When the Sea Catcadas Cry

SEACATS god I love. umineko. god.

I think part of the reason I love it is that it does ultimately leave the puzzles for you to figure out later? I'm not particularly good at that but it's still more interesting to me that way for some reason than a traditional detective mystery that lays everything out at the end. Watching people discuss it is a Good.

 

I'm weird in that I never cared too much about puzzling out what the fuck was happening. I'm more here because I really love the characters of the series and their social dynamics.

 

I feel that. I wasn't that interested in trying to solve the puzzle before we got the answer. But <spoiler> and their place in the whole thing makes the horrible mess of the Ushiromiya family even worse (which is always a plus), and the way so much of the plot suddenly untangles in hindsight with those answers appeals to me.

 

I think trying to solve the puzzle would be more interesting if you were getting the story in the episodic format it was originally released in. That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to When the [train goes by] Cry.

 

Oh yeah. I was around when Umineko was still coming out. OLD FAN. But I just never got much into the speculating. Ain't my bag.

It's very interesting to see how everything ties together at the end of the stories though. Which is why I'll go through Higurashi every so often now. Just to pick up on all the bits and bobs and go ok yeah I see how this makes sense now.

 

So was I, though at the time the only one of the VNs I got my hands on was the first one and I was otherwise relying on the TVtropes page and the anime.

 

Yeah I only got dragged into the fandom last year thanks to my RP circle so.

 

Makes sense.

Also the tvtropes page and thread about the game is where I found out about it and where I hide for a time, ladynighteyes.

 

shows up at fandom six years late with no pony starbucks

Hi, so I finally played Umineko and I am now drowning in it. Please talk to me about Umineko, I'm pretty sure I'm driving my brother crazy because I can't shut up about it.

I have a bunch of silly Umineko posts I want to get around to making at some point, but in the meantime please accept this offering:

 

I follow the LP on Something Awful (we're finishing up Chiru now, like, a few updates from the end) and it produces some great content like

 

Fact: somebody needs to redraw this bit from hiimdaisy's Persona 4 comic as Maria and Rosa yesterday:


("...And that's why you're eating alone tonight.")

 

Where did you guys find the translated Umineko novels? A friend and I were having trouble when we tried.

 

Don't know if this is what you're asking, but these guys did an English translation patch. These guys did a patch for the VN that has the English translation, the PS3 sprites, and the voice-acting. I think the first four are also on Steam, but you're restricted to either the original sprites or the horrifying monstrosities that are the pachinko sprites.

 

Both halves are on Steam now, actually! Chiru just came out recently.

The pure Steam release is indeed restricted to original sprites or the sprites of which we shall not speak, but I'm pretty sure there are fan patches for it to add in some of the PS3 assets if you want those; I can try to find you a link if you like. So the Steam release is likely your best bet, especially since from what I've heard they've cleaned the translation up a fair deal?

There's also another patch that does a more in-depth PS3-ification job, including higher res, mouth movements on the sprites, fancier animation, and apparently their own edits to the translation, if that's something that interests you. It only covers the question arcs, though. (I'm not big on it myself since I find the moving mouths really jarring, but it is pretty damn shiny otherwise.)

 

Thank you!

 

This got linked on Discord and I'm still laughing:

 

The amazing, amazing consequence, via a series of totally logical arguments, of a discussion on an Umineko liveblog of the probability of Shannon and Kanon both surviving to the end of the game:

Spoiler: Mention of assorted dead doves

 

I am trying to make my way through this Let's Play of Seacats, but it gets... difficult in places.

The descriptions of magically-driven gruesome torture and murder? A little unpleasant, but I'm all good.

The abuse and bullying Maria and Ange are subjected to? All of the nope.gif

 

I actually participated in that thread! Well, in the one for the second game. The scenes of abuse are all really heartwrenching and I think it really shows that the author is a former social worker who worked with children, because I think he's got a really good grasp of the dynamics involved and the ways abuse messes with someone's development, especially if it's unaddressed, shoved under a carpet, and left to fester.

Spoiler: Discussion of abuse, vague

There's a lot of cases in Umineko of characters who were abused going on to abuse, but at no point do I feel the message is that abuse breaks a person, but that abuse is something that has to be processed and dealt with in order to heal, and that the coping mechanisms someone develops to survive abuse don't necessarily go away once the abuser is removed from a situation.

 

Yeah, EP4 in particular gets downright hard to read at times.

A lot of things made a lot of sense when I found out Ryukishi07 used to be a social worker.
(Edit: ninja'd)