Moé Moé Rabu

After many days of gruelling internet speeds, I finally managed to get Summer Days.

Produced by 0verflow, Summer Days is the prequel to School Days, where this is more of a “what if” kind of story. The “what if” part is that the main character is Kiyoura Setsuna and what would’ve happened if Setsuna met Itou Makoto, the protagonist, before the events of School Days. The concept of this idea is good and I enjoyed School Days very much. Both are very unique to regular H-Games, where both utilise full animation sequences rather than still images, hence the very large file size.

If you have played School Days then you’ll be glad to know that all the regular character are in Summer Days as well, with of course a few new characters. Though I have only played through the first chapter and partly through the second chapter. From various discussions on HongFire there doesn’t appear to be any bloody bad ends as opposed to School Days. I still remember quite well the first bloody bad end I got in School Days, and lets just say it left a pretty disturbing impact.

There is a downside to Summer Days so far, and that is not the playability of the game. More to the fact that 0verflow released the game riddled with bugs, varying from no sound, no visuals, inability to complete particualr routes and many more. Though the first bug I encountered isn’t any of the above mentioned. Within the directory of the DVD there is a folder named “stratup”, thus the autorun would not execute due to the incorrect naming of this folder. Of course 0verflow have released patches but the patches themselves are monstrously huge themselves. With Patch 1.01B starting at 1.25 GB, additional patches such as 1.02B upto 1.06B are about 170MB each. Good thing I didn’t get the patches until 1.05 was released but still, 1.63 GB is quite large. Well 0verflow have released an apology to the general public about the release:

æ—¥é ƒã¯å¼Šç¤¾å•†å“ã‚’ã”æ„›é¡§é ‚ãã€åŽšããŠç¤¼ç”³ã—ä¸Šã’ã¾ã™ã€‚
Thank you for buying our product.

このたび、弊社が２００６年(平成１８年)６月２３日に発売致しました ウィンドウズ用ゲームソフト「サマーデイズ」におきまして、 本来製品として収録すべきデータではない誤ったファイルが含まれていることが 判明いたしました。
本来、「サマーデイズ」をプレイされる際に必要とされるデータの一部が、 制作途中の古いバージョンのデータのまま収録されているもので、 これによってゲームの進行に際して、画面の表示や音声の再生、 ルートの進行などに不具合が生じ、プレイを阻害することが判明しております。
“Summer Days” was released on June 23, 2006. We have discovered that the final production version of the game contained erroneous data files. Needed data files that were necessary to play “Summer Days” had been accidentally replaced by older versions during the process of sending to the production line. This resulted in problems in graphics display and sound output, as well as difficulties in completing certain routes.

これは、製品出荷時にマスターデータと古いデータを誤って混在させてしまった、 æœ€çµ‚å‡ºè·ç¢ºèªæ™‚ã®ç¢ºèªãƒŸã‚¹ãŒåŽŸå› ã§ã™ã€‚
The reason for this error was that game data had been replaced with older in-development versions.

更に、この際に多くのマスターデータが古いデータに上書きされ、 復旧に時間がかかってしまったため、 修正パッチをご用意することが遅れてしまいました。
データの収録ミス発覚から、誤ったデータの収録規模の把握までに、 社内に混乱があり、対応に大きく遅れをとってしまいました。
Even worse, some of our master data had been overwritten by the out-dated versions of the files, resulting in delays in recovery and delays in release of patches. This was a major shock to us when we discovered the errors, and we had to reorganize.

å•†å“ã‚’ã”è³¼å…¥é ‚ã„ãŸãŠå®¢æ§˜ã«ã¯ã€å¤§å¤‰ç”³ã—è¨³ãªãå¿ƒã‹ã‚‰ãŠè©«ã³ç”³ã—ä¸Šã’ã¾ã™ã€‚
We sincerely apologize to our customers who have bought our game.

ç¾åœ¨ã€é›»è©±åŠã³é›»å­ãƒ¡ãƒ¼ãƒ«ã§ãŠå•ã„åˆã‚ã›ã‚’é ‚ã„ãŸãŠå®¢æ§˜åŠã³ã€ å•†å“ã«å°å…¥ã•ã‚Œã¦ã„ã‚‹ãƒ¦ãƒ¼ã‚¶ãƒ¼ã‚¢ãƒ³ã‚±ãƒ¼ãƒˆè‘‰æ›¸ã«ã¦ã”ç™»éŒ²é ‚ãã¾ã—ãŸãŠå®¢æ§˜ã«ã¤ãã¾ã—ã¦ã€ éšæ™‚ä¿®æ­£ãƒ‘ãƒƒãƒï¼¤ï¼¶ï¼¤ã‚’é€ä»˜ã•ã›ã¦é ‚ã„ã¦ãŠã‚Šã¾ã™ã€‚
Now, those customers who have phoned us or e-mailed us, as well as returned the customer survey, we would dispatch a DVD with the patch files to them as soon as possible.

併せまして、弊社OHPにて弊社サーバーからBitTorrent、及び、 ミラーサイト運営者様方のサーバーから、修正パッチの配布をしております。
æ›´ã«ã€åº—é ­é…å¸ƒç”¨ã¨ã—ã¦ã€ä¿®æ­£ãƒ‘ãƒƒãƒï¼¤ï¼¶ï¼¤ã‚’ï¼–æœˆï¼’ï¼™æ—¥ã‹ã‚‰ï¼—æœˆï¼’æ—¥ã¾ã§ã« éšæ™‚ç™ºé€è‡´ã—ã¾ã™ã®ã§ã€ã“ã¡ã‚‰ã‚‚åˆã‚ã›ã¦ã”åˆ©ç”¨é ‚ã‘ã¾ã—ãŸã‚‰å¹¸ã„ã§ã™ã€‚
The patches will also be released on our servers through BitTorrent, as well as mirror sites provided by several individuals.

A patch DVD will also be available from retail shops between June 29 and July 2. Please kindly find yourself a copy.

ä»Šå¾Œã€ãƒ¦ãƒ¼ã‚¶ãƒ¼ã‚¢ãƒ³ã‚±ãƒ¼ãƒˆè‘‰æ›¸ã«ã¦ãƒ¦ãƒ¼ã‚¶ãƒ¼ç™»éŒ²ã—ã¦é ‚ã„ãŸãŠå®¢æ§˜ã«ã¯ã€æ”¹ã‚ã¦ ä¸å…·åˆã‚’è§£æ¶ˆè‡´ã—ã¾ã—ãŸãƒžã‚¹ã‚¿ãƒ¼ãƒ‡ã‚£ã‚¹ã‚¯ã‚’é€ä»˜ã•ã›ã¦é ‚ãäºˆå®šã§ã™ã€‚
In the near future, those who have returned our customer survey will receive a properly patched and running version of the game sent to them.

お客様ならびにお取引先様、関係者の皆様には多大なご迷惑とお手数をお掛け いたしますことを深くお詫び申し上げますとともに、今後このようなことのない よう一層の管理体制の向上に努める所存でございますので、何卒、ご理解とご協 力のほど宜しくお願い申し上げます。
We again apologize for the inconvenience caused, and we will strive to avoid similar problems in the future. We hope you will be understanding and forgive us over our errors.

平成１８年６月２８日
オーバーフロー

Heisei year 18, June 28.
Overflow

Note: the above translation was done by MariMekko of HongFire.

But despite the patches, I find Summer Days enjoyable. More enjoyable than Da Capo II? Well that’s like comparing apples and oranges since one is still images and one is full animation. I would have to play more Summer Days to see how it compares but I say thet are both on even ground. Well here’s hoping they don’t release another 5 patches or so!