any ect.

I agree with this. The amaterasu's translation just made me read for the sake of story progression while the current translation does it better in bringing out the characters. More interesting imo.

[Randomacts]

Originally posted by Svenhent:

Originally posted by Randomacts:

On the translation quality? Yeah it is.

It actually makes Extra enjoyable compared to how it was. Meiya actually has characterization where she previously didn't really have any ect.

I agree with this. The amaterasu's translation just made me read for the sake of story progression while the current translation does it better in bringing out the characters. More interesting imo.

It is funny .. I always thought that the translation wasn't bad.. and even my friend who knows a bit of Japanese never brought it up.. But that is the difference between actual professional translators and a weeb at best who doesn't know any Japanese really and a guy who took few years of Japanese in college many years ago.

[Scars Unseen]

Originally posted by Randomacts:

Originally posted by Svenhent:

I agree with this. The amaterasu's translation just made me read for the sake of story progression while the current translation does it better in bringing out the characters. More interesting imo.

It is funny .. I always thought that the translation wasn't bad.. and even my friend who knows a bit of Japanese never brought it up.. But that is the difference between actual professional translators and a weeb at best who doesn't know any Japanese really and a guy who took few years of Japanese in college many years ago.

It's more than that though. A good enjoyable translation requires both a good command of the Japanese language and a good head for writing English literature. You can't just regurgitate literal translations of Japanese phrases and expect them to sound like something a human would actually say. Grisaia no Kajitsu was one of the most enjoyable VNs to read I've encountered because Koestl understands that, which is why I was happy to hear that he had gotten involved with this project.

[Albedo Piazolla]

great, now if only they had a veteran discount or something, i paid 80 dollars of the original, now i wish I could get at least a discount... or something, an yes my other comment was true, I would have donated a whole 100 dollar visa to the kickstarter, but sadly I did not get to spend that money, instead my asshat friend decided he would use it without my permission... he bought me a sound blaster recon3d omega headset, which I already had, but hey it's a nice headset, so oh well i forgave him, after all I didnt tell him my girlfriend gave me one a month before

[Scars Unseen]

Well the good news is that there's no need to be in a hurry. Alternative won't be coming out until winter, so you've got time for your finances to sort themselves out.

[Randomacts]

Originally posted by Scars Unseen:

Originally posted by Randomacts:

It is funny .. I always thought that the translation wasn't bad.. and even my friend who knows a bit of Japanese never brought it up.. But that is the difference between actual professional translators and a weeb at best who doesn't know any Japanese really and a guy who took few years of Japanese in college many years ago.

It's more than that though. A good enjoyable translation requires both a good command of the Japanese language and a good head for writing English literature. You can't just regurgitate literal translations of Japanese phrases and expect them to sound like something a human would actually say. Grisaia no Kajitsu was one of the most enjoyable VNs to read I've encountered because Koestl understands that, which is why I was happy to hear that he had gotten involved with this project.

That reminds me of how vastly different the viewing experience from watching a a funimation release and an A grade fansub release.

Obviously VNs are far more text so it is much harder to translate with a good flow ect but you most likely get my point.

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Back on topic though @stephenmatt90... if you haven't played it yet I would wait until you have the money and buy the steam release.

If you do so make sure you play extra first and then unlimited (Order of the games is extra --> Unlimited --> Alternative)

I would suggest playing at least 1 route of either Sumika or Meiya but if possible both (you used to have to play both in the old version for a good reason) and then any other characters that you are interested in I suggest playing their route. For example I really enjoyed Tamase Miki so I did her route and honestly her route is really good as well.

If you have any other questions though feel free to ask and we will try and help you.

Originally posted by Scars Unseen:

Well the good news is that there's no need to be in a hurry. Alternative won't be coming out until winter, so you've got time for your finances to sort themselves out.

Have you checked the Âge clock recently?

It will hopefully come out by then :)

[Albedo Piazolla]

da, I will probably buy all three once they are out, probably during the christmas sale, in the meantime I am one of those people who like comparison playthroughs, ie half-life as it was in 1998, and then with all the hd packs, then black mesa... so muv-luv isnt any different, in fact in a lot of ways it is a remake in my opinion, so play the original then the remake, I am a retro gamer anyway, back in my day we didn't have ZIF sockets, nor did we have GPU's we had to build our own pcs, and if you broke a pin you were screwed, and we liked it too, it was challenging... we didnt have any fancy shmancy tanks or iron sights, nor did we have shields or regenerating health, we had a stick, two sticks and rock, and we had to share the rock...

[Albedo Piazolla]

by the way how much money do you think goes to the devs, not publishers but the ones who actually made the game, because i like supporting devs, but hate supporting groups like EA, not sure about this games pubs though, I think theyre alright... for now, but how much of our money really goes to the devs, and not into the publishers pockets? because if the get a large portion, I would be less inclined to buy during a sale, and god help them if steam itself takes the majority.

[Albedo Piazolla]

I also doubt anyone really got sgt johnsons quote in halo 2, about the rock, old old gamer thing, like atari 2600 old, (biggest hint youre gonna get).