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Amanatsu Adolescence (Dergonu) and Suisou Ginka no Istoria (cancelled by Clephas)


Clephas

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Played and written by Dergonu, edited for grammar by Clephas

Amanatsu Adolesence is a moege that might seem very average at first glance. And, well, I'm not going to lie, it kind of is. But, at the same time the game has quite a few fun aspects that breaks away from the norm that is the "standard moege". This, alongside a fairly enjoyable cast, made me like this game more than I expected to. You won't find any seriously engaging drama, or super intellectual writing in this VN. But it does a good job of making you laugh with its goofy humor, smile at the rather enjoyable romance and cringe from the... less than good usage of Russian, lol.

The game is centered around our main character, Akira, and the light music club that he is a member of. Or, well, was a member of. The light music club gets disbanded at the start of the game because of a certain incident with a guitar/ flamethrower that kinda sorta burnt down parts of the school. (Yup.) As the members of the light music club gets scattered over several different clubs, a stunning exchange student from Russia enrolls at Akira's school, and moves into his house due to a deal with his parents who currently resides in Russia. Turns out the girl, Sasha, is a very talented guitar player, and the president of the light music club, Ryou, sees this is as a perfect opportunity to rebuild the club. If they could snag someone as talented and well liked as Sasha, surely the school would have to approve of the recreation of the light music club.
And so they start trying to make Sasha join their club while ... other thing starts happening. I don't want to go into any more details about what comes next plot wise, as the little plot this VN does have should be left unspoiled.

Like I mentioned above, I liked the heroines in this game quite a lot. Although all four do go under the "standard moege heroine" templates, they have some unique quirks that make them feel less like stereotypical heroines you have seen a trillion times before, and more like actual people. Because the game doesn't have that much plot, the main focus of the game's routes lies with the characters themselves, and I therefore don't want to talk too much about what makes them all "unique." So, I'll just give a very short introduction to the characters. (I mean, at the end of the day this is still a moege, but I do think each heroine has some pretty nice aspects to them that sets them apart from most of the standard heroines I have encountered before, at least.)

First, you have the goofy and energetic childhood friend, Natsu, the vocalist of the light music club. Not a tsundere, believe it or not. (Thankfully.) Bit of an idiot, but an adorable idiot.  Then, there is the president of the club and Akira's senpai, Ryou. My favorite heroine of them all. She is actually a refined lady, though she rarely plays the part, and she mostly spends her time coming up with new idiotic stunts for the club. The mix of an ojousama and a crazy daredevil is pretty damn great.  Third is Amane, a weird little girl with a thing for electronics. Bit of a closet pervert. Super adorable VA that is basically made for her character.   Last of all is Sasha, an intelligent and talented exchange student from Russia who doesn't exactly blend into the goofy group at first.

Another nice quality to the game is the confession scenes and the introduction to the romance. The main character is actually not a complete moron (Clephas: In other words, he isn't as dense as the average charage protag, lol) when it comes to his own and the heroines' feelings, believe it or not. The confession scenes in the routes actually took me by surprise, as they were surprisingly enjoyable and well done. Sadly, the game does fail a bit at the follow up to the confession scenes, and rushes the romance in all the routes flat out, which is a shame. After the confession is over, the game has a real strong urge to shove H-scenes down your throat without more than a few minutes of reading, which I don't really like. I think having some more build up is nice before jumping into that aspect of the relationship. Another issue I had with the routes was the frequency of H-scenes. Like, don't get me wrong, the art in the game is great and the H was nice and all, but they just kept on adding H-scenes in the routes without adding any real depth to the relationships. This was particularly a big problem for Sasha's route, because Sasha is definitely the character that has the best potential for enjoyable romance and plot among the four heroines. This "plot" is sadly not pursued at all, and it is just kind of thrown out the window and overshadowed by sex left and right. If this was a nukige, I'd be all for that, but it isn't... so it was a bit too much for me. In a game where the main focus lies with the characters and their interaction, they should have put more focus on actual interaction beyond just H.

The last complaint I have about the game is the musical element... Or, should I say, the lack of it. This is a musical themed VN, and, as one would expect, there is a lot of musical scenes scattered throughout the game. However, for some strange reason, whenever the bands perform in the game, we don't actually hear anything else than some boring guitar tracks left on in the background. The VAs don't sing, and we don't hear any of the songs they talk about in the story. They just skip over that element, despite it being so relevant (Clephas note: This is actually almost universal to all games where the characters are musicians... one of the big weaknesses of the sub-genre). Moreover, what is even more confusing is that they actually have several songs made for the game, in the form of unique outro songs performed by the heroines' VAs, that plays after you finish their respective routes. These songs are quite good; so I don't understand why they couldn't put half the effort put into those songs into something for the actual band performances in the story. This isn't a low budget game, based on the other aspects of the game, so it really is quite puzzling why they just cut out the music in this musical themed VN (Clephas: Sounds like a lack of forethought plus the usual failure to properly use the tools available that you tend to see in most charage).

Overall, if you are looking for a fun and lighthearted game to read, this is definitely a nice pick. You won't find any seriously heavy drama or a super intriguing story in this VN. Instead, you can just turn off your brain and enjoy the goofy and silly ride. The main character isn't so clueless that he makes you want to rip your own eyes out, and the heroines have some personality to them, making the cast pretty enjoyable overall. Despite the romance feeling a bit rushed at times, it does make up for it with some nice and unique confession scenes, and a pretty enjoyable common route leading up to the routes.  As long as you don't go into this game with overly high expectations, Amanatsu Adolesence should definitely be a good pick if you just want something lighthearted and fun (Clephas:  Though, just reading this, I get the impression that there are a hundred better-executed charage out there that I've read in the past... I'm so glad I shoved this off on someone else, lol)

 

Suisou Ginka no Istoria (Canceled)

Well, I tried.  A lot of the reason I couldn't get into Suisou Ginka no Istoria is because of timing... to be blunt, combining a game this depressing with playing Persona 5 at the same time was seriously making it impossible to enjoy either one properly. 

This game starts out depressing and continues that way up to the path split (where I basically dropped it and couldn't go any further).  I'm not saying the story is bad... at any other time, I probably would have made it a priority to get through this.  I would have enjoyed the suffering of the characters immensely, and I would have been waiting with bated breath for the inevitable ruin of the characters (which is constantly foreshadowed by Kureha, who is the protagonist's sadistic employer/slave-master).  Unfortunately, trying to play this put me into overload on depressing stories when combined with Persona 5. 

If someone else is willing or has already played this through, please give me detailed comments... as I can't bring myself to play it this month (considering how few in number April's releases are going to be, I might get around to it sometime in the beginning of May...). 

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Haha, I can see why you aren't in the mood. That veil of gloom is thick.  I like the potential of this one for having more of a setting and less wacked up shit of Kamihamo, though the its hard getting into the protagonist's view. I'd be happy to review Istoria later this month after I get through term exams.

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