How Translation Killed Another Puzzle: Part 2 (originally posted on FortuneCity)

The other day... well, okay, close to four months ago... I wrote about Luca's Love Flow puzzle, along with various ranting about translators handling things poorly. Today, I bring you the other half of the puzzle, with Cloche's Love Flow. You won't see both in the same playthrough, for reasons that become obvious when you get to that point of the game, but it's quite similar in concept.

How Translation Killed Another Puzzle (originally posted on FortuneCity)

Ar tonelico II: Melody of Elemia. Great game, great music, thoroughly convoluted plot, and an engaging battle system. Unfortunately, it suffered even more in translation than most games do. Overall, the translation feels rushed, with some spelling inconsistencies, awkward phrasing, and more. Names suffered too, such as the "waath" (Hymmnos for "rebirth" or "renewal") in Luca's name, lost when someone decided to change the spelling to "Trulyworth" (while that interpretation is meaningful, it's not the only or even the primary one).

VBS (originally posted on FortuneCity)

Somehow I managed to get myself talked into playing a role in the opening skits for a week of Vacation Bible School at my church. It sounded harmless enough at first... a few minutes a day with just a bunch of kids as audience. And it turned out okay, and even kinda fun (having a crazy kid in another role helped make practice exciting and unpredictable).

Anyway, the skit itself was just fine. Even leading a group of 3rd and 4th graders around and helping out with them wasn't bad, since they were mostly fairly well-behaved and could practically lead themselves anyway. The problem?