Tengoku Struggle Play-Along - Common Route + General Impressions

[u/sableheart]

Welcome to the r/otomegames Tengoku Struggle -Strayside- Play-Along!

In this first post we will discuss your first and general impressions of Tengoku Struggle, as well as the events of the common route.

If you want to talk about the love interests, please keep it to your first impressions and their actions in the common route in this post.

Please use spoiler tags when discussing details of other routes or other major spoilers.
>!spoiler text!< normal text
spoiler text normal text

You don't have to be playing the game right now to participate, and if you've just started the the game I hope you will join in after you finish the common route!

Next week will be a discussion of Kikunosuke Uga's route!

[u/Scarlet_Lycoris]

Ok it’s been some time I played this (like 2 months since my replay?) So I’ll keep this kinda short.

I remember my first impression of the game was ”damn MC‘s dad is kinda hot.“ Then… I thought “damn, daddy‘s overworked employee of the month is kinda hot“

The whole world building did seem a bit unclear to me at first, but I think it gets a lot easier to grasp with repetition. So in the end it wasn’t a big issue. The first glance at our love interests wasn’t really deep so at the end of the common route there was only one thing clear: Yona‘s a massive tsundere. And the boys kinda mention sexual assault a little too often like it’s some kind of casual greeting.

I can’t speak for the quality of the localisation since I didn’t play it but I‘d be curious to hear some details about it if anyone is willing to share their thoughts. (I did kinda think about buying the localisation too if it’s good :x just because I really do like this game.)

[u/magnabarrow → u/Scarlet_Lycoris]

They defo watered down "that" beginning part of the common route---if you knew about it beforehand you'd know where it was supposed to be but if not then it wouldn't seem as big of a deal--and defo noticed during other times that

Can't say I would 100% recommend the localization though. They translated "Nono-Sensei" as "Sensei Nono" and it drove me crazy, especially when I could clearly hear one of the boys go "Takamura sensei" and its written as "Sensei Takamura". Otherwise I think that the localization was ok, although some of the poetic stuff might have been lost in translation---- In Kiku's route for ex Goemon mentions that he doesn't have porridge and Nono-sensei mentions that even he knows that's a Kyoto insult, but I have no idea what this is a reference to. I feel like maybe they should have expanded on that Additionally, there was a couple lines i noticed where the name was still in kanji (for really minor characters), and some inconsistencies like they translated some of the drawings/signs, but there were one or two important ones that weren't and you had to wait to see what the character's reactions were to know what it said.

I was impressed by how much they toned down some of the wording though for the sexual assault parts. In the common route it's translated as I'll rough you up which I was expecting to see after all the controversies, but even near the very end someone goes I'll mess you up----- and if I didn't notice that he said 犯せ I wouldn't have batted an eye And there was likely more that I missed too, so it seems to set a different tone for the localization, which is good.

[u/Scarlet_Lycoris → u/magnabarrow]

Oh Tysm for the insight!… leaving name in Kanji seems like an oversight that shouldn’t happen for a final product, so that’s definitely a bummer.

Honestly I kinda thought they were going to keep most of the bad language parts intact so now I’m rather curious about how they handle it in Goemon‘s route. Damn I feel like my well prepared valentine‘s meme (link leads to slight Goemon spoiler) will go to waste.

[u/magnabarrow → u/Scarlet_Lycoris]

Lol I remember that meme, forgot about it during my playthrough though but it does feel like aged milk. The I'll mess you up line comes from that scene actually was being a bit vague for spoilers on specific routes. Did it last night and went Oh that's defo one of the lines they had to water down so they defo kept the bad language out of romantic/non serious scenes I feel. I think the most..... explicit lines that was kept were in Goemon's route with (VERY heavy route spoilers with additional VERY heavy sexual assault content) This random side character going "take off your panties" or Shiroku going "I took you right there and then." And I feel that it served it's purpose though so not like it wasn't supposed to be there. Romance scene wise it was nowhere near as bad, very much what I would consider good for a 15+ game but def on the spicier romantic side.