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I bought Last Train (最終電車 “Saishuu Densha”) for one hundred yen (or, about a dollar) at a Book Off. Last Train is a PlayStation 1 game, released on February 28, 1998 by Visit, an Osaka based company so obscure it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page in English or Japanese. Visit released a series of eight sound novel games between 1997 and 2000. Last Train was their second game, and from what I can tell, the best regarded. It even got an “upgraded” rerelease on the PlayStation 2 that’s supposed to be a odd and senseless, though it’s a bit of a mystery to me - I never saw that release even once for sale anywhere, and I browse used/retro game stores pretty often. As you can tell from the cover (if you’re perceptive), Last Train was branded as a “Hyper Novel”, which in practice means a ripoff of Chunsoft’s popular Sound Novel series. I’m not kidding about it being a ripoff - not only is the basic game progression copied, but so is the graphic style of the Kamaitachi no Yoru series, where human characters are depicted as blue transparent silhouettes. The game does have an actual published novelist behind its story and prose - Shunichi Oosako, who has several dozens light SF novels (as well as some other game scripts) under his belt. This is a blind translation LP, aka a possibly very bad idea. I have never played this game before, but I read just a little bit ahead to confirm that the direction it takes looks promising. Here’s what this means: - The game may turn out to be a complete disaster. - However, I will be as surprised as any of you about it. - I may make the occasional translation mistake due to not knowing future events. I plan to be transparent about this, and also comment on translation dilemmas as I go. As you might expect, the game itself is a CYOA. The choices seem to be close enough to one another that I intend to end most updates with one (unless we reach another natural stopping point), and you get to vote on which path we’re taking! Voting will be handled off-site, so please follow the link and don’t just post replies with nothing but your choice on the thread. My own comments always appear in bold. Finally, No spoilers allowed, though I deliberately chose a game that’s infinitely less likely to have someone who completed it show up here than even my last LP series at the time it started. orenronen fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Aug 31, 2014 |
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Aug 31, 2014 00:13
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| # ? May 18, 2024 11:00 |
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<reserved>
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Aug 31, 2014 00:13
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(With thanks to Fedule and Ven Haydn for editing) To get us started, don’t miss the game’s state-of-the-art CG opening movie. And now that you’ve seen it, let’s get started.    We get to name our character! Don’t get too excited, though, because I’m sticking with the default. Last name: Ishioka.  First name: Tetsuya. Tetsuya Ishioka. The game’s manual tells us he works at a design company.  Car 8  Many of my friends know that I always keep my watch set exact to the second, but surprisingly few know the reason why. You see, it’s... not really something I’m very proud of. If you must know, it’s the same reason I'm running out of breath right now. A few seconds ago I was still running as fast as I could through a shopping street that had already closed for the night. Felt like I’d left work even later than usual. When the street lights started going off around me I seriously thought I wasn't going to make it. I flashed my commuter pass at the electronic station gate, dashed up the staircase, and jumped into the train that was already waiting at the platform. The doors closed behind me with a clatter, leaving me leaning against them, finally able to catch my breath. Well, here I am. I’ve managed to get the last train once again... somehow. And that's why I keep my watch set. My job is... No, that doesn't really matter. Just like my watch, I don't take much pride in that either. The problem is - what else? - overtime. Truth is, I’ve been relying on this last train for quite some time now. I only live one stop away from work, so it's not exactly a long trip home. It’s just... just thinking about walking those couple of kilometres, completely exhausted after a full day of work, is unbearable. Honestly, it’s easier to just keep track of the time and run to catch the last train. Anyway, I made it again tonight. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.   Still leaning against the door, I looked around the car I had just jumped into. It was the tail car of the train, and it was deserted. Besides me, there was just one woman sitting a little bit away. It was the same woman who's always sitting here when I get into the train at this time of night. Must be an office lady. Her hands were perched on the small bag on her lap, and her eyes were fixed on the dark window ahead of her, not even throwing me a glance. Her pink suit always looked a little dull to me, but I'm not sure if that's because she was dead tired, or because I was. Office Ladies (almost always referred to as OLs) are not exclusively a Japanese phenomenon, though Japan is most known for them. As the name implies, they’re young women who work at an office. See Wikipedia to learn about why they’re different from young women who work at offices at other places around the globe. I sat down on a nearby seat and stared at the window in front me, copying her. I saw my face reflected back at me, superimposed on the glass. All the running had left my hair in quite a mess, but I couldn’t even bother raising my hand to fix it. I just kept staring at my own face.  "Sigh..." I sighed in relief as I leaned back on the seat, causing the cushion to creak and a bitter smile to spread across my face. In my mind, the sigh was just an excuse for that young lady at the other side of the car. She sees me here almost every night, so she must know I get off the train after just one stop. I'm just subconsciously trying to justify myself to her for sitting down on a trip that's only a few minutes long. Yeah, I'm really really tired. See? I even let out a sigh. That's how tired I am. That's why I'm sitting down. Please understand me, Miss. Excessive self-consciousness. Another of my fine traits. Disgusted with myself, I raised my eyes to the ceiling and let the sound I’d grown so used to rush into my ears. The sound of reverberating air. Shortly before arriving at my stop, the train passes through an underground tunnel. The sound made by the change in air pressure is my signal. It tells me I will be home soon. But wait... something's strange. It’s too soon... It’s supposed to take longer than this… I’ve been at my current job for six months now. During that time, I've been taking this train almost every night. I know how long it’s supposed to take. How long I have to relax. So what's going on? Is the train running faster than usual? Did they change the schedule? ...Yeah, something's definitely strange. Usually, when I hear that sound the train drops its speed considerably, but the view of the tunnel walls rushing past the window isn't slowing down at all... in fact, it’s getting faster! Why? As that thought passed through my head, it happened.   "Hey! What the--?!" The disturbance in the air shook the windows as the train rushed right past my stop! The benches, the advertisements, the stairs I always drag my tired body up -- all of them, speeding by, right outside my window! I instinctively pressed my face against the glass, following the receding station with my eyes. "Hey, this isn't funny! What the hell?!" My neighbourhood. My house. The bathtub and bottle of beer that always alleviate the day's fatigue. They were all getting farther and farther away. I groaned. This isn't funny at all! I made it just in time to the last train, but I can't get off at my station! What about all my effort, running to the train station?! What about the sweat on my back, which still hasn't dried?! What about the can of beer waiting inside the fridge at my apartment?! Hey, is anyone listening? Do something! Did I make a mistake and get on the express train that runs before the last one? If so, what's the next station it stops at? Can I walk home from there? Will I need an expensive taxi? Whichever it was, I couldn't help but grumble once more. "This isn't funny..." "Excuse me, is something wrong?"  Something pink appeared in front of me as I turned towards the unfamiliar voice. It was the woman. Now that I could see her up close, she looked lot younger than I’d first thought she was. Must be just over twenty. Her face, rimmed with long black hair, still had a sense of innocence about it. Oh my. Seems like I let myself get caught in an awkward moment.  1. I have to stay calm. 2. How am I supposed to stay calm at a time like this?! What are we going to do? Vote here!
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Aug 31, 2014 00:14
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I'm pretty surprised the sound novel genre existed as far back as 1997. So what made you not play the game initially, oren? From the way you phrased your post it sounds like you bought the game years ago. Was it just being busy more than anything? Meowywitch fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Aug 31, 2014 |
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Aug 31, 2014 01:42
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I looked the scenario writer up on Wikipedia and the thing in his work history that stood out was that he contributed to a published anthology of (fairly well-reviewed) Kanon fanfictions. That said, for a light novel writer he sure gets things moving a lot more quickly than most of his peers.
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Aug 31, 2014 01:59
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First impressions: The opening CGI movie is wonderfully low budget, even by the standards of its contemporaries. I love it. Also, the blue-silhouette people are kind of creepy. Hedera Helix fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Aug 31, 2014 |
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Aug 31, 2014 02:50
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I missed the last train home today for a stupid, stupid reason. It led to a 2 and a half hour night bus mission from east to west London. I hope Ishioka's day is only slightly worse than mine. (does his name mean anything?)
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Aug 31, 2014 03:25
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Can someone go into what a sound novel is? All I glean from Wikipedia is that it's like a visual novel, but sometimes you switch character perspectives.
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Aug 31, 2014 03:37
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BKPR posted:Can someone go into what a sound novel is? All I glean from Wikipedia is that it's like a visual novel, but sometimes you switch character perspectives. I think the main quality that makes a sound novel as opposed to a visual novel is an emphasis on using sound and music to help enhance the mood of the story you're reading. A good example would be Higurashi or Umineko where there is 0 voices and instead the games rely entirely on music and a few select sound effects to add an extra layer to the text. I guess you could say all sound novels are visual novels, but not all visual novels could be classified as sound novels. Chunsoft coined the phrase (I believe), so at the time 'sound novel' meant 'we wanted to make something like Kamaitachi no Yoru'.
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Aug 31, 2014 04:04
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A sound novel is a visual novel that does not contain anime.
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Aug 31, 2014 04:12
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Edit: nevermind: guy above me stated his piece on it already.
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Aug 31, 2014 04:45
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Suspicious Dish posted:A sound novel is a visual novel that does not contain anime. That's a useful distinction, but there's some more. The term Sound Novel is actually Chunsoft's brand name for their own novel games, but they were so influential that most other companies simply copied them and the term stuck. The main difference from the modern visual novel, as far as I'm concerned, is the presentation and the writing style. Modern visual novels usually have large character sprites (often anime) in various poses overlaid on static backgrounds, while pre-visual novel games are usually a bunch of unique illustrations with no overlaid characters. The writing in visual novels is concentrated on dialogue, and so presented in text boxes. The old games are usually written much more like a first-person novel, and the text is just overlaid in large chunks on the screen, a paragraph at a time. There is also some change in trends of how games handle their routes and branching structure, but we'll get to that later.
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Aug 31, 2014 07:20
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Poor guy, I hope he gets his can of beer in the end.
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Aug 31, 2014 17:14
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The way the woman is just politely asking what's wrong makes it seem like she didn't pay attention to Mr. Ishioka at all for the past 6 months. And there he is, being all self-conscious for nothing.
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Aug 31, 2014 18:31
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I'm somewhat surprised and slightly disappointed that the option to freak the hell out right away isn't the obvious goon choice here.
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Aug 31, 2014 18:50
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Kanfy posted:I'm somewhat surprised and slightly disappointed that the option to freak the hell out right away isn't the obvious goon choice here.  PLEASE LIKE ME!
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Aug 31, 2014 18:57
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unpronounceable posted:The way the woman is just politely asking what's wrong makes it seem like she didn't pay attention to Mr. Ishioka at all for the past 6 months. And there he is, being all self-conscious for nothing. I hope he gets self-conscious about this instead. "We've been riding this train together for six months and she never noticed the stop I get off at? Am I that uninteresting?"
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Aug 31, 2014 19:42
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unpronounceable posted:The way the woman is just politely asking what's wrong makes it seem like she didn't pay attention to Mr. Ishioka at all for the past 6 months. And there he is, being all self-conscious for nothing. Perhaps Mr. Ishioka never existed until the night the game takes place, and is just a robot with implanted memories 
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Aug 31, 2014 19:51
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Oh, freak out. Thanks in advance for this, Oren. Exploring strange new game vistas is like half what this subforum is for.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:35
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Am I liable to get spoiled on DR2 by comments made during the LP? I'm guessing yes.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:47
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Seyser Koze posted:Am I liable to get spoiled on DR2 by comments made during the LP? I'm guessing yes. gently caress off.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:48
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Seyser Koze posted:Am I liable to get spoiled on DR2 by comments made during the LP? I'm guessing yes. Monobear killed JFK.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:50
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Hedera Helix posted:Perhaps Mr. Ishioka never existed until the night the game takes place, and is just a robot with implanted memories "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?"
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Sep 1, 2014 01:54
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It's been about 24 hours, so I'm closing the poll. I'm also surprised the goon collective chose to stay calm rather than freak out, but hey - democracy.
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Sep 1, 2014 02:02
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orenronen posted:I'm also surprised the goon collective chose to stay calm rather than freak out
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Sep 1, 2014 02:13
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orenronen posted:It's been about 24 hours, so I'm closing the poll. I'm also surprised the goon collective chose to stay calm rather than freak out, but hey - democracy. Staying cool and collected will impress the girl
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Sep 1, 2014 02:28
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Suspicious Dish posted:Staying cool and collected will impress the girl But not going for schadenfreude at every opportunity goes against everything I've learned about the internet! Democracy sucks. 
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Sep 1, 2014 09:28
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Suspicious Dish posted:Staying cool and collected will impress the girl I'm just going to pretend this is a dating sim from here on out and make the choices accordingly.
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Sep 1, 2014 14:25
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The start here oddly reminds me of Hellnight. Incidentally, someone should LP Hellnight.
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Sep 1, 2014 15:29
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tiistai posted:I'm just going to pretend this is a dating sim from here on out and make the choices accordingly. Are you implying it actually isn't?
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Sep 2, 2014 08:47
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FairweatherPaws posted:Are you implying it actually isn't? She appears to be entirely translucent blue, our chances of a boob shot are slim. 
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Sep 2, 2014 10:46
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Hi orenronen, I just wanted to complement you on the DR LP's. Is there any chance redditors will drop by to complain about the paywall? Cause' that is always fun 
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Sep 2, 2014 11:48
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The first rule of Dangan Ronpa: Do not talk about Dangan Ronpa.
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Sep 2, 2014 12:18
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It was a great LP but it's time to leave that particular station behind and head onwards to... wherever this train is going. Probably nowhere good, going by the game and thread title. Although it'd be great if it turns out that the guy did actually just board the express train by accident.
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Sep 2, 2014 13:11
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FairweatherPaws posted:Are you implying it actually isn't? I was hoping nobody would make this joke, it's way too obvious.
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Sep 2, 2014 17:05
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orenronen posted:It's been about 24 hours, so I'm closing the poll. I'm also surprised the goon collective chose to stay calm rather than freak out, but hey - democracy. I started reading this thread too late.* And didn't get to see the poll. While the thread made it obvious which options were available, it might be a good idea to edit in the options once you close the polls. *You could say I missed the train.
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Sep 2, 2014 22:25
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Geemer posted:I started reading this thread too late.* And didn't get to see the poll. While the thread made it obvious which options were available, it might be a good idea to edit in the options once you close the polls. The options are right there at the end of the post.
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Sep 2, 2014 22:33
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orenronen posted:The options are right there at the end of the post. I'm dreadfully sorry about this. I must've been blinded by the fact that I'm an idiot.
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Sep 3, 2014 00:46
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Getting a very Midnight Meat Train vibe from this game. Hopefully the ending won't be quite so goofy.
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Sep 3, 2014 01:46
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Bumping just to say I definitely didn't intend to post a first update and then disappear for more than a month, but some impeccable timing brought a whole bunch of RL stuff down on me all at once which left me with almost no time to work on personal projects (and that's not even considering the free time lost by 3DS Smash Brothers a couple of weeks ago and the new Dangan Ronpa last week). That said, I have the second update almost ready to go, so you should see it in the next couple of days. Hopefully, the next ones will be much more timely.
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Oct 2, 2014 02:05
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