Psychic Detective Series Vol. 5: Nightmare is the only masterpiece of November 1991.
1. Shinsengumi - Bakumatsu Genshikou 新撰組 ～幕末幻視行～ [911110] Wolf Team
An ordinary school girl experienced time slip to the Edo period while on a school trip. And since she resembled captain of Shinsengumi unit Okita Souji, she just pretended to be him.
Who likes Shinsengumi? Or should I better ask who does not like Shinsengumi? Those brutal men establishing justice in the Edo are a safe pick for a story, but a woman as their captain does not look much better than those dozens of woman Oda Nobunaga countless parodies, to be honest. Game was issued after another shinsengumi tv show the same year. Graphics and especially depiction of emotions is great. Action is good. So it's a fairly enjoyable show if you can adapt to this fiction setting. And it was also quite disturbing to see how noone really figured out their captain was a female... not in bath, not in hot springs...
2. Vision 2 ＶＩＳＩＯＮ２ [911110] MIN 1
In this sequel, the player, who is now in a steady romantic relationship with love interest Arisa, finds himself falling for another girl named Yui. Naturally, Arisa is unhappy about this. You must help the protagonist make the right decisions, or he'll have nobody at all.
First part was mostly H oriented work, but this one becomes a story oriented love triangle story. Such serious stories weren't yet mainstream and a doujin company such as MIN was needed to raise the issue. Hero is indecisive and he is attracted to Yui mostly because he got in the same class with Yui and in a different class from Arisa. Game has few sounds, but those sounds are masterfully used like when players telephones Arisa to ask for pardon and she besides the phone and does not take it. Such nakige game does not lose its meaning even today, but at that time there were really few nakige.
3. Majokko Kumi 魔女っ子クミ [911114] Family Soft 1
Kumi is an ordinary Japanese teenage girl. At least she was ordinary until one day, walking back home, she spotted a shiny object falling from the sky into a nearby forest. Upon examining the object more closely, Kumi found a cute rabbit-like creature, who called himself Popp claimed to have come from a magical world. Popp granted Kumi the magical ability of shape-shifting: turning into an adult male of her choice... an ability Kumi will need in order to fulfill her mission: sexually satisfy female students and teachers from her high school...
Command selection turns into point-and-click for H scenes which are quite numerous since there are five sub-heroines whom we must help and also the main heroine. It can even be observed as just stories of five women. But the graphics are beautiful and animation level is high which along with the playful magical events create a bright atmosphere.
4. XIX! ギゼ! XIX [911123] Fairytale 1 2 3
Young treasure hunter Zion found an orb in the ancient ruins and a girl came out of it. She needed to confirm something in the labyrinth beneath the ruins and Zion could not leave her alone there.
First of all, Fairy Tail has given birth to several very solid RPGs by the end of 1991. So the field part of the game is very short and underground one is where the main game starts. So there are a lot of maze floor with enemies. Along the way, your companion Physis meets here acquaintances from perished 500 years ago civilization. It's an ok RPG. Slow, monotonous, but with a good old feel. But as a VN... plot is not exquisite, events aren't often and they are mostly about meeting sexy monsters or Physis getting tortured, wounded or just in need of attention. But if you've done with all Dragon Knight series and willing for more, XIX will fill its shoes allright.
5. Psychic Detective Series Vol. 5: Nightmare サイキック・ディテクティブ・シリーズ Vol.5 ナイトメア [911127] DataWest 1
The psychic detective Katsuya Furuyagi is finally able to enjoy a peaceful life with his sweetheart Rieka. But a strange nightmare begins to haunt him. He sees an unknown young woman locked in a secluded castle, begging for help. One night, the nightmare takes a different shape - the woman turns into a miraculous creature as Furuyagi enters the castle. Knowing that his unique psychic skills allow him to communicate directly with people's minds, Furuyagi begins to wonder if the nightmare has anything to do with reality - which he will find out soon enough.
Another excellent game and it's not just a horror - there is enough investigation and plot twists. Alas, pc-98 and Win versions are very rare and FM Towns one can't be hooked.
Rance III - Leazas Kanraku finally gets solid mechanics and is worthy to be called VN of October 1991.
1. Sore Yuke Nanpa-kun それゆけナンパくん [911004] Virgin House 1
A young man named Hidetsugu dreams of having a girlfriend. One day he meets a girl on the street and tries to impress her. However, a rival appears unexpectedly and the girl is unable to choose between them. The two have a conversation and agree that the stronger men is the one who has more experience with women. Hidetsugu then embarks on a quest to meet young women and work his charms on them.
There's an attempt to depict nanpa in a comic way, but it's plain the worst topic for that.
2. Rance III - Leazas Kanraku - ランス III －リーザス陥落－ [911015] Alice Soft 1 2 3 4 5
Rance is asked to help stop an invading force aided by demons from taking over the kingdom of Leazas.
Game is localized and has enough information in English.
3. Present プレゼント [911017] Orange House
A collection of three stories:
- "Isolated island" is about the protagonist suffering a shipwreck and getting on an inhabited island with two beautiful girls.
- "One's Last Resort" tells the story of protagonist infiltrating the base of a certain country on request as a free agent.
- "Holy night" is spending the night on a date with a girl.
The stories are lacking in explanation of people and scenes - that's why I don't like multiple stories. The stories are mostly to watch H events. There is no save function so one story should be done in one sitting.
4. Rose ロゼ [911018] Ange 1
The young private investigator Hiroshi Musō has a troubled past involving amnesia and the death of the man he considered his father. He opened his office to pursue crime, aided by his lovely servant Medi. One day, a school girl calls Musō and tells him her father has disappeared. The detective agrees to take the case and soon discovers a net of crime and corruption in the city.
A girl requested to find her father and none of them expected of this case to develop into a drug story. Debut work of Ange. Overall a normal mystery case. One feature is that we'll be able to look from the eyesight of the guardian spirit as well. The atmosphere is good, but graphics are lacking and heroines aren't pretty. Story oriented work.
5. Saori -Bishoujo-tachi no Yakata- 沙織 -美少女たちの館- [911018] Fairytale X-Shitei 1 2
A young woman named Saori is returning home late in the evening. Sex-related events seem to pursue her, from the word "sex" written on the wall in the public toilet to a couple having sex on a bench in the park. Shortly afterwards, Saori is abducted by a sadistic woman who locks her in a mysterious mansion. By visiting the rooms within, Saori unlocks erotic memories of its inhabitants, ultimately exposing them to the owner's cruel pleasures.
Game has an English review.
6. Cobra Mission: Panic in Cobra City Cobra Mission: Panic in Cobra City [911025] INOS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
The story takes place on a small, fictitious island off the coast of Florida. The main character is Jr. (although the player may change their name). Right off the boat he spies on a nude beach and is quickly attacked by some of the island's punks. Jr quickly dispatches them through with the use of his gun. After which he meets up with his friend and high school sweetheart Faythe Watson who tells him that guns are illegal on the island. Faythe tell him the story of how girls on the island are disappearing at a rapid rate and the mob boss of the island Kaiser is believed to be the one causing it. Jr makes it his job to find and stop whoever is causing the girls to disappear.
Game has English reviews.
7. Satsujin Roman Kikou - Koi no Nagano Bojou 殺人ロマン紀行 恋の長野慕情 [9110] Heart Soft
Heroine works for top brand fashion company. One day the president of the company disappears. As the business starts to crumble hero with three friends go Nagano ski resort to cheer up. By coincidence this place is close to president's hometown and they get caught up in a series of murder cases involving the disappearance of the president.
Game is point-and-click adventure! After encountering such mechanics in Elle and De-ja 2 I really prefer them to usual command selection. All of four friends are women and H element gets strong. Very few games had females featured as protagonist, so it's a fresh view presented here. As story goes the perspective changes from one heroine to another. The bad part is in the system. Heart Soft has done couple not bad SLG previously and now it intervened in pure adventure story with the strange solutions. RPG style map, direct movement can only irritate in pure VN. Writing is vertical - unusual, but tolerable. But screen is also divided in five parts with four for main heroines and 5th for random speaker. We get to watch at heroines portraits almost all the time and you never know where new text line going to appear. So a very very unusual work that has mediocre story and a lot of hindrances on the way to get to know this story.
Cosmic Psycho is the only masterpiece of September 1991.
1. Joker ジョーカー [910905] Birdy Soft 1 2
Wild is the nickname of protagonist. The setting is american Wild West. Years ago "The Great Disaster" happened to the village and Wild's father sacrificed his life to deal with it. On the anniversary of the event talented witch Laura was to see the future of the village, but for some reason she saw nothing. You are sent to a neighboring town to find out about the upcoming danger for the village and probably for the whole world as well.
There is an English review of the game.
2. Cosmic Psycho コズミックサイコ [910914] Cocktail Soft 1 2
High-school student Kazuki sees a dream where a girl asks for help. The next day after he receives a phone call he finds himself on board of space ship and the girl turns out to be special anti-alien squad member Marin. The phone call was for a different receiver, but it's of no help to Kazuki since he's not stuck on this ship.
There is a good review of the game here but it's written from viewpoint of a modern user. Game indeed had morally old 200-lines graphics even for the time of issue, but this game was actually a masterpiece of 1991 and should be given its dues. Lower graphics level allowed to game to be issued for as many as four gaming platforms of the time. First of all it's Cocktail Soft. The same Cocktail Soft that issued astonishing 400-lines Nike two months before. Psycho in title refers to the psycho portal through which the teleportation to another dimension occurred and to alien monster race Ex. The story is not too good, but thriller part is. Game's been called roller coaster adventure for a good reason. While being shorter than usual there is constant sense of urgency in any speech. Events happen one after another and tension keeps stacking. Story develops slowly due to these constant interruptions. This can be called a new method in telling a story. Music was so good that it was probably the first VN that had a separate VN music CD issued. But unlike even in quality Nike, Cosmic Psycho has enough weak sides. And it should be treated as an ambiguous game that was a masterpiece of its time.
3. Hacchake Ayayo-san 3 - Watashi, Icchattan Desu - Ayayo's Life After はっちゃけあやよさん３ 私、逝っちゃったんです ＡＹＡＹＯ＇Ｓ ＬＩＦＥ ＡＦＴＥＲ [910920] Hard 1
Watashi, Icchatta n' desu is the third installment in the Hacchake Ayayo-san series. This time, Ayayo and her friend Tomoko are taking a stroll and encounter a mysterious creature. Eventually they realize that they are both dead. From that point on the plot focuses on their sexual experiences with demons and Buddhist deities in heaven and hell.
There should be no second thoughts what the third part of the series is about - only about H. And since it has realistic HCG, it got banned from selling after the Saori incident.
4. Vision ＶＩＳＩＯＮ [91] MIN 1
When the hero goes to the shopping district it starts to rain. His classmate hides from the rain next to his house so he invites her to dry wet clothes.
MIN is a doujin circle from where famous Sogna company originated. The volume is not big, but every wrong selection brings a game over. Game does not have animation, but heroines are cute and graphics are good, so it's a very high level compared to commercial brands.
5. Réserve 1/2 レゼルブ１/２ [91] MIN 1 2 3 4 5
You play as one of the regular enemies from the first game, who, this time, must go and hunt humans. Lucifer (Satan in translation) has put out a reward for human girls, and it's up to you to bring them to him.
Game is localized and has enough information in English.
Kimi Dake ni Ai o... is a very curious game and is worth being VN of August 1991.
1. 2069 AD [910803] Home Data
Year 2069. The number of women decreased sharply. Many of the remaining women started to behave rigidly towards the men and men suicide cases skyrocketed.
The hero starts to wear a dubious costume and the mask of a wrestler calling himself "Mr. S". He will punish arrogant women.
The battle sequences don't allow to get bored. It's also the first game to have sound CG attached to the game. Overall the content is not special.
2. Can Can Bunny Spirits きゃんきゃんバニー スピリッツ [910810] Cocktail Soft 1
The third in the Can Can Bunny series, Can Can Bunny Spirits deals with a nameless hero (the player has to give him a name) who is - in accordance with Can Can Bunny tradition - a lonely guy who can't get a girlfriend. One night he sits at home and stares at the moon. Suddenly, the magic fairy Ariko appears in front of him and gives him... no, this time not the Magic Book, but a Magic Crescent! With the help of this crescent, the hero can turn into totally different young men - which will naturally increase his chances in impressing girls and ultimately having sex with them.
Game has more than ever SIM elements. We get to choose one of two possible locations for the nanpa and customize lots of traits in the magical resume. Not only you should suit the selected girl, but also any really wrong answer immediately results in reject.
3. Youjuu Club 2 妖獣クラブ2 [910823] D.O. 1 2
Main hero is an evil wizard. He worships demons from another dimension. It’s your job to use your magic powers, open up a portal to Hell, and let the demons out so that they can feast on the humans.
It's not really visual novel, just a Xonix game in PC98 version, so moving on.
4. Shangrlia SHANGRLIA [910828] Elf 1 2
Ordinary high school student Tooru was shocked to know that the soul of parallel universe Erion prince Nyuckel possessed his body and in 25 days will gain full control of it. There's no time to loose! Give orders to your ten female officers armies and try to stop the invasion.
Elf's new game. Basically it's reincarnation of Foxy franchise in fantasy setting. Same TBS, as many as 10 types of units with advantages, disadvantages and a whole pack of characteristics. Complex rules and harsh penalties for withdrawal and defeat make this game quite difficult even for native speakers. And 10 campaigns are best to be played in particular order due to difficulty spikes. After each victory female general takes off one garment. After capture there are 20 more special maps that you can play with old units.
5. Metal Slader Glory メタルスレイダーグローリー [910830] HAL Laboratory 1 2 3 4
8 years after the great space war orphan Tadashi Himukai buys a mecha robot to set construction business together with his girlfriend. Robot turns out to be a war unit and he keeps saying that the Earth is in danger and to save it they need to find Creator as soon as possible. And so the space adventure begins.
Game has achieved a legendary status, mainly due to 4 year development period and tragic fate. Game was issued at the same year as FF4 and surpassed it at graphics and animation. But it was released for NES and at the same year SNES machines started to sell so as few as 5,000 copies only were sold and company went bankrupt. Game was reinvigorated by SNES release 9 years later and Wii release even further. Plot is quality SF matter, but after Jesus, Jesus II and Snatcher it was not something special. But in addition to good plot game has great number of female characters drawn with love. It can be considered a first full-scale Moe game for NES platform auditory who had access almost ultimately to action games.
6. Kimi Dake ni Ai o... キミだけに愛を・・・ [9108] Fairytale 1 2
We play as Akio-kun who attends the wedding of his older brother Satoshi and his unrequited love Misa. But the newweds start to quarrel often and then Misa gets into a traffic incident and looses memory.
This is a drama and every actor in the love triangle has his circumstances. So the will to sympathize to main characters and dive into complex relations is to determine whether you like the game or not. Fortunately, Misa is very cute and - FINALLY - Technopolis shifted to 400-line graphics. Pure love dramas were still fresh at that time for VNs and setting of living with older brother and loving the same girl was really good. There were also multiple endings. There were other girls as well and many of them were older than protagonist, so can be also called an oneesan-ge. Story looks simplistic compared to nowadays nakige, but it was one of the first nakige and should be given credit for that.
Nike is the VN of July 1991. I also value Cybernetic Hi-School Part 4 ~Ape Hunter J~ high, but in the end it's just a bakage with quiz mixes.
1. Nike ナイキ [910705] Cocktail Soft
In 2526 pilot Nike (22) with co-pilot girl Miho (17) are participating in interstellar space race after winning the race the previous year. However the princess of the host planet Athena got kidnapped and Nike is going to search for Athena while participating in the race.
Cocktail Soft new title! And again a great one. Fully story oriented work in SF setting. And my recollection of "Redline" anime with similar setting is still fresh so I got hooked right off the bat. The set of selection commands is not predefined bat varies according to the situation. Choice needs to be done within time limit and many choices lead to game over. All kind of adventures await - both planetary and space ones. Kindapping, evil cult, space monsters, ship arrest, planet destruction. Game has all of it and much more. Events change each other with a high pace and in-between we get to communicate with our two cute heroines. Athena is regarded as a pure princess while Miho is an attractive pal-racer and Nike gets sandwitched between the two of them. And this time it's played out in a more fun way than in Artemis. Sadly, there is a single ending for this game and there is no place for Miho in it. This game is a top class story and it's a real shame it never got released on newer machines.
2. Dragon Knight III ドラゴンナイトIII [910706] Elf 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Takeru had just finished the events of DKII when robbers took all of his possessions and clothes. The epic quest this time is to get some money. And while on it the mayor has an assignment for which he's willing to pay in gold.
Game is localized and has enough information in English.
3. Pocky 2 ~Kaijin Aka Mantle no Chousen~ ポッキー２ ～怪人赤マントの挑戦～ [910710] Ponytail Soft 1
School newspaper club led by Miki investigates various cases of item disappearance and girls harassment and pranks that got frequent at school.
Longer, cuter, simpler version of prequel. But while graphics were considered advanced in 1989, in 1991 8 colors with 200 horizontal lines was already archaic, so the impact is gone. Kumiko-chan is the main heroine but from time to time viewpoint changes to Miki-chan and Tomoko-chan. The mysterious Red cape had many opportunities to set pranks to school girls and to three main heroines, of course. It's not a big work and only takes 6 days in game time.
4. Tenshi-tachi no Gogo IV -Yuuko- 天使たちの午後ＩＶ -ゆう子- [910710] JAST 1
Strange events have started to happen at all-girl Sophia High School - strange sounds, strange smells and strange pupils appearance. The principal requested the new teacher to investigate. Yuko-chan from literature club will assist him in that.
It's 4th part of the series. Now most of H scenes mean bad end. So plot line is relatively serious. We establish platonic relations by the end of the game with Yuuko which is totally new for the series. Yuuko admires the new teacher and their conversations is the major bright spot in the game. The atmosphere is actually different from previous three games. It's a valid mystery detective case and protagonist is a valid teacher (ok, using sex for interrogation was not really what teacher does). The resolution of the case was an aggressive and abrupt one, so satisfaction level remained low. But text rendering speed is a real torture and in 10 minutes I failed even to finish the first talk with the director...
5. Artemis アルテミス [910712] Birdy Soft 1
Notos and Ing were separated by an ambush of a giant woman-snake. Ing fled for his life and found shelter in a village. But soon all the village girls disappeared. Ing now has to find them and carry out plans for revenge on snake-woman.
Birdie Soft in its blossom. Beautiful CG, different color lines, mouth and eyes animation. Although drawing is uneven, some faces and bodies look non-proportional and ugly. Game is based on a conflict of two heroines and the hero sandwiched in between. And since there is just one ending the hero is being torn apart between commoner Luna girl and mysterious adventurer Elutia girl. Another prominent feature is that the hero has a face and often is seen from the side, so player does not have to sympathize with him. But since game focuses on human relationships a lot, the plot gets lacking behind. And since the setting is as if taken from a fantasy RPG game, the overall impression suffers a lot.
6. Branmarker ブランマーカー [910712] D.O. 1 2 3 4
Island got infested with monsters kidnapping inhabitants. All kinds of warriors set to end monster infestation but noone returned back. Now it's time for your group of warriors to try luck.
Quite an ordinary JRPG with turn-based fights, recovery at inn, armor gathering and of course grind. It's the third strategy game of D.O. already and they finally play it safe with just a fantasy setting, not entertainment park invasion or school fight for principal daughter. Shammy girl is main hero, she is both proficient in magic and light weapons. Vega boy joins later and he's full-scale warrior without any mp. The H-element is presented by finding princes and her multiple maids in peculiar situations. But the fact is that main hero is the girl cuts any H-scenes to the level of just nudity. But balance and graphics are good. And the atmosphere is somewhat relaxing compared to usual epic rpgs, so appearing of a sequel was not much of a surprise.
7. Legend of Killcool Legend of Killcool [910712] Soft Plan
During the ancient war of humans vs demons the goddess descended and erected mountains to protect the humans. But demons kept living beyond the mountains. The black demon built a black tower threaten the human kingdom.
Main hero is a warrior who receives a task to rescue human princess confined in the black tower. To open the seal he must find red, yellow, blue, green and black orbs.
A doujin exploration game. There are buttons for moving N, S, E, W, but no map or any means of direction, so a manual map is supposed to be drawn. There are occasional battles. The game resembles Eiyuu Densetsu Saga the most. There are tiny bits of animation at times.
8. Manami no Doko made Iku no? まなみのどこまでイクの？ [910713] Wendy Magazine 1 2 3
In the beginning of summer school girl Manami received a letter saying that she was chosen to stop a criminal syndicate in her town. After that she meets a masked man Black Pack who guides her to the underground activities.
There is an English review.
9. Quintia Road クィンティアロード [910719] Communication Group Plum 1 2 3
In 1944 German pilot got into air vortex and appeared in parallel magical world of Quintia. He was greeted as god and was requested to use his aircraft to defeat monsters.
Plot is not the strongest side of this work. But Quintia Road does not get boring. There are all kind of monsters to take care of and there are also 5 princess in this kingdom to harass. So it's really fun and fresh work that does not stop to thrill. Commands are simple, there are almost no puzzles, graphics are great. Battles seem difficult since they afford an abundance of commands, but actually battles are scripted and so whatever you do they will proceed in its own way. The feature of this game is full-mouse control. And this control is so full, that no keyboard control allowed. Naturally, it's not too convenient.
10. Cybernetic Hi-School Part 4 ~Ape Hunter J~ 電脳学園４ ～エイプハンターＪ～ [910720] Gainax
In 2006 the people had just one anxiety - "Monkey". Elimination of ozone layer by ultraviolet rays after 1980s caused ape mutation evolution. Mutants were intelligent and since they started to look like humans they secretly infiltrated human society. Thus appeared ape hunters - specialists in identification and "processing" of monkeys.
You are such ape hunter and you've just received a request from school director to reveal monkeys in the school. The only way to check it is undress the subject and find evidence of his red ass and tail.
Oh my, that's the whole point of Gainax. Take a laughingly crazy setting and make it even crazier, totally surreal. Oh and don't forget fanservice. Few Gainax works had none of it since creators were otaku themselves. First three parts were very short and simple quiz+adv+strip games. So is the 4th part as well, it's just longer and has more fancy setting. It's not Adv with quiz elements, not vice versa. Quizes were hard for that time and nowadays they seem even harder even though there are just three variants. Game was sold with a booklet describing the fake history since the end of 80s till 2006 and many questions based on that fake history, naturally. Game is full of stupid characters and yet it's crazy fun, or should I say funny craze. Such is this work in the zenith of Gainax power that it can be considered a masterpiece.
11. Sweet Emotion スウィートエモーション [910720] Discovery
There are five scenarios presented from different viewpoints and connected with each other. Together they let us approach the truth about Slan murder.
Debut work of Discovery which is actually a new division of Birdie Soft so graphics is the best of the best. Partial animation makes it shine even more. I tend to block short multi-story VNs, but in this case every episode is connected and they all lead to a logical end. We also have to change protagonists all the time - we get to be a victim, a witness and a detective. So in Part 1 we play as a victim to be killed. In Part 2 we are students who found Slan corpse in Part 1. Part 3 is when we step up as a detective. Part 4 is journey to the land of the dead to get to know circumstances of death from Slan himself. Part 5 is resolution of the case by the detective. The work loses its charm when we get to know murder circumstances by the middle of the story. So story is not particularly good and H scenes are kind of too frequent. So quite a typical Birdy Soft work.
12. Kounai Shasei Vol.1 - Yonimo H na Monogatari 校内写生 第1巻 世にもHな物語 [910726] Fairytale X-Shitei 1
"Kounai Shasei 1" opens with a text introduction that describes a miraculous Girls' High School that can be accessed by sailing through the Indian Ocean or walking along the Silk Road - a school that even the famous Marco Polo allegedly describes in his memoirs. This establishes the humorous tone of subsequent narrative, which has little to do with history and a lot to do with pretty high school girls. The game has no real story, being instead composed of five unrelated vignettes, short episodes that feature a sexy high school girl, a male protagonist (named "God" by default), and various comical and erotic situations under different circumstances: meeting in a school, haunted house, crowded train station, etc.
The series is the face of Fairytale X-Shitei. Dumb, but cute and occasionally fun.
13. Kounai Shasei 2 校内写生２ [910726] Fairytale X-Shitei
As hero returns the fee to the town chief he hears a story about a masked girl who attacks men at night. He is promissed 50,000 yen if he brings the chief the mask taken from the girl. And so the hunt starts.
Based on manga. Being a part of Kounai Shasei series there's no doubt it falls into another bakage H plotline. But at least it's an attempt to put up a coherent story and not just throw in a bunch of mini-stories.
14. Kounai Shasei 3 校内写生３ [910726] Fairytale X-Shitei
The confrontation between Sailor suit warrior Akko vs. Pretty masked girl on the school grounds where the hero studies as a student.
The part with the most original content ... to the point that hardly anything makes sense. Well, this series is not here for making sense, but rather for invoking reflexes.
ELLE is my favorite in June 1991.
1. Cobra II: Densetsu no Otoko コブラII―伝説の男― 寺沢武 [910607] Hudson Soft 1 2 3 4
Badass space pirate Cobra is here again. This time he's accompanied by sexy bounty hunter Jane who turns out to chase after his own head. But all the conflicts are forgotten when Cobra's archenemy Crystal Boy shows up. And both of space adventurers have valid enough reasons to join forces and hunt for Crystal Boy.
I darn love this atmosphere. City Hunter, Dirty Pair, Cobra, Captain Harlock, 009-1 are all fantastic sci-fi series that stand at the fundamentals of anime. Action and fast pace is what keeps interest as well as fine humor in there. VN format for them might look inappropriate to many. There are a lot of English reviews for this game here and most of authors blame lack of action gameplay (which is nonsense for a VN work).
2. Kyou mo Campus Hana Ranman 今日もキャンパス花乱満 [910610] Computer Brain
A school trip on an airplane can bring lots of unexpected events!
Game is obscure, but its H nature does not raise any doubts. Just random and semi-random H events.
3. Crystal Chaser: Tenkuu no Mashoukyuu クリスタルチェイサー 天空の魔晶球 [910615] Wolf Team 1
For a long time, five magical crystal orbs have been protecting our universe. One of them was hidden on the Earth. But there was a young woman who desired too much power, and she came to the Earth in order to harvest the power of its crystal for her selfish purposes. The only ones who can stop her are Takanoshin, the son of a samurai warrior, and the young girl Noichigo, who teaches little children. Together, they embark on a long and perilous journey through the land of Japan...
Game looks like an RPG, but the only battle that happens here is singing battle. A cheerful game, but with a lot of interaction, including freedom of movement and inventory use.
4. ELLE エル [910623] Elf 1 2
Postnuclear world last survivors dome city. "Black Widow" organization is trying to obstruct plans for human survival while anti-terror organization along with lady sniper Elle oppose them.
First japanese point-and-click adventure, just like western quests when you move cursor and it changes shape depending on object. But unlike western games it's 1st person perspective which is really original. Judging from the plot synopsis alone it's well seen that Hiruda wrote the scenario. And post-apocalypses and sci-fi themes make it even more desirable. Story has a good pace since incidents occur one after another and don't leave much time to get bored. Point and click is also fun since at some clicks objects start moving with animation so it's not just comments. Details are in my review.
5. Tsukune-chan no Daibouken Dotou no Karimenkyo Hen つくねちゃんの大冒険 怒涛の仮免許編 [910628] Game Technopolis
Tsukune is a 16-year old girl who works as a witch's apprentice. Today is the test day for becoming a witch and she forgot her magic pants!
Ugh, this work is ugly for 1991. And it has enormous number of commands which make gameplay lacking as never before. The number of commands needed to select can easily surpass a hundred. I'm not joking. Game feels like it was abandoned since the start of 80s and then forced to production.
Ginsei Senshin Guynarock is the VN of May 1991 by default - it's the closest thing to a visual novel this month.
1. Ginsei Senshin Guynarock 銀聖戦神ガイナロック [910520] Techno Brain
In 2125 a special unit SIS was created to defend against extraterrestrial life. It consists of five female members - Erie, Louis, Megu, Remy and Io. After investigating an unidentified spacecraft heading for Earth, Erie was attacked by a scientist Baikal who vanished 150 years ago. Io is captured and the rest of the crew, except for Eri, are forced to rescue Io and ride giant robot Guynarock to oppose the giant robot of Baikal.
First of all there's a whole series of Guynarock series with very similar plot and titles which causes lots of confusion. Story is short, but has nice animations and impressive robot battle. Girs are drawn in the 1980s style and are cute enough.
2. Smell of Blood スメル オブ ブラッド [910524] Heart Soft
Year 2270. Glen is a worker who returns from a 6 month shift from Mars. He awakes in Shuttle 2 only to find out that the spacecraft is breached by alien killer monsters.
Game is obscure. Heart Soft is the main experimentation company of 1991. Most of its games have kinky mechanics that are difficult to grasp. This game has 10 command variants for each dialogue, lots of rooms and technical information on the station.
3. Gakuen Toshi Z 学園都市Ｚ [9105] Striker 1
In the floating in space academic city of Z students compete against each other using their own robots. This year just one day before competition the Red team got intoxicated by food poisoning. Just one red team was intact. So the rules were changed - if Red team gathers five crystals scattered throughout the school - it wins. Otherwise white opponents win. And now single Red robot faces 20,000 white robots.
RPG with ADV elements. Setting leaves much to be desired and plot does not invoke any emotions. Both girls from red mechanics team are cheerful and animation is quite widely used, but that alone can't save the game from the depths of commonness. RPG part is actually quite difficult compared to other RPG VNs.
4. Phantasy Star II Text Adventure: Rudger no Bouken ファンタシースターII テキストアドベンチャー ルドガーの冒険 [911201] Sega 1 2 3
This chapter features Rudolf "Rudo" Steiner (Japanese: ルドガー・スタイナー (Rudogā Steiner or Rudger Steiner)), who after the loss of his wife and child in a Biomonster attack, becomes a hunter dedicated to their extermination.
Game is localized and has enough information in English.
5. Phantasy Star II Text Adventure: Shilka no Bouken ファンタシースターII テキストアドベンチャー シルカの冒険 [911201] Sega 1 2 3 4
Shir Gold (Japanese: シルカ・レビニア (Shiruka Rebinia, Shilka Levinia)) – the only child of a wealthy family in Paseo, she belongs to the well-to-do of Motavia. Growing up and wanting for nothing, Shir felt that becoming a thief would remedy the monotony of daily life. She enjoys the outside air, the cool night breeze, and hanging around on rooftops, taking up the nickname "Shir of the Wind". Her adventure takes place in Autumn of AW 1282, about two years before the events that take place in Phantasy Star II, as she plans to steal a valuable painting entitled "Opa-Opa", which is on display in a hotel exhibit.
Game is localized and has enough information in English.
I put Psychic Detective Series Vol. 4: Orgel above other games in April 1991 even though there are also such masterpieces as CAL II and Nostalgia 1907.
1. Sadistic Gamers Part 5 Burusera Play サディスティック・ゲーマーズ PART-5 -ブルセラ・プレイ- [910401] Sixteens
Brucella issue of Sadistic Gamers doujin game.
Same lesbian sadists, but nothing else is known about this game.
2. Nostalgia 1907 ノスタルジア1907 [910402] Sur De Wave 1 2
Ship "Nostalgia" is crossing Atlantic Ocean when explosion breaks out. Playing as captain and passengers you need to find out who planted the bomb.
Game has an English review.
3. CAL II キャルツー [910410] Birdy Soft 1 2 3
You are Wataru Ishibashi, a high-school student in modern Japan. Up until recently you led a normal life, enjoying the relationship with your lovely girlfriend Mika. But short before the graduation ceremony, you had a strange vision that you first believe to be a dream. But when you are contacted by Venus, the goddess of love, you realise Mika was abducted by Aeon, the goddess of time, and transferred into the Realm of Time. You must now travel to the legendary dream world of beautiful goddesses and bring Mika back.
Game has English reviews. The most famous work of Birdy Soft and definitely a masterpiece.
4. Foxy 2 Foxy 2 [910412] Elf 1
Planet Charon has done its first steps in space exploration when mysterious organization "Giras" kidnapped senior space scientist and then his niece. Her friends are determined to save them and storm "Giras" strongholds.
Well, it's Foxy - what's to write about it? Same turn-based strategy, same half-naked girls rescue in between the battles. It's got several differences of course - it's no more blue vs red stupid confrontation. Units got more complex. Now there's limit for number of turns. So it can't be beaten without some love for the strategy games. The cool part is rpg elements - units receive xp and get transferred to next battles. At the same time it means that loss of even single unit is fatal, so repeating is expected.
5. D.P.S. SG Set 2 D.P.S. SG Set 2 [910415] Alice Soft 1 2
The scenarios in this game include:
A horror story entitled Antique House, in which a young couple is trapped at night in a secluded haunted mansion, possessed by monsters. The player can choose the personality of the female character before beginning, influencing the story with this choice.
A modern-day story without any supernatural elements, entitled Red Night. The protagonist is a man who finds himself in a hotel when a fire starts. Trying to escape, he enters a room occupied by a prostitute. The following events evolve slightly differently, depending on the personality choice made by the player before the start of the game.
A sequel to the second episode of the first D.P.S. game. Once again, the player chooses either the male doctor Katsuki or the female doctor Katsumi whose goal is to seduce the patient, the cute school girl Yumiko.
There is an English review on the game.
6. Imadoki Junjou Monogatari いまどき純情物語 [910425] Allot
Main character falls from a cliff and awakens at a hospital will amnesia. With the care of Chizuru nurse he regains physical strength gradually. The two fall in love with each other. However, one day Chizuru goes missing. Protagonist stands up to find her.
It's actually more of a suspense RPG than a love game. Enemies come out and attack, we gather experience, buy gear... Well, it's fresh to establish an RPG in a non-fantasy setting, but really...
7. Psychic Detective Series Vol. 4: Orgel サイキック・ディテクティブ・シリーズ Vol.4 オルゴール [9104] DataWest 1
One day a mysterious woman clad in mourning dress appears in the office of Katsuya Furuyagi, a private investigator who possesses a unique ability to journey into the minds of people. The woman has a strange request that makes Furuyagi doubt her sanity. For generations, a beautiful doll has been in the possession of her family; however, recently it has disappeared, and the woman is convinced the culprit is the devil himself. Furuyagi travels to the countryside where he begins to investigate this unusual mystery, determined to find out the truth.
Command selection ADV. This work stands somewhat alone since we don't get to travel to other peoples' minds, but explore an ancient western mansion instead. Game's one of the highest masterpieces of the series with its horror atmosphere and great synthesis of animation and sound. Game has a huge number of guro scenes, but they aren't animated for the sake of readers health.
Jesus II is the only masterpiece of March 1991.
1. Hoshi no Suna Monogatari 星の砂物語 [910305] D.O. 1
Gengorou enjoyed his peaceful life in boarding house till one of its inhabitants got killed. House owner asks Gen to make own investigation and this is an offer that can't be turned down since Gen does not have an alibi and is a suspect himself.
Plot exists merely as weak excuse to harass 5 girl boarding house members. A remake of the year 1988 game.
2. Watashi o Golf ni Tsuretette 私をゴルフに連れてって [910308] Fairytale
Can you impress of one fifteen girls with your superior golf skills? She may be very happy about it.
It's a real golf game with some text. HCG is as reward. Without the nanpa attribute game feels boring.
3. Thanatos サナトス [910310] Birdy Soft
You're a private detective yourself. One day you're shocked to read in an article that your colleague was shot with a swarm of bullets. Once you set on a trail you get a floppy disk that contains information on a trading company that operates secret medicine "Thanatos" that gives abnormous strength.
Setting is science fiction in the near future. It's an action story with gunfire and brawling. But there is quite little information on the game because of one reason. Game is shipped with multiple floppy disks and literally for every background or event game asks you to insert the needed diskette, then after it's seen, need to change back to original one.
4. Jesus II ジーザスII [910324] Enix 1 2 3
In the mids of sea voyage Kazuya sees a large container drop from the sky. It's neglected as space junk, but shortly after that several crew members get mysteriously murdered. Kazuya finds a connection to the incident that happened four years ago when alien creature attacked a spaceship.
Jesus II had low sales because it shifted far from prequel that had lots of gameplay elements. Jesus II is production oriented, so it has great story, visuals and sound, but has one story line and very simple selection commands that limit freedom of action. Also Jesus II main difference with Prontis is the ending.
5. Phantasy Star II Text Adventure: Eusis no Bouken ファンタシースターII テキストアドベンチャー ユーシスの冒険 [910327] Sega 1 2 3
Rolf (Japanese: ユーシス (Yūshisu or Eusis)) is a government agent working out of the town of Paseo on Motavia, and the main character of Phantasy Star II. While on a mission, he rescues a young Numan girl named Nei from the Biosystems Lab.
Game is localized and has enough information in English.
There are no masterpieces in January and Dragon Eyes becomes the winner by default since it's the closest thing to a normal visual novel.
1. Dragon Eyes ドラゴンアイズ [910123] Fairytale 1
Dragon Eyes is a "space opera" kind of story, focusing on a young girl named Ines, who lives on the planet Miu of the Phi Sun. She grew up together with a space agent named Klind, to whom she refers as "brother". One day, her superior from the planet Garudoria informs her that Klind has disappeared during one of his missions and might be in danger. Ines travels to Garudoria to find additional information, and soon becomes involved in a vast space conflict...
Space opera type with girl Ines who lost contact with space agent Klind who was like brother to her. She heads to planet Garudoria where he was last contacted only to be involved into huge space conflict...
Space opera setting is usually alone enough already to gain appeal. And it really looks like it's here just for the charm. Dragon eyes has splendid graphics on the top. Heroines are beauties (with nakedness not rare). Total number of CG exceeds 200 which was very good volume. But sadly it lacks in every other division. Controls are mediocre since it's usual non-simplified command selection. Sci-Fi setting is spoilt by magic interference. Plot advances feel cheap. It's still would be good work if you really like its graphics.
2. Misty Vol.7 Misty Vol.7 [910125] DataWest 1
Misty Vol.7 is a detective mystery adventure game set in modern-day Japan and starring the young private investigator Ryū Kamishiro. The game consists of five unrelated cases that can be accessed in any order from the main menu. These cases range from seemingly mundane matters to thefts, mysterious disappearances and murder investigations.
This volume contains the following cases: The Color in the Darkness, Airtight Archipelago, Bonds of Illumination, A Watch Without a Needle and Innocent Vision.
A serious detective game which is a genre that I don't feel confidence to discuss.
3. Phantasy Star II Text Adventure: Anne no Bouken ファンタシースターII テキストアドベンチャー アンヌの冒険 [910130] Sega 1 2 3 4
Amy Sage (Japanese: アンヌ・サガ (Annu or Anne Saga)) has just finished her internship at the hospital in River Town, and has become a full-fledged doctor. Calm, yet strong-willed, she is dedicated in helping everyone who needs her medical aid. Her chapter takes place in the spring of AW 1284, shortly before the events of Phantasy Star II, giving the player some insight into why she became a doctor and decided to specialize in helping victims of Biomonster attacks.
Game is localized and has enough information in English.
4. Dragon City ドラゴンシティ [9101] Fairytale X-Shitei
One day hero is taken to a different world. And in this world women are taught to respond to desires of men.
Fairytale X-Shitei is actually the main company name of 1991. It's the first division to produce only specialized H works without much plot, but with top level of drawing. And since there was no regulation yet, it was produced without any censorship. And eventually by the end of the year it led to an arrest of company director for indecency and introduction on censorship in computer games. This game is on par to the overall flow - cute and indecent.
5. Soapland Story II -Memory- ソープランドストーリー Ⅱ -Memory- [9101] Hard
City nanpa adventure with more complex mechanics and maintaining such stats as Life, Strength, Experience and Money.
This is one of the earliest tilts into SIM, but just the nanpa synopsis does not not invoke much interest.
In 1988 there are even more games, but I have only selected 9 as masterpieces: 1. Soft de Hard na Monogatari 2. Chatty 3. Famicom Tantei Club: Kieta Koukeisha 4. Lipstick. ADV 5. Onryou Senki 6. Psy-O-Blade 7. Angelus ~Akuma no Fukuin~ 8. Snatcher 9. Akira
Year 1988 is the year when PC-98 won. In 1987 there were only couple games with pc-98 versions. Occasional games start to have animation and sometimes even certain phrases voiced. In 1988 there's a very big share of visual novels made deliberately for famicom. Lipstick ADV was very revolutionary for that time and marked the birth of "Elf" games. It is a worthy champion of 1988.
1. Ripple Island リップルアイランド [880123] Tokai Engineering 1 2 3 4 5
The game takes place on a small island called Ripple Island, where humans and animals lived together in peace. However, one day, the evil emperor Gerogēru suddenly appears on the island and kidnaps the king's daughter. The king promises that he will allow whoever can rescue his daughter to marry her, and a young boy named Kyle sets off on a long journey to rescue the princess.
Game has English reviews.
2. Dome ドーム [8801] System Sacom 1
DOME is based on Shizuko Natsuki's novel of the same name. The original work as well as the game's plot focus on the construction of a nuclear shelter called "The Dome", capable of protecting humans from an impending atomic war. The player takes the role of an employee in an advertisement company, whose job is to raise people's awareness of the shelter's importance, and donate money to the project.
Novelware was a concept to oppose tiresome gameplay and at the same time present serious text-intensive stories. Game scenario reached over 700 pages which was unseen before. It got some backers, but was generally neglected due to bland reading gameplay, poor quality digitized photos and lack of innovation. On the other hand I'd really welcome one-direction story, but there is a lot of interactivity here. It's basically about a usual japanese office workplace and communicating with co-workers even though for such extravagant goal as the dome. Game is hookable with nkpt (agth compatible) + ITHVNR just fine, but there is little control over the pace and text just poors till the selection with lots of text extracts getting smashed together which does not add comfort. But I recorded the footage from x68000 version to show the quality of digitized pictures.
3. Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Yokohama-kou Renzoku Satsujin Jiken 探偵 神宮寺三郎 横浜港連続殺人事件 [880226] Data East Corporation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
In the second mystery, the search for a missing girlfriend results in the discovery of her hiding guns, and the police begin to suspect a link with an underground trafficking organization.
There is some English information on the game.
4. Endan Genpei Souranki ~Irohanihoheto~ 艶談・源平争乱記 ～いろはにほへと～ [8802] STUDIO ANGEL
Main character is a normal school student. He sleeps during the history class and gives the wrong answer on the question. In the night he slips into the school to correct the mistake, but the annswer is already input in the computer. When he messes with the computer he arrives to 1169 year, the events before the Genpei War. If he can't fix the answer, he will change history instead to fit the answer!
First bullet in the trilogy. The main feature of the game is that it's neither command input, nor kinetic or command selection. Instead each scene has some 4 choices and you just make a choice and the story goes on till a new choice - that's akin to modern visual novels, but in this work there is quite little text between the choices. Unfortunately pc-98 version came after Sharp and pc-88 versions and thus pc-98 one is close to impossible to find and without it there's no way to hook it unlike the sequels. Game features real historical figures as well as gore and adult content.
5. Yume Shoujo Sayaka 夢少女さやか [8803] Bond Soft
Main character is tired of spending days alone in the apartment watching beautiful dreams. He goes out to meet beautiful girls in person.
Adult nanpa game with the only real aim to see all the 38 HCG. It ends with getting with the girl to the hotel. There's very tiresome progression with a huge list of commands to choose.
6. Hoshi o Sagashite... 星をさがして・・・ [880402] Sega 1 2 3
Hoshi o Sagashite is a sci-fi text-adventure game for the Sega Mark III. It begins when the main character takes a vacation to visit his girlfriend and buys her an egg as a present. The egg hatches into a creature called a "Mio". You must discover what a Mio is, how to care for it.
There are English reviews on the game.
7. Sacchan no Daibouken サッちゃんの大冒険 [880404] Agumix
Main hero hears a rumor that Kojima Sachi (Sacchan) loves 500 yen coins. To get close to her he needs to get a rare coin. Then he discovers that Ayako and her lesbian partner have one and the hunt for the coin begins.
Agumix decided to capitalize on the success of the manga and the first game Shiritsu Tantei Max and started releasing a whole series of adult work with the same theme. This BIG adventure is actually just going around the school and triggering lots of H events. Command selection is more or less convenient and digitized pictures are very cool.
8. Famicom Tantei Club: Kieta Koukeisha ファミコン探偵倶楽部 消えた後継者 [880427] Nintendo R&D1 1 2 3 4 5 6
The story begins with a man named "Amachi" discovering the fallen protagonist on the ground near a cliff. The protagonist discovers that he has lost his memory, and after recuperating, he revisits the cliff and meets a young girl named Ayumi Tachibana. He learns from Ayumi that he is an assistant detective investigating the death of Kiku Ayashiro.
There are English reviews on the game.
9. Bishoujo wa Check ga Osuki 美少女はチェックがお好き [8804] Sepias
You participate in personality quizzes with several girls giving Yes or No answers. If you appear to be the personality the girl likes - she will be undressing with each new round.
The mechanics are simple, but fun and engaging enough. Questions are of all kind of weirdness so it was awkward to answer on the video. I'm not really sure this game qualifies for visual novel though since there is absolutely no story or characters to get to know - just reward HCG.
10. Tenshi-tachi no Gogo II -Bangai Hen- 天使たちの午後ＩＩ -番外編- [8804] JAST 1
Tenshitachi no Gogo 2: Bangai-hen is a side-story of Tenshitachi no Gogo 2: Minako. The game's protagonist is the brother of Kozue Yanagisawa, one of the female characters that appeared in Minako. Their parents want to send him abroad to study, but he can't bear to be separated from his sister. Do his feelings to his sister cross the line, becoming forbidden love?..
Command selection with a moderately big selection and lots of bruteforcing needed. The story is very shallow and should thread on brother love to Kozue alone. Might it be the first siscon visual novel? The story takes just one day before the departure to the foreign land. I guess there is nothing to loose anymore since protagonist's advances on the nearby females are rather strong. I did not succeed in hooking pc-98 version.
11. Little Vampire Little Vampire [880505] Champion Soft
Miki is kidnapped by Dracula and Kentarou is on the quest to save her.
Alice Soft is ashamed of its past as Champion Soft, but not of this work. Somewhere in 2003 Alice Soft announced a big list of its works as freeware. The first work in this list was Little Princess and the Second - Little Vampire (here's the link to the full list of freeware links). Game shares much with its prequel Little Princess and the characters of these games can be seen in future Alice Soft games like Rance. The game has one of the longest list of commands to select that I've seen - it's just a torment to bruteforce it. In my pretty long video I failed even to find something to eat for the heroes let alone figure what's the big aim behind it all.
12. Maison Ikkoku Kanketsu Hen ~Sayonara, Soshite...~ めぞん一刻 完結編 ～さよなら、そして…～ [880528] Micro Cabin 1 2
Set in Tokyo of the 80-ies, the story can be described as a romantic tale with a touch of comedy. It centers on a boarding house which is managed by the young and lovely widow Kyoko Otonashi. The protagonist is a college student named Yusaki Godai, and his relationship with Kyoko is the main plot line. The game's story approximately corresponds to the middle volumes of the manga until the conclusion.
There is enough of English (actually, French!) information on the game. 6 days overall and basically need to repeat main events of the original and for the rest of time usual Ikkoku stuff - setting up parties, improving mood of inhabitants with bribes, struggling with money.
13. Gakuen Senki 学園戦記 [8805] Champion Soft
Hero is student council president and everyday he solves requests from students. With each new request he approaches the secret behind this school.
That's the third game of the Alicesoft freeware list (link to the full list of freeware links) which means they're not ashamed of this game. Game is exclusive for MSX which explains why it's so obscure. It also is shipped at five disks, so I stopped video recording at the first time I was prompted to insert a new disc. There's a lot of disk shuffling and a lot of bruteforcing with a long list of commands. The atmosphere is lighthearted and the drawing is quite cute, so poor mechanics should not really stop people from trying it.
14. Harajuku After Dark 原宿AfterDARK [8806] Kogado Studio
A corpse of a fashionably dressed man was discovered in the part and Harajuku police department started investigation. A a simple murder case developed into a major incident involving Harajuku's clothing industry.
A very boring, very thorough investigation of several cases. But at the very least it's realistic and integral. I don't think such pace can be tolerable today, but this kind of gameplay was totally ok for a realistic mystery story.
15. Kohaku-iro no Yuigon 琥珀色の遺言 [8806] Riverhill Soft inc. 1
Kohakuiro no Yuigon ("Amber Testament") is the first in the row of detective games starring the fictional Japanese private investigator Ryūnosuke Tōdō. The events of the game take places in Japan in the year 1921, and Tōdō must investigate a mysterious murder of a rich man in his own mansion. The deceased had many relatives, and its the detective's job to find out which one of them (if any) has committed the murder.
And another example of through realistic detective game. It is very time consuming. Lots of questionings and gathering evidence needs to be done. But game is based on a famous detective novel and also 1920s Taisho era atmosphere helps a lot. There are as many as 27 characters in this work, but there aren't too many locations so the complex social relations are portrayed very well. But the game is still alive today since it has been released for mobile platforms - an ideal solution to kill time in some traffic jam.
16. Waga Seishun no Youkai Yashiki わが青春の妖怪屋敷 [8806] Dott Kikaku
A group of four people gets locked into a mansion full of youkai ghosts. They move around together to find a way out.
A surprisingly well done game for pc-88. I awakened 43 minutes later to find out that I've finished the first playthrough of the game and there are so many other options to try out on the way. I'll definitely take a keen look at further Dott Kikaku visual novels. Game uses the same system as Endan trilogy. You're not bothered with different commands, but at scenes you get to choose one of several variants and the game branches off according to the selection made. That also promotes consequent playthroughs since lots of paths get skipped. Game has no adult content at all. One of the amazing features is the clear drawing of the text - the best I've seen for pc-88. The text scrolls down automatically and not disappears and reappears - that helps readability a lot. But the biggest feature of the game is its dialogues. The characters explore the house together and comment nearly every your action. It really makes the game feel alive. I have a weak spot for party-based adventures like the Gao-Gao series.
17. The 4th Unit 2 第４のユニット２ [880714] DataWest 1
The 4th Unit 2 is a direct sequel to The 4th Unit. The young and pretty bionic soldier Blon-Win has exposed the dark schemes of the trade organization WWWF. However, a new conspiracy is rising. WWWF has employed another bionic soldier, a young woman named Dalzy, who manages to seal Blon-Win's psychic powers. Blon-Win is arrested by WWWF and must find a way to contact her friends, escape, and defeat the treacherous organization.
A worthy sequel with a bit of more comfortable gameplay. The systems are the same, just a bit fewer commands used. This time the story is bigger, deeper and more action-packed since the majority of the game Blon-Win spends on the enemy territory. The game features a battle scene, but it's not action-based like in Wingman, but rather command selection based one like in rpg. All the damage done in the battle is determined by pure luck. The big changes for the series only start with part 3.
18. Jarinko Chie: Bakudan Musume no Shiawase Sagashi じゃりン子チエ ばくだん娘の幸せさがし [880715] Konami 1 2
First you help those who in trouble as Chie, then as a lost cat searching for way back and finally as Chie's father Tetsu with money being the main theme.
Based on manga.
There is some information in English on the game, but I feel that discussing the game is useless, since the game does not really have its own meaning - it just follows the plotline of several episodes of the anime and gameplay mostly consists of different minigames with some small goal.
19. Lovely Horror - Ochame na Yuurei ラブリーホラー おちゃめなゆうれい [880721] STUDIO ANGEL
Hero Tatsuya is a school student who decides to rent an apartment. The manager of the apartment is a beautiful girl who tells that her father gone missing and that the apartment is being haunted by ghosts. She asks Tatsuya to get rid of the ghosts and find her father and Tatsuya just can not say "no" to her.
The residents of the house are easily possessed by the ghosts and are lewd in that state, so there is a H scene for everyone. But everyone needs his own approach and the wrong turn brings a bad ending. Thus the difficulty degree is high and guide is welcome here. Otherwise the system is same as Endan trilogy - we're give a set of choices and upon selection the game moves on till the next choice. That alone sets such games at very high comfort level. Well, the game has too many spontaneous H events to evaluate it as masterpiece.
20. Soft de Hard na Monogatari ソフトでハードな物語 [880730] System Sacom 1 2
The protagonist is the son of a software company manager and has to fill in as a temporary leader when his father falls sick and is hospitalized. Himself an avid gamer, the young boss has to use his employee's strengths and his own imagination to produce a successful game such as the "Nobara Series" DAME (an obvious parody of DOME).
Second bullet in the novelware games. It inherits all the merits and disadvantages of the genre same as the Dome. The game actually starts with Dome intro pictures and music, then stops midway, strikes out the title and goes another direction - that was nice. Game is mostly a comedy with drawings as if from real manga, but the choices you have to do all the time are very real and serious, so it has high interactivity. Gaming industry was an awkward setting choice back in 1988. And it does not matter whether gaming industry was really like that - what matters is the feeling of freshness and joy during the play. Such games stay in memory with the passage of time. I wish text was not moving automatically messing with the text parts, though.
21. Genji 源氏 [8807] Hot-B
Main character is legendary Genji who searches for a killer.
The first three games of Hot-B were original and left a really good impression. This material is much more difficult. This work is almost entirely stripped of eroticism which makes it even more difficult. Still, they really tried to spice things up. We find out the the criminal actually came from future to change history and we ride the time machine ourselves to get him. That's the twist worthy of Hot-B! Still the flow of the game is not even remotely good enough to fit for a masterpiece.
22. Joshikousei Idol Osanazuma Funsenki 女子高生アイドル おさな妻奮戦記 [8807] STUDIO ANGEL
A school girl is newly married and works as an idol after school. She describes one day of her life.
The work dripping wet with fanservice. The game is a kinetic novel and lasts only a couple of minutes. It's just fanservice CG with provoking commentary. I did not believe that was the whole game and one box even had "DEMO" written on it. So I tried to find the full version and ll the versions were the same. It's really the full work. There used to be such works as well - cute character + nukige.
23. Chotto Meitantei ~Misa-chan Monogatari Series~ ちょっと名探偵 ～美砂ちゃん物語シリーズ～ [8808] Champion Soft
Misa-chan is a cute high school student detective. Her father is changed with an accusation in a hit-and-run incident and she is asked to find the real criminal. Her best friend Kanako will assist in this task.
This work is not included in the Alice Soft freeware list which can only mean one thing - this work is trash that the company wants to forget about. The system is ancient text parser with only some common verbs attached to function keys - that's why I could not move even past the first scene. Story is one-way road with interrogating witnesses, investigating evidences. A characteristic feature is that the screen is divided in two sections - one is usually occupied by Misa-chan picture, but in important moments it's actually used to depict something dramatic. There are no H scenes. The mystery is very plain. Nothing really stands out in this game.
24. Dokkin Minako-sensei ドッキン美奈子先生 [8808] Tect House
A game version of an adult manga with the same name. Student Kenta loves his teacher Minako-sensei very much. Everyone has come to the sea for a holiday, but Minako-sensei disappeared. Kenta starts to search for her.
The manga was a pioneer in portraying only full-weight bodies while still putting child faces. Multiple ending work with branch depending on chosen actions. It's a lighthearted work to enjoy pictures and funny characters, nothing more.
25. Azusa 108 Jimusho あずさ１０８事務所 [880920] Agumix
Main character Azusa is a female private detective. While on a major case of finding the missing relative she also takes a request to investigate consecutive rape cases that occurred at her girls' school dorm.
The second bullet after Sacchan in Agumix fanservice works. Again original manga drawings are digitized. Again story is only nominally there. This time there are only women characters so it's yuri love only.
26. Kujaku Ou 孔雀王 [880921] Pony Canyon, Inc. 1 2 3 4
Kujaku Ou the Peacock King, who is a young monk from Mt Koya with the direction of his
Master, is sent to investigate strange paranormal incidents taking over Japan.
There are English reviews on the game.
27. Erika to Satoru no Yume Bouken えりかとさとるの夢冒険 [880927] Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc 1 2 3
Two children, the girl Erika and the boy Satoru, live together in a small house somewhere in modern Japan. One day, before going to sleep, they notice a strange creature outside: it looks like a pink-white cat (Final Fantasy fans would immediately say: a moogle!), but talks like a human being. Before the mysterious creature disappears, it says only a short sentence: "Children! Find the Time Crown!". Without understanding what he meant by this, but realizing it must be something important, the two young heroes embark the next day on a dangerous journey - the quest for the power of the crown!
There is enough English information on the game.
28. Kimagure Orange Road ~Natsu no Mirage~ きまぐれオレンジロード ～夏のミラージュ～ [8809] Micro Cabin 1 2 3
The game is based on the manga and anime series Kimagure Orange Road. The protagonist is a young boy named Kyosuke Kasuga. He and his siblings (twin sisters) possess supernatural abilities: telekinesis, teleportation, time shift, etc. The tradition of their family forbids them to use these powers publicly. Whenever they fail to hide their unique nature, the whole family has to move. But now Kyosuke has met a beautiful girl, who is being courted by another guy - a big temptation for him to use the powers...
There is enough English (actually, French) information on the game.
29. Onryou Senki 怨霊戦記 [8809] Soft Studio Wing 1
Hiroyuki Kitahara was leading a rather ordinary life in a quiet Japanese town, and decided one day to take a stroll at night, enjoying the picturesque landscape. All of a sudden, a horrifying monster appeared right in front of him. Kitahara wakes up in the hospital and tries to convince the doctors that he was not hallucinating. Teaming up with a young female journalist, Kitahara begins to explore the city, searching for clues to solve the mystery and seeking meeting with onryou - ghosts of people who were wronged in their lifetime and who are back for revenge.
Soft Studio Wing new release. Nothing else needed to be said. After Shiro to Kuro unorthodox start and shock of Makai Fukkatsu and Hadou no Hyouteki expectations are sky high. And in many ways it lives to expectations.
First of all, it's the longest game of this studio so far. Mechanics have been greately improved. Now there's only 4 actions with "look" action not needing to select an object, so the pace got higher. At special areas there are some special icons as well like computer at home and spell when u get demon banishing spell. The only remaining drawback that lots of backtracking needed to be done and sometimes up to 15 areas needed to be walked through to get to a needed area.
Oh, the plot! You happen to get into monster ambush on a street and since then are determined to prove existence of monsters. At first ghosts appear only for a few seconds but as game progresses they become permanent and agressive. You need to get to the bottom of ghost case and find the god responsible for outrage. Easy like that.
The shocking part of the game was how real it looked (not literally, but game still looked great even though it used some 8 colors only). People used to deny existence of spirits, then spirits get coverage in mass media and people just adapt to them and tend it like an everyday problem. They even start counsel practices and set tour guides to make money on it and all are enjoying all the media fuss about their little town.
Game lasts 12 days (and nights). Struggle with the ghost god is impressive, just like in previous two games. Solid and memorable game if you got a stomach for this type of VNs.
30. Fushigi no Kabe 不思議の壁 [8809] System House Oh!
In AD2069 girls of a famous school become attacked by monsters. According to gathered information, they become trapped in a mysterious wall. Main character challenges this wall to save the girls.
Plainly speaking, it's a block break gameplay game with some text and strip images as a reward.
31. Lipstick. ADV Lipstick. ADV [881015] Fairytale 1
In Lipstick Adventure, the player takes the role of Gorou, a young Japanese private detective. One day, a wealthy and powerful old man contacts him and asks him to find a box which - according to him - contained a family treasure. The young detective thinks that fortune has finally smiled to him, but when his pretty girlfriend Otomi disappears, he realizes that the mystery is bigger than he thought...
It's a mix of great plot and humor setting standards for many years to come. That's actually a revolutionary game and because of that it had a great number of sequels.
So we play as detective Gorou and investigate disappearance of some box with heirloom. But there's also high school girl Mami who is a member of school girl detective club who lives next door and accompanies us. The heirloom was easy to find, but on return the office was in chaos.
Game's well remembered because the scenario was made by creator of elf studio in next 1989. Despite embracing interactive adventure genre, story has a great tempo, lots of humor and overall comparatively easy flags to trigger as well as main decisions being done only at the very end.
Why is this game revolutionary?
1. It's the first game that I know that used the contemporary opening with scene shots sequences and astonishing musical theme.
2. It's the first original game that actually empathized charm of characters rather than plot. Seeing a woman walking side by side with the main hero the whole game was a novely itself.
3. It was the first erotic game where erotic content did not play a big role but rather was an element in the plot. And not having an erotic scene with Mami was a nonsense in bishoujo game.
4. Game had gallery collection inside the game called "lipstick".
The game has only one huge shortcoming - pc-98 version is not hookable by any means which makes it off limits for English auditory.
32. Pension Story Hana no Kiyosato ペンションストーリー花の清里 [881025] Adult Inn
Main character Kanzaki Hayaichi is invited to Kiyosato to look after the pension house in his absence. However, the uncle gets killed in the bathroom of the pension house... All the boarders have a motive for the crime and all of them tell different stories. Where will the investigation bring him?
One-way scenario with the branch only for the very ending. The flow is talking with the inhabitants, H scene, showing items and collecting information and when everything is done - final scene where you make a decision of what to do with the evidence. The contents is very ordinary and the shabby plot exists only for the abundant H scenes.
33. Derringer デリンジャー [8810] Clest
You're a private detective and you get a letter saying that 13-year old model Miki is restrained.
The first work of Clest that sets an attempt to introduce idol Miki character that had to appear in the trilogy of the company. In this work Miki is 13, in the second work she's 19 and in the third work she should have been around 15, but third third work was never finished. So this work is not really long - we get to find Miki tied in the warehouse fairly fast. Still this work is notable since like in Lipstick ADV Miki is shown as a heroine with personality and not just an object of desire.
34. MISTY ミスティ [8810] Champion Soft
You are a high school student. One day classmate Miyuki suddenly lost memory. The investigation leads to his girlfriend who suspiciously disappeared a year ago.
Game is not listed in Alice Soft freeware list, so yeah - it's a trash game of Champion Soft. You search for items and use them little by little uncovering Miyuki's past. Game features money so you actually need to save it to buy essential items. Game's only released for very basic platforms of pc-88 and msx which determines its low quality. The interface is horrible, the drawing speed is slow and game just hangs the emulator. Well, if Alice Soft wants us to forget about this game so much, let's just comply.
35. Seikimatsu Tanemaki Densetsu Shoujo Yuugi Ai no tame ni Shine! 世紀末種蒔伝説 少女遊戯 愛のために死ね！ [8810] Great
Since the 1970 the new technologies and introduction of computers resulted in deviation in the male reproductive ability. At the beginning of the 1990s more than 60% of men lost "male function", and women got frustrated with more and more incidents of men raped by women to occur. By 2000 the civilization was about to ruin due to women violence.
Kentaro's sister Yuriko got kidnapped mysterious "Lolita invaders" squadron. Kentaro tried to stop them but got defeated by their captain Yui. A strange old man instructs him how to get to their city base, but now the encounter will be on his terms.
One of the biggest works of Great - an erotic parody on many big hit works of the time including Fist of the North Star, Sukeban Deka, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It's a good thing people of the 1980s were ignorant about the copyright! The scenario is basically a single road, but during the command selection battles it's important not to use certain commands in the first half of the battle. The game is just too fun to play and it's hookable just fine. That's a masterpiece game despite its disturbing nature at times.
36. Skapon Tankentai Skapon 探検隊 [8810] PSK 1
The year is 2028. It is said that an eccentric genius scientist has constructed a laboratory on an island known as Ero-Manga. This island is populated by robots and beautiful girls. An exploration team consisting of an intrepid adventurer and his female assistant, who is looking for her missing father, lands on the island and is prepared to explore the wilderness in search of the laboratory.
PSK last work and - yes - about lolitas again. Skapon Taikentai is a humorous erotic adventure game. There are lots of girls around, but to get to the end of the game it's needed to participates only in absolutely obligatory H events. There is a limit of 9 items to carry with you which is pretty tight considered the number of locations and options. There are two branches and three endings here. At the end of of the game you are warped to Skapon 2, but the sequel never saw the light of the day.
37. Twilight Zone 2 トワイライトゾーン２ [8810] Great 1
Youko, the protagonist's girlfriend, has disappeared. In order to find her he must venture into the dreaded mansion inhabited by sex-hungry women.
The prequel with the command input was hardly playable so now it's pseudo-rpg from first person view. This is an eroge to and from - attack items are erotic journals, defensive items are condoms, fights are H events and venerological infections are status penalties. There is no automapping feature in this game and the territory is huge so manual drawing of a map is needed. This work is memorable for the enemies which had lots of types. It had fish girls, cat girls, dog girls etc
38. Yaritai Houdai やりたい放題 [8810] Lucifer Soft
A nanpa game to choose one of four women and seek their favor in a dialogue.
What differs this game from a usual nanpa game is the high difficulty level. You make choices, but get the result only much later so there is no way to determine what the wrong answers are. In the 1980s kinetic novels and and command selection adventures were considered inferior since anyone could bruteforce them with enough time. But text parser was obsolete as well, so new methods to bring freshness and uniqueness for the genre were thought of.
39. Touhou Kenbun Roku 東方見文録 [881110] Natsume 1 2 3 4
Touhou Kenbun Roku ("The Travels of Marco Polo") is an adventure game that uses the then-ubiquitous NES adventure game system of having a series of menu commands with which to interact with the world. As a text-heavy Japanese adventure game, some fluency with the language is required in order to play it.
The game depicts a troublemaker sent from the future back to 1275, when Marco Polo was in the midst of his explorations.
There is enough English information on the game.
40. Byakuya Monogatari ~Winchester-ke no Matsuei~ 白夜物語 ～ウィンチェスター家の末裔～ [881111] East Cube
College student Hiroyuki Sato came to a hot spring resort and was shocked by western type mansion known as witch's house and decided to sneak in.
This is a museum horror game inside a mansion, but also with comedy elements. It's command selection with verbs selected from vertical row with 2 and 8 keys and nouns selected from horizontal rows with 4 and 6 keys. I tried to bruteforce commands as usual, but I spent over 10 minutes on the 2nd scene and was not able to move on... this game is the hell for bruteforcing. The game is reported to feature battles inside the mansion and multiple endings, especially bad endings.
41. Cosmos Club コスモスクラブ [881111] JAST
Main character is a freshman student who gets to enter a student dormitory "Cosmos club" full of girls. He is secretly in love with one of the girls and seeks her attention.
This work could easily be a part of Tenshitachi no Gogo series, but for some reason it's not. Basically you search for your secret love everywhere and pick wrong doors at times. You get your hands on a certain key and can open only one door with it and the branching depends on which door you get to open. There are two good endings depending on whether you bring the girl some 5 yen coin or not. There are also bad endings. One of the good endings actually has the explanation on the "cosmos" part of the title - it's not just the name of the dormitory.
42. Samurai Sword サムライソード [881115] Capcom 1 2 3
"When the dark priest Soron threatened to engulf the world in shadow, heroes and wizards alike rose against him.
All were defeated.
But a lone warrior still stands..."
You play the role of a samurai that must destroy the forces of Soron. You find, however,
that you cannot defeat him alone, so you must find a light mage who will aid you on your
quest, and most importantly, the sacred weapon known as the Samurai Sword.
There are English reviews of this game.
43. Psy-O-Blade サイオブレード [881119] T&E SOFT Inc. 1 2 3 4 5 6
In 21th century, there are three main powers on the Earth. The free world and the communist block carried over from the 20th century; the third power is the New Communist Federation. Since a program of denuclearizing was supported by all those powers, the New Communist Federation developed a devastating non-nuclear weapon: the satellite "Raiden". The two other powers competed with the New Communist Federation, developing their own killer satellites, and the danger of total annihilation became once again an issue. Seeing no future for the Earth, humans started to colonize other planets. In 22th century, they sent an experimental ship "Septemius 1" to a star six light years far away from the Solar System. The ship's main computer, "Racoon", sent a strange message before stopping any communication. You are Keith McDonnell, a seventeen-year-old crew member of the ship "Septemius 2" that was sent to investigate the strange disappearance. Will you be able to uncover the mystery?
There are English reviews on the game.
44. Snatcher Snatcher [881126] KCET 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
On June 6, 1996 , a chemical weapon known as Lucifer-Alpha under development in Chernoton, Russia, is released into the atmosphere, resulting in the death of 80% of the Eurasian and Eastern European population which in turn results in the death of half of the world's population. The contaminated area becomes uninhabitable for a decade, when Lucifer-Alpha mutates into a non-lethal form. This tragic event later becomes known as "the Catastrophe".
Fifty years later, a breed of artificial life-forms or bioroids known as "snatchers" began appearing in the artificial island of Neo Kobe City, killing their victims and taking their place in society. Nobody knows exactly what they are or where they come from. As Gillian Seed, an amnesiac working for an Anti-Snatcher task force called J.U.N.K.E.R., the player's goal is to track down the source of the snatchers and discover Gillian's mysterious connections with them.
There are English reviews on the game.
45. Chatty シャティ [8811] System Sacom 1
Chátty is the second entry in System Sacom's Novel Ware series. Its story is set in the future and involves a man who was framed for a crime he did not commit. In attempt to clear his name, the protagonist discovers a device that allows interdimensional travel, and ventures into a parallel dimension in search for answers.
Chatty is pc-88 exclusive which determines technical limitations. I would not call it a novelware at all since all you do is struggle through command selection most of the time. A professional novelist was working on the scenario and it's indeed a serious adult story with even some H scenes included. There are multiple endings in this work. System-wise it's unusual in the way that there is an inventory and items in it to manage. This work established novelware principles as a genre, not just one unique work and thus holds the historical credit for it.
46. JACK ジャック [8811] Thinking Rabbit
You are a detective in Los Angeles and need to investigate a murder case with a more veteran policeman. Man was murdered in hotel room and had baseball chip in his pocket.
Thinking rabbit was well known for good adventure stories. Casablanca had a very good plot. This one is not an exception. Black and white America was already stylish. Feature of the game is Joker command that could let you achieve unexpected results but could as well be wasted easily. There's less excitement than in Casablanca, but it's same fulfilling since it tackles with complicated human relationships rather than tricks.
47. No-Ri-Ko 小川範子 No・Ri・Ko [881204] Hudson Soft 1 2 3
It features the japanese singer pop singer Noriko Ogawa, who was just 15 years back in 1988. The games starts with an invitation to one of her live concert. The player, the Lucky Boy as called in the game, will take a day out and probably end up on a date with the young and cute singer.
Game has English reviews.
48. Doki Doki Shutter Chance!! ドキドキシャッターチャンス！！ [881208] Elf
An action game to make photos of 10 girls while evading the teacher within a time limit.
The first Elf work, but I'm not really sure it can be called a visual novel. Well, there are couple pages of synopsis and rules description. It's a pure action game with the only reward in the end. Game is very difficult since there are barriers everywhere and it's not clear where to move. On top of that when you make a photo the girl should stay in the range for like three seconds. If the teacher gets you, you'll have to start anew. I'm not even sure where those 10 girls are since there seem to be few characters on the map. And it all has to be done within a strict time limit on top of that! There are three editions of the game - girls school one, nursery and bus editions.
49. Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Kiken na Futari 探偵 神宮寺三郎 危険な二人 [881209] Data East Corporation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Detective Hunter and his assistant Yulia have been invited to watch Yulia's friend Sabin participate in a motorcycle race. It doesn't all go too well when he crashes in the race, but when the racing team checks up on him it turns out to be Thomas, Sabin's apprentice, under the helmet. The mystery deepens as another friend of Yulia is found murdered in a hotel room.
There are English reviews of this game.
50. Telephone Club Story テレフォンクラブストーリー [881210] Wilduck
Enter a private room and make a call. If conversation is good who knows what it may lead to...
A nanpa game with short etchi scene in the end of each girl part. Three rooms out of five are available and the other two are empty. The heroines are 28 year old married woman and two high school girls of 18 and 16 years old. There's a conversation and it's needed to fill in blank spaces out of the list of pretty absurd variants. It's possible to make 7 mistakes overall.
51. Kaguya-hime Densetsu かぐや姫伝説 [881216] Victor Interactive Software 1 2 3 4
The legend of Kaguya-hime is one of the most popular stories in Japanese mythology. Once upon a time, an old man went to the forest to cut some bamboo, and found a little baby girl. He took her to his house and named her Kaguya-hime. She grew up there, and soon became the most beautiful girl of Japan. Many young men, including the son of the emperor himself, tried to conquer her heart, but for no avail. One day Kaguya-hime confessed she was a moon angel, and returned back to the moon. In this game, you control the son of the emperor, and you'll do your best to reach Kaguya-hime and to protect her. You must overcome various obstacles and meet characters from Japanese folklore.
There are English reviews of this game.
52. The Old Village Story オールド・ヴィレッジ・ストーリー [881223] Enix 1 2
King Kaiser, the mighty ruler of the country Fa-Ral, had a daughter named Lisa, who became gravely ill. Anxious to know what will become of her and his kingdom, the king looks into a magic crystal. The crystal tells him that the one who can make things right is a boy named Shion, who lives in a quiet village far away from the capital city. The king tries to find Shion, but forces of darkness have plans of their own...
Game has English reviews.
53. Akira アキラ [881224] Taito Corporation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Akira is a graphic adventure game based on the 1988 animated movie of Katsuhiro Otomo's epic Manga. Released in 1988 by Taito for the Famicom console, the video game version has the player in the role of Kaneda. Events begin with Kaneda and his motorcycle gang in police custody after their friend Tetsuo has been abducted by the military.
Game has English reviews.
54. Pro Yakyuu? Satsujin Jiken! プロ野球？殺人事件！ [881224] Capcom 1 2
Fictional baseball player is condemned as murderer. He has to hide from police and find the culprit to clear his name.
There is enough English information on the game.
55. Bishoujo Noriko 媚少女ＮＯＲＩＫＯ [8812] System House Oh!
A part of "Sexy voice" series.
Noriko Noriko sees a strange dream where she is attacked by Sexdroid. When she consults a psychiatrist about it, he suggests an experimental therapy.
The game has no other meaning than watch a collection of HCG accompanied by lewd voicing and some animation. Noriko part has the fewest choices in the series and is presented by three consecutive rape scenes that are scrolled in 5 minutes time.
56. Datenshi Kyouko Part 1 堕天使ＫＹＯＵＫＯ Ｐａｒｔ１ [8812] System House Oh!
A part of "Sexy voice" series.
Three esper fallen angels are sent to Kyoko to play with her.
The game has no other meaning than watch a collection of HCG accompanied by lewd voicing and some animation. Wrong choice here results in rewinding back.
57. Endan Tokugawa Kouryuuki ~Gorakuin~ 艶談・徳川興隆記 ～ごらくいん～ [8812] STUDIO ANGEL
Main character occasionally activates time machine and gets to 1582, right after Oda Nobunaga is ambushed and killed. The purpose in this work is to take decisions so that the wars in the country are eliminated and stability establishes for 300 years to come.
I was so excited about this work that I made a full video playthrough till happy end with English machine translation. Game covers the most famous period of Japanese history and tackles it with a lot of care. Over 30 real historical figures are concerned here. There is only one right path to happy ending and the others lead to mysterious girl telling you what was done wrong and asking to try again. There are some more girls encounters if wrong paths are taken, but there are over 10 H scenes even in the main path which I'd even call abundant. This game is a huge masterpiece and it's great that the Western audiences can immerse into it thanks to hook-ability of the game.
58. Makenshi Kumiko 魔剣士ＫＵＭＩＫＯ [8812] System House Oh!
A part of "Sexy voice" series.
Kumiko was indulged in self-satisfaction when she was warped to the island 's ruins where she is attacked by a monster who is an incarnation of her ancient enemy.
The game has no other meaning than watch a collection of HCG accompanied by lewd voicing and some animation. The longest story in the series.
59. Project A-ko 2 プロジェクトＡ子２ [8812] Tatsumi Publishing
Two minigames of slot machine and cards are used to outscore opponents who have enormously more points at the start.
The first part of the series was interesting for its gameplay. This time it's just some cards game and slot machine. You start with 100 points while the second girl has 2,000 at the start and the third has 48,000 at the start. I did not have the patience to see what happens when you actually outscore the other girls.
60. Satsujin wa Tegami ni Notte 殺人は手紙にのって [8812] TwinSoft
Main character is high school student who hears of his friend being fatally hit by train. He has 7 days remaining till school studies start and he intends to find out the truth behind this accident.
The cover is funny, but it's not a light story. Serial murders, attempt suicide, main hero orphan. Most of the game passes in investigating the school and then the university where the murders occurred. The difficulty level is low, so it's possible to bruteforce. Solving this mystery does not really make an impact.
61. What's Michael ホワッツマイケル [8812] Micro Cabin
Cat Michael's beloved got lost and he searches around the town for her.
The adventures of the cat are quite trivial, but if you saw the anime there's a good energetic music, lots of face expressions and beautiful graphics to enjoy. Game's mostly a comedy, so there are many funny scenes in it.
62. Angelus ~Akuma no Fukuin~ アンジェラス 〜悪魔の福音〜 [8812] Enix 1 2 3 4
A business man in Peru and a girl visiting Japan both suddenly fall victim to a strange disease that turns the skin green and partially disfigures the face. The most unusual thing is that these two incidents occurred at the same time. Brian Pall, a journalist from the London Post, was on a flight to London when suddenly one of the passengers is struck with the same disease. These series of outbreaks have lead Brian and his partner, Eris Miler, to start their own investigation. Their discoveries eventually lead them going up against a mysterious religious group.
Game has English reviews.
63. Ankoku Shinwa: Yamato Takeru Densetsu 暗黒神話 ヤマトタケル伝説 [8812] Tokyo Shoseki 1 2 3 4
The game is based on old Japanese legends about Yamato Takeru, a legendary hero of ancient Japan. The game starts when Yamato Takeru is a thirteen-year-old boy. His father was killed under mysterious circumstances. Searching his things, the boy found a postcard that gave him his first clue for the investigation. From that moment, his adventure begins.
Game has English reviews.
64. Gamma Force in Pit Of A Thousand Screams Gamma Force in Pit Of A Thousand Screams [8812] Tom Snyder Productions 1 2 3 4
In a dangerous world, individual superheroes are not enough. Even the best of them - a humanoid made of flame, an elf princess with a mean bow, and a musclebound waterbeast - can't do it all themselves. When they come together, they are the Gamma Force. Can anybody stop them?
Game has English reviews.
65. Josei Shain o Ikasu Hou 女性社員を活かす法 [8812] Champion Soft
Main character is a cosmetics sales division section manager in an Osaka big company. He has a wife and a child, but he does not know how to deal with this subordinates who are mostly beautiful women. He will have to determine an effective approach towards them so that the company flourishes.
There is not a single written world on the game on the web, so I'll have to pull the thoughts from my short experience of the game. First of all, I liked the game despite the fact that it's not in the Alice Soft freeware list. It's a really good game, but I guess an overly serious one, so it did not fit the target auditory of reborn Alice Soft company. Day by day you watch the women of your section and you make decisions like to praise them or to scold them or to call them for a talk. My approach was pretty random and I was actually waiting for a H event to pop up... but nothing happened. In about two weeks of random behavior on my behalf I got game over, so I'm not even sure if it's an eroge or not. It's hookable, so I'd hope to see attention to this game in future.
66. Lane Mastodon Vs. The Blubbermen Lane Mastodon Vs. The Blubbermen [8812] Tom Snyder Productions 1 2 3 4 5
The year is 2029 and the evil Blubbermen have invaded earth. Only heroic Lane Mastodon can stop them, in a setting resembling science-fiction of the 1950's.
Game has English reviews.
67. Shadow Hunter シャドゥハンター [8812] Champion Soft
A famous writer announced his engagement and his bride started to get threats and blackmail. Main character is a detective set to identify the stalker and protect the girl. But as investigation proceeds a murder happens.
Another Champion Soft game that did not get in freeware Alice Soft list. And it uses the same game system as MYSTY which was very crappy. So we gather as much information as possible without taking breaks since those bring a band end. The majority of time is spent while searching inside the buildings. And eventually the mystery gets revealed.
68. Yoru no Tenshi-tachi ~Shitetsu Ensen Satsujiin Jiken~ 夜の天使たち ～私鉄沿線殺人事件～ [8812] Clest
Hero is a detective investigating suicide case. Sister of the deceased girl claims that railroad crossing was the place that girl used to visit a lot.
A sequel to Derringer. Derringer's purpose was to introduce Miki who was 13 years old. And it was rather short game, felt more like a promo material for next game to come. Also there should have been the 3rd Miki game to depict Miki gradually becoming an idol, but it was cancelled. In this game Mike is 19 and she has become an idol now. There are also several friends of Miki present, so it's a nice girl company to enjoy.
It's the second game after Lipstick ADV. (Lipstick ADV. was issued first) where girl is not a capture object, but a full-fledged character to follow main hero. It was also the first attempt to make a mascot character, grandfather of all idol games.
69. ZorkQuest: Assault on Egreth Castle ZorkQuest: Assault on Egreth Castle [8812] Tom Snyder Productions 1 2 3
The Egreth Castle, once the royal abode of the proud king Duncanthrax, has now become a terrifying, haunted place. Trolls, hobgoblins, and night gaunts have turned the castle into their permanent residence. On top of that, an evil, insane, and powerful wizard is controlling everything that happens in and around the castle. A caravan of brave adventurers, guided by a magical amulet, reaches the castle. Will the heroes be able to overcome all obstacles and find a way to defeat the evil?..
Game has English reviews.
The masterpieces of the year 1986: 1. Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu ~Rinne Tensei Hen~ 2. Wingman 2: Kitakura no Fukkatsu 3. Boukenshatachi Kenja no Yuigon 4. Alpha 5. Hokuto no Ken: Violence Gekiga Adventure 6. J.B. Harold no Jikenbo #1 - Final Mystery - Murder Club 7. Casablanca ni Ai o Satsujinsha wa Jikuu o Koete 8. Gall Force - Eternal Story 9. Maison Ikkoku ~Omoide no Photograph~ 10. Suishou no Dragon 11. Little Princess 12. Toki no Tabibito 13. 1000-nen Oukoku
1. Final Lolita ファイナル ロリータ [8601] PSK 1
Final Lolita has little to do with PSK's previous similarly-named titles gameplay-wise; however, it shares with them the macabre premise of sex with underage girls, and is the most explicit and violent of the three. The game's genre is closest to RPG format, since it focuses on a character's attributes and allows the player to increase them. These attributes are Power, Arm Level, Defence, and Technique, each playing a role in upcoming battles. The player can choose to distribute a hundred points among these parameters in the beginning of the game.
We get to set four parameters from the beginning and start the search. Just walking alone spends your precious power, so first of all gasoline and bike need to be found. It's indeed the final loli work of PSK - next ones feature more mature characters.
2. Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu ~Rinne Tensei Hen~ 白と黒の伝説 ～輪廻転生編～ [8603] Soft Studio Wing 1
The second part of the "Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu" tells the story of the victims of the Bermuda Triangle, which was pulled into the distant past. To get back to their world, the crew of the ship will visit the ruins of Atlantis, medieval Europe, ancient Japan, and fight demons.
Again, MSX exclusive and again pretty obscure. This time even more since this work does not seem to be remastered in the future. The game system is the same. One drawback of it is that in order to save there's a need to shift cassettes. The work is memorable for its music that occupied a full cassette. The story is very intriguing. An anomaly is found in the Bermuda triangle and UN mission is sent there. As a result the Atlantis land is discovered that drifts through the time with the power of demons. We get to execute a number of missions through the time to resolve this anomaly like the hundred year old war in France (meeting Jeanne d'Arc, of course) or the end of the Warring States period in Japan. This game is quite crazy and that's a pity it's forgotten.
3. Wingman 2: Kitakura no Fukkatsu ウイングマン2 - キータクラーの復活- [860410] TamTam Co., Ltd. 1
The aim of the game is to find the killers sent from Podrimus dimension and neutralize them. The clues are to be found in the eight locations of the school.
Original story. This time it's more fun since we're accompanied by Aoi or Miki who do all the feedback. It's a pretty cool system that it's enough to write the proper verb and just click on the object - that's almost point-and-click here! There are three chapters with first two moving between the same eight places and the third final one without any moving. In the prequel the fights were happening on a narrow black line with two small characters - this time there is a full battle screen and animation is much better. The scene of transformation to wingman was especially impressive since it has "Ching!" real voice cry coming out and there have not been voiced games yet. There seems to be only two battles in the game though compared to four in the original. So with only 8 locations and two battles the game is really short and a perfect run can be done in 10 minutes if know the exploration part already.
4. Arion アリオン [8604] ASCII Corporation
Game follows the story of anime with the same title.
In Thrace, Arion is taken from his mother Demeter by the god Hades. In the Underworld, Arion is trained to be a warrior. His training is driven by revenge: Arion was told that his mother's blindness was caused by Zeus and Zeus' death will remove the curse. Finally, Arion and Geedo (a huge ape-like creature who had become Arion's friend and companion) left the Underworld to find Zeus. Seneca, a small thief, makes off with Arion's sword and this leads Arion to his first encounter with the forces of Zeus, commanded by his daughter Athena. Arion is captured but is later set free by Lesfeena, Athena's mute serving girl. As Arion rejoins Geedo and Seneca (and worries about Lesfeena), the forces of Zeus and Poseidon face each other in battle. In the background sits the scheming Hades, and the calm Apollon who seems to have plans of his own.
Game has very beautiful graphics since the real scenes from the anime are digitized and used as CG. Command selection is used. There are battles with commands and hp bar, but the result depends on luck and it's not unusual to lose to average even though you're an ultimate assassin god with superior weapons. The story is about Greek mythology and is quite specific - it's actually easy to get stuck without knowing the contents of the OVA. Sometimes you need to not do anything at a certain map in order for a new opportunity open up elsewhere.
5. Galppo Club ギャルっぽクラブ [8604] Micro Cabin
You are a teenager in glasses and with 450,000 yen in the pocket at the center of entertainment part. There are a lot of girls around to get to know.
The systems of the game are quite peculiar. There are 9 squares you can move around. There are random and not random encounters with girls. There are also lots of stats that deteriorate with certain actions like fighting. The rules are actually quite difficult and need lots of dedication to get to know. Game seems to be influenced by Tokyo Nampa street.
6. Boukenshatachi Kenja no Yuigon 冒険者達 賢者の遺言 [860523] ASCII Corporation
Chinese style gag-comedy. You train in the mountains with your master. One day a mysterious stranger hands over a golden a key. And so the adventure starts...
Game symbolizes transition period between text parser and command selection. You start writing a verb, find the needed command in the list and then set it to function key and can use it from there later on. There are over 100 CG here and most of them are really funny, so the gags must be alright. There are some nude images and you can just undress yourself and walk like that - haha - but don't expect for anyone to talk to you while you're like that.
7. Alpha アルファ [8605] Square Co. 1 2 3 4 5 6
Once the natural resources on the Earth were exhausted, mankind started to look up for the next world to go to. Now their destination is a planet in the system of Epsilon Eridani - a star 10.7 light years away. As no means for faster than light travel or frozen hibernation exists, many generations of people will live and die on the ship "Daedalus", before it reaches its target...
There's enough of English information on the game, including English reviews. Great characters and graphics are alone enough for it to be a masterpiece.
8. Hokuto no Ken: Violence Gekiga Adventure 北斗の拳 バイオレンス劇画アドベンチャー [8605] Enix 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the story follows a man named Kenshiro - successor to the deadly martial art known as Hokuto Shinken . Kenshiro travels the world fighting ravagers and rival martial artists, whilst also protecting the innocent and weak. The game covers the first arc of the story, where Kenshiro goes up against his old rival Shin.
I was really astonished by the quantity of information in English on this game. This seems to be the beginning of fighting franchise that really stirs people's minds even today.
9. Mahoutsukai no Deshi 魔法使いの妹子 [8605] Teikoku Soft
In the first part wizard apprentice gets caught in a variety of troubles in the village on her adventure path.
Initially a doujin game that got commercial rerlease in 1986. The drawing is surprisingly nice, but game is quite short.
10. Cosmo Angel コスモエンジェル [8606] PSK 1
In the year 2888 an interstellar organization named Gammos began to terrorize space. Using a powerful new weapon known as GRAY-Q, Gammos launched an unprecedented assault on the headquarters of the Galactic Federation. The special government squad Cosmo Angel was assigned to infiltrate the Gammos base and destroy GRAY-Q. The agents in charge are a young woman named Lina and her ex-boyfriend Akira.
A new PSK game and finally not about lolis... Or wait... is it? Lolis fighting in space? For realz, PSK? The story is quite absurdist and is made just to present cool SF nude pictures as I see it. Just as other PSK works, it's still the same text parser without any development.
11. Day Dream デイドリーム [8607] Cross Media Soft
The theme is visit of aliens. There are three scenarios to choose from: "driver", "policeman", "pilot".
Depending on the scenario chosen the story starts from different points, but the fabula is the same - you get restrained by the aliens in some room and need to get out of there. Otherwise there's no novelty - a very slow drawing speed combined with text parser.
12. Erika エリカ [8607] JAST
Near future. The unknown black shadow enemy is planning to conquer the Earth. Erika is a special agent on a mission to investigate enemy's new weapon Spectron. Protagonist is an information agent that gets into contact with Erika to receive information from her. Together they must infiltrate enemy base and destroy the secret weapon.
So JAST abandoned its Aftrernoon Angels series for the serious SF action? Not really. The game is mostly about Erika H scenes both with hero and enemies and there's not that much adventuring compared. The system is the same as in Afternoon Angels - command selection out of big list of commands.
13. Seijo Densetsu -Five Holy Girls- 聖女伝説 -Five Holy Girls- [8607] Studio Blue
The hero is a detective who chases the mysterious criminal girl Remy who is rumored to have stolen the treasure "GOLD LADY". In the game you get to interrogate girls one by one with the aim to get information about Remy.
That's a pretty lame synopsis, but anything really goes for a nukige. There are five chapters each for a new girl and the sixth chapter finalizes the deed. Game is pretty disgusting since pretty much all the time is spent on interrogating the girls and there's nothing "saint" or "holy" in it.
14. 1000-nen Oukoku 1000年王国 [8608] LOG 1 2
The prophet Nostradamus has foreseen that the world as we know it shall end in the year 1999, and the thousand-year kingdom of angels and children will commence. A young boy named Shou is at first unaware of these prophecies, enjoying a normal life with his sweetheart Alisa. However, a series of events changes his life forever, as he is entrusted with the task of saving humans by discovering the ancient continent of Atlantis.
There's a good big walkthrough in English and mobygames article on top of that.
15. Five Sweet Dream ファイブスイートドリーム [8608] Great
There are five rooms and you are to fulfill the wishes spoken aloud there.
This piece of software is quite close to the Five Holy Girls. Same number five, same doing H to five girls, same troublesome and long process. The company actually had to take all the extreme scenes out of it and publish them separately.
16. J.B. Harold no Jikenbo #1 - Final Mystery - Murder Club J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 - 殺人倶楽部 [8608] Riverhill Soft inc. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
A horrible murder has taken place in the sleepy little town of Liberty. Bill Robbins, a wealthy man known for his wild womanizing ways is the victim and, list of possible suspects keeps growing. As J.B. Harold you must figure out the who, what, where and why of the case. To solve the mystery you will need to travel to various locations, interview people and search for clues.
Game was localized in English and sold over 20 millions copies in the West, so it has a great press coverage. I only list here five of the more conventional sources.
17. Shoumakyou no Densetsu 照魔鏡の伝説 [8608] Starcraft Co., Ltd.
Main character is caught by the enemy and starts in prison. He needs to break free and explore Japanese castle to find five pieces of the mystery mirror within time limit.
There is both time limit and number of commands input limit, but overall commands aren't difficult.
18. Casablanca ni Ai o Satsujinsha wa Jikuu o Koete カサブランカに愛を 殺人者は時空を越えて [8610] Thinking Rabbit 1
June 1945. Chicago newspaper female reporter Jerry Randolph gets a letter from missing school friend saying that friend's father Mr. Edgar was conducting a dangerous scientific research. Jerry hurries to that adress only to find out that Mr. Edgar is stabbed and the research is a time machine. Jerry undertakes a time travel to year 1916 to get to the root of mystery.
Quite an ok nostalgic SF mystery story, but it's stuffed with the same text parser so feels ancient while everyone else already shifted to command selection. The colored X68000 version actually uses command selection formula and colored screens, but misses much of the charm of the original version along with the cool original character designs. It still can be called a masterpiece.
19. Christine クリスチーヌ [8610] PSK 1 2 3
A young girl was enjoying a happy life with her boyfriend when suddenly, out of nowhere, a powerful spell was cast and the poor boy was turned into stone. A sorceress named Christine appears and says that another sorceress called Jane was the culprit. The young heroine must find a way to defeat Jane and revert her boyfriend to normal.
There are two English reviews of the game (from the same person, but for different versions and are somewhat different).
20. Kudokikata Oshiemasu 口説き方教えます [8610] Hard
Nampa game with CG reward for the right answers in dialogue for each girl.
The game does not really leave any doubts of its content with nude images showing up twice during first couple minutes of the game. So each girls needs her own approach and you can use hits to try to guess her likes. If you still fail, you just move on to the next girl. Thus is the title - Please teach me how to speak.
21. Nichiyoubi ni Uchuujin ga…? 日曜日に宇宙人が…？ [8610] Soft Studio Wing
Absurd story based on a novel. A reporter and photographer are sent 20 years back in time with the help of mad scientist to write a special article. That brought attention of aliens who attacked from Andromeda.
Soft Studio Wing again which means that the game is MSX exclusive again and is difficult to find. The development is quite absurt, but the commands set are fairly usual. The text drawing speed has increased significantly since the Legend of White and Black. The difficulty level is reported to be moderate and the progress quite fun.
22. Dead Zone デッド ゾーン [861120] Sunsoft 1 2 3 4
In the space calendar 0385, the Earth suffers from overpopulation and humans started to build space colonies. Kirk, the protagonist of Dead Zone, works for the Earth federation's space development office. He is a brilliant engineer in space physics and he is working for Sirius third planet colony. He also got engaged with his beloved girlfriend Marry, but they had to postpone their wedding. Five months later, Kirk, accompanied with his robot Carry, decides to meet Marry at last, and prepare the ceremony. But when he arrives at the space station, everything is quiet. Then a beam of light hits him. He wakes up sometimes later, inside a sort of underground graveyard.
The game was released for NES and thus it's more familiar for the Western auditory than pc88 counterparts. There are some English reviews on the game.
23. Cinderella Perudue シンデレラ ペルデュー [8611] STUDIO ANGEL
The hero gets a strange message from communication club "BC" one day. In the encounter with five girls he needs to get the information to decipher the message.
Five holy girls, then five sweet dream and now five Cinderellas. This time there's at least normal gameplay. You have time limit, 45,000 yen and the girls in the town to talk to. This is an actual talk, not an interrogation with torture, but there are enough H events in the game anyway. There is no explanation of the title in the game - the best I can think of is that we're give time limit (24 hours) to settle the deal as well.
24. Golques ゴルコス [8611] DataWest
Hero is dragged into an alternative dimension in pursuit of woman named Daisy. This dimension is a battlefield between warrior girls and grotesque monsters who serve the Queen.
This is not really a game to reflect on. When I tried to make a longer video I encountered two H scenes right after that. It's more about cool and cute girls assaulted. Text parser is still used for game progression.
25. Lolita Hime no Densetsu ロリータ姫の伝説 [8611] Bond Soft
An adventure to rescue princess Lolita trapped in a certain castle in Europe.
A kusoge from the creators of Time Secret and Time Tunnel. The evergreen text parser is present. This game was shocking as it introduced scat scenes for the first time in game history.
26. Seijo Panic 聖女ぱにっく [8611] Studio Blue
The game picks up where the prequel ended. The "GOLD LADY" turned out to be a fake and the hero chases the girls to reveal the truth.
So five holy girls weren't already enough and thus here you with a sequel made just 4 months after that. Five more girls to assault. Game system pretty much the same. The ending is reported be kind of heartwarming, but I'm not going to check out with this kind of a game.
27. Gall Force - Eternal Story ガルフォース Eternal Story [861210] ScapTrust
The game is based on the anime series. Gall Force is a unit of seven girls that reach the satellite and get on a mission to protect if from the Paranoids.
The game implements command selection (short list!) and looks absolutely gorgeous for pc88 game. I totally loved this game and would probably get to an end of it... but I found video walkthrough and thus I recommend it instead.
28. Maison Ikkoku ~Omoide no Photograph~ めぞん一刻 ～想いでのフォトグラフ～ [861210] Arrow Soft 1 2
You are Godai Yuusaku. You begin the game in Godai's room no. 5. Now then, what should you do? First how about trying to get the beautiful Kanrinin-san of Maison Ikkoku? To do that you will want to enter her room right? And you can meet her face to face and drink tea... And after that you can take her hand and...
There are two reviews of this game with one being of yours truly.
29. Suishou no Dragon 水晶の龍 [861215] Square Co. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The game is set in a science fiction-like setting, where the teenage main character must investigate a series of kidnappings and the mysterious dragon that suddenly appeared in outer space.
The game is released for NES and has multiple English reviews.
30. Little Princess リトルプリンセス [861225] Champion Soft 1 2 3 4 5
The first game for Windows OS of Champion Soft (the later Alice Soft), contains pretty girl Miki and young warrior Kentarou trying to save her beloved one kidnapped by some evil guy.
The game has an English release for Windows and there are some English reviews of it.
31. Toki no Tabibito 時空の旅人 [861226] Kemco Corporation 1 2
Based on the events of anime work with the same title. Time Stranger is the story of several teenagers getting transported back in time through Japan's history, and getting mixed up with samurai shenanigans.
There is an English review and a guide for this NES game.
32. Cream Lemon - Star Trap くりぃむレモン スタートラップ [8612] JAST 1 2
The game faithfully follows the part 10 "Start Trap" of anime series Cream Lemon with some insignificant for the plot additional scenes.
The game does not really follow anime episode faithfully. The very start shows the battle with the robot. Then there are some everyday life scenes and then the H scene that I failed to get through even with walkthrough. The text parser is very painful even with a list of frequently used commands to the right.
33. Luna City Satsujin Jiken ルナシティ殺人事件 [8612] Bond Soft
You play as detective in charge of investigation of Luna city mayor murder in 2216 AD. You have both male and female body with a single personality and can switch them on will.
The zapping potential is not realized here at all since everything important for the plot can be done with either character, but it's still the first zapping game. The personality is single between the two bodies, so it can't even be called multiple perspective one or multiple sites one. Otherwise nothing special.
34. Pop Lemon ポップレモン [8612] Champion Soft
Game is a gag comedy. Main hero aims for a true pedometer. He sets on a journey to get "Eros", the source of power of lolicon.
I failed to get through the text parser, but there is actually a full video walkthrough at nicovideo. And there is too much loli dubious content to even try to investigate it.
35. Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu ~Asuka Hen~ 白と黒の伝説 ～アスカ編～ [8612] Soft Studio Wing 1
The final part of the trilogy "Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu" takes us into the 199X-th year. Humanity is on the verge of extinction because of mysterious climate catastrophe. The city lays in ruins, food supplies running out, day temperatures reaches +50, and at night drops to -40 degrees. Rumor has it that all of these events are associated with the advent of the demons in our world and are signs of impending apocalypse. A group of brave heroes decides to use the last hope and goes into the mountains in search of a mythical temple, which according to legend hid all the answers.
The third part brings some point-and-click elements. This is hands off the darkest work of the trilogy and the most depressive one. And the ending here is quite miserable, so I fail to see the appeal in this final work.
36. Youkiden 妖姫伝 [8612] Hot-B 1
Coming to rest on the nature, six friends accidentally stumble into the woods on a strange cave. For fun they decide to look into it and find there the remains of an ancient temple. That's a find! Inside the temple, the main character catches the eye of a beautiful comb - and she decides to take it with you as a souvenir. But as you know, steal things from the temple - a very bad idea. From this day girl nightmares every night, and her friends begin to die one by one.
"YoukiDen" became the first Japanese horror containing erotic scenes. Another notable feature of game is the abundance brutal shock-content - a scene, where a zombie samurai cut hands alive girl (and then raped her), made "YoukiDen" most brutal and bloodthirsty horror game of its time (however, this status from the game will last long, because a year later in the arcades will legendary "SplatterHouse").
The novelty of this work is that the screen is displayed as manga strip. There are 9 commands given for selection, but soon you realize that you need to manually enter other commands as well. It's not the first work to introduce eroticism together with gore (Christine had the same stuff), but the first one with such huge amount of it.
37. Soapland Story ソープランドストーリー [8612] Hard
City nampa adventure.
There's nothing special about this work apart of the fact that it paved the way to future SIM mixes such as Welcome to the Cinema House by Hard later on. There are stats so it may even be called an RPG. The view is top down and the graphics are rough.
So there are very few VNs in 1985 and even fewer account for masterpieces. Karuizawa Yuukai Annai was obviously a favorite after Horii Yuji won the previous two years, but the game lacks the mystery and fills it with lots of fanservice. El Dorado Denki gets a pretty devastating review. Tenshi-tachi no Gogo is an eroge that I would strike out if it weren't in the 80s. Abyss II and Dezeni World still use text parser. So why not Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu first title? The story is fresh and serious. There is only command selection. That's definitely not the worst option and a good read!
1. El Dorado Denki エルドラド伝奇 [8501] Enix 1 2 3 A young Japanese man receives an unexpected call from his friend Akira in the middle of the night. He hurries to Akira's house, only to find him dead under unclear circumstances. Checking out his computer files reveals information about his sister, who was allegedly kidnapped. The trail leads to the mysterious land of El Dorado in South America, populated by tribes of Amazonekos ("Amazon cats"), who look like young attractive human females with cat tails. In order to solve the mystery, the hero must find a way to view tattoos adorning various body parts of the young ladies. There are two English reviews on this game.
2. Saiyuuki 西遊記 [8501] Gamu
Saiyuuki or Journey to the West is one of the four great books of China. Sanzo Hoshi and Son Goku to go on a journey to examine Buddhist scriptures. Sanzo Hoshi gets caught by a monster and carried to the top of the mountain. Son Goku sets off to rescue his friend. He will need to defeat numerous monsters and pass through three demon gates. There are four layers of the mountain, so we need to travel around and look for a gate while getting into numerous fights.
3. Juggler Stone ジャグラーストーン [8501] Riverhill Soft inc.
Collecting all three juggler stones is supposed to bring great power. Main character acquires one stone by chance and heads to Alpha Town to find traces of the other two with the help of characters met along the way. A classic short adventure that's notorious for instant picture display and unexpected ending.
4. Asteka アステカ [8502] Nihon Falcom
Main character Annie comes to the recently discovered archaeological site at Latin America. She believes that he can finally reveal the mysteries of ancient Aztec civilization. A rather unique game with adventure spirit. The prominent features are ability to write commands with a commas and to track back your progress. The difficulty is high since commands are elaborate.
5. Time Zone [8502] Starcraft Co., Ltd. 1 2 3 4 5
Time Zone is a multi-disk graphical adventure game written and directed by Roberta Williams for the Apple II. Developed in 1981 and released in 1982 by On-Line Systems (later Sierra Entertainment), the game was shipped with six double-sided floppy disks and contained 1,500 areas (screens) to explore along with 39 scenarios to solve. Produced at a time when most games rarely took up more than one side of a floppy, Time Zone is one of the first games of this magnitude released for home computer systems. There are English reviews.
6. The Count ザ・カウント [8502] Starcraft Co., Ltd.
Main character heads to Count Dracula castle to rescue travelers lost in stormy weather. There are only three days given to defeat the vampire with the help of garlic and holy cross. Quite a creepy horror adventure. If Dracula manages to drink hero's blood for several times, then protagonist becomes vampire himself.
7. Doukeshi Satsujin Jiken 道化師殺人事件 [8503] Thinking Rabbit
A summer resort town Brighton stands not far from London. A small circus troupe becomes the main attraction of the season. Just a day before the premiere clown Charles Dubois is found dead in a shower wagon. The cause of death is a knife strike from the back. Main character is a detective who is called from London to resolve this case. A particularly famous game of the time. The entire town is the stage, and moving is done with common 2 4 6 8 numerals. There's a huge number of suspects. Game even has Sega Saturn remake with prominent graphics and normal command selection system.
8. New Godzilla ニューゴジラ [8504] Toho The aim is to repel Godzilla and prevent the Soviet missiles from launching. The story is divided into three parts and proceeds according to the film events. Again Toho, again Godzilla. The "New" in the title is set to mean the shift from child cartoons back to original horror. The plot actually follows that one of the movie quite faithfully. There are some real time elements included while searching. At the very least this time the graphics are tolerable and the drawing speed is fast.
9. Tokyo Nanpa Street Ｔｏｋｙｏナンパストリート [8504] Enix 1 2 3
You have to manage your stay at a local hotel and, during the day, use your wiles in conversation to snag a girl for the night. The most crucial phase of the game is the restaurant conversation you have with a date, which involves careful selection of options from a text tree. There's no real plot, just these conversations with artificial intelligence. There are some numbers to take into account while talking, especially the money factor. There are 55 females in the game with only small differences about them. This game still is the founder of the whole genre and historically significant.
10. Karuizawa Yuukai Annai 軽井沢誘拐案内 [8505] Enix 1 2 3 4
Kumiko and her younger sister Nagisa are spending their vacation in Karuizawa. One day Nagisa went out to the supermarket to do some shopping, but then failed to return to the villa they were staying at. Kumiko also receives a strange phone call later that night. With the police not being very helpful, Kumiko and her boyfriend (i.e. you) decide to take matters into their own hands. This is actually the third work from the same people who did Portopia and Okhotsk detective stories previous years that became game of the years 1983 and 1984 from my point of view. There is enough English information on the work including the full review from an author whom I nearly worship for playing these old games these days.
11. Tankentai 2 - Makyou Amazon no Okuchi ni Kogane Densetsu o Mita! 探検隊第二弾 魔境アマゾンの奥地に黄金伝説を見た！ [8506] DataWest Game is a parody on famous Japanese geographical TV show. It is reported that gold is found on the Amazon river with the aim of raising TV rating and expedition is sent there alongside TV unit. This is the game that I failed to find rom for which explains why it's so obscure. Anyway, text parser is used and you need to guess not just the appropriate answer for the situation, but the best one to raise TV ratings of the program. Item collection is important. The whole location takes 6x7 squares, or 42 screens. The end TV ratings depend on the actions taken, so it was nice to compare results afterwards.
12. Tenshi-tachi no Gogo 天使たちの午後 [8506] JAST 1 2 3 4 Tenshitachi no Gogo is an adventure game set in a Japanese high school. The goal of the game is to seduce Yumiko Shiraishi, the star girl of the tennis club. To seduce her, the protagonist will have to become acquainted and intimate with her friends by talking to them. The ancestor of bishoujo games since before there were mostly lolicon games. And finally the characters are drawn really cute here. There is a list of commands to the right, but inputting your own is also allowed. The game is also notable for the glorious JAST sound. It's the shockingly good visual and audio quality that makes this game a masterpiece.
13. Abyss II ~Tears of Emperor~ アビス Ⅱ ～帝王の涙～ [8507] Humming Bird Soft 1
In the year 3006, various organizations in the galaxy are searching for a legendary weapon known as Tears of Emperor. It is said that possession of this weapon will allow its owner to dominate the entire world. A criminal syndicate called Grimp has devised its own scheme for procuring the weapon. They kidnapped a well-known space explorer and infused his body with a tiny neutron bomb. If the explorer will not obtain Tears of Emperor for them, the bomb will detonate... It's still text parser, but common commands are set to function keys. The graphics are much better. This is actually a work of high completeness.
14. Yellow Lemon イエローレモン [8508] PSK 1 2 Yellow Lemon is a simple text-based simulation game consisting entirely of conversations with four school girls. The player has to type conversations topics and responses, hoping to increase the girl's "liking" parameter. Once it is high enough the girl would assume erotic poses and sexual relationship is implied. Afterwards the game switches to another girl for the same procedure. Tenshi-tachi no Gogo released two months before really shifted the gears from lolicon games to bishoujo ones. Even the originator of loli genre PSK introduced older girls in this new game. It's not a real conversation that's used in the game since you don't really ask questions. You only get to answer them, so interrogation or a quiz is more appropriate. The reward is nude CG. At this time there was already EMMY artificial intelligence bishoujo software, so this game felt dated. There is an English review on the game.
15. Will: The Death Trap II ウィル デス・トラップII [8509] Square Co. 1 2 3
President of the United States of America receives a letter with simple, but blood-chilling words: within the next twenty-four hours, the entire life on Earth will be annihilated. Specialists track the sender of the letter to a small island named Torinia somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Special agent Benson is sent there with the ultimate mission: find out who sent the letter, or prepare for the destruction of the world... The game has enough information in English including one review.
16. Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu ~Hyakki Hen~ 白と黒の伝説 ～百鬼編～ [8511] Soft Studio Wing 1 Story begins with an incident in a psychiatric hospital - at midnight the third floor of the building suddenly burst into flames. Reporter from the local newspaper arrived on the scene to write an article. After interviewing witnesses it appears that the fire started in the chamber of 301 - but the cause of fire remained unknown. Moreover, the patient of this chamber disappeared - even his body could not be found. After a long search, the reporter still finds the missing patient on the streets - but he just mumbles some strange prophecies. The next day, the usual trip on the train turns into a nightmare for our reporter: when the train enters a tunnel, the world outside the window suddenly begins to change and he find ourselves in a terrible alternative world. But all this is only a prelude to the coming apocalypse. First game of Soft Studio Wing and MSX exclusive. MSX placed really harsh limitations on the games and thus very few colors are used. The drawing speed is slow. Pure command selection is used, so it's at least user-friendly. The game was later released as Desctruction series and better known as that.
17. Dezeni World デゼニワールド [8512] Hudson Soft 1 2 This time the player is put in the role of an onscreen character - Dezeni Man, a fat dishevelled loser who bears some kind of resemblance to Hudson spokesperson Toshiyuki Takahashi (also known as Meijin Takahashi, who was also the main character of their Adventure Island series, although he denies the connection.) His goal - to infiltrate Dezeni World and disable the evil computer HAL3 (a parody of the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, although in Japanese it's pronounced "harumi", a girl's name.) There's a good English article on the game.
18. Lupin Sansei ~Cagliostro no Shiro~ ルパン三世 ～カリオストロの城～ [8512] Toho After a successful robbery leaves famed thief Lupin III and his partner Jigen with nothing but a large amount of fake money, the so called "Goat Bills," he decides to track down the counterfeiter responsible—and steal any other treasures he may find in the Castle of Cagliostro, including the "damsel in distress" he finds imprisoned there. However, as usual, Inspector Zenigata is hot on his trail. RPG game based on animation movie of the same name. Player chooses Lupin or one of the other two heroes and investigates the castle. Scenes from the OVA are used for as title screen and demo screens. This game is obscure because in 1985 there was another Lupin III game with the same title but being an arcade and that game got much better spread and coverage.
19. Harry Fox ~Yuki no Maou Hen~ は～りぃふぉっくす ～雪の魔王編～ [8512] Micro Cabin Mother Fox died of hunger in the snowfall. Little Fox was found and nursed by girl Mari. Basically they wanted to give slightly different story, just in winter aesthetics. Now we get to meet winter animals and birds and there's also girl Mari looking for the fox.
Foreword: This is Kanno-san's scenario and I could not miss on it. There are a lot of good English reviews on the game so I'll try to just add some additional thoughts I have on top of those reviews.
Title: Exodus Guilty
Developer: Abel
Date: 1998-07-31
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v172
Synopsis:The year 2000. Kasumi Shindo is at first glance a run-of-the-mill high school student in modern-day Japan. However, beneath his normal appearance, Kasumi is in fact a top-notch treasure hunter. This time, Kasumi is aiming to seek out the lost 11th Commandment of Moses. Kasumi discovers that his childhood friend, Reina Tachibana is in southern Europe participating in an archeological dig. Pretending to be a tourist, he visits the excavation area and manages to get put on the excavation staff. But he is not the only treasure hunter looking for the Eleventh Commandment of Moses and before he knows it, he's embroiled in a dangerous adventure.
Structure: There are three stories - one 1200 B.C. fantasy story, one 2000 A.D. treasure hunting adventure and 13,800 A.D. future anti-utopia fantasy. Story-lines exist pretty much separately only to be loosely connected by girl Will and flashbacks from the other time to help on puzzles. All the lines coincide in the last chapters of last "Future" Volume 3. So basically I consider first two stories to be preparatory and I'll focus only on 3rd Future story. I feel that the chosen composition is wrong - it's 1st chapter of Past, then 1st chapter of Present, then 1st chapter of Future, then full Present, then full Past, then full Future. In my video walkthrough I went for showing full Past, then full Present, then full Future. This really feels more logical to me since all the roots and the Will story are in the Past. And when seeing all those first chapters one by one and then Present my head was already blowing up from the characters and the kind of mess it created.
Length: 21 hour
Game type: Epic multi-story ADV with minimal interaction (speaking of DVD version only, ofc)
Difficulty: DVD version is supereasy, but I got stuck once at a puzzle that was not properly described. I left a link at VNDB discussions page of the game to prevent other people from wasting time.
Character Design rating: 10/10
Protagonist rating: 8/10
Story rating: 9/10
Game quality: 8/10
Overall rating: 9/10
Rating comments: Why such a high score again? Well, VNs are akin to literature, what matters is whether I like it or not. And if I like it, there's no point thinking which one is better. I really loved the story here - arigato, Kanno-san! And that might easily be 10 if I played Japanese pc version. There are a lot of protagonists in this game and I have grudges to some of them. I think I'll develop on it in characters section. I also blame the structure as video is not as engaging as game and pouring all three story lines all at once was very confusing and only belief in Kanno-san actually made me unwind this mess. But when things get clear, it's a very engaging story - thus the high scores.
Protagonist: There are too many of them.
Characters: There are three sets of characters. The setup of characters on the screen changes a lot with the story. Let's look at characters in bulk, according to their epoch.
Past: Main characters cast are a swordsman Ales and his foster mother Masa. Masa bears some strange tattoo and she sends Ales to find Will - another girl with such tattoo since their fates were linked and Mother Spirit was calling to do that for some reason only Gods could understand. But in order to pay a visit to the God one needs to gather sacred books of elements and oracles of those elements. That's pretty much what we do during the whole Past chapter. Of course we find Will as well under strange circumstances. So Ales is a pretty straightforward swordsman who fulfills the will of his mother and who protects those who are dear to him and... pretty much everyone else, even his enemies, lol. This is a traditional fantasy story, so there's no need for quirky characters, but without some gameplay it's quite boring to watch. Well, some of the four oracles are pretty cool/funny so they ease the tensions and their interactions basically save the narration. This part is seinen enough, but it gets to be pretty dull due to very serious characters and lack of fights.
Present: From left to right we have Kasumi, Ai's sister Reina and fiance Ai. Reina is much older and already divorced - she is always flirting making Ai mad. Kasumi and Ai actually only met 10 years ago and they they fight all the time over everything. Kasumi is basically interested in money and treasures and he does not really encourage Reina moves. Ai is also quite stingy and only Reina moves bring her tolerance to the brink and she starts acting aggressively to any "oppai" girl near Kasumi. That creates some comical situations, but at the same time is an eternal source of drama. And the further it goes, the more drama it is. So at times it was really nauseating. And at some point I got somewhat disappointed in Kasumi as well. It was at one scene where Kasumi was getting down to the den on a rope. Ai threatens to jump down from that insane height if Kasumi does not take her with him. Here's the exact extract:
- If not, I'll kill myself.
- Then die.
- I will die.
- Die right now, here. In less than 10 seconds.
- Meanie. I'm going to cry.
- Cry if you can. Cry.
It's presented in a comical manner, but it was not funny for me. Too much relations hustle, predictable characters' behavior and lack of intelligent talks did not let me enjoy this volume. So it's a great shounen story, but I can only appreciate seinen stuff.
Future: The cast from left to right is scientist Titi, secret royal family descendant Sui, self-supporting town boy Tatsuta and Sui's bodyguard Laily. Oh, and don't foget this animal... something (squirrel?) Railulu. Sui basically plays the role of straightforward and cheerful bakagirl while Laily is reserved and she does everything right. Titi is a chatterbox, she usually supports Sui in everything and provides scientific advice when needed. Tatsuta is a usual town boy who lives alone and who this time allows girls to have food and shelter for a mere trifle - wedding Laily! He's pushy and manages to win her heart little by little and this sideline is really nice.
Story: I seem to have tackled a lot on story already, so let's finally focus on the main part as I see it - Future 13,800 AD. For 40 years earthquakes and acid rains devastated the Earth burying the scientific civilization and the remaining humanity declared science outlaw in order not to repeat previous mistakes. The royal house monopolized the right for science as people needed to survive somehow in this barren wasteland. Royal house suffers from a spree of coup d'etats and this last king is a very cruel man who's seeking for descendants of former family and especially for a girl matching Sui's description. Sui and Laily's foster mother asked them to find some Uu person and give him the Key of Will. And they have no idea where to search for those. That takes first half of Future story and the second half is meeting the guys from Past and Present and together facing their fate.
CG: I seem to be not demanding towards CG quantity but this game has a whole ocean of CG - even many small actions have one. Game really tried to look like an anime so it has some animated sequences and a lot of screen changes. Outside of my habit, I'm not going to post gore CG this time since there aren't many of them and they can be spoilers.
HCG: None since it's initially a PS1 and dreamcast game and only much later it got PC version version. It's a very funny version to see since usual CG have low resolution and PC HCG are of very high resolution.
Sound: The good part is that it's full voice even with all the protagonists voiced. The bad part is that some lengthy conversations with side characters aren't really voiced or voiced up to 3-4 phrases. It does not hurt at all, but just for the justice sake let's say that it's only about 85% voiced.
Humor: Future part is culmination and it has quite much humor in it. One example is that Layla always apologies to Sui and says "It must be in my character". For the first times it looks ok, but later she tells the same thing to the very little notices like you look moody today or is it you stomach growling.
There was one fabulous joke when Titi, Sui and Laila with Railulu needed to see guards out and they consequently tried to use sex appeal on them. First Titi failed with her charms, then Sui was ignored and sent off and then came this.
Game also uses repeats wisely. In this very scene the fourth try was Layla's and her appearance actually melted men's hearts and maybe something else as well. In another scene later on the three girls were trying to get food and shelter from Tatsuta and he asks a girl to become his wife. Titi and Sui blush and say they're not ready and here's the except:
- But let me tell you something, I have no interest in cow breasts or eyeglasses monkeys.
- ....Raylulu? What, are you...?
That was pretty awesome.
Themes: It's mostly and adventure work with pretty straightforward characters, but there are couple themes that I was able to discern:
1) God's will VS human logic. This is the major theme of the game. All the time we're asked to do weird things. Seemingly horrible events occur due to some god's will without much explanation. The future part is the one where this conflict becomes the culmination of the game and heros are confused what to do - blindly follow God's will or send the Gods to hell and try to preserve humanity as it is. You can guess from the game's title which side wins.
2) Sacrifice. There are quite a lot of sacrifices in the game. Sacrifices are the least logical thing to do and yet so many characters choose it over persecuting their own goals. As one of the character explains: "Death is not the end. It's the beginning". Well, it falls in perfectly with the first theme. After all, it's the game about God's will and it's a difficult topic to develop since irrational actions won't get much appeal. Still the game does its best in that and sacrifices are seen as fulfilling some selfish-less desires for the greater good of others and at least look organic with the setting.
Overall comments: By now it should be evident that Guilty Exodus was much to my liking even though I tend to dislike religion and shounen stories. My first reaction was akin to that depicted in beliar review. Too much information poured at once, seemingly meaningless dull talks, false drama, religious preaching, random events, lack of gameplay. It's a different work that we usually get to see in visual novels. We got the worst release of the game translated - DVD video one. If it was a different release - it'd be a perfect game and I would not need to rant at all. If it was a different release, we'd need to pay great attention to game progress because it would be a gameplay issue. DVD release is basically a video with just a few meaningless choices so it's easy to get distracted, listen to it only as background and inevitably compare it with compact and fast-paced anime works. Guilty Exodus is very demanding to the player right from the start. It's easy to get confused with all that information. But if you take it seriously, you'll be able to enjoy one of the best stories written by Kanno Hiroyuki, on par even with YU-NO.
Foreword: Yatohime Zankikou has an absolutely starry staff, great chuni story, astonishing visuals and lots of fighting girls. Everything promises the ultimate score, but why average scores are just between 7 and 8 then?
Synopsis: A god called Yatonokami who is worshiped by men is now sleeping. Or is he? Somewhere, somewhat, something arose and its manifestations are possessing people and turning them into 'oni'...
You're Nagamine Yuuma, an ordinary student, the one who is woken up by his cute female neighbor friend every morning...
But in truth Yuuma isn't really a normal guy, his body has the power to produce electricity (that he only has some limited control), which made him considered as freak for most of his life. He moved in a new town 3 years ago though, and now he is enjoying that new life a lot, because at last he found friends who aren't bothered by his 'abnormality' -- in fact, his neighbor Sakurako has an obvious crush on him. But he also has weird dreams about... being someone else...
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCFoeng74Do&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv-7GaQiAmbz7XVCKGErvE-a
Game type: Chuni with a lot of katana fights
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 6/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 10/10
Overall rating: 7/10
That's one of the weirdest scores splits that I set. Game is of great quality made by all the canons of the genre. But nothing really touched me here.
First about the advantages. There's a huge number of CGs. There is no shortage of cool and charismatic characters. Everyone but protagonist is voiced. Battles are full of special effects. The last, but not the least, heroines show a lot of sex appeal, especially Tou that almost comes to the level of Cala from Viper RSR. Girls have very long and varied individual routes each written by different authors.
As for the shortcomings, let's start with the story, as usual. It's a normal school chuni, but with events actually unwind really fast. We get attacked by a huge monster very early and saved by Tou. The next day there's a new monster attack, and this time it's Tsukiko turn to save us. But Tou shows up as well, so they have a clash. Yuuma electricity ability gets known, so Towa moves to his class to observe him closely. Then the priestess with her pets shows up, followed by evil spirit attack etc... What I hated the most in all this mess is that nothing is explained. There's no firm backstory, no build-up. Right away random action events get thrown in your face. A huge number of characters with special abilities show up one after another with no time to digest anything. And when I think it's time to shed some light to this or that character, just more extravagant characters get thrown into the mix constantly. There's no time to really create affection for characters. Only in the middle of individual heroine routes we're shown the mad scientist and the shady figure that seem to be experimenting by sending these monsters, but nothing complex at all. Story does not really try to go deeper and develops only externally. There is some explanation given later, but pretty unsatisfactory one.
The protagonist. He seems like a normal guy, but I absolutely hate him for the passiveness and blandness. He does not really have anything but his electricity trick. He can't defeat even a single weak monster alone. But every girl gets to love him instantly - because there's no time to spare here! He sparks electricity which is a sign of ancient great ayakashi power, so let's try to stay close to him. That's all the explanation we get.
Heroines... We have one standard genki red-haired childhood friend Sakurako, a massive samurai tsundere (sic!) Tou, a quiet serious shinobu Tsukiko and side-heroine Hainrike who is a European girl who travels together with Loup-Garou. There are actually also short branches for priestess Himiko, Ayana, Yuika, but I did not care enough to record those as well since they basically are considered bad endings. When Tou blushes I'm ready to fall beneath the earth from shame... it's so lame. There's absolutely not enough time for the heroines. It's not enough that they basically all love Yuuma from the start. The whole bonding equals Yuuma just coming in during girl masturbation as a rule. Super convenient and super stupid. Girl endings failed to impress me. Tou/Tsukiko endings are almost the same since they are similar-background main heroines. Other heroines endings are ok at best.
Actual fights. They are so unreasonably long that it looked to me like boxing rounds. Some clash, then constant exchange of dialogue lines, then some clash again... and a lot of rounds this way. And the saddest thing is that dialogue lines are used in an absolutely stupid manner. We get to know nothing new. Heroines do not try to understand the other party motivation and personality. First fight - then talk. It's the rule everyone follows. And there are so many CG that they get to be used really wastefully. Like there are CG just for couple seconds scenes without dialogue lines.
In conclusion, Yatohime Zankikou is still a masterpiece, but of the most hated genre by me - Shounen. Shallow characters and themes deprive the game of the adult atmosphere turning it into a tasteless show of prowess. Seven is the absolute top score this game deserves, polarization can be only downwards. And that's very sad, there were all the chances to get the ultimate masterpiece. If Yatohime Zankikou saw light in 2004, I'd have very few questions, but this very theme was explored in Ayakashibito and Ayakashi with much more depth let alone other great serious masterpieces showing up in 2005. I need a real deal, not something done just for show.
Foreword: Toki no Kairou wins marginally in the joint poll of the year. It's quite curious to see what White Cyc first game is like compared to games of the big brother Black Cyc.
Synopsis: Main heroine Izumi is an ordinary student. But peaceful daily life starts to crumple with the visit of a boy in school uniform. Brutal murders and signs of supernatural forces pierce the reality.
At the same time the story of girl Saya begins. She is saved from death by a man, so she fulfills missions for him now with the current one being watching after Izumi. She witnesses human sacrifice ritual to resurrect the evil god. She has only five days to find the key point of the ritual and prevent it from happening.
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Fv9Rl3y1M&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv8rKP5oDa1nzt0KevjFrmhw&index=32&t=0s
Game type: Horror mystery with sword fights
Character Design rating: 2/10
Protagonist rating: 2/10
Story rating: 2/10
Game quality: 2/10
Overall rating: 2/10
I did not know how to evaluate this game, so I asked myself what I appreciated in here. Well, sword fights were ok. And that's it, all the elements of the game are flawed. The best feature about this game is small length.
First, plot and structure. Game has clear division to five days. First two days are just intro about characters discovering the bodies here and there. We learn about the ritual that will be held on the fifth day, and demonic "he" demands Saya to bring victims each day before that. Third and fourth day kind of forget about the whole murders thing as there is a need to insert H events and at least some prelude to them. Fifth day is confrontation that's too short and too unsatisfying to matter. Each day there are from one to three characters to choose perspective, and many same scenes are shown even reusing CG from other character perspective. There's not much sense in that except for artificially prolonging the game. And game is in dire demand of volume since with H events cut game only totals 3.5 hours...
Game quality is really low. There is no voicing. Graphics is poor, BGM monotonous and disappearing (and we're back to Midi-CDDA choice), text chaotic. External config in addition to in-game one, small volume and sloppy drawing really resemble visual novels of the end of 90s, so it might be that Toki no Kairou lay on the shelf for some time. There is no joint narration due to constant viewpoint shift. Moreover, each viewpoint starts at the middle of the scene usually, without really explaining anything, and ends in the same abrupt way, so there is constant stress just following these shifts.
Characters are absolutely not developed, and not likable. The main baddie tentacle demon looks as a prototype for future extravaganza visual novels with his larvae sticking out of the body. There's not too much guro, but even the one dissected corpse image is able to disgust. There are only three tentacle rape scenes in the game with just one CG per scene, so it's ok to stomach.
I always try to translate the title and check whether it fully describes the gist of the game. Here title can be translated as "Corridor of time". And it looks to me that it does not suit the game at all. Yes, game begins and ends with the horrible event of the past. Yes, there are scenes from the past about main male character Takuya and especially main female character Kyouko who appears to have fake identity in present. Yes, the same evil connects the past and the present. But still past does not occupy much in-game time. I see it that title is chosen just to attract Sci-fi fans.
The ending is abrupt and same dark as the game itself, so aftertaste is really bad. That's the real reason behind very small number of Japanese reviews. If you feel worse after reading a visual novel than you felt before, then we don't need such visual novels.
The masterpieces of the year are: 1. Joshi Ryou Panic, 2. Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, 3. Star Arthur Densetsu I ~Wakusei Mephius~, 4. Mio no Mystery Adventure, 5. Dezeni Land. The VN of the year 1983 is Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, because it introduced command selection that was used for many years to come. It's a huge step from text parser. There was another revolutionary game Star Arthur Densetsu that introduced point-and-click elements for the first time, but the main part remained with the text parser there.
1. Mission Asteroid 四次元少女リディア [80] Sierra Entertainment 1 2 3 4 5
Mission Asteroid (shown as Mission: Asteroid in the manual and on the title screen) is a graphic adventure game for the Apple II written by Ken and Roberta Williams and released in 1980 by On-Line Systems.It was later ported to the Atari 8-bit family and Commodore 64.
The game was released as Hi-Res Adventures #0, despite being released after Mystery House and Wizard and the Princess. It was meant as an introduction to the adventure game genre so it was made easier than the rest of Hi-Res Adventures games.
There are English reviews.
2. Lolita ロリータ [8212] PSK 1 2
Lolita: Yakyuuken is a simple video game adaptation of yakyuuken, a Japanese parlor game that is essentially strip rock-paper-scissors. The gameplay involves pressing one of the three numbered keys (1, 2 or 3) corresponding to the rock, paper and scissors moves of the game, trying to beat the opponent's choice. All this is done while seeing a drawing of a young girl. The girl removes an item of her clothing after each successful round, and the player wins the game when she is completely naked. The player character has five symbolic clothes items, i.e. losing five rounds leads to a Game Over.
Game is made by one person in a week as a hobby to show to friends.
3. Date Adventure デートアドベンチャー [8301] Micom City
An adventure game that progresses in the form of text questions.
For the most part it's text-only adventure. Not much is known, but it should be a simple game as other games from Micom City that vanished really fast.
4. Ninja Adventure 忍者アドベンチャー [8301] Micom City
An adventure game where you steal a secret book and sneak into an enemy mansion.
Again, mostly a text adventure.
5. Puzzle Adventure パズルアドベンチャー [8301] Micom City
An adventure game that progresses in the form of text questions.
The flow is meeting a guy, asking him a hint and moving on to another guy. Guys have very slight differences like moles, earrings etc, and asking guys in wrong order is immediate game over. There are 7 questions, but answers only to first 6 questions are given in the hints, so game is pretty much impossible to complete.
6. Seiko no Adventure 星子のアドベンチャー [8312] Enix
Space adventure where Seiko needs to solver several puzzles fast or go mad and get sent to a hospital.
First Enix game. There are some 10 scenes that you need to type the right answer, like open the hatch etc.
7. Genma Taisen 幻魔大戦 [8303] Ponyca
Game features battle scenes from the anime movie released the same year.
Battles are done with just one button, but damage is random, so in one fight if you don't defeat opponent in one turn, it will be instant game over due to taking enormous amount of damage in return.
8. Happy Bushman ハッピーブッシュマン [8303] Ponyca
Main character is an African bushman who travels on foot and meets various animals and people.
A simple moving command type adventure, but with quite a few fun moments scattered around.
9. Mystery House ミステリーハウス [8304] Starcraft Co., Ltd. 1 2 3
Mystery House is a monochrome interactive fiction adventure game that places the player in a Victorian mansion with seven other people. As the player explores the mansion, he discovers that there is a killer murdering each guest one by one. The objective of the game is to figure out who the murderer is before the murderer finds the hero. Players explore and manipulate objects by typing in one or two-word phrases such as "north" or "get knife".
There are English reviews. Game is made in 1980 in the West, but Japanese remake dates back to 1983.
10. Wizard and the Princess 四次元少女リディア [8305] Starcraft Co., Ltd. 1 2 3 4 5
King George's daughter Priscilla has been kidnapped by an evil wizard named Harlin, who holds her in his castle. The King offers half of his kingdom to anyone who would venture into the faraway mountain land, enter the castle, defeat Harlin, and bring back the princess. Only one adventurer is brave enough to accept this challenge.
There are English reviews.
11. Lolita 2 ロリータ２ [8305] PSK 1
It is a very simple text-only adventure in which the protagonist must track young girls after school and have them perform various actions (a few of them of a remotely sexual nature). The sparse descriptions are in Japanese, but the text parser is English-only, recognizing the four directions (N, S, W and E) and a few basic commands such as "Look" and "Use". Much of the game is spent navigating the protagonist through the invisible, text-only maze by typing the directional commands. A few items must be found and used in order to complete the game.
It's more like a bunch of mini-games with CG as reward. The aim is actually to assault 10 girls and not be caught by the police officer.
12. Icarus イカロス [8305] Rastaman
A sequel to Odyssey game. In order to discover the phantom bird, Phoenix, main character goes to an adventure.
Quite a normal command input adventure, but luckily with hiragana introduced already.
13. Joshi Ryou Panic 女子寮パニック [8306] Enix
You infiltrate a girl's dormitory to try to find your kidnapped lover.
Game was innovative in a way that it did not have either command parser or command selection. It's just like modern visual novels - you select an action and game goes on to till the next branch. Game has time limit and multiple bad endings. That's a real masterpiece of its time.
14. Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken ポートピア連続殺人事件 [8306] Enix 1 2 3 4 5
Kouzou Yamakawa, the president of the Loan and Savings Company, was found dead inside his mansion. Despite all the evidence indicating that it was a suicide, a detective (i.e. you) and his assistant arrive at the scene for further investigation.
The player must resolve the mystery of a murder by searching for clues, interacting with characters, and solving item-based puzzles.
There are at least four English reviews of the game.
15. Oooku Maruhi Monogatari 大奥マル秘物語 [8307] Nihon Falcom
Main character is a female who comes to the inner chambers of Ooku castle in search of her master favor. She performs various tasks with the ultimate aim of giving birth to a child.
Game has both selection out of several variants close to modern visual novels and frequent command input sequences. The title has a huge "secret" sign encircled and actually it's really difficult to get what should be used where in this game.
16. Star Arthur Densetsu I ~Wakusei Mephius~ スターアーサー伝説 Ⅰ ～惑星メフィウス～ [8307] T&E SOFT Inc. 1 2 3
In 3826 Jamil leads an invasion against Galactic Federation and destroys one planet after another. The main character Star Arthur is searching for the legendary sword to crush Jamil's ambitions.
Game is beautiful enough and occupies as much as three floppy discs. Most of the time you need to break free from a prison or some other secluded area, like a desert. Command input is used.
17. Mio no Mystery Adventure ミオのミステリーアドベンチャー [8309] SystemSoft
You get caught in the rain and hide in the mansion. Upon entry you hear "I've got a present for you - It's your death!" Now you got to solve puzzles, defeat devil, the master of the house and find a way out.
Each room is a puzzle that needs to be solved with command input to proceed. There are also N S W E directions to keep in mind.
18. Kagiana Satsujin Jiken 鍵穴殺人事件 [8310] Thinking Rabbit
A strange request comes to Scotland Yard. Client Gilles Willcock receives a murder notice that's bound to happen at midnight. He calls out a detective, and seven people at the mansion wait nervously for escalation. Gilles locks him up at the second floor while detective hides in waiting at the first floor. At midnight gunshots are heard on the second floor, and a murder is seen through a keyhole. When detective finds the key and enters, there is no body. Mansion stuff and interior hide the keys to the mystery.
First game of Thinking Rabbit. The main feature is suspects interrogation that can be done at any time with different result depending on the game progress. It's very different from normal mansion room search. It's more of a mystery with emphasis on human relations.
19. Lolita Syndrome ロリータ・シンドローム [8310] Enix 1 2 3
Pretty girls live in the Maison Rolita. In order to make friends with the girls, you'll go play with them. They're waiting for you in rooms 1 through 5. Now, go into their rooms and play!
There's a good English review of it.
20. Dezeni Land デゼニランド [8312] Hudson Soft 1 2
The aim of the game is to find a legendary treasure hidden in the Dezeni Land amusement park and safely escape. The game features numerous areas in the amusement park.
There's a good English review of it.
21. Ooi! Kaguya-hime ~Kinuginu no Wakare~ おーい！ かぐや姫 ～衣衣の別れ～ [8312] Ponyca 1
You're placed in a field of humongous bamboo filled with menacing birds. You might think the idea is to shoot the birds, but it isn't; instead, you have to shoot the proper section of bamboo before you run out of ammo or the birds hit you enough to end the game. Successfully clearing the stage causes the princess who is garbed in several layers of kimono to take one off.
The reward is erotic drawings. It's very surprising that instead of shooting birds you need to shoot proper section of bamboo and find princess there.
22. Star Arthur Densetsu II ~Ankoku Seiun~ スターアーサー伝説 Ⅱ ～暗黒星雲～ [8312] T&E SOFT Inc.
The story picks up where part one ended. You obtain the legendary sword. A hologram of a two thousand year old wise man sends you to Orion with the newly obtained weapon and your adventures on the way there take the whole game time.
It features recognition of four parts on the screen for point-and-click and also has 3D shooting sequences. It could not repeat the success of the original game though.
23. Shijigen Shoujo Ridia 四次元少女リディア [83] Champion Soft 1
You are a member of science object investigation team and are on a mission to investigate the mystery of Bermuda. You end up in a parallel world and continue investigation.
Game was shipped on 4 floppy drives. Stereoscopic glasses are included with it which are useful for some scenes. That's really innovative - Champion Soft makes a remarkable appearance at that time already.
24. Dasshutsu! Shi no Aokigahara 脱出！死の青木ケ原 [83] Luna Kikaku
Main character gets lost in Aokigahara forest. He needs to find his way back to the civilization.
Kind of normal moving adventure with occasional checking the map.
25. Nehan no Mori 涅槃の森 [83] CSK Research Institute
Early in the morning you went to explore mount Fuji and got lost. There are a lot of spirits there aiming to make you a resident of the Demon World. Escape from the demon world by using physical strength and intelligence.
Typical CSK game with huge drawing times and overall low number of screens, but difficult to figure commands.
26. Orly Kuukou Satsujin Jiken オルリー空港殺人事件 [83] Champion Soft
Kanae and Akina went to France for the first time abroad and got involved in a murder case. A Southern Tourist tour operator is killed, and Kanae follows victim's schedule from arrival to Paris till return.
Game has two phases - item search and investigation itself. Without properly finding all the items it will be impossible to go on during the main course of the game.
27. Wonder House ワンダーハウス [83] Task Forts Kouchi
The purpose of the game is to explore the house and find the treasure.
Ordinary mansion exploration game with the need to constantly to type look in different combinations.
The masterpieces of the year are: 1. Miko to Akemi no Jungle Adventures , 2. Salad no Kuni no Tomato-hime , 3. Eiyuu Densetsu Saga 4. Again 5. Jigoku no Renshuu Mondai 6. Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin: Ohotsk ni Kiyu 7. Corridor 8. Wingman 9. Time Tunnel 10. Zarth
First of all, Death Trap is not included in the masterpieces list because it does not feel exciting to me. But we're still left with as many as 10 masterpieces on our hands! Lots of novelties and good stories this year, but the VN of the year 1984 is Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin: Ohotsk ni Kiyu. And one of the reasons for that is that this work both used command selection AND allowed to use only a short list of commands. Another reason is that the game feels very realistic both in characters, dialogues and landscapes. The mystery is great as well since the three consecutive murders seem completely unrelated. No other work in 1984 is same engaging. It just feels like a professional AAA class game like no other game of 1984.
1. Abyss アビス [8401] Humming Bird Soft 1
Events take place in 3001. You were in the middle of the confidential "ABYSS" space mission when got abducted by the Space Crime Syndicate and got memory erased. You need to know where you are and transfer coordinated to the mother ship in order to destroy Shinjigate Base.
Text parser is rather merciless. The aim is to destroy this space syndicate that succeeded in developing the final weapon. There's a full video walkthrough of the game.
2. Akujo Kamakiri 悪女かまきり [8401] CSK Research Institute
Game is based on the events of the movie of the year 1984 with the same title. Fujimura Masako aims to get insurance money by killing Dojima with an electric cord while he takes a bath.
Game does not have much text and most of the time it's the items rendering one by one over and over. Text parser is used. Mouth of the heroine is animated. The furniture is totally unproportional and leaves a bad feeling of CG. She kills the man and leaves in the red car, probably just like in the movie.
3. Doukyou ~Kaisou Densetsu~ 道鏡 ～怪僧伝説～ [8401] CSK Research Institute
Game is a fantasy based on legend of Doukyuu - a yokai of a mirror during 8th century (Nara period).
Historical erotic adventure with monks and mirrors. At least this time numbered choices are used instead of text parser.
4. Manji 卍 -まんじ- [8401] CSK Research Institute
The wife is cheating on the man with another woman. The man tries to show his love to his wife by lying down with that woman partner. The original is a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki, and in 1983 the movie of the same name was produced by Toei.
The game begins with the scene where the wife, the hero and the wife's mistress are sleeping side by side and the aim is to lie down with the mistress without waking up wife, otherwise it's a bad end. Answers need to be input with katakana. So this is where NTR genre starts!
5. Office Love no Tehodoki ~For Lunch Time~ オフィスラブの手ほどき ～FOR ランチタイム～ [8401] CSK Research Institute
You're a section manager of a company. So the only free time you have is lunch time between 12-00 and 13-10. There is a 23-year old colleague that can be targeted.
Each command wastes some 30 seconds of the lunch time. Command input made this game very difficult. There are very few common commands that are accepted. And there are even traps set like not extinguishing cigarette starts a fire.
6. Onsen Mimizu Geisha 温泉みみず芸者 [8401] CSK Research Institute
A man and a geisha at hot springs.
Game is a part of Serious World game pack. There is both text parser and command selection. The aim is to get man's percentage and geisha's percentage to the top up from 0%.
7. Time Secret タイムシークレット [8401] Bond Soft
You can go back and forth in time to different eras to solve puzzles. In addition there are battles and you have hp and attack stat as well as weapon attack stat. In Time Secret you need to discover the weakness of alien "Danak" race in order to save the colonial planet "Farras" in 2552 AD.
A very good SF implementation with a large number of screens (CG). Both command input and command selection are used.
8. Kidou Senshi Gundam Gundam Daichi ni Tatsu 機動戦士ガンダム ガンダム大地に立つ [840310] Rapport 1 2 3
Game covers episodes 1 and 2 of the anime work with the same title.
Command input is used. Action is quite good, but commands are way too specific like get beamrifle, get namarme, catch sayla etc. Quite impossible to figure them out without walk through even if u seen that title. It's funny that the output is actually in English. There is quite much information on the game in English in the three links listed above.
9. Demons Ring デーモンズリング [8403] Nihon Falcom 1
Crawley, the king of Jeremiah was destroyed by demon king Salone. Now that his son Dumrin is of age, he sets off to avenge his father.
Game is basically about mazes. That's what shows us opening of multiple corridors (I think the first opening in VNs, no music ofc) and that's how it really is. There are mazes of the house and of the undergrounds. Game uses new technology to render full screen in just one and a half seconds and this game is the perfect show off of that technology. That's why there are so many maze screens which would need over 10 seconds to render as of late and now just 1. That was quite revolutionary and it set a new standard for the new games to come.
10. Miko to Akemi no Jungle Adventures ミコとアケミのジャングルアドベンチャー [8403] SystemSoft
Miko and Akemi went on a long-awaited African trip, but their airplane crashed. Now you need to lead them out of wild jungle with dangers on every corner.
Game features scoring system depending on how much you do before leaving the jungle. You need to escape the animals that you encounter. This game is one of the originators of command selection genre. It's possible to only select commands to beat the game. The drawback is that the number of commands is huge, some 30. But given the large number of screens that you need to go to the drawing speed is painful.
11. Keiko-chan no Himitsu 慶子ちゃんの秘密 [8404] Champion Soft
Your tutor Keiko disappeared from the room. You need to find her to continue love lessons.
Searching games weren't frequent yet and it felt fresh. The item you need to find is placed randomly around the room so it's not enough to memorize location once. And there are a lot of such situations where you need to find something. Command input is only allowed in katakana.
12. Kuronekosou Souzoku Satsujin Jiken 黒猫荘相続殺人事件 [8404] Riverhill Soft inc.
The owner of Kuronekoso “Oonogi Yoshizou” was killed. There are 8 suspects related to him. The player becomes a detective and searches with his partner.
Harold no Jikenbo could not appear without early imitations as this one.
13. Kaze no Tani no Naushika 風の谷のナウシカ [8406] Game Technopolis 1
Game is based on the anime work of the same title. You manipulate main character Nausicaa with numeric keyboard, collect items, shoot, ride your vehicle.
There seems to be several different games for different platforms, but the game was so crude and ugly that there's a legend that the director Miyazaki was so furious that he banned gamefication of any of his works ever again. It was crude for year 1984. When I look at picture now I just wish I won't see nightmares featuring that. There's a nice article in English on it.
14. Nanako SOS ななこＳＯＳ [8406] Game Technopolis 1
Game's based on anime work of the same title. There are a few mini-games in the game, one of which places Nanako against a giant aardvark in a yakyuken game. The aardvark gives her hints if she wins, but she has to strip if she loses. Nanako ending up naked results in a Game Over.
Characters ask you questions and you need to answer them in katakana. This is a game for hardcore fans of the anime that I've never even heard of (probably because it's old anime for younger kids). Native speakers reviewing the game had great trouble getting it through because of very specific anime-related command input.
15. Alice アリス [8407] PSK 1
This is a parody on Alice in Wonderland. Alice opens a book, follows the bunny into the hole and gathers notes to decipher JAWON which is a key to get out of this world.
Quite a beautiful and entertaining work and also with many naked scenes - the price was as high as 8,000 yen at that time and the size was two diskettes. There's a lot of weird adventures like stealing a magical bra and giving it to the shady raincoat man. We even get to kill a dragon at some point. Command input in English characters is used and there's a walkthrough around, so it's possible to clear it even on emulator.
16. Ankoku-jou ~Souzou-shin Gyarian no Fukkatsu~ 暗黒城 ～創造神ギャリアンの復活～ [8407] Enix
The game is an adventure part of the series of jrpg games. Dark apostle wants to become the ruler of the world with the help of legendary mirror of Laval. In this grand adventure featuring 9 chapters and over 460 split screens you need to defeat him.
It was the hugest adventure of the time, but gameplay was quite boring and lacked originality. Lots of screens are actually the variants of the same CG with minimal differences. There's very little text on top of that so screens change at very fast speed.
17. Salad no Kuni no Tomato-hime サラダの国のトマト姫 [8407] Hudson Soft 1 2 3 4 5 6
The evil Minister Pumpkin betrayed his king, kidnapped his daughter, the lovely Princess Tomato, and began to terrorize the land of vegetables. The king entrusted Sir Cucumber with the task of freeing his daughter and his kingdom. Without further delay, the brave warrior embarks on a long journey.
This old japanese adventure was the first to be imported to the West and thus it's well known there. I'll only give some review links, but there is a great number of reviews for this game.
18. Eiyuu Densetsu Saga 英雄伝説サーガ [8408] Arrow Soft 1
Dragon assaults village and girl is needed as sacrifice to calm him down. In order to help your sister you set off to find the holy sword and face dragon at the sacrificial site far in the north.
The graphics are superb compared to other games of this year. Also you only choose from commands instead of typing them. There is a good English review on this game. The game is fascinating even today. First of all, you need to make your map of use premade one by other users to understand where to go. Basically you need to move only by roads and explore the three caves scattered around. Caves can bring avalanche (instant game over), spider battle (winning is based on luck) or finding the legendary sword. And after that all is left is to discover that dragon. And there's a cheat - when you die it's possible to say a secret phrase and be resurrected with the legendary sword. Game's beautiful, because all the images are drawn elsewhere and then digitalized. The screen rendering is instant. Pure command selection in English is used. The game is definitely a masterpiece and the paragon to look up to.
19. Zarth ザース [8408] Enix 1 2 3 4
In the 21th century, powerful computer systems were invented. However, the humans failed to control them. Near the end of the century, one of such systems, Orion, triggered a devastating nuclear war. A few survivors found a shelter and went into a cryogenic sleep. A hundred years later, they wake up and go out onto the surface, to face a new, unknown world...
Inferior technology (quite long screen rendering speed at MSX), but otherwise very impressive. People at that time could not believe that such beautiful pictures could be achieved with primitive MSX. And Zarth came 3 months earlier than Wingman. So the survivors of nuclear world war wake up 100 years later from cryogenic sleep. But now the regenerated Earth is in danger again - you need to go to the Moon space station and get rid of nuclear weapons. This game is often referred as Mirika, because everyone remembers the magazine ad with her beautiful face while Mirika appears in game only in opening and never again - such a bummer! Zarth should have been the final part of tetralogy, but first three parts were never finished. Good game with good action, but buried by inferior technology and manual command input. There is also quite much information in English available.
20. Chouhou Buin 諜報部員 [8408] Prosumer
Main character John gets a message from the Director of Space and Aeronautics. He has trouble finding the place, so he travels on foot and asks around.
A standard adventure with very difficult commands to find and type.
21. Ginga o Sukue 銀河を救え [8408] Raven Soft
There is a crisis that can destroy the entire galaxy - such message arrives from the alien who is the first to notice it. Main character goes to the outer space on a spaceship to find nine passwords and prevent the disaster.
Game is about encounters with all kind of space entities and also about space battles and maintaining all the four parameters above zero.
22. Mission Impossible [8408] Starcraft Co., Ltd.
A spy infiltration inspired by the famous movie. The stage is a fully mechanized nuclear reactor center. A mechanic is trying to commit suicide by setting a time bomb in the reactor. Main character Jim Phelps needs to prevent that from happening by finding his way in the maze-like building.
There is little of note here except maybe for tape recorder that appears when it's needed and disappears afterwards.
23. Jigoku no Renshuu Mondai 地獄の練習問題 [8409] Humming Bird Soft 1 2
The main character is a lower angel who entertains an exam to become senior angel. It's a practice exam in the hell surroundings. You talk to different people in hell layers - Cleopatra, Hitler, Dracula, John Lennon, Napoleon, Merlin Monroe - walk around lake of blood and mountain of needles and answer the quiz.
Depending on your actions on the way to exit, you gain score. 60 is needed to pass the exam. If someone gains 100 points and sends the proof to the developer, his name will be published in the magazine. That was promissed. It seems impossible to gain 100 points, but imagine the competition! Game is short and tedious since you need to input commands manually. There's a very good English article on the game.
24. Shin Taketori Monogatari 新竹取物語 [8410] Cross Media Soft
The game is a gag parody on japanese Taketori legend. The purpose of the game is to discover anything at any opportunity and have fun.
There are three difficulty levels and multiple endings. Game features some nude scenes. Slow rendering of every screen makes gameplay painful. Since it's a parody it's supposed to bring more fun for those familiar with all these ancient legends and folktales. A very original work taking into account multiple difficulty settings, multiple endings and possibility to enter characters in English, romaji and kana.
25. Shiro Densetsu 白伝説 [8410] Crystal Soft (old)
It is the land of conflict. Red and blue people fight each other day after day. White people appeared - "We shall rule this land". Can you proclame leadership over the land as a white man?
Setting is horrible. And since you're being thrown into the game without even this little knowledge unless you read the manual, game looks like a chain of random events. You need to get to village elder and then revive some god after a maze of caverns. Everything else is optional, but there seems to be a lot of such optional secrets. Command input and slow rendering don't make things easier. The feature of this game is physical strength bar which depletes with every action, so taking notes required.
26. The Death Trap ザ・デストラップ [8410] Square Co. 1 2 3 4
During the 1980-ies, the relationship between the free world and the socialist block became increasingly tense and hostile. Many countries began to prepare for a global-scale war, working on new weapons. One of such countries is the mysterious "B country" in Eastern Africa. Eager to seize power with biological weapons, an organization associated with this country kidnaps the famous scientist Dr. Gitanes. An agent named Benson is sent to B country in order to rescue the doctor and avert the new threat to world peace.
Some african "B country" kidnaps a famous scientist who can produce biological weapons and you're on spec op to rescue him. First game made by Square with scenario produced by future FF creator and the most financial successful game at that time selling over 500,000 copies. Command input still present, but screen renders from left to right and quite fast. Graphics is top notch for the time. Game features half screen as your outlook, half screen as map (always present) and text at the bottom. So what made this game so popular? My guess is the seriousness of approach. Serious story - briefing at headquarters - flight on a helicopter - using a parachute - map movement - two separate branches of how to get to the scientist - it all looks professional compared to amateur games of that time. Only Eiyuu Densetsu Saga had graphics same good, but had quite plain gameplay and weird screen sequence (like you get 5 slightly different pictures in color one by one, then the rest disappears and only main one stays). There is quite much information on the game in English.
27. Corridor コリドール [8411] Koei 1
King sends three princes on a journey so that the prince who gets the most wonderful journey becomes his successor. The player prince is searching for the legendary cursed castle to become next king.
You get text and images (usually separately - one or another) and often get to make a choice among 1-6 variants. There are stats and lots of fights that rely on some real mechanic, not just luck. But most of the time we just read a wall of text. There are lots of bad endings as well.
28. Godzilla ゴジラ [8411] Toho
Game is based on the first Godzilla movie. There are three parts - first you investigate the incident - then you pursue the monster and invent what to do with it and finally you confront Godzilla with oxygen destroyer.
Game's quite lackluster for year 1984 - still low screen rendering and still command input with ugly graphics. Toho games are the only ones that I can't load with emulator whatever modes or roms I try.
29. Kaitei Gunkan 海底軍艦 [8411] Toho
Game's based on 1963 year japanese film about submarine. It is divided in two parts: first you search for an enemy with command input and then action based underwater battle.
Another Toho game. And this the rom is just impossible to find. Game's graphics done in basic so they are... both bad and slow to render and paint.
30. Wingman ウイングマン [8411] TamTam Co., Ltd. 1 2 3
Kenta is a Japanese teenager who is obsessed with superhero stories. One day, he meets a mysterious girl named Aoi. She tells him she is from a dimension called Powdream, and gives him a powerful item called Dream Note, which can fulfill wishes. Kenta is eager to realize his dreams by asking to be transformed into a superhero named Wingman. However, the dictator Rimel fears that the new hero will endanger his existence in Powdream, and swears to get rid of Kenta by separating him from Aoi.
Wingman is a popular manga and anime hero. This is a story of Aoi, a girl who escaped her dimension to protect "Dream note". The hero of righteousness "Wingman" is to protect Aoi. There are four fights and after each fight you learn new fighting techniques, but loosing does not affect the game outcome. This is definitely professional level of work. CG, faces, battles, different weapons, constant use of sound effects. And the creator is Enix company. Now i know why FF series were a success. Because professionals from Square (The Death Trap) and Enix were there. Story is original side story of anime. The game actually has a full English review made at our times by the guy I next to worship for playing such old games nowadays.
31. Harry Fox は～りぃふぉっくす [841210] Micro Cabin 1 2
Little fox child caught a disease called Romus disease. Mother fox remembers a story from old woman that a certain mushroom cures this disease and sets off on a journey to a Shinto shrine where those mushrooms grow. Mother fox encounters various dangers o the forest.
I've countered 10 animals, one hunter and a swarm of bees on the mother's way. Scenery is very bright, screen is rendered vertically and very fast like in Eiyuu Densetsu Saga. Text shows on the same screen as image and there are some really cute animals, including fox itself. Sound effects show up when needed and they're better than usual short beeps. Text parser with katakana input is used.
32. Again アゲイン [8412] Enix
Heavens dweller needs to live 7 lives to become a Holy Spirit .There are 7 short stories. Each story is a life we live to become Holy Spirit in the end. All stories vary in gameplay: there is rpg story, surgery opperation, puzzle etc Finally all stories get connected.
The game takes multiple forms and is unique for that. That's a new level of storytelling - a conceptual work. There's a good video walkthrough.
33. Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin: Ohotsk ni Kiyu 北海道連鎖殺人 オホーツクに消ゆ [8412] Login Soft 1 2 3 4
A corpse of a man is discovered at Harumi Wharf, Tokyo Bay (game features real geographical locations). The main character, police inspector, investigates the identity of the victim with his subordinate Kuroki and tracks the source to Hokkaido island. Second and third murder cases occur one after another. What's the purpose of the criminal?
Another murder investigation from the same authors as Portopia Renzoku Satssujin Jiken (1983). Screen renders slow but picture is made very simple to make the pace good. You get to choose from 9 commands, so tedious, but not too much. As for the story, what happens next differs with pc88 and later versions. A very realistic and persuading setting. I can see the appeal here. There is enough information in English on the game.
34. Time Tunnel タイムトンネル [8412] Bond Soft
In Time Tunnel story picks up where Time Secret Ended. Your time machine collapsed and your are taken prisoner at space station. You need to use this planet Time Tunnel technology to go back in 2552 AD and fight off Danak invasion.
In these games you can go back and forth in time to different eras to solve puzzles. In addition there are battles and you have hp and attack stat as well as weapon attack stat. Time Tunnels has as much as 4 endings including a bad end. 140 screen splits. Command inputs and slow screen rendering again. On your time travels you get to meet some celebrities like Beethoven or Murasaki Shikibe. This is probably the first visual novel to implement multiple endings which are four in this game. And not everything is done with text parser here - directions are used to move around N S E W. The story of the game makes it a masterpiece, but it's next to impossible to play nowadays.
35. Lagrange L2 ラグランジュL2 [84] Vehicle Software
Federal military research ship "Gallia 201" was destroyed by a mysterious missile attack in area L-2 on the way home from Mars back to Earth. The only survivor escaped by jumping with a spacesuit in the open space. Out of pure luck he was found and dragged by nearby ship...
Wow, this game is so serious and difficult. Basically you wander at the space station with an aim to fly away on a spaceship. Some tasks are timed which is insane with command input. There are 14 scenes overall with each presenting some kind of puzzle.
36. Emmy エミー [84] Kogado Studio
Emmy is a curious artificial software girl. Have an intelligent conversation with her to improve its quality.
Needless to say, it's really difficult to find proper and varied commands. If the the same thing is typed several times, Emmy calls you boring and sets off.
37. Ningyo no Namida 人魚の涙 [84] Teikoku Soft
Hero goes out looking for the bride in a fantasy world. He meets different characters and animals and talks to them to solve their problems.
Allegedly the first Doujin visual novel. Which is cool because picture quality level is superb for 1984. It's also the first game with individual endings for heroines. Mermaid is the maid sexual interest of the hero, but there is also an ending with a turtle (sic!) even though it's actually a girl transformed into a turtle. Fun pictures and strange texts create a warm atmosphere.
38. Southern Cross ラグランジュL2 [84] Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.
In 1999 main character stays at the Southern Cross star. He has already retrieved the Phoenix capsule, and now looks for a way to return to the Earth. He is suddenly told about an opportunity to ride a UFO as soon as he finds the secret password in his room.
Game is surprisingly long featuring over 150 screens. Space part actually finishes very soon as UFO we ride has an emergency landing to the kingdom resembling ancient mythological Greece with centaurs and the like. There are actually different routes from this point to reach the new spaceship, so it's possible to try another way if you get stuck. Game ends up with discovering the contents of the Phoenix capsule upon landing the Earth.
Year 2005 was awesome. It's the golden age for plotge. Plots have become so diverse and complex that a lot more time is required to crack them up. My new approach to pick up all the titles I like doesn't help to move faster either. In addition, my base corresponds VNDB base of 2017, and it's time to synchronize. There are 230 new titles to add from 1980 till 2005, plus a dozen of old titles that I found out over time and finally can describe properly, let alone the need to refresh openings links. So Till January of 2020 there will only be Extra review of the year, then I'll be updating old articles. 1983 and 1984 years already received an update.
New portion of Visual Novel Openings 2005 with songs.
My list of masterpieces in 2005:
Aekanaru Sekai no Owari ni
Ayakashi
Ayakashibito
Gunjou no Sora o Koete
Heaven's Cage
Jingai Makyou
Memories Off #5 Togireta Film
Nursery Rhyme
Parfait ~Chocolat Second Brew~
Princess Witches
Saihate no Ima
Sanarara
Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo
Steel
Swan Song
Tenshi no Nichou Kenjuu -Angelos Armas-
Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~
Yatohime Zankikou
Yume Miru Kusuri
Nothing can rival Saihate no Ima this year for it's the only 10/10 score visual novel for me of this time period. There is a number of curious games without reviews that I'd like to present for the Extra review of the year.
Festa!! -Hyper Girls Pop-
Fuuraiki 2
Himesho!
Moon Childe
Toki no Kairou
Foreword: Dragonia remains in obscurity while being localized. That's a strange situation, so I wanted to check why.
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40ois_GrS5w&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv8rKP5oDa1nzt0KevjFrmhw&index=31
Synopsis: In ancient Dragonia existed five orbs that could be used to make dragons do one's bidding. However, as time passed, the stories of these orbs faded from collective memory becoming mere legend. However, one day a man appeared and hatched an evil plan to take control of Dragonia using these very orbs. Yet the powers of the orbs could only be harnessed by certain, special individuals. Thus, only another person capable of controlling the orbs can stop the orbs' powers from being abused. But are Ryu, Jamka, Fiana or Tran capable of hunting down and controlling the orbs in time?
Game type: Classic fantasy adventurer story
Character Design rating: 4/10
Protagonist rating: 3/10
Story rating: 3/10
Game quality: 3/10
Overall rating: 3/10
I really was initially quite optimistic for this youth fantasy story. But there is really hardly anything worth praise in here.
First of all, the story. Ryu's father Roi disappeared, so boy goes to search for him. Scenes are rushed mercilessly. Most of the so call developments are introduced just for the sake of showing several Bad endings. Some events are pretty random, like when there are two choices - one gaining a sword and the other not gaining one. But in the situations when we need a sword we just have one despite of the previous choice. Another example is girl bathing in the pond naked and getting caught by a bad guy - in the next scene she has her normal full outfit... The whole plot can be described very shortly - we meet some girls and gather orbs of different elements to oppose the baddie with the ultimate Steel element.
I need to focus on length separately. It's under 2 hours. Seriously, what kind of story can we fit into 1 hour 45 minutes ? Actually, game can take a bit longer if we look into all the (four) Bad endings and (two) normal endings. These additional endings bring pretty much nothing to the story. And there is also a really bad "maze" introduced for the very same reason - to prolong agony. And I'm even omitting all the 10 second pauses before each choice becomes available. Game is virtually about nothing.
The ending deserves a few words. Without spoilering anything I can say that ending is really disappointing due to two reasons. The first is breaking the 4th wall. Heroine shouts at newsbringer for ruining her after-story minute of fame. The second reason is this horrible "To be continued..." instead any kind of conclusion. The time between the final battle and credits is just a minute or so. The pause of several minutes of black screen before the credits is just stupid.
Finally, the quality of the game is really poor. Few CG, horrible animation, translation (we all remember the case of horrible translation from Phantom of Inferno, but this "The sword of a phantom was got." just beats everything) really don't add this game any points.
There is a mystery linked with this game - it's about the original Japanese version of this game. Many people tried to find its traces. I myself spend an hour checking all the names in the credits. And as a result I believe that this game never had a Japanese version. The credits stay that Planning&Original Story are done by Jun Tsubaki (T2Planning). This guy is not an author. It's a staff member of this normal Japanese planning firm doing a subcontract for Hirameki International. The early Hirameki International site also had recruitment page in Japanese for different kind of staff. Moreover, none of the voice actors actually have Dragonia in the list of their voiced works, because there's nothing to be proud of - it's work for money for some strange American folk that pay. The other people mentioned in the credits have no relation to the game world. They all do their small thing well like character design, backgrounds, music and so on, but it's freelance work, not industry thing. Pretty much everything in this game is fake. So throwing in some disk with 100 anime girl CGs together with Dragonia for the 26$ looks just beyond any understanding. I consider this game to be the first EVN with Japanese voicing, and not really a good EVN.
Foreword: Finally a Caramel Box game with a plot that I can actually enjoy. But online RPG development took me by surprise, so I'm totally sold here.
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7fKvuknkmk&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv9n5v_LWmKrdNPv96DDFnW6
Synopsis: The protagonist, having lost his family because of the faulty A.I. of a machine, makes his living as a professional player of a game called CQ shot.
Suddenly your friend requests you to be a bodyguard for a strange girl who is getting stalked. The protagonist doubt whether or not there actually is a stalker but since the girl seems very afraid, he takes on the job and she starts living with him.
Game type: Future mystery with virtual reality elements
Character Design rating: 8/10
Protagonist rating: 8/10
Story rating: 8/10
Game quality: 6/10
Overall rating: 8/10
I believe that Aekanaru Sekai no Owari ni deserves to be called a masterpiece. I rate quality as mediocre here, but it's a rare feat to encounter a serious story with developed characters. It does not try to imitate past examples of success stories. Instead, it follows its own path and catches attention with its sincerity. This game is unique in so many ways.
As for the story, it's not that straightforward as it looks. The actual stalker twist occurs quite late. Before that it's a futuristic school story running alongside runaway artificial intellect Ripple line as she finds shelter at Natsume flat. During the stalker incident Ripple uses her analytic and hacking capabilities to avoid casualties, so her existence becomes known to other characters. But stalker incident develops into something else entirely.
Game has an unusual structure as stalked girl Chifuyu route manages to run before the real conflict is even drawn. Other girls follow the same plot-line different only by the end. Yes, they don't have individual routes, but this common route is so long and saturated that there is no real need to go elsewhere. After all, it's mostly the mystery and the enjoyable dialogues that determine this game.
All the heroines (apart of Chifuyu, in part due to her ending that feels like a bad ending) are really nice, serious and pleasant to watch and read. Some conversations may seem to take unreasonably long time, and there may be a feeling that nothing happens, but - again - Aekanaru Sekai no Owari ni does not try to force things and appeal to everyone. It moves at its pace, and with enough patience structure starts to form eventually.
My biggest complaint is about lack of CG and unvoiced male characters. There are two male friends and quite a few guys out there talking to Natsume with no girls present, and during these long conversations it's easy to forget that game is voiced at all. Character design may feel weird and similar looking at first, but heroines get fleshed out really well, so this first impression soon dissolves.
The world is created with a lot of detail. There is so much talk about different technologies that it can even be considered info-dumping. Virtual reality, CQ Shot and Magic paradise add three more layers on top of that.
Aekanaru Sekai no Owari ni is a rare case of a real masterpiece that does not brag around about its strong sides, but presents a really solid reading experience with great text, mystery and characters. There are few games that I really enjoy reading, so I cherish every occasion when I encounter one.
Foreword: I was choosing between a moege and a nakige in November, so just went for the first SF looking work which by chance turned out to be Terrible Future. I wish I chose anything over it, really, like anything.
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2mluk-y9Bg&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv9k1HWgnRrjgH1amhusrT-d
Synopsis: Main character Ikki Minakata is a student who aims to become a civil servant to have a stable life. On the summer vacations he is suddenly attacked by a girl who comes from the future to kill him and prevent inventing of the device that put the world to chaos. However, Ikki is protected by an android girl Michelette who also comes from the future to defend Ikki and the future regime.
Protagonist ignores the girls fighting and goes home only to find both girls from future come to his apartment several days later having exhausted their fighting capabilities...
Game type: Acutually, a moege
Character Design rating: 4/10
Protagonist rating: 4/10
Story rating: 4/10
Game quality: 5/10
Overall rating: 4/10
There is one famous plot in moege. Devil girl wants to kill protagonist, but she is stopped by some angel girl. For some weird reason they start to live together with protagonist and usually couple other girls who are usually jealous. This plot is well known and easily recognized. But there is also a fork of this plot that I call "Japanese terminator". It's when some girl comes from future to kill protagonist, but another girl from future comes to protect him. And since it's all Japanese, both terminators are cute and just get to live with protagonist. This fork is more rare, but we've seen it already in Daisy Chain ~Terminator Girl~ and even in Game ni Natta yo! Dokuro-chan ~Kenkou Shindan Daisakusen~ from the same November month. Actually, Terrible Future is an ardent follower of this subgenre. Tsukune comes from future to kill Ikki. Mislet is an android girl who comes from future to protect Ikki. Madoka is just a childhood friend and a proud bearer of Fujiwara surname. Kuu-chan is imouto.
The whole story is in the synopsis. After first SF minutes we dive in the thickest ugliest moege and never get out of it. There's hardly any development and hardly any ending - we just get to tag along some girl, each time - hopefully - turning the tide so that Ikki does not destroy the Future.
Game's ugly because of horrible character design. All the girls are plump, same face-looking and never wearing a bra. None of them emanates even the glimpse of sympathy. Personalities are not better. Tsukune is just a total genki baka, or rather o-baka. Mislet just plays her senseless android role most of the time. Madoka is Fujiwara, so she poses her nose to every conflict and solves it since no one dares to argue with her. Kuu-chan is our pretty normal (but very plump) imouto.
Humor in this game deserves special attention. Tsukune generates pretty much all of "humor" situations just by barging in and shouting something stupid, as usual. The rest of the "fun" moments are about who has the bigger boobs and how each of them would seduce Ikki.
Another layer of disgust is created by intimacy scenes just in the course of the determining the route. And if getting in the bathroom while girl is taking a shower is pretty much a norm, a friendly BJ or rectal insertion of medicine are so freaking not.
I really wanted to finish the playthrough after the two heroines from future routes, but some Japanese review deliberately asked not to play Madoka route as first since it has some answers to some "puzzle". Well, we only get to know the story behind Osawa who is met in some other routes as well, but the course and the resolution and nothing outstanding or revealing.
I'm definitely too strict to moege, but Terrible Future has no future, and it's terrible, indeed. It was the last nail in the CoreMoreco coffin.
Foreword: Could only find one small impression (1), and it covers main points. I'll try to provide some novelty by comparing the game with the anime version.
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v25
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o19Xvg1cMhE&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv-J7-CHaWYlOWzwXgTG0uAE
Synopsis: Kusaka Yuu is a student that lost his will to live after the death of a dear childhood friend, until the day a mysterious girl, named Yoake Eimu, appears. From that moment on, his life would never be the same again. Hunted by Ayakashi and their hosts, the power within Yuu awakens and a never ending battle begins.
Game type: Chunige with superpower battles
Character Design rating: 8/10
Protagonist rating: 7/10
Story rating: 7/10
Game quality: 10/10
Overall rating: 8/10
Some comments on the rating are necessary. I absolutely adore quality here as there is an abundance of CGs here, all male characters are voiced (except for protagonist), a lot of animation is used constantly, writing level is high. But as a whole it's a pretty straightforward action chunige with moderately interesting heroines and normal protagonist. The result is great, but within the expectation boundaries set by the concept.
A few words should be added about the story. Yuu has a gift to manipulate items from the start. He meets aggressive gift bearers very soon, and mysterious girl Eimu can't protect him all the time, so Yuu has his power awakened in extreme situation. Alliances between ayakashi wielders get forged and broken as they all try to find their place in the society and protect the world from this curse that drains power with each use. Soon Yuu finds out that his powers come from the incident that happened two years ago and of which he has no recollections...
As expected, anime version retells the introduction of the game very thoroughly and vividly (unlike game that tries to limit impact of blood in scenes), but then focuses mostly on action skipping all the build-up and gags. As a result, it feels like a spree of pretty random battles and starts to become boring around the middle of the series. Anime also does not have the liberty of following all the endings, so it focuses primarily on Eimu and her sister Akino endings. Eimu can be called the main heroine of the game due to complex personality (hinting this would be in the spoiler range already), and Akino story underlines the problem and future of ayakashi as species, so it's only natural these themes are developed in the anime. A lot of side characters get scrapped in the anime. What makes me feel awkward in the game is childish sprites of the girls. In CG they look much older, and in HCG even more mature. Anime fixes that by presenting slightly older versions of the heroines. Overall, anime feels forced and disappointing while game manages to provide a unique story while giving enough attention to various heroines. I especially liked that Chinatsu got her ending after being so poorly treated in the main course of the game.
Ayakashi remains mostly an action game while the philosophy of ayakashi as species becomes buried in whirlpool of betrayals. Game is highly enjoyable as it is, and my only regret is that age range of main characters and constant shift into action did not let the more serious themes to flourish. Every heroine is likable, and personal stories vary greatly, so I don't really see a reason to ditch this game.
Foreword: Heaven's Cage is a very curious find for me due to its fresh, uncommon view on MMORPG. It pleasantly surprised me on more than one occasion. Here are the results of this experience.
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v1355
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4rkHG8K-TE&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv_nMwz1VgZtn0zheAWpoWfO
Synopsis: This game is about a group of classmates and an online game called “Heaven’s Cage”. As they go forth and explore the virtual landscape, battling monsters and looting dungeons, they unknowingly start to get to know each other. I appears that the characters can make some interesting online personae in the virtual world; such as seasoned fighters, powerful magicians, mysterious player killers, or a character that hates fighting/killing monsters. It would also appear that this game is more connected to the real world than we’d assume.
Game type: Reality linked MMORPG with permadeath
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 6/10
Story rating: 8/10
Game quality: 6/10
Overall rating: 7/10
It took me a long time to finalize the score, but there was not a single doubt that it was a masterpiece. During the whole common route and Melaria route it was a 8/10, but other individual routes are much different and at the same time very much alike among themselves, so evaluation dropped to 6/10, thus the result. Game is pretty chaotic, so will be this review.
First of all, synopsis is pure crap, but official synopsis is even worse, so here's my lazy summary. Makoto is a normal high school student. Due to family circumstances he has to help about the net cafe. There is a local mascot girl Nao that he needs to escort to her work in the cafe and from it due to being stalked. But Makoto spends evenings in the "Heaven's Cage" MMORPG as a trader with the naive girl Melaria who seems to be bugged. Strange monsters start to be seen at school. Schoolmates including Nao get to disappear and mysteriously show up at the "Heaven's Cage" as adventurers...
Phew, that pretty much covers it all. Just mind it that answers to the mysteries aren't really cool, so upon learning all of them game loses much of its charm. I really liked the common routes because of of pervert cousin Misao and constantly embarrassed Nao. The gags they produce are hilarious. At one moment I even thought that Nao is voiced by Naruse Mia - the voice got same funny. But I was always waiting for virtual world logins as Melaria really managed to grab the attention even while being a naive heroine. Melaria does not exist in the real world (well, except for her route), so she is not stupid naive, just naive about RPG. And that everlasting gag about Melaria hitting samurai bunny with the book and asking to forgive her all the time is just hilarious. I'd also want to notice that game cleverly uses repeats. Like Nao always says "Hai" wa ikkai where Hai can be Hoi, Ai, Ey etc. And then when Nao disappears and someone else says the same it strikes really hard. I'm saying all that in an attempt to explain why common route and Melaria route thrilled me so much. Just add here guildmates, permadeath, grind, time loop, player killer, beasts as if from abbyss, and I get enthralled.
Originally there was only one negative point noticed - visuals. CGs are rare and mostly really bad. Then another point was added - eclectic narration that is presented both by Makoto, but also Naoki and Saiko. There are constant dream and interlude pieces as well as virtual logins that aren't really referred to in the real world, so we can't even confirm that Makoto really plays a MMORPG. These multiple protagonists are needed, because Makoto's job in the virtual world is ... trader. Wow, really. He is pretty bad with fighting, so whenever we need a strong character Naoki usually shows up. But the most devastating negative point is the resolution in all the routes apart of Melaria route - very upsetting endings.
Melaria is - probably - the main heroine of the game as she is the only one who has multiple endings (all the other are bad ones), but what's most shocking is that her route is the shortest one, it hardly scratches the surface of the virtual world, actually. But it has great resolution and saves mystery for that later, so is really enjoyable. All the other heroine routes are just a bad retelling of Fate/Stay Night. All the alliances keep the attention for some time, but the story fails to be bold and tell anything new. It's just a shame that the most intriguing character Amakawa Koyuki never gets her route. It was a chance to finally find another way out to the different resolution.
Game has one curious though that keeps pestering me. What if absolute majority of adventurers are fake ones and are controlled by AI? It's an absolutely shocking discovery that in Heaven's Cage there are only some 10 adventurers overall. The rest are fake ones since they never get interested in the most important news and never try to make any effort towards finishing the game.
So, Heaven's Cage is a game that starts really strong, but ends up poorly, and we all know that final impression is what matters the most. There are some really nice characters like Nao and Shion. It's nice to see real world high school girls turn into adventurers of different professions. I enjoyed the combination of elements introduced here. But the core of the game is poor, and I can't argue about that.
Foreword: The reviews we have are pretty vague (1 2 3 4 5 6 7), so the impression of a very difficult work is created. I'm going to put all the dots so that there was not fear to read it.
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v1278
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyO6B82c_GE&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv9G-VbjOXlAvQZqm-u8F497
Synopsis: This game tells the story of seven long-time friends. How they grew closer or further apart as they got older. The story is presented using a blog-like interface.
The protagonist, Atemiya Shinobu, who was raised at a certain facility since young, had no one around him that could be called "friend". Being that way, the first thing he started doing after leaving the facility with his sister - Chidori - was to find and make friends.
Benio Azusa, a tomboyish girl who lived nearby.
Hondou Sayaka, a quiet yet sharp-tongued girl who was in charge of raising the pets at school just like him.
Tsukamoto Youko and Itsuki, a pair of siblings who belong to a prestigious family around the area.
Higuchi Shouji, a boy he knew by being attracted to by the similarities they both share.
Izuki Fueko, a girl he met by chance.
Together with Shinobu, they were a group of seven. Just like that, each and every one of them, who had never experienced the joy of having friends, was able to meet each other and become companions. The story begins in a quiet town colored by dusk. Around the seven friends, there were understanding, empathy, conflict, and what's more, fleeting love of adolescence. It was a friendship that could last forever.
Such a simple happiness should have... lasted forever.
That was until the "enemy" appeared.
The "enemy" had disturbed the peaceful relationship of the seven people.
Shinobu could not forgive that. He could not forgive the one that injures his companions, nor could he forgive the one that hurts another one's hearts. And when he realized all that, the world they reside in changed, rather then becoming the new world that it should have... they had arrived at the "sanctuary" instead.
This is a story that describes the heart.
A story that describes the thing located in the farthest end of a heart.
Game type: Mindscrew circle of friends story
Character Design rating: 10/10
Protagonist rating: 10/10
Story rating: 10/10
Game quality: 10/10
Overall rating: 10/10
I just can't understand how it's possible to give any other score than 10 if game is played to the end. It's the third philosophical visual novel in history after Kusarihime ~Euthanasia~ and Cross†Channel, and it's just a great human story with the magic of Cross†Channel still present, and even on a higher level since childish pranks don't interrupt serious talk this time. But enough vague words.
The structure of Saihate no Ima is very simple. There are four girls in the circle of friends - Azusa, Sayaka, Fueko, Youko - and there is a route for each this heroine told in a forced order. In the last Youko route we see a mysterious gothic loli girl Ima who says that Shinobu is not ready yet. And then all the four girl routes repeat again, but with more explanation and depth to the stories as well as the Shinobu mystery. In videos I call this second lap of routes as True heroine routes. After the end of True Youko route there's the True Shinobu route as I call it. It's something absolutely different from the rest of heroines routes. Basically, there are no four main heroines in there, but instead there is a whole new cast of characters. So, there are only nine structural parts in the game. Moreover, True routes generally include all or almost all the scenes from the Normal heroine routes, so I'd advise to skip Normal heroine routes overall and start with True heroine routes if you follow the video. That saves you from the bulk of repetition and allows to have a fresh view. There are actually some scenes in the Normal routes that don't present in True routes. For example, there is a step sister Chidori H scene in Fueko Normal route that does not present in Fueko True route. But it has little influence on the story, so I'd still stronly advise to skip Normal heroine routes or at least watch them after all the heroine routes and Shinobu True routes are finished.
Again, the story is simple. Just mind it that heroine routes are not entirely romantic ones as different killer stories often in the core of the routes. Heroines are fleshed out so well that I absolutely adore all four of them. Azusa has a perfect buid-up for her story. Sayaka the sulky ojousama really starts to shine in her route. Fueko has that beautiful a-ha effect upon taking down glasses. Youko is actually my favorite character for her sharp tongue and absolutely enthralling voicing that I can't ever have enough of. All the more difficult parts of this visual novel actually refer to retelling the concepts of modern world philosophy related to the core of the game, namely, the phenomenology of Husserl and Global village concept of McLuhan. Basically, all the spoilers of the True Shinobu route are given in the synopsis. This is a story of the heart, and the main mystery is the identity of the "enemy". Pretty much anything else would be in the spoiler zone already, so I hope you see everything with your own eyes.
Basically, Saihate no Ima is an eternal ultimate masterpiece that shares the Olympus of intellectual visual novels alongside Kusarihime ~Euthanasia~ and Cross†Channel. Saihate no Ima deserves dissertations written on it just like George Henry Shaft's 160000-word dissection on Cross Channel. From these dissertations we'd be able to discuss the message of the game, follow all the hints and compare all the additional scenes in Normal and True routes as well as clicked links versions compared to non-clicked versions (since there are couple scenes available only when no links are clicked, actually). But unlike Cross†Channel the other two games are not translated, so we'll see none of those, to my great regret. Let's keep fingers crossed, with Kickstarter miracles are possible like the one with Dies Irae.
