[h2]The Curse of Badly Localized Visual Novels Claims Another Victim... [/h2]
Sadly, I can't fully recommend this short Boys Love Visual Novel, therefore my review can pretty much be considered as a neutral one. I still decided to give it a thumbs up because of the touching narrative and the nice artwork. The writing, however, just has too many issues and is obviously in need of both proofreading and editing.
[b]Yun[/b], our protagonist, is deeply concerned about his best friend [b]Max[/b], which got badly injured in an accident and lies in a coma ever since. Yun visits him every day, not only out of concern, or because he is romantically attracted to him, but also because he's able to talk and interact with his friend since Yun has the ability to enter Max's dreams. The only thing Yun needs to do is to fall asleep near him.
There is no obvious clarification as to why he is able to visit the dreams of the comatose Max, but one route explains the circumstances for that, at least, vaguely. [spoiler]The book Yun reads describes that people who are really close to each other are able to enter the other person's dreams, as long as the feelings are strong enough. It's more elaborated in the game, and the book furthermore explains a way to save the person who lies in a coma. The results of that can be witnessed in one ending.[/spoiler] Of course, it's up to you if this explanation is satisfying enough or not.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1597353348
Talking about endings, [i][b]May[/b][/i] has several of them, but none can be considered as happy or even good to begin with, which is quite depressing as you may imagine. Every outcome leaves a bitter taste, there isn't a single ending that makes up for it. You should be aware of this before you give this Visual Novel a try. I do know that there are people that simply can't handle bad endings well if there is no happy end in sight that compensates the reader for suffering. The story ultimately revolves around loss, sorrow, and how to deal with the feeling that you might have only little time left to spend with someone very dear to you. Honestly, this is the kind of story that usually makes me sob like a little girl, but this time I just felt nothing. No tears were shed, and the story touched me only a tiny bit. I'm pretty sure that the cause for that is the bad writing that just kind of failed to get me in the mood to actually care about the characters.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593938302
The English translation, or rather the localization, was handled pretty badly. I felt irritation building up while playing [i][b]May[/b][/i]. Don't get me wrong, you can catch the meaning perfectly, but especially if a Visual Novel tries to pull on your heartstrings, which [i][b]May[/b][/i] clearly does, it slightly fails to do that if not a single sentence is written correctly, at least that's what I think. It just makes it hard for me to take the story seriously, and since the story provided here is more heart-wrenching and serious than anything else, the bad localization regrettably ruined every tad of atmosphere for me. Except for the bad translation itself, it is also very confusing when the character names change rapidly between fore and last name, or when they address the protagonist simply as [i]the guy[/i]. [b][i]May's[/i][/b] story could be so touching if it wouldn't be for this single, yet deal-breaking issue. I'm very sorry that I mention it so often but it's the sole reason why I couldn't immerse myself into the story, which makes me terribly sad since the storyline alone is absolutely great.
The transition of all seasons in the main menu is really pretty, even if you might don't see much of that since you will most likely finish this game in one sitting, taken how short it is. Nevertheless, it's still a nice feature, which I'd like to point out after complaining so much about the writing. The artwork is surprisingly nice as well, especially if you consider that this title only costs $3.99. The CGs of Yun and his mother when she's trying to comfort him really touched my heart on a level I honestly didn't expect.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593168951
You might be able to enjoy [i][b]May[/b][/i] more than me if you think that the localization issues mentioned above won't spoil your experience or if you are a native Russian speaker. Otherwise, I wouldn't really recommend it in its current state. I don't think that the devs are going to hire someone to edit the script, so I don't have much hope that I can change my review into a fully positive one, even if I'd really love to do that.
[b]Team Spieluhr[/b], your work has so much potential, don't let it go to waste, merely because of the lack of proofreading. I know that indie developers often don't have the financial possibilities, but if you do plan to make another Visual Novel, I'm sure that there are at least 1-2 people that would volunteer to help you with proofreading the script, you just need to reach out to them! Especially nowadays, people are actually willing to spend more money on a Visual Novel in exchange for decent writing.
[h3][quote]𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33853800/]𝐎𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐤𝐚𝐢'𝐬 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞[/url] 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐉𝐑𝐏𝐆 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬[/quote][/h3]
