Foreword: Girl with a gun and concept similar to EVE from FlyingShine - that's a curious thing to investigate provided that only a year later the same brand will create Cross Channel!
Title: Donor - Onna Tantei Ryoujoku
Developer: FlyingShine
Date: 2002-03-08
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v6542
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlZTV0b7nLY&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv-uWqueJwenXF1BJZOgphqE
Synopsis: Futaba Kawana is an attractive American detective, who recently uncovered the whereabouts of her sister, who disappeared in Japan some few years ago. Once she arrives to Japan, Futaba hurries to the hospital where her sister was last seen. The hospital is one of the best hospitals in Japan, but many strange rumors are floating around. People have seen dead people coming back alive, lost people found, and so on. As our heroine searches for clues, she finds out that the hospital is actually a huge whorehouse controlled by some organization. To find out about the organization, our heroine becomes a nurse at the hospital, but...
This game runs on a system called, "The Buddy System." This means that there are multiple characters and multiple scenarios, where each character has it's own story. In order to understand the complete story, you have to go through each character's story. Besides our heroine, you will meet Chiya, Aya, Shihomi, and Mio. Take out your sexual desires on these beautiful but strong girls.
Structure: None
Length: 32 hours
Game type: Futuristic erotic detective mystery
Difficulty: Kinetic novel
Character Design rating: 2/10
Protagonist rating: 2/10
Story rating: 6/10
Game quality: 1/10
Overall rating: 4/10
Game got only two votes on VNDB - that's 2 and 4, but that's probably some haters or trolls, right? Or perhaps they were disappointed by H scenes - but we're here for the story, so we move on.
The start up to the opening is usually the most lively part of any visual novel, but it was not that much lively for DoNoR. It was mostly dialogues with just couple of CG with people, the other CG were blurry zoomed in versions of real time photos of some objects like door bulb or telephone. Then happened pretty cool opening featuring as many as four different people armed with guns.
But then I understood that the biginning WAS the most lively part in DoNoR as well. What awaited me next is over 10 hours of watching horrible blurry CG of real life photos, walls of NVL text and and almost total absence of dialogues. It's been four years since FlyingShine first amateur attempts of Sadistic medicine and Revolver, but not that much has changed since then! It's same blurry real life photos, same NVL, same absence of sprites and CG with people. Hell, even HCG look exactly the same - disgusting and from the same angle in order to take as much screen space with body parts as possible. What's only changed is engine that can actually run on modern OS, rare non-HCG with people and introduction of "Auto pilot" reading mode. And even that they managed to screw - at the lowest speed auto reading is too fast and absolutely not comfortable for the absence of delays between the lines.
But let's drop these technical issues and enjoy the fabulous plot... yet we can't do that. The "Buddy system" makes the story jump to and fro between a lot of people without showing them on the screen or giving their names or at least anything to identify them apart of rare female voicing and location and time announcements. I don't really know how to rate the story. For 10 hours pretty much nothing happened, then couple hours of constant gunfire with very random H evens inserted here and there. Game provides a lot of cool CG, but they have very little to do with reality as 99% of the time you see only some hyper-zoomed blurry CG of rendered object from reality, and that's a very depressing sight. Gunfire keeps ringing, and you only see the corner of some table or just one of car lights. Story is absolutely kinetic, so no interactivity is prepared as well. In couple words, DoNoR is an organization that is involved in illegal transportation of organs and genetic studies. And most of the game is about the detective agency conflict with DoNoR organization forces shown from the sides of different detective agency members.
But when the painful 12 hour narration finally ended... it turned out that there are two more same length episodes. The first episode only covers only mostly Shoichi story, and that story features a variety of female partners. The second episode focuses on female detective Futaba, and that's the route full of insult scenes of Futaba and earlier kidnapped girl. The third final episode features only a Tower, and that's a bit shorter route that has just one H scene and that puts all the points of views together and presents the culmination and the end of the story.
As a short summary, game looks really bad not because of H scenes, but because of direction, pacing and graphic aspects, as well as poor systems. It's very painful to read and follow due to the mess that's set on the screen. It manages to ruin all the benefits of visual novel as medium and provides a "B" rate book novel with rare voiced lines instead. Oh, yeah... the theme of guns is really well covered in here. And that passion is really stunning. If only blurred images did not make my eyes peel off...
Foreword: I already chose another game for review in February... but in the end just could not ignore this huge pillar of today's visual novels. Without Kusarihime there would not be Saya no Uta, Cross Channel, Fate/stay night and Higurashi, so it's significance for the history can not be overerestimated.
Title: Kusarihime ~Euthanasia~
Developer: Liar-soft
Date: 2002-02-08
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v37
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J_joeqKri0&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv9h7u5e_7ePpWZ28i2PWbxd
Synopsis: After the mysterious death of his father and his younger sister Juri, Itsuki, now suffering from amnesia, moves back to his hometown with his stepmother. There he meets an enigmatic young girl dressed in a crimson red kimono named Kurame, and the two soon become friends. The strange thing is, Kurame looks exactly like his younger sister Juri...
On the surface, Itsuki's family and friends all appear to be rooting for his full recovery. However, deep inside, they also seem to be burdened with secrets and guilt about the past. In the span of four days, Itsuki's memories will slowly return as he struggles between his loss and his fear of the truth, until the fourth night, when the whole world becomes blanketed under a red sheet of snow and wrapped up in the silence of death....
Structure: 10 cycles x 4 days
Length: 10 hours
Game type: Mythology rural human drama mystery.
Difficulty: It's easy to get some ending, but not so easy to get the desired ending
Character Design rating: 10/10
Protagonist rating: 10/10
Story rating: 10/10
Game quality: 10/10
Overall rating: 10/10
There are as many as 5 reviews, plus reddit impressions, plus very curious spoiler theory-crafting thread (1 2 3 4 5 6 7), so pretty much everything is said there already. So what I intend to is to tell you without spoilers what this visual novel is about and why you must read it. And it's very difficult to talk about Kusarihime without spoilers. Let me present an imaginary dialogue of my consciousness after reading Kusarihime trying to persuade my skeptical other self reluctant to try it.
- So, first of all, Kusarihime is neither a horror nor a nakige. It's a rural story about a boy who looses memory and comes to his home town to try to regain his memories.
- How convenient! We've seen dozens of such stories by 2002 already! What's special in it this time?
- One thing is that game is looped over the same four August days
- That's not exactly a new thing. I remember at least three games with loops before 2002.
- But the second thing is that it's not a game about chasing girls. No heroine gets her separate end.
- That's weird. Is it some all ages game or something? What is there if there aren't heroine routes?
- Each heroine actually gets one of those 10 time loops to focus attention almost exclusively on her. That provides ample opportunities for presenting H scenes.
- So there ARE actually heroines routes, they are just hidden inside some of the loops. What makes it different from usual nukige or charage?
- Heroines here are not isolated inside their stories. They pierce all the loops, and each heroine story only helps to reveal the mystery behind the protagonist past.
- Oh, the "mystery". Something about the promise made 10 years ago?
- Absolutely not. First tier of mystery is about stray girl Kurame who looks just like protagonist's deceased sister Juri. Second tier of mystery is about protagonist's family overall - he had a father, a mother, a sister and a dog - all dead by now. The third tier of mystery is about the loop itself that ends with red snow falling, usually after some impactful violent events.
- Oh, so people die in here? Any guro as well?
- Thanks to loop concept it's possible to introduce any number of deaths here and then rewrite everything with another loop cycle. There is no guro.
- Pff, so even deaths happen not in the real world. Why should I bother reading 10 imaginary stories?
- Well, deaths actually affect same characters in next loops greatly. And count the characters - only half of the stories are loosely focused on some character. The rest of loops are focused on past or give hints to the listed mysteries.
- Oh, the "mysteries" again. Btw, what does this weird title Kusarihime ~Euthanasia~ mean?
- Kusarihime is translated as "rotting princess", it's the local legend about a girl in red kimono that causes certain people die. That girl's name is Kagame. And the stray girl that's found in the forest is given name Kagame by protagonist, but he can not explain why. As for "euthanasia", it's also a mystery. Here's dictionary definition: "Euthanasia is the termination of a very sick person's life in order to relieve them of their suffering".
- I know what it means, thank you. So I get the concept of the game more or less. But what makes this game so special?
- Soundtrack, unique graphics style, great directing with lots of flashbacks and insertion of sudden scenes from other times, use of frequently moving figures on the screen instead of sprites, stunning stories of each girl, mystery plot loopholes as basis for replay-ability or theory-crafting.
- Ok, enough! Might give it a look if I find the time in my busy schedule. No promises, though.
Overall comments: I consider Kusarihime ~Euthanasia~ to be the first intellectual visual novel in history. It attracts not thanks to thrilling plot, great characters or superb visuals. It creates a multiple layer mystery where different parts move in their own pace cross-referencing each till sudden resolution. Reader is required to remember or re-read early scenes to fill some parts of the puzzle and make his own guess about the rest. In that way it can also be called the first interactive visual novel.
Foreword: I won't lie, Sollunea is the only game from January 2002 that has nice fantasy setting and is available. So, is it any fun?
Title: Sollunea
Developer: Luchs
Date: 2002-01-25
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v3189
Youtube walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cGFnvGrDnA
Synopsis: An adventure novel set in a medieval European fantasy world. A remote village in engulfed in war flames. Village is visited by traders who say that they were attacked by female thieves who kidnapped accompanying daughter of the priest. Main character decides to rescue the girl and leaves the village.
Structure: None
Length: 4 hours
Game type: Fantasy adventurer story
Difficulty: Very easy, branches are either dead ends or entrances to routes.
Character Design rating: 5/10
Protagonist rating: 6/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 4/10
Overall rating: 5/10
Rating comments: Game's too short. It desperately tries to prolong screen time, and these efforts are felt by reader. It has nice comedy moments and quite worthy protagonist, but heroines and the story aren't inspiring.
Protagonist: Blitz looks a lot like Rance visually, and he's quite a pervert even though his actions are actually usually pretty innocent. He cites wisdom of his father all the time, and he's the only bright spot in this game.
Characters: There are three heroines in this game - supposedly main heroine priest daughter Muse, kidnapper chieftain Klenadia and actually the main baddie of the game - sorceress Somua. There's no voicing, no story depth and no time to even start any heroine development. They remain just actors in this very short unenthusiastic story.
Story: Story can be described in just one sentence. Blitz saves priest niece Muse from kidnappers, accompanies her to the city and then opposes new kidnappers of Muse. That's it - can such story really be carcass of a game? It certainly can, but don't expect that game to be good.
Humor: I mentioned nice conversations with heroines, but humor mostly exists only in the first third of the game, and it's quite crude humor about nudity. Second third is very boring with heroes just travelling in the woods. Then travelling the new morning. And same goes for many days. The last third is supposed to be serious drama, but it's impossible to take this game seriously at this point.
Overall comments: Quite naive attempt to produce a fast bright erotic fantasy story and get something from this new pie. But it looks like it did not go well, so they just produced nukige from then on. Bye-bye, Luchs.
Year 2001 is a year of lost opportunities for visual novels, at least for chunige. The matured industry failed to produce breakthrough works. Of course there are lots of new cool openings Visual Novel Openings 2001 with songs.
My list of masterpieces in 2001:
Renaissance
Yougen Tennyo
Vampirdzhija Vjedogonia
Silent Hill: Play Novel
Gensou Suikogaiden Vol. 2: Crystal Valley no Kettou
Mizuiro
No Reality
Chain Ushinawareta Ashiato
Cosmos no Sora ni
Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
Ashita no Yukinojou
Kagetsu Tooya
Eve: The Fatal Attraction
Memories Off 2nd
Green Green
Jisatsu no Tame no 101 no Houhou
Kazoku Keikaku
Daiakuji
Nijuubako
Izumo
I can only settle with chunige as VN of the Year, and it's going to be Eve: The Fatal Attraction as the only long thrilling story-centered work. I also choose this work that is a remake of on old Eve game to show how secondary and muddy industry has become in 2001 for chunige. Too many disappointments and false hopes this year including Lipstick ADV.4 , Sayonara o Oshiete ~Comment te Dire Adieu~ , Bittersweet Fools , Rije ~Saisei no Ubugoe~ , Assassin Ann , Virus and Faust . But everything may change in 2002 , my peek into it already proves resurrection of story-centered games.
Foreword: Virus... mystery... girl with a gun... I liked these setting elements and just dived into it without reading anything about the game. Here's my honest impression.
Title: Virus
Developer: Celt
Date: 2001-12-07
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v17856
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6Lq5QEyqE
Synopsis: Main character is separated from his older brother and sister due to parents' divorce. A few years later sister asks him to check on brother who does not come to contact. Brother is found dead with a tattoo all over his body. Protagonist starts his own investigation with the help of some friends.
Structure: 17 days
Length: 8 hours.
Game type: Mystery investigation
Difficulty: Quite easy since bad choices usually lead to premature end
Character Design rating: 5/10
Protagonist rating: 4/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 5/10
Overall rating: 5/10
Again, not enough affinity to the game to write a proper structured review. Game is voiced and has proper true ending, so it's not total trash. But, as usual, without any strong elements to focus on.
Story is weak. All the routes are based on the fact that virus can affect anyone. So in each route we with the favorite girl face some other familiar character affected by virus, and that's it. Fortunately, there's a true route with our sister Mika where the mysteries get revealed. But it's also quite forced and short resolution, so it's not satisfactory at all. The only thing I liked is composition of routes. There were couple routes branching off early, then couple routes branching from the middle, but just one route leads you the further and turns out to be True route.
Heroines totally lack charm even though they all are voiced. There are some 6 heroines here. Protagonist is the worst. He does not have his own opinion, but forces us to make convenient decisions. Like after witnessing death from virus he says he needs body warmth and all we get to decide is which of two girls to call...
It actually looked that the same BGM was sounding all the time.
The girl with gun charm is not realized. She just breaks to the flat with the gun where we find dead brother. And she owns a gun just because she's some kind of detective. There are couple more fighting scenes with a knife in a certain heroine route, but that's it, no special affinity to weapons.
Game does not have strong points, so I consider it just to be a setting for H events. Another disappointment.
Foreword: I did not have much hope for this game until I found a Japanese review calling this game a hidden gem and praising its atmosphere.
Title: Faust
Developer: Tail
Date: 2001-12-14
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v9803
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAn6MX7Tj6U
Synopsis: In a peaceful city, a series of strange "vampire" murders happened. As if to ridicule people who don't believe in the existence of such monsters victims appear one after another in a swift succession. Meanwhile, the hero who works in the university encounters a girl. Upon that encounter, he feels "something" that can sacrifice even a precious and sacred life in that girl.
Structure: 7 chapters
Length: 7 hours
Game type: 19th century vampire murders story
Difficulty: Moderate
Character Design rating: 6/10
Protagonist rating: 5/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 5/10
Overall rating: 5/10
I don't have much to say about this game, so I'll keep informal review style. I mentioned that I found one positive Japanese review of this game and based on that decided to check it out myself. But there multiple negative Japanese reviews of this game, and, looking back, my impression is closer the second side.
Protagonist is some guy with glasses, Edward. He investigates nothing, he is not capable of standing against a vampire. All he can is go around and talk with everyone. Typical.
There are four heroines, but only one story. The choice of heroine does not really affect the story. The actual branching to see new H events only starts very late in the game. One of those four endings does not even progress to the last 7th chapter - should we praise developers for innovation of just giving an abrupt end?
The story is not particularly interesting either. Vampires keep insulting girls on full moon nights, and noone can do anything. At one of the crime sites Edward meets Fee who is actually the main heroine, but not because she has the most breathtaking route. She's just the only person who can actually fight and oppose vampire. All the guys in the game are just worthless weird detectives with smiling faces. Town is under a huge threat, but these guys just joke around in a really relaxing atmosphere. There's an explanation to this - assaults only happen on full moon nights, and such nights happen only roughly once a month. So between the chapters game can easily skip a month.
Overall comments: I did not really understand what was the point of the game. Just like any steampunk game it only can boast of the saturated atmosphere of the 19th century. I know what the atmosphere was like in the end of 19th century without this game, so what's the point? If it's supposed to be a charage, then I failed to see attractiveness of any heroine here. It's not a bad game, just a game without a single strong element.
Foreword: I don't review anthologies and fandiscs, but this time I have to deviate from this tradition for the fandisc of the game of the year 2000.
Title: Nijuubako
Developer: KeroQ
Date: 2001-11-30
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v6247
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwioMkDCF88&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv9AcuZZF8nvm-DbGt0ZKEI3
Synopsis: Among other accessories there are two stories:
1. 『イルとスイの日常』"Il and Sui everyday" is about Il and Sui exploring outer world and own sexuality.
2.『砦に帰す』"Return to the Fort" is about Aya group expedition sent by Iga ninja to investigate an ancient Yagyuu fort five years before events of Nijuuei.
Structure: None
Length: 1 hour + 2.5 hours
Game type: Mythology samurai horror mystery.
Difficulty: None. Just one fake choice.
Character Design rating: 6/10
Protagonist rating: 7/10
Story rating: 9/10
Game quality: 8/10
Overall rating: 8/10
Rating comments: "Return to the Fort" story really impressed me. It restored several loose links in the original game and developed some existing themes. "Il and Sui everyday" is a banal fan-service story, I won't touch it in any way in this review.
Protagonist: "Return to the Fort" has very curious approach to protagonist. Main protagonist is experienced expedition leader boy Kiriha. It's a convenient position since we can talk to everyone and coordinate their activities. But when the story dictates it, protagonist can be changed. Sometimes we don't even know who is our current protagonist hidden behind generic "Man".
Characters: There are several female heroines, but most of them don't get enough screen time to even remember their names. Aya is the main heroine, and it's especially wonderful that her mystery from the original game gets solved here, even two mysteries. Can't even hint, though.
Story: The very beginning is a group of ninja sent by Iga ninja clan getting to the fort in the wilderness with a lot of losses. Something's killing them one by one, presumably something from the fort. But as they sneak into the fort, it turns out to be empty... that's literally the very beginning. There's a lot and lot of development from this point.
CG and Sound: Great CG and finally voicing. Manga strips for action scenes are as cool as ever.
Thoughts:
1) Both Nijuuei and Nijuubako are released on the same day, 30th November, but the years are different. I seem some playfulness in releasing both games on the same date.
2) Aya is not the only character from Nijuuei in "Return to the Fort", so it feels totally like a prequel, not like an individual character story.
3) "Return to the Fort" not only tells the story of Aya and another character from Nijuuei, but it's also a detective story, a horror story, an action story and the story of cursed sword Muramasa.
Overall comments: Surprisingly lovely game as a result. Good mix of genres and lots of references to the original game. That's the way fandiscs should be - additional story-focused piece rather than worthless fan-service.
Foreword: Assassins... hackers... I expected the second luv wave or Phantom of Inferno from this game. It proved to be quite different...
Title: Assassin Ann
Developer: Active
Date: 2001-10-19
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v6056
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvGMXxkzdsU
Synopsis: Four young people have the dream to stand on American stage. They set up dance team "J-RAP" and practice each day. of wanting to stand on the American stage, home of dance. They set up a dance team "J-RAP" and were striving for lessons every day. One day main character gets to know that another team member Ann is actually an assassin of a mysterious organization "Gopher". She asks protagonist for help, but he refuses due to strong sense of justice. He gets caught up in the struggle between "Gopher" organization and emerging religion "Tsunoda kai". And direct danger approaches members of "J-RAP".
Structure: 3 days
Length: 1.5 hour for first playthrough, 30 mins for consequent 7 ones
Game type: Pseudo-action erotic thriller
Difficulty: Easy, only three choices for two variants each, and each branch leads to a different ending.
Character Design rating: 1/10
Protagonist rating: 1/10
Story rating: 1/10
Game quality: 1/10
Overall rating: 1/10
Rating comments: Game's a joke.
Protagonist: Kensuke is a protagonist whose presence is not felt at all.
Characters: There aren't heroine routes. Characters here have very little screen time, and they manage to waste a large portion of that time for spontaneous H events.
Story: First thing that surprised me in synopsis is rap-band. Does such thing even exist in real world? Rappers don't really need a group, and a group of rappers can't read rap together. This is definitely not a rap band in the game. But we get to see in the opening and the ending the gigs of this band played by real life actors (and maybe even real musicians). And those are one of the most sore gigs I ever seen. Horrible song sung with hypocritical looks. But as game goes on every trace of story gets lost in spontaneous H events every odd minute and just absurdity of everything happening. Half of that little time devoted to the story protagonist just investigates dossiers of his future enemies via pc. The rest is a super forced development with some crazy characters like the monastery nun. When I tried to think what this game reminds me ... it's LIGHT MY FIRE by Take in 1998. Same musicians as main characters, same new religion threatening to conquer the world, same total absurdity of everything happening and same flood of H scenes.
I recorded only one "branch" because other branches are totally the same except for H event with a different heroine or routes with just Bad endings, branches purely for additional H events.
CG: There are quite a few cool ones, but they can't mend anything. The ratio of non-HCG to HCG are 1 to 4... Animated multi-staged H encounter with Ann only adds to the one-sidedness.
Overall comments: I can only repeat that game's a wicked joke. It tries to mimic luv wave and Phantom of Inferno with lowest level content and not a single element to enjoy.
Foreword: Setting is quite cyberpunk'ish, so I expected an enjoyable read. Was I too optimistic?
Title: Rege ~Saisei no Ubugoe~
Developer: Sarang
Date: 2001-09-28
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v15317
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8QF89IDqkM
Synopsis: Rosu is a sleepless city where many kinds of people gather seeking fame and fortune. Even though the city is losing its main industry, it's still bustling. It is rumored that the city makes its money by drug trafficking as well as from a secret national arms fund. Kyoichi Koga establishes a private police station in Rosu. He used to be a policeman, but he became a private detective after being dismissed from the police force. One day, Kyoichi receives an e-mail, insinuating that a bloody event will occur. He begins research on a 23-year old tragedy without knowing that it is the beginning of the present disappearances throughout the city.
Structure: 3 days
Length: 11 hours.
Game type: Detective investigation in a decadent city
Difficulty: Not quite obvious since you need to choose locations, and it's easy to miss event if wrong one chosen
Character Design rating: 1/10
Protagonist rating: 1/10
Story rating: 1/10
Game quality: 1/10
Overall rating: 1/10
Again, can't really write a formal review here. From the start I was kind of worried about NSFW cover and "practicing magician" as one of heroines. What's a magician doing in a cyberpunk'ish setting? But reality is much worse - main heroine is magician. Her teacher is magician. Main enemies are magicians. Main battle is battle between mages! What's even going on here?
But focus on magic is not even the worst thing to happen here. First of all - I completed only Kaoru route, but absolutely could not go forth from here, game is absolutely irreparable at that point. Common route takes 1.5 hours and heroines routes only take 30 minutes. During common part we just get to choose locations about 10 times and stumble upon some girls on the streets. On the day 2 it's H scene! Out of the blue! Protagonist was just walking the girl he saw for the second time in life home! How did they get sitting on the bed? Why heroine just started some stupid imaginary drama with weeping? That looked so stupid that I saw only disgust in it.
So what do we get as a result? Super-short non-existing story, super-short heroines routes. Forced ending with very questionable action. Epilogue that takes less than a minute. Faceless and thin protagonist. Absolutely non-sympathetic and non-developed heroines. Senseless conflict and drama overall. Zero satisfaction as a result. I try to find at least something to raise my evaluation, and fail at that. It's a shameful game, so it only deserves equally shameful review.
Foreword: I have a very strange history with Bittersweet Fools. I started playing it about two years ago, and finished it only a year later. But the most important question is why this first minori game neglected that much? I believe I know the answer to this question.
Title: Bittersweet Fools
Developer: minori
Date: 2001-08-31
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v164
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CYqHFsKP-M&list=PLEJNtz1D9CPU6cTE85DdrBMeNWyN5EEbX
Synopsis: The protagonist is Alan, a former mafia assassin. He was required to go into hiding after a job and is now living in Florence, Italy. His days of peace and quiet comes to an end when he meets with the granddaughter of a mafia leader...
Structure: 22 chapters
Length: Some 30 hours
Game type: Mafia in the hiding slice-of-life
Difficulty: Easy. There is just one choice that leads to a dead end, and the rest only determine additional scenes and CG.
Character Design rating: 6/10
Protagonist rating: 6/10
Story rating: 7/10
Game quality: 6/10
Overall rating: 6/10
After all, I can't write a proper structured review of this game, mostly because I finished it about a year ago and also because I had huge pauses between the chapters. Here's my full story about it.
First I read couple chapters in Japanese back then and was totally confused by this game. It was a horrible experience. Ugly sprites, bad game system, no voicing, lack of action on the screen. I just could not get characters seriously. Then I installed the English patch for the first chapter, and thanks to first chapter in English I actually got some charm of the game and could at least start focusing on ugly drawn characters. I could not force myself to play after several chapters, so it was put on hold at my notebook. Then one day I had power outrage, and there was little else to do but to play the only game I had at notebook at that time - Bittersweet Fools. It was also the game that got me drowsy in no time. Then at the next power cut I went on with the story and so on. Just imagine the number and longevity of power shutdowns at my place if I was able to invest about 30 hours into this game! It's unbelievable, but I was still able to finish the game - but I wouldn't be under normal circumstances, because it's a hellishly long story about nothing. Mafia gang just sits at a conspiration flat, and every time they go out for a walk they find some trouble. That's the plot for 21 horribly long chapters! And in the last chapter they try to run away and face rival gang finally. Sprites drawing is appalling, and CG only happen once per several hours.
I read some impression somewhere that it's high literature here, so common folks won't be able to enjoy it. And it may indeed be so! Text here is indeed very well written, slice-of-life scenes are pleasant to read. But I'm absolutely sure that it's impossible to enjoy them in PC versions, because without voicing situations here feel artificial. But then I learned that PS2 and DC versions have voicing, and changed my view on the game entirely. With voicing I can finally enjoy slice-of-life scenes that provide for 95% of the game time. So I tried to play this game again with voicing and translation... but miserably failed at that. PS2 version can not be hooked, since there are text threads, but no memory threads for changing text found, and it's totally not worth it to find each phrase manually. With DC version I was able to get text only with Demul emulator. I perfectly see changing text memory threads here, but there's another problem - Demul just shuts down my pc in 5-10 minutes time. I tried different versions, plugins, overclocking, but pc still shuts down when memory threads are parsed by Cheating Engine + Hook any text. Without memory hooking it seems to work normally (but I did not check for longer times). And that fiasco made me include not my video playthrough link, but some Japanese one.
I believe that voice version is the ONLY way this game can be enjoyed, thus there are so few reviews. PC version is plain bad, and Repackage version from 2005 is humiliating since it's not a reverse port from PS2 or DC, but the same 2001 PC zero voice version just with music repacked.
So it's actually a very sincere good game that's never going to be appreciated in the West, because of minori attempts to have nothing to do with the West ever by keeping console releases only for consoles and suing anyone trying to patch their games. Game title really suits minori following policy.
Foreword: It's a non-voiced nakige, so I'm ill-suited to evaluate such game. But it proved to be a masterpiece even in my pretentious eyes. Game does not have a true route, so according to my review codex I only play two routes for such games - one for the heroine that seems to be the main heroine and one for the heroine that I like the most from the rest of the heroines. That's Suzuka and Haruhi routes for me. Three omake side stories are of purely comical nature and are not touched in order not to affect main story impression.
Title: Cosmos no Sora ni
Developer: Marron
Date: 2001-07-27
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v1132
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGwZh6UO_I8&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv_pLYRQ-EmpvifHrzh7BvC2
Synopsis: Time of school festival. While most students are eager to show their spirits, main character who lost his memory in the childhood pays all his attention to five girls with scars on their hearts.
Structure: 30 days from 2nd October to 1st November
Length: 5 hours per route, five routes overall + 3 short omake stories
Game type: Comedy school nakige
Difficulty: There are over 50 choices per route. Most are fake ones, of course, but I'd better follow a walkthrough.
Character Design rating: 8/10
Protagonist rating: 7/10
Story rating: 6/10
Game quality: 7/10
Overall rating: 7/10
Rating comments: After finishing Suzuka route game did not feel like a masterpiece to me. But Haruhi route was a total blast easily skyrocketing the score to 8/10 range or even higher. About that further on.
Protagonist: Niizawa Yasuomi is a great protagonist due to his prankster nature. He keeps on flipping skirts and setting pranks. His memory problems only occur for the last 1/10th of the game suddenly turning a comedy game into a nakige.
Characters: Heroines here belong to distinctive archetypes: childhood friend Suzuka, tsundere Haruhi, quiet weak Wakana, teacher Hiyori, shrine maiden onee-san Uiko. I played only Suzuka and Haruhi routes. Suzuka reminds me main heroine of To Heart Akari the most. Serious and caring, she wakes Yasuomi each morning, cooks for him, all that stuff. Her route had several nice humorous scenes, but overall Suzuka is too kind and forgiving to react at pranks. Her drama part is also forced, fast and without any surprises.
But then I played Haruhi route... and that was totally from a different league. As tsundere, she explodes at even the mildest jokes and starts chasing Yasuomi. She's just superfun to play pranks on. Somehow, I'm not tired of tsundere characters yet, and she's less generic tsundere as she does not uses "betsuni" and the like words. She's also really pretty and has both swimming suit and maid themes to develop. Her serious nakige part had an emotional impact on me, especially because her route has two endings with songs in a row very different from each other. That's all I can hint without spoiling much.
Story: Just going to school for till some 25th October, then dealing with memory problems. Various events before/during/after school make the bulk of the game. There's just a small touch of madness with mad scientist and his robots.
CG: There aren't many CG, but the quality is adequate. Just one H scene per heroine and one common bath scene.
Title and Themes: Title only is being hinted in the opening song, but is not reflected during the game.
Overall comments: It's a great nakige game with very nice characters, but it's indeed difficult to write about the game. There are couple dozen of Japanese positive reviews, but they are also inarticulate when in comes to explaining why game is good. What I only mean to say is that it's a huge feat to make a masterpiece charage/nakige without voicing, through character traits and jokes alone. Long live Marron and its following two games without voicing...
Foreword: I spotted No Reality many-many years ago, but I lacked technical skills to play it properly - I had just one monitor back then, and game crashed at even sophisticated attempts to launch it in window mode or minimize in order to hook properly. Now with the help of agth and two monitors it's been a piece of cake. The most mysterious cyberpunk'ish game finally opened its doors for me.
Title: No Reality
Developer: Unknown
Date: 2001-06-29
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v6383
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxqxQhirxgc
Synopsis: With the violent crime outburst government established "fixer" profession that compensates for security activities. Fixers receive individual cases for investigations, but they aren't given special rights which causes constant conflicts with the police over legality of means used.
Main character Neil Foxx is a fixer who used to be a detective. He has an innate special ability "ecstasy borders" to see with the eyes of the criminal upon touching a corpse. Several prostitutes are killed in a chain, and Neil is given a request to investigate it. It's yet to know that the case is going to develop in a series of terrible murders.
Structure: None
Length: 4 hours
Game type: Point-and-click detective cyberpunk-ish story.
Difficulty: Several times I was at a loss what and where to click, so walkthrough is recommended
Character Design rating: 9/10
Protagonist rating: 10/10
Story rating: 10/10
Game quality: 9/10
Overall rating: 9/10
Rating comments: I have just one complaint - absence of voicing. Apart of that it's a perfect game with great atmosphere, characters and dialogues.
Protagonist: Neil Foxx is a hardcore detective. It's a rare mystery game where protagonist really investigates himself at every step and moves the story with just his force. He's got a face, so there's no need to try and take on his boots. He's absolutely separate from the reader.
Characters: I rated characters as 9/10 because game is too short and linear to have the time for heroines. But heroines are all mature and free-spirited. Noone chases after anyone - characters act individually, and only sometimes intersect. Only half of heroines have H scenes at all, because it's a story-focused game. I'd like to specially emphasis existence of hard-boiled men as characters - detective partner Joe Bertran and police chief Bert Randolf. What's most surprising for me is the appearance of protagonist's assistant Ryouko Shinjou at the front of the game cover. She basically just searches her cat for the whole game! Well, she and her cat are the only things mentioned in epilogue, but that does not make her important at all! She's got great looks and costume, that's basically it. Still, a great cast.
Story: It's hard to say anything about the story beyond the synopsis. We basically just inspect the corpse, talk with everyone gathering clues and progressively getting access to new areas. All these activities are not separate, but just one seamless narration process, accessed via point-and-click. At times unexpected events happen giving more leads, but that's all I can really tell about the story.
CG: Graphics is fabulous. CG are very different giving special angles and focusing on some items sometimes. Great variety.
Sound: General BGM is rhythmic, but special moments and ending BGM is much more pleasant, so there's no bad aftertaste.
Thoughts:
1) It looks like company title was chosen just for this one single game they were going to produce. Game actually has allusions to both Unknown and No reality themes, and I really appreciate it when strange title is explained during the game.
2) Unfortunately game can not be honestly called a cyberpunk. It has its atmosphere, but not attributes. It's a night city with emphasis on night life, and there are computers and lots of screens around, but apart of that no high-tech advances.
3) Game really looks and feels like EVE series. Neil detective office-warehouse is almost exact mirrored version of Koijiro's den. Here and there point-and-click is used. Both are low cyberpunk detective stories (EVE has genetics in the core of the story, so it's more advanced this way). Even graphics looks very much alike. No Reality is a must have for any EVE fan. In my opinion No reality and Unknown are also used to show that visual novel industry has stagnated after EVE series failing to produce same level stories. And this is an attempt to push the industry in the right direction again as it's possible to make high quality story games even without huge budget or voicing.
Overall comments: No reality is a great example that even small company can create a high quality story. It won't sell as good as a game with a famous artist or 12 routes for all the heroines, but it will become the core of the medium, a work that the company can be proud of.
Foreword: I only got sort of interested in Femme Fatale as prequel of Edelweiss and as a part of chaotic production of Inspire company. Detective mystery game should be a safe bet for an interesting story, right?
Title: Femme Fatale
Developer: Inspire
Date: 2001-05-25
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v11647
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEQ3nVwC13A
Synopsis: Taisho era. Main character is a detective in Tokyo. He returns to hometown to dispose of his father's legacy. Local policeman tells him about a case of girl death from illness at a boarding school, but under suspicious conditions. Detective decides to investigate the incident as he needs to stay at the town for some time anyway.
Structure: 9 days
Length: 6 hours
Game type: Taisho era detective mystery
Difficulty: Easy as each wrong decision immediately delivers a bad end.
Character Design rating: 1/10
Protagonist rating: 1/10
Story rating: 1/10
Game quality: 1/10
Overall rating: 1/10
Rating comments: Should I even continue? I'm gravely offended by this game.
Protagonist: Yagami Shinobu is faceless, voiceless and hardly with any individuality at all.
Characters: Game does not have heroine routes - just one story with lots of bad ends. Girls are well written and have voice, but when spontaneous H events start to trigger one by one any charm that's left just evaporates.
Story: There's hardly anything happens during those 9 days. Each day is divided into some 10 phases, so it's roughly 90 phases where you need to check the new information about places, then the new information about persons and then advance the events further triggering some dialogues and coming out of nowhere spontaneous H events. I admit that it might be me who was not attentive enough to see the correlation of arriving information, but absolutely nothing happened till the last 9th day when you come to the dormitory for the 10th time or so and you're greeted by a character who says "Hey, I expected you to come earlier, but still well done" and that character just tells you who is the killer etc... Credits.
CG: There is on average ONE non-HCG per every girl, and it's CG when we first meet that girl. That's just nothing, an insult.
Overall comments: The story is absolutely banal and greatly ero-tilt so that every girl showing up on the screen could have her performance. All the important information is compressed into one last day. I skipped all the BAD endings (which are all just H events), but there were still some 6 (!) spontaneous H events incorporated into the story-line. So I really hope Edelweiss would have much to do with weapons, because the kind of story Femme Fatale has is a scam and should be only distributed for free like it used to be done for several months.
Foreword: April 2001 had zero visual novels to interest me. After long torments of what to choose, I stopped at Handle With Care. It's a serious musical band story, so I expected Kira☆Kira, just more serious. Should Kira☆Kira tremble at the sight of its rival that came 6 years before?
Title: Handle With Care..
Developer: ETOILE
Date: 2001-04-06
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v3140
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRNwJFAbAb0&list=PLs4Gp5VU4Fv_xgEeDrWo3RE8DTA9SrO4c
Synopsis: Our hero was the vocalist of the legendary rock band "Bloody Roses." Presently, his activities with the band are on hold. At one of the live houses he played at, he met an extremely talented vocalist named Sahara Shion. He takes it upon himself to help her in her career... As a player, it is your goal to eventually bring this beautiful talent on stage at the live house "Moon Rouge."
Structure: 10 days
Length: Took me 30 hours without skipping read text.
Game type: Serious rock band love story.
Difficulty: More confusing, than difficult. Too much text repeated, so figuring routes myself would be a pain.
Character Design rating: 6/10
Protagonist rating: 6/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 7/10
Overall rating: 6/10
Rating comments: It's the highest score I can give to a non-masterpiece. Game is very well done. But it is not enough to be interesting. Story is not the strongest part here.
Protagonist: Our protagonist is Rei, former member of "Bloody Roses" band. He's pretty cool looking guitar player, always wearing round stylish glasses and long coats. But his most notorious feature is that he kind whispers rather than talking. If BGM is put to MIDI, then Rei almost can't be heard at all. It looks most funny when he talks with some heroine with a bright loud voice, and she actually understands everything that he says unlike us, listeners! If BGM is set on lowest DirectSound, Rei finally is able to be heard. What I like in Rei the most is that he's really mature, about 30 years old, and that he's absolutely indifferent to girls. There is one H even in (almost) each route that he participates in the end, but every time he's kinda dragged into it despite his intentions.
Characters: Let's count heroines with the routes: vocalist Shion, drums Ruo, pop-singer Sayura, musical producer Arisa, diner host Emi. But the fact is... the whole game Rei only communicates with Shion on daily basis and occasionally with others. Shion dominates here to such extent that other heroines sometimes only get as many as only 3 CG. All the other heroines aren't much noticeable, really. I was glad to see that the youngest heroine with route Emi did not get a H scene.
Story: Hmm... is there even a story here? Rei finds Shion at a car dump, and during common route they get two more members of the band and get acquainted with three more girls that would serve as heroines. The give couple gigs, then participate in a competition, and get assaulted by some delinquents. Each heroine adds just a tiny grain of drama to it. That's the whole non-existing story...
CG: Too few. And CG aren't articualte. Either people just stand or play musical instruments, that's the bulk of CG compositions.
Sound: BGM is ok, but that's bad for a musical game. Game has five songs, but they all suck. The opening theme is weak, and it's by far the best musical piece in the game. There is a pop-singer song, but it also manages to suck. What's wrong with this game, really?
Thoughts: The biggest appeal point in the game is that it's... convenient. If I heard that recommendation, I'd thought it's some porn. In fact, game has just very light system, auto reading, and everyone including males is voiced. In 2000-2001 system was still a huge issue, and most games got negative feedback just because of poor or heavy system. This game got mostly positive feedback... but what does it really have besides the system? Shion is quite nice as a heroine... and that's it. But negative points accumulate: non-articulate story, poor sub-heroines routes, lots and lots or repeated reading to do just to read 20 minutes worth of unique text, then repeat.
Overall comments: I have many questions to Kira☆Kira, but at the very least it was possible to provide unique touching routes for all the heroines. Handle With Care could not do even that much. It's not a bad game if you read just common route, Shion flagging and Shion True route once. But the problem is that Shion True route only opens up after seeing all the other routes, and that's balls - rereading the same common route just to see that 1% unique text for each heroine. Game is convenient, but the problems is that it's not needed to be convenient to become a great game. Most of my favorite visual novels are anti-convenient, they are just so awesome that all the negative sides can be neglected. In Handle With Care all I can focus on is the negative sides.
Foreword: I rated Lipstick Adv.EX as 9/10 and I just can't believe that absolutely the same people - Fairytale and scenario writer Notori Shinji - could really make a terrible game after that. I hope to present an unbiased opinion from a person who knows the series well.
Title: Lipstick ADV.4
Developer: Fairytale
Date: 2001-02-23
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v8780
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgQ6XYeF1ro
Synopsis: A small detective office in a non-descript back street shopping center, there is Goro Asami, a private detective, competent in his job, with business going well, but not well enough to live in wealth. There is Otomi Kiyosato, a student of Siratori High and the founder of the "Beauty Private Detective Club, one of the stranger clubs in that school, being an absolute pain in the ass by claiming to be Goro's assistant and inviting herself to his office enough to absolutely drive him up the wall.
During this period of relative bliss, an unexpected incident shatters the peace of Siratori High. Mari Kitagawa, the chief manager for the Creative Literature Club, is found dead with massive doses of tranquilizers and sleeping pills in her body. From the location of the body and the means of her death, the police initially declared this to be a suicide, but by the following day, they abruptly change their stance by issuing a cryptic statement that "Her death was not from suicide." Rumors spread throughout the high school like wildfire, and Otomi and her fellow detective club members began investigating the case. Goro also begins investigating this strange case, after being hired by the victim's father. With Otomi's cooperation, each step of the case gradually comes to light. Yet, before the case could be determined to be murder or suicide, Tomoko Andou is found raped and murdered at the thicket of the high school's rear compound. What is going on? Are the deaths related? Who wrote that mysterious notice, "Who's next?" on the board?
Structure: 6 ACTs
Length: 7 hours
Game type: School detective story
Difficulty: Easy since it's a one road story with only bad endings on wrong choices
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 6/10
Story rating: 6/10
Game quality: 5/10
Overall rating: 6/10
Rating comments: I don't consider this game a masterpiece, thus can't rate it higher than 6. My biggest complaints are about sudden H events and the story that I failed to see logical development in. About that in relative sections.
Protagonist: Goro has not changed much, but he is not voiced and actually is paid terrifically little time in the story. He can't get any results and is not good even for an advice. What he only manages to do is seduce nurse from the hospital that controls medicaments used with first victim death. So he's portrayed just as gigolo and at the same time all his special connection with Otomi goes to hell.
Characters: Game is a single road story, there there aren't character routes. Otomi is one of two protagonists. The other two female detective club members Rieko and Aki are still there with their personalities totally the same as in Lipstick Adv.EX. There are also some 6-10 girls that exist for entourage/fanservice/as victims.
Story: Scenario is actually as sophisticated as in Lipstick Adv.EX. But in that game both protagonists were able to find the clue that led them both at the same time to the criminal. In Lipstick ADV.4 there is much more chaos and depression and much less logic. If I remember Lipstick Adv.EX mostly by detective club smalltalk and fabulous epic fails of Rie, Lipstick ADV.4 is remembered by crying faces and atmosphere of total hopelessness. The killings continue to happen, the billboard notices concerning criminal next actions continue to be drawn each day, the voyeur cameras are found, but no steps are made to identify the culprit. It is a SPOILER ahead, but without it can't describe the flaw of the game.
CG: There are quite many CG, but they all feel bleak. Most of them are just one girl / several girls standing still. Even CG with some activity are poorly done and I can't feel affection for them. Also I'm absolutely surprised by the fact that 8/9 H scenes are shown during the main course of the game and just one as a part of a bad ending. All the other bad endings just present a gore picture of some death. I'd really want to see H scenes only as part of BAD endings.
Sound: All girls are voiced and BGM... not remaining in the memory.
Thoughts:
1) Story was the first element that disappointed me, but the second element is Otomi. The whole series was holding on the fact that a sexy girl can be a full-fledged partner in detective office and not an object of sexual manipulation. And Lipstick Adv.EX was surprisingly true to the series. Otomi equivalent Koume there manages to remain a symbol of purity, and her kidnapping in the end is seen as an attempt to defile that purity of the series. Koume remains virgin loyal to Megumi (equivalent of Gorou). But what happens in Lipstick ADV.4 is freaking weird. Otomi interrupts two girls having fun and as a result gets involved into a mild lesbo 3P. After that she thinks it over at home and understands that she was practically raped there. But on the next day she is invited by the same two girls to the karaoke and under their pressure just can not say "no" - and she freaking gets raped for the second time... that's just so humiliating and stupid, really. Humiliating because it goes in contradiction with the whole series experience and stupid because only an idiot would step on the same rake two times!
2) Comparison of Lipstick Adv.EX and Lipstick ADV.4. I've no idea why Lipstick Adv.EX has basically the very same characters, but with different names, probably because of some rights issues or some characters getting an irreversible development. But with both games having the same scenario writer it's natural that games are very much alike. More that that - I see an absolute mirroring in many cases. Both games start with the girl death and have highest depression peak after second girl death. Both games have spontaneous scenes of girls being insulted by an unknown person. And I even see the mirroring in the fact that the core motive of both first murders in both games is justice seeking revenge, but the next murders are only seemingly of the same kind, but actually absolutely different. So games are very much alike, but in absolutely every element Lipstick Adv.EX prevails.
Overall comments: Lipstick ADV.4 is not a bad game at all, but it is basically a degraded version of Lipstick Adv.EX and thus is shown in a bad light. At the same time Lipstick ADV.4 breaks several traditions of the series:
1) It has nothing to do with the bombings
2) It defiles the figure of main heroine
3) It humiliates talents of main hero making story develop by itself
With that I suggest to extradite Lipstick ADV.4 from being a part of the series. Amen.
It took a huge amount of time to finish year 2000, but it's over. The industry has matured to contemporary state, so there's no need to search for novelties this year.
First of all, here's the collection of Visual Novel Openings 2000 with songs.
In 2000 I've made a number of videos with only 1-2 routes, so now is the chance for you to choose one of those games to make playthrough of the rest of the routes. Less than 10 votes in 2 weeks time will mean that noone needs that, and I won't do anything. Some playthroughs contained full number of routes and some (like Treating2U and Heart&Blade) are too torturing for me to return to. So the candidates in 2000 are:
Lien ~Owaranai Kimi no Uta~ (3 routes missing)
Gyousatsu♥Shinsengumi Hitokiri Bishoujo Adventure (not sure for the number of routes)
Ragnapolice (7 stories missing)
Kaichuudokei (2 routes missing)
Dorei Ichiba (4 routes missing)
Now let's list masterpieces of the year:
Gensou no Artemis
Lien ~Owaranai Kimi no Uta~
Treating 2U
Phantom of Inferno
Harlem Blade II ~Dark Angel~
EVE Zero
Gyousatsu♥Shinsengumi Hitokiri Bishoujo Adventure
Age Maniax ~Isumi Yon Shimai Saigo no Hi~
Hateshinaku Aoi, Kono Sora no Shita de...
Shoin, Aruiwa Ushinawareta Yume no Monogatari.
Tsukihime
Sense Off ~A Sacred Story in the Wind~
Pure Mail
Gin'iro
Air
Gensou Suikogaiden Vol. 1: Harmonia no Kenshi
Baldr Bullet
Nijuuei
Never7 -The End of Infinity-
I do not see any rivals to Nijuuei this year, so it's the VN of the Year.
Foreword: I heard about this game couple years ago that it actually had a decent plot, and around the same time got acquainted with the anime version. It's been my longtime wish to show that nukige may have a decent story, but is this exactly that case?
Title: Dorei Ichiba
Developer: Daiginjou
Date: 2000-12-22
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v1127
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wh8zelvX-I
Synopsis: During the 17th century, the Ronbaldia Alliance and the Holy Aimar are at war for power. Ronbaldia sends its ruler to the royal city of Constantinople for safety. Cathias Gire follows as a clerk. Not knowing anything about the royal capitol, Cathias decides to buy a slave. Cathias heads for the slave-grounds and is shocked to see how they are treated. Nevertheless, he buys a slave recommended by his friend. Cathias can do what ever he wants to do with his salve now. Will this all end when the war finally gets out of control? What will happen?
Structure: 3 days in each route
Length: 3 hours for one route, overall 5 routes
Game type: Middle ages vice city on the brink of war
Difficulty: Low, the number of choices is small and wrong choices usually lead to a clear bad end
Character Design rating: 5/10
Protagonist rating: 5/10
Story rating: 6/10
Game quality: 5/10
Overall rating: 5/10
Rating comments: You can see by the scores that my opinion of the game is not high even though VNDB average score is over 8 atm. I failed to find something worthwhile in the story, and other elements are just bleak to me.
Protagonist: Cathias is quite a normal embassy envoy, we control his actions fully.
Characters: Bianca, Cecilia and Mia are the slaves available from the start, and your friend's sister Katerina afterwards. Remastered version also introduced Harem route which actually is the most interesting story-wise, not just fanservice. I only captured Katerina True route, because game moves from Bad ends to Good ends, and there's too much insult from the start. Also you'll need to grind ducats with a special fundraising route, since some good endings and Katerian true ending require large sums of ducats that transfer to each new game. For me the route of mute Bianca is the best, and exactly that route is shown in anime already. It was impossible for me to feel sympathy to any of the heroines.
Story: Every route follows pretty much the same pattern - arrival on day 1 - city investigation on day 2 - some danger with a link to the target heroine in the day 3. Each route is short, so noone has time to develop, really. CG: I have huge questions to both character design and CG. The only CG I liked were fighting CG.
Overall comments: I did not like the game overall, thus such inarticulate review. Unfortunately the stories are episodic, and only harem route features more than one heroine. Dorei Ichiba is not something that Venus Blood series could provide - a thrilling story + nukige.
Foreword: Won't lie, I only picked this game since the other notable titles of the month were gameplay-centered. But this one is a mystery story centered around time travel which makes it stand out among the rows of typical charage in October 2000.
Title: Kaichuudokei
Developer: Free's
Date: 2000-10-13
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v21778
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8GxGaUo6Yc
Synopsis: Some girl appears before main character and gives him pocket watch. The next day she meets hero once again, but she had no recollection of the yesterday encounter. Strange events start to pile up turning into bizarre incidents that are able to claim one's life. Can he protect the girls?
Structure: Game takes some 5 days, but we have to repeat only last 2-3 days usually through time travel
Length: 3.5 hours for one route
Game type: School crime mystery with time travel
Difficulty: I'd say moderate. Composition is unusual, so it's possible to get lost without knowing how to proceed after bad ending
Character Design rating: 6/10
Protagonist rating: 5/10
Story rating: 7/10
Game quality: 5/10
Overall rating: 6/10
Rating comments: 6 is the best score I can give to a non-masterpiece game. Game is about the mystery, so characters aren't much developed, same as protagonist. Game quality gets a dent for some poor CG, no voicing and constant crashes at win10 at sound effects play (win98-ME does not have crashes, but it's impossible to hook text there).
Protagonist: Nothing much special. A normal high school student who got involved into a mysterious case.
Characters: There are three heroines - Asuka, Haruka and Sakuya, but the main heroine with the most intriguing plot like is Asuka.
Story: Main character receives pocket watch from a girl one day, but when the same girl moves to his class the next day, she has no recollection of giving the watch. There are several incidents targeting girl's life and of course death in the end which triggers time jump with the need to prevent death. There are four cycles of the same events, and each time we get to uncover new part of the mystery and observe different suspects. The ending was very unexpected for me. Great composition and story, actually.
CG: Most are fine. Good thing that there are very few H events in the game, two per heroine or so.
Sound: BGM turned out to be nice and inspirational, especially liked the danger motives.
Thoughts: The motive of the game is that innocent looking persons are usually the most vile. And it was nice to see how that idea played out in each of girl routes.
Overall comments: I liked the story here. It's complex enough and short enough to keep the thrill from beginning to the end, creating an overall positive impression.
Foreword: C's Ware chuunige is always welcome by me. There are only couple Japanese reviews with mediocre scores, but knowing C's Ware... they must have prepared a new exhausting system like Kazeoto or Vist that most of people could not even pass through. Welcome to the elitist club review, since I made it to the end and have much to say about it.
Title: Heart & Blade
Developer: C's Ware
Date: 2000-09-29
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v6129
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdOxpS1Gfcw
Synopsis: Osamu, the protagonist, is a student whose family descent from a lineage of samurais and owner of a Dojo of kendo.
He was studying and training at the United States, but now is time to go back to Japan.
At this house, where he must protect a sacred milenium old tree, he meets a strange girl who resembles someone he met a long time ago.
But his problems are just starting. His father got him a fiancee from a rich and traditional family, his blond classmate from United States came all the way to Japan after him, and his older female cousin came to help at the dojo.
What is more strange, monsters started to appear in the City. Osamu must wield a sword and fight them to protect the sacred tree and his friends.
Structure: Game is divided into 11 days.
Length: 8 hours for one route
Game type: Small town mystic demon fighter adventure
Difficulty: Well... since game is command selection type it's still best to use walkthrough not to fall astray from the chosen path, but overall there aren't many crucial decisions to make.
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 6/10
Story rating: 7/10
Game quality: 6/10
Overall rating: 6/10
Rating comments: Well, I could not rate even Vist as masterpiece, so can't rate Heart&Blade higher than Vist - and Vist is more impressive in most of fields, but in other fields like story integrity, heroine route integrity and fights mechanic Heart & Blade actually wins.
Protagonist: Osamu is a normal boy protagonist, but males are drawn very weirdly in this game. It's nice that we don't control Osamu all the time, and he mostly makes his own decisions after we take him to the needed place. I like it that he has a face and some personality, but that's it. He's not voiced ofc.
Characters: There are four heroines that have individual endings, but their routes are almost the same. I chose Alice for playthrough since she's the only one outside of that traditional Japanese spirit that the whole game is soaked well enough already. Can't say that Alice had a good route though... but the story matters much more in this game than some girl route.
Story: So... what's not covered in synopsis yet... actually pretty much everything is there. And nothing much is happening in the game, actually. Osamu arrives, gets acquainted with the girls and then there are several school days with occasional demon attacks. In the center of the story is the sacred tree that grows near Osamu dojo. Some girl vision visits Osamu from time to time near that tree. Girl blames him for not keeping promise. And that girl comes from Osamu past, prior to USA study period...
CG: Where is Carnellian? Or at least some normal artist? Both CG and heroines design is inferior to previous works. Males usually look plain weird while girls CG feel soapy... can't describe well. The number of CG is big at least.
Sound: BGM is absolutely the best, like in all C's Ware games. At first I thought games is not voiced at all and BGM has to bear full weight like in Re-Leaf, but after first hour girls showed up and they are voiced - phew! Voicing is ok, but can feel irritating at times thanks to chosen heroines archetypes.
Humor: In the core of the game there is confrontation of Japanese ojousama Harunako and American Alice. The whole game either of them tries to invite Osamu somewhere and the other girl instantly shows up and demands accompanying them. That produces quite many funny situations like Alice attending nobility evening in her freestyle outfit.
Mechanics: As if command selection narration and mouse-only control is not torturing enough, there is also horrible fighting mechanics. Games tries to give some tutorial on fighting, but reality gets much fiercer. The very first demo fight with Osamu father in dojo took me some 20 minutes, because - as I understand now - I was expected to make some combination of hits out of 10 different strikes or so. In walkthrough there is a list of combo strikes, but - surprise - they aren't usually available in every fight and game should teach you this strike prior to using it and it only teaches these strikes on hero death... But this is still nothing compared to three very long consequent fights with multiple opponents in a row in the endgame. Absolutely every hits kills Osamu and upon load about 70% of the time Osamu gets killed without even an opportunity to strike. I deliberately left all those save/load stuff in the video so that degree of madness can be felt. I'm quite sure that I had to load at least several hundred times during the playthrough. It's a very sadistic game.
Overall comments: Heart & Blade is a very C's Ware'ish game. It uses the same outdated engine, same mouse-only control with torturing gameplay elements. What only improved is the system so that now there's at least understanding of flags and of hit/avoid mechanics in battle, as well as voicing. But graphics is worse here. Story still kicks in, but it's much more simpler than in Vist. There is more attention to heroines and slice of life here, but C's Ware games were always story-centric. I adore it immensely in C's Ware that they stay loyal to their principles and keep on making thrilling hardcore games. As a C's Ware fan I really liked Heart & Blade, but if I played this game without the historical contest it would hardly interest me or make me play it to the end.
Foreword: This game has too many girls with guns for me to miss. Sorry in advance for for guns-only gallery! Honestly, Ragnapolice surprised me with quality police story and meaningful heroines. This is a full scale 8/10 masterpiece for me.
Title: Ragnapolice
Developer: Air Plants
Date: 2000-08-25
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v10746
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmpkFM-7C7k
Synopsis: An investigator is dispatched from the Space Police Agency headquarters to the South Area Department. His name is Ryouma "Gold Wolf". He is attracted to a woman detective Margaret there. A shooting incident occurs, and Margaret is killed as a result. Ryouma stands on the trail of revenge and starts his private investigation of this case.
Structure: There's some kind of prologue and 60 days afterwards (we gain freedom of movement on 8th day)
Length: 10 hours
Game type: SF police story
Difficulty: Very easy, but it takes time to get used to the system of multiple cases
Character Design rating: 8/10
Protagonist rating: 7/10
Story rating: 9/10
Game quality: 7/10
Overall rating: 8/10
Rating comments: I can't hide my fascination with the game. I liked the short case stories, liked even protagonist, because he has face and is quite fiery. Graphics can look a bit odd, but with time looks very organic as well. My only complaints are about quality of some CG, partial voicing and absence of true route with distinctive truth about Margaret fate.
Protagonist: Ryouma "Gold Wolf" is cool. He constantly opposes his commanders to support his ideals and opinion, and usually manages to prove his point of view. He's a good partner, too.
Characters: There are as many as 9 routes and endings in the game - 8 for each heroine and one for partner Alex - no, no, no shounen Ai included, even though last CG might look a bit this way. Alex story is hard boiled one about penetrating criminal organization and surviving in it, but I did not include it in my video walkthrough, just a part of it with a bad ending. Among the 8 heroines there are some with not so thrilling stories, like the princess who runs away from the palace and hides at Ryouma room, but every story is curious and easy to watch. Usually heroine endings opens up upon finishing two cases related to that heroine. My favorite heroine is your side-partner Claire. She's cute, feisty and looks great in wedding dress with an assault rifle, hehe.
Story: So we sort of figure out identity of Margaret killer in Claire route, but there's no flashy ending to it, just unwinding current police case, and that's it. But Margaret story is referenced in every heroine route, so maybe Claire route is not the only one fill the puzzle. In the same Claire route we sort of oppose our elder brother who tried to fire Ryouma after incident with Margaret. The stories in the police cases are various : bombings, car thefts, guns smuggling, narcotics etc etc. The shooting mini-game is nice, but I it was buggy for me playing at a virtual machine. Anyway all the sluggishness of minigame disappears after couple of defeats.
CG: Each of 9 routes has 10 CG, so overall number seems to be 90, which is ok'ish. Some of CG have weird eye drawing and distorted faces, but overall everything's cool. HCG are only at the very end of each girl route, and that is the best option for me.
Sound: All the important scenes are voiced, only daily routing and dialogues are usually not voiced, and I'm ok with it. BGM is not too inventive and irritates if you spend too much time at one scene.
Overall comments: Ragnapolice does not look too much enticing, but somehow all the heroines here have distinct individuality. There's no need to reread the same main route, so there's no usual aversion for me to do sub-heroine routes. I missed integrity here, and one true route would suit great here, but back at 2000 true routes weren't that common yet. It's an easy and interesting read, and that's something that I encounter less and less rare in visual novels.
This game has a good spoilerless review (1) and several mentions on reddit (2 3 4 5) that all claim the game to be a "legendary" eroge renowned for its metafiction-heavy plot" "sometimes seen as a predecessor to games like Ever17" and to have "exciting plot", "saddest and most beautiful H-scene" resulting in being "emotional during reading it". So my only question at this point is "ARE YOU FREAKING BLIND, PEOPLE?!"
Game is ridiculously boring and has NO appeal points besides quirky composition. Composition is ok since there are two stories plus some kind of diary. First it's needed to reach main endings in both of stories, then diary entries get revealed one by one, and finally you need to return to both stories and see the rest of opened endings. Now for the disadvantages:
Characters aren't voiced and have zero appeal. They aren't developed at all.
Protagonist "N" is not described at all, he persists being a stub of a character
There is no story in the game and that's why nothing really to spoiler. In the first game we just get to know who actually is "X" and in the second story nothing really happens at all, just winter suddenly comes, and everyone is free. All we get is seeing all the three absolutely not interesting girls endings which are supposed to be main reason I wasted 7 hours of my life on it. Nothing is explained!
Routes themselves are absolutely stupid. Basically from 23 endings about 20 are the same bad ones resulting in being stabbed or hit in the head or loosing memory. Why do I have to read the absolutely same endings for 20 times in order only to rarely get some hint out of them? Is it a game for M?
The horrible system does not let customize practically anything.
The horrible game engine pours tonns of garbage together with the text. I made over 100 substitutions and it still littered the screen with all kind of nonsense every now and then.
There are literally just 10 CG in the game, plus some 20 HCG. Any PC98 game wound beat that many times over without demanding so sit and read nonsense for 7 hours straight.
The backgrounds in the game take just 1/3 of the screen space. Is that even normal? I felt like sitting in a very small cage the whole game.
There are only one-two variations of sprites for each heroine. This is so stupid that I really thought that Hinata was pregnant till the very end of the game - her only sprite is THAT ridiculous.
It would be too cruel to criticize the game for having zero voicing at this point. But the game even does not have substantial sound and BGM support! All those few existing tracks were really irritating after seven hours of playing.
Why is this game even described as metafiction-heavy? There aren't any references to external sources, it's nothing but a fluke.
I see no way to play this game without a walkthrough since in many places it's needed to enter specific phrases in Japanese manually to see certain ending. It's ok with just "suki" or "aishiteru", but you need to guess 19 (!) numbers of the safe combination with only vague tips and finally once you need to enter "yumenoe" which I've no idea where it comes from at all.
This review would be much milder if the reviews weren't so obnoxiously praising. It's not a bad game if you like mystery games with complex structure. There was never with so complex structure before, so it's a great example for all future ambitious games. But trying to compare Shoin with Ever17 is comparing an inventive doujin-ish B class game with an AAA title, totally unfair. Shoin can be called a girigiri masterpiece only because it brings new features, but not because it's an organic amusing game.
Foreword: I only started this game to find references to Phantom of Inferno, but it's high quality entertainment, and it does not let you go easily. Instead of just links to Phantom of Inferno, I enjoyed a colossal multi-culture reference mix, but about that further on.
Title: Age Maniax ~Isumi Yon Shimai Saigo no Hi~
Developer: Age
Date: 2000-06-03
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v444
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c74f8Wn4sRw
Synopsis: One day protagonist meets with four sisters, who due to certain events starts living in his house. But he has to go to Europe to follow a story, and they decide to go together with him. They make reservations in an old castle which had reports of a princess' ghost, a legendary wolf, a lake monster and a crashed UFO surrounding it. And this is not even the beginning of the events to unfold around the sisters ..
Structure: Game is roughly divided into four parts : prologue town, hotel, train, epilogue town.
Length: Took me five and a half hours to finish one playthrough.
Game type: Crossover bakage not only between Age titles, but with titles of other five companies
Difficulty: Easy since it's royal road, but as you can give preference only to one heroine at a time, couple more playthroughs will be needed to watch all CG
Character Design rating: 10/10
Protagonist rating: 8/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 9/10
Overall rating: 8/10
Rating comments: I just can't ever rate bakage highly, and there are very few of them that I can call masterpieces. This is exactly that case. Crossover type has a lot of benefits - all the great characters from previous games are used, there are lots of cool ways to tie incompatible features from different games together, and there's no real need to bother for the story much. The whole first part of the game I was even rating the game as 9/10.
Protagonist: Masaki is not your usual high school boy. Instead, he's a grown-up who lives alone and works as a photographer while being a fan of super rangers franchise in his free time. But his personality is quite usual - reserved, kind, but reliable. We don't get to see his face, but he projects a solid impression.
Characters: Basically we jump through different games like mad, but Kimi ga Ita Kisetsu heroines accompany us all the way, so we can pay additional attention to one of three girls and get extra CG related to her on the way. But don't get me wrong, there are no main heroines here, and it's totally ok not to chase anyone and just follow the story normally. Shouko from Rasen Kairou also accompanies us the whole way, but she's here for the plot purposes, she sees her role to explain all the mysteries happening around in a scientific or logical manner. Charlotte from "D" plays quite an important role and remains the most mysterious character. Kaseki no Uta maids and their master Welka are important only for hotel part and somehow important for train part.
Story: After the whole band bursts into Masaki house there's not much time to lose, it's already known that Masaki is going to some Europe town for a photo mystery tour, and the girls decide to go together with him. The whole prologue is basically preparation for the trip. Now the glimpse of madness that's going on in the game - photographer Masaki forgets his camera while going on a photo sightseeing trip... Anyway, they are greeted by maids and led to the mansion. There's a number of mysterious legends that they listen to there, and actually get to see each one with their own eyes. Then all the characters are... let's say forced... to leave the mansion and as another twist of absurdity have no better plans than to board the Magic Arrow mysterious train. There's more exploration and action in this part, and after facing some danger everyone gets home. Basically that's a very rough carcass. There is also mystery and intrigue as some forces set a conspiracy and are interrupted multiple times on their journey. There's a nice resolution of the conspiracy in epilogue in bakage manner.
CG: Have zero complaints. Loving CARNELIAN with all my heart.
Sound: Almost all the female characters are voiced. Only some guest star heroines from the other games aren't voiced (like Aries), there's probably very good reasons for that. BGM is marvelous. My only tiny complaint that sound volumes aren't customizable, and BGM sometimes sounded loud and speech not so loud.
Title and Themes: Here I'd like to talk about appearance of Ein and Drei from Phantom of Inferno. I'm quite sure it was difficult to use them due to copyright issues, but on top of that it was a difficult task not to belittle famous heroines from a serious games with the bakage jokes. And that task was accomplished 100%. They both appear three times and with the same cool phrases that look very funny at different situations. Ein usually appears when hero is searching someone crying out that person's name. Then appears Ein : "Don't call me by that name. I'm Ein, since old days till now. You are Zwei, my second half". And it's very funny when Masaki just says "Sorry, wrong person" and goes past. Drei always appears at high pitch moments with her phrase "That's the guy who made me a woman. What do you thing he's doing in America. He's a killer." And then scene goes on. That's pretty hilarious each time. They just come to the scene with their cool phrase and the music changes to a special sad one, and then they disappear, and it's normal music again. Those moments really make up for the atmosphere. Couple times Ein and Drei also said some phrase relevant to the current situation in the game, was not something special though.
Another cool theme in the game is power rangers. It starts as just a childish hobby of Masaki, but ends up a huge thing.
Humor: There's so much of very different humor which is a great relief after Kimi ga Ita Kisetsu boobs size constant repeats (in Age Maniax there is just one single joke on the matter). Most of jokes are built on absurd situations. Can't remember good stand-alone ones right now.
Overall comments: Age Maniax has great pace, great absurd humor and links to lots of different games from 0verflow, TopCat, Nitroplus, Circus, Abogado Powers and one superhero game I do not know. It not only managed to show that Fandisks can be fun if made properly as crossovers (the first visual novel crossover, actually), but it also managed to unite so many different games together. I consider it to be a very important game from historical point of view. It's also a good entertainment that relies heavily on the games from that era. Unfortunately, nowadays players do not know anything about the referenced games (except for Phantom of Inferno, probably), and that deprives the game of a huge chunk of its charm.
Foreword: There were three particular reasons to choose Purepure for review. First, because May 2000 disappoints me with the range of games - most games are either charage, or nukige, or gameplay focused games. Secondly, I see Purepure similarities with Shunpuu Shoujo that I love gently. The third reason is that I see this game to be very different from previous Ange games. I'll try to elaborate in the main part and give my reasons for nominating this game as game of the month in conclusion.
Title: Purepure
Developer: Ange
Date: 2000-05-26
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v13524
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMpR_BlLqDc
Synopsis: On the moonless night the hero stumbles upon a strange girl. She speaks of herself as master of ceremonies that was kicked out due to being useless. She ends up living with the hero. What's there behind her past?
Structure: Game is divided 14 days with 10 days for setting flags and four days for displaying outcome.
Length: 3-4 hours
Game type: Celestial artifacts girl mystery
Difficulty: There is only a dozen of choices, so easy, I guess. But there are other branches as well.
Character Design rating: 4/10
Protagonist rating: 4/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 4/10
Overall rating: 4/10
Rating comments: Such ratings from me only mean one thing - game is an absolute disaster. I choose the game for the story and its serious development, and story was somewhat okish, but can't point out anything else.
Protagonist: Nothing special. His presence is not felt at all.
Characters: There are five heroines overall, but I see no reason to play any route but the main heroine Saki.
Story: Story is quite a copycat of Shunpuu Shoujo except for the fact that Saki is not a celestial being herself, but she possesses mysterious sacred mirror and hand-band. The whole flagging part and a good half of "route" path is just water with absolutely unexpected ninja H events on the way. The actual drama finishing part has the same conflict as Shunpuu Shoujo which saddened me a lot, but without the cool angel buddy and humor. The conflict is almost non-existent and resolution is unnatural. I know there is also a bad ending in the game, but I can't possibly see how it can mend anything wrecked so much at that point.
CG: There aren't many CG in the game, some 80sh with HCG occupying over half of the number.
Sound: BGM was quite pleasant, but repeated itself too often. I doubt there are even 10 tracks here. No voicing at all.
Humor: I failed to find any humor in the game even in situations where CG are meant to be funny.
Overall comments: So Purepure is horrible to my taste. What strikes me the most is how it's different from previous Ange games. Ange games were never high quality ones, but they were based on curious stories and had a special style, mostly graphical, so that I could guess Ange game almost without fail. This game feels like it could have been produced by any lesser known company, just an average game with an average story and drawing, nothing special about it at all. The main question is why Purepure is the game of the month May 2000 then. Just because it's the only story-based visual novel of May 2000. I can't stand moege or hospital nakige. But May 2000 has a big title "Natural 2 -DUO-" that's better in every way! That's true, but I value story the most. Purepure was not a waste of time in that regard. Natural 2 would be a total waste, and I'm especially disgusted with the games that have both pure love and devil routes with the same heroines. Thus we have what we have in May 2000.
There is a hospital where almost noone is ill, and everyone spends days peacefully waiting for examination day... There is a proper review ( 1 ), so I intended to skip this game entirely. However, I got a request and thought why not, what could possibly go wrong with a game that got an average score of 8.29 on vndb? Actually, everything went wrong right from the start. The genre is heartwarming hospital themed nakige, or so I determine it. I really detest hospital theme and nakige. I would never be able to play Kana little sister, for example. But hey, at least I can find interest in comedy, characters, songs and those fun events at CG, right? I really failed to see traces of comedy in Treating2U. Characters aren't really something that stands out here. In Masami route that I played I could not see her appeal at all, just a traditional Japanese widow, who could just wear kimono as well. She looks to me like an addition to her son Tatsuru, not like a main heroine at all. Japanese reviews also don't rate her route highly, and I admit that for me someone like green-hair scar face girl Ikuno would be a much better choice.
There is one technical issue that absolutely obstructed my gameplay and impression of the game. NO VOICING. It's strange to complain for me - the majority of games I ever reviewed had no voicing. I played every PC-98 visual novel, and none of them had voicing. Blue Gale just had to cut their budget, but story does not become worse just because heroines aren't voiced, right? It would be right if the game had a story. All it has is several human dramas, and the key word here is Human. It's basically a charage - how can a charage be without voicing? I absolutely fail to see humans behind the heroines in this game, just some characters I feel nothing towards. There are six heroines to capture in this game - I really felt it was an excessive number. The whole common route is so long and torturing, because there are too many heroines, and each of them needs to make a certain number of appearances.
But there are other cool elements in this game. There's an absolutely cool protagonist who sings real songs! Even songs could not help the game at that point when you're already 6 hours through the game with not a single word said and either under the same few BGM or in complete and total silence. Main character is kind, adult, cool looking and is good with children. It seems to me he's praised so much, because heroines that bad in this game. Why would I want to watch at an adult man playing with children for couple weeks in the hospital? Common route is what determines a good game. Here common route is long, but is hardly worth talking about - just a playground to get acquainted with the girls. The heroines routes here are much better and really present a unique story each time, but it's just my principle to play only one route for a normal charage without true ending. The game is just a combination of factors that I can't stand, and because of that I'm unable to rate it properly.
There is a normal Japanese family - a rock star priest, a fox goddess and their son ghost... ok, maybe not so normal. Anyway, there's a fantastic review ( 1 ) on this game already, so I can have a free style review for a change just to put something along with a video. So following that review... first things first - game has no bugs on win98, all icons are in order - everything is perfect. But since the game can't run install on newer Windows, we indeed have to copy contents to the disk folder, launch reg file (need to edit it to change cd drive letter) and speech volume up tool. The full guide is here ( 2 ). Just in case - the link for the volume up tool is ( 3 ). So the only little inconvenience that we need to tolerate on newer Windows is that icons get messed up. It's not that much of a deal, right?
NO.
As a result the icons for SAVE and GHOST functions get exchanged. It's very easy to get acquainted with saving on ghost icon, we play as a ghost, anyway. But this way SAVE icon gets absolutely forgotten. This icon stays crossed out for 99.99% of time, but this is absolutely the most important icon in the game, because it gets active in 0.01% of time at the most crucial moments in the game. If I knew that from the start, I would not have to tear my hair out while redoing all the routes of all the characters over and over and each time either getting somewhat awkward endings or failing to set the flags for a girl. I followed three different walkthrough VERY diligently and each time had a failure as a result. By the way, the best walkthrough with all the choices and very comfortable table outlook is here ( 4 ).
So here's the deal. One of such most crucial moments is on the screen. In this scene we finally get all the flags for the girl and enter the first love event marked with a heart on the map. In this event Minamo is sleeping... that's pretty much it. But... her skirt gets a bit wrinkled so that pants are seen just a little bit. Trust me, this is the most crucial event of the route. So hero enjoys the peaceful view when two boys approach, share the joyful news with each other and take out a digital camera while looking for the most beneficial angle... There are no options, nothing. Just as any other event that we've seen before so far. So hero cries out of helplessness since he's a ghost and can't really help Minamo. Boys get the photo and run away happily. Minamo continues to sleep happily. A weird event, but it's ok. The problem is that after the event Minamo absolutely disappears. We just pass days aimlessly and fly to the skies on the 49th day. Game over. I could not understand what was going on for a long time trying different approaches prior to the even. But I only understood it while skipping scenes on Win98. There is a ghost icon in place of SAVE there and during skipping the scene it suddenly stops in the middle of the scene, just at the spot the screenshot is. Why would a game stop skipping the text in the middle of text scene? The answer is that there are moments when main character Shiro needs to concentrate his psychic power in order to manipulate objects in physical reality. When we click this icon at this very moment, Shiro fixes the skirt, boys run away and Minamo wakes up noticing Shiro who hurriedly explains the situation in order not to be blamed for it. And later on Minamo admits that she understood that Shiro loved her exactly at the moment when he fixed that skirt expression his care and desire to protect this way. So with this hint all the routes finally become a piece of cake.
Now to the contents. I give the game 8/10, it's that good. It could easily be 9/10, but the sectional voicing and a bit of fault in the system affect the impression. There are four heroines for capture - kendo club osanajimi Akira, shy diligent student who is afraid of ghosts Wakaba, merry single Psychic Sience club member Minamo and a ghost girl who supposedly ended her life by hanging - Yuzu. The game tries to follow To Heart structure, so that we get up, go to school and constantly get on a map of the school in the morning, noon and evening with girl figures at different sections of the school. Clicking on each girl triggers an event. And majority of those events are funny ones. There are also some events that we don't need to choose. What I mean is that such structure allows to pump the game with a great number of cool funny small stories and in that the game excels. For the biggest part of the game it's a comedy, but the very end is not so funny - hero dies. Well, I mean he was dead from the start, but on 49th day (35th day in game time since Shiro only regains consciousness 2 weeks after initial death) the soul link with the body finally disappears and the soul has to fly to the skies. We get to know about the time limit on the 45th day (31st day in game time). So what's the drama? Hero has to fly away. But that was known from the start. Hero is dead before we even start reading. We can guess he'll have to go eventually. But we still feel sad when we're said so on the 45th day and when we actually have to do it on the 49th day. So I don't consider this game to be a nakige in any way. Someone wants a happy end with a girl and a ghost living together and dying in one day? That's weird. Hero must resurrect? Well, it's not some fantasy, and furthermore the body is wrecked and buried over two weeks ago. So it's not a conflict, not a drama, we just see the story to the end and the girls who got attached to Shiro saying him farewell. And all the girls do so with a smile and gratitude. Futhermore, Shiro is promissed to be reincarnated and in some epilogues we actually get a hint of our grown-up girls feeling something very familiar in that young school boy... but it's not that kind of a game. Moreover, there is a ghost girl Yuzu and we get a perfectly happy ending with her. Two ghosts find a way to be eternally happy. But for my video walkthrough I chose Minamo. That girl is too cute and cool to miss. Moreover, we actually get to see three personalities of her. Her usual ghosbuster genki self, a cursed doll gentle personality (don't ask, better see for yourself) and the cat-girl personality that can't leave anyone indifferent. Don't get me wrong, other girls routes are very good and touching as well, but those are tilt towards nakige a bit more. Game's very nice. Give it a chance, and you'll like it.
