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VN of the year 1987 - Hiatari Ryoukou!


kivandopulus

5439 views

 

The number of visual novels in 1987 increased greatly, but the number of masterpieces is relatively the same:
1. Amazons no Hihou
2. Urusei Yatsura
3. DNA
4. Koroshi no Dress
5. Hadou no Hyouteki
6. Jesus
7. Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School
8. Hiatari Ryoukou!
9. The 4th Unit

1987 has become a great breakthrough for visual novels. Text parser has been made obsolete by command selection and quite many games that amplify text over gameplay or graphics have showed up (even though the graphics have evolutioned immensely as well). But the most innovative and engaging game of 1987 is Hiatari Ryoukou adapted from anime by Toho. That's the first galge in modern sense - it's about daily routine and chasing one of the girls with lots of sunshine and comedy scenes. The charm of characters is overwhelming and gameplay is quite easy and infectious. If only it could be hooked...

1. Dennou Suikoden 電脳水滸伝 [870112] Hot-B 1
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Game is based on the classic Chinese four-book epic "Suikoden" and uses the same character in an original story. Three scenarios are available from the start and upon clearing them the fourth one opens up. One of the stories starts with two journalists investigating a strange get into an ambush. One of them gets a strange disease that kills in two months time. To get the cure it's needed to break through three gateways and reach the peak of a mountain.
There's a good English walkthrough of this game, but it covers only one story out of four due to ingame bugs. It's a rather complex game since you control multiple characters at each story and they hold various items. You can easily get stuck without knowing what specialization each character has. The number of commands and sub-commands is rather huge so bruteforcing is painful. Such a complex game is a welcome addition since majority of visual novels of this time are very primitive and crude.

 

2. Lolita Hime no Enikki ロリータ姫の絵日記 [8701] Bond Soft
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A kinetic novel containing graphic strips of Lolita Hime alongside with a bit of text.
It's more of a CG collection than a synthetic work. Even though it's the same series with the scatology Lolita, here the system is different and is rather a pure ADV. It's very short too so there's nothing really to discuss here.

 

3. Teki wa Kaizoku Kaizoku Ban 敵は海賊・海賊版 [8701] Victor Musical Industries
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I am a first class pirate. There was a call from my noisy boss to settle one matter. While on it, two ships of my old enemy appeared. Together with my alien cat Apro I was able to settle the incident. However, strange incidents started to happen one after another. Based on the light novel series.
The story is almost fully original though using novel heroes. You actually are playing for the cat! The game uses icons for actions which is welcome, but there's a need to keep in the head conversation keywords to go on which is very painful. The work was not really popular with original novel fans.

 

4. Touch タッチ [8701] Toho
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The story centers around three characters—Uesugi Kazuya, his twin older brother Tatsuya, and Asakura Minami. Kazuya is the darling of his town as he's talented, hardworking, and the ace pitcher for his middle school baseball team. Tatsuya is a hopeless slacker who's been living the life of giving up the spotlight to Kazuya, despite the fact that he may be more gifted than him. Minami is the beautiful childhood girlfriend and for all intents, sister from next door who treats both of them as equals. Society largely assumes Kazuya and Minami will become the perfect couple, including Tatsuya. Yet as time progresses, Tatsuya grows to realize that he's willing to sacrifice anything for the sake of his brother, except at the expense of giving up Minami to Kazuya. And thus the story is told of Tatsuya trying to prove himself over his established younger brother, how it affects the relationship between the three, and both brothers' attempts to make Minami's lifelong dreams come true.
Another obscure Toho adaptation of an anime work. It's pure command selection. Characters are cute enough, but graphics are dated. The next Toho anime adaptation feels much better than this one. And at least touch here means baseball touchdown rather than something perverted.

 

5. Las Vegas ラスベガス [8701] Starcraft Co., Ltd. 1
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Las Vegas is a Japan-exclusive graphical variant of Softporn Adventure, and hence can be seen as an earlier version of Leisure Suit Larry, which was released a few months later. The gameplay is, by and large, identical to the original text-only version, with the exception of a few adjustments made to the monetary system and a few commands handled slightly differently.
Soft Porn Adventure released in 1981 is considered world's first adult game, so the will to imitate it with graphical presentation seems natural.

 

6. Dwelling デウリング [8702] Cross Media Soft 1
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In "Dwelling" we have to infiltrate the mansion of Count Dracula and save a kidnapped girl Anna.
The game is bizzare. It shows all kind of weird creatures in bright poisonous colors. It's pretty cool that in important scenes the command selection is taken away and you're being left alone with text parser and text "THINK YOURSERL". But it's mostly about visual shock and there's no real story apart of walking around the estate and seeing all kind of things, so it can't be called a masterpiece for me.

 

6. Twilight Zone トワイライトゾーン [8702] Great 1
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Twilight Zone is a text adventure game with graphics. The protagonist is a young man who finds himself in a mysterious mansion created by an equally mysterious old woman. His goal is to escape the mansion and have sex with as many young women living there as possible. The interaction with the game is performed by inputting text commands (Japanese kana only). Navigation is performed by typing the Japanese words for the four directions, and locations are represented as still first-person screens. The game has no real puzzles and very limited item usage.
Mansion search type. We need to find eight girls in the mansion and then can finally leave through the door. Search around with command input is no fun at all. The game spawned multiple sequels.

 

7. Amazons no Hihou アマゾネスの秘宝 [8703] Studio Lime
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Those who find the secret treasure of amazons will get immortality. The hero takes up this challenge and now he needs to deal with a lot of amazons that dwell in this forest.
This is a rare work since it actually places fun and pleasure of playing above everything. There's a moderate eroticism present, but mostly it's a lighthearted comedy. On your travels you need to gather and appropriately use items (10 max, so need to throw something out at times). There are many commands to search from and when you don't know what to do you can use hints from the "voice of God". But if you hit the appropriate one, you move through, so no need for useless repetition and bruteforcing. But there are lots of optional things you can miss on. It may still look troublesome today, but compared to constant repetitions of Manhattan Requiem it was a real heaven and a very addictive work.

 

8. Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken 探偵 神宮寺三郎 新宿中央公園殺人事件 [870424] Data East Corporation 1 2 3 4
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Police inspector Scott Kingsley has asked Jake Hunter for help when a young woman was found dead in Aspicio Central Park. Jake accepts the case, but first he needs to find witnesses that are willing to speak out.
Game has some English reviews.

 

9. Guin Saga ~Hyoutou no Kamen~ グインサーガ ~豹頭の仮面~ [8704] JAST
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Based on first volume of Guin Saga novels. You are the survivor of the royal family and are chased by mongolian raids.
Game is based on the very first volume of the novel that nowadays has huge development in media. It is an adventure game which progresses by making various choices for every scene with his point of view in mind. It even had some voice of protagonist when connected to JAST sound. The difficulty degree is comparatively low.


 

10. Imitation City イミテーションシティ [8704] DataWest 1
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In 2017, a rebellion of clones made with the use of biotechnology begins and you get caught in the middle of it.
Three "Doll" robots have rebelled and escaped the factory and their managers hired you to find and return them. A classy and fashionable plot resembling Blade runner. But this game uses text parser in the year when it was abandoned already. It feels like the game tried to empathize freedom and pose a challenge for hardcore gamers. It seems have been shipped with a parser that produced hints and write a map. Well, this game hardly has any information coverage, so I supposed it did not really meet the needs of the crowds.

 

11. Loliventure no Shiro 幻夢の城 [8704] Champion Soft
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You are asked to find rescue the sister of your acquaintance. You need to find information about her in the town and then infiltrate the castle where she is kept evading all the traps laid about.
Yet another text parser dated game. The systems have not gone anywhere since Pop Lemon and the difficulty level is really insane - sometimes you need to enter the same command many times to get a result. Now you can pretty much guess why Champion Soft decided to change name for Alice Soft - it's because Champion Soft was stamping the same dated ugly games over and over while almost everyone else moved on.

 

12. Makai Fukkatsu 魔界復活 [8704] Soft Studio Wing 1
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The story begins with the fact that one reporter Akira Kamishiro gets a call from a friend archaeologist - Professor Masunaga. As it turns out, with archaeological research has been a stolen valuable artifact - "Divine Stone". At the same time in the nearby village disappears abbot of the local Buddhist temple. Trying to understand what happened, Kamishiro and Masunaga are involved in the chain of mystical events.
Occultic adventure game are rarely good since they rely on things other than consciousness, but Soft Studio Wing is particularly known for creating very realistic setting and gradually inserting the insanity. This is also the first game of the brand for pc88. It's command selection, but you need to confirm each selection with pressing enter since any wrong choice inevitably brings a bad end. No bruteforcing will work here either since sometimes to move the story on the right order of commands is needed to take, like speak → talk → see. And there is no hint mechanic or context on the order. Games at that time weren't supposed to be cleared by everyone and were made as difficult as possible.

 

13. Project A-ko プロジェクトA子 [8704] Tatsumi Publishing
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An alien space craft crashed into Graviton City, wiping out the entire population and leaving a massive crater where Graviton City is rebuilt. Students A-ko Magami and her best friend C-ko Kotobuki, a bubbly, carefree optimist, enter a new year of school at the all-girls Graviton High School. Although A-ko possesses superhuman speed and strength, she considers herself an average teenager; she mostly worries about getting to school on time, chronically oversleeping her alarm clock each morning. The pair catch the unwanted attention of B-ko Daitokuji, a rich, spoiled and brilliant fellow student.
That's what anime is about. And the game is just a dice game with A-ko/B-ko/C-ko competition. Rolling dice, using all kinds of buffs and just seeing the events constantly happening on rolling are quite fun even without reading the text. Playing with two people is possible with each player rolling himself and choosing his own buffs to hinder opponent's movement. That's a rare example of a game that empathizes ease of use and fun.

 

14. Soshi Hime Adventure 素子姫アドベンチャー [8704] Tatsumi Publishing
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Soshi Hime is science fiction writer. After finishing writing a novel she was sucked into the novel and you're the only one who can save her.
Game only operates with function keys without the additional text input which is great. The contents is quite weird like a hundred of cats in one room. I guess the knowledge of original novel is required to understand what's happening. Game uses very few colors which makes images to look very simplistic.

 

15. Fairy Tale ふぇありぃている [8705] Fairytale
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Hero has been keeping an eye on the pretty girl Yumiko-chan and now succeeds now in getting in her apartment impersonating himself as a gas company staff member. On the pretext of a regualar check-up he searches the kitchen for useful items and then approaches Yumiko with an intention to get in her pants.
The debut work of Fairy Tale and quite a lighthearted one despite the synopsis. System is pure command selection type and it's easy to manipulate allowing to bruteforce all the variants. Another nice feature is that the work actually uses hiragana+kanji and hot that horrified half-width katakana that old works had to adhere to because of technical limitations on symbols drawing. There is one branching so it's possible to say that it's a multi-scenario work. It can also be viewed as a comedy since hero has access to chest area but he only aims for the panty and he uses lots off strategies to get there - there is no real act in this game, but there are lots of erotic CG still. Yumiko is funny looking and her personality is bright leaving a good light impression on the game.

 

16. Fukashigi Denshou ~Kabara no Himitsu~ 不可思議伝承 ~カバラの秘密~ [8705] Zenryuutsuu
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The story is of the village of Syria close to Greece at the time when the German army invasion approaches in 1941. This work's motif is the search of holy grail and occult research performed by the Germany.
Player is village chief's son who  travels to get two secret books about Kabbalah. It's a strange game that reveals mysterious things one after another, such as the secret behind Nostradamus predictions and immortal clones that rule the Earth from the shades.

 

17. Still Sword すてぃる・そーど [8705] Fairytale 1 2
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This medieval world is divided into 5 countries. The demon Incoma is jealous of the world's beauty and imprisoned the Princess from each of the 5 countries in their own castles. You are to rescue the princesses and stop Incoma's ambitions.
Top down action rpg, an early predecessor of Ys series. It was first released as an all-age work, probably without text scenes, but later the game was reworked with addition of H scenes due to the popular demand. In adult version the main character is a girl, so there aren't many H scenes while you're successful - most of them packed close to the finale - but this is a lot of radical stuff when you lose, so it's an ancestor of Beat Blades Haruka and the like.

 

18. Urusei Yatsura うる星やつら [870605] Micro Cabin
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Scenario is original from the anime. We get and invitation to Okiko birthday party. The person who finds her first is going to get a kiss, so a fierce competition among the invited guests ensues.
The mansion is a maze with lots of traps laid about. The characters are carefully transferred from the anime so it's needed to know the original to get the most of fun. It's possible either to go the shortest way or to eliminate all the other competitors, so it can be considered multiple-branch story. The ending also depends on how other characters are dealt with so it's multiple endings as well. The system is command selection, but the number of commands is quite large, so the difficulty level is really high. In the early visual novels years lots of works were clinging desperately to the popularity of anime franchises, but this work is really well done and it shows how a game can be better in many elements than the original anime.

 

19. Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin: Ohotsk ni Kiyu 北海道連鎖殺人 オホーツクに消ゆ [870627] Login Soft 1 2
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A total remake of Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin: Ohotsk ni Kiyu.
The version reworked for famicom. There is some info in English on this version.

 

20. Abunai Josei Shinrigaku Nyuumon あぶない女性心理学入門 [8706] Fairytale
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A kinetic novel comprising of four very short erotic stories about 15 screens each dwelling on women psychology.
Each story lasts only some 2-3 minutes so it's faster to click through them than write about them. The feature of the work is that the stories are shown from the woman perspective. So from today's perspective it's useless to talk about this work. But from historical perspective it's quite eminent. First it's a kinetic novel while all the other works use command selection. Secondly, it's one of the first works from woman perspective and thus the work that separates the hero from the gamer. The third important aspect is that I don't really remember games before that had multiple stories in it - it presented a pleasant concept and more of multiple stories works spawned because of it.

 

21. Hot Milk ほっとMILK [8706] Fairytale
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The story is about a super rapist who violated 994 women already and he only needs six more to become a legendary person with a name "Weirdo 28" written forever in the history.
Eroge of the 1980s rarely just relied on image alone, but were mostly conceptual games with much gameplay involved. Despite a pretty gloomy synopsis this game has rather light feel. It's a command selection ADV with the use of items - some have non-trivial use like stunning the girls with the smell of the socks. The game flow is six girls consecutively, but the big command list and the use of items distinguish it from just an eroge.

 

22. Akujo Densetsu II ~Sailor Fuku Rhapsody~ 悪女伝説 Ⅱ ~セーラー服ラプソディ~ [8707] Dott Kikaku
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A nampa game where the hero needs to get the girl interested, raise the affection level during conversation in a cafe, beat her in the blackjack card game and lead her to the hotel as a result.
The prequel is not listed on VNDB and it was a very ugly (VERY few colors used) first adult game for MSX. But pc-88 chosen for the prequel has much more instruments in the department of picture beauty. Now the images are digitized from the drawings which make them especially cute. That's very different from the games of the time where the cover was mostly supercute, but the contents remaining ugly. The system is command selection, but several wrong answers lead to game over. While in the cafe it's needed to guess the right answer about 10 times to move on. But the game has a firm place in the history as one of the first with really beautiful girls.

 

23. DNA ドナ [8707] Himitsu Kessha KID
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DNA (Donna) is the name of the star in the universe. The giant city Megaro Dynamo is is inhabited by the two classes - titan (ruling class) and oak (laborers). The titans have excellent abilities, but their existence is endangered as they are cursed with reproductive function weakened with every generation. There is a girl from the titan class Mercedes who wished to undergo an experiment to fix this fatal trait. And the hero is an oak class member Cesare who wishes to protect her.
Just like the previous game of Hot-B Youkiden - DNA uses manga strips for the screen - that really adds dynamic to the scenes. This game has adult content - the opening scene that I shot alone has two and it's cut just before more of it continuing. That's one of the reasons that the game was often overlooked as a trash adult game. But in fact it's a thrilling SF work with serious topics raised. The system is command selection and it goes without much stress. The character design is poor, but this is one of the first original heavy scenario oriented works and is a masterpiece in this regard.

 

24. J.B. Harold no Jikenbo #2 - Manhattan Requiem - Yami ni Tobu Tenshi-tachi J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 - マンハッタンレクイエム - 闇に翔ぶ天使たち [8707] Riverhill Soft inc. 1 2 3
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24 year old pianist Sarah Shields was found dead after falling from the 25th floor of her apartment window. The cause of death was a fractured skull from the horrific impact. With no evidence of foul play, an act of suicide was the best explanation - but J.B. Harold thinks otherwise. Having recieved a letter from Sarah beforehand, the famous detective heads towards New York city to find the truth.
There are English reviews of this game.

 

25. Adrenalin Connection アドレナリン・コネクション [870821] Amorphous
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"I shall take my revenge on the peaceful St. Eastern high school" - an anonymous letter arrived at the school. The principal asks the new teacher to investigate the source of the letter. At the same time transfer students are being forced to drop out one by one because of bullying...
This is the only game every developed by Amorpheus company. I was not able to play this game since could not find a ROM for it. Although I really wanted to. Just look at the magazine ad - there's a very colorful company gathered in here. At least it would not be boring! I'll do my best to present information from japanese reviews on this game in a readable format.
Setting is close to real world but events turn around school girls and the idealistic vibe of "let's be together forver" spoils it a bit. The atmosphere of the game was very light, but story was unexpectedly bulky. Schoolgirls were unrealistically glamorous.
Multiple command selection helped to keep the good pace and concentrate on plot and the multi-ending was one of the first appearances in game. Graphics were of high standart considering hardware limitations of pc-98. Almost all the characters who talked actually had mouth animation. Sound would make you excited from the start of the game. Pity it could not have voices included yet. Every girl had her own ending. There were 5 endings overall.
Its existence in 1987 was a miracle itself. Rather than having outstanding advantages and features, it was rather the work without shortcomings. It's not really remembered as masterpiece, but it was one of first quality works to pave the road for next generation of quality VNs.

 

26. Lovely GAL ラブリーGAL [8708] Champion Soft
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"Get three hidden treasures, then the door to another world will be opened" - said the mysterious old man. If you manage to collect the famous sword, secret medicine and ancient documents you may try to enter there.
Game is basically divided into two parts - first you search for those three items and in the later half you'll have to find a way to awaken the Queen of the floating city Meniere in the alternative world from a deep slumber to prevent the crisis. The game is about gathering information and by coincidence only beautiful girls have that information and thus there's a need to interrogate them. So this is another Champion Soft game which means it has dated text parser system, low number of colors and not cute girls. And even though there's an attempt to introduce fantasy setting the gameplay is just your old guess what to write in H scenes. The difficulty level is again insanely high.

 

27. Tenshi-tachi no Gogo II -Minako- 天使たちの午後II -美奈子- [8708] JAST 1
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The sequel to "Tenshi-tachi no Gogo"; instead of playing as the obnoxious male protagonist of the previous game, the player takes control of Minako, a female Japanese high-school student with a strong interest towards sexuality. The story mainly depicts Minako's sexual encounters with men and women, which take place on school grounds, in various locations of the city, etc.
JAST decided to just go with popularity flow and introduced a with the dated command input systems and even bolder erotic content. They did not bother to introduce any story and just depicted the two days of Minako's saturated life. This work is a step back from the original in terms of storytelling, but it was even more popular than the original because of amplified eroticism.

 

28. Timeparadox タイムパラドックス [8708] DataWest
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After his girlfriend Aiko is mysteriously killed, the hero hops into a time machine invented by his uncle and goes on a journey through the time to save her.
DataWest releases yet another command input work after Immitation city. That and the fact that the synopsis does not leave much mystery ahead made this work obsolete already. Game also uses lots of difficult terms related to SF time travel.

 

29. Dreamy Town MAJO ドリーミータウン 魔女サンドラ [8709] Great
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On Sunday, I made a promise to date. When I entered the coffee shop her body began to get distorted suddenly and I understood that she was a witch. Now I'm dragged into her world and need to find her to get back.
It's an adult adventure, but with some really weird transformations into monsters. System is basically command selection, but there is also command input possible and - needless to say - many steps are impossible to pass without manual input. The difficulty is very high. Sometimes you need to repeat the same action over and over to get a result and sometimes you need to know the contents of some novel to write the right input. The map of the town is total 7x7 squares which adds another layer of difficulty due to multiple locations.

 

30. Love Chaser ラブチェイサー [8709] Champion Soft
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Adventure game to investigate the case of fake kidnapping to stop political marriage that developed into a real abduction.
Champion soft so we get another command input system again. In the beginning of the game we're given a huge puzzle to combine and 900 points of power. Upon puzzle completion we're left with the leftover power only and power is used on lots of actions, so effective puzzle completion is a must if one aims at clearing the game. In the terms of the content there is not much originality. The picture lacks originality either. A bit of deduction is still needed though, but the overall difficulty is reported to be moderate.

 

31. Ikenie no Machi いけにえの街 [8710] Adult Inn
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While exploring Shinjuku hero finds out a SM club "Ikemei' s House" - the world of pleasure and craziness.
The content is on par with the synopsis. But these are mostly pictures of tied women. One interesting aspect though is that Shinjuku is displayed quite precisely.

 

32. Koroshi no Dress 殺しのドレス [8710] Fairytale
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Best friend's fiancé is found dead and naked at the park's toilet. Hero starts an investigation, but then the second murder occurs and his girlfriend disappears mysteriously.
It' suspense mystery from the start since we don't really understand what's going on or who is the killer (but naming the game "killer dress" helps with guessing). It can hardly be called an eroge, but the adult atmosphere is everywhere including many gore scenes. It's a breakthrough game that broke the trend of games being treated as erotic cg collection. This is a game that carries away with the story alone and just couple of erotic cg thrown for the story's sake. System is command selection with a shortlist of commands to select from - very convenient to use. The story is basically a single road, but with good and bad end branching close to the finale. Another rather new feature is the ability to name the hero. This game is a paragon for all the future horror mystery scenario games to come.

 

33. Lolita Violence ロリータバイオレンス [8710] Adult Inn
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One usual day from the life of one girl, but as she returns home late there are various dangers on her way back.
Kinetic novel or rather a picture story. On the way back girl's attacked by a gang and there's a help button that's possible to be pressed - that summons her boyfriend who rescues her and it develops into another H scene. The work is rare enough that I could not find it, but the focus is on graphics alone.

 

34. Shin Tamatori Monogatari 新玉取物語 [8710] Cross Media Soft
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The hero needs to find five balls scattered around the four worlds.
A sequel to Shin Taketori Monogatari. It's the first such big ADV for pc88 - six diskettes! The content stays pretty much the same - explore everything and have fun. Age is requested at start and some scenes actually differ depending on the input.

 

35. Anjela [8711] Cross Media Soft
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The highly civilized star Obelix citizens use preserved red liquid as food. But production crisis occurs, and many of them find feeding grounds on the Earth by sucking animals and humans blood - thus they start to be called vampires. Anjela comes to the Earth in search of her father who was among the first generation to migrate to this planet.
Commands are difficult to figure out, but as an additional layer of difficulty there are multiple challenging action fights.

 

36. Gakuen Monogatari 学園物語 [8711] Great
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Hero enters a well-known private high school and falls in love with his English class school teacher Norico at the first sight. One day a Noriko-sensei is suddenly expelled, apparently on the reason that she is intimidated by someone. The hero launches investigation to get to the source of it.
Command selection adventure. In order to find the criminal and know more about Noriko-sensei the hero interrogates school girls. The story is a single road, but the difficulty level is high as it's needed to ask the right things in the conversation and use proper strategies to make people stop.

 

37. Hadou no Hyouteki 波動の標的 [8711] Soft Studio Wing 1
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Events of "Hadou no Hyouteki" begin with a strange incident in a small Japanese village: one day all members of a local religious organization "Church of the Messiah" were brutally murdered. Our main character is a journalist Shiro Kusanagi, who came to the place of slaughter, to shoot the reportage. Soon begin to clear up the details of the incident - it appears that the sectarians themselves killed each other. In addition, inside the Church of our journalist discovers a strange secret altar. What actually worshiped members of the "Church of the Messiah", and that was the cause of the massacre in the village? All these questions remain unanswered, and meanwhile, the authorities sent Mr. Kusanagi on shooting a new story. The fact is that in the middle of the Vietnamese jungle suddenly there was a huge black tower, and it is rumored that in the nearby vicinity bred some creepy monsters. Can all these strange events be connected somehow?
Peaceful Japanese village. One day all members of "Church of the Messiah" were found brutally murdered. We play as journalist Shiro Kusanagi who is sent to make a reportage. More and more shocking details come up. Sectarians killed each other and a strange altar discovered. With all questions hung in the air Mr. Kusanagi being sent to shoot another story on appearance of a huge black tower in the middle of the Vietnamese jungle. Who coould have thought that those were the events of one chain...
I don't like horror stories. But reading about a good horror story is another thing. So let's investigate this outstanding work together.
This game has a great dark atmosphere. Death comes at every corner and you constantly get bad end on the screen. Bullets are scarce, enemies keep appearing and only a small hope keeps beating. System was finally well done. Comand selection implemented. Graphics are great and rendering in an instant. There is even animation at many scenes. Cruel shots are especially impressive. The use of multiwindow makes actions dynamic and it starts to look like manga. For example you get picture in the left upper corner then the next picture appers in the left lower corner and in serveral lines some shocking picture appears in the center of the screen so that about 50% of first and second one remain seen. That's genius.
I'll retell the plot here just to get a grip on the game story. I won't tackle any characters or important details though. The whole plot intorduction actually happens in the game and jungle infiltration is 5th chapter already. You can't even land the jungle peacefully. You have to destroy boobytrapped vietnamese barricade and border patrol starts to use arms against you. Water surface glows and huge water worm attacks your boat. In the cave there's a dead body of another reporter. Further on skeletons with different weapons assault you and you running low on bullets. Having made it to a tower, monster attacks and he can't be even killed with bullets.
You get surrounded by feline monsters and skeletons with no weapons and no way back only to be miraculously saved by your fellow reporter on a military helicopter.
You gain consciousness in the hospital and get to know that a black tower now appeared right in the center of Shinjuku. Somehow inside Shinjuku turns out to be a new village with a manor. You get to investigate the manor which happens to be a training facility for espers. The tower is awaiting. Men in black open fire on visual contact. One of survivors advises to find Shirai, who is good at teleportation. Mansion now is heavily guarded. At the verge of being shot you get teleported to the gathering of men with unique abilities like telekinesis. Mansion now is being guarded by both military and ESP. You manage to break through only to be cornered again with it all disappearing by a whirpool of hallucination. The final battle of you and ESP against the mansion darkest secrets awaits. Who's the enemy and who's a friend? What's that altar with a sword? What was that whirlpool? What is black tower? What is that double edged sword? All the mysteries get answered. In a way.

 

38. Jesus ジーザス [8711] Enix 1 2 3 4 5
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The game takes place in 2061. Halley's Comet has been approaching Earth for quite some time, and the nations of Earth send a mission to investigate the Comet, as some form of life has been detected inside the gas of the comet.
The main character of the story, Hayao Musou, is a Japanese soldier-in-training and the second-youngest member of the mission.
Coincidentally, his girlfriend, Eline Suleyman, is also a participant.
The game has multiple reviews in English.

 

39. Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School 中山美穂のトキメキハイスクール [871201] Nintendo 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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The game begins with your character, whose family has just moved to the area, entering his new school for the first time. After class, you accidentially run into a conservative-looking girl wearing glasses. She introduces herself as Mizuho, but you can't help but notice her striking resemblance to your dream pop idol Cher (I mean Miho, of course). You pick up a good-luck charm Mizuho dropped to give back to her, then make a startling revelation - your photographer brother took a picture of Miho carrying the exact same charm!
You go to the music room to confront her with this evidence - and this is where the true challenge of the game begins.
There are English reviews of this game.

 

40. Seilane セイレーン [871210] Micro Cabin 1
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One day when Prill visits Bukimi forest, he finds all the villagers have all been turned into stone statues. But more worringly his sister was nowhere to be seen. As he explores the forest, he later learns that the person responsible was the Demon King Pazul. With help from his friends, Prill sets off on a journey to save both his sister and the villagers, but it won't be easy as the Demon King is determined to stop him in his tracks.
There is a good English review on the work.

 

41. Shiritsu Tantei Max ~Sennyuu!! Nazo no Joshikou~ 私立探偵マックス ~潜入!!謎の女子校~ [871220] Agumix 1
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Max is a private detective who is known - beside his investigative and combat skills - for his way with women. One day, he receives just the case he was hoping for: he has to travel to a remote space colony near the Sun - more precisely, to the women school in this colony. The principal of the school has committed suicide. Two agents that were sent to the colony disappeared under mysterious circumstances. It's time for Max to find out what's going on - an interesting side-quest to his main mission: have sex with as many girls as possible!
It's mostly collection work since there are some 12 girls that appear randomly and some are predetermined to resist Max's charms from the start so multiple new games needed for 100%. The H with the girls also restores Max's esper powers. The best part of the game the quality of girls pictures - they are digitized and thus look very good and cute.

 

42. Hiatari Ryoukou! 陽あたり良好! [8712] Toho
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The story focuses on the relationships of Kasumi Kishimoto, a high school student. When she enters Myōjō High School, she moves into her aunt's boarding house, where four boys attending the high school are tenants. Despite her steadfast determination to stay loyal to her boyfriend, who is studying abroad, Kasumi finds herself slowly falling in love with one of the boarders, Yūsaku
The first really impressive TOHO adaptation of an anime work. On top of that it seems to be the original galge ancestor - here you raise favorability rate with one of the girls during the game events and if you reach a high level with some girl you get her ending. I think the point of the game is to engage deeply in the world of the original and it worked 100%. We now refer to the slice of life scenes as to necessary evil in galge, but before Hiatari Ryoukou there have been very few games with focus on everyday routing. The game system is command selection ADV and it's easy to manage and possible to bruteforce to go on, but actually getting some girl's ending is quite difficult. The character cast is awesome and there are a lot of very funny scenes. There is no special aim in the game but living the everyday life and falling in love with someone. The graphic level is the highest of 1987. A very sunny and heartwarming work.

 

43. J.B. Harold no Jikenbo - Kiss of Murder - Satsui no Kuchizuke J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 - キス・オブ・マーダー - 殺意の接吻 [8712] Riverhill Soft inc. 1 2
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Kiss of Murder, is set in a parallel world to Manhattan Requiem, and while featuring the same set of characters as that title, has a completely different scenario.
Early releases of the game were addons to "Manhattan Requiem" and used its graphical data. Later iterations became stand-alone.
The game was not usually shipped alone, but with Manhattan Requiem, so it does not have as many English reviews, but I'm sure there should be some reference in the numerous Manhattan Requiem reviews.

 

44. Kudokikata Oshiemasu 2 ~Kind Gal's~ 口説き方教えます2 ~カインドゥギャルズ~ [8712] Hard
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A nampa game with five adult women as heroines.
First of all the game is R-18 same as the prequel. The game is famous for the conversation system it derived. So this time you get the beginning of the sentence prepared and need to input a correct continuation which would rise affection if right. Each of the heroines has some personality archetype. The game has very impressive graphics that alone is enough to overlook its many shortcomings.

 

45. Lagrange L2 PART2 D-SIDE ラグランジュL2 PART2 D-SIDE [8712] Vehicle Software
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Game starts in the shuttle right after the end of Lagrange L2. The breath is relieved now but the first challenge is already there - the need to escape from missiles of approaching Zera enemy.
And the sequel still uses the same ancient systems... same ugly with text input. The only difference that now animation is frequently used. The overall difficulty is easier than part 1, but there are less hints displayed. As I see it this work is only for hard-boiled fans of first part.

 

46. Tennyo Densetsu 天女伝説 [8712] Champion Soft
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There are girls who descend from the celestial love weaving beings. Letters are hidden on their bodies and if you solve the mystery a celestial woman will appear.
Champion Soft continues its odyssey to pour same loads of crap on the gaming community. Over and over. Now there is command selection but that's made really painful since even text lines take time to draw and there's the need to press enter after each selection. I guess noone ever tried to find the celestial woman since the game has zero reviews and even no CG apart of the two ones in the beginning that I saw.

 

47. The 4th Unit 第4のユニット [8712] DataWest 1 2
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Yuusuke, a common boy back from school, finds a naked girl in the forest while searching for his hidden bike. She is amnesic and only remember a name: Blon-Win.
Four days ago, a mysterious battle between unidentified aircraft occurred above Tokyo. One of them, shot down, felt in the same forest the girl was found. The authorities never found any body in the debris.
Might this girl be linked to this case? This is what she is decided to discover.
There is an English review of the game.

 

48. The Byouin ザ・病院 [8712] PSK 1
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Patients begin to die one by one under mysterious circumstances in a mental hospital. A young nurse named Ikuko Matsuda doubts that these deaths were natural. On day, Ikuko disappears, leaving behind a blood-stained cash card. Her fiance Katsuyoshi Yamazaki ventures into the hospital, attempting to investigate the mystery.
It's mostly a text adventure with CG only occasionally showed. In order to show that much text in good quality 400 lines were needed and The Byouin is the only PC-88 game in history to have 400 lines. All the new keywords are added to the list of commands and soon this list grows to huge lengths. The story is not bad, but without corresponding CG it feels lacking. PSK as the fathers of visual novels marked a new path - shifting from gameplay elements to focusing attention on reading and that's the game's biggest achievement.

 

52. Yamamura Misa Suspense: Kyouto Ryuu no Tera Satsujin Jiken 山村美紗サスペンス 京都龍の寺殺人事件 [8712] Taito Corporation
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The protagonist is American investigator Catherine Turner, who has just been accused of a crime commited in the grounds of Kyoto's most famous temple. She'll have to do some detective work to clear her name.
Detective investigation is not my genre.

 

52. Wingman Special -Saraba Yume Senshi- ウイングマンスペシャル -さらば夢戦士- [8712] TamTam Co., Ltd.
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The story is the same as the the original Wingman game, but with enhanced size and quality.
Same Powdream, same assassins sent for Aoi. The synopsis is really the same. The graphics are superb. The controls have not changed much and the operability remained difficult. Puzzles are inconsistent and are easy to get stuck on. The new scenes are cool, but reading the same story for the second time is much less fun and most of the fans of the series are felt unsatisfied.

 

49. Idaten Ikase Otoko ~Mugiko ni Aitai~ 韋駄天いかせ男 ~麦子に逢いたい~ [87] Family Soft
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The hero is a Korean wrestler who has been working in a Brazilian farm and now comes to Japan without the proper knowledge of the language. He has an ability to excite girls with words alone so now he phones to different phones saying ridiculous phrases getting them to the state of ecstasy.
That's a nanpa bakage. Basically we get to choose numbers that correspond to some words and with three of those we construct a phrase. If the girls finds the phrase especially crazy or funny her excitement meter rises and when at top the reward erotic CG are show. There are five girls to call to. The words selected are funny so the result phrases alone can be entertaining to read. The game had many sequels and was sold cheaply in packs so it got quite a wide spread.

 

50. Mayonaka no Love Call 真夜中のラブコール [87] STUDIO ANGEL
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Mika and her boyfriend are having an intimate telephone talk with her becoming excited with each right answer.
Another gameplay oriented erotic picture collection. The right answer out of three variants takes to new scene while the wrong brings back to the previous scene. And whether the answer is right or wrong is chosen at random, so clearing can take a while. The good point of the game is the ease of use since only three numbers and clicking is enough for clearing.

 

51. Melon Soda メロンソーダ [87] Bond Soft
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The hero arrives to the town where the secret of fobidden pheromone juice "Melon Soda" is concealed. He will have to interrogate the girls in the town to get to the secret.
There are 13 girls in the game with H-scenes reserved for 12 of them. But the important part is that you have the endurance stat the depeletes with actions. There are multiple tricks not to waste endurance in different scenes, but still it's impossible to H with all the girls and get to the ending, so multiple playthroughs needed for 100% clearance. Command selection is used.

 

53. Zenkoku Nanpa Shugyou ~Tasogare no Kyouto Hen~ 全国ナンパ修行 ~たそがれの京都編~ [8712] STUDIO ANGEL
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To excel in nanpa the hero comes to Kyoto for training.
The game is about choices. Choosing totally bad line brings game over. Choosing normal lines does not bring effect and you need to search on for the best variant. The game is not particularly interesting and Kyoto exotics does not really make it better. Emulator gets stuck after the first scene for some reason.

 

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