Has anyone played a Flood of Tears yet?

[Watercolorheart]

I just finished downloading it from visualnews.net but now I have to go to work. I just wanted to know if anyone else has played it yet, and what they thought of it. Good? Bad? Mediocre? Long playtime, short play-time? Did it leave you satisfied?

[Alessio]

Played it twice (two different endings). Quite a long playing time for what seems to be the main ending, but I didn't measure it time-wise.

It was good, but maybe just not my cup of tea. Kind of a mixed bag. The character drawings were really good, and the background pictures did the job. Also, humour was sometimes really funny. And choices did make a difference. But dialogues and main character's thoughts were on the verge of what musical74 calls filler text. I was missing some depth, sometimes I could see the author in front of me mumbling to himself "Gee, I'd better write something here since they're supposed to be having a discussion." But that's strictly IMHO, take with a grain of salt.

[GLACIER]

Good? Bad? Mediocre?

Above average. I found the storytelling to be a bit trite and underdeveloped (and as such, the events of the two end paths lacked the kind of emotional punch the author undoubtedly wanted). Nonetheless, there wasn't anything offensively bad.

Long playtime, short play-time?

It's sufficiently lengthy for a non-commercial work. I think it may have taken me an hour to read through everything.

Did it leave you satisfied?

I suppose. To be honest, I haven't been pleased with most of these fan translated works (including the majority of the al|together titles), but this one wasn't a bad read.

[mikey]

But dialogues and main character's thoughts were on the verge of what musical74 calls filler text.

True. As gp32, the translator, explained on the Haeleth forums (well, I hope I understood it correctly), the idea of this was to develop a connection to the player and then bring on the emotional things. It's said that it doesn't work all too well in this case, but it's quite hard for me to tell just why.

I suppose in my case the discrepancy between the buildup and the finale is too big, so I ended up not really taking it seriously. The ending really keeps throwing wild things at one, and even though I seriously dislike filler text, at the end, I already bought into the concept and it was a nice read. So in the end yes, I think the ending was a bit too strong for me. And to be honest I liked the bad ending most, because it ended so unspectacularly.

I would also like to point out a very good translation - it never really feels like a translated piece, the sentences have a natural flow and structure, so it's like it's been written originally in English. Maybe it's due to the simpler nature of the piece, it's less verbose and so on, but that suits me, because I love simplicity.

[Watercolorheart]

Well, thanks for your thoughts. I'm glad to have heard them. Now I will play through to get my own impression of the piece, of course.

(And possibly keep in mind for my next project, if any - make a character live and breathe and feel.)

[PyTom]

I think my problem with Flood of Tears is that I really never got a good handle on what, exactly, was going on. While I have a fairly good handle on what happened in both endings, it feels like there should be some sort of backstory that explains what is causing this to happen... and the game never really goes anywhere with that.

And yet, the backstory is more important to this game then say, A Midsummer Day's Resonance. In AMDR, I could accept what was going on and comprehend it, as it wasn't too important. Here, it seems like everything revolves around the backstory... and yet we know nothing about it.

I dunno... it seems like the characters were a little to passive about accepting everything. I'm not sure I like that. I like characters who at least try to improve there lot... even if they tragically fail.

I remember a story about an interview with Neil Armstrong, although I'm not sure if it's true or not.

A reporter asks, "If you were stuck on the moon because the engine didn't light, and you had an hour of air left, how would you spend that hour?"

Armstrong replies, "Trying to fix the engine."

At least to me, there's something wrong with a protagonist that doesn't at least try to fix the engine. And that's what I got out of Flood of Tears.

[mikey]

Anyway, I was just thinking, based on the responses, even mine, that the translated kinetic/visual novels aren't really catching on here? I wonder what would happen if someone released a game like FoT as an original English game... would we be inclined to be nicer to it?

Or maybe it's the thing with the melancholic nature of the released pieces. Maybe the open endings, who knows. Sure I know what I like, and I suppose much like GLACIER I haven't really accepted any of the translated games into my heart, as far as I go it's the above mentioned reasons, but sometimes I just think maybe I am also too biased.

Don't get me wrong, I think biased is good and acceptable, but I wonder whether I'd treat the game (specifically FoT) differently if someone from the forums made it.

[Alessio]

They are catching on, with me at least! :) Red Shift and Resonance I liked very much, they got me hooked (and that's my way of telling if it's a good VN or not). And even FoT was okay, in its own way.

It's true that if FoT had been written by one of us I would probably have given a more detailed feedback, but the basic feeling would have been the same regardless.

I don't actually make a distinction between original and translated games. In my mind translated games and English ones are competing at the same level. If I like a VN, I don't care which engine it was done with nor which original language it had.

[PyTom]

Anyway, I was just thinking, based on the responses, even mine, that the translated kinetic/visual novels aren't really catching on here? I wonder what would happen if someone released a game like FoT as an original English game... would we be inclined to be nicer to it?[/quoter]

Well, I believe that they are catching on, insofar as many of us are playing every game that's been released. I know I have, modulo a few that I was unable to run on my systems.

What I think is that it's considered somewhat rude to criticize games to people's faces. So we don't have that much here... but it also means our reviews are a bit less honest then they could otherwise be. When I'm reviewing a translated work, I believe it's unlikely that the creator is a participant on the forum... so I know I feel freer to point out the flaws in the game, in order to help people decide if they want to play it.

A weird thing is that I know that several of the fan-translators read the forum... but by and large, I consider the high regard I hold them in separate from the quality of the work. That may or may not be the right way to look at things, but it is the way I am looking at things...

There's also the fact that I tend not to review Ren'Py games, as I'm often involved at one point or another with development, and I often play the games in beta form, a week or so before they are officially released (and discussion begins).

Or maybe it's the thing with the melancholic nature of the released pieces. Maybe the open endings, who knows. Sure I know what I like, and I suppose much like GLACIER I haven't really accepted any of the translated games into my heart, as far as I go it's the above mentioned reasons, but sometimes I just think maybe I am also too biased.

I don't have this problem... I've liked many of the translated games, like Narcissu, Red Shift, MSDR, Planetarian, and several others.

[mikey]

Of course for me, even if I don't like the games, that doesn't change a thing about the respect for their creators. And I'll gladly help in any way, even if it's something I myself wouldn't make or play.

As I said, I don't find being biased a bad thing, being objective is nice, but in the end quite boring. I do try to be objective, but also look at things from a perspective, so that it doesn't sound like "the game's good if you like the sort of thing that the game is". For me, being biased also means for instance not liking any sex games without a story.

It's just that the translated games seem to always be the kind that I am not really a target of. But of course, games that get translated get picked, so I believe there are several Japanese fan games (doujin, whatever) that would suit me well. We have AT06 soon, so let's see.

[lordcloudx]

A Flood of Tears... must get this... and I hope it succeeds in doing what the title suggests.

I really like the way insani translates these visual novels and the stories are just right for my taste too.

[Ayato Vu]

I had mixed feelings about the game, but over all, i give it a high average rating! ^.^ I like the Hina ending, rether then Umi's ending, it had a bigger imparct, and was even more unpredictable. But I also favored Umi's stoy, hina just beat her by a little bit... ^.^

[Watercolorheart]

I, um, got BAD ENDING. Does that mean that I didn't get Umi or Hina?

I was trying to get Umi .....

[Nyamo-chan]

I had mixed feelings about the game, but over all, i give it a high average rating! ^.^ I like the Hina ending, rether then Umi's ending, it had a bigger imparct, and was even more unpredictable. But I also favored Umi's stoy, hina just beat her by a little bit... ^.^

...really? I believe Umi's ending was better than Hina [to my dismay, 'cause I liked Hina better that Umi >> <<]...

But both had their shares of sadness...;_;

I still think Umi's was sadder than Hina's...

Especially when you get to the point where you find out Umi and Tarou met when they were little, Umi had to erase his memories, they decided to build that igloo they always wanted, and Tarou had to die in Umi's arms.

That's sadder compared to having Hina leave in a bright white flash after you give her a wedding dress.

[Admiral Styles]

Ah, I fairly recently played Flood of Tears. I generally liked it, thought it had a fair share of cute and touching moments. Though I'd have to agree with PyTom's observation on the protaganist "not trying to fix the engine"... That certainly left me puzzled by the end.