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Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate: The Review Yummy, Yummy, Yummy I got love in my tummy, and I feel like a-loving you (From left to right; Satsuki, Michiru, Isara, Mifuyu, and Chisato) The Setup Chocolate, it truly bridges the cultural divide and brings people together. There is not a person alive who has not at least heard of its existence. It's a world renown symbol of love and diabetes, and a advertisers dream. For Oojima Yuuki and his childhood friend Chisato it means so much more than just that. Can tragedy that is caused by chocolate be saved by chocolate? (Cue: Ride of the Valkyries) The Story Yuuki is a man who doesn't have much to ask for. All he wants is too finish out his remaining high school years at the preposterously exclusive Takafuji Gakuen Academy with the rest of his friends. Well that and for people to get his last name right for once. There they play out their lives in the Food Research Club otherwise known as Shokken! In that hollowed club room Yuuki and his friends, well they don't do much at all exactly. They pretty much us the club as an excuse to eat all the sweets they can get their hands on. It's presumed that the only thing he and his cohorts research is the amount of cavities they will develop. However, the dawn of a new school year brings fresh challenges that threaten Yuuki's peaceful existence. Student Council elections are on the horizon and with it the brazen and beautiful Satsuki Shinonome who threatens to bring down judgment like the wrath of God upon Shokken. As the head of the Financial Affairs Committee, she makes it her campaign goal to dramatically decrease the schools budget. In order to do that she decides to cut funds for clubs she deems to be undeserving and for a club as fundamentally useless as Shokken she threatens annihilation. Now, in order to protect the club and their remaining precious memories Yukki will have to become the peoples champion and throw his hat into the race. Will Yukki manage to do the impossible and protect the Shokken, or will he be swept aside by forces beyond his control? The idea for the story is pretty straightforward and simplistic but it serves as a strong enough foundation for the ensuing drama of each characters route. Oh, speaking of characters (Look at all of them, standing there, staring at you.) The Characters First off is our protagonist Oojima Yuuki and he is one of the better developed leading men that I have encountered. Maybe that is because I also hate it when someone butchers my last name, even though it's so easy to say if you stop to think for one second! That, and I am also terrible about noticing whether or not a girl is interested in me or not. That did not stop me from wanting to strangle the life out of him on many occasions, but still I could sympathize. He is initially hesitant about becoming a candidate but he eventually rises to the occasion. Furthermore, you can actually see his face once or twice, that alone raises his stock. Second is the resident main girl and childhood friend Chisato. She stuns locks us into her route from the very beginning and if you want to date any of the other girls you have to go through her first. That notion might turn off a few people but for me I didn't mind it too much. She is a incredibly important character and she effects every relationship that Yuuki is involved with. She is your typical tsundere character but even still she has quite a bit of depth to her. Coming into it I thought I would end up really disliking her, but surprisingly enough by the end of it I had a completely different opinion of her. Next is Michiru who is a quiet cat like girl and the newest addition to the Shokken. Michiru was a character that I liked as soon as I met her. Maybe it had to do with the fact that she is rather mysterious and the quiet type. Her route is definitely the strangest one, and unfortunately it completely broke my suspension of disbelief. One thing is for certain it definitely has one of the more memorable harmonica tunes out there. She's also just super cute! Mifuyu is up next and she is best friends with both Chisato and Yuuki. She was another character I was surprised that I ended up liking. Usually I'm not interested in characters that suffer from a vague malady, but I made an exception for Mifuyu. Her route was definitely one of my favorites of Koi and I liked how it really tested the three's friendship. After that is Isara a hardworking girl with a brilliant smile who cutely ends nearly every single sentence with a little...aha! Or at least I think it was supposed to be cute. I tried it out a couple of times in front of the mirror and it didn't really sound cute at all...aha! Isara is from a poor family and is only able to attend Takafuji through some student welfare system. It's a very bizarre system that makes the students work in factories while they go to school. It also causes the students who are part of that system to be treated as second class citizens. Aha! Last of all is Satsuki the head of the financial committee and the mortal enemy of the Shokken. I enjoyed her route the most out of all of them. The drama felt the most convincing and grounded. Satsuki and Yuuki seemed to really compliment each other and the romance felt very natural. She also has a cute side once you get under her aloof nature. Aside from the heroines there is a surprisingly large cast of well developed side characters. Some of the standouts are Nozomi a brilliant mad scientist type of character, Hazuki the alcoholic teacher, Ai and Kii two life long friends otherwise known as the monkey duo, and Yume who has a strange and unsubtle fixation on Yuuki. (Truly, Michiru is cuteness incarnate) My Two Cents Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate, despite coming across as some kind of insidious advertisement for the chocolate industry was really enjoyable. The characters and their routes are all well developed and well written. On top of that the art was gorgeous throughout. I think a special mention should go to the way the backgrounds were handled I think they are some of the best I have ever seen. It is rare to see a visual novel that actually has characters in the background shots but that is what Sprite did. Normally you just have to imagine that the busy streetcorner or classroom is populated and in Koi's case a few of the background characters could have easily been side characters in their own right. On the negative side one thing that really stuck out to me is how absurd the Academy comes across as. It's this huge entity that has a student run school budget at a billion yen, has a department that involves spies and wiretaps, operates a broken welfare system for students who cannot afford to attend normally, and let's a teacher use a club room as a minibar. Two of the routes really seem to go off the deep end, and I was almost disappointed that Yuuki didn't uncover a assassination plot against him. It's the type of school that could suddenly reveal that it's secretly a covert military training base for supersolders and would hardly seem surprising. Because of that, I found it hard to take some of the dramatic moments seriously and that hurt some of my enjoyment. Ultimately, despite my pummeled suspension of disbelief I still had a good time with Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate, and I would encourage you to give it a chance even though you are forced to complete Chisato's route first. She is not that bad I swear! (See? Look at you've done!)

Foreword: Game's totally obscure and there just one quite shallow Japanese review exists, so I'd probably miss this wonderful game unless saw Four-Nine as developer. And I'm really happy I did! Title: Lilith Developer: Four-Nine Date: 1995-12-16 VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v8949 Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_1nGf0P0-M&list=PLENAECnNmAq8obEJUzYJkNq8XOxyNZ-0s Synopsis: An intense night battle between kunoichi clan leader and evil biblical spirit Lilith ends with kunoichi falling into coma state. A cat gets into an ordinary student Koketsu room, transforms into a girl and claims that Koketsu got her master kunoichi spirit and must help her master and defeat Lilith. The problem is that nothing is known about Lilith but the name and together they set to uncover its secrets. Structure: One route Length: 11 hours Game type: Command selection adventure Difficulty: Challenging since there are gameplay elements introduced with walking on schematic map and triggering events including traps, some of which result in game over. Once I even managed to trigger game over during a H event! And there is no scene replay - you'll have to replay from the last save game. Character Design rating: 7/10 Protagonist rating: 8/10 Story rating: 9/10 Game quality: 8/10 Overall rating: 8/10 Rating comments: I can't praise this game enough. Lilith came a year after Gao Gao 3rd and it fully inherits the spirit of Gao Gao series, just with a slightly different setting. The story is surprisingly solid and long. Protagonist is the strongest compared to all the Gao Gao series games. Characters serve the story purpose mostly, but they spend so much time with Koketsu that we get to know everyone very well. The gameplay elements are really annoying when encountered, but those get easier and easier as story goes on, so the impression gets balanced. Being PC-98 exclusive, game is not voiced and can feel monotonous at times and only for that it's not a perfect score. Protagonist: Koketsu is a normal student proficient in Kendo. And I can only admire how he manages to beat all kinds of beasts, demons and undead all by himself with his wooden sword! That kitten girl is absolutely useless in battle and strong allies join up quite late in the game. There are strategic retreats at times, but mostly he just beats crap out of anything! It's been a while since I encountered protagonist that strong. He's funny, cool and takes decisions himself. He reminds Wolfy from Gao Gao 3rd-4th a lot. Characters: I'm not really sure for transcription, but cat-girl is Miya. There is also childhood friend Minoru. Eventually a fox girl comes into stage and kunoichi Sasame comes out of coma, so we get quite a harem here! And most of enemies are girls, of course. What actually delighted me is that not every female enemy gets a H event unlike Gao Gao series. There are also numerous neutral/episodic female characters in the game, so there's not enough time to devote to separate heroines. Story: I absolutely liked the story since it was absolutely unpredictable and full of great enemies, battles and blood. There are so many civilians and enemies killed violently that Gao Gao does not come into comparison even remotely on the matter. I also liked that at some point story got some structure as heroes needed to get all three spiritual stones. So each of these spirit stones parts and next fighting parts have each a beautiful legend in the core. Some of those stories are even about our enemies which totally blasts. Since I divided the videos by structural parts, it's well worth to mention those when talking about the story, but without too many spoilers, of course. So Koketsu with Miya just gather information about Lilith from various sources and work out a course of actions in introduction. Then gathering of three spirit stones follows. And second half of the game is devoted to numerous encounters with old and new enemies. That's the gist of it, but there there is a lot of content for 11 hour story. CG: Relatively big number of CG, but as usual for Four-Nine, only HCG are full screen size. What I especially liked is that there aren't many H events in the game. And H content is filled by inserting many random H events that are peeped while investigating some locations. Quite a lot of H events with Koketsu are packed by the end of the game since he needed to restore a lot of energy and we know an absolutely best way to give an injured bleeding hero energy! Sound: About 10 tracks, but those are totally different and very nice non-mechanic. BGM really adds to the charm of the game. Themes: 1) Lilith is the supposed first wife of biblical Adam, so religion has an important role in the game. Humor: I was surprised to see so much mild humor in the game. It's totally the Gao Gao type. Some cases that come to mind to get a taste of it: 1) Christian priest says he studies Japanese culture and he already knows of ninja, geisha and hara-kiri! 2) One heroine was found in the bushes and she just can't excuse Koketsu for stealing her first breast! As it turns out it's the the same thing as the first kiss, but about touching a breast. 3) An exchange student is asked if she knows something about Lilith. It's a girl who went through a mirror to the wonderland (No, it's "Alice")! It's a game where you turn blocks and stick them together (No, it's "Tetris")! It's a fighting game between monsters where king is the mummy (No, it's "Anakaris")! It's shameful to say it as a girl, but it's what men have between the... (PLEASE STOP RIGHT THERE!) Overall comments: This is a masterpiece and the exact kind of hidden gem that I would like to find in visual novels. A rich event-driven story with very unusual, but appealing characters (most of characters are half-bests as in all the Four-Nine games). So why is it so obscure then? There are many versions: command selection gameplay, trap/puzzle sections, bad endings, slow start of the game. But I also blame December - there are so many visual novels issued each December that it's sometimes difficult to find the place in the top 10 and the rest are deprived of attention.