Live Blogs Blinder than blind, here's Shuffle!

Sabbo2011-04-18 05:21:23

Welcome, one and all, to my blinder than blind liveblog of the Visual Novel Shuffle, wherein I learn what's so great about visual novels, Dating Sims, and not having a life. And maybe I'll be lucky and learn whether I should be referring to it as "reading Shuffle!" or "playing Shuffle!".

To begin with, this is the official English translation of the original visual novel. This doesn't mean I can't still laugh at any shoddy localization I may find though. Woo!

Next, I suppose I should let my dear readers in on exactly how blind this liveblog is:

• I have never played/read a visual novel before. (Although I am familiar with manga, anime & Light Novels)
• The most I know about Shuffle other than that it is a male-oriented dating sim visual novel is a brief glance around half a year ago at the introduction of its trope page. I forget essentially everything I had read there.
• The closest thing I have ever played to a dating sim was Persona 3 and Persona 4. I don't know how these compare, but right now I'm gonna guess that unlike in Persona, the Tenchi Solution is not an option here... not that it was really an option there; they never really addressed how the protagonist was essentially a male slut. :/
• And finally, I have never done a liveblog or anything like that before, so excuse me if this isn't up to standard (And I welcome advice regarding this).

All that said, I really should get on with this now, shouldn't I?

.

I open up Shuffle, and it seems kinda standard for any computer game - A couple of company logos, and a couple of blocks of text... but wait; why did the first block go away in a second, while the second (much smaller) block take several? Time to go back and print screen this, methinks...

Ah, it was a parental advisory notice◊. A bit suspicious that something three reasonable paragraphs long was only visible for mere moments, no? I bet Manga Gamer don't even really believe what they wrote there, for the most part.

As for the other block of text, that told me to go read a translation note pdf, which turns out to include nothing I, as an avid manga reader, didn't already know. Almost. I suppose I'll learn the rest as I go along.

The opening menu has a bunch of options, and I spy "Config"... Woah. So many options, and I have pretty much no idea what any of them would do. I think I'll leave it all default.

.

That said, the only thing left to do is start up the game/novel/whatever it is, which can wait until tomorrow morning. Time to exit then, I suppose.

...And I hear a Japanese girl say... something... when I click Exit. She spoke a bit quick for me to hear what she said, so I cancel my exit and click it again, only for someone else to speak. Hm. After cycling through what I assume was all of them, I only understood one: A quiet girl, not unlike Yuki Nagato, saying "owari".

The End, huh? I suppose it is. Until next time!

Comments

Sabbo Since: Dec, 1969

Oct 8th 2011 at 3:50:29 AM

And so there you go. Installments will be only once every weekend at best for the next six or seven weeks.

Sabbo Since: Dec, 1969

Oct 8th 2011 at 5:45:37 AM

Actually, fuck that shit, I'll only check the endings from now on; keeping track of how I write up these individual things is too hard.

And I think I was inconsistent anyway, even with just these 16. :/

neobowman Since: Dec, 1969

Oct 8th 2011 at 11:10:45 AM

Wow, you do have LOT of time on your hands. This is pretty cool but maybe spend the time reading other V Ns lol.

Sabbo Since: Dec, 1969

Oct 8th 2011 at 4:11:03 PM

Well, when you consider that I've changed my mind about the level of detail I'll be going into (which is in its own way unfortunate, but still a good thing when you consider the alternative), this won't actually take particularly long - I estimate somewhere near three or four installments.

But yeah. I'm doing this because of situations such as 000000010, where the choices made have an odd effect on the ending gotten; I want to know how each choice effects the ending, and have ever since I did Lisianthus' route.

Sabbo Since: Dec, 1969

Oct 8th 2011 at 4:13:53 PM

For the fun of it, here are the notes I was using to do this first installment of this stage:

15th
16th
20th
21st
23rd
24th
4th
24TH - Remembering Asa (requires "Go with a friend", then "Go home")
29TH - Lisianthus' fall
- Kaede's dinner
2ND - Who cooks?
5TH - Kaede's wakeup
9TH - Asa's invitation (ASA'S ROUTE)
- Discussing exams
11TH - Dream of Kaede
- Primula enrolls (PRIMULA'S ROUTE)
12TH - Seeing Primula (PRIMULA'S ROUTE)
- About a kiss/Funbag Airbag
- Nerine's date/Clothes
14TH - Nerine's lunch
15TH - Mayumi's fall
- Lisianthus' lunch
16TH - Kaede's lunch
- Angel's bell?
22ND - Nerine at the pool

neobowman Since: Dec, 1969

Oct 9th 2011 at 5:53:29 AM

Funbag AIRBAG!!!

Sabbo Since: Dec, 1969

Oct 9th 2011 at 5:58:40 AM

(To be honest, I had actually written that as simply "Airbag" in my notes, but thought it might be confusing were I to leave it as is. I didn't alter anything else though.)

Oh, and I'm kinda but kinda not making a new installment right now. It should be up within half an hour, maybe an hour at most. It's pretty much a recap.