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.
Foreword: I was really impressed with Viper F40, claiming that was a masterpiece. It's only natural I'd take on Viper F50 which is same SF single detective story. Is it a masterpiece as well?
Title: Viper-F50 ~Mirai Tokusou Bureiban~
Developer: Sogna
Date: 1999-04-23
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v7490
Synopsis: The sequel to the "Future Investigator Bravan" story told in VIPER-V12, VIPER-F50 continues the tale of Bravan and his partner Anri as they fight against the forces of Donarghe and its army of mutants. Colonel Gel returns with a plot to defeat Bravan by capturing Anri and fellow investigator Shine. However, Gel's plot for world domination unknowingly hinges on the faith and abilities of her young protégé, Mari.
Structure: None
Length: 1 hour 30 minutes
Game type: SF police patrooling story
Difficulty: Very easy, one way road.
Character Design rating: 6/10
Protagonist rating: 7/10
Story rating: 2/10
Game quality: 6/10
Overall rating: 5/10
Rating comments: 5/10 is a very low score for me and that means one thing - I'm disappointed. Compared to F40 game is on the same engine, with similar character designs and animations. But story-wise, it's a huge step back. Length got cut 2.5 times. All the "detective" legwork around the house is limited to 4 locations that you check over and over - Shinjuku, beginner school, junior school, high school, and that's it. Story got so thin that it's almost non-existent. It looks like Sogna started with a great idea to make great stories out of previous short multiple stories issues, but on the way just went with the flow and started to make just a bit longer single same silly stories instead.
Protagonist: Bray-Ban is the main character here. He can transform to some kind of SF power ranger at will. He's kind, compassionate and reliable. Well, since he's male character, he's the only one who stays undefeated. He is voiced and looks ok, so I'm quite content with him giving 7/10 to protagonist.
Characters: Anri is green hair assistant who can not use the biosuit. Shine is red hair partner who can use biosuit. Both characters and the only villain aren't drawn cute and are difficult to sympathize with. That's why 6/10.
Story: SPOILERS. The cornerstone of such low score. So Bra-Ban patrols the schools when he finds donage monster assaulting a girl. He fights donage, but girl tries to kill him, and that attempt is only prevented by partner Shine showing up and destroying girl's weapon making her flee. Next assistant Anri finds herself useless and upon discovering the next of donage under junior high school, she goes exploring it unarmed and alone (can it be more stupid?) getting caught by donage. Shine and Bra-Ban decide to split to cover more territory while searching for Mari (Why??). Shine finds Anri, but blackmailed into disarming and stripping under Anri death threats. Bra-Ban saves both girls from monsters. Bra-Ban is assaulted by the same brainwashed school girl Mari who attacked him in the beginning. He manages to cut off her weapon filled with explosives and calm her down only for her to be killed by donnage queen Gel-sama. Bra-Ban descends into donnage den alone (story does not teach him anything) and gets into Gel-sama trap. A girl in Shine costume shows up and saves Bra-Ban - that girls happens to be Anri who put on Shine suit. The end. This story is beyond redemption.
CG: There's mostly animations, not CG. But can't complain here.
Humor: There is one nice character in the game. It's donnage stag beetle monster. He retains his human feelings and behaves like a grandpa to Mari. He defends Mari before Gel-sama, then tries to attack Bra-Ban first in order not to traumatize Mari. Upon defeat he conveys to Bra-Ban that Mari would have explosives in her weapon secretly inserted by Gel-sama, and that information allows to pacify Mari. So these geezer talks of Stag beetle donnage deliver quite a lot. All those superhero ranger banters also were funny at times.
Title and Themes: There aren't real themes. One semi-theme is sacrifice as Anri put on suit her body could not handle to help friends. The other semi-theme is humanity as Mari regains her humanity and Stag Beetle donnage retains his humanity up to the end.
Overall comments: I believe Sogna had a serious failure with this game. Moreover, I think that Sogna made wrong conclusions from such failure. As it looks to me now, instead of producing more serious stories it decided to leave stories at a bakage level, but add cuteness instead. But I will only know for sure after I play Viper-GTB.
Foreword: After single story editions of F40 and F50 I was curious whether next games follow the set trajectory or move elsewhere. The following single story game is Viper-GTB, so...
Title: Viper-GTB ~Rise After~
Developer: Sogna
Date: 1999-12-22
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v10121
Synopsis: The long awaited sequel to the VIPER-V16 story, VIPER-GTB's "Rise After" chapter takes place almost four years after "Rise". Her family abducted, Saki returns to Anne Mitter's to enlist Akira's help in a daring rescue. In the course of saving them from the domineering aquatic queen Irear, Akira herself is captured. Offering to rescue her are a small band of extra-terrestrials, led by the mysterious Tarma whose true intentions are not revealed until its too late. Trading Karin, Saki, and Seed to Irear in exchange for the strongest woman on Earth, Tarma claims Akira as his newest slave. Fellow champion martial artist Makoto, arriving at Anne Mitter's to avenge a recent defeat at the hands of Akira, becomes embroiled in the plot, soon following Tarma's companion Narsha to the spaceship, where she and the warriors of the underground race lay siege to the craft. The fate of other strong women across the galaxy now rests with Akira and Makoto.
Structure: None
Length: Took me over 3 hours because of gameplay elements
Game type: SF/Fantasy erotic adventure
Difficulty: Very easy, one way road. There are two bad endings though, so need to save at least sometimes.
Character Design rating: 6/10
Protagonist rating: 7/10
Story rating: 1/10
Game quality: 6/10
Overall rating: 4/10
Rating comments: Well, the spread is almost the same as in Viper F50, just worse. The main component for my score is story. If I evaluated the game by different criteria, result would be different as well. This time there are too many H events and basically zero story. Instead of story now there is repeating, exhausting, time wasting gameplay. It's worst design to make up for just one hour story with enemy encounters literally every 10 steps in the maze. I'm not just disappointed, but infuriated, indeed.
Protagonist: Akira is best known Sogna fan-service character. And authors capitalized on her all the way through the game. She is omnipotent and in all kind of weird situations. Even my screenshot spread shows that other characters are quite non-existent.
Characters: Karin is with us, as usual, but most of H scenes without Akira belong to evil girls who are plenty here.
Story: Keith (the main bad guy of prequel) got kidnapped by the water tribe. The whole gang goes underwater to save him. They beat the boss queen at the underwater complex and save Keith, but on the way back Akira gets kidnapped. The gang gets reinforcements in the form of several strange martial artists and they again go to the very same underwater complex to save Akira... and they actually do so, but the strange martial artists spoil all the cards, and the situation gets very messy... which only gets resolved by the third expedition to a different underwater complex... Is that even a story?
CG: Animations mostly.
Overall comments: Game is really bare. No real theme or story. Humor is mostly of erotic nature. Horrible averting gameplay, unexpected game-overs (there's no option to replay, start from the start if no save!) and lots and lots of H events. That's all what this game is about and this is the only kind of review it deserves.
Finished updating old posts. Nothing really interesting is added, so added games comments are very scarce. Main changes are mostly about descriptions for games that did not have one, over 500 new descriptions. Some review/opening/image links changed. Finally, I can move on now. This is the early draft of changes, stopped updating it midway.
VN of the Month December 2005 - Aekanaru Sekai no Owari ni
https://vndb.org/v22685 - Power Pro Kun Pocket 8
https://vndb.org/v23599 - The Noroi no Game
https://vndb.org/v27013 - Sugar Sugar Rune: Koi mo Oshare mo Pick-Up!
https://vndb.org/v22900 - Mousou Nikki: Joshikousei Hen
https://vndb.org/v26016 - Chained Valkyria -Akashiya no Kyouen-
https://vndb.org/v23124 - Hyouka no Gen'ya
https://vndb.org/v24462 - Kidou Shounen
VN of the Month November 2005 - Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo
https://vndb.org/v23460 - Mirugeki 3 Bishoujo Maki Naisho no Taiken
VN of the Month October 2005 - Ayakashi
https://vndb.org/v23462 - Mirugeki 2 Papa tte Yobitai no
https://vndb.org/v24385 - Qu Beifang
VN of the Month September 2005 - Gunjou no Sora o Koete
https://vndb.org/v24864 - Gokujou Seitokai
https://vndb.org/v23903 - Fushigi no Umi no Nadia ~Inherit the Blue Water~
VN of the Month August 2005 - Saihate no Ima
https://vndb.org/v24778 - Final Approach Final fandisk
https://vndb.org/v25938 - Gakuen Tengoku
VN of the Month July 2005 - Swan Song
https://vndb.org/v25128 - Still More
VN of the Month June 2005 - Ayakashibito
VN of the Month May 2005 - Princess Witches
https://vndb.org/v26583 - ETERNITY-The Joker to a Dark Side-
https://vndb.org/v24625 - Counter-Strike NEO -White Memories-
https://vndb.org/v26058 - Majo no Yuigon
https://vndb.org/v25355 - School Navigation!
VN of the Month April 2005 - Sanarara
https://vndb.org/v22864 - Akane
https://vndb.org/v22047 - Kochou Yuukaku
https://vndb.org/v23463 - Mirugeki 1: Imouto -Boku to Asumi no Himitsu Taiken-
https://vndb.org/v23773 - Rondo ~Punyupuri Joshikouhen~
VN of the Month March 2005 - Parfait ~Chocolat Second Brew~
https://vndb.org/v26743 - Iris ~Kimi ga Ita Toki~
https://vndb.org/v23499 - Love Love Fight
https://vndb.org/v23148 - Kochira Memetsuki Onsenkyou
VN of the Month February 2005 - Steel
https://vndb.org/v25146 - The Kanshikikan
https://vndb.org/v25118 - Tsuki wa Kirisaku ~Tantei Sagara Kyouichirou~
https://vndb.org/v26915 - Gakuen Prince ~Fandisc~
VN of the Month January 2005 - Tenshi no Nichou Kenjuu -Angelos Armas-
https://vndb.org/v26265 - Rou ~Kedakaku Gouman na Dansei Fushin Onna ga Seidorei ni Ochiru made~
https://vndb.org/v23774 - Punyupuri SP - Yamiyo no Miko Shokushu ni Otsu
VN of the Month December 2004 - To Heart 2
https://vndb.org/v22681 - Power Pro Kun Pocket 7
https://vndb.org/v25848 - Erumani 2
VN of the Month November 2004 - Planetarian ~Chiisana Hoshi no Yume~
https://vndb.org/v24350 - Reason of Detective
https://vndb.org/v24330 - The Suiri ~Soshite Dare mo Inakunatta~
https://vndb.org/v24539 - Seikon ~Boku to Meido to Kyouki no Yakata~
https://vndb.org/v24485 - Phantomphobia ~Ikai~
https://vndb.org/v25122 - Tenkuu Danzai Skelter Heaven
https://vndb.org/v26885 - Manabe yo Otome!
VN of the Month October 2004 - Akai Ito
https://vndb.org/v23610 - Ryoujoku Jiken File -File. 1 Renzoku Fujo Shissou Jiken-
https://vndb.org/v24844 - A to 1
VN of the Month September 2004 - Abandoner - The Severed Dreams
VN of the Month August 2004 - Sorauta
https://vndb.org/v24387 - It's So Flogging Molly
https://vndb.org/v26317 - Sankaku Matsuri Vol.1
https://vndb.org/v25159 - Destino
https://vndb.org/v24303 - Harukeki Kawa no Nagare ni Nosete
https://vndb.org/v26071 - Tsuki no Furu Yoru
VN of the Month July 2004 - Dear My Friend
VN of the Month June 2004 - 3days ~Michiteyuku Toki no Kanata de~
https://vndb.org/v25629 - Yokubou no Ori
https://vndb.org/v23364 - Gyakuten Ryoujoku Angel Online
VN of the Month May 2004 - Carnival
VN of the Month April 2004 - Realize
https://vndb.org/v23327 - Tanetsuke Choukyou II
VN of the Month March 2004 - Remember11 -The Age of Infinity-
https://vndb.org/v24318 - Yomigaeri ~Refrain~
VN of the Month February 2004 - Forest
https://vndb.org/v25310 - The Legend of the Deep -Episode4-
https://vndb.org/v22297 - Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte
https://vndb.org/v26280 - Inran Mahjong ~Nugasare Modaeru Maid-tachi~
VN of the Month January 2004 - Paradise Lost
https://vndb.org/v25266 - Stellvia: Uchuu no Stellvia
https://vndb.org/v26884 - Heian Onshijo Koi Emaki
https://vndb.org/v25215 - Shoujo Taimashi Misato ~Ingoku no Fukushuusha~
VN of the Month December 2003 - Saya no Uta
https://vndb.org/v22680 - Power Pro Kun Pocket 6
https://vndb.org/v24319 - The Saiban ~Shinmai Shihoukan Momota Tsukasa no 10 no Saiban File~
https://vndb.org/v24401 - END OF THE WORLD
https://vndb.org/v24460 - Hotel Bloody Doll Fandisc -2003-
https://vndb.org/v22821 - Futari no Kon'yakusha
VN of the Month November 2003 - Kurenai
https://vndb.org/v23483 - Princess Riesz
VN of the Month October 2003 - Lovers ~Koi ni Ochitara...
https://vndb.org/v25252 - The Musume♥ Ikusei Simulation ~Otousan to Issho~
https://vndb.org/v24459 - Hotel Bloody Doll
https://vndb.org/v24326 - Otoko no Tame no Bible The Yuujou Adventure -Hotaru Soul-
VN of the Month - September 2003 - Cross†Channel
https://vndb.org/v26604 - Shoujo Yoshitsuneden
VN of the Month August 2003 - Natsuyume Yawa
https://vndb.org/v24370 - Tondeke! Nayama Seed
https://vndb.org/v25210 - Officer's ~Onna Sousakan-tachi no Ingoku~
https://vndb.org/v22101 - Sweet Apricot
https://vndb.org/v23001 - Sayurin no Tantei na Hibi
https://vndb.org/v22449 - Natsu Shoujo Summer Disc
https://vndb.org/v24386 - Shuumatsu ni Yosete
VN of the Month July 2003 - Komorebi ni Yureru Tamashii no Koe
https://vndb.org/v26194 - Tristia Dokidoki Operation
VN of the Month June 2003 - Sayonara
https://vndb.org/v23925 - Ore-sama Teacher ~Fukushuu Kyoushi no Web Counseling~
VN of the Month May 2003 - Ashita Deatta Shoujo
https://vndb.org/v25628 - Imouto no Onani
VN of the Month April 2003 - Zanmataisei Demonbane
https://vndb.org/v22295 - Zero One
VN of the Month March 2003 - Interlude
https://vndb.org/v24300 - Akaku Kagayaku Yuki
https://vndb.org/v23841 - Vampire Yui ~Sen'ya-shou~
VN of the Month February 2003 - Routes
https://vndb.org/v24162 - Otogi Story Tenshi no Shippo
VN of the Month January 2003 - Moekan
https://vndb.org/v22679 - Power Pro Kun Pocket 5
https://vndb.org/v25214 - Mahou Shoujo Ai ~Mahou Senshi e no Chinkonka~
https://vndb.org/v24877 - Fukuramikake Returns
https://vndb.org/v23352 - Bijutsu Kyoushi Ryouko
VN of the Month December 2002 - Popotan
https://vndb.org/v23852 - Getchu Ya★Getchu!!
https://vndb.org/v24358 - The Suiri ~Aratanaru 20 no Jikenbo~
https://vndb.org/v22429 - Romancing Kanon ~Eien no Shoujo Densetsu~
https://vndb.org/v24302 - Free Flower
https://vndb.org/v25158 - Bois Hoshikuzu to Tetsukuzu no Niwa
VN of the Month November 2002 - Baldr Force
https://vndb.org/v24706 - Dr. Rin ni Kiitemite! ~Koi no Happy Four Season~
VN of the Month October 2002 - Rocket no Natsu
VN of the Month September 2002 - Masaru: Ashita no Yukinojou 2
https://vndb.org/v24897 - Sold Out Frontier ~Reifu-tachi no Kihin Shakou Ressha~
https://vndb.org/v23858 - Chobits for Game Boy Advance -Atashi dake no Hito-
https://vndb.org/v24713 - Izumi Jiken File
VN of the Month August 2002 - Ever17 -The Out of Infinity-
https://vndb.org/v23355 - Clover ~Shiawase no Layout~
https://vndb.org/v24361 - Suiren
https://vndb.org/v25152 - Bois ~Kikaijikake no Mori~
https://vndb.org/v25212 - DarknessSuppressor ~Onna Taimashi-tachi no Inbu~
https://vndb.org/v24745 - Himekishi Monogatari -Princess Blue-
https://vndb.org/v25455 - Gekka Chou no Yakata
VN of the Month July 2002 - Viper-RSR
https://vndb.org/v24398 - Moon Fox Legend: Little Fox
VN of the Month June 2002 - Kanade
https://vndb.org/v24335 - Metal Wolf
VN of the Month May 2002 - Akane Maniax
https://vndb.org/v25213 - Iroiro ~Ingoku no Yakata~
VN of the Month April 2002 - D.U.O. ~Song for All~
VN of the Month March 2002 - Kikokugai - The Cyber Slayer
https://vndb.org/v22678 - Power Pro Kun Pocket 4
https://vndb.org/v23847 - Tokimeki Nya no☆Getchu!
VN of the Month February 2002 - Kusarihime ~Euthanasia~
https://vndb.org/v24704 - Dr. Rin ni Kiitemite! ~Koi no Rin Feng-Shui~
VN of the Month January 2002 - Princess Knights
VN of the Month December 2001 - Izumo
https://vndb.org/v26659 - Sister Princess ~Pure Stories~
https://vndb.org/v24724 - Hermina to Culus ~Lillie no Atelier Mou Hitotsu no Monogatari~
https://vndb.org/v24301 - Pray to Snow
https://vndb.org/v27131 - Water Dragon Knight ~Anata to no Yakusoku~
https://vndb.org/v27135 - Yozakura no Utage
https://vndb.org/v24546 - Koukou Kyoushi ~Memories of Summer~
https://vndb.org/v27128 - Claire Hikari no Densetsu Meisou no Hanged Man
https://vndb.org/v27081 - Karen
VN of the Month November 2001 - Nijuubako
https://vndb.org/v23361 - Para Para 2
VN of the Month October 2001 - Jisatsu no Tame no 101 no Houhou
VN of the Month September 2001 - Eve: The Fatal Attraction
VN of the Month August 2001 - Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
https://vndb.org/v25906 - TameGirl
https://vndb.org/v25454 - Totsugeki Uchuu Senkan Masrao
VN of the Month July 2001 - Cosmos no Sora ni
https://vndb.org/v27142 - Chinpu Kitan
VN of the Month June 2001 - No Reality
https://vndb.org/v26011 - KID Mix Section Character Collection
VN of the Month May 2001 - Sapphism no Gensou
https://vndb.org/v25901 - TameBoy
https://vndb.org/v22099 - Weakness Hero Torauman
VN of the April 2001 - Mizuiro
https://vndb.org/v22983 - Bishoujo Ren'ai Mahjong Series 2nd: Shiritsu Houou Gakuen: 2-nen Junjou-gumi
https://vndb.org/v22832 - Angel Present
https://vndb.org/v24324 - The Suiri ~IT Tantei: 18 no Jikenbo~
VN of the Month March 2001 - Silent Hill: Play Novel
https://vndb.org/v25243 - Mix Party 2ND
https://vndb.org/v22677 - Power Pro Kun Pocket 3
https://vndb.org/v23760 - Taiho Shichauzo
VN of the Month February 2001 - Tasogare
https://vndb.org/v22427 - Kara: Suzuna Hen
VN of the Month January 2001 - Vampirdzhija Vjedogonia
https://vndb.org/v23945 - Love Hina Party
VN of the Month December 2000 - Never7 -The End of Infinity-
https://vndb.org/v22257 - DiGiCharat Akiba Touitsu
https://vndb.org/v22536 - Air Carrot e Youkoso!!
https://vndb.org/v27093 - Ruriruri ADV
VN of the Month November 2000 - Nijuuei
https://vndb.org/v22982 - Bishoujo Ren'ai Mahjong Series 2nd: Shiritsu Houou Gakuen: 1-nen Jun'ai-gumi
VN of the Month October 2000 - Baldr Bullet
https://vndb.org/v25763 - Nurunuru Shiru Jigoku 6 Insui No Ningyo
VN of the Month September 2000 - Gensou Suikogaiden Vol. 1: Harmonia no Kenshi
https://vndb.org/v27269 - Arc Side Gaiden 2: Mahou to Yuujou
VN of the Month August 2000 - Tsukihime
https://vndb.org/v23944 - Love Hina Pocket
https://vndb.org/v22135 - Remel
https://vndb.org/v27161 - Akikaze no Love Songs
https://vndb.org/v26606 - Yuukyuu Kumikyoku All Star Project
https://vndb.org/v27114 - Ceramic Heart
VN of the Month July 2000 - Shoin, Aruiwa Ushinawareta Yume no Monogatari
https://vndb.org/v24325 - The Sound Novel
https://vndb.org/v25153 - Douboku
https://vndb.org/v22443 - Yokoshima
https://vndb.org/v27095 - Tomoyo Venture Episode2
https://vndb.org/v26468 - Baroque Syndrome
https://vndb.org/v23943 - Sakura Taisen GB-geki - Hanagumi Nyuutai!
VN of the Month June 2000 - Age Maniax ~Isumi Yon Shimai Saigo no Hi~
https://vndb.org/v22323 - Bibou Vintage 2000
https://vndb.org/v22642 - Saint Shirobara Gakuen Petit☆MAHJONG
VN of the Month May 2000 - Purepure
VN of the Month April 2000 - Gyousatsu♥Shinsengumi Hitokiri Bishoujo Adventure
https://vndb.org/v22056 - Believe ~Shitsuyoku no Tenshi-tachi~
https://vndb.org/v8376 - Great Hunting
VN of the Month March 2000 - Eve Zero
https://vndb.org/v23360 - Para Para
https://vndb.org/v22676 - Power Pro Kun Pocket 2
https://vndb.org/v26268 - Meitantei Conan: Kigantou Hihou Densetsu
VN of the Month February 2000 - Phantom of Inferno
https://vndb.org/v22981 - Bishoujo Ren'ai Mahjong Series: Karan Koron Gakuen: Pure Love Hen
https://vndb.org/v22418 - Uzumaki ~Denshi Kaiki Hen~
https://vndb.org/v26267 - Meitantei Conan: Karakuri Jiin Satsujin Jiken
VN of the Month January 2000 - Lien ~Owaranai Kimi no Uta~
VN of the Month December 1999 - Elemental Arts
https://vndb.org/v22978 - Bishoujo Ren'ai Mahjong Series: Karan Koron Gakuen: Dokidoki Hen
https://vndb.org/v22980 - Bishoujo Ren'ai Mahjong Series: Karan Koron Gakuen: Mune Kyun Hen
https://vndb.org/v27113 - Kokoro no Tobira
https://vndb.org/v27129 - Conve ~Houkago no Sugoshikata~
https://vndb.org/v24989 - Hirosue Sougou Byouin
https://vndb.org/v27126 - Himitsu Sentai Burning Bunny
https://vndb.org/v27116 - Sentimental Memorial
https://vndb.org/v27115 - Sessou no Yoru
https://vndb.org/v27084 - Prime Sexual
https://vndb.org/v27088 - To Heart CR
https://vndb.org/v24959 - second anopheles 1
https://vndb.org/v27125 - Aurora Hime Higyaku no Makyou
https://vndb.org/v27124 - Heart no Clover
https://vndb.org/v27082 - Furukizu
https://vndb.org/v27121 - Natsu o Shizuka ni
https://vndb.org/v27123 - Chikan wa Yamete
VN of the Month November 1999 - Parts
https://vndb.org/v27120 - Rescue Disk
https://vndb.org/v25992 - Purupuru Magic
VN of the Month October 1999 - Silver Jiken
https://vndb.org/v22350 - Furiman Bibou Hen
https://vndb.org/v26904 - Harlem Beat: You're the One
VN of the Month September 1999 - Kazeoto, Chirin
https://vndb.org/v27094 - Tomoyo Venture Episode1
https://vndb.org/v25229 - BOYS BE... 2nd Season
VN of the Month August 1999 - Tsui no Sora
https://vndb.org/v26327 - Maria 2: Jutai Kokuchi no Nazo
https://vndb.org/v26378 - Magical Kanan - Magical Fantasy Box
VN of the Month July 1999 - Mamatoto ~a record of war~
https://vndb.org/v27176 - Inagawa Junji: Kyoufu no Yashiki
VN of the Month June 1999 - Kanon
https://vndb.org/v26661 - Ren'ai Kouza Real Age
https://vndb.org/v27584 - Soreike Majokko Serika
VN of the Month May 1999 - Comic party
https://vndb.org/v25789 - Seikon ~Inbou Uzumaku Byoutou de Tadareta Soukanzu~
VN of the Month April 1999 - Lipstick Adv.EX
https://vndb.org/v22675 - Power Pro Kun Pocket
https://vndb.org/v26769 - Boy x Boy ~Shiritsu Kouryou Gakuin Seishinryou~
VN of the Month March 1999 - Captain Love
https://vndb.org/v23526 - Sougaku Toshi Osaka
https://vndb.org/v24005 - Yakusoku no Kizuna
https://vndb.org/v27162 - Sanjuusou
VN of the Month February 1999 - Campus ~Sakura no Mau Naka de~
https://vndb.org/v26560 - Den'ei Shoujo Virtual Girl Lun
https://vndb.org/v27079 - Aiiro no Kankei
https://vndb.org/v26566 - Kouyasai
VN of the Month January 1999 - Ikusa Megami
VN of the Month December 1998 - Kuon no Kizuna
https://vndb.org/v27109 - Densetsu no Ato de LoveLove no Shou
https://vndb.org/v26314 - Pureprime -pianissimo-
https://vndb.org/v27089 - Black Album
https://vndb.org/v27087 - Roots
VN of the Month November 1998 - Exodus Guilty
https://vndb.org/v23855 - Neko na Kankei
https://vndb.org/v26018 - Abunai Hyakkaten
VN of the Month October 1998 - Psyclone
https://vndb.org/v25330 - Efficus: Kono Omoi o Kimi ni...
https://vndb.org/v26913 - Sakura Tsuushin
https://vndb.org/v22058 - Kuroi Hamon
VN of the Month September 1998 - With You ~Mitsumete Itai~
https://vndb.org/v24393 - Kaze no Oka Kouen nite
https://vndb.org/v26131 - Dennou Meikyuu Gensou Bouken Yuugi Yurika
https://vndb.org/v26559 - Ren'ai Kouhosei Starlight Scramble
VN of the Month August 1998 - Shiokaze no Memory
https://vndb.org/v25415 - Full House ~Joyuu Monogatari~
VN of the Month July 1998 - luv wave
https://vndb.org/v24062 - 17 Sai ~My Dear Angel~
VN of the Month June 1998 - One ~Kagayaku Kisetsu e~
VN of the Month May 1998 - Diabolique
https://vndb.org/v27080 - Kusairo no Hitomi
VN of the Month April 1998 - Love Escalator
https://vndb.org/v24063 - Find Love 2: The Prologue
https://vndb.org/v27122 - Maou to Iu Ikikata
VN of the Month March 1998 - EVE: The Lost One
https://vndb.org/v26068 - Eberouge 2
VN of the Month February 1998 - Doukoku Soshite...
https://vndb.org/v25110 - Tour Party: Sotsugyou Ryokou ni Ikou
https://vndb.org/v26605 - Yuukyuu Gensoukyouku 2nd Album
VN of the Month January 1998 - Machi
https://vndb.org/v26103 - Datenshi no Sumika
https://vndb.org/v24635 - Mix Candy 3
https://vndb.org/v26102 - Amandine
VN of the Month December 1997 - Universal Nuts
https://vndb.org/v26326 - Maria: Kimitachi ga Umareta Wake
https://vndb.org/v27083 - Gensuishou
VN of the Month November 1997 - Moon.
https://vndb.org/v10382 - Toriko 2
VN of the Month October 1997 - Sweepers!
https://vndb.org/v22868 - Dear Princess
VN of the Month September 1997 - Comic Road
https://vndb.org/v23479 - Eberouge Special ~Koi to Mahou no Gakuen Seikatsu~
VN of the Month August 1997 - Kaeru nyo Panyon
https://vndb.org/v26576 - Koi no Summer Fantasy in Miyazaki Seagaia
VN of the Month July 1997 - Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 1: Nijiiro no Seishun
https://vndb.org/v23769 - My Dream ~On Air ga Matenakute~
VN of the Month June 1997 - Zoku Hatsukoi Monogatari ~Shuugaku Ryokou~
https://vndb.org/v26130 - Kakutou Cosplay Ojanko
https://vndb.org/v26511 - Ami ~Shoushin no Tenshi~
https://vndb.org/v26929 - Digital Ange ~Dennou Tenshi SS~
VN of the Month May 1997 - To Heart
https://vndb.org/v27573 - Kojiin ~Kyouki no Ketsuzoku~
VN of the Month April 1997 - Canaan ~Yakusoku no Chi~
https://vndb.org/v26711 - Critical Blow
VN of the Month March 1997 - Ruriiro no Yuki
https://vndb.org/v26565 - Ayakashi Ninden Kunoichiban
https://vndb.org/v24298 - Stand by Say you!
https://vndb.org/v24007 - BOYS BE...
VN of the Month February 1997 - Yatsu no Na wa Diamond
VN of the Month January 1997 - Rookies
VN of the Month December 1996 - Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo YU-NO
https://vndb.org/v24366 - Alice In Cyberland Yamiyo No Madoushi
https://vndb.org/v23457 - M ~Kimi o Tsutaete~
https://vndb.org/v26381 - Ars Amatoria
https://vndb.org/v27402 - Instant Clarity
https://vndb.org/v27570 - Minako no Suiyoubi
VN of the Month Noveber 1996 - Mashou no Kao
https://vndb.org/v26522 - Jun'ai Monogatari - Shuugaku Ryokou no Yoru
https://vndb.org/v8979 - Muppet Box
VN of the Month October 1996 - Bounty Hunter Rudy
https://vndb.org/v23481 - Eternal Melody
https://vndb.org/v23324 - Heroine Dream
https://vndb.org/v14583 - Toriko
https://vndb.org/v14512 - Katei Kyoushi
https://vndb.org/v15162 - Ikumoto
https://vndb.org/v21972 - G no Kyokuhoku
https://vndb.org/v27401 - Hokenshitsu no Akuma
VN of the Month September 1996 - Sakura Taisen
VN of the Month August 1996 - Be-Yond ~Kurodaishou ni Mirareteru~
VN of the Month July 1996 - Kizuato
VN of the Month June 1996 - Es no Houteishiki
https://vndb.org/v26521 - Moderate Party
VN of the Month May 1996 - Rouge no Densetsu
https://vndb.org/v26325 - Hanafuda Graffiti Koikoi Monogatari
VN of the Month April 1996 - Harlem Blade ~The Greatest of All Time.~
VN of the Month March 1996 - Mujintou Monogatari 3 - A.D. 1999 Tokyo
VN of the Month February 1996 - DIES IRAE
VN of the Month January 1996 - Ryuuki Denshou Dragoon
VN of the Month December 1995 - Lilith
https://vndb.org/v20887 - Doki Doki Pretty League EX
https://vndb.org/v25169 - Shikimi
https://vndb.org/v25074 - Rinn-chan no Tensei Hakusho ~Meido no Miyagebanashi~
https://vndb.org/v25101 - Momoiro Sankaku ~Riko & Hikaru Hen~
https://vndb.org/v27010 - Hotaru
https://vndb.org/v27022 - Asuka Ayako-chan to Hokenshitsu
https://vndb.org/v27406 - Tantei Imasato Misa Jikenbo Tanpenshuu: Romance wa Shiroku Kiken na Kaori
VN of the Month November 1995 - Eve: Burst Error
VN of the Month October 1995 - Trouble Chaser Dai 4 Wa - Saishuukai
VN of the Month September 1995 - Mime
VN of the Month August 1995 - Isaku
https://vndb.org/v23921 - Shin Youjuu Kyoushitsu Ecstasy Adventure
VN of the Month July 1995 - Kuro no Danshou: The Literary Fragment
https://vndb.org/v9004 - Perfect Blue
VN of the Month June 1995 - True Love ~Jun'ai Monogatari~
https://vndb.org/v9139 - Trouble Chaser Dai 3 Wa - 2 Do Aru Trouble 3 Do Aru
VN of the Month May 1995 - Koihime
https://vndb.org/v27160 - Nana Eiyuu Monogatari
https://vndb.org/v18299 - S.A. 3
VN of the Month April 1995 - Mugen Yasoukyoku
VN of the Month March 1995 - Cybernoid Alpha
VN of the Month February 1995 - Doki Doki Pretty League Dai 3 Wa - Minami no Umi no Kai no Maki
https://vndb.org/v10902 - Poison ~6 Nin no Majo~
VN of the Month January 1995 - Doki Doki Vacation ~Kirameku Kisetsu no Naka de~
VN of the Month December 1994 - Xenon ~Mugen no Shitai~
https://vndb.org/v25076 - Rinshitsu no Chikubi
https://vndb.org/v27158 - Para PARA Paradise
https://vndb.org/v24488 - Bomber Quest
https://vndb.org/v24991 - Dennou Mahjong Tsuushin Tacet
VN of the Month November 1994 - File: Kokubou Soushou Jouhoukyoku Jouhou Rouei Taisakubu Josei Jinmonin
VN of the Month October 1994 - Gao Gao! 3rd ~Wild Force~
https://vndb.org/v24450 - Jikuu Sousakan Pretty Angel Misty Flash
VN of the Month September 1994 - Ai Shimai ~Futari no Kajitsu~
VN of the Month August 1994 - Shinsetsu Ooedo Tantei Kamiya Ukyou
VN of the Month July 1994 - DESIRE - Haitoku no Rasen
VN of the Month June 1994 - Necronomicon
https://vndb.org/v24990 - Adirate
VN of the month May 1994 - Tokimeki Memorial
VN of the Month April 1994 - AmbivalenZ -Niritsu Haihan-
https://vndb.org/v24448 - Cherry Bomb: Chou-ojou-sama Sayaka-chan Nanpa Daisakusen
VN of the Month March 1994 - Mirage 2 - Torry x Neat x Roan no Daibouken
VN of the Month February 1994 - Dragon Knight 4
VN of the Month January 1994 - Fuzoroi no Lemon
https://vndb.org/v8652 - Bell's Avenue 2
VN of the Month December 1993 - Demon City
https://vndb.org/v25109 - LEX Kyonyuu Monogatari
https://vndb.org/v25104 - Gegera no Joshikou Indoka Keikaku! Part 1
https://vndb.org/v25077 - Anna Midaller's
https://vndb.org/v27404 - Tantei Imasato Misa Jikenbo: Itoshiki Onna yo, Satsui no Bishou o
https://vndb.org/v27405 - Tantei Imasato Misa Jikenbo: Sonzai Shinai Futatsume no Shinjitsu
VN of the Month November 1993 - Ooedo Tantei Kamiya Ukyou Vol. 2
VN of the Month October 1993 - Nooch 2 Remy no Gyakushuu
VN of the Month September 1993 - Youjuu Senki -A.D. 2048-
VN of the Month August 1993 - Houma Hunter Lime Dai 03 Wa
VN of the Month July 1993 - Bunretsu Shugoshin Twinkle Star
VN of the Month June 1993 - Can Can Bunny Extra
VN of the Month May 1993 - Nova
https://vndb.org/v18297 - S.A.
VN of the Month April 1993 - Quintia Road 2
https://vndb.org/v25075 - Mahou no Shougakusei Clit-chan
VN of the Month March 1993 - Marine Philt
VN of the Month February 1993 - Cosmology of Kyoto
VN of the Month January 1993 - Mamono Hunter Youko: Tooki Yobigoe
https://vndb.org/v23902 - Fushigi no Umi no Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water
VN of the Month December 1992 - Koroshi no Dress 3
https://vndb.org/v25088 - Beyond the Wall of Stars
VN of the Month November 1992 - Dracula Hakushaku
VN of the Month October 1992 - Ginga Ojou-sama Densetsu Yuna
VN of the Month September 1992 - My Eyes!
VN of the Month August 1992 - Kiss
VN of the Month July 1992 - Phobos
VN of the Month June 1992 - De-Ja 2
VN of the Month May 1992 - Kurutta Kajitsu
VN of the Month April 1992 - The 4th Unit - Wyatt
VN of the Month March 1992 - Sotsugyou Shashin / Miki
VN of the Month February 1992 - Joker II
https://vndb.org/v23259 - Abunai Bunkasai Zen'ya
VN of the Month January 1992 - Himitsu no Hanazono
VN of the Month December 1991 - Gidyy
https://vndb.org/v27021 - Mana
https://vndb.org/v25129 - Momotarou Gaiden Momoko-chan Fight
VN of the Month November 1991 - Psychic Detective Series Vol. 5: Nightmare
VN of the Month October 1991 - Rance III - Leazas Kanraku
VN of the Month September 1991 - Cosmic Psycho
VN of the Month August 1991 - Kimi Dake ni Ai o..
VN of the Month July 1991 - Nike
VN of the Month June 1991 - ELLE
https://vndb.org/v23235 - Crystal Chaser: Tenkuu no Mashoukyuu
VN of the Month May 1991 - Ginsei Senshin Guynarock
VN of the Month April 1991 - Psychic Detective Series Vol. 4: Orgel
https://vndb.org/v26292 - Imadoki Junjou Monogatari
https://vndb.org/v27006 - Sadistic Gamers Part 5 Burusera Play
VN of the Month March 1991 - Jesus II
https://vndb.org/v27000 - Watashi o Golf ni Tsuretette
VN of the Month February 1991 - Akagawa Jirou no Yuurei Ressha
https://vndb.org/v27035 - SAP Tokushu Koudou Keisatsu File:M661-51
VN of the Month January 1991 - Dragon Eyes
VN of the Year 1990 - De-Ja
https://vndb.org/v27004 - Sadistic Gamers Part 2 Otanjoubi Play
https://vndb.org/v27008 - Nenriki Momoiro Yuugi
https://vndb.org/v24736 - Mitsubachi Gakuen
https://vndb.org/v27145 - Yamamura Misa Suspense: Kyoto Zaitech Satsujin Jiken
https://vndb.org/v27002 - Sadistic Gamers Part 4 Rumi no Climb Play
https://vndb.org/v27009 - Angel Commander 2 Gaiden
https://vndb.org/v27007 - Sadistic Gamers Part 1 Shinjinkyouikuteki Play
https://vndb.org/v27003 - Sadistic Gamers Part 3 Telephone Play
https://vndb.org/v27011 - Suijaku Sakusen 2 Moeyo Dragon
VN of the Year 1989 - Imitation wa Aisenai
https://vndb.org/v9383 - Hero Syndrome
https://vndb.org/v22078 - Nishimura Kyoutarou Mystery: Blue Train Satsujin Jiken
https://vndb.org/v27144 - Yamamura Misa Suspense: Kyoto Hana no Misshitsu Satsujin Jiken
https://vndb.org/v26992 - Tenboudai
https://vndb.org/v23495 - TM Network: Live in Power Bowl
https://vndb.org/v27005 - Sadistic Gamers Part 1 Kateikyoushi Play
https://vndb.org/v25543 - SD Toki no Kagi
VN of the Year 1988 - Lipstick. ADV
https://vndb.org/v26991 - Fushigi no Kabe
VN of the Year 1987 - Hiatari Ryoukou!
https://vndb.org/v9450 - Anjela
https://vndb.org/v26978 - Las Vegas
https://vndb.org/v25149 - Yamamura Misa Suspense: Kyouto Ryuu no Tera Satsujin Jiken
VN of the Year 1986 - Gall Force - Eternal Story
https://vndb.org/v26979 - Mahoutsukai no Deshi
https://vndb.org/v27639 - Shoumakyou no Densetsu
VN of the Year 1985 - Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu ~Hyakki Hen~
https://vndb.org/v26956 - Saiyuuki
https://vndb.org/v26954 - Juggler Stone
https://vndb.org/v26959 - Asteka
https://vndb.org/v26957 - Time Zone
https://vndb.org/v26958 - The Count
https://vndb.org/v26997 - Doukeshi Satsujin Jiken
VN of the Year 1984 - Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin: Ohotsk ni Kiyu
https://vndb.org/v26994 - Kuronekosou Souzoku Satsujin Jiken
https://vndb.org/v26983 - Chouhou Buin
https://vndb.org/v26984 - Ginga o Sukue
https://vndb.org/v26985 - Mission Impossible
https://vndb.org/v26982 - Emmy
https://vndb.org/v26980 - Ningyo no Namida
https://vndb.org/v26955 - Southern Cross
VN of the Year 1983 - Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken
https://vndb.org/v26975 - Dasshutsu! Shi no Aokigahara
https://vndb.org/v26965 - Date Adventure
https://vndb.org/v26970 - Mission Asteroid
https://vndb.org/v26967 - Genma Taisen
https://vndb.org/v26968 - Happy Bushman
https://vndb.org/v26974 - Icarus
https://vndb.org/v26996 - Kagiana Satsujin Jiken
https://vndb.org/v26963 - Ninja Adventure
https://vndb.org/v26964 - Puzzle Adventure
https://vndb.org/v26966 - Seiko no Adventure
https://vndb.org/v26969 - Mystery House
https://vndb.org/v26973 - Wizard and the Princess
https://vndb.org/v26975 - Dasshutsu! Shi no Aokigahara
https://vndb.org/v26977 - Nehan no Mori
https://vndb.org/v26971 - Orly Kuukou Satsujin Jiken
https://vndb.org/v26976 - Wonder House
Foreword: I have very high evaluation of the games of the series and since this is the only Windows game of the series (I'll play Lipstick ADV.4 as well just out of spite, but it's universally despised by the fans of the series), I just had to play it. It took me quite some to realize that wish, but finally it's there. Welcome to the Lipstick ADV world!
Title: Lipstick Adv.EX
Developer: Fairytale
Date: 1999-04-23
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v7334
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENAECnNmAq_wBpUoznkGk-MxcM3tBVDt
Synopsis: Hidaka Koume heads a detective club at an all-girl school. Ichijou Megumi is a detective who got dragged by Koume to be a councilor for the club. Everything starts with stolen underwear at school, but then girls start to be assaulted with a knife right at the school and terrorist acts start to happen around the city. At that moment Megumi gets quite an ordinary surveillance order that turns out to be a much bigger deal. Is it possible that terrorist acts and mysterious case are connected somehow?
Structure: 7 acts with the zapping system of switching between two protagonists.
Length: 10 hours
Game type: School detective story
Difficulty: Very easy, but it seems to be possible to miss couple CG.
Character Design rating: 10/10
Protagonist rating: 9/10
Story rating: 9/10
Game quality: 9/10
Overall rating: 9/10
Rating comments: Game's absolutely marvelous. Luxurious graphics, full voicing including protagonist, bright palette, absence of character sprites in favor of CGs, intriguing story and quite many mysteries that get unwrapped one by one. So, why not a perfect score? There are some flaws. Story is mostly developed by Deus Ex Machina even though each of protagonists eventually manage to find a clue to the culprit. Between the chapters there are often girl assault events shown right at school, but for some very convenient reason all the girls just keep silent about that till the very last chapters. The ending part is quite pressed with events as we get from total despair and no clues to finale in a mere hour. Ending is too convenient and there is no epilogue (although there are CGs in the ending which show the future of heroes, so it's suffice for an epilogue). Game mechanics is a bit troublesome during the major part of the game as you need to visit some 15 locations and click through all the objects. It gets especially tiresome with people as you need to click on their mouth, face, hair and costume a lot of times till the dialogue goes on - and it's hearing all the same "Don't look at my face/hair/suit so much" over and over again. But I happily clicked through all those moments and some of the plot moments that were in the following as well (since you never know when new dialogue starts - after clicking on face/hair or suit for the tenth time or more). But, believe it or not, all those shortcomings aren't really enough to lower the score. I just did not feel satisfaction from the rushed ending and that hurt the aftertaste.
Protagonist: Let's make it clear - game was meant to be a new Eve: Burst Error/EVE: The Lost One. It shares a lot of similarities with that great predecessor. But at the same time game had to be in the vein of past Lipstick ADV games. Ichijou Megumi is very similar to Kojiroh. He holds a one-man detective office, also rents it and constantly has problems with money. But Megumi is really young and much less charismatic that Kojiroh. He's also not a genius and spends too many evenings drinking at the bar (how? at the start of the game his wallet only has 930 yen). In the end he makes a stupid mistake of leaving his office door open and he can't recognize a woman who wore big sunglasses even if he sees her everyday. On the other hand Koume is a traditional heroine of Lipstick ADV games, genki long red-haired girl. She also does not show any signs of genius detective unable even to pacify the only two members of detective club besides her. So each day they spend oh a whip following wishes of its member Rie. Koume was able to obtain her clue by doing the very basic police actions that police absolutely neglected to do. Koume part is much bigger than that of Megumi, because it's devoted to relations between many girls in school, I think eight is the number. It looks organic and nice, but it was really difficult to say where the game was going till the 6th chapter.
Characters: As I mentioned, there are some 8 girl characters at school and one woman outside of school, plus some male characters - bartender, police detective, school teacher. But since there is just one route, it was difficult to tell which heroines were important and which weren't. In the end only Koume detective club companion girls had an important role - genki and light-hearted Rie and serious reserved Aki, who is not interested in playing detectives and got dragged to this club by Rie. There's also girl Risa who plays a huge part as a rival of Kouka for Megumi and later on as a witness. And there is another girl who plays a big role because all the serious events start with her death.
Story: So the outline is set in the synopsis, but I'll try to elaborate without spoilering too much. First two chapters are just fooling around and improvised dates. Someone steals underwear at school, so it's just jokingly search for the pervert. But then one girl which both protagonists met a lot of times during first chapters, is suddenly found dead in peculiar circumstances. There are about two more chapters just about the shock and despair after that event. But actually only Koume was able to find the clue of the culprit. Megumi found his own clue, but to his own case he was given as a part of his job, and those two cases turned out to be parts of one bigger case and bigger person. The whole bombs part is an inheritance from old Lipstick ADV series and looks quite alien here. The reason for bombings remains vague unlike the murder which has a thorough explanation in the form of culprit diary which we again very conveniently are just led to. So it's not a good a good detective story, but a nice mystery with great characters and valid emotional aspect.
CG: 295 CG. We're difficult to be surprised by this amount with modern games often having 300+, but 295 is a huge number for a game from 1999. I especially liked that there aren't really normal H scenes in the game. Most of the HCG are very episodic and just parts of very brief events between the chapters. So it could very easily be an all-ages game.
Sound: I like the basic midi sound for being ... expressive, but I enjoyed CD-DA BGM even more in the end. Good tunes and great full voicing.
Humor: There aren't real gags here, but dialogues are often very funny in the beginning and those connected with light-headed Rie later on.
Title and Themes: So what does EX in title stands for? In my opinion it was meant to mean that unlike predecessors it has very explicit X content, but X could also mean it's the 10th game of the series, so EX was chosen instead. Another question is why the game was not just called 4th part. In my opinion it's because main heroes are different from Gorou and Otomi, even though the archetypes of the characters are quite the same.
Overall comments: Lipstick Adv.EX is not a kamige, but is a very delicious treat if you don't expect serious mystery out of it. Point and click sequences may be irritating at times, but bear with it and you'll get one of the best visual novels of the 1990s.
Foreword: I did not have much hopes about the game, but its introduction came upon me as a whirlwind. Mechanical dolls? Knights without soul? Three armored musketeers? Great demon king in person? A parade of deaths? Those were only a few things encountered in first 10 minutes of the game. Game has a very strong start and a strong ending with some nice battles and character development in-between. What's not to like here?
Title: Carbon Knight
Developer: Palette
Date: 1998-09-25
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v10914
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENAECnNmAq_kUzzqmi57545i6p5b_Dwl
Synopsis: A world devastated by the battle of gods. The surviving people created inanimate "carbon humans" by using the relics of Gods and sealing the soul within. For several hundred years the war lasted. Now carbon knight needs to deter the restoration of the once sealed demon king.
Structure: 13 short days.
Length: 4 hours for one playthrough
Game type: Eschatological fantasy.
Difficulty: At least moderate, since there are a lot of choices and I only got lonely ending while there are happy endings with a girl as well.
Character Design rating: 8/10
Protagonist rating: 5/10
Story rating: 9/10
Game quality: 7/10
Overall rating: 8/10
Rating comments: Overall score might be even 9 if I got some substantial epilogue that should exist in some girl ending. The lonely ending I got was too abrupt, but actually cool in itself. Characters are funny and cute enough. They look simple at the first glance, but each of main heroines carries a huge secret behind her back, so I like how their personalities played out. Protagonist is very straightforward, but he's probably needed like that for story's sake. Game quality suffers from big loading times between the scenes. Autoskip function is implemented very poorly. Backgrounds are mostly implemented in 3D, but that's rather a feature than a shortcoming here since those look immersive. But as for the story, it seems ordinary fight the demon king tale, but bears much more in it as it goes, so I rate story very high.
Protagonist: Isaak is shown almost always irritated and/or shouting. He is too straightforward and short-tempered. He's not the most pleasant MC to deal with, but he's not voiced, so he can grimace as much as he wants in silence.
Characters: There seem to be two main heroines - long red-hair Sheckly and short violet-hair Fortita. Sheckly is our usual child friend, tender and caring. Fortita is much more mysterious since she's very short and never aging. She's actually a carbon knight, soulless relic created to fight demonic invaders. She serves to Isaak and his father. There is also father Balzak's fighting buddy girl Gina who gets a H scene if willing. Possibly she can also get her ending, but according to very few and very poor CG gallery that exists for the game good ending confirmed only for Sheckly, just don't cite me on it. There are lots of very colorful side-characters as well. Everyone but MC is voiced, so it's never really boring.
Story: So the game starts in a whirlwind of events. Demon king and his army demolish the city and kill the populace. The three armored musketeers are the only ones who try to oppose the demons. Sheckly, Isaak and Fortita try to escape a group of mechanical dolls. Next we're shown the dialogue between the demon king and the three musketeers and how a mechanical doll comes out with three corpses of Sheckly, Isaak and Fortita pierced. Isaak's father who is one of the musketeers goes berserk and demolishes the demon king... Then Isaak wakes up and those events seem to be a dream on the demon king invasion three years ago. Isaak is dreaming of becoming carbon knight master and goes on a journey with Sheckly and Fortita. There they confront demonic underlings who predict the resurrection of the demon king once all his body parts scattered around the world are collected again. These events take roughly first 15-20 minutes of the game, so I would not consider them a spoiler. As you can imagine, all the demon parts are destined to be collected for a grand confrontation again. But what I especially liked was that the battles of carbon knights and demons started out quite plain, but kept on with more and more increasing numbers of fatalities on both sides nearly wiping all the characters in the game. That was absolutely terrific and unprecedented since the time I saw GANTZ. Just so you know, there's much more to the story than just a series of battles. Every hero has a huge secret and uncovering those secrets make the game really exciting. Ending is surprising as well.
System: So I decided to devise an optional system section since there are issues that don't fall into other sections well. So here I wanted to rant why I only got lonely ending and not going to pursue true ending with a girl. First of all, I value initial game experience very much - and each consecutive playthrough is a torture for me, especially without a guide. Secondly, I know that I like lonely ending the best since it's so cool, a real mortal combat. Lastly, game has very poor skipping feature that has to be turned on in the menu and you can't really stop it till there's a new choice or till a new scene starts. And each scene loads for some 10-20 seconds. It's really not fun doing it again. There are actually two more issues - big number of selections and very poor save implementation. Each time you load, you're thrown away very far back, so it's hugely inconvenient.
CG: Absolutely terrific CG. Just loving it with all my heart. So much detail. Sometimes the blend of 2D and 3D looks weird, but mostly it's in harmony. But the best part in the art is dresses of girls. These dresses show so much skin that they look like the prototypes for all the modern Korean mmorpgs. Truly hilarious and breathtaking.
Sound: BGM is decent, but not too memorable.
Title and Themes: Game does not tell us much about carbon knights from the start apart of the fact that Fortita is one. But carbon knight theme gets a huge development in the last third of the game and finishes with the absolute domination of this theme, so it's a good choice.
Overall comments: So Carbon Knight has its flaws lying mostly in technical part, but they don't belittle its advantages. I consider it to be the first traditional fantasy chuunige and a huge masterpiece of the time.
Foreword: Not the type of work I read usually. But game managed to conquer my heart with its opening song, as well as wonderful and various BGM. Actually, I would call it foreground songs rather than background music since those songs shine during the whole course of the game due to the fact that game's not voiced at all. But of course music alone can't be enough to keep attention. Shunpuu Shoujo has very beautiful unique art style and quite intriguing synopsis about celestial girl emerging in human world - such common synopsis was a base for lots of great visual novel stories of the past. But enough preface, let's begin. I'm sorry for the excessive number of screenshots - it's done because game has no CG gallery available online.
Title: Shunpuu Shoujo
Developer: Aquarium
Date: 1998-10-30
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v15331
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENAECnNmAq-u71AkUIovdrTzdPdIL0j9
Synopsis: Takuma Takuma is a college student. One day a girl Sari from another world appears before him. She said that she appeared to purify the conscious body possessed by Takuma and the should live together till that time. Takuma friends and girl classmates aren't really happy about that. Where shall the future take him?
Structure: 13 small chapters.
Length: 3-4 hours
Game type: Celestial beings on Earth comedy
Difficulty: Easy. Game offers a choice from time to time, but those are either flavor choices or additional CG triggers.
Character Design rating: 8/10
Protagonist rating: 7/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 6/10
Overall rating: 7/10
Rating comments: I always ask myself first whether the game is of masterpiece level or not. And if it's not, it can only get as much as 6. And I've come to a conclusion that it's a masterpiece, albeit minor. Character design is astonishing, but characters don't get too much development. Protagonist is ok, but in the end he's just a passive girlish student. Story is on par with Viper-GTS level, so decent, but nothing too complicated or notable. Game quality gets a huge penalty for absence of voicing and overall small length.
Protagonist: Takuma main feature is that he looks so girlish with his small slender body and long pink hair. That looks a bit weird, but only till HCG come in action. Seeing two small angels on the screen cuddling is quite heartwarming. Overall he's a passive graduating student and can't really move narration by himself.
Characters: Story does not have branches, so there is only one main heroine Seiri there. But there are also two lively side-heroines - childhood friend that attends the same college and lower grade student who looks up to protagonist as a teacher. Yes... even though Takuma is a college student he somehow participates in practice as teacher for lower high school students. It's relations between these four characters that form the basis of the game and become the stage for lots of humorous situations. Apart of those four characters there are also two more heavenly beings and lots of sub-characters.
Story: I rated story the lowest - as 5/10, so I'm not truly content with that. Takuma finds Seiri jumping from the portal and getting to know the cast takes first 5 chapters. Then first celestial being appears and brings some cheap drama followed by bouncing back and merry chapters again. In 10th chapter second celestial being arrives bringing more drama and finishing on Christmas eve sweet date. The very ending is curious though as it gives an answer on the future awaiting protagonists since the default situation is quite sad - Seiri is bound to return to her world and live forever while Takuma has to grow old like any mortal. Happy end is very satisfactory.
CG: CG here are so gentle and cute. I don't think I've seen art style like that anywhere before. It surely is a treat after today's absolutely the same polished art style dominating in both anime and visual novels.
Sound: BGM is an important actor in the game. For the first hour I was just listening to the BGM rather than enjoy character interaction. Soundtrack is especially cool because there is lots of singing in it.
Humor: Humor here is not high quality, but rather in form of funny faces, character sprite emotions, chibi action CG etc. Most of such CG depict someone hitting someone else or such. But same as with CG, even chibi style here is very cute and actually only half-chibi since it's the same body that's deformed and head is proportional to the rest of the body.
Title and Themes: Title can be roughly translated as "spring breeze girl". I don't think there's a special meaning to it, but Seiri is really so pure and shiny that she's like a breeze among other games' heroines.
Overall comments: Game's actually better than description above. It has special charm that can't be felt without seeing for yourself. It has unique magic due absence of voicing and unconventional CG and BGM. I'm really glad that Aquarium recovered from the ugly art of its first works Carrot Time and Pretty Cat ~Lily and Kyle no Daibouken~. But I also like that the company does not forget its roots - just look at the very first screenshot - it's Nyantaru Pu himself from Toki no Moto e! I'm happy to see Aquarium made it in the 2000s and will look forward to seeing its further eleven works.
Foreword: I was prejudiced towards this game after reading Japanese reviews blaming it for scrapping story in favor of H-events, but in reality the setting, plot and characters left me no choice but to get to the ending.
Title: Rougetsu Toshi
Developer: Softhouse Bonbee Bonbon
Date: 1997-12-26
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v15347
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX9cGamwbB8&list=PLENAECnNmAq9uoqPyBvnAsL7316x1C3bc
Synopsis: Tokyo at the end of the century got completely blocked from the outside world due to transformation of Kanto plains and emergence of black fog that blocks radio waves. The raise of shady organizations and appearance of strange dreams make people uneasy. Hero acquires mysterious power to oppose those threats.
Structure: There are six chapters roughly one hour long each.
Length: 6 hours
Game type: Mystery end of the world chunige type.
Difficulty: Just one route with some commands to choose action and location.
Character Design rating: 9/10
Protagonist rating: 8/10
Story rating: 9/10
Game quality: 8/10
Overall rating: 8/10
Rating comments: My rates reflect my hesitation between 8 and 9 as final score. Game felt like a firm 9 during the most of its course and and only in the last third some of its flaws became evident after grasping where the game was finally going. I expected even more epic ending and at least some sort of epilogue. Otherwise it would be 9 since the game is of surprisingly high quality with individualistic characters, old-school charming design and a well-rounded story.
Protagonist: Akira Myouji is an average high school student who starts to see strange drams. However he has a formed personality and no real weaknesses thus he has a cool aura. He does not look for H events, but is rather coerced towards it or does it out of necessity. The reason is that crystal bearers have to compensate their negative destructive energy with some positive life creation act... oh well, at least there's some kind of justification.
Characters: There aren't main heroines in the game. There is childhood friend Asuka, her best friend Kuriko. There is also police special female team with the following cast: leader and descendant from ancient monsters fighting clan Suzuka, reserved blue long hair beauty Aoto, undercover transfer student Yuka, eccentric burly personality Mai and undercover Health room nurse Shiho-sensei. There are also side characters - strange library girl Kuko and school teacher Biho. Needless to say, they all get H-scene and sometimes much more than one. Most of the characters are grown-ups and everyone is memorable and attractive. My favorite character is Kuriko. We first meet her when she gives Akira a tour around the school - and while at it she badmouths pretty much everyone and gives skeptical comments on everything. Then she suddenly starts to avoid Akira and has a fight with Asuka and in the end Kuriko turns out the the most mysterious person with a huge role to play in the story.
Story: Story can actually be described in couple sentences. Akira visits school and sees strange wet dreams about opening of the first game at night. One day he sees TV news broadcast about monster rampaging on the main square and hurries there to protect his friend who might be there. As police forces get thrown back by the monster, Akira manages to create a spirit gun and kill the monster with one shot. After that he's drafted to a special police division of spirit gun users unit and together they try to uncover the mystery behind school girls disappearance and prevent opening of the rest of four gates and the end of the world that ensues after all five are opened. But actually there's much more in this game than this dry outline, like development of relations with different characters and side-lines like the fate of the hooligan band or identity of woman who comes in the dreams or mystery behind Akira power (he can't control it and fails to use it when he wants to). Add to then the apocalyptic dark setting of isolated Tokyo standing on the brink of destruction by monsters or environmental disasters and you get more a less a full picture.
CG: Great number of CG and I absolutely love the style and design.
Sound: Only girls are voiced. BGM is notable, especially the piano composition by the end of the game.
Theme: Title of the game can be roughly translated as "hazy moon city" and the moon plays a big role in it, especially in the second half. There is almost no sun in this world and outside scenery is inevitably dark, but by the end of the game the end of the world happens literally by the Moon sucking Tokyo city in. That's a great sight and decent metaphor.
Overall comments: Game turned out to be a big deal and a serious chunige story. It lacks the multiple routes diversity or the philosophical basis of the events, but it's an epic apocalyptic adventure story and game tells it brilliantly and logically. Just don't expect complex elements and Rougetsu Toshi will definitely attract you with its dark charm.
Foreword: Bell-Da as a company has come a long way in visual novel industry, but prior to Liaison there were only terrible macromedia flash tasteless short games. But Liaison managed to turn the tides by presenting a solid story about working adults that kept my attention for over 4 hours till the end.
Title: Liaison
Developer: Bell-Da
Date: 1998-07-16
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v8155
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dflf6As2eww&index=55&list=PLENAECnNmAq_3TQ0rXcu0n95aygm3PPQU
Synopsis: Kusanagi Daisaku came to Tokyo to attend art university with a dream of becoming a painter, but he clearly lacked talent. One day he meets two women in jewelry store and that casual encounter greatly influenced his life and his upcoming biggest masterpiece.
Structure: No division, but choices determine the path of one of the two main heroines or the side heroine.
Length: 4 hours
Game type: Love triangle story with some NTR tilt
Difficulty: Flags are evident and there are usually only two variants to choose from.
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 5/10
Story rating: 4/10
Game quality: 6/10
Overall rating: 5/10
Rating comments: Probably the lowest rating among my reviews. The reason is that I felt betrayed by the story. The first two hours were wonderful and it was not clear where it all was going, then the poor plot became evident, but it was too late to turn back. I still rate characters quite high here as they are memorable and have great voicing.
Protagonist: Kusanagi Daisaku is a university art department student. The worst thing about him is that he mostly moves with the flow and after one professor tells him he does not have talent, Kusanagi gives up and gets depressed. It's not fun to look at such a hetare protagonist.
Characters: So there are three heroines with enging. Long purple hair Jun and short violet hair Minako work at the same jewelry store and compete with each other in sales every day. There's also childhood friend from hero's hometown Shiori who appears only during short stay of Kusanagi at his hometown and also visits him briefly afterwards once. Characters are quite well done as they don't belong to any archetype and are full of inconsistencies and own troubles. When I don't have clear preference I go for the main heroine and that seemed to be Jun since she had the most of troubles from the start. But the most delivering character for me was Kusanagi mangaka brother Naru. He's an egoistic man, but full of surprises and funny moves. He really invigorates the cast.
Story: Since I rated the story as low as "4" I don't need to hold back. Kusanagi is an absolute failure as a man and protagonist. The story starts with an already stupid twist that Jun phones him while working on her sales list of customers, but instead of saying clearly what she wants she invites Kusanagi to the building which turns out to be jewelry shop. Cunning! He comes only to be offered to buy diamonds and miserably retreats. Then by a weird twist of fate Jun skips work with her friend to go to a countryside and they meet Kusanagi in person again even though Kusanagi was not shown going on a trip or anything. The next day Kusanagi decides to visit jewelry shop again and noone seems to care that he comes just to talk and never to buy anything. Somehow that ends up with a date with Jun. And Minako is so obsessed with sales competition with Jun that she decides to... stalk on Kusanagi and get him to karaoke to seduce him before Jun does so. Is there any logic in that at all? Of course Minako boasts of that at work to her rival which becomes the source of cheap drama. Then the real drama in the figure of former Jun boyfriend Daimon, SM relations apostate, appears. So it's a pretty normal relations story with cheap drama, drawbacks and restoration cycle. Former lover kindnapping of Jun and its resolution bring an end to the game.
Humor: There were quite a lot of funny moments. While seducing at karaoke Minako asked Kusanagi to guess her cup size. There was a variant of "W" to which she says "What? World cup? Stop fooling around already!". CG and Sound: A very good number of high quality CG. There are only few CG that look weird. BGM is solid as well.
Overall comments: I expected the game to move towards artist profession self-realization and creating of a real masterpiece, but there was not even remotely enough time devoted to art. What I got instead is not sophisticated cheap drama without much basis behind it. Even in this state the game is really entertaining for a good half of it thanks to view zapping between the characters, funny sub-characters and fast pace. Later on it does not get worse, but it gets too repetitive and evident to my liking.
Foreword: Game had hardy any characteristics but "degraded Kizuato" and I did not plan to make a review of it. However, it managed to keep my attention till the end for over three hours. So maybe it's not really bad?
Title: Touchuukasou
Developer: Petit
Date: 1998-07-17
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v15352
Youtube walkthrough:https://youtu.be/adRAHxJVaBo
Synopsis: In a rural town there has been a series of murders recently. Part of the bodies was lost as if it had been eaten by someone. Toshio Hiyama moved to this town 10 years ago and he was constantly bullied due to his introverted nature to the extent that there might be even another will lurking inside his consciousness...
Structure: There are three heroines each with a route. The whole story takes three days.
Length: 3 hours
Game type: Action mystic beast transformation type.
Difficulty: Very easy, there's basically just one big decision for each heroine to flag.
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 6/10
Story rating: 8/10
Game quality: 5/10
Overall rating: 7/10
Rating comments: In my classification that's a masterpiece. Game is integral. It has simple but clean story-line, nice memorable characters, cool battles and most amusing BGM support. Protagonist is too ordinary though and game quality is lacking due to a really old engine with NO keyboard support and with 5 second freezes on BGM change.
Protagonist: Hiyama Toshio is pretty much an average high school student Joe who sees strange drams. We don't see his face, so that's it for him.
Characters: There are four main heroines. Short brown hair Yuka is your cute and caring imouto. Short black hair Makoto is your shy childhood friend who you meet after 10 years time. And long red hair Akane is... your fun-buddy, without any obligations. Fourth one is short gray hair girl, but she makes a very short appearance in core game time, so can't tell much about her without playing her route. I only played Makoto route since I'm not a fan of imouto and free love. Furthermore, Makoto seemed to have some early memories important for the plot. It turned out that those memories weren't exactly about Makoto, so any heroine of preference can be enjoyed without loosing much on the story. As for Makoto, her route is very sweet and there's a very nice satisfying ending after the battle. At some point she even abandons her shyness and confesses her circumstances which are rather curious. So I'm very impressed with her route, but I don't like other heroines roles and not ready to manually mouse click through their routes.
Story: Events develop very fast here. Toshio and Yuka arrive to the school and barely have time to get acquainted with a newcomer Makoto when they get assaulted by a hooligan Shinichi. That's followed by promise to share bento with Makoto daily, some quality time with Akane and yet another same hooligan assault. The next day starts with a hooligan team trap that leads to a massacre. And lastly heroine specific part with a date ensues followed up by old enemy big fight finale. And something to put under a spoiler as well.
CG: Very few from the start, but quite numerous closer to the ending.
Sound: Somehow I really enjoyed the tunes and the voicing. Everyone but protagonist voiced.
Themes:
1) Game is a bit simplistic and fast paced to suggest multiple themes, but the main theme of the game is werebeasts. It goes back to the story about 200 years before about how the wild dogs got massacred and how a shrine and a clan grew from that event in order to commemorate those beasts. There's a huge stone in the shrine connected to the event and it's the touch of the stone that actually raised the wild urges in males of the blood. It's actually very nicely pictured that the memories of clan ancestor are alive in Toshio Hiyama. Those memories and the mystery of the girl shown at the very first scene of the game were the main attraction point for me.
2) What's right - to suppress the beast origin or to seek more power? Unexpectedly, game definitely chooses the second in contrast to Kizuato. In Kizuato hero is being judged of ill-behavior just for his dreams and headaches. In Touchuukasou hero is just destroyed in a bad ending if he tries to suppress his emotions. On the other hand, hero is the only suspect in the massacre where two people died and... he gets away with it very easily. So it's a very simple answer - kill or be killed.
Overall comments: Game is not well known and is trashed for being Kizuato clone. And I strongly object to that. Games have absolutely different approach to the beast state. I actually give the preference to Touchuukasou for having an integral fast-paced story with adorable characters over the painfully crumbling structure of Kizuato where nothing big happens in ANY of the routes. Touchuukasou has lots of charming sides and I played the main heroine route to the end. However, I don't see how other heroines can contribute to the story and CG actually confirm that as there are mostly only additional fight CG and HCG of other heroines. [Petit] has grown a lot over the years and I call its last two games Sweepers and Touchuukasou masterpieces. It's really sad to see story-driven works of unique charm overpowered by charage/moege.
Foreword: There is a good number of English reviews on this game (1 2 3 4), but those are all kinda short and non-structured. Now I know why and mine won't be an exception. You'll know why soon enough as well.
Title: Kuon no Kizuna
Developer: FOG
Date: 1998-12-03
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v2773
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENAECnNmAq-CHIuWBfnU3DYzNCEcLjcV
Synopsis: This story starts out from the perspective of a high school student. One day a transfer student comes to his school, and tells him she’ll kill him. At the same time, he starts seeing weird dreams and people mysteriously gets killed in his city. Soon he realizes that them two are incarnated personalities of a man and a goddess that fell in love 1000 years ago. Since then, they have been trapped in a cycle of reincarnation and a battle against an evil god.
Length: Took me 66 hours for all routes.
Game type: ADV with choices and couple easy battles.
Difficulty: I followed walkthrough, so not too sure on difficulty. There are some fake choices, but there are also choices that lead to game over. And there are a LOT of choices, so it must be quite difficult.
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 8/10
Story rating: 6/10
Game quality: 9/10
Overall rating: 7/10
Rating comments: This is one of the most ambitious projects I've ever seen. Just imagine - 66 hours. 66 hours of not raising stats, killing monsters or chasing girls over and over. 66 hours of pure text reading time. There's nothing like that in the 1990s and it won't be beaten till 2000s. You know, in many Japanese reviews of the time volume is a very important factor and there's often such criteria as cost-efficiency. Visual novels cost a lot and compared to solid books they used to lose all the time. But everything changed with Kuon no Kizuna. It became a paragon for both volume and visuals.
I liked protagonist and characters enough, but they don't become cozy. They remain transcendent beings piercing the veil of time in an epic story, not really likable characters who I could respect for their characters or decisions, that's why it's 7/10. The story is indeed epic, but it does not go smoothly. We jump from reality to three periods all the time and the shifts aren't really explained, they just happen. I also did not like it that the first half of the story is pretty much the same for all three heroines and we just have to read it three times with little variation. That makes story only 6/10. But the quality of the game is superb, especially with full voice (excluding the protagonist though). The graphics are stunning and visual effects amazing. No complaints with the quality.
Protagonist: Mikado Takeru is a strong protagonist as he constantly has to protect those who are dear to him and he's the only one who can oppose demonic forces thanks to his demonic heritage. He's a one man army and hardly ever gets any help from the side. He'd be more realistic with voice, but he's quite cool even as he is now.
Characters: There are three heroines who have their own routes.
Takahara Mayou is our mysterious transfer student who greets Takeru for the first time with words "This time I will definitely kill you".
Itsuki Shiori is a childhood friend who Takeru lives with under the same roof.
Tokiwa Saya is the class teacher.
Story: The rant part. So each heroine has her route... but it's the same route, at least for the first half of it. In the second half some periods are developed for each heroine, but still there's a very strong feeling that you're watching the same story and it irritates a lot.
There are four periods: Heian, Genroku, Bakumatsu, and the present. Present and Heian are really the same and those are the most boring parts, especially Heian. Heian focuses on a an ancient period of Japanese history where nothing really happened for dozens of years and that's why it's full of myths and legends - because there was nothing to do there. In Kuon no Kizuna Heian is when beasts invasion starts and it differentiates just a bit in the end depending on the heroine chosen throughout it. I especially liked Bakumatsu period for meeting and fighting alongside Shinsengumi (and sometimes against) and kunoichi.
But there is a great problem with these periods - they aren't really connected to each other. People can die there or love there and in next period everything starts from scratch. That creates the feeling of multiple stories and I really dislike that genre. Nothing really happens throughout those stories, then beasts arrive, the short drama and it's over. Heroines aren't really able to hold attention. But what's worse, the heroine of your choice have play very small role till the very end of each part.
But then comes the fantastic Special route №1 that arrived later with remake as an attempt to tighten the crumbling main story. Special route №1 lasts for some 7 hours, holds a totally new epic story with really great enemies and is a great ending for all the characters, so I can't praise it enough.
The Special routes №2 and №3 are there for comic relief after all that superserious narration.
So overall the story really sucks, repeats itself in routes and has poor tempo. But the great special route makes up for it.
CG: Just fantastic. See for yourself.
Sound: I really appreciated full voicing and beautiful BGM. That kept me from sleeping.
Overall comments: This game was created to surprise the imagination. It has huge length and astonishing visuals, but there still was no culture of such huge coherent stories - thus the multiple periods format with lousy links between them. Dialogues are long and not too meaningful, fights are inevitably dull and poorly written, heroines fail to catch attention and the absence of humor makes it all a real torture. The sudden jumps between periods only add to the confusion. But this game bears a huge importance for the industry as it made long story-driven visual novels without gameplay elements viable while only dating SIMs, charage and nukige governed the ball.
Year 1998 has become a year of hope for me. After very devastating transition year 1997 there are so many joys and wonderful games at last. Running a bit ahead, there is a 50% increase both in total number of games and in number of listed games resulting in the record number of masterpieces this year.
Let's prolong the chart.
VN per year
Year Total
1991 75
1992 80
1993 121
1994 155
1995 180
1996 183
1997 202
1998 303
The split is exactly the same featuring 50/50 eroge and galge market and 50% galge market with some additional titles blocked for other than eroge reasons. But look at the numbers, there is a 50% increase in every number compared to 1997. Finally industry got out of slump and gains momentum.
Let's see what year 1998 brought:
The complete shift to Win95-98 platform resulted in dramatic increase in resolution and colors with most works having 256 colors and some reaching 16 bit colors.
With dating SIM dominance substantial shift to pure love stories the number of heroines decreases significantly to just 4-5 and in some cases to just two as in With You ~Mitsumete Itai~ or even one as in DiaboLiQuE without decreasing the volume.
There is a significant number of works where hero is already in relations with the main heroine, but has an option to cheat on her. The starter of that tendency is White Album.
There is a surprising influx of mahjong games, but most of them are blocked as eroge due to having strip element on losing.
Contrary to 1997 there were a lot of major games in 1998. So here is my 1997 masterpieces list.
1. Castle Fantasia ~Seima Taisen~
2. Cross Tantei Monogatari ~Motsureta Nanatsu no Labyrinth~
3. Double Cast
4. Doukoku Soshite...
5. EVE: The Lost One
6. Exodus Guilty
7. First Kiss☆Story
8. Hajimari no Kisetsu ~Izakaya Fuyu Monogatari~
9. Kisetsu o Dakishimete
10. Kuon no Kizuna
11. Love Escalator
12. luv wave
13. One ~Kagayaku Kisetsu e~
14. With You ~Mitsumete Itai~
Fourteen. A decent number. What especially pleases the eye is that there are many RPGs and console games. PS1 and Saturn production values were still much bigger than their PC counterparts and that attracted talented story-writers. There are a lot of worthy games in this list, but my heart was stolen by luv wave as soon as I saw it. It's the most serious work in my favorite setting that rose the most of topics for thought. It's a very subjective feeling, of course.
What a tiresome year. First Windows year had too many obscure games with tiny bits of information to get. Crude graphics, bland plotlines, typical dating sim gameplay. But all in due time.
Let's prolong the chart.
VN per year
Year Total
1991 75
1992 80
1993 121
1994 155
1995 180
1996 183
1997 202
Numbers don't show anything extraordinary - a very mild logical increase in numbers. Shift to Windows has not had an influence on the quantity so far. As for the quality, that's another thing.
Let's see what year 1996 brought:
Industry got tilted too much to romance games reaching over 50% of total number. At the same time the number of works with an impact on story decreased drastically.
Some of the old titans could not adapt to Windows reality in 1997 - those include Elf/Silky's and Abodago Powers. At the same time there is an influx of new brand names with low price low quality games.
The number of titles with a theme song and an opening increased significantly.
Genres battle still goes on, but simplification process comes to either ADV or ADV with some features. There's still hardly any game with autoplay, so player's active commitment is expected.
There was no major game in 1997. You cant just say "1997 year is X". Pia Carrot 2 is probably the closest one to a major game. It sold the best, but it's hardly a masterpiece, just a game with the best production values. Let's count the masterpiece level games of 1997:
Canaan ~Yakusoku no Chi~
Comic Road
Kaeru nyo Panyon
Moon.
Nails ~Beginning of Your Heart Beat~
Rookies
Ruriiro no Yuki
Ryouki no Ori Dai 2 Shou
Sweepers!
To Heart
Viper-F40
Yatsu no Na wa Diamond
Zoku Hatsukoi Monogatari ~Shuugaku Ryokou~
Not bad selection. What about Canaan? It's a continuation of the most heartwarming game of 1994, Gao-Gao 3. If there was no Desire the same 1994 year, it might easily become the game of the year. Cannan is direct continuation of Gao Gao 3 which means it automatically inherits the merits of part 3 and adds new development in the story as well as a new hero. Yes, it's PC-98 game, but after year 1997 I'm starting to think that PC-98 era was really cool. And in order to share this wonderful experience of Gao Gao 3 and Canaan, I've made video playthroughs of them. The game of the year 1997 is Canaan ~Yakusoku no Chi~.
Foreword: It took me a while to get interested in this grandfather of all modern charage and moege. It took even longer to finish all the routes. I doubt I will ever pick a moege for review, but I need to see fundamentals with my own eyes. There are quite many reviews found, but only one of them (7nightstranslations) actually was reviewing a finished game, but still it was too short and only touched a few heroines. I'll have a word about each heroine at least.
Title: To Heart
Developer: Leaf /Aquaplus
Date: 1997-05-23
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v18
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENAECnNmAq8UD0quvrBnBr1LySRroX7Z
Synopsis: 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.
Structure: Game lasts roughly two months from beginning of March to beginning of May with events happening almost daily.
Length: Took me 34 hours for all routes.
Game type: Map selection ADV.
Difficulty: Only the two main heroines routes are tricky, the others are easy.
Character Design rating: 8/10
Protagonist rating: 5/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 8/10
Overall rating: 7/10
Rating comments: Let's say honestly - from modern point of view game is trash. It's a very generic school moege without plot or any interesting character development. It's a torture to go through and there's little satisfaction in beating the game. So why did I rate it as masterpiece? The whole point of charage and moege is in characters and this game indeed has two very nice character stories. About that in proper section.
Protagonist: Fujita Hiroyuki is a very generic high school protagonist who can't sneeze without our command.
Characters: There are 10 characters for capture. I rate the routes from best to worst in the following sequence: Multi > Shiho > Ayaka > Aoi > Tomoko > Lemmy > Akari > Kotone > Rio > Serika.
Serika is our ojousama with interest in magic. Her route is one of the most boring ones, but what actually makes it unbearable is that she does not talk. Well, as I counted, she said 8 phrases overall with most of them being one word phrases. Her final like included as much as three words! "Fujita-san, suki...". It's surprising how she even continued to stand up after such long phrase. Really, her seiyu should be omitted from credits. The whole route I was feeling that I read 1997 year original work without voicing.
Rio is a poor girl who has to earn money for mother's operation and to take care of her younger brother at the same time. It's the weakest story plot-wise since Fujita did not actually move a finger to help her, only encouraged her to work harder at all her jobs. What a bastard!
Kotone is our esper. Fujita first tries to persuade her that she's a normal girl without powers and when fails at that wants her to teach him to gain same powers. He fails at that either the very minuscule drama resolution of the route really leaves unsatisfactory feeling.
Akari is the main heroine, but she's too much of a failure. First of all, her sprites aren't all beautiful. Secondly, it's kind of a rule that childhood friend should be of genki type, but Akari just nags and cries. The main feature of her route - drums, drums, drums - is changing hairstyle! What kind of drama move is that? Akari does not have her own will and that leads to pretty ugly resolution.
Lemmy is totally cool half-american heroine, but her route is one of the weakest, it's basically not about Lemmy, but about her big crazy family.
Tomoko is our diligent class representative megane type. It's pretty cool how her snobbish attitude averts class members from her. Even Fujita only gains bad gazes in return at every move. But as her circumstances become evident there's quite a lot of sympathy towards her in the end.
Aoi is our cute martial artist. There's nothing even to add here. Route is full of cuteness and trainings resulting in impressive match.
Ayaka is our cool martial artist, sister of Serika. Ayaka is the mature version of Aoi and is the only character not available from the start - first Aoi and Serika routes need to be beaten. Ayaka route is pretty cool is there's a change of pace from the school grounds - heroes spar daily at the riverbank. Ayaka is both genki and free spirit. Her sprites are often weird, but voicing is perfect. So Ayaka takes the third prize.
Shiho is our second main heroine as her presence pierces all the other routes and because she's main friend of Akari. Shiho route is also very tricky to trigger since it's the route that has little to do with love and is entered upon meeting seemingly illogical prerequisites. Shiho is of genki type. She also is a rumor house and the queen of karaoke. The three songs she sings during her route are very impressive - those are old opening theme, new opening theme and totally new song. The main feature of Shiho route is love triangle and she's the total opposite of Ogiso Setsuna from White Album 2 if you know what I mean. But what delivers the most is the ending - absolutely cool and mature one.
Multi is the true queen of the game. Her route is compressed to just 8 days and thus feels the most integral. She's an android of new type. Almost every scene with her has some cute element or situation, so it's the only route that I could read without distractions. It's the only must have route to play, so would not want to spoiler here.
Story: None. Choose the portraits of the target heroine and give good answers when needed. The rest depends on the route.
CG: Each heroine has about 10 CG in PSE version which is quite enough.
Sound: BGM is fine and praised a lot, but after so many routes it really started to irritate. Voicing is mostly great.
Overall comments: Now that was a short review. Can't say I enjoyed the game, but I definitely feel like I understand eroge history better now. Could not get it before why Comic party anime had so many references to Multi doujins. It's the first fundamental charage and there are some inevitable mistakes made, but at least two routes are worth reading to get to understand the media better.
Foreword: Why review a Sogna game? Aren't those just short mindless animated H episodes? Those were my thoughts as well. And that was actually true for the earlier series. Then something happened in 1994. Instead of the usual numbers alongside "Viper", game Viper-GTS appeared and it was a one-story episode based on earlier V6 short story. Then followed titles with numbers, as usual till Viper-BTR which is a one story game based on short V12 story. But same as GTS, BTR is indeed ero-centered. And that concludes PC-98 era for Viper games. First Windows Viper is Viper-CTR ~Asuka~ which is as usual based on another previously featured short story in V10. And I actually consider Viper-CTR ~Asuka~ "almost" a masterpiece. Its only problem is that it only takes 50 minutes to clear it, but it's stuffed with four H scenes.
So why I'm retelling information that's easy to get from VNDB? It's because Viper-F40 is a totally different game and it's absolutely wrong to measure it by past Sogna experience. First of all, Viper-F40 has only one big story. That's not a new thing, of course, after GTS, BTR and CTR. But it is not based on any previous short story which means the setting and characters are created anew. And now the main part - the game takes almost 4 hours. And that's at least three times longer than any previous Sogna game. And I aspire to prove my point by showing that contents-wise it's also an absolutely new game.
Title: Viper-F40
Developer: Sogna
Date: 1997-11-07
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v977
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GESdVh2RfTY&index=49&list=PLENAECnNmAq_3TQ0rXcu0n95aygm3PPQU
Synopsis: A police investigation unfolds as detective Lilia and her freelancing friend Raika attempt to solve the mystery of three missing persons. Their investigation draws the ire of a small gang...
Structure: Single route divided into 6 days.
Length: Took me 3 hours 45 minutes
Game type: Normal ADV with location choices.
Difficulty: Easy - one single road route.
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 7/10
Story rating: 9/10
Game quality: 9/10
Overall rating: 8/10
Rating comments: The scores speak for themselves. An absolutely superb game where I only missed protagonists depth and additional sub-characters. Game's full voiced and animated and only inability to properly level down BGM volume gets a quality penalty for me. Story also gets a small penalty since it resembles EVE: Burst Error in too many ways.
Protagonist: There are two protagonists in this game. And the game changes protagonists' perspective from time to time at certain points. First protagonist is a more traditional police woman Lilia. She has her small secrets like an affair at work but overall she's normal. That's basically our EVE Marina and she also works not just in police, but in special investigation unit. The second protagonist is female detective Raika and things have been running slow for her, so she agrees to try and help Lilia with the case. That's our typical Kojiroh, but in female form (since Sogna games need women!) - untidy, careless, but with a spark of detective genius. She also has an assistant Seela who is a daughter of police department chief. Raika used to serve in police, but quit it when the killer she caught was released due to killing under the state of affect. Both main heroes are nice and they interact in an amusing way, but they're not Kojiroh and Marina and the length of the game does not let to develop characters further.
Characters: All the other sub-characters are males who represent police station. Pretty great characters. Police chief is a brutal old-school guy. Laboratory expert Lloyd is an intellectual who is surprisingly perceptive (he actually solves all the cases by himself). Police office clerk Mark is the guy Lilia dates, quite a charmer. I really like it when the game has strong male staff.
Story: Game starts quite slow with some not so exciting disappearance case, walking around the town and questioning the people. And all that hardly bears any results so Lilia asks Raika for help. And Raika basically does all the same - visiting the same areas and talking to the same people. She finds some clues, but basically stalls as well. Then Lilia recieves a letter with threats delivered to the police office - the demands are to stop this investigation. And then Seela disappears which is seen as implementation of the threats... It would be a spoiler to say anything more, cut exciting part of the story only begins from that moment. I've counted three big plot twists and treacheries alone. And now the main reason why F40 can't be treated as other Viper games. There is no erotic content for the whole first half of the game which is over one and half an hour. Is not a good enough reason? Then what you say to this - both first main H scenes are shown not as fun interlude, but as disasters with actual deaths of characters happening as a result. It's a very serious drama that traumatizes both main characters. But it's also not an nakige as things smooth up a bit towards the end of the game. It's a very serious story touching difficult social matters.
Theme: Main theme of the game is the same as in Eve: Burst Error, but explicit explanation can easily become a spoiler.
CG: I'm fully content with the number of CG. Due to the game relatively big length there is no animation in every scene and sometimes only months are animated, but that's more than enough.
Sound: I already complained about inability to decrease sound level. Well, there is such config option with three different volume tabs, but decreasing any of it lowers down the overall sound in the game, but not voice of BGM sound. Game is fully voiced, but I found couple unvoiced scenes, like dialogues during memories recollection. Also I'd like to not that there is no narrator in the game and narration consists of dialogues that are all voiced.
Overall comments: I would not consider F40 to be a degraded clone of EVE: Burst Error. In the end those are absolutely different stories with only archetypes of protagonists and main theme being the same. Sogna has a unique approach that is implemented in dialogues driven story and high animation level. There are so many twists in the story that I happened to blame the same persons for criminals then rehabilitated then blamed again for several times. But there aren't extra scenes in the game. If some seemingly unnecessary scene is shown, it has some meaning - and it's satisfying to notice those short scenes upon watching the game for the second time. As I see it, Viper-F40 is Sogna's attempt to go away from fanservice works towards serious stories. Whether Sogna succeeds in it or not we shall know from its remaining games and hopefully my reviews of them.
Foreword: I really can't stand multiple stories visual novels. But this is C's ware work and the first story was really sweet, fast (just one hour long) and only included several non-significant choices, so I went for other two stories as well. And I promised myself that I would write a review on any game visual novel that I play to the end and that takes me over three hours to finish. So here it is - my first and hopefully last multiple stories visual novel review.
Title: Ai ga Mie Hajimetara
Developer: C's Ware
Date: 1997-06-27
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v2014
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sV_PLFkOIo&list=PLENAECnNmAq91tN-XYUjNz3EOx6KQw6s0
Synopsis:
1. Vice. Katsuyuki is a vampire detective who is a big fan of beautiful women. One day he saves girl Azusa from nanpa guys and she clings to him temporarily as she has nowhere to go. At the same time Katsuyuki is offered a new case by a hot babe. Even thought the case looks like an easy one, there is something fishy about it...
2. B.B. Bridal breaker is the profession of Shin. He specializes in ruining other people weddings for money. There is little demand for his specialization and he accumulated quite a debt. Finally a new job shows up and he dives into a whirlwind of complex human relations during the wedding ceremony.
3. Kyoto love affair. Kyoto, 2052. Kagura is a demon hunter serving in the Department of the Temple government, Demon specialization Section 1. She's in love with a noble Hayato, but his social position is too high for her to have any prospects for him. One day Miyano, one of shrine maidens to goddess Amaterasu, telephones Kagura and offers an opportunity to participate in a divine test with a chance of becoming a goddess as an outcome. Kagura grasps the chance immediately as it's her chance to gain superior social status and confess her feelings to beloved Hayato!
Length: Took me 7 hours
Game type: First story is normal visual novel with fake choices, the other two stories are command selection visual novels.
Difficulty: First story is a breeze. Second story is a horror as there are at least 7 endings and with command selection formula and lots of locations to visit it's very difficult to notice any branches and there is NO walkthrough around... Third story turned out to be one-way road with command selection and fake choices, so easy.
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 7/10
Story rating: 6/10
Game quality: 6/10
Overall rating: 6/10
Rating comments: Stories aren't really bad, but length is unsatisfying. You just get comfortable with characters when the new story starts. There are three protagonists and while Katsuyuki and Kagura make great protagonists, Shin from the second story is a sore loser and he's plain miserable at times. The same stands for characters - some are superb, some average and some have too little screen time to shine. I rate quality as average for the too loud BGM that has only two states - on and off - as well as for relatively small size of pictures and just for format of multiple stories. Impressions: So here I don't really get how to make a proper formal review for three stories, so I'll just write of my impressions as I moved on.
First story is called Vice and that title does not look appropriate. Well, from the very beginning we see how Katsuyuki pays for women and his inner voice constantly tells him to attack Azusa, but the story is not really about it. The story is about tender relations of a mature detective and a mysterious girl who has nowhere to go. It really looks cute how Katsuyuki constantly tries to send Azusa to her home town and how she finds dozens of reasons to prolong her stay or to return back to his apartment under various pretexts. The whole situation looked VERY much like that of Koriroh and Pudding in the beginning of Eve Burst Error. Also the drawing looked so warm and so familiar as it's something in-between Eve Burst Error sharper style and Eve Lost One smooth animation style. I had to turn off BGM after the first 10 minutes since I wanted to hear Azusa cute voicing properly. But Vice is also a great action story from the second half of it. The whole story only takes one hour, so I see no reason spoiling it. First story really hooked me and I thought that if the other two stories were same fast, bright and easy, then why not seeing it to the end!
Second story started plain horribly. For first 20 minutes the guy just stays at his littered flat, sleeps, dreams and has pretty paranoiac thoughts. Then he finally gets a call and gets to the wedding and here I discover that it's suddenly command selection now and I need to click through all the look, speak, think over and over again as well as to pick the locations that I want to visit manually. I'm no stranger to command selection, so I pressed on. Then after some talk with couple characters I just went back to the dining hall, filled my belly with delicious food and upon returning to the corridor I was told that the time was up and I failed which followed with a bad ending. And that ending was saying ending №7! I was hugely shocked by both the fact that there can be time limit on my actions and by the huge number of endings in just one of the three "short" stories! Tried to find a walkthrough and there was none! And I know how horribly difficult it is to try and find different endings in command selection game. Eve ZERO taught me that all right! So I decided just to do things right and not waste time and get at least one good ending. And that was no easy feat. I stumbled into bad endings couple more times before grasped the happy ending with the bride girl. But there are two more girls who you make H with during the main route and who are destined to have their own endings. I've no idea how to get to their endings though, so it ended for me with the bride ending. This second story also required quite a lot of bruteforcing as only visiting all locations and exhausting all the options allows to move further and that must be repeated multiple times. So even though the girls were much to my liking in the second story, the gameplay and the horrible protagonist definitely weren't.
I was quite sure that the final third story would be just a one hour breeze since the second story was supposed to be the main one. And C's Ware managed to turn everything upside down once again. The third story turned out to be the main one out of the three and it also lasted the record 3.5 hours. C's Ware no baka-a-a! So third story is more like a mix between first and second story. It has few, cut very cute characters and easy to understand plotline just like Vice story, but at the same time it's of command selection type and you need to go through the same five locations over and over exhausting all the options to move forward. Then finally the day finishes and the next day the routine continues. There's no aim in Kagura actions. We just go around outside of the Amaterasu yashiki. And only on the 7th day or so suddenly the trial time arrives followed by game over. But the third story is the main one not just because it's the longest. It has two absolutely fabulous heroines - protagonist Kagura and shrine maiden Miyano. Both are fully voiced with just a gorgeous voicing. They fool around all the time creating a really top notch comedy mood in the air. The talking demon sword and gossiping maidens make up for a huge number of comedy situations and comments. Third story is a great pleasure to read if only not for the constant checking the same areas over and over. The only good japanese review just skips the first two stories entirely and gives a thorough analysis on all the references on other works found in this third story.
Overall comments: So overall I enjoyed the stories united by the love birth theme, but just can't approve the short stories format where many elements have to be sacrificed and H events must be stuffed up tightly. C's Ware again managed to produce a superior game that was too difficult for the general public to like and had faults not in the game elements, but in systems. That BGM that can be either ON or OFF really hurts the game evaluation as you either have to sit in the silence waiting for the characters to speak again or to listen to fantastic BGM that roars and suppresses all the brilliant seiyu work. But it's the C's Ware I love - with bugs, system shortcomings and really challenging gameplay, but nurturing real gems inside that stay hidden from the general public and show up only for you.
The best year so far, actually. I really hope that I'll be able to say the same about every forthcoming year. 84 works during the year amounts for an average of 7 works each month - a very saturated year.
Let's prolong the chart.
VN per year
Year
Total
1991
75
1992
80
1993
121
1994
155
1995
180
1996
183
There's roughly the same number of visual novels in 1996 as in 1995. Romance games are everywhere this year, especially in the second half of it where Windows games preside. First half of 1996 is quite traditional mixed pc-98 representation familiar by previous years.
Let's see what year 1996 brought:
Windows 95 brought 256 colors - something that pc-98 could never rival. Games not ported to Windows, but made specially for Windows like Dousoukai ~Yesterday Once More~ showed it clearly that there is just one possible future for VNs - on Windows and game consoles.
The second half of 1996 showed clearly that with the rise of Windows games, there are much fewer creative games as well as mixes of genres.
Bigger number of CGs and even more simplified gameplay tendencies persist - newer dating sims barely resemble the complexity of pioneers
1996 was the year when game accessories like wallpapers started to sell well - that provoked the creation of specialized moe titles
With Shizuku and Kizuato Leaf transformed the sound novel genre that used to be wall of text on some background horror stories into what we now know as contemporary NVL novels with big character sprites and eliminated gameplay elements .
1996 is the first year that bore no new genre, no big development in systems. And that's also good as the market started to stabilize.
There aren't that many RPG this year, but the remaining ones are of superb quality. Four masterpieces are RPG this year, plus two more games of the month are RPG as well.
Let's count the masterpiece level games of 1996:
1. Angel Halo 2. Be-Yond ~Kurodaishou ni Mirareteru~ 3. Bounty Hunter Rudy 4. Es no Houteishiki 5. Harlem Blade ~The Greatest of All Time.~ 6. Kakyuusei 7. Kichikuou Rance 8. Kizuato 9. Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo YU-NO 10. Ma Doll 11. Mujintou Monogatari 3 - A.D. 1999 Tokyo 12. NOëL NOT DiGITAL 13. Pia Carrot e Youkoso!! ~We've Been Waiting for You~ 14. Sakura Taisen 15. Star Platinum 16. Stone Walkers
Sixteen it is! Just note that some of the games are included for sheer concept originality or impact they made on further works. But the game of the year can't be just an important game. It should be the best from the best and definitely not a dating sim. Nothing stands close to a girl who chants love at the bound of this world, YU-NO. I played it some five years ago. Both the real world maze and the fantasy world beautiful ending are still vivid in my memory. It's a great adventure with most memorable characters and a huge impact. Hands off, the best work of Elf and it's probably the last time Elf hosts the game of the year. Windows era shall have its own champions.
Foreword: I did not want to review it. But then I watched the hentai OVA of its preuel - Mystery of the Necronomicon (黒の断章 Kuro no Danshō) and it's a total blast. I highly recommend to watch it to everyone. A very memorable and bloody occult detective story. There was no anime version of the sequel, so I rushed in. Title: Es no Houteishiki Developer: Abogado Powers Date: 1996-06-28 VNDB link: https://vndb.org/v8874
Synopsis: "Es no Houteishiki" is the second game in the Detective Suzusaki series. The events described in the previous game, "Kuro no Danshou ~The Literary Fragment~", led to a series of suicides, but the case was believed to be closed. But Kusanagi, the young brilliant psychologist and assistant of the famous detective Suzusaki, has now to face his own past. The traces lead to a remote village, which has seen nine mysterious, unsolved murders in eleven years. Soon, Kusanagi discovers a strange religious cult, that might shed some light on his past... Structure: One route without branching or dead ends. Length: 4 hours Game type: Point and click occult detective mystery. Difficulty: Easy. Just need to aim at the mouth of the needed character all the time. There were like only 10 times when needed to click something else. And one screen that took me the longest is where I had to click at tiny triangle of pantsu to advance the story... Character Design rating: 5/10 Protagonist rating: 6/10 Story rating: 8/10 Game quality: 5/10 Overall rating: 7/10 Rating comments: Story is not bad at all. The problem lies with the clustered systems, lots of unnecessary female characters and H-scenes and shallow characters. Protagonist: Young psychiatrist Kusanagi. Nothing extraordinary besides that. We never see his face as if he's telling the story of Suzusaki detective from afar. At least he's of some use in this game - he witnessed some disturbing events in psychological facility eight years ago and those events now backfire.
Characters: There are too many useless female characters introduced for the main purpose of H-scene, I bet. Apart of that, it's the same cast, evercool Suzusaki, same two police detectives and cute secretary Asuka. Well... she's actually cute only the first time we see her as her sprite is more or less transferred from the first game. As for me, all the character designs and CG in this game are ugly, yet the drawing is very fresh. Maybe it suits the atmosphere of the game, but I can't sympathize with those weirdos. At least let me show you the cute Asuka the first time we meet her in this game.
Story: That's the most difficult part! Story is much more shallow that that of the prequel. And to cover that shallowness we constantly have to be distracted by slice-of-life fragments with some girls or H-events with them and when that's not enough we get to see the flashbacks from the past, mostly from that psychological facility 8 years ago. So the story starts as Kusanagi with his girlfriend come to a quiet ordinary town... that in the night becomes prostitutes town. Why oh why was such stupid move about prostitutes needed? Suzusaki bought a full building to establish detective agency here and we deal with a strange series of suicides. The victims usually open up their abdomen with a knife. Here's where Kusanagi memories show up ... first depiction of his activities in psychological facility and its patients and then strange behavior of some staff members followed by same suicides. The new present time suicides are especially strange because they happened at the very same time with different persons who never knew about each other's existence. Suzusaki is already a well-known occult researcher so he digs some disturbing stuff about one of the three legendary items from Amaterasu god that is rumored to be in this town. And I don't think I'll spoil much if I say that one of the psychological facility members is involved (since there are a big number of both doctors and patients there). So it really felt like Silence of the lambs when he seriously appeals to the fault of the government, accumulated DNA diseases and overpopulation to justify provoking suicides. And Kusanagi gets to remember previous talks to him - lots of disturbingly serious stuff to chew.
CG: The only full-screen CG are actually HCG with just maybe 2 ordinary CG for couple girls. The most important events are depicted on some 1/3rd of the screen just as usual backgrounds (character sprites go beyond the background so they are full-height) so resolution is poor and lacks immersion.
Sound: I really prefer midi sound. But here we get the usual .ogg or something. So music often starts at the beginning of the sequence, plays for some 2 minutes and goes down. For the rest of the sequence we get to play in total silence. That's not good. The game is not voiced... oh wait, there is exactly one phrase voiced - it's in one of the later scenes when there is imminent danger rises, Asuka cries "Oniii-chan!" and that's all.
Systems: I usually hate to speak about systems, but in this game it just has to be done. First of all, the game won't load correctly in win10. But we've got dxwnd to cover that, no biggie.
Second issue is that at least in win10 font is so bad that every character is only some 30% filled - we see different dots of it and usually can guess its form, but it may be just win10 issue, no biggie. We still hook the text and it's drawn as usual this way.
Game is point and click, but it narrows down to mouths hunting as characters sprite move. There were like only 10 occasions when I had to click on anything else rather than mouth.
The cursor does not change shape while moving on different objects... in fact it does not change shape ever and you have to point the ugly white small cursor everywhere!
For the first half of the game there are no interactive commands, but then Suzusaki tells us to move and explains us how to push at the border of the screen to invoke the menu for moving! Great - I thought - since I totally overlooked that mechanics! So in the second part of the game we can invoke that menu and push move... and guess what... we don't get to use it even once... and when I attempted to there was a usual commentary than I need to do something else rather than go away.
And the last - but not the least - there is a map of psychiatric facility in the game with a lot of rooms and initially we get a chance to come to every of those room and talk to its inhabitants. But this map is later used just once when we hear a woman's scream and need to find the source among those rooms! And when we found the source, we never ever get back to that map...
So there are lots of systems piled together and each of those system is crumbling and poorly designed.
Overall comments: As I already told, story is good. But Japanese reviewers promised falling back from occult matters in the realm of psychoanalysis and physics and that's barely true. What I see is the same occult stuff, just spiced with mental illnesses. ES should have only ment that inner chaos that is protected by the wall of consciousness. But in reality ES kind of also started to mean ESpers at some point. It should have been a story from the reality and in fact it involves too many surreal stuff. I can't blame the game or Japanese reviewers for that game was not fulfilling my expectations. If we look at it just as a sequel of Mystery of Necromonicon, it's a sequel worthy of its prequel and it should only be examined as direct continuation of prequel, not some original story with original themes. I rated this game quite poorly because of unnecessary slice-of-life episodes, useless spontaneous H-scenes, crumbling systems and poor character design and CG. But if those factors are overlooked we get a good story and I like good stories.
Foreword: A C's Ware game at the mature period of company development, past DESIRE, Xenon and Eve:Burst Error. That's already enough to hook me. It has other attractiveness factors like title mystery that is Russian word Рабыни for "female slave". But why bother with Russian title in a nukige? Another reason is that cover has absolutely no premise for slavery. So mayhaps it's a sly puzzle that the company prepared for us? I'm more than willing to discover.
Title: Rabyni
Developer: C's Ware
Date: 1996-06-21
VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v9048
Youtube walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENAECnNmAq_g_IirpxlYgTVj7C3WhmKz
Synopsis: Reiji is a loser high school student. He likes to peek after girls and girls detest him for that. He only has one childhood friend Misaki who brings him to school and helps him with studies. But everything changes after Reiji is caught by the teacher red-handed taking camera shots in girls' changing room...
Structure: Single road.
Length: Took me 9 hours
Game type: Command selection ADV
Difficulty: Easy, but all the command selection moving around the same areas over and over again makes it exhausting
Character Design rating: 8/10
Protagonist rating: 5/10
Story rating: 5/10
Game quality: 4/10
Overall rating: 6/10
Rating comments: I can divide the whole game into three parts. Beginning part prior to being caught red-handed was actually a blast. First first five minutes of the game hero just decides on a very important question - to go to school or to skip school. That's a very amusing monologue. Next he picks up on every girl discussing their body proportions and each girl gets angry in her own way. It's a very nice comedy in the first part with nice characters and dialogues. I put a firm 8/10 to the first part.
Middle part changes the game drastically. His teacher blackmails him into becoming her slave under the threat of kicking him out of school with making his secret camera shots public. But it's not about sexual slavery that much - she rewards him with intimacy if Reiji has excellent marks and does the home chores like cleaning and cooking properly. In just couple days Reiji evolves greatly and becomes the best student in the class and starts to attract different girls attention. That's a hard to believe change, but still this part is very close to a romance work with getting to know girls better and helping solve their problems. I'd rate this part below the masterpiece level, but still quite highly, at 6/10.
Then comes the last part and the title of the game starts to kick in. Reiji becomes dissatisfied with constant treasons of Yoko-sensei and one day just coerces her to his will putting her to slave position instead. And from then on this master-slave attitude starts to shift to girls. Girls stop being subjects. Even though there is nothing about sexual slavery, Reiji starts to behave like a master easily punishing any of girls for misbehavior. That stopped looking good anymore and ending failed to impress. So this part is worth 4/10 for me.
The sum of those marks is 6/10 and the overall quality of the game prevents it from reaching masterpiece level. Game has no voice, repeating command selection gameplay, few locations and even fewer non-HCG.
Protagonist: Reiji is a nice protagonist while he's a looser. Then he's suddenly reliable good guy with a secret in his his closet. And then he's a master who treats girls around him like punishable objects. That's a bit of too much change for a single game, isn't it? That quickly severs the link between him and the readers.
Characters: There are some 6 girls, I think. But surprisingly enough two girls don't really have their H events. I don't really want to focus on girls since neither of them has their own route. Still girls are cute and dialogues with them makes the most enjoyable part of the game.
Story: I happened to retell the story in the rating comments section.
CG: Very few CG and few locations make the game look bleak. Animated H scenes don't help much since same scene may repeat over and over at different times and there's no dialogue in the mids. Palette is dim.
Sound: Nothing special and no voicing really hurt.
Overall comments: Game was not bad while I tried to evaluate it in the beginning and middle part, but final part spoilt it all creating an inevitably poor impression overall. Still I felt C's Ware puzzling feeling. There was even one scene when you suddenly make it from №300-sh to №1 in grades and have to participate in spontaneous test to prove your ability. It took me some 20 minutes to answer 8 out of 10 repeating questions correct, because many of those questions were different each time and I failed to understand how the knowledge of japanese baseball or which coin can be put to an envelope actually qualified as school knowledge.
Game has a complex nature and is a treat for C's Ware fan like me. I'm really glad it turned out to be a quirky romance comedy rather that fall into fetishism.
