My experience so far with Gift has been disappointing. Fortunately, it’s possible to pause the game and resume at the same point. And even after charging up my iPod Touch, I was able to continue where I left off. Unfortunately, almost every line of dialogue reads as if it were translated through Babelfish by a non-native English speaker. Additionally, the text is slow. Worse yet, it’s not clear if the player can create multiple save slots.

I don’t know if Mtrix is willing to update and improve its content. If an improved version of Gift becomes available, that’ll be nice. But until then, I’ll be watching for news about the planned Kira Kira translation.

And here I was about to put my ipod touch back into its plastic case since I’ve practically exhausted the ‘anime’ section (you know, all those ‘moe clocks’, moe match-3’s and whatever).

Just what was I doing last Friday? Thanks for the heads-up.

Oh, and if they ever release kira-kira for $10 on iPhone, I’d buy it. definetely.

I’m curious whether this was an authorized translation of “Gift.” Moonstone and Circus are related companies. Mangagamer has released a few of Circus’s products in English, but when I browsed its site a moment ago, I didn’t see any mention of “Gift” in its news section or its products section.

It’s encouraging to see that visual novels in English are getting a chance on mobile devices. This media form has struggled on Windows, and it’s still rare to see official translations of any a console game which has VN elements.

I don’t know if iPhone content can be updated. It would be nice if the group releasing “Gift” in English were able to release patches and translation corrections.

But even if that’s impossible, then I still might consider purchasing “Gift” for $10. Why? Because relatively few VNs in English — especially ones that are worth talking about — currently cost $10. And if the groups planning a release of “Kira Kira” in English can produce a high quality translation, then I’ll gladly pay $10 for it on iPhone, rather than the $55 (36.95 Euro) which Mangagamer currently charges for the PC version.

Stuff I’m still hoping for: 1) VN content for other mobile devices, such as ones which use the Android OS. 2) Galge-style content which doesn’t just use a visual novel format, such as dating/raising simulations. 3) Visual novels and similar games for mobile platforms which fall outside the boy x girls genre. For instance, I’d probably be the first person to purchase otome games on an iPhone, whether it would be “Otometeki” or a visual novel.

All this news might compel me to purchase an iPod Touch, since I hear that device doesn’t require an expensive subscription plan.