tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1409164208805817744.post5940390939305925158..comments2024-01-29T11:28:50.973+02:00Comments on Carnival of Sin: Planet Stronghold Reviewbeliarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02342243438766110480noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1409164208805817744.post-37970085019037775262011-12-19T02:52:25.738+02:002011-12-19T02:52:25.738+02:00@Anonymous
Advertising? :)@<a href="#c8485042725393586787" rel="nofollow">Anonymous</a><br /><br />Advertising? :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1409164208805817744.post-84850427253935867872011-12-08T20:50:55.656+02:002011-12-08T20:50:55.656+02:00I'm sorry for the anonymous if he decided to s...I'm sorry for the anonymous if he decided to stop playing Winter Wolves games, because while I agree that Love & Order was bad, the others are really good (Remember Me and Winter In Fairbrook that is just out today).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1409164208805817744.post-25708314598034714942011-11-10T01:32:50.921+02:002011-11-10T01:32:50.921+02:00@Anonymous:
In defence of WW, "Love and Order...@Anonymous:<br />In defence of WW, "Love and Order" was written by Christine Love and not by Riva Celso (aka WW) thus all your complaints about writing should go to her. Nonetheless, one look at that game was enough to make me sure that I don't want to touch it with a ten metre stick. Though that disdain has most to do with a fact that I hate stat raising games. I find them boring by default.<br />About "Planet Stronghold". It's mostly what I call a surprise factor. I expected a decent to good writing and it severely disappointed me, I expected a horrible gameplay and it surprised me. Still, I would never even dream of comparing it to a serious AAA RPG title.beliarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02342243438766110480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1409164208805817744.post-43559192289334136232011-11-09T23:30:51.821+02:002011-11-09T23:30:51.821+02:00The same developer (Winter Wolves) made a really t...The same developer (<i>Winter Wolves</i>) made a really terrible game called "Love and Order" (an allusion to <i>Law and Order</i>) and I really felt compelled to comment on what a disappointment it was somewhere on the internet (guess what, this is it…).<br /><br />This is a strange sub-genre of <i>pseudo-Japanese</i> visual novels …and, unlike the real thing <b>you can't blame the translator</b> for bad writing.<br /><br />Really, with "Love and Order", I should have been warned off by how bad the writing in the intro sequence was… but no, I ignored that, and paid the $20 (!) for the full game, because it had an innovative interface, and (I thought) would have some kind of wry perspective on the various genres it broaches (office comedy, murder mystery, legal drama, etc.).<br /><br />Wrong, wrong, wrong…<br /><br />…and, yes, I'd feel differently about it if the price had been $4.99 or just $0.99, but <b>regardless</b> of the price and <b>regardless</b> of how I feel about it, <i>the writing is terrible</i>.<br /><br />Aside from questions of, "is it fair to compare a visual novel to the standards expected of, say, <i>a novel</i>", the fact of the matter is that the dialogue in "Love and Order" would be completely inexcusably bad <i>even relative to a mediocre TV situation-comedy</i> --or, indeed, a TV show of any genre (including "Law and Order", alluded to in the title of the game).<br /><br />This is a game that relies heavily on office flirtations and flirtations in the office context are <b>a large part</b> of schlock television (with no pretensions to being high art, nor even to equaling successful novels)… but there is <b>absolutely no way</b> you can look at any chunk of dialogue from these Winter Wolves games and say, "Sure, that's on par with witticisms in broadcast television…"<br /><br />Man, it is really sad to say, but "Love and Order" is a <b>much</b> worse game than (e.g.) "Re-Alastair" (and that one is freeware).<br /><br />I don't think it's meaningful to criticize the game for failing to animate (e.g.) a boring office meeting… but if you seriously have nothing to say (be it witty, tragical, or somewhere in-between) about boring office meetings… why produce such a terrible narrative that forces the reader to sit through such badly written scenes repeatedly?<br /><br />Visual novels rely heavily on writing (yes, writing)… and the slightly unusual G.U.I. for "Love and Order" tricked me into thinking this would be a well-written game (and hey, the authors aren't Japanese, so no language barrier!). Man, I was tempted to start my own blog because of how terrible this thing was… but then I saw that you had started your own blog for similar reasons.<br /><br />I would never buy anything from Winter Wolves again… and I'm not surprised at all to hear that Planet Stronghold (similarly) sucks in all aspects aside from its G.U.I.; what you fail to mention is that this G.U.I. is only "good" <b>relative to visual novels</b>… nobody who is serious about R.P.G.s would be impressed by this.<br /><br />Relative to the current standard of R.P.G.s, this is a step <b>backwards</b>…<br /><br />And the sad thing about Love and Order, is that it is a step backwards relative to Portopia (from 1983!) ポートピア連続殺人事件 --i.e., considered as a murder-mystery visual novel. Seriously, genuinely, with no over-statement: if you evaluated Love and Order as a mystery, in that genre, it would score 0%… and I think that if this wasn't a blog for visual novels, but evaluated "Planet Stronghold" relative to the leading standard in R.P.G.s, this would also be a 0%.<br /><br />My message to game developers is: don't publish a visual novel <i>if you're not prepared to actually write a novel</i>… you can never compete with the leading edge of other genres, and, conversely, you can never compete with real porn.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com