Narcissu Side 2nd, some thoughts

Well, on May 15th, the long long long awaited Narcissu Side 2nd was released onto Japanese mirrors.

This very moment, I know translation teams across the globe are diving into the scripts right now translating at a ferocious pace. The Chinese version localizers have always been amazingly fast. They simply have more fluent and interested people on the project I’d imagine, though I can’t say anything about what kind of quality they put out.

If only I had that kind of time to dive in and just translate for a week straight without having to do other things. Ah well.

Anyways, the game itself.

First, for translated material so far, the first two chapters are essentially adaptations of Drama CD that was released during winter Comiket 71. Or perhaps, the CD was made from sound clips prepped for the game, it’s hard to say.

The 3rd chapter covers the preview demo that had come out for Comiket 70.

After that, the remaining chapters of the story are new. The original Narcissu had been included also, making it convenient to get the entire story.

Ostensibly, the story of Narci2 focuses on the story of Himeko. However, it also paints the backdrop to Setsumi’s story. In Narcissu, from the nameless protagonist’s perspective, we only saw the tiniest bits of what goes on in her mind, and now because the story is told primarily from her point of view, we get to see just a little bit more.

Chronologically, Narci2 directly precedes Narcissu. But, at least for me, I have the sense that it is worth playing Narcissu first. There are a number of references in Narci2 that just float by without any particular meaning, just normal flow of dialogue, but have a nice resonance if have Narcissu fresh (or burned into, due to hours of translating) in your mind.

Though, I imagine a similar thing would happen if you go in the other direction of play order too. But I wonder what that feels like. Actually, that would be an interesting question to ask people.

Music-wise, as always. I’m deeply enamored with the music. This time, in addition to the vocal songs of Narcissus by eufonius, and 15cm sung by KAKO, I was extremely pleased to find remixed versions of one theme from Mizuiro, and yet another theme from Gin’iro.

Especially for the Gin’iro remix, 夕化粧, “4 o’clock flower”, when I was idly listening to the music in the background typing this article up, it just suddenly caught my breath that I was listening to a melody that I loved from long ago. This was the melody that played during the final scenes of Gin’iro chapter 1, so it holds especial significance for me and the many others who love that particular chapter. I always wanted to hear a version of the song rendered by something more modern than synthesizer technology from the year 2000.



comments



  1. kanon fan
    05/26/2007 09:59 AM | #

    I played through the first few chapters until I reached the OP. Realising my horrible japanese ability is doing more harm than good to this game, I stopped reading.

    Then I accidentally entered the music mode, then was shocked to see 夕化粧 there…
    It was the most memorable BGM for me from giniro, and it was also played during the additional story after ED in the giriro “complete version”.
    Anyway, thanks for your effort to bring this story to us.
    During the long wait for the narcissu 2nd, the fact that the scenario writer I love was still writing something makes me happy enough, same goes for the translation…
    I think I’ve said enough.

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