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flyingcookierambles · 3 years

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sadness over a3! eng i guess

oof just on my 700th day.....

kinda sad because of the announcement about A3! ENG server shutting down soon due to financial difficulties at LIBER/CYBIRD in the past two years (covid-19 related, etc.). according to a rather in depth reddit comment that had links to LIBER's publicly available financial reports + some financial reports from LIBER's parent company, Aeria, in english, covid-19 really hit LIBER hard since they had to cancel many money making events, from pop-up shops for the typical anime merch trinkets (keychains, plushes, pins, etc.) to the huge in-person events (voice actor meetups, the stage plays of MANKAI LIVE, etc.). due to shrinking player base on the ENG server + major loss of profits on both JPN and ENG servers, LIBER had to choose one or the other and they chose the JPN one, which i totally understand since it's way bigger there and the JPN fanbase will continue to give the franchise money more often. also, another person found a financial report/estimate from the google play store or something, and A3! ENG only made ~$20K to ~$10K in the past few months, which i guess is not enough to keep a server and localization company afloat.

i got pretty attached to the characters and it was a great game to help get by during college. and honestly, while i am very sad about this, again, i understand why LIBER did this, looking at their financial report from 2020. I would LIBER save the entire franchise rather than shut all the servers down, making us all unable to see our favorite actors ever again, even if it means that we ENG fans will have to go thru the extra steps of finding/reading fan translations, wikis, etc., to read any further stories from where A3! ENG left off. still, A3! ENG's localization was something special. i'm saying this as a TKRB JPN player who read the wiki for all the character voice lines and then had to see the official TKRB ENG localization make Yamabushi Kunihiro a rapper for some reason? lol. it was....weird.... meanwhile, all the memes and slang in A3! ENG didn't seem out of place and all fit their personalities because 3/4 of the troupes were all high school to college age and 3 of them were ~Gamers~. Out of all the gachas i've played, i feel like the only other F2P gacha game that had this incredibly smooth, all cultural jokes/puns translated in a way that still makes sense/fits the character/doesn't require a galaxy brain and some TL note to understand, is probably dragalia lost and that's only because it has frickin Nintendo localizing/publishing it globally for CyGames. Nintendo. i'll eventually read the fan translations of A3!'s Act 3 on the wiki, but it won't be the same without Kazunari's super high-energy influencer slang of "'whoa fam! that's totes 'blammable, gotta take a pic!" or Itaru's gremlin Gamer speak of "lol get rekt noobs" or Tsuzuru's tired dying breath of "that ain't it chief." the appropriate slang and relatable meme speak of the localization really helped humanize these characters as people of their respective ages, rather than just a typical formal speak or some directly translated JPN slang -> ENG that turns out super awkward that can be found in bad localizations.

going back to the reddit comment too, the death of A3! ENG servers could have bad repercussions in the future for other joseimuke games. josei, if you for some reason have been in the anime fandom but still don't know this term, is basically the genre of stories/video games/media/etc aimed at women. it's the mature adult counterpart to seinen, media aimed at adult men. basically shoujo/shonen = elementary/middle school/high school aimed while josei/seinen = high school/college/adult aimed if that helps. Joseimuke is a part of josei that is not specifically romance. while some josei/joseimuke can overlap with otome, aka female aimed dating sims/romance media, they have many things about them that make these all separate genres. one of the official A3! ENG translators and a known fan translator of another joseimuke gacha, Mahou Yaku/Wizard’s Promise, minami, goes more in depth with this in a twitter thread.

A3! was an actor raising game, and a big part of it was found family and relationships that were platonic. yet it got advertised as an otome, which has more connotations with dating sims and brings to mind other shoujo/otome games and anime where the cast is all high schoolers and the setting is most often in a high school. but, other than some characters making flirty jokes or implied to have crushes on Izumi/player character, many character relationships with Izumi are platonic and not romantic at all. Spring Troupe in the game also jokingly calls themself a family. the entire Mankai Company is basically found family. plus, since the game actually has time passing in story and the characters age with each year, half of the characters aren’t even in high school anymore. a large majority of them are in college or are graduated by now, with only a few still in high school. i’m not surprised if a reason that some people left the game was due to feeling bored with the slice of life/not romantic story, feeling that they were lied to about it being an otome, which was falsely advertised since it is a game meant for the older teens/adults demographic of josei/joseimuke.

i’m worried that other japanese companies will look at this shut down as a “josei/joseimuke doesn’t work well in the west” and never localize other josei/joseimuke gacha games like Mahou Yaku, EnStars, Twisted Wonderland, Helios, etc.

while i like otome and shoujo, i, as a 23/soon to be 24 year old college graduate and now tax paying adult, want more stories that have more mature themes and characters that are more my age so i don’t have to feel awkward when i’m playing some dating sim and i, a literal 23 year old adult, and trying to woo a 16 year old. it’s...a little awkward to say the least. i would gladly welcome more mature media that is categorized as josei/joseimuke.

sorry if this is all over the place, but overall im just sad that A3! ENG is shutting down. i don’t know if i’ll join the JPN server yet. i’m def going to read the Act 3 story via fan translators on the wiki, but A3! gameplay was...boring lmao. as much as i love A3!, im sure that the constant event grind/burnout and boring rng gameplay turned people off too and i dont blame them. i felt the burnout bad since i participated in basically every event since day 1. it. is. rough. i’m not joining the hellish thunderdome that is the JPN server and im not ranking anymore as a F2P player lmao. literally had to play almost every waking free moment to get into the 30%-20% bracket as a F2P person and i never got to top 20%-10%, much less top 1% lmao. i’m don’t whale enough lol.

i feel like i should probably just. crack open my genki 2 textbook and uhhh totally legal pdf copy of tobira. so i can just. get the JPN version of games in the first place so i don’t have to worry about getting shafted since overseas fans are often considered expendable.

i wish that, when any games that are online end, gacha or mmo or anything, anything online, companies will let fans archive things. or like. release a book that is just the story text or something. like. CYBIRD is letting us still technically play the game and have the story and all, but what if they eventually later shut everything down? why not just release a pdf/ebook that’s just the text of the eng localization for some money? i’d buy it. for nostalgia and rereads and all and also archiving purposes. i think i’ll try to help with any english localization archive projects if i can so that the hilarious and incredible localization that was a work of love from the translation team doesn’t just disappear forever.

well.

that’s it for now. as i said, guess i’ll head to the app for one of the last times to read the last unread stories and mini stories i have left, then the wiki for Act 3, and then i guess i’ll crack open genki 2 and bunpo.....

some fun random links for you to think about!

random ffxi article that came to mind (if ffxiv ever shuts down in the next 20 years or whatever i’d be cool to get a statue of my character at the end)

and death of a game playlist by NerdSlayer Studios on Youtube that has me thinking a lot about game preservation and losing MMOs and games

the lost media wiki and blameitonjorge’s lost media iceberg

other gacha games i’ve played that have shut down that i think about sometimes because the loss of A3! ENG isn’t my first rodeo:

terra battle & terra battle 2 (1)

AFTERL!FE

(related kitsu post link for archive reasons)

#rambles #games n junk #sad over a3! eng loss #a3!

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bluegreenamber · 7 years

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Twisted alt. ending 1

(AN: Well. Here's one of the endings I might have done. I decided to have mercy and wrote the fluffy ending first. It's supposed to be the "happy" ending, but it didn't actually turn out all that happy. Probably because I literally cannot seem to write pure fluff. Oh well. Twas bittersweet. If kinda predictable and stereotypical. Thanks to the ones out there bold (and insistent) enough to ask me to write this out. I think one of them is still wrapped around my leg? *looks down then shrugs* The words in brackets are from where I've copied and pasted (and sometimes, slightly edited) the text from the original ending. I'll still forever enjoy the ending I chose, but this one was pretty fun to write as well. Not as much evil cackling from me though. Hope you guys enjoy!) [Edd had been shooting at the creature as well, but seeing as it did nothing, he turned and tried to flee. It was fruitless however; he could never hope to outrun the monster he had created. Paul lunged.] Edd was nearly crushed under the weight of Paul’s ginormous paws landing on him. His breath left him with a sudden “oof.” Paul snarled in his face, looking ready to tear him limb from limb. Edd shut his eyes, anticipating the end, when a voice cut through the chaos. “Stop!” Paul’s growling halted. Edd opened his eyes hesitantly, not daring to hope. His saving grace, none other than Patryk, approached. He knelt by the helpless brunette, expression unreadable. “Do you remember how this all started, Edd? You blackmailing us into coming here by threatening one of our lives? Well I think it's about time we returned the favor.” His gaze sharpened, a strange look for the previously complacent man. “You and your soldiers surrender and you turn Tord and Jon back to normal, and Paul here won't tear out your other eye. Deal?” As if to accentuate the point, Paul bared his teeth. Edd gulped. It was pretty obvious he was in no position to negotiate. However, his sense of self-preservation and his pride were clashing. He didn't want to give in, didn't want to be seen as weak. But he also didn't want to die. He grimaced before reluctantly giving up. “Fine. Weapons down, soldiers,” he called to his army. “We’re officially surrendering.” He turned his gaze to his two victims. “Vacat vobis, liberum." Tord and Jon blinked, their faces immediately showing their confusion. Around them, Edd’s soldiers dropped their guns and stood silently, waiting for further instructions. Tom and Matt finally started approaching. Pat met them halfway after ordering Paul to “Stay on him but don't attack.” He could see a newfound respect in the other two’s eyes and allowed himself a grin as they embraced good-naturedly. “Didn't know he had it in ‘im,” Tom commented, giving Pat one last light-hearted slap on the shoulder. They were all grinning now, relieved that the battle was finally over and they had come out successfully and without casualty. Tord and Jon had finally caught each other’s gazes. There had only been a moment of hesitation before they were practically sprinting towards each other and embracing as well. “Jon?” Tord’s voice broke, but he didn't seem to care. “Are you back? Are you really back?” “Yeah…” Jon sniffled, and Tord held him tighter as he realized he was crying. “I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry, Tord.” Tord stroked his hair comfortingly, tears trickling down his own cheeks. “It's okay. It wasn't your fault, Jon. You know that, right?” Jon didn't answer for several worrisome moments. Finally, there was an unconvincing “Yeah…” Tord pulled back and looked Jon directly in the eyes, which was difficult with vision blurred by tears. “Jon. It's not your fault. None of this was your fault. You couldn't have done anything more to stop it. No one could blame you for something this out of your control. It was Edd’s fault. He did this to you, and he made you do whatever horrible things you're blaming yourself for. It was him, not you. Okay?” Jon sniffled again and nodded, burying his head on Tord’s chest. Tord pulled him back into his arms, and they were silent. Pat glanced around the room, seeing the rebels still standing strong, the surrendered soldiers, the pair holding each other lovingly, and trying to ignore the bodies littering the floor. His attention turned to the creature pinning the army leader to the floor, and he smiled fondly. “Guess I better handle that,” he said to no one in particular. He strode over to Paul and Edd. Paul’s eye shifted over to focus in on him, and he almost thought he heard a low rumbling noise that resembled a cat’s purr coming from the monster. His smile brightened, and he ran a hand through Paul’s fur, which elicited what was definitely a purr. Pat rubbed a bit harder, still smiling, then turned his attention to Paul’s captive. “Alright, Paul, you can let him up now. Anybody got something I can bind him with?” he asked the soldiers around him. A rope was passed to him. Paul reluctantly stepped back off of Edd and watched as Pat tied the leader’s hands behind his back. Pat helped the guy stand and started leading him away towards the cells. Edd was silent, face expressionless as he gave no resistance or complaint. Tom and Matt still clung to each other as they surveyed the room. Neither of them wanted to move, to let go of each other, to shatter the silence and peace that had settled over the room. But they had to begin fixing what had been broken today. [The two shared a glance, somehow seeming to read each other’s thoughts. They knew what they were going to do, what they had to do. Tom, being the obvious choice what with the respect he had with the soldiers and his way with people and knowing how to handle them, would assume control for now. They would try to help the wounded as much as they could. They would enlist Edd’s remaining allies to help and join them. They would hold funerals services for all of the fallen. Then, they would disband the army, no questions asked. And they would try their hardest to make sure that nothing like this ever happened again.] As for what would happen to Edd… Well, they would have to convene with the others to decide the fate of the Green Leader. “Guys!” Pat’s shout was laced with utter astonishment and… fear. Tom, Matt, Tord, and Jon broke from their respective pairs and rushed over. Pat was staring, horrified, in the window of one of the rooms near Paul’s old cell. Inside was what looked like the mangled body of Paul. “Do you want explain this, Edd, or should I?” Paul’s voice coming from behind them definitely had some bite to it. He approached them, back in his human form and looking completely unaffected by his time as a monster. He was glaring at Edd. Edd hadn't looked up from the floor. He didn't say a word, didn't acknowledge that he had even heard Paul. Paul’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. I'll do it then.” He gestured to the body in the cell. “That was my clone. Edd cloned me because of my ability to transform into… well, you've all seen. That one couldn't transform and was deemed a failure. I believe Ivan disposed of it?” He looked at Edd again and took his continued silence as confirmation. Jon looked like someone had just kicked his puppy. “That's so horrible. He was still a person, a living human being with thoughts and feelings of his own. And he was just… tossed away like trash?” Pat had been holding a hand to his mouth but now clenched it at his side. “How dare you?!” He glared at the perpetrator, but Edd appeared to still be oblivious to the world around him. There were many similar glares directed at the one-eyed man that had the same effect. The anger gradually melted into a somber mood as the six of them glanced back and forth between the body in the cell and each other. Pat wordlessly took Edd to a holding area and returned just as quietly. The dark cloud of a mood that hung over them only grew as they gravitated into their pairs. Jon curled into Tord’s chest, an arm wrapped around him protectively. Tom and Matt clasped hands, almost leaning on each other for support. Pat absentmindedly ran his hand through Paul’s hair as if he was petting the giant furry monster version of him, and anyone watching could've sworn Paul was making the same purring noise. The mood became bittersweet as they realized just how grateful they were for having all of them here together and safe again. But things weren’t perfect by far. They had an army to gather, settle, and disband. They had wounded to tend to. They had many funerals to arrange. And as they glanced back at the cell and what lie within, they realized that they had one more funeral to attend to than they had thought. But at least they could do it all together.

#twisted #ew fanfiction #ew reverse au #writing kat

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