RPG RPG Maker [DEVIL'S OFFICE] SHRIFT (RJ209839)

[malcolm474]

@Dasmir, Seems like you're missing one of the core concepts of the story - "Interventions". Intervention is an ability to affect the game in a way that is breaking some of the universe's rules. One of the most common Interventions is a "Chapter Select" option in the main menu - it allows you to trigger some time paradoxes through the story, saving someones' lives in a process. See Chapter 3-3 Hyakki Oni dialogue to learn more.

Spoiler

View attachment 23435

It seems like you are missing the core concept that for a game to be popular, comprehension has to be within the realm of the average player. Judging from the comments here from people who are seasoned players, it's not. A developer who is completely immersed in the gameplay may lose the capacity to empathize with the player just introduced to the game. When the game, Fairy Fighting, came out, many people complained that it was simply too difficult. The developer argued that she hated playing games where you had to deliberately lose to enjoy the H scenes. She had lost the ability to empathize with players who didn't live and breathe the game like she did. So the developer here can make the game insanely difficult if he so choses, but in my view, he is taking a very good game and defeating himself. It's real easy. Make an easy level. Not a 'spectator' level that demeans people, and save those crazy challenges for the geeks who are with you on this.

 

[skite0]

i''ll just leave this here...

 

[Mikufanboy]

I really doubt immersion is a core aspect of an H game, but rather how fluid the gameplay is in correlation to it's H content. SHRIFT definitely has the combat side of things well integrated with it's H content. You could relate to the protagonist or the story for some immersion, but that's a rather subjective taste. I'd say the only issue with the game is the developer keeps giving away stat points per update, instead of just making it possible to get all those points from the beginning. Not to mention it's pretty much required for you to complete the game on it's 3 endings for you to earn all of the points, which defeats the purpose of grinding to begin with since there's no challenge left after you've completed the game, besides these new EX dungeons coming out that also give you points because why not, right? Really should have laid out the stat point grind more methodically, I imagine it would have softened some woes from the casual "I just wanna fap" H gamers as well. Either way, Shrift is a great H game.

P.S. Jim Sterling is a hypocrite and should not be given any recognition.

 

[Shrifted]

I'll just add my 2 cents here: There is an Easy mode in this game and it's really good. I've played through a few hard bosses on easy, and the game allows you to freely change your difficulty to boot. I see no reason to really complain about it.

As well, there's not really a full translation yet, so I'd be a bit lenient on players understanding important concepts when the game is only machine translated in many places.

I actually went out and *bought* SHRIFT, and that says a lot to how well I think it's made compared to other games of this type, and how much I really enjoyed it (as well as contributing to my interest in translating the game).

 

[nossiob]

SHRIFT was my first H game i actually bought and i agree, the easy mode is not realy hard

 

[Anegorami]

It seems like you are missing the core concept that for a game to be popular, comprehension has to be within the realm of the average player. Judging from the comments here from people who are seasoned players, it's not. A developer who is completely immersed in the gameplay may lose the capacity to empathize with the player just introduced to the game. When the game, Fairy Fighting, came out, many people complained that it was simply too difficult. The developer argued that she hated playing games where you had to deliberately lose to enjoy the H scenes. She had lost the ability to empathize with players who didn't live and breathe the game like she did. So the developer here can make the game insanely difficult if he so choses, but in my view, he is taking a very good game and defeating himself. It's real easy. Make an easy level. Not a 'spectator' level that demeans people, and save those crazy challenges for the geeks who are with you on this.

Critical miss.

I was talking about the mechanic that allows the player to "legally cheat" the game. There are four Interventions in the game (True Mercy route, contain spoilers):

Spoiler

1. Chapter 1-3, second fight with Lucy - player are supposed to lose, yet they win.
2. Chapter 2-2, Akane befriending event - player learns the truth about Abaddon only after they defeat Akane and have no way to talk to her after - yet they use "Chapter Select" to return to the past and talk to Akane.
3. Chapter 3-3, Titanoboa befriending event - Hyakki Oni sacrifices herself to save the player, but instead of making a sad face and move on, they decide to save her, by using "Chapter Select" for the second time, returning to the past and warning her about the battle with Titanoboa.
4. Chapter 4-3 (aka Last Chapter) - the mindspace that was keeping the girls was destroyed, yet the player were able to summon them during the final fight with Samael by using the Devil's Codex and the willpower alone (according to Meira, that was "the final Intervention").

I was talking about the story, not the difficulty or any gameplay aspect. Story-wise, the Interventions are designed either as glitchy options (the final skill for winning second Lucy battle or the skill required to kill Titanoboa on the Genocide route) or as the options that are available only to the player in the first place ("Chapter Select").

Gameplay-wise, SHRIFT is a very casual-friendly game - Easy Mode allows the player to clear the game without any trouble and have no content locks on it.
Your post is completely unrelated. Play the game - it's worth it.

 

[malcolm474]

Critical miss.

I was talking about the mechanic that allows the player to "legally cheat" the game. There are four Interventions in the game (True Mercy route, contain spoilers):

Spoiler

1. Chapter 1-3, second fight with Lucy - player are supposed to lose, yet they win.
2. Chapter 2-2, Akane befriending event - player learns the truth about Abaddon only after they defeat Akane and have no way to talk to her after - yet they use "Chapter Select" to return to the past and talk to Akane.
3. Chapter 3-3, Titanoboa befriending event - Hyakki Oni sacrifices herself to save the player, but instead of making a sad face and move on, they decide to save her, by using "Chapter Select" for the second time, returning to the past and warning her about the battle with Titanoboa.
4. Chapter 4-3 (aka Last Chapter) - the mindspace that was keeping the girls was destroyed, yet the player were able to summon them during the final fight with Samael by using the Devil's Codex and the willpower alone (according to Meira, that was "the final Intervention").

I was talking about the story, not the difficulty or any gameplay aspect. Story-wise, the Interventions are designed either as glitchy options (the final skill for winning second Lucy battle or the skill required to kill Titanoboa on the Genocide route) or as the options that are available only to the player in the first place ("Chapter Select").

Gameplay-wise, SHRIFT is a very casual-friendly game - Easy Mode allows the player to clear the game without any trouble and have no content locks on it.
Your post is completely unrelated. Play the game - it's worth it.

The box with the blank space is on easy mode, so no, you can't "clear the game without any trouble" on easy mode. Somebody asked how you win the second battle against Iron Maiden. I explained that. and commented that it was an unfair trick by the developer that had frustrated a lot of people judging from the comments that I read.

 

[malcolm474]

SHRIFT was my first H game i actually bought and i agree, the easy mode is not realy hard

Second battle with Iron Maiden was difficult if you didn't spot the blank space and realize that you needed to push it. That is on Easy Mode. Archeny is difficult on Easy Mode. The machine translation is hard to follow, so that's why I ended up on this website to get a better grasp of the key concepts. If the developer doesn't want to make the game accessible to occasional gamers, that's his choice.

 

[Anegorami]

The box with the blank space is on easy mode, so no, you can't "clear the game without any trouble" on easy mode. Somebody asked how you win the second battle against Iron Maiden. I explained that. and commented that it was an unfair trick by the developer that had frustrated a lot of people judging from the comments that I read.

Second battle with Iron Maiden was difficult if you didn't spot the blank space and realize that you needed to push it. That is on Easy Mode. Archeny is difficult on Easy Mode. The machine translation is hard to follow, so that's why I ended up on this website to get a better grasp of the key concepts. If the developer doesn't want to make the game accessible to occasional gamers, that's his choice.

First of all, please, refrain from double-posting. Use "Edit" button and multi-quoting features instead.

Now, to the posts themselves.
Difficulty setting have nothing to do with build-in story-related puzzles. The only thing that changes is the amount of Stamina and Willpower as well as some negative state resistances. Nothing more.
(Well, the "Spectator mode" also removes some events from the game, but that difficulty is a completely different matter and thus omitted.)

About the puzzles themselves. Well, this game contains lots of puzzle elements, ranging from simple timed skill usage ("Call the Yuuma's name") to a whole scripted battle where one mistake will lead you to an instant "GAME OVER" (I still hate you for that nightmare, Sphinx). Frustrating? Maybe. Unfair? No. Second Lucy battle is the very good example of giving the player a feeling of utmost despair while he is desperately thinking of what to do in a situation, where the only "visible" way is to give up and become the food to the Iron Maiden. And I'm grateful for such design - as it makes you, the player, to believe in the events that are happening on the other side of the screen.
(Also, that battle with Sphinx is very, very fun, with hilarious dialogue and great screen effects.)

About the battle system. It's hard and complex. It contains lots of elements, layers and states as well as completely fucked up and retarded RNG that makes First Lap HARD (FOOD) Genocide run is nearly impossible. Yet, once you get a good grip on it, it becomes really enjoyable. You almost feel poor Kazuya being raped into submission while thinking in the overdrive what the hell you're supposed to do now. One of the best combat systems ever created. Also, it's very fun to take that system on another level by making yourself dominate over the enemy. See my recorded fight with Daji.

And lastly, about the machine translation. This game was created for the Japanese market and for the Japanese players. It wasn't designed to be sold overseas. Period. It was your choice to play it without knowing the language it was written on. You have no right to say that this game isn't accessible to occasional gamers, because it is. @Lv1VillagerA, @Shrifted and some other people are trying to create at least a partial translation for it, please, respect their work and be grateful that they are making it possible for you, the player without the knowledge of Japanese language, to be able to play this game. If you want to truly understand this game, spend some free time learning Japanese and then play it without the patch like I did, since, for now, it breaks more than it fixes. Or wait for the fun translation to become more professional. Or wait for an official translation, which was announced. Maybe, if you would understand the game it will be less frustrating for you.

 

[malcolm474]

First of all, please, refrain from double-posting. Use "Edit" button and multi-quoting features instead.

Now, to the posts themselves.
Difficulty setting have nothing to do with build-in story-related puzzles. The only thing that changes is the amount of Stamina and Willpower as well as some negative state resistances. Nothing more.
(Well, the "Spectator mode" also removes some events from the game, but that difficulty is a completely different matter and thus omitted.)

About the puzzles themselves. Well, this game contains lots of puzzle elements, ranging from simple timed skill usage ("Call the Yuuma's name") to a whole scripted battle where one mistake will lead you to an instant "GAME OVER" (I still hate you for that nightmare, Sphinx). Frustrating? Maybe. Unfair? No. Second Lucy battle is the very good example of giving the player a feeling of utmost despair while he is desperately thinking of what to do in a situation, where the only "visible" way is to give up and become the food to the Iron Maiden. And I'm grateful for such design - as it makes you, the player, to believe in the events that are happening on the other side of the screen.
(Also, that battle with Sphinx is very, very fun, with hilarious dialogue and great screen effects.)

About the battle system. It's hard and complex. It contains lots of elements, layers and states as well as completely fucked up and retarded RNG that makes First Lap HARD (FOOD) Genocide run is nearly impossible. Yet, once you get a good grip on it, it becomes really enjoyable. You almost feel poor Kazuya being raped into submission while thinking in the overdrive what the hell you're supposed to do now. One of the best combat systems ever created. Also, it's very fun to take that system on another level by making yourself dominate over the enemy. See my recorded fight with Daji.

And lastly, about the machine translation. This game was created for the Japanese market and for the Japanese players. It wasn't designed to be sold overseas. Period. It was your choice to play it without knowing the language it was written on. You have no right to say that this game isn't accessible to occasional gamers, because it is. @Lv1VillagerA, @Shrifted and some other people are trying to create at least a partial translation for it, please, respect their work and be grateful that they are making it possible for you, the player without the knowledge of Japanese language, to be able to play this game. If you want to truly understand this game, spend some free time learning Japanese and then play it without the patch like I did, since, for now, it breaks more than it fixes. Or wait for the fun translation to become more professional. Or wait for an official translation, which was announced. Maybe, if you would understand the game it will be less frustrating for you.

Just focus on the second battle with Iron Maiden. Frame the issue. The only way to win that battle to my knowledge is to recognize that you have to select a blank space. That is unreasonable to me. That is my opinion. I pointed that out to someone who was stuck on that battle. To my knowledge, unless you recognize this tactic, you can't get beyond Level One without being on Spectator Mode. I appreciate the game. I wrote a glowing review of this game on DLSite. I greatly appreciate the translation. I wouldn't even attempt this game without one. But, it is still confusing. You are obviously a seasoned gamer who knows Japanese, so the game is lots of good fun to you. I am an occasional gamer who does not know Japanese, and I find the game enjoyable, but frustrating. My suggestion was that they should appreciate gamers on my level more and accommodate them more. I think some people on my level will turn away from it. Relax. We both want to see the game succeed. I am just giving you my perspective. There are lots of different perspectives and none of them are wrong.

 

[Anegorami]

Just focus on the second battle with Iron Maiden. Frame the issue. The only way to win that battle to my knowledge is to recognize that you have to select a blank space. That is unreasonable to me. That is my opinion. I pointed that out to someone who was stuck on that battle. To my knowledge, unless you recognize this tactic, you can't get beyond Level One without being on Spectator Mode. I appreciate the game. I wrote a glowing review of this game on DLSite. I greatly appreciate the translation. I wouldn't even attempt this game without one. But, it is still confusing. You are obviously a seasoned gamer who knows Japanese, so the game is lots of good fun to you. I am an occasional gamer who does not know Japanese, and I find the game enjoyable, but frustrating. My suggestion was that they should appreciate gamers on my level more and accommodate them more. I think some people on my level will turn away from it. Relax. We both want to see the game succeed. I am just giving you my perspective. There are lots of different perspectives and none of them are wrong.

Well, forgive me if I was rude to you, that wasn't my intention. I just had a recent experience of fighting a pack of people over Discord (not ULMF one) who had a pretty cancerous point of view that can be summed up in a phrase "Why this game don't have a translation? English is the superior language, everything should be available on it.". I'm just tired of explaining to each and every person that English is just one of the myriad of different languages and dialects and that if you're going to try to experience some art that is written on a different language you either should get a translation or posses some knowledge of it, at least on a basic level. As well as not taking an available translation for granted. And then I was reading your post with the following:

If the developer doesn't want to make the game accessible to occasional gamers, that's his choice.

TRIGGERED.JPG
The game was completely playable for me, only giving me trouble because of me misreading some things (Sphinx), having hard time of figuring out crafting recipes (Archeny) or skipping bounding events' dialogues because "oh, c'on, they're going to talk for two hours about nothing, then she's going to rape him again and then more boring talk, guess I'll skip it" (Daji). So, I never knew any situations in this game which could be considered "unfair" from my PoV.

So, I wasn't going to Paladin you, I was just saying that if you have an understanding of what is going on, then most of the puzzles are making perfect sense. Using a blank skill? Kazuya was desperate and all others choices were simply to "Become Food". Calling Yuuma's name? The whole prior dialogue was around Yuuma being [CENSORED] by Daji. And so on.

So, again, I'm sorry if I was rough towards you. I'm simply tired of people who are CTRLing games for CG and cannot think of simply PLAYING THE DAMNED THING.
And, well, honestly speaking, the patch sucks. I'm grateful to all of the people I mentioned, but, well...


Woof Cell. Have a good day.

 

[caterkiller]

since everybody its asking for it.......here i made a save before entering the Harpy DLC, Be cursed to wield my name and you soul linked to MAAMAAAAA.

gotta ask how do you reset your love lvls with the harpys each time they get me they kill me instantly his lust for them is at max and I can't find a way to get rid of it

 

[Anegorami]

gotta ask how do you reset your love lvls with the harpys each time they get me they kill me instantly his lust for them is at max and I can't find a way to get rid of it

You can talk to Camazotz (カマソッソ, 心蝕を消す（モドキ）) to reset Harpy debuff and to Archeny (アルケニー, 心蝕を消す（クイーン）) to reset Queen Harpy debuff.
But be warned, that they can't reset it completely, only reduce to LV1.

 

[Tenma]

I can honestly say, I regret installing the translation patch. If it had been a high level translation throughout, this would've been the second coming of MGQ. Sadly that didn't happen. After the iron maiden fight, you can notice. Also I regret not understanding the iron maiden fight or the pity point system. I had to delete my saves. The game on normal, is alright. Difficult, but not an impossible task.

I just wish that the gallery system was more accessible. Needing to remove the penance and stack 3 debuffs you fight the enemies to remove just elongates the experience. Also just moving onto gameplay how long would you play Undertale if you needed to grind to befriend the characters? Do you think Undertale would've been as successful if it been a grindy game.

 

[Shrifted]

I can honestly say, I regret installing the translation patch. If it had been a high level translation throughout, this would've been the second coming of MGQ. Sadly that didn't happen. After the iron maiden fight, you can notice. Also I regret not understanding the iron maiden fight or the pity point system. I had to delete my saves. The game on normal, is alright. Difficult, but not an impossible task.

I just wish that the gallery system was more accessible. Needing to remove the penance and stack 3 debuffs you fight the enemies to remove just elongates the experience. Also just moving onto gameplay how long would you play Undertale if you needed to grind to befriend the characters? Do you think Undertale would've been as successful if it been a grindy game.

Chapters 1-1 and 1-2 are fully translated, after that it's basically machine translations with a dictionary. Camzotz's dialogue has been translated, and I've done a good chunk of 2-1. The new patch I'm doing will do machine translations of all of EX1, as well as some of the EX2 text the dev has already inserted into the game. I've also hand translated all of the Beetle Harpy fights, and a good chunk of 4-1.

Honestly, there's no way a full translation patch is coming anytime soon, there's just too much text to sift through. I've now got a fulltime job, so there's no way/ability for me to finish it on my own in any reasonable timeframe. The machine translation is actually fairly readable, but you really shouldn't go into this game with the expectation that you're going to get the full experience.

Probably going to take a break for a while after I finish this chunk of work, then go back to working on 4-1 again. There's a lot of valuable info dumps there that I'd like to translate that explain a good chunk of the backstory of SHRIFT (mainly the secret tapes), and they really do deserve the effort of being cleaned up and readable.

Also, funny you should mention that screen, Anegorami....



:3

 

[Anegorami]

Also, funny you should mention that screen, Anegorami....

The version of the patch that I'm using for the mod development is pretty outdated, yeah. Will migrate to the version 5.08 after finishing Chapter 1-1, since I'll have to deal with MAP ID conflicts.
Also, great job on fixing that. As well as missing the bloody fun...

 

[Aesthetic]

So I'm an owner of SHRIFT but I conked out after beating the game. What'd I miss?

I can honestly say, I regret installing the translation patch. If it had been a high level translation throughout, this would've been the second coming of MGQ. Sadly that didn't happen. After the iron maiden fight, you can notice. Also I regret not understanding the iron maiden fight or the pity point system. I had to delete my saves. The game on normal, is alright. Difficult, but not an impossible task.

I just wish that the gallery system was more accessible. Needing to remove the penance and stack 3 debuffs you fight the enemies to remove just elongates the experience. Also just moving onto gameplay how long would you play Undertale if you needed to grind to befriend the characters? Do you think Undertale would've been as successful if it been a grindy game.

W/o the translation the game would be practically impossible as you wouldn't be able to even have a general sense of what's going on.
I do agree that this game has the potential to sit there with MGQ if it was properly translated though.

For better or worse, a good amount of quality games have been released after MGQ with this fetish.

Regarding grinding. The difference between this game and undertale is that this game's a porn game. You have to fight enemies multiple times so different erotic scenarios can come about, and regarding the debuffs, you can talk to the lady in Death Realm to fix it if I remember correctly.

________________________________

Still it's sad to see that translation progress is still small T_T

I was thinking of replaying the game since nothing's out that catches my attention atm, but ah well. Thx for everyone who's putting in the effort there btw. Really appreciate it.

 

[Shrifted]

So I'm an owner of SHRIFT but I conked out after beating the game. What'd I miss?

There's a brand new post-game dungeon to explore, as well as new items at the shop and brand new craftable weapons. I should have patch out for it next time I'm able to put some hours in on it....

 

[FloofyIsGood]

How do you get the Real Knife equivalent in this game? The most OP weapon I remember getting is the fan with auto-Reverse Storm from Dakki...

 

[Darkarbiter]

I was scrolling thru the thread and saw things said about DLC/Add-ons and wondered do those come with the game on Dlsite? I own it from there but didn't know if it came with it or not.