Here's another one. Since I can't enter the cave, it should probably say "the seal IS protected by a strong force".
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Your remark stirs up unspoken issues :-)
TL;DR: 'The seal appears to be protected by a strong force'
Let's see the alternatives:
'the seal IS protected by a strong force' => hmm, unexpected, but try again tomorrow. be+past complete combination is bad grammar in any case (for example traffic is jammed / I am done with this game / you are fired) is spoken language, very modern, very US, and not something one would expect in an old book. Since Anjira is Canadian, and words like Armour are used in MM, pointing to British english, not American, I would frown upon US constructs. Moving on:
'the seal WAS protected by a strong force' => nice to know but as it is a story about the past, now its not sealed probably (eg. Once upon a time there was a prince without a kingdom..). Seems wrong in the screenshot indeed: if that was the intent, the text should be "A strong force appeared to protect the seal', and that seems out of place. Alternative:
'the seal HAS BEEN protected by a strong force' => hmm must do about it somehow before we can proceed. But it refers to an action in the past, which is not relevant, and the present condition is what matters. Not incorrect, but not ideal either. How about:
'It appears the seal is being protected by a strong force' ?
Its grammar indicates that it is an ongoing process overflowing to the present, which is the current situation, leaving implicit the origins, which Oliver has no knowledge about, yet.
However since the game is British, the omitted 'that' is missing, and would become 'It appears THAT the seal is being protected by a strong force', which simplifies to
'The seal appears to have been protected by a strong force'
or
'The seal appears to be protected by a strong force'
I would prefer the latter, or any of the latter, as it sounds more authentic, if that made any sense.
The US equivalent of the latter would be 'The seal appears protected by a strong force' which in a time travelling game about legends of old is just horrible. In board gaming context it would be like you draw a card that depicts an Orc carrying an AK-47 while riding a motorbike.
My first thought was If you want to improve grammar, do it well, but it turned out to be not as easy as it first seemed, specfic language dialect convention for NNK+MM has AFAIK not been made explicit.. Having doubts now, perhaps even better is
'The seal appears to have been protected by a strong force'.
it names cause, continuing effect and is to-the-point.
It's clear now why nobody writes any more, it's time-consuming and yields little.
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I use a ace3ds with aos 2.13 and running into issues with closing and such.
I hope you don't mean by "and such" that the game freezes...?
Ordering an ace3ds now. Thanks so much!