I’m a bit late posting today as well, but it’s my daughter’s birthday so I was busy with celebrations for her. The Japan trip is also coming up way too soon and I still have a lot to prepare.
I’ve mentioned playing the City of Love: Paris game before, and I’m continuing to play it. I’ve already written about it here. I like it for the most part, and I’ve been playing it in English to get through the available chapters, with the intention of replaying in Spanish and French.
I’m on the last chapter that’s currently available, thanks to spending about $4 on about a month’s worth of “energy” used to make choices in the game. Normally that much energy would cost around $20 — way too much for an interactive story, in my book — but they were having a sale and I’ve enjoyed it enough to throw them a few bucks. I’m a fan of voting with my dollars.
Anyway, I like the story for the most part and the game does a good job of balancing beautiful art and attractive characters with a good dose of humor. In the part of the game where I am now (SPOILER ALERT TO THE END OF THIS PARAGRAPH AND THE FOLLOWING SCREENSHOT), you end up visiting the Palace of Versailles, which I visited last year and absolutely loved. There’s a lot more in each background picture than can be shown in one screenshot, but take a look at the Hall of Mirrors in the palace. Gorgeous!
I adore the art in this game, and the lovely, famous locations you visit vicariously. However, the writing continues to suffer from a fair number of typos. I took a few more screenshots, but these are by no means all of the typos I noticed — just the ones I bothered to take a shot of. And of course I haven’t seen a lot of the possible dialog threads because the game forces you to make choices that cut you off from certain results. Anyway, here are a few examples:
The character’s name is Raphael. This was simply overlooked or not proofread. Also, the speaker — Louise — is telling Raphael to back off, so that phrase really needs a comma before his name. Otherwise, she could be telling someone else to back off Raphael, as in, leave him alone.
Here’s another example of a very simple error. It should say something like, “There’s only one problem with your idea…”
Here’s yet another extremely basic typo. It should say, “You hide under your desk!”
This should say, “I fell in love with a talented but penniless artist…” She’s revealing part of her backstory, not saying how she feels. Also, “peniless” is a rather unfortunate and misleading misspelling.
Again, I do wonder about who is writing the story and whether it was originally written in French and translated. Ubisoft is a French company and so it’s entirely possible it was written in French first. I’ve also noticed some British expressions and ways of speaking that would not sound natural coming from your character, who is supposed to be American. I guess it’s possible that your character picked up some British expressions — which I now can’t recall, but definitely noticed — while living in Europe, but it took me out of the game a bit.
Overall, I’m still enjoying the game and intend to keep playing it in all three language options eventually. I do wish they had taken a bit more care with the writing, especially since this game is all story and no action. Even better, I wish they’d hire me to proofread!