Jump to content
  • entries
    662
  • comments
    632
  • views
    258901

VN of the Month May 1997 - To Heart


kivandopulus

2802 views

To Heart is the only masterpiece of May 1997

1. Chiyomi-chan for Me ~Kateikyoushi Seikyouiku Hen~ ちよみちゃん for Me ~家庭教師 性教育編~ [970502] Ume Soft
bandicam%2B2018-06-17%2B07-52-29-051.jpg
What a lucky guy, he has a beautiful girl to help him study for his exams. She even accepts him when he ask her to be his girlfriend. From then on, it's study and fun times. He will be happy, if he doesn't get distracted by his classmate or the ghost of his first love.
Girl is a tutor, but actual studying ends pretty soon. Game is of ero-centered nature and has only very short impressions.

 

2. Kidou Senkan Nadesico ~Yappari Saigo wa "Ai ga Katsu" ?~ 機動戦艦ナデシコ ~やっぱり最後は「愛が勝つ」?~ [970502] Sega
snap39333.jpg
It is a dating sim with players taking the role of Akito Tenkawa and attempting to build relationships with the female crew members, although there are a few mecha elements included.
One more anime offspring. The crew counts 10 members. There are 8 chapters each containing an adventure part with target character emotional scenes and the battle part where you repetitively push one button for the win. What's interesting - if you distract attention in favor of some different girl, the target girl's favorability drops. Anyway, mediocre Saturn exclusive for anime fans.

 

3. Kojiin ~Kyouki no Ketsuzoku~ 孤児院 ~狂喜の血族~ [970504] K-JOYNT
ITM0054971_s2.jpg
A dancer girl loses parents, but retains hope while living in the orphanage. Foster parents greet her with joy, but soon she learns the pain and torture in the basement. Girls are trained into slaves here, and her dark humiliation path only starts now. 
Some crappy h-tilt doujin

 

3. Akazu no Ma あかずの間 [970509] Visit 1
ss8.jpg
The story (written by Yoshikazu Takeuchi) is a futuristic one, taking place in a near future where the player's character arrives a a building tower in a helicopter and as soon as he arrives there strange things start to happening (he listen to girl screams, strange noises, etc.).
Another sound novel without a single person and about just wondering around the building. As usual, more about senses than a story.

 

4. Ice Cream アイスクリーム [970509] h.m.p
bandicam%2B2018-06-17%2B08-25-04-920.jpg
Come to the lively Shibuya area in Tokyo and get yourself a girlfriend! There are multiple nanpa techniques available to reach the goal.
Nanpa games are boring.

 

5. Kuento ~Wasureenu Hibi ni~ クエント ~忘れ得ぬ日々に~ [970509] Excellents
bandicam%2B2018-07-29%2B12-42-03-206.jpg
Collection of three stories.
The first story is about girl Ai and her difficult life with the stepfather told from different perspectives.
All stories seem to have zapping perspectives. Since game only launches on WinME and lower, it's not hookable and I only glanced at other two stories without trying to understand anything. But the first story plot moves like this - Ai quarrels with father, then they hug, then get close. Next Ai past is shown up to the moment she got violated by a guy (and whom she might have killed afterwards). Her female friend that features on the cover listens to this story, gets moved by it and both girls make love, the end.

 

6. In'yoku no Meikyuu 淫欲の迷宮 [970516] Motion
bandicam%2B2018-06-17%2B08-36-16-127.jpg
In this adult hentai visual novel, you must defeat the devil in order to save a certain doctor's world. It has some 3D dungeon exploration such in Ultima. When you encounter enemy events, an animation is played.
Kusoge. 3D dungeon exploration. Much of exploration and H events are animated.

 

7. Photo Genic フォトジェニック [970516] Sunsoft
photoge02.jpg
In Photo Genic the player controls a young boy that got a job as a photographer. The main goal of the game is to improve the boy stats and photograph skills to make him win the heart of one of the girls of the town.
During the game the player makes decisions about what his character will do each week (gymnastics, study, take another job, etc) to improve his stats. He also can walk around the town to talk to the people and the girls, the more in touch that he is with them the more possibilities to take a better photograph and date them. After taking the photographs the player can view them in the photo gallery.
There are three girls of interest. This work is interesting because it has SIM part as photographer and ADV part of wandering around the town and event scenes. Graphics of this game is really impressive with a lot of bright CG. Cute, but nothing else.

 

8. Dousei 同棲 [970523] Tactics 1 2
12678.jpg
Dōsei is a social and sexual simulation game that focuses on the life of a young Japanese couple. Masaki Yamada and Manami Minase start living together shortly after having graduated from high school. Most of the game is dedicated to the depiction of their everyday life at home, of which the majority explicitly describes their sexual relationship.
That's our first Tactics (Key) game. Drawing is very similar to next "One" game. Game has an English review.

 

9. Fukushuu 復讐 [970523] Crowd 1
hukusyuu01.jpg
You are a high school student and were embarrassed in front of the class by 4 girls TWICE, each time it was involved with another girl. Now you decide it's time for getting your revenge and you have to choose a partner for additional help..
There is an English review.

 

10. Inshin Miko 淫心魅娘 [970523] T2 Co., Ltd.
80410.jpg
During a date in an amusement park hero gets "demon soul" attached to his chest. The girl who did it is a foreign priestess and queen candidate. She asks hero to eliminate other candidates by depriving them from virginity. "Demon soul" attached to the chest slowly eats the soul and there's no other choice but cooperate.
Multiple branches and endings story. It's nice that there are quite many variants of story development and it's not necessary just to capture other priesteses. Capture is difficult as branching is not too evident and the ending depends on both whether to H different girls or not and in which priority to capture them.

 

11. Nouryokusha 脳力者 [970523] MBS Truth
156896415003463128.gif
Our guy got hit by a baseball in a park on his way home. This awaken his special mental powers. His power has 4 targets. They are his childhood girl, teacher, school badgirl, and adopted sister. Since he can see into their heart and can control them, he has his way with them. If he only go after the one he loves, she might save him when the time comes. The main part of this game is nasty, but the happy endings are very sweet.
Content is pretty dark and insulting, but character design is good enough to struggle to the happy ending. Story develops fast, so it's possible to see it all in an hour's time.

 

12. Ryuuteki Gosennen ~Dragons of China~ 龍的五千年 ~Dragons of China~ [970523] Imagineer Co., Ltd.
76c632b2.jpg
China, 2099 AD. During the construction of a new Olympics stadium, the ruin were found at the basement. The construction machinery damaged the sealed pot and a black dragon appeared from it with a thunder and flew away. He appeared in Tokyo and destroyed it to the ground and the next day the world was hit by multiple natural disasters bringing the humanity to the brink of extinction. At the global academic conference of ancient ruins it was decided to acquire the power of a good dragon in order to deal with the evil dragon. You are Ken, the participant of that conference and you hurry to find the good dragon of China.
Command selection adventure with occasional battles during movement. It's not a serious ADV game, more like and entertainment game for pupils to have fun with battles. Game also features very unusual character design.

 

13. Seiki ~Ryoujoku no Kamen~ 性鬼 ~陵辱の仮面~ [970523] Outlaw
01892.jpg
The protagonist is a high school student that one day finds a magical mask that turns the wearer into a serial rapist, and uses his newly gained powers to score with several of his classmates.
Reverse bullying sick game. The only good thing is that there are several scenarios. System is especially bad as messages tend to skip and often first choice is selected despite your decision.

 

14. To Heart [970523] Leaf 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
05%2B%25281%2529.jpg
In this game, you play as Fujita Hiroyuki, a high-school student who seems to have more interest in romance than in his studies. In his school there are several pretty girls, and his goal is to be nice to one of them, to make the right decisions when talking to her, and ultimately to win her heart.
There are English reviews of this game.

 

15. Nyo-Manji 女卍 [970529] iMAGE CLUB
33596.jpg
Tokyo a century ago.
Private detective Kudo Mauna is a famous expert in paranormal activities. 
Together with the legendary witchcraft "Masashi" user high school girl Ririmori Komori they accept a case request. One woman starts to feel abnormal activity inside her body. But the incident turns in an unexpected direction.
The only review I found says the hero eradicates something strange. Obscure ero-centered work.

 

16. Youjo Ranbu 2 妖女乱舞2 [970529] Zone 1
14311.jpg
Your mother, on her last breath, reveals the secret of your identity. After that, you, the hero of the story, travels around the world as a mercenary to find more about where you came from, and as you perform more tasks you find out more about yourself.
There is an English review.

 

17. Hi School Jam Hiすく~るJam [970530] Jam 1
01%2B%25281%2529.jpg
You start off as a second year student of the school and you are on the student's council as well. Your goal is to be elected as the next student council's president at game end when the seniors graduate.
There is a good English review for this game.

 

18. Shuukan From H 週刊フロムH [970530] JAST
71.png
Atsushi, the son of a very rich man, returns from abroad to his hometown. After getting some quarrel, his father cancelled giving him money and now Atsushi has to find any temporary work around the whole city. You as Atsushi try various jobs – from stadium to the hospital or the news agency. There are also plenty of pretty girls around the city and you make attempts to get them known better and maybe even eventually date with one of them.
ADV with location choice on the map. Each week you try a new job and there's a new girl at each job. It's a light work with a comedy touch.

3 Comments


Recommended Comments

Good write as always.

As for To Heart, it was one of the most trendsetting eroge in Japan according to Wikipedia because it started the genre of school slice of life genre for the eroge. So, if some people here like (Or despise perhaps) the genre in which is so abundant there it was thanks to To Heart that make it happen. Another trendsetting VN here was One and Kanon, in which I'm sure that you'll get to write later. I'll write about those two later, and for now I'll just write about To Heart. As for To Heart itself, while I did said it was trendsetting, nowadays it would be criticize as cliche VN with bad graphic mainly because we already see the abundance of the VNs like To Heart once again and even the graphic there was losing to the sequel (To Heart 2) which is more famous and more iconic. But still, the influence was still there and I would say that if To Heart wasn't here maybe VNs nowadays would be different.

PS - By the way I like that To Heart was full of famous seiyuu like Hisakawa Aya or Yui Horie, and there's also Kawasumi Ayako for people who like Saber.

Link to comment

I'm already astonished by the number of fan doujin works One ~To the Radiant Season~  produced (at least three!) and it's probably the first work to spawn fan doujin games at all - already watching a playthrough of it. Kanon has a power to change people - can't say it was for the good in my case, but it has such power.

As for To Heart, this work is revolutionary because it's the first traditional moege.  There is nothing like that in 1997 and for a good part of 1998. This work came ahead of the trend and stands out lonely for a long time. The closest thing to that was Kakyuusei, but it's a different genre and it has other love interests than cute little girls. In most of romance stories only imouto or childhood friend might be cute moe girl, but other girls were much more mature. To Heart has 10 heroines and all of them are cute moe girls in a lot of moe situations. It's a solid statement to the future that moe is not an occasional sidekick, but mainstream.

Edited by kivandopulus
Link to comment

I know this is old don't forget To Heart also gave us the resident Tsundere in Hoshina.
I also find it hard to place her under the "cute moe girl" category, as kivandopulus apparently does.
It actually got to be quite annoying how antagonistic she is in her route......

Link to comment
Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...