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Sankaku VN of the Month - April 2010: "Princess Waltz"

Started 5 years ago by sifian, currently has 19 posts - latest post is by H-Ero

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sifian
The Princess Waltz - a dance of whirling blades held to find the princess worthy of becoming queen of Seven Central in the fantasy world of Eldelant. Hopeful candidates travel from all the kingdoms of Eldelant to take part in the waltz, but only one princess will reign supreme...

You are Fukamori Arata, and you know nothing of princesses or waltzes. In fact, your daily life in modern Japan couldn't be any more ordinary - you live with your mother and sister, are woken daily by your childhood friend to go to school, and live a generally full but normal life surrounded by a gang of rowdy classmates. When rumors start circulating about a transfer student to your class, you don't pay much attention - princes from foreign lands don't study abroad here in this day and age, do they?

When Chris Northfield arrives, it seems the rumors might be true. What is such an impossibly refined, polite and accomplished youth doing at your school? Your curiosity gets the better of you, but as you investigate you begin to realize you're getting into something deeper than you ever imagined...

Additional Screenshots can be seen on J-List's site:
http://www.jlist.com/IMAGE/DYwPv

This game is officially licensed in NA and can be purchased off J-List, so I have no intention of handing out free downloads, you can head towards your favorite torrent site, or various H-themed sites are likely to have copies kicking around. If you like the game and its within your budget, consider supporting the people who made if possible for you to play in the first place.

The idea is we'll spend the first couple weeks giving anyone who wishes to participate time to play through the game, which will hopefully be enough for the majority. Official discussion discussion including full spoiler disclosure will commence on Apr 24.

This discussion will be freeform, but can include, but not limited to:
-Plotline clarification
-"Zomg GirlB was so MOE (insert pic)"
-"I fapped so hard to scene 12 (insert pic)"
-"I shed manly tears when..."
-Ideas and suggestions for next month's VN

Previous VN of the Month:
Feb 2010 - Wanko to Kurasou
Mar 2001 - Shuffle!
Attachments
1. princess_waltz_.jpg 5 years old
Posted 5 years ago #
Azure Sky

I fucking loved this VN!! The card system was awesome! my only gripe was that you recovered health every FULL day, and if you got into a fight, you'd have no choice but to go with easy mode...But it was fun none the less XD

Oh and to make it easier for you guys to download it *and get the translation patch easy* XD Go here: http://www.fakku.net/viewtopic.php?t=12381

You've got to create a account *totally free and WORTH IT* to download it.

also, they've got one HELL of a User upload section. there are plenty of VN's there as well XD *all free* XD http://www.fakku.net/viewforum.php?f=51

Posted 5 years ago #
sifian

I have a bunch of commentary that I'm struggling to hold back on for the time being. I do think that anyone who is curious about VN should check this game out, because it's got a lot of sprite animation and is extremely lively by VN standards.

In addition, there is a card battle minigame which is a lot of fun. Here's a detailed FAQ on princess waltz. As it's a completely linear game, there is very little in the faq other that the details of the card game.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/931921/55580

Or, I'll give a crash course right here:

-Bonus XP are awarded for both fast kills and overkills.
-Once you have aquired XP, you may spend it at any time by going to the status screen. You are also given an opportunity to spend points right before fights. I somehow missed this the first time I played and wondered why I was getting my ass kicked come the 5th fight or so.
-Yor most important stats are:
card power > agility > special moves > power
-Upgrade your base stats while not merged with a princess, learn special cards while in union. This is because the boosted stats while in union makes training more expensive for raw stats, but cheaper for special cards. Obvious exception to this is while in union with Iris, because she is completely neutral.

-Flow of combat. Turns are divided into an initiative check and a attack/defense check. The initiative check is compares the sum of (your played cards + your agility) against the enemy. The attack check is (played cards + attack) vs (played cards + defense). Defense is utterly worthless as with a good agility score, you should almost never be on the defense- and when you are defending, taking a couple less points damage serves you no benefit.

-Card colors are in an rock-paper-scissors format. I don't remember which direct it goes but it should be simple enough to figure out. The big thing to keep in mind is that it's often better to refrain from playing cards if it'll change your affinity. (6+7)x2 with the right affinity is better than (6+7+8) with neutral affinity.

Beyond that, it should be understandable. My comments might not make sense out of context, but it should all be clear after playing a couple rounds. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask and don't hold back for the official discussion period, just don't reference any plot details.

Posted 5 years ago #
sifian

*facepalm*

Tenshi- I'm trying to keep the warez to a minimum here. I don't want to be actively promoting piracy as the VN translation business is essentially non-profit.

Would you please (or a moderator) get rid of those links?

Posted 5 years ago #
Rantori Yakumeiji

No screenshots?

Posted 5 years ago #
Shi nai weaboo

It's a VN?

Posted 5 years ago #
Reizo

Oh wow, I actually installed this VN a couple weeks ago, and was too busy to play it. Now seems like the perfect time to play. :D

Posted 5 years ago #
Loryhae

YES.

*swoons*

Despite this including male penis and all that...

I really, really, like Chris...

Also Card battle system?! In my VN? YES OH YES.

Posted 5 years ago #
H-Ero

I started playing this the other day and so far I really like it. My impression of it so far is that it's like a light-hearted FSN. Hopefully we'll be able to have a good discussion for this game.

Posted 5 years ago #
Techeese

I loved this VN XD

Posted 5 years ago #
Azure Sky

sifian said:
*facepalm*

Tenshi- I'm trying to keep the warez to a minimum here. I don't want to be actively promoting piracy as the VN translation business is essentially non-profit.

Would you please (or a moderator) get rid of those links?

My bad sifian, I was so excited that someone else had finally acknowledged princess waltz here on sancon, that I posted links to get
it. I was just looking out for you guys! XD

Posted 5 years ago #
sifian

Understandable. I'm not trying to come off as a DMCA whore... by all means go ahead and download it. Just remember that the only reason it's available to play at all is because people put in the effort to create and translate it. So if you enjoy it- consider your purchase an investment in a future; it tells the publisher what kind of games they should be focusing on. Also a couple hundred sales could be the difference between breaking even vs loss.

Lastly... there are certain resources I'd prefer to be minimally publicized for fear of legal action. (cough cough)

Posted 5 years ago #
Azure Sky

sifian said:
Understandable. I'm not trying to come off as a DMCA whore... by all means go ahead and download it. Just remember that the only reason it's available to play at all is because people put in the effort to create and translate it. So if you enjoy it- consider your purchase an investment in a future; it tells the publisher what kind of games they should be focusing on. Also a couple hundred sales could be the difference between breaking even vs loss.

Lastly... there are certain resources I'd prefer to be minimally publicized for fear of legal action. (cough cough)

I see you've gotta point there XD

Legal action!? DX

Posted 5 years ago #
sifian

Casual bump. Still time to start and finish this one. It's on the shorter side, like 10-12 hours, but the structure is such that you'll probably want to allot for breaks.

Posted 5 years ago #
sifian
I was hoping for someone else to start this (something of an interest test), but it's a few days in, and people may be waiting for me to moderate this.

As I've mentioned a few times, I think the best thing about this game is its sprite use. When fast forwarding through the game (not that it's really necessary) you can actually kinda tell what's going on based on the animation alone.

Music is also superb. I've got the soundtrack that I can upload if people are interested. My favorite song was Endless Dash.

Chris is one of my favorite VN heroines ever. As I've said many times, my favorite type of girl is the "buddy" archetype, which she totally fills. She's more tomboyish than I really care for, but that's expected given her status as a reverse trap. It's an interesting plot gimmick that works them together, which accelerates the development of their romantic feeling, but the development itself feels surprisingly natural.

Card Minigame is a lot of fun. I think I've talked enough about that already.

The voice acting was good. I especially liked Suzushiro, who is soft spoken, but still has strength in her voice. If only more seiyuu were more like her and less like Noto Mamiko (who is omnipresent in anime and sounds like she belongs in a sick ward).

I liked the fight scenes, but I felt that there were too many of them in rapid succession at times.. like a 1:2 (combat):(comic relief and romance) would havec been more ideal- or at least some kind of break rather than having 3 fights back to back at times.

I thought the secondary romances were handled very poorly. As I said on the Fakku forums, it felt like sex via deus ex machina. I would have gladly traded all 5 of those scenes for one more with chris, or one handled well with either Lun-Lun or Suzushiro... the other girls didn't feel like they had the development that would lend itself to a romantic relationship.

Some of the anatomy was really questionable. This is one of those games that probably should have been left with mosaics. I kinda facepalmed whenever I saw a vaginal slit without any labia (which was nearly every HCG). Here's a comparison:

Although that paled in comparison to the scene with Liesel where Arata seems to have a penis coming out of his gut. That's possibly the first time my libido was actually killed by anatomical inaccuracy.
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1. Princess_Waltz132.jpg 5 years old
2. CG24_77_wip.jpg 5 years old
3. Princess_Waltz197.jpg 5 years old
Posted 5 years ago #
H-Ero
I had a lot of fun with this game. I wouldn't say it's as great as other people say it is but it's definitely well above average.

The plot was OK but pretty predictable most of the time. I liked how they would point out obvious plot points instead of making them try to seem surprising when they get revealed. I'll admit that I was pretty surprised when I got that bad end halfway through the game. I went online to see what I did wrong right away instead of just playing my file again. Since there wasn't any choices to make in the first half I thought I might have made a mistake during one of the battles.

Probably the thing I hated most about this game was that they waited so long before letting you pick one of the other girls. They don't really get their own routes and your relationship with them feels kinda forced. I think the game would have been much better if they let it branch off into multiple routes.

I also didn't like that Arata wasn't voiced. The seiyuu for this game were great but it just felt incomplete without Arata having a voice (especially when he was suppose to be talking at the same time as someone else but all you hear is the other person).

The characters were pretty good, though I liked some of them much more than others. My favorite character was Lun Lun, which really surprised me. While I'm a fan of moe characters like her, I usually prefer characters like Chris or Shizuka. I can't seem to think of a single thing about Lun Lun that I didn't like. I loved her cheerful personality, her voice was adorable (I loved how she pronounced her name and I must have replayed it about a hundred times when she said "Stop! Time! Wait a minute!"), she had great interactions with the other characters, she had a good character design, and I thought her dress design was perfect for her (it was cute yet it still had a strong feel to it). While it doesn't bother me too much, I do wish that her real age would have been revealed (unless it was and I missed it).

My second favorite character was Chris. I really like girls that you can be good friends with and I love tomboys (and reverse traps). While I loved that Chris tried to act like a boy, I felt that she went too far. It's made clear why she tries to be a boy but I really don't like it when characters lie to themselves like that (especially when Chris still tries to make Arata think of her as a boy after he finds out her secret).

Out of the rest of the girls, I would say that Suzushiro is my third favorite. I really liked her character design (especially her dress) and I think Goto did a great job with her performance (though I had a hard time not laughing whenever she yelled out "Shihou!"). I really felt bad about her relationship with Chris and wonder how it turns out after the game ends (especially when you pick her).

I felt that Arata was a pretty good main character though there wasn't anything that memorable about him. I liked Shizuka, though I think she didn't get enough attention (her growling also got on my nerves). Angela and Liesel really didn't appeal to me that much (which is kinda disappointing since I even liked secondary characters like Pigeon and Crow more than them). I really wish Nodoka got more attention.

The sprites were definitely one of the best parts of the game. They really made the scenes much more entertaining. While the sprites were used very effectively, I didn't like the lack of battle sprites. It got on my nerves when the characters were suppose to be taking a lot of damage in battle but yet their sprites looked completely fine.

The card system was pretty fun though I wish you could have battled more of the other princesses with it. It got pretty dull just battling the same few enemies over and over again.

The h-scenes definitely seemed forced, though not as forced and out of nowhere as some VNs. I also thought Arata's penis seemed awkward and unnatural. It made me wonder how much experience the artist had drawing that type of stuff. I also didn't like how much the girls bled when they had their virginity taken. It seemed like way too much, even by hentai standards.

Also I found the CG for the scene where Arata was hugging Suzushiro to look incredibly awkward (it was suppose to be a serious scene right?).

I'm really tempted to make a Shoop da Whoop out of that pic.
It also reminds me of this.
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1. 147978465384656.jpg 5 years old
2. 1568646547346576345.jpg 5 years old
Posted 5 years ago #
sifian
H-Ero said:

I also didn't like that Arata wasn't voiced.

I felt that Arata was a pretty good main character though there wasn't anything that memorable about him.

Yeah, I liked Arata as well. He's a good solid character that people can relate to. True, there may not have been much memorable about him, but that's a lot better than being memorable for being a tool or an idiot, like so many other games.

I also felt that he should have been voiced. I did like how visible he was. I'm not particularly fond of protagonist sprites when something is written in first person, but I do like seeing him interact with people in CG... I'm not a fan of CG where the hero's face is completely obscured.

Probably my favorite two scenes from PW:
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1. princess_waltz.jpg 5 years old
Posted 5 years ago #
sifian
!!!!

I blinked a little when I saw this image from a recent article:
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/05/03/shuttered-streets-japan-is-turning-into-a-ghost-town/
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1. pw_arcade.jpg 5 years old
Posted 5 years ago #
H-Ero

sifian said:

FUCK YEAH BROFIST! The best cg in the game IMO.

sifian said:

I actually found this part of their h-scene to be hotter than when they actually had sex.

Posted 5 years ago #

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