Let's Play TMGS Premium 3rd Story: Push ALL the buttons!

Considering the fact I can't speak any Japanese outside of a word every twenty paragraphs, let alone read it, I'm going to have to heavily rely on shoddy translations. I'm willing to do this, though! But I think having more than one translator may work for me since, well, combining three differently done translations can't possibly go wrong, amirite? This is a terrible idea but I'm going to go through with it anyway.

And thank you for the suggestion, I am off to find these sites, then! Now is probably a good time for me to at least familiarize myself with Hiragana and Katakana. And then I'm off to find good Japanese lessons.

Edit: Lord almighty, please give me the patience to actually try to understand what the Hell the instructions for the translation tools are telling me. I can't, for the life of me, make sense of this.

Well then, time to brace myself this weekend.

I support your mission. Godspeed. /salutes

In terms of translation tools, I didn't use any. The seiyuus/music do a good job of indicating when the mood is scary, happy, or sexytime (so do the CGs *wink, wink - yeah, I'm not mature at all). Alice is a pretty cool heroine, but the situations she gets into are what makes the game BAUS. 10+ guys to build her harem around and counting. I hope it doesn't get to 100+ though...there's a limit for these things and then you start wondering how safe she's being. I think having a 20 - 25 guy harem is good enough. Too many guys and then they become similar/indistinguishable/forgettable.

Alice does have a lot of thought-based lines...which, while funny, might not be that important to the plot.

I don't know who I'd vote for first if you launch this LP :D

I've run into AGTH/ITH all the time, but it seems too difficult for me. Does anyone know how to get voices on the PSP emulators (if you've ever used one)?

I'm using something called "mono_ATRAC3PLUS_Autoplay_assistant_tool v1.9.29" along with some tweaked settings, but I don't know if it differs from game to game. It still doesn't play some of the music, but I get voices!

Could I ask you for the settings/instructions? Anything you could provide in terms of tips would be super appreciated! Right now I only hear background music for some reason...

EDIT: Solved! I never thought I'd be so happy to hear Karen's voice...Tewi's my hero ~

Is anyone else scared of Oosaka's sprite, especially when he frowns? I'm getting total yandere vibes from him.

For the run of HnKnA, I'm not letting anyone vote. I'm going with Ace. For reasons. I just want to unlock Julius LEAVE ME ALONE However, I may do a second run, which WILL be up for vote, and if I do the sequel games, a vote will most likely be in the works as well. But my God. So many options, my heart, I LOVE this series~! <3

Actually, what PSP emulator are you using, OtomeGamer?

A lot happened within about an hour of play, so I'm going to have to do a more condensed posting of events this time!

First we dragged Piano-sempai out on another date.



Shitara: "I don't know too much about motorbikes, but this one looks good. Ahh... It's of Italian make."

He stopped walking P-chan home. Why P-sempai, why. T_T What did we do wrong?! or maybe he just wants to ride home in his limousine instead

Later that week, we stumble on the Sakurai brothers holding a lunchtime AAR meeting on the rooftop. Apparently their plan failed, because instead of dropping the blackboard duster on his head as planned, Oosako-sensei noticed and caught it in midair.


P-chan: "That's because it's something an elementary school student would do..."
Kou: "Shut it. It's got nothing to do with age."
Ruka: "That's right. It's a matter of pride."

...Oookay then. We leave them to bounce their strategies for Round 2 off each other while we hurry to class.


P-chan: (...What's going on? There's a horde of girls at the entrance of the gym--)

No prizes for guessing~


Girl A: "Karen-sama, here's a towel, please use it!"
Karen: "Thank you... Yuriko."
Girl A: "Aaah, she remembered my name!"

Squealing ensues! There's a brief catfight over the turn order of the honour of bringing Karen-sama drinks, but she settles it quickly before spotting Bambi.


Karen: "That's right, I promised I'd be meeting up with you. Sorry I was late."
P-chan: "Meeting up?"
Karen: "We did promise, right?"
P-chan: "Ah.. Oh. Right, right, we did!"

And, amazing friend that we are, we rescue her from her rabid fangirl hordes so she'll hopefully return the favour someday. d(^_^)b

After school, we run into Tamao delegating various Student Council representatives to their stations for the next attire and hair check. He's also using distressingly dense walls of kanji, so you get to see me wuss out from a verbatim translation for once. Have the CG instead!



Another day, another after-school event! Ruka shows up on the motorbike as P-chan reaches her place, then abducts invites her over to take a look at his.


He drives her to West Beach, where he lives with Kou in an abandoned diner. As P-chan pokes around and proclaims it a pretty swell place, Ruka assures her that they have water and electricity, though the gas was cut off so they have to use portable stoves. They're hoping to get in a washing machine soon, but when she innocently asks whether they do their laundry at the laundromat, he looks shifty and says it's a secret.

...Do they do it in the sea?

Then he invites her upstairs to his bedroom. WHOA THERE, WE HAVEN'T EVEN GONE ON A SINGLE DATE YE-


P-chan: "Ah, you have a proper bed."
Ruka: "I did say it was a bedroom. It's old, so it tends to be really creaky though."

Presented without comment.

P-chan quickly changes the subject by asking what's upstairs.


Ruka: "It's Kou's room, but he's out right now. And he gets really mad if anyone goes up there when he's out, so we're going this way next, come on."

Then it's CG time! I derped and missed a couple of P-chan's responses at the start, but they weren't P-sama caliber, so just fill in your usual passive protag-chan dialogue.


Ruka: "It's calm today... Isn't this a great view?"
Ruka: "Do you like it?"
Ruka: "Then you should come live here!"
P-chan: "Geez, again with that... Hey, are you two the only ones living here?"
Ruka: "If you mean our parents, they're back in town."
P-chan: "Do you not get along with them?"

Probe probe.


P-chan: "Sorry, if you don't want to talk about it--"
Ruka: "When I was there, Kou couldn't be free."
P-chan: "Free?"
Ruka: "Still, he ended up following me... Despite appearances, he gets lonely easily. Anyway, it's about time I see you off."
P-chan: (Ruka-kun....)

Glimpse of backstory! I'm not actually sure about that last line because of Japanese's confusing penchant for dropping pronouns, so I had to make do with a little inference. It miiight be the other way round.

---
I still have a couple dates, another Ruka event, and an amusement park double-date to cover (all this from that SAME hour of play), but I'll have to do that after I wake up. Playing and posting more or less live is my intention, but that was a really event-intense hour!

Speaking of which, while I'm happy to and have been covering every single event so far, I'd like to ask: would you guys prefer it this way, or for me to be more selective in my coverage? A bunch of these events are pretty much identical to the DS version's, and I don't want to spoil too much for those of you who're looking forward to the translation. Thoughts?

The only one which sort-of works at the moment is JPCSP, i think.

I think it's nice you cover the events, personally.

I don't mind you covering whatever events you want. ;D

I enjoy this way a lot. While most of the basic info for this game has been translated, I haven't seen much of the dialogue or many of the events. It's a neat little sneak peek beforehand. :D

No complaints here, I probably would have ended up voting for Ace (Hirarin marry me!!)...haha if you're doing Julius end, go for the 3P. Two for the price of one!

HnKnA - I think my favs were Ace, Twins, Boris (The usual suspects). Gowland had really nice makeout scenes (plus he was a bit uke while Alice was a bit more seme in his route) > : D. Can't believe he didn't get a route in Joker. Blood had A Lot of steamy scenes though...you get so little warning and BAM!! it's sexytimes. I liked Elliot but like people said, his voice was a bit screechy and Peter was kinda...cute.

Once I realized that Julius' seiyuu was Takehito Koyasu (i.e. The person who voiced Takasugi Shinsuke), I just had to become a Julius groupie.

Diamond kind of makes me sad though...from what I can see, you'll be romancing Shota Ace some of the time (Not that fond of his character design). But Gray has upped his hotness level to over 9000, so they offset each other (Nakai Kazuya~ I heart you with the power of 10000 suns!!!)

JCPSP - I think it's the only moderately working one where you can play japanese games.

I see that I will have to play this game.

Karen <3 And that event about Ruka was interesting, I'm curious about their route now.

Also, I didn't know that a guy could decide to stop walking your home just because.

She's a sportswoman too!? Romance her! Romance the fuck out of her!

3P ending? SOLD. Except Ace kind of freaks me out.

I love everyone. Everyone. I can't pick favourites. Except Ace is forever my least favourite because he terrifies me. AND I WAS SO MAD GOWLAND DIDN'T HAVE A ROUTE IN JOKER HE'S BEAUTIFUL WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS, QUINROSE, WHYYYYYYYY? CRYING.

He is Neuro-san to me. Koyasu's role as Neuro left a big impact on me, okay?

I'm. Kind of iffy about Diamond as well. Why Shota routes, the Twins were doing that just fine, thank you. With the bonus of them having adult forms that were their real forms, I mean, come on, WHY? But hey, I'm a loyal fan of the Kuni no Alice series, so I'm going to play it.

Thank you, shall do!

Do it. There are no regrets to be had. Just a fair warning, though, the games are LONG and very unforgiving.

Well, I'm going to play (and possibly LP?) Fate/stay night next, so after that I doubt anything else will possibly seem as long and unforgiving!

It isn't that Seiji decided to stop walking P-sama home so much as, regardless of affection, guys always walk the protagonist home from the Fireworks Festival. Probably because it's dangerous out at night.

It's so hard to get crit rate for me ><...I'm horrible at gauging things that require hand-eye coordination... D: Is there a way to slow their heart down??

What? Then why are you doing Ace's route...Ohhh..is this going along the lines of doing the routes that people would normally be squeamish about (like your quest for Amanohashi's love)? But many people actually like Ace (according to the polls, he's the second most popular love interest in the game, after Boris), haha. I'll be enjoying your LP of him wholeheartedly :D

I don't want to spoil anything, but he's probably the least interested in Alice, out of all the characters. Long-term relationship-wise. Guess that's part of the bad boy appeal. You can't tame his wild heart~...I don't know where I was going with this. Until Joker, he's the one-night-stand guy. After Joker...I'm still not sure how much he likes Alice.

One of the reasons I like him because he's randy AND crazy. Couple that with Hirarin's voice and you have an instant fan in me.

I just swallowed a fish bone...feels a bit choky ;_; Seiji, please comfort me with your tsundere heart<3

I associated Koyasu with Takasugi because when I watched Neuro I hadn't realized who his seiyuu was. :D And also, if I do, the Kuni series becomes a pseudo-Gintama Otome Game.

Gray - Hijikata Toushirou - Nakai Kazuya
Julius - Takasugi Shinsuke - Takehito Koyasu
Joker - Katsura Kotarou - Ishida Akira
Nightmare - Sakata Gintoki - Sugita Tomokazu

I do the same thing with the Tokimeki series:

Hariya Kounoushin - Okita Sougo - Suzumura Kenichi
Shiba Katsumi - HIjikata Toushirou - Nakai Kazuya
Sakurai Ruka - Sakata Gintoki - Sugita Tomokazu
Himuro Reiichi (I played him because of the seiyuu and then started to like him as a character) - Takasugi Shinsuke - Takehito Koyasu

To me, every otome game that has these seiyuu is a Gintama otome game. EVERY game.

I expect to be cured of this when a Gintama otome game actually does come out (i.e., never).

I'm doing Ace both out of morbid curiosity and because I have to play his route to unlock Julius. And, well, I don't hate him. He just scares me. But all yangires and yanderes scare me, so that's hardly his fault.

And I don't question why people like him-- He's an interesting guy! Just. Terrifies me. Aha. Sobs.

So I realized thanks to the manga. But shhh, no more spoilers!

OH DEAR GOD ARE YOU OKAY? ;;;;

I am starting to want to watch/read that series just to see the potential for an otome game of it. I swear I don't have a problem.

Also, for anyone interested, I started the HnKnA LP!

WATCH it - Tomokazu Sugita's at his best in that series, as well as the other star seiyuu cast.

As for otome potential, it has ALL the otome potential. Yorozuya (Gin and Shinpachi), Shinsengumi (Okita, Hijikata, Yamazaki), Joi (Katsura), Harusame (Kamui, Abuto), Kihetai (Takasugi, Bansai). Then there's also robot Gintoki and pixel Gintoki and host Gintoki. Maybe you could play as Tama (An epic robot maid working at the snack shop). Kyuubei would be our best friend just because.

You raise a good point! I think I was just prematurely happy that we were getting somewhere because he walked her home the next date as well, but then I realised that was when they stayed behind to watch the night parade at the amusement park. Doh.

Oh, before I start on the next batch, we have a cute new loading screen animation!

OTP

This game really needs to be played with a 24+ inch screen. I'm romancing Seiji and getting his CG and I just have to say...bigger is better ; )

COME TO P-CHAN SEIJI YOU SEXY BEAST

I'm sorry for yelling...it's just...difficult to not react to hotness, y'know?

Seiji reminds me of DMC Vergil looks-wise...a bit <3

Karen: "I received some complimentary tickets to the amusement park. Want to go together this weekend?"
P-chan: "Oh? Is anyone else coming?"
Karen: "Maybe. But don't sweat the small details!"

Yay, an invitation to a double date! This happens when you get closer to your gal pals, and the awesome part is that they don't invite their own love interests and then proceed to go all hissy rival on your arse. But that's this weekend! In the meantime, Ruka, having shown P-chan his bedroom, offers to walk her home. I don't think she had a choice, so off we go for more backstory!


???: "Oi oi oi... If it ain't the little Sakurai brother!"




???: "Look at ya wearin' that damned Habataki uniform and struttin' around. No one's gonna mistake that for even an instant."

u mad bro?


???: "Showing off by taking a girl home like that? Must be nice being a hunk, huh?"

u jelly?

P-chan recognises the uniform of the infamous Yotakado High.


Ruka: "Listen here, I'm off right now. Can't ya tell just by looking?"
P-chan: "Are they.. your friends?"

...Nonononono. I thought we trained you to ask intelligent questions, P-chan!


Ruka: "Uhh... Something like that."
Beanie-head Yotakado A: "Oh? Aren't we being surprisingly tame today? What's the matter? Can't do anything without your big bro around after all?"
Plaster-nose Yotakado B: "Kyahaha!"


Ruka: "Hold on... What did you just say?"

I would just like to say that his delivery of this line made my inner fangirl squeal incoherently.


P-chan: "Ruka-kun!!"
Ruka: "I have something to talk about with my friends, so you go on ahead. Sorry."
P-chan: "But, they--"
Ruka: "It's fine, so go."
P-chan: "Okay..."

So P-chan leaves, slowly mulling it over and finally coming to the conclusion that they're, gasp, probably not his friends. Worried for him, she decides that she should go back even though she's scared. Snippets of conversation reach her ears as she nears.


Yotakado B: "What's wrong? So scared you can't make a peep? C'mon, we'll wait, so why don't you call your big bro?"
Ruka: "Your chirping is starting to get annoying. Come at me!"

Then he proceeds to royally whup their arses 1v2.


P-chan: (!! W-what should I do... I need to stop this quick!) "Stop, stop it now!!"
Passerby A: "What, what? A fight?"
Passerby B: "Oi, all of you, I'm gonna call the police!"
Yotakado A: "Shit, let's go!"
Yotakado B: "...Dammit!"


P-chan: "Geez, I wasn't sure how that would turn out... Why'd you start the fight?"
Ruka: "That was, y'know, beating up the bad guys? Like a hero?"
P-chan: "Making a joke of it so quickly again... I was really scared."
Ruka: "Haa... That's why I told you to head back first, right?"


P-chan: "If I didn't step in and stop the fight before it escalated, it would have been worse. Gave me such a fright..."
Ruka: "It gave me one too! You shouted 'stop!!' in such a loud voice, you scared even those two guys."
P-chan: "That's because..!"
Ruka: "Haha!"

Then he walks her home properly this time and promises that he won't pick a fight when he's with her. P-chan wonders why he keeps getting himself into such dangerous scrapes...

I don't know either~ Let's just let that stew and move on to our much-anticipated double-date!


Karen: "Good morning! We've been waiting, Bambi!"

So who are the two you've set us up with, you splendid girl?



...Somehow it's weird seeing them together. Am I the only one?

But no time to waste! First up is the rollercoaster - we pick Piano-sempai, of course, which leaves...


Ruka: "I'm with Hanatsubaki-san? Gotcha."

Then it's the merry-go-round! We shall ride with Karen-sama~


Karen: "Together with me? Sure, I'll escort you!"

Yay! But wait, that means...


Shitara: "Why am I with you..."

Aaaawkward. ahahahahahahahahahaha



I didn't manage to catch it, but Karen-sama totally winked at us at the end!

And then it's the ferris wheel! We pick Piano-sempai again to avoid the awkwardness that was the merry-go-round. I don't know what happened, but neither of them would look at each other.



We sit in a pink carriage with Mr. Triangle-mouth for a bit. This is all very good info for future amusement park dates. <_<

Aaand with that last ride, it's the end of the double-date! We thank Karen for setting it up, and everyone goes their separate ways. It's quite a good way to boost affection with the parties involved, though I don't know if it's a set amount per person or if it depends on how many times you go on a ride with someone. Hnn.

Oh, so that's what happens in the third game.

Forever <3

I hope TMGS 4 will take place there then, it sounds like the highschool in Belzeebub.

I'll have so much fun with this option XD

It should be a federal offense to not romance Karen. Think about it! Her fangirls could become our shared harem!

Hell, just look at the chibis! P-sama is just smiling politely with Piano-senpai, but she looks positively blissful with Karen. This was meant to be

They never would, but if TMGS4 did take place in Delinquent Paradise it would get all my money forever.

Think of protag-chan becoming queen...in a "leader of the female gang" sense.

If you don't lp it, could you please let me know what you think about it? I liked the anime well enough and I've been debating about giving the game a whirl.

I still really like Kou, even though we haven't seen much of him on this route. Actually, I like everyone. It's amazing what changing the Bomb system can do for everyone's likeability.

I definitely want to LP it if there's interest! It seems like it would be a good thing to LP due to being ungodly long and nigh impossible to get a hold of in English at this point without resorting to piracy. But either way I'll certainly be happy to share my opinions.

The game is amazing, and I definitely recommend it. You have to go in a route order, of Saber -> Rin -> Sakura. I don't want to give much away, but it's the second VN i've ever played and I remember nothing but being excited, having my heart melted, laughing and being mind screwed (and liking it)

You cannot play VNs without playing a type-moon game, especially FSN. Give it whirl! You'll love it.

EDIT:

Actually there's a translating group called Mirror Moon that fan-translated FSN. If you really want, you could just buy the japanese version and pop in the patch and it'll be fiinnee. I'm not sure if there IS an official english version out there actually :S

To be fair, I have also heard that it involves clunky tl;dr and extensive digressions about cooking, bizarre inexplicable sexism on Shirou's part, and godawful gratuitous sex scenes that Nasu didn't even write himself because he was too embarrassed. (The friend who got me interested in the game basically said "there's a lot of great stuff you'll love but I can't in good conscience recommend you actually play the game because of its length and various issues").

I watched over her shoulder as she played some of it and I can confirm the tl;dr and the inexplicable sexism, if nothing else.

I feel like they did do a great job making everyone really appealing this time, though taking out the annoying bits (bombs, rivals, etc) probably helped with that a lot as well.

Anyway, a quick status update after the double-date:




Hurrah, the girls are both at :), meaning we can hopefully look forward to sleepover invitations in the near future! And Piano-sempai is warming up nicely~

For some reason, it's a lot more difficult to gauge the size of the hearts in the PSP version than in the DS version - they seem to only increase in size at certain thresholds rather than being directly proportional to actual affection, so I spend a while squinting at the lines in the background wondering if the heart's any bigger. Herp. Not shown is Ruka's little crown, carried over from my other save file (and probably the reason why he was invited to the double date).


P-chan: (Yay, looks like she's really happy with it!)

We get Miyo a birthday gift! She loves it and hnnnnnnng so much adorbs *pinchcheek*


Karen: "But I love meat and other fatty foods too~ Though I control myself!"
P-chan: "Ahh, right, since you're a model too. Must be hard on you!"


Karen: "Oh, and I love sweet things as well! Since I'm a girl. Ahh, that's no good, now I feel like having some. Could we order some cake?"
P-chan: "Fufu, of course."
Karen: "Yay! But eating all of it is a little... Let's go halfsies. Okay?"

You were waiting for us, so of course we can share a little cake <3


Himuro: "'Probably' doesn't cut it... In any case, there will be practice during the next two weeks. Understood?"

The culture festival is coming up, so Himuro comes by to check up on P-chan's progress. Admittedly, we haven't practiced except on the mandatory practice days, but whatever. I-it's not like he's a robot and checks everything, r-right?!

You know, now that I look at it, the game really likes inserting English titles/etc wherever it can. Most of the fashion panel is titled in English as well, and the Tokimeki panel even has their romanised names in a western format below their Japanese ones. It's like they're paving the way for an official translation or something (or making things easier for fan translators). Hmmmm.

I haven't actually played the unpatched older games though, so maybe they just like it this way..? It certainly makes things easier :D

I have no comment on the H scenes, aha, they're worse than you're describing them actually! I THINK there's a patch that gets rid of them though. I always thought Nasu wrote those scenes (but FSN's H is a vast improvement from Tsukihime *shuuders*) And he's known for his mind screwing, weird descriptions of already weird things, and horrible horrible sex scenes. There are walls of text, and Shirou's sexism is only really prevalent in Saber's route, who doesn't stand for the treatment. Honestly, I think this is just Nasu's own style. The tl;dr moments, I'm not sure what you mean. The story does draw out, but I never really minded it. It really is a long VN. It took me a total of 2 days+ of play time (it records it for you) to finish it. Don't be off putted by the length, because it lives up to it's name of a Visual Novel. And it really is marvellous. The music and everything, I love it.

I can just say, if you like atmospheric vns with good music, great characterisation, fleshed out plot and a load of action, this is for you. If length, eye burning sex scenes with weird metaphors and a slightly stupid protagonist bugs you, just stick to other media :D /ramble

At least Saber route had a great if tearjerking ending. Rin route and Sakura route are better stories, though.

Miyo is so adorable that when Sugita was on a gamer show playing TMGS3 (he named Protag-chan "Sugita Tomoka", btw), one of the other commentators kept going "MIYO-CHAAAN"

There was an LP done of it elsewhere a long, long time ago, which also censored the H-scenes. I read through it all in a weekend once, kinda ended up regretting reading Sakura's route. Rapeworms, what the hell. I liked Unlimited Blade Works, though. Just that concept and the little poem in general. Actually, there were a lot of interesting concepts in that game, so overall I'd probably recommend it, too. ... Still. Rapeworms. What the heeeelllllll.

IN OTHER NEWS since this is my first post in this thread, I think, I'd best actually comment on it. I'm loving this LP so far! Piano-senpai probably would have been one of my later choices when playing this game, so I'm happy to see it here. And... holy what, a tolerable kouhai? CAPCOM TAKE MY MONEY NOW. ... Man, now it's going to be even harder waiting on that translation patch.

!!! Where did you see this? Burning need to knooooow!

Glad to hear that you enjoyed it! I know about the route order, which kind of sucks because I'm curious about Sakura's route the most. I've heard...things.

*points up* Those are one of the things I've heard about. I am morbidly curious about her route, I have to admit, but it's one of the reasons I don't already have the game. I share this computer with other people and I'm uncomfortable having FSN on a computer my little sister uses even if she is in her twenties now.

Okay, back on topic! Oh, I see our harem relationships are developing nicely. So the hearts change color as the character's affection increases?