kivandopulus

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~.

I prefer watching a playthrough whenever it exists since I can do it in junk time (while being on transport and during free time at work). MOON has a nice playthrough of it, and some extreme scenes are cut there which is also a pus for me (at least no scat I saw). There are only three girls apart of main heroine Ikumi. Everyone of them came to this horrible organization to gain invisible power and find a relative/help a relative. And game roughly divides into three parts - you try to help first girl's relative, then second girl's relative and finally you try to follow your own aim and while on it the story of third girl gets involved. You fulfill your everyday duties of visiting memory room and will reinforcement through humiliation room, and in the evenings go to other girls sectors through secret vent route while trying to avoid the guards. And what gets to be even more interesting is the story of your guard roommate boy who - unlike usual guards - always gives you useful counsel and even collaborates at times. The issue of identity of this boy is actually very interesting. I'll only say here that he's not human and his identity is directly connected to the origins of this organization. It is an utsuge mostly because even though all the girls survive, there is no happy end in any of the stories and all the stories are full of pain. It's also an utsuge because Ikumi is not the most reserved person and she is often screaming and crying in a state of hysteria or panic or worse. I really felt sorry for her seiyu at times - it's possible to break a voice with so many screams. So it's a very memorable work and it's actually my favorite work of Key team since I loathe their works so much. Almost all of them have anime adaptations and I only know them by anime versions and I could not get to like even anime versions. I hope to present constructive critics in due time. Angle Beats is the odd one out here, but it's the other way round - game was made by the anime and anime was great.

Rougetsu Toshi is the only masterpiece of the month. 1. Ginga Ojou-sama Densetsu Yuna 3: Lightning Angel 銀河お嬢様伝説ユナ3 LIGHTNING ANGEL [971204] Hudson Soft 1 2 3 The Machine Empress plants a bomb that while surely destroy the Earth. Its up to Yuna and gang to stop her and bring peace to the earth. But soon they will find out theres more to the Machine Empress and her army than her motives of destroying Earth.... There's an English good walkthrough for this game and very fine Spanish review, so there's enough information. 2. Hop Step Idol☆ Hop Step あいどる☆ [971204] Media Entertainment As a producer at a youth entertainment company you have to go out and scout out guys to become a new idol group. You have two years to raise a super idol. Idol otome game. That's enough for me to stop digging. 3. Isle Mystique あいるみすてぃ～く [971205] Azurokusu Hero became an owner of the island in the vicinity of Okinawa. There was a famous statue of dragon there. But one day it was revealed that the standing statue was a fake. Now it's needed to find the real one sold by pieced around the island. Game is kind of nanpa and after H event you can check if the girl had the real part of the dragon. There are several locations and three times of the day - by being in the right place in the right time you trigger events. Its "unique character system" is just a gauge during H-event that reacts to your actions - this is actually a very difficult part. Systems are very clunky and graphics is bad. 4. Sanshoku Korokke さんしょくコロッケ [971205] Misty A collection of three stories: 1. 豪漢生徒会 2. 遠山館乱れ桜 3. 小春夢日和 Ero-centered short stories 10 minutes each. 5. Sonemi ~Houfuku no Shou~ 嫉 ～報復の章～ [971205] Deep Zone Famous private school. Heroine Mai is ordered to clean the principal's office after school together with a boy as a penalty for bad English grades. Mai has no intention to participate in cleaning, but she enjoys teasing her partner. Kinetic nukige. The number of forced H events is high. Quite a short one too. 6. Waru!! ~Itazura~ わるっ!! ～悪戯～ [971205] Interheart 1 The story behind Waru is that one day, while taking a train, you, Honda, met a girl named Amano. On the crowded train, she lifted up her cloth on her own initiative and allows you to touch her breast. At first, you are surprised by her action. However, you soon started to enjoy the "wicked play" as Amano unlocks the long forgotten "wicked play" inside you. Once again, you start to haunt lonely girls on the train as your target of the "wicked play." There is an English review. 7. Yuki Furu Kisetsu e ~Omoi, Anata ni~ 雪降る季節へ ～想い、あなたに～ [971205] Blue Bell Shinichiro Sawaki is a friendly and sincere boy. All the girls in school think about him this way, but noone made a move to know him better. Transfer student Naomi Sakura comes to such class and sits next to hero. Naomi has great appearance, excellent grades and is good in sports, so she's very popular with boys. She gets familiar with the hero and that makes other girls in the class think of him in romance sense. Who will he date this winter? Dating-SIM. One month is the period. You go around school each day and meet six girls. Difficulty is low and it takes just 30 minutes to get to each girl's ending. Scenario lacks excitement and girls aren't particularly charming. Some girl sprites differ drastically from their CG. Even if you don't like any girls, there is no bad end - you get a child from a childhood friend! 8. Suuhaisha ~Toraware no Canaria~ 崇拝者 ～囚われのカナリア～ [971210] K-JOYNT Idol girl Makihara Karin brings her passionate voice to those who have faith in her. She sings in duet with a dreamy girl Rin Misugi. Entertainment world is full of darkness and craziness. Fans are like worshipers who dye their hearts in darkness for their goddesses to shine brightly. Melody flows from these fallen girls like a sad hymn in preparation for the sacrifice. Little is known for this H-titled doujin work, to be hones. 9. Maria: Kimitachi ga Umareta Wake マリア 君たちが生まれた理由 [971211] Break 1 2 In this game, you play as a young psychiatrist named Takano. One day a new patient is brought into the hospital you work in - Maria, a young woman who has attempted suicide. She suffers from amnesia, and you try to find out more about her, visiting her and talking to her. Before long you discover that Maria has schizophrenia - a split personality. Her "other self" appears to be evil and threatens to take over her. The fight for Maria's sanity begins. The game plays like an interactive novel or movie: you read text and from time to time make a choice from two or more available ones. Instead of the standard 2D animé-style graphics the game utilizes semi-realistic CG pre-rendered backgrounds and characters. There are also CG animated movies in the game. The atmosphere of the game is rather heavy, but characters are played out well, and there is a merit in suspense. 10. True Love Story ~Remember My Heart~ トゥルー・ラブストーリー〜Remember My Heart〜 [971211] ASCII Corporation A fandisc for the original game that features new heroines. I have a habit to ignore fandiscs. 11. Koi Tenshi 乞天使 [971212] Pinky Soft "Angel festival" is held at Christmas time in a certain Catholic school ... suddenly girl students become lascivious at the school festival and forget about that afterwards. Hero gets to the be in the mids of these events. Game's on a horrible macromedia engine. It just kept repeating the first day over and over. 12. Muku 2 無垢 弐 [971212] Nikukyuu 1 2 You are rich beyond imagination. Over tens and hundreds of countries' fashion design companies are in your control. Money, power, everything are yours. However, there still seems to be something missing in your life. One day, you happened to visit one of yours clothe store and met a girl of your taste. Since then, she becomes your maid in your mansion when she falls in the scheme you have setup. Her father's jewelry store bankrupted (setup by you) and you lend her father a huge sum of money in return for her work in the mansion to payback the money. From this date, you will teach her and train her to be a "good" maid. There are two English reviews. 13. Shishunki ~And I Love Her~ 思春記 ～and I love her～ [971212] Mint Hero entered urban art vocational school to become a painter. He is given a task to draw "Adolescence", but he has no ideas about it. His classmate advised him to draw "love", but to draw love hero needs first to know love, so goes looking for girls. ADV with elements of SIM as there are parameters that change according to choices. There are four young girls to capture. I mean really young. 14. Atlach-Nacha [971218] Alice Soft 1 2 3 4 A long time ago, there lived a jorougumo named Hatsune who gathered enough celestial energy that she was able to take a human form. One day, a mysterious monk came to Hatsune's nest and nearly annihilated her for taking a villager's life. Severely wounded, Hatsune went into hiding. To heal her wounds, she decided to make Yaesaka High School her new nest and absorb energy from the students attending there. Hatsune absorbs energy by eating the flesh of (mostly male) students or through having sexual intercourse with them (preferably with females). Game has three English reviews. I used to think of it as a big important game... till tried it myself. There's no story in the game and there's even no good ending. The only aim is see all CG and for that it's needed to play H sequences for about 10 times. 15. Girl Doll Toy ~Tamashii o Kudasai~ Girl Doll Toy ～魂をください～ [971218] Uran Near future. Hero works in a laboratory developing human-like androids. He picks up an android that was fated to be disposed, upgraded her and named her Erika. At some point he starts to feel romantic emotions for her... Raising SIM/ADV. The good part is that it's not just fuwa-fuwa - the second part is quite severe as the hero has to oppose the laboratory. Quite an ordinary android raising work, but with good video and voicing. 16. Ningen Gari 人間狩り [971218] Alice Soft 1 Five girls are trapped on a small island with four hunters. The hunters will have to search for the girls and stop the other hunters from getting to them first by laying traps or fighting them directly. There is an English review. 17. Universal Nuts ユニバーサルナッツ [971218] Lay-Up 1 Universal Nuts is a sci-fi visual novel featuring two protagonists, Yui and Ai, which get involved in an incident onboard a space station. As the story progresses, the mystery of events that have occurred start to unfold. The game plays in a typical visual novel style by reading through on-screen text and dialogues to progress the story. Character icons are present during dialogues beside the character art over the background image, and the game features both animated cut-scenes and voice-acting. There is a ghost ship in the open space sending out S.O.S. signals. But when Ai and Yui approach it, all the crew is absent even though all signs of life are present, even the lighted cigarette in the ash tray. A bad scenario with good production values and luxurious voice cast. Don't be surprised as anything can happen any moment here like in the weirdest bakage. There are too many inconsistencies too like meteorites catching fire in space or girl in a towel with a portrait in the suit. Scenario is multi-ending one, but with unskippable text very few would have the will to do it again. There are six "good" endings, but each time there is a a phrase following "Are you sure this is the best end?". And all of six endings have it. And there are lots of bad endings too. So there is no reward for looking for good endings, only irritation. 18. Zero 零式 [971218] Alice Soft 1 In order to find their father who has gone missing, the twins Akane and Naomi participate in 'Chariot Fest', a tournament in which people try and amass the most points by destroying robots in an underground maze. There is an English review for this game. 19. Aitai Toki ni Kimi wa Inai 逢いたい時に君はいない [971219] Bell-Da The hero who lives with his father and a young sister Serica. He falls in love with female teacher. And recently a lolicon started to pursue his younger sister. There are three heroines each with her own ending. Number of CG is good - about 120 pieces. Story is quite nice as both developments happen side by side. Younger sister is charming and does not have a H event. 20. Enema えねま [971219] Manbou Goya School girl Ezaki Ema meets a space police boy Nema who comes to the Earth to fight parasites laying eggs at the stomach. Together they purify stomachs of school girls and fight parasites with a gravitational vibrator. This is a sad romantic story... oh, wait, it's not - it's a story about enema! There's a great variety of toilet situations in game. And there's also some parody. And now we know the root of enema word. 21. Heart Work Symphony of Destruction Heart Work Symphony of Destruction [971219] Active 1 2 3 4 5 Yuu Asakura was a mild mannered university student until he found a mysterious duffel bag with a gun and orders for an assassination. He was terrified at first, but when he held the smooth metal of the pistol in his hand, he started to become someone else. Capable of anything, Yuu takes the assassination job and enters a world of nonstop sex, blood and guns. When he returns to school with his newfound abilities, he finds it no trouble at all to get any girl he wants. The syndicate and the police want a piece of the new guy, but the one Yuu has to worry about is the gun's original owner. Game is localized and has English reviews. 22. Jain Juushinden Jevald 邪淫獣神伝ＪＥＶＡＬＤ [971219] Berserker While returning home from his crappy job, our guy found a girl at the end of a bolt of lightning. It seems she has chased a mad scientist from her planet to earth. She needs his help to stop the mad scientist from collecting earth female energy. How does he do that? Well, a little mad scientist drug does wonders. Graphics are good... but that's the only good thing in the game. Game's engine is very weird. Not possible to skip anything and it just froze on me in 12 minutes. And according to other people, not just for me - engine tends to freeze very often. There are multiple windows and some tend to disappear or get inactive. Savegame can not be summoned when you need it. 23. Kuroi Shoudou 黒い衝動 [971219] Violate 1 A collection of three short stories: "The Worst Day" in which the protagonist assaults a woman at a video store, "Your Slave" in which they harass a servant, and "Red Mark" in which they tutor a student in an indecent fashion. There is an English review. 24. Teito Kitan ~Doushi Tantei no Jiken Memo~ 帝都奇譚 〜道士探偵の事件メモ〜 [971219] Space Project 1 Taisho era. A series of kidnappings of young girls have happened in the capital with the aim of selling into sexual slavery. A special detective trained in fighting is sent to investigate the case. Strategic card battles. Scenario is quite simple, but Taisho era spirit depicted well. CG and voicing are mediocre. Quite an obscure game. There is an English review. 25. Zenyasai 前夜祭 [971219] Violate A week before the school festival. Soichiro Kiriharais in the festival executive committee. There are five girls around the hero, each with their own troubles. Will his curiosity, kindness and persistence make them open up to him? ADV where we raise/lower favorability according to the answers given. If you miss even one event to raise favorability, you won't get girl's ending. 26. Ai Doll 哀・奴隷（あい・どーる） [971225] Bags Hero drove a car and got into an accident. He regained consciousness in girls monastery. Some strange punishment techniques are practiced there. There is a decadent atmosphere and there are bad endings. The main heroine is sweet and positive against all the odds. Game does have reviews, but from what I saw the plot is the same as in hentai amine with the same title. 27. Mink Daisakusen ミンク大作戦 [971225] Mink A god brought three heroes to the other world. Will you be able to gather the party, rescue friends and return to the original world? An RPG. From the start we get to choose one of three heroes from Mink games that have different skills. At the next part we need to switch the choice for one of the leftover heroes, so better save one with the long range attacks for later. There are battles and levels ups. Game boasts of using 3D animation both for small items movement and H scenes occasionally. 28. Rougetsu Toshi 朧月都市 [971226] Softhouse Bonbee Bonbon 1 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. There are only fake choices. The settings seems to come from the mail game with the same name. Picture quality is good, but not in the cute way. The "power" of the hero is not explained and even though it should be presented in multiple forms, he only uses it as a gun. The H events are sudden and spontaneous. The characters lack the persuasive power. So it's not a bad story, but not really a deep one. I consider it a masterpiece and prepared a full review. 29. Gensuishou 幻水晶 ～Crystal Fantasy～ [971229] Aquavit There is a legend that the couple that sees "Crystal Fantasy" in this amusement part will love each other forever. Four friends come to this part at night to try and reveal the mystery. Whatever happens next depends on the choices. Game is highly influenced by popular at that time Kizuato. It has boys love scenes which was still rare. 30. Osananajimi 幼なじみ [971229] Nirvana Soft Main character has a childhood friend and a sister-in-law that he loves both dearly. But the day comes when he needs to make a decision and choose between them. Very short work with just two endings, but well produced one. 31. Angel Lips エンジェルリップス [9712] Lyceen Two high school girls lead a normal school life at the same class. But after an accident their contrasting everyday life breaks apart in a stream of lust. One more experienced, one more naive, but in the sunset city their purity is lost forever. Command selection ADV. There are two main heroines and one side-heroine. Game uses animation, voicing and is almost entirely devoted to H events, including les and SM ones. There are multiple endings prepared, so it can be called a choose you adventure genre. 32. Joutou na Nichijou 上等な日常 [97] RIKI Everyone has sex, even classmates and girls at working places. It all starts in elementary school where students masturbate like crazy. There are six fourth grade elementary students to choose from. It's a short game where boys masturbate and girls have menstruation. Real weird stuff

Finally some competition! I rate all of Viper-F40, Nails and Moon. as masterpieces. But Moon. is the one that leaves the biggest impact. 1. Chaos Blood カオスブラッド [971107] Ange Komiya Soma is leading a casual university life, but one night he gets involved into strange case. A student girl stood naked on the rooftop, repeating meaningless words and eventually starting to pee. It was only the first of a series of incidents to arise in the future... Minor work. Ugly character design. Story is tilt to weird fetishes and the synopsis is set just to show them. There are three routes, each featuring two different girls. 2. Collector ~Seifuku no Mezameru Toki~ コレクター ～制服の目覚める時～ [971107] Melody 1 The story behind Collector is that the main character has attended a well-reputed high school for a long time. Yet, the main character was disgust by their strict school policy and the boredom in the school. He wanted something interesting besides attending school and go home. And thus, the main character participated in a strange club that his friend has introduced to him. In this club, the main goal is to seduce girls to the clubhouse and rape them! And guess what? The main character is assigned as the person who will be responsible to bring the girls to the clubhouse. From here on, your quest of hunting down girls begins. There is an English review. 3. Kenshuui 研修医 [971107] Vector Uchi Yamagami graduated from a medical faculty a year ago. He worked at a public hospital and now decided to change workplace for a private recently opened hospital. He has views for six pretty women around, but at the same time he needs to solve hospital's new problem - principal's wife caused a riot and a big contract was cancelled. Moreover coworker pharmacist is behaving suspiciously. Hero will need to solve all the problems. The choice of a girl depends on the type of work chosen every day. In the dialogue there are options to raise and lover favorability. 4. Kinjirareta Asobi 禁じられた遊び [971107] Vision Protagonist receives a funny flier from a woman with butterfly glasses on the way back from the company. It advertises a relaxing machine that makes sexual dreams true. He pays a visit to the place and meets another woman with butterfly glasses... Ero-centered game without text, voice only. Lots of animation as always with Vision. 5. Kokuhaku 告白 [971107] Guilty Three high school girls confess their problems to main character who works as a counselor. He will need to find the right approach to each of them. Girls have very difficult sexual problems relating to different fetishes. And it's impossible to get to true endings till the normal endings for each girl is got. A very exhausting game. 6. Megami no Hohoemi 女神の微笑み [971107] Palette (old) Humans are extinct, only computer "CZ 25" with a will keeps existing. He strongly wished to see his creator and other human beings, and one day the goddess of time comes before him. She decides to change the past in order to fulfill his wish. Modern time. Takuya Saito fell ill on the day of exams and now he is a ronin. One day Takuya is inspired by old friend Hiroyuki to become a high school graduate. What fate awaits Takuya? Multi-ending ADV. There are five girls to clear and story develops by moving around and triggering events. There are several chapters with the cutest girl in the final chapter. Story development is unnatural, same as goddess of time part looks irrelevant. There is no hint that with some ending future was going to change. Game feels incomplete. 7. NyanNyan Dream にゃんにゃんドリーム [971107] Misty An old main is travelling around secluded locations to pick up little girls. Stupid loli game, and it's not even nanpa, just H. 8. Viper-F40 [971107] Sogna 1 2 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... There are two reviews of this game, including mine. 9. Nails ~Beginning of Your Heart Beat~ [971114] Jam People and nail people share the same continent and are in constant struggle against each other. At some point a relative peace has been settled and both populations continued to coexist in several smaller nations. The stage is Altair Kingdom. Jam Rock is a famous swordsman. One day on the way home from the swordsmen dojo, he helped a girl chased by suspicious men. She only remembered here name - Minwi. She turned out to be a shrine maid of Theinhad Temple and her memory was sealed for some reason. Jam Rock decided to take her to the Temple of Zainhad, but he was declared as Minwi kidnapper. Two people passed through the security net and reached the Temple of Zainhad. However, Minnie could not remember anything. That night Minwi was kidnapped by the nail people with a probable aim to bring her as sacrifice to gods. Jam Rock's rescue adventure is only beginning now. Dungeon crawl RPG or maybe SIM with map travel because there are no levels or stats. Changing the destination map changes characters that will become friends. Party characters have favorability scale and it rises whenever they are praised. There are 8 girls to clear and 23 endings overall. Battle is turn-based command selection. Controls is mouse only and you need to choose action, then target, then confirm, so three mouse actions for each character in each turn. There are random encounters happening all the time. So it's actually a masterpiece level game. 10. Reversible Karte RK リバーシブルカルテ RK [971114] Black Package A young psychiatrist, Kyogoku Kazuya looks over patients at the prestigious Psychiatric Ward every day. From the day when his girlfriend was killed in front of him, strange cases of women being insulted by patients started to happen in the hospital. What causes those incidents? ADV with favorability of heroines depending on the number of hitting their flags. The routes aren't really connected and there is no single theme - just loosely placed individual stories. It's not a dark themed game, but rather a charage in a weird setting. 11. Toriko 2 虜2 [971114] D.O. A woman comes to main character as a tutor. As soon as she recognizes a sadist in protagonist, she requests to train a strange girl Rikako as a slave, as well as her two sisters. This isolated mountain cottage becomes a territory of domination and obedience. Well, there is more articulate synopsis, but who cares. It still will be an insulting training SIM. Main character is different this time. It's reported that sequel became more complex and sophisticated, but I'm not going to check that. 12. Xtasy [971115] Dollhouse Yusuke Kubota tries to give a birthday present to his childhood friend Hikaru and lassmate Miyuki. When he was approaching, both girls disappeared and then he himself was also teleported to a mysterious island. With the two girls he needs to find the clue about the shining stone that teleported them and return home. It's essentially an RPG. There are even enemies to beat as well as parameters to grow. Movement has to be done with a mouse. Message autoplay can be turned on, but with no speed regulation. There's no recollection mode. So it's an exploration game with not very comfortable system and mediocre graphics (even though CG are ok). 13. Moon. [971121] Tactics 1 2 3 4 5 6 The story follows a young girl named Amasawa Ikumi who follows the recent death of her mother to an organization known as FARGO. Ikumi joins FARGO and uncovers their disturbing nature of harnessing psychic abilities through torture. Game is localized and has many English reviews. 14. Gen'ei Choukyou Club 幻影調教倶楽部 [971128] J-Box Hero who is given name Ryu is invited to join private videophone club by his school teacher. The purpose of this club called "Snake Pit" is to gather people with abnormal sexual preferences and share experiences. Nothing I can enjoy. Just phone talks with H. 15. Hatsune No Naisho!! 初音のないしょ!! [971128] Leaf 1 Hatsune no Naishou is a collection of Leaf's mini games that any Leaf's fan should not miss. The CD contains several cute mini software including some mini games, screen saver, wallpaper, and CD player. The mini games packed in the CD include a mini action game called Heart By Heart with characters from To Heart, a mini RPG game called Leaf Fighting 97, To Heart Omake, and of course the adventure game Hastune no Naishou. There is an English review. 16. Kemono no Sumu Kousha 獣の棲む校舎 [971128] Ikuro Makita is a recently transferred professor at girls' high school. He gets a request from the director to investigate the circumstances of his son death that's reported to be a suicide. You need to choose various places at school during day and sometimes night and that passes time. But there's a limited amount of time given, so wandering aimlessly inevitably leads to game over. The only review around says that the fame freezes at the second part of the game, so maybe we'll know of the exciting story from the game's sequel. 17. Lofty Form [971128] Aaru 1 Yakushiji Shion is the eldest son from the clan punishes bad people. But after he assassinated Empire's shadow Kurobe Akiyoushi, it is regarded as a rebellion against the Empire. He gathers the clan and moves towards the North. Every day they are attacked by pursuers. At the same time he is chased by the girl Hiramatsu Yae who fell in love with Shion. Wow. Just wow. A serious samurai story somewhere in Edo period... Hero is too serious so it's others that fill in the gaps with everyday life scenes gags. Just imagine warriors talking about strange things with serious face, soft kind of humor. Hero literally has 30 lines in the beginning and hardly 100 lines by the end of the game, his presence is not felt at all. There aren't even his thoughts. Game has brilliant vivid and very beautiful CG, lots of cool enemies and gore. Characters are very likable as well. The game is not without the faults. The speechless protagonists is a questionable move. There's an influx of events by the end of the game and abrupt ending. There are a lot of women caught up in between the warring sides... well, it might be an advantage, actually. But I consider this game a masterpiece. In 1997 I only expected entertainment stories. Or maybe I just love samurai stories too much. 18. Mugen 夢限 [971128] Trush Dream control system is invented which allows to travel to artificially created dreams. At first it was used only in medical treatment, but since 1999 became wide spread for stress relief. You are an operator who controls such machine. You need to choose your customer and lead him through the dream so that they like it. Three customers, several types of dreams which somehow eventually end with a H scene. 19. Namida ~Ryuusei no Saddle~ 涙 ～流星のサドル～ [971128] Zero Aizaki Shinobi is hero's first love. Her mood has dropped as of late and she started to avoid hero. He needs to get to know what's happening to his dear friend. A really trashy game. There are only four locations to move around and that constantly triggers new girls appearance. Talk to them twice in a favorable way and they invite to spend a night together. It's nice that the game does not really end with that and you can break up with any girl after. Aizaki is the most difficult to capture. There are couple mingames at hero's room, but overall I got a really negative impression, probably because awaited a serious game. 20. Shinsetsu Kamiya Ukyou ~Untrue~ 真説 神谷右京 ～Untrue～ [971128] Altacia Events take place between those happening in Ivory Tower and Missing Link. There is no detective story this time. Instead, there is a story of human relations. The client is a girl who had a relative stabbed in the heart. That's the fact that can can no longer be divided between falsehood and truth... "Untrue". The heroine changed from the Missing Link, but has the same type of mind. The work is more about portrayal of a complex person's feelings and Ukyou ability to foresee the results of every minor action to the future. The work is based on contrast with the other vomules of the series, but almost all of Ukyou visual novels are very difficult to find to make comparisons.

I only rate Sweepers! as masterpiece in October and thus it's VN of the Month. 1. Find Love ファインドラブ [980612] Lyceen "Find Love" is part of the "Uniform Bishoujo Grand Prix" series. There are meetings prepared with 35 beautiful girls from all over Japan dressed in uniforms. All that's needed is solving a small puzzle each time. For PC version there is also erotic development involved. Puzzles followed by dialogues scenes. 2. Jigoku Seek 地獄SEEK [971003] PIL Main character appears in hell upon death and is given a simple choice - to be tormented eternally or to make three girls atone for their sins. But to purify their souls every bit of their sins must be expelled with torture. What to say - another SEEK game. There is picturesque landscape now and some rules - inability to injure or harm girls, so it's torture rather than SM. 3. Saya/Sumire さや/すみれ [971003] Bell-Da You click on "hot spots" on the screen and get a response of some sort from Saya or Sumire. Same macromedia no VN material stuff as Mio & Miho. No text in the "game", only sounds and poses change. 4. Chaos Queen Ryouko Story #2 Sugiura Kasumi Hen カオスQUEEN遼子 STORY#2 杉浦夏澄編 [971009] Scoop Ryouko's dream is interrupted by her assistant who is pursued by persistent scientist girl. Ryouko does not mind giving her love consultation and two strong personalities clash. Game still follows baka eroge trail. In this story two girls compete in delivering men pleasures with various techniques. 5. Doop DOOP [971009] MBS Truth Hero is a part of a marine rescue team. Just a day before his vacation there is an urgent request to save personnel and cargo of a drowned submarine. The submarine does not have identifying signs apart of the drawing "Doop" and all the crew disappears apart of one member with body half-eaten by mercury reminding liquid. Hero takes sample from the corpse, but the next day one of heroes is found killed by the same mercury reminding liquid. As the team launches investigation, it turns out that there is a criminal/collaborator among the team members... Remastered version Advance is really impressive. The pacing is good and the mystery is intriguing. I left it while it was still an interesting mystery, but there are reports that the second half is a one way road with lots of HCG, fast resolution and unsatisfactory feeling. 6. Kaori Climax 2 ~Mezase Sekai no Hayase Kaori~ かおりクライマックス2 ～めざせ世界の早瀬かおり～ [971010] h.m.p Kaori makes her debut as an idol and marries protagonist who is always here to support her. The long struggle finally pays off... until the day she suddenly announces that she wants to conquer USA now. They have to start from scratch now in a different country! It's pretty much like prequel, but with much more adult development. 7. Kikan ~Return~ 帰還 〜RETURN〜 [971016] R.A.N Software 1 The story behind Return is that the main character, Tetsuya, received an order from his boss to nail down a drug dealer. Tetsuya and his girlfriend have oncetried to catch the dealer in Los Angeles, but unfortunately failed the mission. This time they received information that the dealer has appeared in Hong Kong. With the companion of Tetsuya's old pal and ex-girlfriend, the four police took off from Japan and head toward Hong Kong for the dealer. During the flight, they encountered a strange occurrence. All of their watches displayed different time. Although they soon ignore the strange phenomenon, they will soon be drawn into the inescapable time traveling that is caused by such phenomenon. When the foursome arrived to Hong Kong and found the dealer's hideout, a gunfight between them has caused the strange phenomenon to occur. Soon after they were drawn into the black hole, they realized they are no long in 1995. Instead, they are back in 1941 where Japan controlled most countries in Asia. From here on, the foursome is on the journey to "return" to 1995. There is an English review. 8. Sotsugyou Vacation 卒業VACATION [971016] MYCOM 1 2 The player is on a southern island called Suzunari Jima. The 15 girls from Seika Joshi high school are also on the island for summer vacation. The game starts as the master of the hotel tells a story of a hidden treasure on this island. Since many of the girls are pretty bored on the island, they decide to go look for the treasure. Each day, the girls break up into several groups, and go looking for clues in finding the treasure. There are ten different locations on the island, and there are three times during the day (morning, noon, afternoon) that the player/girls can go to these locations. Then during dinner, everyone talks about what happened that day and makes plans for the next day. There is enough information in English about this game. 9. Tactical Fighter Tactical Fighter [971016] TamTam Co., Ltd. 1 One rainy day a daughter of the director of a company visited the hero. She said that the company was hijacked, director was missing. In order to help director the hero starts to train this 15-year old girl in order to win in S-Grand Prix fighting competition in three years time. Just previous month there was Metadoll Ai with almost the same story. This time there is raising SIM part and 2D fighting part where you do not participate at all, just watch. It's quite fun to learn new fighter moves and see how they are implemented so gameplay is good. You don't just train, there is a full-scale SIM part together with recreation, study and even part-time job activities. Still, three years period is a very long time and game gets repetitive. There are two kinds of endings - the true one and the scholar path if you lose the grand prix. 10. Kaibou Kyoushitsu 解剖狂室 [971017] iMAGE CLUB Near future with virtual reality technology flourish. Hero goes to virtual reality service company "EDEN" for a sexual relief, but he could not know it would be beginning of an incident... Ero-centered work. 11. Nagisa 100% なぎさ 100% [971017] Bell-Da You can choose Nagisa profession at the start and see a short story regarding that profession. Macromedia horror. Stories are very short. No save function. You need to choose places on a map screen till you have a dialogue scene. 12. Tales of the Nights ~Yumekyou no Miko~ テイルスナイツ ～夢鏡の巫女～ [971017] Tiare There are a lot of worlds and it's possible to travel between the worlds in dreams. Iphilis is world of swords and magic, a peaceful world. However, the sealed witch Lamia broke free and summoned demons. Shrine maiden Elysia summons the hero from our world and asks for help. RPG where hero travels to Iphilis world each night and tries to cleanse it from evil and in the daytime he goes to school. What a poor lad! Real world part is played as an ADV, but actions during this phase will affect Iphilis RPG part. Defeat the witch and have a happy end with one of the five girls, easy as that. 13. Gekkou Kemono 月光獣 [971024] Blue Gale After the main character returned from school he was taking a nap at the bed in the room. At that time he dreamed that he was chasing someone familiar in a dark place. It was 8 o'clock in the evening when he woke up. The light of the pale moon was coming from the window. The hero rushed to city under the full moon. What fate awaits him? Hero has excitement level of four levels. Every time he sees an ecchi scene, excitement rises by one point. Whenever he gets "four" in excitement, he becomes a "beast". He then attacks the first girl he sees or bumps into a game over. After the attack the excitement level gets back to normal. There are six endings overall. Game's akin to Classmate the way moving is done around the town. It's quite short. Needless to say it's a borderline nukige work. 14. Karin -Tsukiiro no Yubiwa- かりん -月色の指輪- [971024] Bell-Da Hero lives alone in a mansion. One day he receives a letter saying his younger sister Karin is coming, but he does not remember her. Karin arrives with her maid and she's anxious to help hero recover from his amnesia. Usual Bell-Da macromedia stuff, but this time there is both Karin and maid, so hero can choose different rooms inside the mansion and trigger scenes with either of the heroine and sometimes both at once. 15. Magical Bunny まじかるバニー [971024] Aquarium Shimamura Yuji has been dating sweet Shizuka Kasai for three months now. At the end of today's date she dragged them into a game center where clerk is a "bunny". Shizuka-chan disappears and "bunny" says that Shimamura has to play a game in order to help her. And so the travel into mysterious games begins. Er... it's actually a stripping tetris game with modified rules. 16. Shiken Yasumi wa Mitsu no Aji 試験休みは密の味 [971024] Candy Lip Hero attends high school for a week during the time of holidays and familiar people are much more friendly during the holidays. There are five girls: childhood friend, sempai, swimming club kouhai, English teacher and nurse. There are four happy endings. There's dating, then confession, then H-scene. Poor answers make you appear in friend zone automatically. The graphics is done with QuickTime and is quite slow to load and ugly. 17. X Change [971024] Crowd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 No matter how hard he tries, Aihara Takuya is just a weakling. Not only the boys, but the girls pick on him too! His step sister, Natsumi, the president of his school's chemistry club, Mami, and even his childhood friend, Asuka, they all enjoy teasing him. Just when he thinks his life couldn't get any worse, he spills some vials of chemicals while cleaning up his school's chemistry room, splashing some onto his body as well. He looks down to assess the mess, and finds a new pair of breasts sticking out of his chest! He grabs them in disbelief, and discovers that he's been transformed into a girl! And so begins Takuya's hilarious erotic adventure to search for a cure. Along the way he discovers a whole new world of experiences, some welcome and others not. Will he find a way back to normal, or will he be trapped in a girl's body for the rest of his life? Game is localized and has many English reviews. 18. Yuukai Hakusho 誘拐白書 [971024] Pinpai A high school girl was missing for three days and then her violated corpse was discovered in the park near protagonist house. Yagami Shingo is into detective business with his partner and he accepts this case that looks very much like kidnapping. It's an ero-centered story and plot very soon becomes secondary, so there is little information to be found. 19. Ikusa Miko -Vestal Virgin- 戦巫女 －Vestal virgin－ [971030] Alice Soft 1 You are a devil hunter. You became a hunter because your parents were killed by devils and so you went to learn how to kill those devils. To become a hunter you became a very lonely guy who wanders around looking for devils, until one day... You came to a shrine chasing after the devil that killed your parents, but you couldn't use your "power" anymore. A miko (Chitose) suddenly appeared before your eyes. You transfered all your "power" to her and she beat that devil away. Since she saved your life, you began to teach her how to use her new "power" and let her be the one who kills the devil. There is an English review of the game. 20. Pia Carrot e Youkoso!! 2 Pia♥キャロットへようこそ!!2 [971031] Cocktail Soft 1 2 3 4 Yusuke (from the first Pia Carrot series) returns as the manager with a whole new cast. So the new male lead is Maeda Koji. Despite being late after an "accident," Koji manages to get the job as the Carrot's waiter because he's very persistent. Included within the set are Azusa (the female lead who hates Koji for his perversion), Ryoko (the manager who's sweet on Koji by working him very hard), Aoi (the token alcoholic), Jun (the secret-hiding waitor), and Mina (Azusa's cute little sister). Game has two English reviews. 21. Sweepers! [971031] Petit Takuya Hayami is an ordinary university first grader. However, his constitution allows him to easily invite spirits to his body. His childhood friend Mizuki Fuko has been in coma for a long time because she got involved into youkai extermination incident. Now he goes to a spa resort with his lover Miyuki Kusuhara, but he hears Fuko words and there's going to be a new ghost riot. Love comedy work. There are five short chapters with a bit of branching to determine who you end up with. Pacing is good and there is tension in the air even at final confrontation scene. Characters are quite charming. There are five heroines total, but game is mostly about love triangle. There are some inconsistencies like some events are mentioned in the wrong routes. There are some character and uniform models from Petit previous titles. But overall it's a good story that leaves a nice impression. 22. Sweet Days スウィートデイズ [971031] Pearl Soft The hero spent summer vacation of high school third grade without doing anything. The school side persuaded him to leave the advanced course because of lack of academic ability and motivation. The mother of the protagonist is shocked by that. She asked revise that decision based on the results of forthcoming exams. She hired a neighbor Shinohara Aki who attends a famous national university as tutor. Aki, who secretly had feelings for the hero, willingly accepted and for three weeks before the proficiency test she will tutor the hero. Despite what synopsis might suggest, there are six heroines overall, but only Aki's route is somewhat well developed. And the other girls routes feel bad because you have to constantly skip studies and see grumpy Aki's face. It's quite a short game hardly reaching two hours length and most of that time is occupied by routine actions. 22. Dear Princess ディアプリンセス [9710] Aspect Corporation In prophecy it's said that the protagonist is destined to become king. Standing in his way is his father's enemy(the protagonist's uncle), who he'll have to win the throne from. And so the protagonist sets out for this goal... Pretty ancient SRPG to really care.

Foreword: The culmination of the series and the biggest jewel Four-Nine ever produced. I'm late with the review since I wanted to finish recording video playthrough first. Title: Canaan ~Yakusoku no Chi~ Developer: Four-Nine Date: 1997-04-18 VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v8697 Synopsis: The fourth entry in the GaoGao series is set in the same post-apocalyptic world as the two previous games. In the future, a failed biological experiment caused widespread mutations, leading to a total separation of human civilization and the mutated tribes of "animal people". The events of the game begin shortly after the end of the previous installment. Human civilization is nearly destroyed; the remaining humans live in shelters, dreaming of the "promised land" Canaan, somewhere "near the end of the world", where there is enough food for everyone and where mutants can't enter. The game has two protagonists: a human boy who has lost his parents and who swears to himself to find Canaan, and Wolf, the mutant hero of the previous game, with his colorful female companions. Eventually their paths cross - but will they able to understand each other and bring peace to the troublesome world?.. Structure: 29 parts overall varying in length from 3 minutes to 2 hours. Length: 15 hours Game type: Command selection adventure Difficulty: Easy and even easier than in before. No need to bruteforce all the commands to advance, dialogues are enough to proceed usually. Character Design rating: 10/10 Protagonist rating: 10/10 Story rating: 10/10 Game quality: 9/10 Overall rating: 10/10 Rating comments: All the shortcomings of Gao Gao 3 are eliminated here: no more command bruteforcing, optional (and less painful gameplay-wise) H-events, story is not bounded to a strict structure, but feels as a natural adventure. I can't put 10 for quality since it's PC-98 game with no voicing, but besides that just perfect. Protagonist: Same Wolfy boy (we're given official English spelling in the credits like that), but now also with a human boy Kite moving elsewhere in parallel with paths joining only by the end. Wolfy is same cool and optimistic person, but what's nice - there was a chapter of total despair even for him - that was a welcome character development to see. Kite is pretty much allusion to Gao Gao 2nd part protagonist - human boy who wishes to protect those he loves but fails to do that due to lack of power. "I want to become stronger" is his motto, but unlike part 2 here Kite actually becomes strong and at some point even assaults enemies on par with Wolfy - that was also a satisfactory character development. Characters: I've counted 25 humanoid characters in the game, aside of definite side-characters. Only four of them are males: Wolfy, Kite, Blue, Pr.Kayne. All the allies migrated from Gao Gao 3rd safely with some new ones and old acquaintances. It's enough to mention that there are as many as 12 people in our party at the time of the final battle. Just as in Gao Gao 3rd whenever you meet some new person, a long quee of questions to him follows, so every character is very well depicted as we get to know their past, their status and their wishes. This way is much better than having lots of mystery characters and getting to know them bit by bit by their actions. Enemies: are very cool. There are more guys with advanced tech and guns, there are robots, new war modified mutants. Just as before, human enemies are possible to negotiate with. Story: Kite is a boy who lives in one of the sealed shelters and one day sneaks out from there to try to find Canaan - the best place for people to live - he read about in the books. Wolfy party gets out of the Underground this time and walks the picturesque landscapes. At some point they find Kite's shelter, read his diary and burn up to find this land of prosperity Canaan as well. Kite saves a girl Angela from the crashed helicopter and they go seeking her "Fur", someone very close to her but unable to remember because of amnesia. Wolfy party finds the angel/bird girl Fur in a different crash place and she needs to find Angela. Soon Fur gets kidnapped and the story slowly, but surely unwinds. The biggest part of the story takes mutual alienation of mutants and humans. And only little by little, one encounter after another both species stop thinking in black and white terms. CG: There were much more CG compared to 3rd part. They are of better quality and overall make up for the rich story feeling. A lot of backgrounds are reused from 3rd part, but that seems natural as it's the same underground everywhere. HCG: I'm pretty sure there are less H-events than in 3rd part and all the female characters excluding only some enemies get their own HCG. But what I really liked is that there are only two compulsory events with Rabby in the beginning of the game and in the end of it and one compulsory event of Kite with mutant girl Mira. Mira is by the way one of the main characters this time, party of Kite consists of three persons usually: Kite, Angela, Mira. Optional H-events helped me to concentrate on the story and build up more empathy for the main characters rather than struggle through all the side-character pretty random and not important H-events. Sound: Only couple of old bgms migrated from Gao Gao 3rd and those are generic battle ones. All of the important battles, events and just actions have new much more elaborate midi melodies, which is really nice. Themes: Most evident theme is definitely of Canaan. We tend to ask about Canaan every passer-by with both protagonist. What's Canaan? Will we be able to find it? See it for yourself, but the answer is very satisfying. Another interesting Canaan side-story is that of Prof. Kayne - but I won't spoil it here. Another theme is that of coexistence. In Gao Gao 3rd there was not a single living human - only one human spirit Saison, but that was snobbish pc room maintenance specialist and he openly declared that mutants is the lower life form and has to be annihilated. By the start of Canaan both parties are ready to kill the other species enemies on spot and it takes a lot of effort to overcome that feeling. It starts from simple - "They can also be sad and cry" and goes all way through. The third important theme is that of creators and creations. Are we responsible for life of those who we created? Should we treat them as luggage and just make another clone instead? This theme is covered mostly by Pr.Kayne sideline. Another one is that of the reason of life. There are some suicides in the game and the gravest events happen because characters lose the reasons of their lives. Is it worth it to live on without the reason of life or is it possible to find another reason? Those are the questions raised. Originality: Since it's direct continuation of Gao Gao 3rd there's not much originality here. But double protagonist story lines is a fresh move which really helps with the information overdose in the beginning. Humor: I absolutely love the humor here. The old jokes don't have a strong presence, but occasionally show up and those moments are cherishable indeed. When a party of peddlers is asked whether they know about Ningen, they first take out a carrot, then green beans and then admit that they don't have any more vegetables reminding Ningen. Hit android with the pie joke is played out pretty cool too and the whole party was shocked that android did not stop functioning after that. The inventor of new meanings is only Iria now and she is hit frequently by Rabby, Leona and Dola because of that. Wolfy thoughts and comments are stingy as ever and the spirits in the party is always high. Overall comments: This is a very rare beast. A serious grown-up story in postapocalyptic world with the best possible humor, dozens of well-developed characters and many important themes raised. What else can one possibly want? It feels like an epic RPG story on par with Legend of Heroes - Trails in the Sky, but with zero RPG elements. There are other games with interesting stories, but this unique party atmosphere is not to be rivaled in any pure visual novels to come further.

The best Visual Novel of September 1997 is Comic Road - a shy life simulator of a starting manga artist with a lot of animation and very cute scenes. 1. Akuryou Gakuen Reiko 悪霊学園レイコ [970905] Trush Reiko Ashura, a young girl born in an ancient psychic family, challenges a strange case by making use of its special ability. Miserable incidents occur one after another at a prestigious girls' high school which are linked to a horrible mysterious occult circle secret. It's a les insulting eroge. The story is about going around the school and fighting youkai with the help of spiritual abilities. Picture looks rough and is not cute. There are 2 bad endings and 1 good ending and insult scenes are concentrated around bad endings. 2. Innai Kansen 淫内感染 [970905] ZyX 1 Akira Sakaguchi is a physician who has been appointed to a new Hospital. Rumors about his youth and skill spread fast among the nurses. One day Akira accidentally witnesses an improper behavior of his female colleague doctor after operation and can't forget that mysterious sight. The first bullet in Zyx famous immoral hospital franchise. There is an English review. 3. Winter Kiss ウインターキス [970905] Ucom You come to winter ski resort. That's a perfect place to find a girlfriend. There are 8 girls but selection is made on the very first day and then the story just goes automatically. There is full voice here. Besides that it's hardly noticeable. At least the system is ok. An obscure work like most of Ucom works. 4. Eberouge Special ~Koi to Mahou no Gakuen Seikatsu~ エーベルージュ スペシャル ～恋と魔法の学園生活～ [970905] Fujitsu 1 Main character is a 15-years old student who arrives at the magic school. He will meet different female teachers and classmates that he can date there provided that he has required skill levels. Prequel started in elementary school and was a borefest with rare events. Here events density is higher, but it's still a SIM in the first place. 5. Heart no Kakera ハートの破片 [970912] Excellents Masato Sakurai just entered high school. He starts to feel dissatisfaction with current life and starts club activity. What kind of girls can he meet? Command selection ADV. One way road with only number of CG depending on choices. At first four girls scenarios are available, then three more open up. The scenarios are short and unmemorable. Girls are not voiced and that's really bad. There is not enough romance or bonding or smth, more like a nanpa game. 6. Kyouen Etsuraku no Requiem 狂宴 悦楽のレクイエム [970912] Vector Yasuto Hirabayashi's grandfather died and left him a diary. There was written about the woman and the ring that he could not attain. How is it connected to the classmates that who decided to spend vacations in a mystery mansion? Multi-ending (six endings) command selection adventure. How to reach each ending in hinted in the help option. There are two heroines but neither can get a happy ending. Game has poor system. Quite a well known fabula since Beast series where a group of students break into pairs and explore the abandoned mansion. Wandering around the rooms takes majority of time. 7. Aethyr ~Tenshi no Ryouiki~ Aethyr～天使の領域～ [970925] Love Gun Ninomura Shinobu is a medical student who moves to "Rosellen Court" lodging with a lot of pretty girls around. He can't do anything with the ever-present administrator around, but there's a chance now as administrator goes to a trip. But Shinobu also suffers from nightmares that come every night... It's difficult to say what's reality and what's a dream in the game as those go alternatively same as sweet scenes and dark scenes. But the pattern is the same with every girl and repeating it over and over turns into torture. There are over 30 endings. Branching can be difficult to understand and it takes a lot of time to enter the true route. 8. Roommate ~Ryouko in Summer Vacation~ ROOMMATE～涼子 in Summer Vacation～ [970925] Datam Polystar 1 2 Roommate: Ryōko in Summer Vacation is the second game in the trilogy centering around Ryouko Inoue, your roommate for the time of the story. Ryouko just came from abroad and decided to use her summer vacation to return to Japan. Arriving hot and sweaty from the airport, she rings your door bell and after taking a quick shower tells you all about her trip abroad. For the time being, she'll be staying with you and be your roommate. There is an English review of this game. 9. Sound Novel Tsukuru 2 サウンドノベルツクール２ [970925] ASCII Corporation The sequel to Sound Novel Tsukuru for the Super Famicom. The engine for making interactive fiction is identical to its prequel but is more complex. More choices and opportunities for interaction are possible along with superior graphics and sound quality. Not sure if there pare premade stories there or not. 10. Be Happy! Koi Mau Gakuen BE HAPPY ! 恋舞う学園 [970926] Space Project Shoji Toki is preparing for high school entrance exam. One of the teachers invites him to a cram school to prepare for exams. Raising sim about study in the first part of the game. Examination is held by the series of quizzes. After you pass the exam, the second ADV part with map choice begins. Every heroine has her own ending. Difficulty is above average. Graphics is really meh and character design is not even remotely same cute as on the box. Just compare the winking girl in game with the same winking girl on the box... 11. CD Girls -Utahime-tachi no Koi Monogatari- CDgirls　－歌姫達の恋物語－ [970926] C's Ware A mediocre hero borrowed a CD from a friend with the title "CD Girls". The moment he pushed "play" a little girl jumped out from the CD. Time stops here with only old memories and old love wounds lingering in search of cure. Scenario is ridiculous and ending is abrupt. Choices can be severe as one wrong answer leads to event end. Game's very short. There's an H-event for each of 3 heroines in the end of their tiny routes. 12. Comic Road こみっくろーど [970926] Cocktail Soft 1 Comic Road is a "life simulation" game, starring a young girl (whom the player names themselves) who dreams of becoming a manga artist. In order to become successful, she has to do more than just draw well; it is important to develop other aspects of her personality, and also keep an eye on the finances, otherwise working too much might deteriorate her drawing skills. Social life, physical exercises, reading - everything has consequences! Manga training sim. Might be the only of this kind. Highly animated work (3 hours total!) during a period of 3 years. While other companies keep making weird raisig sims and clone dating sims, this is a sim about life with part-time work, skills training, occasional friends gatherings and doujinshi festivals. It may still seem monotonous, but that's basically life simulation, it can't be exciting. This game was largely overlooked at the time of issue, but I think it a very important work to doujin culture, probably same as Comic Party in 1999. 13. Kuroyagi ~Otome-tachi e Sasageru Serenade~ 黒山羊 ～仔羊たちへ捧げる小夜曲～ [970926] E.G.O. Late 19th century. In a certain place in Western Europe there was a famous house called the Yagi family. Lord Earl was an excellent person as its head. · · · However, one day the he disappeared. An incident occurred in which all members were found dead. The crime remained unsolved. 100 years have passed since then · · · A certain detective tried to bring the truth about this incident up without a request from anyone and vanished without a trace. His best friend is anxious to know about his whereabouts and he steps into the mansion as well. He seems to be a very ordinary journalist, but in reality he has a "witch" as his ancestor. It's a minor low-price work, but very atmospheric one. It's well depicted as detective gradually approaches the truth behind the incident. He travels in time three days before the incident and can witness its circumstances with his own eyes. Standing CG ruin this atmosphere to an extent. There are five heroines to clear overall. The pacing is generally good but development becomes too fast in the second half. I've tried it game is not voiced at all. There is no opening either. Character designs are mostly ugly, but CG much nicer. I see little interest in plot, it's merely a pretext to enter a house full of girls and see some dramatic resolution only by the end of 3rd day. 14. Metadoll Ai メタドールAI [970926] Petit 2026 AD. Amagi Shiro used to be metadoll robots fighting competition champion back in middle school. Then he abandoned it after his mother and his robot disappeared in the house fire of unknown origin. Now a year later he lives with father and he's returning in the competition on his new metadoll Ai. Game consists of first raising sim part where we aim for the champion title and then there is mystery adv where we investigate the tragic incident of the fire. Fights are very difficult, especially in the first part of the game, but losing does not seem to affect the flow and the ending. And the culprit of the incident is the evil organization and this ADV scenario is too short to matter. 15. Mujintou Monogatari X ~Gaiden~ 無人島物語X ～外伝～ [970926] Pinpai 1 The story behind Desert Island is that you and six other people (all girls) have been anesthetized and brought to an uninhabited island. You woke up from theanesthetic and found you and your sister is on an uninhabited island somewhere in the Pacific. You and your sister have no clue on how you two got on the island. However, you have soon found a radio inside a hut on the beach. From the radio, you are given the information that you and six other people have been transported to this island under the experiment called "J Project." The company conducting this experiment has informed you that you will have three-month to uncover the secret of J Project. From here on you will begin your exploration of the island to uncover the secret of J Project and gather up girls. After the main trilogy Desert island story started to adapt to the market. So after R story there was an inevitable X story. But instead of just adding H-events the gameplay was razed to a simpleton level. The game has an English review. 16. Onani -Peeping Boy- 自慰 -Peeping Boy- [970926] Candy Soft 1 You're a high school student who wants to gain some "experience" with girls in your class. And you do this by having conversations with them after school is over. There are five different girls you can talk to, although you can only approach one at a time. If your conversational efforts are successful, you get to see the girl play with herself before you join the fun. You won't believe it, but there is an English review of this game. 17. Kaitouranma 快刀乱麻 [970927] Imagineer Co., Ltd. 1 Japan in alternative history universe. Shinjuro may be a little young to be the master of a swordsmanship school, but fate didn't give him a choice. Now his position and martial arts skill land him in the middle of serious trouble when the rogue samurai Mikage faces off against the Tokugawa government, and Shinjuro and the small group of swordsmen who train at the school must now protect the town from harm. However, the group won't be challenged until the Tokugawa house calls in a favor, and the young swordsman is forced to duel Mikage himself. Game has an English Review

Kaeru nyo Panyon is the only masterpiece game of August 1997. 1. Bishoujo Hanafuda Kikou Michinoku Hitou Koimonogatari 美少女花札紀行 みちのく秘湯恋物語 [970807] FOG A romance adventure game where you go around the sightseeing spots in the Tohoku region, make photos of heroines and play cards with them. All backgrounds are live-action capture with detailed commentary on various places added. This game is regarded as the origin of travelling games. It's all in the synopsis. Game's more like a travel guide with girls being almost tour guides. 2. 48 ~Zukei no Koi~ 48 ～図形の恋～ [970808] 13cm 1 In 48, you are an artist in Tokugawa shogunate period. What you do for a living is draw women. One day, you got a job asking you to draw 48 pictures of different sex positions. There is an English review. 3. Mahou Shoujo Pretty Sammy ~Osorubeshi Shintai Sokutei! Kakubakuhatsu 5 Byou Mae!!~ 魔法少女プリティサミー　「恐るべし身体測定！　核爆発５秒前！！」 [970808] Interchannel Nuclear warheads were stolen. Find the culprit together with Sammy while enjoying school life! Digital comic. The story feels like usual 60 min OVA is stretched to 120 min length. There is one place by the end when wrong selection means bad end. Game is mostly about parody and... bloomers. 4. Mitsuryouku 密猟区 [970808] Zero The town is under attack of foreign nation soldiers. They gather the riches and violate women on their way. First Zero work has unusual setting. Game is mostly of insult content, but drawing is great and the use of guns is fresh. But it sold really well as people could only judge by cover that it looked like a dark atmosphere impactful story. 5. Panic-chan ぱにっくちゃん [970808] Imagineer Co., Ltd. Kengo works part-time at video shop. One day when the store manager asked him to create a leaflet for recruiting new workers , a pretty girl suddenly appeared on the screen. She jumped from the screen on the floor and introduced herself as Panic-chan. Both Kengo and the store manager monotonous lives will subject to many changes from now on. Game hardly reaches 2 hours length. Synopsis tells like 70% of the actual story. Its appeal points are cute girls, a lot of animation and a very cheap price. It's a low price fanservice work and should be treated this way. 6. In Days 2 淫DAYS（インディーズ）2 [970815] Lunar Soft A collection of 5 short stories: 1. ERISS re TALE 2. Country Study ～前編～ 3. Fondness 4. 火之神・水之神 5. ねこみみサーカス団 Just your usual 5 short erotic stories. 7. Tokiiro no Matsuei 朱鷺色の末裔 [970815] Palette (old) 1 Once upon a time the world was chaotic state. Those who had special abilities were born in chaos. Some of them helped human being, gave a guidance to people, and were revered as god. Others gave destructions and disasters, and were feared as devils. But what were born in chaos were not only god and devil, also Shinma, which had a figure of a god and a heart of a devil. And Shinma were feared as conductors of confusion. YamataNoOrochi,the king of Shinma, demanded sacrifices(maidens) from people, but was beaten by Susanoo. As a result Shinma were shut up under the ground, and lost their ability. However, Shinma is reviving now. There is an English review for this game. 8. Inma Daitoshi Beast City - Vampire Madonna Hen 淫魔大都市 BEAST CITY 【ヴァンパイアマドンナ編】 [970820] Toshiba EMI Year 201X, Tokyo underground world. At midnight in the secret club turn girls into toys with you own hands. What's known is that some anime H scenes are used, some are new ones. There seems to be built-in print function to preview and print the images acquired. 8. Koi no Summer Fantasy in Miyazaki Seagaia 恋のサマーファンタジー in 宮崎シーガイア [970822] Japan System Supply A visual novel in the vein of Tokimeki Memorial where the protagonist dates real life idol Okina Megumi. It's more a product for idol fans than a real galge. 9. Naisho ないしょ [970823] Guts! Peeping and eavesdropping after loli girls adventure. Gameplay is setting microphones and cameras in the rooms and then watching. There is some story attached, but story hardly matters here. 10. Kaeru nyo Panyon かえるにょ・ぱにょ～ん [970829] Alice Soft 1 2 3 4 A magician changes the prince of Parancho into a weird creature while he is on an errand in a distant land. Since his new form isn't very strong he has to entrust his life to a group of adventurers to get back home safely. Game is localized and has some English reviews. 11. Sweet Heart すいーと はーと [970829] Media Saurus Main character is left alone at home during the festivities. He needs to spend these nine days alone. But should he really be alone? It's a great opportunity to find a girlfriend. Game feels ok, but unremarkable as a galge. 12. revEnge Aoki Ketsuzoku no Fukushuu revEnge 青き血族の復讐 [970830] Xyz 1 The main character Ryo seeks training from the beautiful Miyu to become an assassin, in order to get revenge on the criminal syndicate that is responsible for the murder of his younger sister. He will also need to take some of the female members of the syndicate hostage... There is an English review.

There are no masterpieces this month. Main candidates are Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 1: Nijiiro no Seishun and Shinseiki Evangelion Koutetsu no Girlfriend, but the latter one has little in the story department, it's more of a bakage for fans, so my choice is Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 1: Nijiiro no Seishun that was a very fresh game with those mini-games incorporated. It's only shortcoming is not sufficient length, but overall it's a very good quality product 1. Nao なお [970701] Bell-Da 1 Meet a girl named Nao, play hide-and-seek with her on school grounds and you may be rewarded as a result. There is an English review. 2. Daisuki だいすき [970704] Success Military school in the near future. We need to train the best pilots from these rookie girls. There are lots of stats, some are given from start from traits, the others are trained. There are as many as 99 certificates overall. Need to take basic sciences for the first year and then specialize. Saving is allowed only at the end of the term. There are lots of funny minigames that are used as a training means. Overall a very complicated game without much satisfaction for the torture. 3. Graffiti [970704] Petit Hiroki Takasugi parents were relocated and started to live with an incomprehensible sister. He did not want want to move and his mother said he could stay at old place if he has a person he loves. Now it's time to find one and do it fast till the end of February. Game feels like Memories Refrain and even shares some locations with it. There are three parts of the day and you need to move around the school and trigger events. There are only two months from 6 January to 22 February available for action. Graphics are somewhat obsolete already, but voice actors richness make up for it. 12 girls overall. Each girl has a mood and there are some tricky conditions to fulfill, so difficulty is above average. Well, time for triggers is generously depicted in the manual. 4. Wakusei Kougekitai Little Cats 惑星攻機隊りとるキャッツ [970704] Family Soft 1 The galaxy is threatened by robotic enemies from a remote space. In order to stop them, giant combat robots were deployed to a space station under the command of Colonel Goofy Reagan. The combat robots are navigated by the best pilots, which happen to be cute teenage girls. Since the Colonel is very busy, he needs somebody to watch over the girls and train them. This somebody would be Major David Lowe, the protagonist of the game... A raising sim, basically. You rise stats and then can fight in open space. Lots of minigames are used for training. So, another weird SIM mix with quite strange space fight mechanics. 5. First Step! ファーストステップ! [970710] Bunny Pro. A high school with separate teaching of boys and girls with the border along a tall wall. One day and explosion occurs and it suddenly becomes a co-ed school. What kind of school life will they enjoy? There are many heroines, each with its own ending. But the game feels empty with few events and over half of H-scenes are dedicated to peeing. Gameplay-wise it's simillar to Graffiti from Petit, but with longer period and much fewer events. It has problem with scenes switch and text speed. A boring long game with poor usability. 6. Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 1: Nijiiro no Seishun ときめきメモリアルドラマシリーズ Vol.1 虹色の青春 [970710] Konami 1 2 3 4 The story behind the game is about a transfer student (that would be you) who joins a soccer team. He encounters this girl who laters turns out to be the manager of the soccer team. Her name is Saki Nijino. It seemed that everything to be going fine when all of a sudden, the coach picks the starters for the team. You got very confident in yourself that you thought he would pick you. Yet, the coach only saw you as a beginner and you were not picked to be one of the starters. This begins your relationship with Saki Nijino and also you start to get to know her friend, the first year manager (she is a new character but i don't know how to pronounce her name). Your relationship grows and grows with Saki because you train yourself infront of your house everynight with her helping you out. Game has English reviews. 7. Chaos Queen Ryouko Story #1 Ninomiya Mii Hen カオスQUEEN遼子 STORY#1 二宮美依編 [970711] Scoop 1 Ryouko always bullied her sister Misuzu, but now Misuzu got married and Ryouko has become the counselor of love problems to bully a much wider range of pretty girls. The series have lots of H content, but are also presented in a humorous manner in this bakage. Introduction and patient harassment is presented in the first story. 8. Queen of Darkside [970711] Harvest This game is a visual novel where all you can do is read and enjoy the pictures. The story is horror mixed with H. It deals with black magicians, a sad queen, the dark history of a mansion and our hero the bounty hunter. There is also a bit of love in there too. A kinetic novel with nothing to do but click mouse. Scenario is flat and without any surprise. Text is bad and can take several screens to finish one sentence, so readability is hindered. There is no dialogue and the story is told by the narrator which results in lack of excitement. 9. Rabid Helix [970711] Aaru 1 In this game, you are the medic of a corporate security team in some sci-fi setting sent to investigate a long-abandoned reserach installation owned by the company's predecessor. Similiar to the lieutentant of the Colonial Marines in Aliens, you sit behind a bank of monitors and observe your teammates' status as they investigate the interior of this compound. And like Aliens, something nasty is waiting for them inside. There is an English review. 10. Shinseiki Evangelion Koutetsu no Girlfriend 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン鋼鉄のガールフレンド [970711] Gainax 1 2 3 4 5 6 A shy female character, Mana Kirishima, starts at Shinji Ikari's school and immediately admits to finding him cute. Gradually, a relationship unfolds and they end up going on a date. It turns out, however, that she is one of three test pilots for the TRIDENT units, a new competitor to the Evangelions, similar to Jet Alone; thus the name Girlfriend of Steel. Game is localized and has many English reviews. 11. Chou Tennentai 超天然隊 [970714] PNC In a rich private high school an incident of shaving girl's private hair occurred. Members of the Student Council started an investigation of the incident. One of the first software pieces for with women as target audience after Angelique (+Special 2) and Albarea no Otome. But previous games were of pure romance princes and princesses atmosphere. This one is on the other hand has an ordinary school as stage and lots of H content. Contents-wise it has nothing to do with any serious investigation. The aim is to raise favorability level. You may choose any of the four council members and raise love level with any remaining one. In that way yaoi and les pairs are available as well. Graphics are very mediocre. So what we got is an epochal game that can be considered the ancestor of all yuri, yaoi and otome eroge. 12. Hana no Kioku Dai 3 Shou 花の記憶 第3章 [970718] Foster Collection of five short erotic stories. 1. 3P with SM 2. Date with a girlfriend ending up 3P with sister 3. Schoolgirl insult in the back alley on the way back from school. 4. Date resulting in master-slave relations due to meeting a SM lady 5. Gokkon date turning into orgy As usual stories are short and no time is wasted on useless plots. 13. Pocket Love ポケットラブ [970718] KID Hero's love interest is in the higher grade class. This year he gets in the same class with his childhood friend and she piques his interest a lot as well. He is not confident in his abilities, but this year he wants to find his love. Hopefully by Christmas ... This is the first dating sim for gameboy. There are stats and there is concept of money. So most of the time you raise stats and events happen if you meet the prerequisite. There are seven heroines altogether. Somehow despite just 4 gradations of color, characters are cute and mechanics are good enough enjoy this game while outdoors. 14. Yuukyuu Gensoukyoku 悠久幻想曲 [970718] MediaWorks 1 Enfield, a country revived 50 years after a tragic war. Our protagonist works in a general shop owned by a widow called Arisa, who helped him when he was lost. After Arisa has to pay a great fee to free the hero from prison for a crime he didn't commit, our hero will have two problems to solve: how will he pay back Arisa? And who's the real criminal? Maybe he'll find the answers by becoming part of the town... So the hero has ten friends and in the beginning of each week you set three of them to work at some place. In order to raise favorability rating on friends talking is used. Heroine specific ending is achieved by choosing the right answer in four themed events. Game is different from most of galge because you aim for friendship, not for romance. On weekends there are different activities as well and you can train magical and physical skills. There is also some battle element included since you can participate in very easy Colosseum matches, but it's optional, just to earn money. So it's a very strange mix of RPG and dating sims. I can not understand the meaning of this game series. Why set an epic fantasy setting and strip it off all the adventures, epicness while filling it with routine and nothing but encouraging friendly talks. 14. Yuukyuu Gensoukyoku 悠久幻想曲 [970718] MediaWorks 1 Enfield, a country revived 50 years after a tragic war. Our protagonist works in a general shop owned by a widow called Arisa, who helped him when he was lost. After Arisa has to pay a great fee to free the hero from prison for a crime he didn't commit, our hero will have two problems to solve: how will he pay back Arisa? And who's the real criminal? Maybe he'll find the answers by becoming part of the town... So the hero has ten friends and in the beginning of each week you set three of them to work at some place. In order to raise favorability rating on friends talking is used. Heroine specific ending is achieved by choosing the right answer in four themed events. Game is different from most of galge because you aim for friendship, not for romance. On weekends there are different activities as well and you can train magical and physical skills. There is also some battle element included since you can participate in very easy Colosseum matches, but it's optional, just to earn money. So it's a very strange mix of RPG and dating sims. I can not understand the meaning of this game series. Why set an epic fantasy setting and strip it off all the adventures, epicness while filling it with routine and nothing but encouraging friendly talks. 15. For You [970725] Bell-Da In a small town there is a shop that has a lot of girls' favorite things. Very pretty girls are working in the shop and waiting for presents. What kinds of gifts are good for girls? If you find girl's favorite item, she can be very grateful. Player needs to investigate what type of presents girls want and bring them some. There is a limit of 6 items to buy overall, so bruteforcing by trying it all is difficult. Game's fully voiced. 16. Hoshi no Nai Machi ~Shoujo-tachi no Yoake~ 星のない街 ～少女達の夜明け～ [970725] Poison Breath Hero is a detective who accepts a case, but starts to feel sympathy towards the client. Ero-centered work, of course, but to such an extent that the given case even stays unsolved! A truly unique case of ignorance for the story. 17. Kotori no Hane Kazari 小鳥の羽飾り [970725] Studio B-Room Studio B-Room fandisc that includes among others: 1. CD drama 2. Aisha drink poker game 3. Love-love game 4. Bonus voice recording 5. Wallpapers 6. Up-Up action game Wallpaper, drama CD, poker etc. There is no story, it's not a VN. 18. Onii-chan e お兄ちゃんへ [970725] Guilty Main here is an illustrator in Tokyo. One day he receives a telegram saying "Little sister is coming home." He was the eldest son, but he fled to Tokyo to escape rural life. Now he returns to the family house and many things have changed for the worse. Mystery suspense adventure, or that what it's called by developers. Mysterious atmosphere is depicted well, but there's little of suspense here. The abandoned family members are on the verge of craziness. There is dark atmosphere everywhere and dark instincts prevail. There are multiple endings here, but the "good" ending is hardly any different from the bad endings as it does not solve any problems and hero is still being sucked into whirlpool of dark emotions. System is still command selection, probably to pump up volume. Due to such system it's really difficult to cover all endings without a guide. Only 5 save slots don't not help either. There is no fast skip function so reaching other endings is even more painful. So a pretty depressive rural story with a lot of dark motives. 19. Pretty Cat ~Lily and Kyle no Daibouken~ ぷりてぃ きゃっと ～リリィとカイルの大冒険～ [970725] Aquarium A mysterious world inhabited only by beast people. Kyle is beaten and robbed on a road by a group of rat-people. Lily finds him on the road and leads him to her village. Graphics poor, voicing only partial. Story is elusive and not being focused on. There just no good points. 20. Tonari no Princess Rolfee となりのプリンセスRolfee [970725] NEC Home Electronics 1 2 The official mascot of the PC-FX console is now the star of her own game. Rolfee is a princess of a magical land which is threatened by demons. So Rolfee and her family - including a cute little animal called Nyai - move to Japan. Rolfee has to go to high school, and she hopes to study well and make friends. Will she have success in the school? Will she be liked by her classmates? Will she not quarrel too much with her family? It all depends on the player! Dating sim with Rolfee stats depending on main character actions. You mostly only choose maps and some events are totally random and those events can even force some ending. At some point Dark Demon appears and command selection battle begins. There are three endings overall. Rolfee is PC FX mascot character, so no need to pretend - game is made to ship it with lots of side goodies. So Rolfee fans were happy. 21. Virtua Call 3 バーチャコール3 [970725] Fairytale 1 Yoichi Asami was about to have another cold lonely summer vacation. One day he encounters a girl by chance and receives from her a cartridge called "Virtual Call" with which one can access a two-side videophone service. What kind relationship will he find there? Synopsis is the same as part 2. The number of girls increased, but the impression of each character became thin. In order to open closed girls, need to clear the available six girls which gets really repetitive. Some characters were unable to clear which felt bad. It's quite a worthy franchise continuation still. 22. Yakusoku やくそく [970725] May-Be Soft 1 Sayama Yuichi is a college student who is being followed by mifortune. He lost parents in an accident and lost memory. However, his life changes completely with the appearance of girls of several girls in his life. Time has come to fulfill the old "promise" given before memory loss. But what was that promise? It's an ADV with location choice. As a story it has very little to offer with one way road scenario and no satisfactory answers gained. Ending depends on your actions. Text, characters, story - everything is done loosely. So with the amount of H-scenes in the game, it's definitely an eroge, camouflaged for a story game. Well, at least old-school type released to PC-98 simultaneously, not another pure love moe stuff. 23. Chikai no Essence 誓いのESSENCE [970731] Black Package Here is the president and teacher of a prestigious girl academy with over a century of history. Both his father and grandfather found their love inside these walls. What students will arrive this year? As you were returning from a walk... "Nice to meet you, dear brother! I arrived one day earlier." My intuition tells me: "This year will be a different year." "We have not met for a long time, Arlise... I shall be your teacher." Raising sim about teaching. There are 4 girls at start and two more join since the middle. Stats are raised by giving herbs. Herbs can be grown in the garden or it's possible to hire a butler later for that and pay him a salary. Game takes the title from one of the herbs name. Length is too short to see the depth in the heroines or the protagonist. Sound is also missing at times. Game has a good aura, but feels incomplete. 24. Hatsukoi Valentine 初恋ばれんたいん [970731] Family Soft 1 Love training simulation to enjoy high school life during a period of two years with childhood friends and new acquaintances, even a female teacher. Game features a unique system of leaving letters in the shoebox. Game is memorable because you have to wait for quite a long time for a day to pass, takes about 20 seconds. Now take in mind that you need to pass two years... yeah. There are 24 date places, but reactions to those places are absolutely the same from girls. It has many other drawbacks like endless torture of stats growth as they fall down by 1 after each rest. Even letters system works in weird ways like you get short status answers and how would want that in response to a love letter? Girls are fine, but system kills gameplay completely, even with the use of guide. 25. Kusuriyubi no Kyoukasho 2 くすり指の教科書2 [970731] Active It's a new school year for our guy. He is feeling a bit down since he doesn't have a girlfriend. He met a guy(main guy from #1?) who soon became his friend. He has to invite a girl to their new lunch club. Which of 5 girls will he pick? After that, there is summer and winter loving to enjoy. Game was quite popular with over 10 Japanese reviews available. First of all, it's fully voiced and has an amazing opening with a song. Girls are mostly cute. Prequel was warmly embraced. Two scenarios are prepared for each heroine and almost all scenarios have a love triangle in them which is usually a good base for the story. Many scenarios underline girl's tragic past and require to share her pain. There is no such freedom as in first work, but all the scenarios are of good quality and not abandoned midway. 26. Mio & Miho みお＆みほ [970731] Bell-Da 1 You click on "hot spots" on the screen, and get a response of some sort from either Mio or Miho, or both. It's not a visual novel. There's no text, just useless macromedia flash. 27. Stalker 追跡者～ストーカー～ [970731] Nikukyuu 1 This is a stalker game. Your target is a high school girl, Megumi (and all other females around her). There is an English review. 28. My Dream ~On Air ga Matenakute~ My Dream ～On Airが待てなくて～ [970731] Nihon Create 1 2 My Dream is an simulation game focusing on the world of voice-actors. There are eight different heroines in the game, and each has been voiced by three different actresses. Voice actress for each heroine can be set up at the beginning of a new game, right after entering the player's name. The game doesn't feature default name for the player, and other characters will address you by the name you enter (both Japanese and Latin letters are available during name creation). The player focuses on a single heroine and by setting up a weekly schedule for her, the game advances as a visual novel with selectable dialogue and action choices at certain locations and during certain conversations. The weekly schedule is set by selecting locations on the map you wish to visit, one location per day. Different location offer different actions and participation in various events and meeting and talking to other characters. Each heroine has a default set of attributes which change over time, such as physical strength, self-confidence, stress, speaking skill, and other. During gameplay, static character images with mild animations such as talking, are glued over blurred real-life photos which are used as backgrounds. And another SIM.

So far I can remember only one Windows game that ITH could not handle - that was "Interlude" . It's time to create ITH wiki with only couple of dozens of entries in it.

I'm already astonished by the number of fan doujin works One ~To the Radiant Season~ produced (at least three!) and it's probably the first work to spawn fan doujin games at all - already watching a playthrough of it. Kanon has a power to change people - can't say it was for the good in my case, but it has such power. As for To Heart, this work is revolutionary because it's the first traditional moege. There is nothing like that in 1997 and for a good part of 1998. This work came ahead of the trend and stands out lonely for a long time. The closest thing to that was Kakyuusei, but it's a different genre and it has other love interests than cute little girls. In most of romance stories only imouto or childhood friend might be cute moe girl, but other girls were much more mature. To Heart has 10 heroines and all of them are cute moe girls in a lot of moe situations. It's a solid statement to the future that moe is not an occasional sidekick, but mainstream.

We get only Zoku Hatsukoi Monogatari ~Shuugaku Ryokou~ as masterpiece in June. 1. Bunkasai 2 Ayanokouji no Gyakushuu 文化祭2 綾小路の逆襲 [970606] Ucom Main character is a very popular student at school. Classmate girls seek his attention, teachers and nurse invite him to discuss important matters. At this cultural festival all opportunities are open for him. What will he do? Did not find anything interesting in this game. It's not hookable and runs only at Win95, but at least is voiced. H events break out right at school in the first 10 minutes of the game, so it's more of a ero-centered game with a good dozen of girls. 2. Kaseifu 奴隷婦～かせいふ～ [970606] Interheart Our girl is a maid for hire. Since her motto is "I will do anything", most of her jobs go a bit out of hand. Which of 6 clients(4 male and 2 female) will she work for? This game is full voice and you see text only during choice selections. Another forgotten old Interheart nukige. 3. Zoku Hatsukoi Monogatari ~Shuugaku Ryokou~ 続初恋物語~修学旅行~ [970606] Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co. 1 2 Zoku Hatsukoi Monogatari: Shūgaku Ryokō is a mixture of adventure and "love simulation" - more specifically, first love. The player takes the role of a male student and can choose any time period between ground school to college. Every time period has four different girls that the hero can fall in love with. The player must choose one of those girls as the main love object. The setting is the same in every time period: the class goes on vacation to different places in Japan. Most of the game consists of traveling from place to place, trying to be at the right place the right time and make the right decision. The player must assemble a schedule for each location. It is possible to manage the player character's finances, as well as buy items that can be given to the girls. There are four school periods with three heroines in each there's also one childhood friend Yuuka true heroine route that opens up after clearing all four school periods four routes. Incorporated elements of raising sim provide quite some routine that needs to be overcome if willing to get to the end. Evaluation can vary from kusoge to masterpiece depending on ability to endure this routine. Good luck experiencing pure first love for five times in a row! 4. Kakutou Cosplay Ojanko 格闘コスプレお雀娘 [970606] Ice Soft A strip mahjong game with cute girls in cosplay outfits. There are six contestant available from the start, but become the strongest player - and more hidden characters will show up. Card game 5. Hatsujousei 発情生 [970612] Vision This is a legend of one summer night where girls wander around the town and look for men as if possessed. It's an insulting work with emphasis on SM and scatology. It's interesting that text is used only in dialogues - the rest of interaction is done with clicking and getting some sound as a result. Length is very small as there's nothing more than getting to each girl and seeing events. 6. Card カード [970613] Ange Hero has a tarot fortune-telling business with another girl Yusa Hikaru as his partner and one day he gets in a road crash on his bike. He regains consciousness in a hospital room and his nurse is a junior high school student Saki Koizumi. How will he develop this triangular relationship? Command expression pure love story. There are no bad endings. Overall there are nine girls present. 7. Diabolic lune Megami Souzou ディアボリックルーン 女神創造 [970613] Logg Main character Fourier is invited to the royal court to train princess in the art of love. There are a lot of icons in the game, but actually they only symbolize rooms to visit. In the training mode there are icons of various instruments. There aren't parameters of the princess and we can only grasp her state by listening to the castle staff. Quite a strange and undocumented game, but characters are nice and are voiced. 8. Houkago Mania Club -Koi no Hoshii no- 放課後マニア倶楽部―濃いの欲しいの― [970613] Libido This game is similar to After School Love Club, it even has the same 12 girls and 3 guys. The main guy this time is one of the girl's brother. Instead of a lover, he wants a pet. He gets that by getting friendly with a girl then take advantage of her weakness for abnormal fun. Game was indeed shocking since everyone remembered the first sweet romance love game. So this time the system is the same and even the girls are the same, but it's a very hardcore insulting work... and the first game can never be seen in the same light again. 9. May Club 2 五月倶楽部2 [970613] Desire Keisuke May is the son of May club president. His father requested that Keisuke found a lifetime companion at the May club as an advertisement for business. However, if Keisuke does not appear at class for long, he is going to be expelled from school. Now he has to balance study and companion search. This time dating is not limited to virtual reality, but also happens in real world. 45 days is given. Movement is done with huge latency. Sound breaks often and text balance is distorted so that text almost jumps out of the box. 10. Meguri Ai めぐり逢い [970613] Art Soft Hero won a luxury cruise ship two weeks tour. He gets to know that his first love who he promised to marry Moriyama Yui also goes on the same trip. Whether to ignite his old feelings or enjoy new acquaintances is up to him to decide. There are 7 girls overall for capture. There three times of the day when we can choose to visit some girls rooms. The purpose is to confess to some girl by the end of the trip. 11. Yuugekitai ~Saikyou Kami Fukkatsu Yuki Kan~ 遊撃隊 ～最強神復活之巻～ [970613] TKO Soft A group of archaeologists discover a sealed tomb and summon a master of ancient Jomon black magic to remove the seal. Ancient god leaves the tomb this way. Yuugekitai as a bad of high school students. They investigate suspicious behavior of transfer student Arai only to find out that he's connected with the resurrection of an old god. A bakage with a band of all kind of weird characters. There are lots of CG here and fighting is done in real time (even though winning not required). It was difficult for me to enjoy the game visuals and jokes. 12. Ami ~Shoushin no Tenshi~ 亜美 ～傷心の天使～ [970613] Fairy Dust Ami got involved in entertainment business and thus got separated from her brother-in-love. Her heart is filled with sadness, so her two female friends suggest going to a summer resort to heal the damage. A sentimental adventure from the viewpoint of three different girls begins now. There's not much left for the game. There's good directorship, voicing and animations, but it's more of a show for fans now. 13. Digital Ange ~Dennou Tenshi SS~ デジタルアンジュ ～電脳天使SS～ [970620] Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co. Is it difficult to be kind to people? Do you believe that love is stronger than weapons? The end of the world grows near. Whether it can be saved or not depends on the answers to these questions. There are seven questions asked at the beginning of the game, and endings depend largely on the answers. Basically, we gather girls and approach the mystery of the end of the world. 14. Ai ga Mie Hajimetara 愛が見えはじめたら [970627] C's Ware 1 Includes the three short stories: Vice, B.B., Kyouto Ren'ai Bojou (京都恋愛慕情). 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! I've prepared a full review. 15. Akiko Hard Akiko Hard The Third Impact [970627] Red Zone Akiko is a special agent who arrives to a suspicious school as a new teacher to investigate rumors about its dark secrets. It's just an ero-centered story again, but this time with more sophisticated gameplay - if you just wonder around the school without triggering the required scenes it just forces game over on you very soon. 16. Albaria no Otome アルバレアの乙女 [970627] Gimmick House 1 2 The protagonist is chosen as a candidate to become the next Sacred Maiden that helps protect the Albaria Kingdom. She must train herself up and serve the country along with the five holy knights. There's a french review. Might be more, but I never looked into otome resources. 17. Funny Honey ファニーハニー [970627] J-Box This is a dating simulation game with three girls as possible lovers. But winning a girl's sympathy is not the end. The real emotional drama only starts from here. Dating SIM is a no at once for me. 18. Ryuuki Denshou 2 竜機伝承2 [970627] KSS Inc. Hundreds of years ago the Elven king clashed human nations among themselves to fasten humanity destruction. The silver swordsman and three sacred maidens opposed the Elven king and sacrificed their lives to seal his power. With time the memories of those events disappeared from human memory. Fifty years ago started a continuous dispute between "Leon" and "Karonagu" kingdoms resulted in large losses due to use of heavy steel dragons technology. Eventually the two countries signed an armistice and peace treaty. Today's stable situation bears the fuse for a new crisis... Cecil Granaglana is a mercenary who is sent with a unit as a part of investigation team. RPG that's hardly known in Japan, but was really popular in China.

To Heart is the only masterpiece of May 1997 1. Chiyomi-chan for Me ~Kateikyoushi Seikyouiku Hen~ ちよみちゃん for Me ～家庭教師 性教育編～ [970502] Ume Soft What a lucky guy, he has a beautiful girl to help him study for his exams. She even accepts him when he ask her to be his girlfriend. From then on, it's study and fun times. He will be happy, if he doesn't get distracted by his classmate or the ghost of his first love. Girl is a tutor, but actual studying ends pretty soon. Game is of ero-centered nature and has only very short impressions. 2. Kidou Senkan Nadesico ~Yappari Saigo wa "Ai ga Katsu" ?~ 機動戦艦ナデシコ　～やっぱり最後は「愛が勝つ」？～ [970502] Sega It is a dating sim with players taking the role of Akito Tenkawa and attempting to build relationships with the female crew members, although there are a few mecha elements included. One more anime offspring. The crew counts 10 members. There are 8 chapters each containing an adventure part with target character emotional scenes and the battle part where you repetitively push one button for the win. What's interesting - if you distract attention in favor of some different girl, the target girl's favorability drops. Anyway, mediocre Saturn exclusive for anime fans. 3. Kojiin ~Kyouki no Ketsuzoku~ 孤児院 ～狂喜の血族～ [970504] K-JOYNT A dancer girl loses parents, but retains hope while living in the orphanage. Foster parents greet her with joy, but soon she learns the pain and torture in the basement. Girls are trained into slaves here, and her dark humiliation path only starts now. Some crappy h-tilt doujin 3. Akazu no Ma あかずの間 [970509] Visit 1 The story (written by Yoshikazu Takeuchi) is a futuristic one, taking place in a near future where the player's character arrives a a building tower in a helicopter and as soon as he arrives there strange things start to happening (he listen to girl screams, strange noises, etc.). Another sound novel without a single person and about just wondering around the building. As usual, more about senses than a story. 4. Ice Cream アイスクリーム [970509] h.m.p Come to the lively Shibuya area in Tokyo and get yourself a girlfriend! There are multiple nanpa techniques available to reach the goal. Nanpa games are boring. 5. Kuento ~Wasureenu Hibi ni~ クエント ～忘れ得ぬ日々に～ [970509] Excellents Collection of three stories. The first story is about girl Ai and her difficult life with the stepfather told from different perspectives. All stories seem to have zapping perspectives. Since game only launches on WinME and lower, it's not hookable and I only glanced at other two stories without trying to understand anything. But the first story plot moves like this - Ai quarrels with father, then they hug, then get close. Next Ai past is shown up to the moment she got violated by a guy (and whom she might have killed afterwards). Her female friend that features on the cover listens to this story, gets moved by it and both girls make love, the end. 6. In'yoku no Meikyuu 淫欲の迷宮 [970516] Motion In this adult hentai visual novel, you must defeat the devil in order to save a certain doctor's world. It has some 3D dungeon exploration such in Ultima. When you encounter enemy events, an animation is played. Kusoge. 3D dungeon exploration. Much of exploration and H events are animated. 7. Photo Genic フォトジェニック [970516] Sunsoft In Photo Genic the player controls a young boy that got a job as a photographer. The main goal of the game is to improve the boy stats and photograph skills to make him win the heart of one of the girls of the town. During the game the player makes decisions about what his character will do each week (gymnastics, study, take another job, etc) to improve his stats. He also can walk around the town to talk to the people and the girls, the more in touch that he is with them the more possibilities to take a better photograph and date them. After taking the photographs the player can view them in the photo gallery. There are three girls of interest. This work is interesting because it has SIM part as photographer and ADV part of wandering around the town and event scenes. Graphics of this game is really impressive with a lot of bright CG. Cute, but nothing else. 8. Dousei 同棲 [970523] Tactics 1 2 Dōsei is a social and sexual simulation game that focuses on the life of a young Japanese couple. Masaki Yamada and Manami Minase start living together shortly after having graduated from high school. Most of the game is dedicated to the depiction of their everyday life at home, of which the majority explicitly describes their sexual relationship. That's our first Tactics (Key) game. Drawing is very similar to next "One" game. Game has an English review. 9. Fukushuu 復讐 [970523] Crowd 1 You are a high school student and were embarrassed in front of the class by 4 girls TWICE, each time it was involved with another girl. Now you decide it's time for getting your revenge and you have to choose a partner for additional help.. There is an English review. 10. Inshin Miko 淫心魅娘 [970523] T2 Co., Ltd. During a date in an amusement park hero gets "demon soul" attached to his chest. The girl who did it is a foreign priestess and queen candidate. She asks hero to eliminate other candidates by depriving them from virginity. "Demon soul" attached to the chest slowly eats the soul and there's no other choice but cooperate. Multiple branches and endings story. It's nice that there are quite many variants of story development and it's not necessary just to capture other priesteses. Capture is difficult as branching is not too evident and the ending depends on both whether to H different girls or not and in which priority to capture them. 11. Nouryokusha 脳力者 [970523] MBS Truth Our guy got hit by a baseball in a park on his way home. This awaken his special mental powers. His power has 4 targets. They are his childhood girl, teacher, school badgirl, and adopted sister. Since he can see into their heart and can control them, he has his way with them. If he only go after the one he loves, she might save him when the time comes. The main part of this game is nasty, but the happy endings are very sweet. Content is pretty dark and insulting, but character design is good enough to struggle to the happy ending. Story develops fast, so it's possible to see it all in an hour's time. 12. Ryuuteki Gosennen ~Dragons of China~ 龍的五千年 ～Dragons of China～ [970523] Imagineer Co., Ltd. China, 2099 AD. During the construction of a new Olympics stadium, the ruin were found at the basement. The construction machinery damaged the sealed pot and a black dragon appeared from it with a thunder and flew away. He appeared in Tokyo and destroyed it to the ground and the next day the world was hit by multiple natural disasters bringing the humanity to the brink of extinction. At the global academic conference of ancient ruins it was decided to acquire the power of a good dragon in order to deal with the evil dragon. You are Ken, the participant of that conference and you hurry to find the good dragon of China. Command selection adventure with occasional battles during movement. It's not a serious ADV game, more like and entertainment game for pupils to have fun with battles. Game also features very unusual character design. 13. Seiki ~Ryoujoku no Kamen~ 性鬼 ～陵辱の仮面～ [970523] Outlaw The protagonist is a high school student that one day finds a magical mask that turns the wearer into a serial rapist, and uses his newly gained powers to score with several of his classmates. Reverse bullying sick game. The only good thing is that there are several scenarios. System is especially bad as messages tend to skip and often first choice is selected despite your decision. 14. To Heart [970523] Leaf 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 In this game, you play as Fujita Hiroyuki, a high-school student who seems to have more interest in romance than in his studies. In his school there are several pretty girls, and his goal is to be nice to one of them, to make the right decisions when talking to her, and ultimately to win her heart. There are English reviews of this game. 15. Nyo-Manji 女卍 [970529] iMAGE CLUB Tokyo a century ago. Private detective Kudo Mauna is a famous expert in paranormal activities. Together with the legendary witchcraft "Masashi" user high school girl Ririmori Komori they accept a case request. One woman starts to feel abnormal activity inside her body. But the incident turns in an unexpected direction. The only review I found says the hero eradicates something strange. Obscure ero-centered work. 16. Youjo Ranbu 2 妖女乱舞2 [970529] Zone 1 Your mother, on her last breath, reveals the secret of your identity. After that, you, the hero of the story, travels around the world as a mercenary to find more about where you came from, and as you perform more tasks you find out more about yourself. There is an English review. 17. Hi School Jam Hiすく～るJam [970530] Jam 1 You start off as a second year student of the school and you are on the student's council as well. Your goal is to be elected as the next student council's president at game end when the seniors graduate. There is a good English review for this game. 18. Shuukan From H 週刊フロムＨ [970530] JAST Atsushi, the son of a very rich man, returns from abroad to his hometown. After getting some quarrel, his father cancelled giving him money and now Atsushi has to find any temporary work around the whole city. You as Atsushi try various jobs – from stadium to the hospital or the news agency. There are also plenty of pretty girls around the city and you make attempts to get them known better and maybe even eventually date with one of them. ADV with location choice on the map. Each week you try a new job and there's a new girl at each job. It's a light work with a comedy touch.

Foreword: I've noted the series quite long ago, but only when approached 4th final work decided to play the prequel that's directly connected with 4th part. Review of Canaan is coming a bit later. Title: Gao Gao! 3rd ~Wild Force~ Developer: Four-Nine Date: 1994-10-29 VNDB link:https://vndb.org/v8696 Synopsis: Wild Force is set in the same post-apocalyptic world as the previous entry in the GaoGao series. A virus turned most of the Earth's population into mutants, and human beings continued living in artificial cities, separated from the rest of the world. This time, the story is seen from the point of view of the mutants themselves (the previous GaoGao games had human protagonists). These look more like fairy tale creatures (half-cats, winged people, etc.), and continue living on the wild, dangerous Earth, keeping close to their respective animal tribes. The protagonist of the game is a young boy named Wolf, who belongs - you've guessed it - to the wolf tribe. One day, exploring the wilderness, he stumbles upon a strange cave with lurking monsters. Together with a girl from the rabbit tribe and other fantasy creatures, Wolf discovers an advanced civilization, learn of the existence of human beings, and eventually becomes a hero who saves the new world from a grave danger. Structure: One route with 8 chapters. Length: 15 hours Game type: Command selection adventure Difficulty: Easy. Scene advances after brute-forcing all the commands in all available locations. Character Design rating: 8/10 Protagonist rating: 9/10 Story rating: 9/10 Game quality: 9/10 Overall rating: 9/10 Rating comments: I'd give it a perfect score, personally. But what keeps me from it is painful command selection brute forcing. Game is really long itself and did not need such extra longevity layer. Another minus is interactive H-scenes that can't be skipped and that take really much time with that painful scrolling up and down. Characters are cute and memorable, but in H-events they often have distorted faces, that's a bit unpleasant. Oh well, and since the game is for pc-98 only, it has only midi for sound. Otherwise, a perfect game with a perfect story. Protagonist: Wolf boy Urfy. He admits that he's given the name just after his tribe name, so if English version existed, he'd probably be called Wolfy instead. He has face. He is rational, skillful in sword art, supportive, tries to cheer up companions even in difficult situations. And he tolerated that Rabby tsundere bunny girl (she's named Rabby after the rabbit tribe...) the whole game absorbing all her hysteria. He never imposed himself with women (with one small exception during interrogation). He's the perfect guy. He is really unusual and he leads the story without being pushed by circumstances. Characters: There are really many characters in this game, so let's just present our most frequently met party members and enemies. First enemies. Enemies are rather cool. You would not believe it, but there was just one enemy that was bitter alienated and the others had their own reasons and could be debated with words, not swords. Allies are even more developed, of course. First we have baka twins Leona and Dora. They move usually as a separate unit and we constantly stumble upon them wherever we go. In the right upper corner is our acquaintance throughout the whole game - Rabby. She is total tsundere, blushing and shouting all the time. She is also a spiritual medium and she's the first to hear sounds or perceive traps. She's not of battle sort and on this CG she only fights because she has spirit of Ilia controlling her. Ilia is the warrior in the right lower corner. We first find her spirit that occupies Rabby body, but then occasionally get her old body. She's strong-willed, but reasonable. She's also breaking everything she touches. In the left lower corner is Nise. She's a gluttony-obsessed coward who can not even fly. We find her in the second chapter and she has little utility serving as a cute girls who's often crying and is afraid of everything. But she finds her use in one of the last chapters. Story: I'll give chapter titles with brief description of contents: 1) - Underground - Urfi stumbles upon Raby in a dangerous forest where people disappear and together they fall through the ground. 2) - Legend - The chapter takes takes place outside on the way to the capital city. In this chapter we save Nise as the only survivor of beast assault on the road. Then beasts attack and we fall underground and occasionally find Ilia spirit that embodies Raby. 3) - Resurrection - Capital city inhabitants takes us for saviors from legend and send us on a mission to recover the body of Ilia. After some adventures we succeed in that. 4) - Trap - Ilia is resurrected and we go to the village that was assaulted by the beasts. On the way back from it we get to the trap of one of the enemies. Next Ilia gets deadly wound by mysterious enemy. 5) - Ephemora - In order to save Ilia, Urfi with baka twins go to the witch Ephemora for ambrosia and after some adventures get it. 6) - Key - Time to get on a mission to save the world. The key to all mysteries lies under the temple where Ilia body was found. And underneath it is a high technology human ghost city where the answers to all the questions are found during next two chapters. 7) - Dark eater - no spoilers - Blue - no spoilers CG: Game was quite greedy for non-HCG throughout the game but under the credits roll it presented so many cool new CG that I'm ready to forget about that. I found great pleasure in graphics and non-HCG in this game. The game has its cruel and even guro parts with the whole villages massacred, heads thrown away from the bodies etc and I liked those a lot. HCG: I've counted it and there are 19 H-events in the game. That's it! 19! And all of them are interactive that you need to constantly choose different commands. So each such event usually takes several minutes of your time. And I'd say that 60% of HCG weren't pleasant due to distorted face features. Girls in this game are very proactive. They sneak into Urfi's room the same day they get acquainted. I was so happy to note that there were as many as three girl characters who never took interest in Urfi... but by the last chapter there was only one minor girl character left without H-event and that was a boarding house host girl without a sprite who had a husband she run business together. All the other female characters sooner or later had H-event. There were two more girls free from his charms, but one was a zombie-android creature and another one was heavily wounded on meeting her and died withing two minutes. So I wish there were much fewer H-events. Sound: There was only midi bgm. Quite nice bgm to not annoy during 15 hours. Themes: This work is a concluding one for all the series (since there was no 4th part in plans in 1994). It has big involving story and gives all the answers to all the questions of this part and previous ones. What happened to the humanity? Who are mutants? Who are demon children? Who are Dark eaters? Who are Light Eaters? Everything is explained in last two chapters, so it's a very satisfying work designed to be a grand finale Originality: This work is the origin of a new game genre - heartwarming party adventure. It is basically an epic party RPG that was stripped of absolutely all RPG elements and given command selection instead. There are a lot of battles in the game, definitely more than H-events, so over 20. And each battle is played individually, not through fixed commands. Commands vary for each battle and you can't move on till you brute-forced the needed commands. That makes realistic involving battles where most of the time you talk with your party members and the enemy and read in text as you advance or try to defend or invent some cunning strategy or even flee from battle. And this adventure is heartwarming because a lot of time is spend walking or attending city buildings where you mostly chat with your party members. That allows to develop really deep personalities and get to know everything of each other. Add here a very good text - it's very easy to read, it's involving and it has a lot of funny face animations and emotions. Humor: Apart of jokingly inter-character interactions there are actually a lot of very funny humor moments that are events-based or repeats-based. Here's an example of an event joke: the party flees from an overpowered opponent and uses consequently all the secret items acquited from the city - first makibishi spikes but enemy only jumps over them (one of party members actually gets into them which adds the fun), then a smoke bomb, but it does not help much. Then we search the bags and throw a pie into an enemy and enemy leaves us alone for the rest of the day! I adored the repeats-based humor moments as well. It's mutants world and when we first here word "ningen" (humans) party members give their variants. The coolest one was from Ilia that she ate it in salad - it's the red vegetable from the garden, a carrot (ninjin)! Then at the human secret facility we find a pc with an interactive chat program. The girl there calls herself Crazy-chan and to most questions answers "Don't know". To the question what is "ningen" she answers... a red vegetable from the garden! Ilia joyfully jumps up shouting I told you, I told you! Then Crazy-chan adds "That's a lie, actually" -Arr you little!!! The story with repeats goes long much further. At one moment the party starts to guess meanings even of known words they stumbled upon in secret human facility. Security door asked a number and the party is already discussing. It said Nampa! How shall we get it with the door?! No, it said Member! At one of the rooms we find the box of this developer's another game - Waku Waku Mahjong Panic! - we read the whole advertisement on the back of the box and get to discuss what Mahjong is. One of the variants is that it's the benefit that you gain after load is returned to you (margin). There are also cereals called Gao-Gao with a girl on it. I really liked these real world references without breaking the 4th wall completely. Overall comments: I liked this game a lot. It has everything a masterpiece game should have - thrilling big volume story, great cute characters including enemies, absolutely fabulous text, humor just to my taste and the unexpected and most welcome shift from fantasy to post-apocalyptic sci-fi like early Might and Magic and Wizardry series. The important note about this game that its pc-98 rom is very easy to find and it runs with any anex86 emulator version. This emulator does not require to tune it in any way and game text is easily acquired by default ITH hook. Google translate with Translation Aggregator gives a very good translation after its upgrade in the end of 2016. So no need to be afraid of scary PC-98 emulation. Good stories know no aging and should not be forgotten.

Canaan ~Yakusoku no Chi~ stands tall as the only masterpiece of April 1997 1. Dark Hunter: (Jou) Ijigen Gakuen ダークハンター -㊤ 異次元学園- [970404] Koei 1 2 3 4 Dark Hunter is the second entry of Shibusawa Kou's "English Dream" series, following the three-part 'Emit'. Jigen Academy is a secluded school, where the students with psychological scars come to heal and find their purpose in life. Mariko experiences a chain of vivid hallucinations after her father's remarriage and her new mother sends her away to attend Jigen Academy. There she meets two transfer students: a stoic young man Ran, whose being is consumed by a need for revenge, and a foreign woman with reckless driving skills. Mariko's encounter with them sets her on a path to unearth the mysteries within the Academy. Game has an English review and quite much information in English. 2. Dark Hunter: (Ge) Youma no Mori ダークハンター -㊦ 妖魔の森- [970404] Koei 1 2 3 It is a direct sequel to "Dark Hunter: (Jou) Ijigen Gakuen" and thus the story picks up immediately after the events of the first game. Finally, the reasons why Mariko has been left untouched by the invaders are revealed, and Ran's and Cher's fight to stop the invasion is drawing to its conclusion. Game has an English review and quite much information in English. 3. ID アイディ [970404] Pinky Soft Hero loses his memory and regains consciousness in a mysterious underground facility. As he investigates the facility he meets horny prisoner girls. First game of Pinky Soft and not an elaborate one. You move to the various one by one and trigger encounters. Only autosaving is used and it's saved each time the map is opened. It's generally a single road with lots of bad endings with CG scattered around. 4. Sayonara no Mukougawa さよならの向こう側 [970404] Foster 1 2 Kyōhei and Ayano were a happy couple and decided to get married. One month after their wedding Ayano died in a traffic accident. Two years have passed since. Kyōhei is taking care of Ayano's little sister and keeps contact with her other relatives and friends. He tries to move on with his life at home and at work. However, he in unsure as to how his romantic life will progress. At the time of crucial decisions he suddenly seems a woman on the street who looks like Ayano... Game has an English review. 5. Seishinteki Gaishou ~Trauma~ 精神的外傷～トラウマ～ [970404] Nikukyuu 1 You are Sakuba Kenichi, a private tutor for a high school student Souki who you find quiet and impolite. As her mother explains, her behavior is a result of an accident that occurred three years ago. At that time criminal killed her father and wounded Souki. Ger grades started to drop tremendously due to locking up in herself. Hopefully, you can break the ice and heal her wound. There is an English review. 6. Shaburihime ~In no Shou~ しゃぶり姫 ～陰の章～ [970405] Mink 1 The story behind Shaburi is that you are a third class (the stinky one) magazine or news editor. You have been ordered by your boss to collect some news in some mountain. While at there, you got lost in the woods. By some luck, you are rescued and carefully nurtured by an owner of a big mansion in the mountain. After you gain your virility, the old man (who's the owner of the mansion) asked you to be his granddaughter's master and teach her. Since then, you will teach the owner's granddaughter everything about man. There is an English review. 7. Tenshi no Hitomi ~Sapphire Eye~ 天使の眸 ～Sapphire Eye～ [970409] Accept Kagami is high school second year student. He is not popular at all. Once a strange phenomenon occurs to his left eye as when he watches with it on some girl, the girl becomes lustful. It happens to be a technology from the future. What a messy setting. Multiple ending game with an ending for each heroine. Clearing one route to the end takes about 40 minutes. And as follows from the setting, there are spontaneous H-scenes. This is the only work by this company. 8. Misato-chan no Yume Nikki みさとちゃんの夢日記 [970411] Active Misato-chan visits a doctor and tells him about her three dreams about her being: 1. Assistant 2. Maid 3. Idol. Dreams eventually become wet dreams, but with Windows version voicing it looks quite cute. 9. Room Mate ルームメイト [970411] Bell-Da Suzuki Anna and Arisugawa Haruna are roommates in the dormitory of St. Patriot Girls Academy. They share love for mystery and cosplay. There is a rumor of forbidden relationship among the two good friends. Why don't you pay a visit to their room secretly and try to approach the mystery? Game was re-released in 2010 and has quite an informative getchu page. Game's exclusively of erotic nature. 10. Critical Blow [970412] Banpresto 1 2 3 4 5 A legend exists among the fighters and martial artists of this world, of a mysterious scarab badge that only the most elite warriors will earn. This badge, sent out by the mysterious Merkuar, is in fact an invitation to a dangerous tournament held in England, where the contestants fight for money, power, and glory. Now, a poor young fighter from Hong Kong named Rickey Leon has just received one of these badges. There are English reviews. 11. Canaan ~Yakusoku no Chi~ カナン ～約束の地～ [970418] Four-Nine 1 2 The fourth entry in the GaoGao series is set in the same post-apocalyptic world as the two previous games. In the future, a failed biological experiment caused widespread mutations, leading to a total separation of human civilization and the mutated tribes of "animal people". The events of the game begin shortly after the end of the previous installment. Human civilization is nearly destroyed; the remaining humans live in shelters, dreaming of the "promised land" Canaan, somewhere "near the end of the world", where there is enough food for everyone and where mutants can't enter. The game has two protagonists: a human boy who has lost his parents and who swears to himself to find Canaan, and Wolf, the mutant hero of the previous game, with his colorful female companions. Eventually their paths cross - but will they able to understand each other and bring peace to the troublesome world?.. Final work in the series, final game of Four-nine, one of the final great masterpieces of pc-98 era. First three games were released the same year, but to get to this fourth work three years were needed. Third work was a real masterpiece and it's most remembered for creating a new genre - party-based heartwarming cooperation interaction. This work is also party-based and this alone thrills me enormously. The number of party members can exceed 10 people and they are enormously charismatic fellas. Story is one-way road, but thanks to multiple protagonists and multisite perspective it's rather an advantage. I'd stop here since I've prepared a full review. 12. Gakuensei Hakusho 学園性白書 [970418] Vision Main character is a university student who moves to a new place with a lot of beautiful girls in the neighborhood. Game of H character with lots of branching. One playthrough takes only 5 minutes. There's no narrator words in the game, only dialogues and choices, so the setting is not so clear. 13. Kaori Climax かおりクライマックス [970418] h.m.p You're a an idol manager. You need to raise the best idol over one year period. Raising SIM in 3D environment. The content is thin and there's no satisfaction, but 3D does not look plain ugly here and that's already much. 14. Magical Deep☆One マジカルディープ☆ワン [970418] Vanilla Princess Ruri arrives from the overseas magical country to train into being a good ruler. If she can help five people with their troubles by using magic, she can become the queen. Main character is high school student Kyoshi who lives with his sister. He agrees to help the princess in her quest in exchange for fulfilling one wish if the training goes well. The work is promoted as incorporating dark Cthulhu myths, but actually there's little such content here. The setting of a magical girl is also not utilized properly as magic is uses rarely and wastefully. Hero mainly helps by doing H, but too much H results in failure. 15. Maid Monogatari メイド物語 [970418] C's Ware 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 You take the role as a young man who has recently found the job of his dreams: to train three maids in a number of household chores. The household chores can by anything from shopping, washing, cooking, and cleaning. You need to supervise your maids during their training and you need to decide if you should encourage or punish them when they do wrongs or rights. When the evening comes you need to give your maids some training in another area. Game is localized with many English reviews. 16. Mia みあ [970418] Bell-Da Does this swimsuit suits me? It took me three hours to choose it! Is bikini nice? Or naked is the best? I like the sea. Mountains are nice in summer, but ocean is the best. I was a swimmer in junior high school. Huh? You don't believe it? Let's swim and I'll show you! What are you doing? You can't ask a lady to do that! Game's of point and click nature. Clicking is clunky so there's no telling where you actually click especially since cursor is always the same. Voicing is only partial, so it does not help much either. 17. Uki Uki Island うきうきアイランド [970418] Fairy Dust 1 A group of high school students (3 boys and 3 girls) decide to go on a lost island, called Daikokujima ("big black island") as a club event of the "Exploration Club". One of the islanders disappears and the new goal of the club is to get his whereabouts. Well it's still mostly the game about the girls whose number is about 10. Game is quite difficult to clear, mostly because of lack of save slots and saving system that takes you to the beginning of the event. There is a Spanish review. 18. Hare nochi Tokidoki Munasawagi 晴れのちときどき胸さわぎ [970425] Cocktail Soft 1 The main plot in the Hare games focuses on the love triangle between the player (the ultimate pervert), a "violent" girl, and a witch girl, both being classmates of the player.In this particular game, the whole gang goes out for a vacation, and many strange things happen around them. The player, due to his "perverted" nature, is the biggest suspect among the gang. To regain his dignity, the player has to find out the mastermind behind these events. There is an English review from someone who does not understand japanese... but in this game it's hardly needed. A comedy adventure bakage without romance, but with lots of pickup and slapping in reply. The ultimately stupid protagonist does not let this game to advance in any field. 19. Ikenai Katsumi Sensei ~Kanja-san Oita wa Dame Yon~ いけないかつみ先生 ～患者さんおいたはだめよん～ [970425] Alice Soft Katsumi-sensei from D.P.S. series is back! Her goal to seduce patients remains intact, but now with a lot of bizarre events happening to her! A bakage to the bones... it has all of it. Aliens, superagents, gangsters and lots of lesbian H-scenes. It should probably have been blocked as an eroge, but it's too crazy to even enjoy H-scenes. 20. Kyouken Densetsu Crazy Knuckle 狂拳伝説クレイジーナックル [970425] ZyX 1 Story is about a martial artist called Zado who wants to the be the world's most powerful martial artist. To do that, he is collecting little fragments that will lead to the secret of the ultimate martial arts skill. In order to learn the skill, he has to defeat the people who holds these individual fragment. However, Zado's most-trusted henchmen took all the fragments and learn the ultimate skill himself and defeats Zado. To regain his dignity, Zado has to defeat his henchman in the battle ring. There is an English review that describes very well what this game is about. I'd also add that H-scenes are of pretty dark nature. 21. Mujintou Monogatari R 無人島物語R [970425] KSS Inc. 1 As the story goes, the main character is working as a part-time tutor and he gets rewarded for his efforts with a island vacation. Unfortunately, some shortsightedness leads to him and his friends being stranded and needing to survive until help/rescue arrives. From ultimately complex part 3 the series goes back to the roots and suggests a much simplified gameplay and emphasis on heroines and ADV element. And it fails to deliver a good love story and makes hardcore RPG fans angry. There is an English review. 22. Sparkling Feather スパークリングフェザー [970425] HuneX 1 2 Long time ago, there was a happy country called the Eternal Feather Kingdom. Protected by benevolent deities, it flourished until a disaster came: a demon destroyed the kingdom, and it disappeared off the face of the earth. But a few chosen ones, called "Feathers", continued to keep sacred gemstones, which allowed them to use unique powers in the fight against the demonic army. Each Feather protects a gem, and the protector of the Ruby gem is the protagonist of the game - an ordinary high school boy from our modern world who at first wants nothing to do with ancient prophecies and heroic deeds. But as he receives new power from the leader of the Feathers, he understands that his destiny is to fight evil, and perhaps restore Eternal Feather to its former glory. There's a good English review of this game. 23. Tantei Tomamechi Kensuke Futsuu wa Kou Da ze! 探偵・苫米地研介 普通はこうだぜ! [970425] Altacia A woman strangled to death was found in the apartment where Tomamechi Kensuke lives. The detective is asked by the manager to launch an investigation. Tomamechi Kensuke is a side-character detective of the series who looses consciousness when sees blood. Choosing a wrong action leads to many bad endings. Not a long game, a side story to another game of the series. 24. Tokimeite Yuuwaku ときめいて誘惑 [970425] Candy Soft Usagi Chihiro is a female teacher who has just transferred. All the students and teachers at school can't take their eyes of her. But she actually enjoys those look and behaves in provocative manner. Interheart subsidiary ero-centered work. In original pc work voicing is presented only by moans and pictures use few colors, so it was not a satisfactory work even as H work. 25. Zest to Fantasy [970425] Aaru 1 The story behind Zest is that you, Zefaa, woke up at a desert after you have been knocked unconscious. You realized that you have lost all of your memory except you first name. Since there are no one around the desert, you decide to find a place to rest and begin the search of your own identity. From here on, you will choose one of the four paths and begin your quest for your past. A spiritual successor to game Ash. Here there are actually as many as seven big stories that depend on early choices, so there's bigger emphasis on story here than just lots of random stories. And each route concentrates on one girl with protagonist remaining the same, so it might even be called a galge. Totally different routes unlike most of games, but those routes are somewhat short, about 30 minutes each. I'm not big fan of short stories, as you might have guessed by now. Oh, and there is an English review.

Well, I think I tried it all. AGTH, ITHVNR, VisualNovelReader, Mozilla Rika-chan+Epwing, Offline dictionnaries like Atlas, OCR tools like ABBYY screenshot reader, smartphone camera google translate. Nothing can beat good old ITH+TranslationAggregator. Google translate (only after neural update in march 1996 - Asenheim project old google translate won't go) for the bulk of it and Jparser-Edict+Mecab for messy sentences.

Ruriiro no Yuki is the only masterpiece of March 1997. 1. Kannou Kyoushuu 官能教習 [970307] Tetratech Grandfather summons main hero to announce that in order to get inheritance he has to teach several maidens various sex techniques during a month. But it's so easy to fall in love with one of them... H training SIM. But the art is gorgeous here so even some innocent minds were caught in the snare. The ending is quite surprising as you may decide just to cooperate with one of the girls and poison the old geezer. 2. Ruriiro no Yuki 瑠璃色の雪 ～るりいろのゆき～ [970307] Ail 1 The protagonist of the game is a high school student who has lost his parents in a car accident. Living with foster parents was difficult, and he decided to rent the room in the house that once belonged to his real parents, feeling that their spirits will become closer to him that way. However, shortly thereafter the boy started seeing strange dreams. Upon his arrival he discovered a jar in a hole underneath the floor in his room, and that jar miraculously produced a young woman named Ruri (which means "lapis lazuli"), who becomes a part of his life in a way he would never expect. Command selection that embraces the the formula of time. Well, it may rather be called an ADV since there are varying choices and at time there is just one choice. Genre is love comedy and there are lots of girls to capture. There are two endings for each girl. Game platforms of pc-98 and sega saturn weren't too popular already and Ail rereleased the game for windows only in 2000 when there was much bigger rivalry between titles. Game's praised quite a lot, but PC-98 version is a torture and I would not mind looking into 2000 version. 3. Crazy Hospital Fushigi no Kuni no Tenshi クレイジー・ホスピタル ふしぎの国の天使 [970310] Asia Soft Lab 1 The player controls a young man who feels sick and visits a hospital. Once there, the plot split into different paths, depending on the choices of locations, dialogue responses and actions made by the player. All the branches involve focusing on one of the several available female characters (patients, nurses, the receptionist, etc.) and pursuing the short courting process to the point of its intimate conclusion. Nothing really to add to the description. A very short PC Engine game. 4. Hi-To-Mi Hi・To・Mi～瞳～ [970314] Guilty After a guy recovered from an accident, girls seem to be attracted to him. It turned out that he can influence their feelings. Can he resist this power and stay true to the girl he loves? City pickup type from what I've seen and not a thoughtful one. 5. Hyoui Tengoku ひょ～い天国 [970314] Miamisoft Hero calls a girl who he loves for a long time to the roof to confess his feelings, but gets dumped. He gets to the heavens as a result of an accident but is kicked from there for harassing the angels. There's the positive side of it - now in the form of a ghost he can harass different girls. Fully animated game, same as previous game Henshin Ring. But this time scenario gets cut even further resulting in a third class animated H game. 6. Melody ~Koi no Messenger Girl~ Ｍｅｌｏｄｙ ～恋のメッセンジャーガール～ [970314] Melody One evening girl "Melody" came in a dream of a hero. She said that there is a girl who thinks only about him all the time and in order to show her heart Melody will develop mysterious world in reality and in his dreams. Will her feelings be able to reach his heart? It's an ADV with parameters of LIFE, VIT, INT, LUCK. Those parameters rise or fall according to dialogue choices and those parameters serve as qualifiers for each girl branch. The story goes like this: 1. Dream-1 which is basically a prologue 2. Reality-1 is searching for a heroine 3. Dream-2 depicts the past of the heroine 4. The relations. Characters for capture are rich in variety - there are six of them. Capture is difficult because of the stats requirements. Each girl branch is unique story so it can be enjoyed nicely. Light game that managed to grasp the individuality of each girl character. 7. Refrain Love リフレインラブ [970314] Riverhill Soft inc. 1 2 You play as a college student who happens to live right by the campus. It's summer and you're going to America for Christmas, but you'd love to get a woman before then.Your three buddies Kousuke the jock, Tetsuya the DJ, Taizo the nerd and you vow to find a girlfriend before Christmas time. You already know some girls, so it shouldn't be a problem. But you have been having weird dreams of some mystery girl and when a walk in the park leads you to find a girl that looks suspiciously like the one of your dreams, you find that maybe you do have chance with the ladies. But, let's face it. You have to juggle part time jobs, romance, and seeing your dude friends. Welcome to Refrain Love. Part one is where we choose among the girls, part two is the dating part with ending showing 3 years later moments. There are seven girls to choose from. There is adventure part and SIM part where we earn money at part-time jobs and spend them on dates and presents. Quite light moe dating sim. 8. Stars [970314] AyPio Tetsuya is the fourth grader of Hiiragi University graduating this spring. He does not have any prospects for future job and spends much time with snowboard circle members. One day he finally gets a letter that he passed the job interview to a solid company. With that he's going to propose to the girl he has loved since high school during the snowboard training camp. Suddenly the camp gets cancelled as only 10 out of 15 needed people opt to go. Now Tetsuya needs to find the leftover participants and fulfill the dreams of his life. Quite an ordinary boring ADV. There are as many as 16 girls available for capture. Saving is only allowed at saving points. Graphics are of good PC-98 style. 9. Ayakashi Ninden Kunoichiban [970314] Zero System 1 There is a world where shinobi (ninja and kunoichi) are recognized. The story centers around Kaede, who enters Princess Yuri School (Himeyuri Gakuen) and offers assistance to three girls for one year, who happen to be guardians. The top graduate is given a special privilege to become a freelance Shinobi. After entering, Kaede strives to serve a favorite person for one year. Yet another raising SIM 10. Stand by Say you! [970320] Human Entertainment 1 Main character is a son of voice actor who suddenly becomes anime sound director after previous sound director withdrawal. He needs to maintain some quality level and operate within time limits to produce full season of anime "Interrupt Girl". Game's pretty weird. Voice recordings have just a single variant, so no matter what you do you'll hear the same lines. There is almost no interaction as things unwind by themselves. 11. BOYS BE... [970328] Kodansha 1 The title of the series is explained in the first chapter where the author refers to the quote "Boys, be ambitious", which was said by William S. Clark and has become a popular motto in Japan. The series focuses upon the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of first love and teenage romance. Six students struggle to find the perfect partner and their adolescent limitations. Generic dating SIM. 12. Doki Doki Pretty League ドキドキプリティリーグ [970328] Xing Entertainment 1 In the game the player takes the role of a baseball coach of Kasumigaura high school female baseball team during a period of one year. As a coach it's needed to decide the direction of training (battling, fielding, etc.) and check each girl's progress each week. Basebal team manager game, but of course with everyday activities as well which include team room conversations as well as events such as Valentine's Day, summer festival, culture festival and so on. Multiple endings are promissed. There are many installments of this series, mostly for playstation. It's sad the series went the sport manager way, but it can't be helped. 13. Hinadori no Saezuri 雛鳥の囀 [970328] Studio B-Room 1 The game is set in a pseudo-historical scenery that resembles the Victorian era in Europe. The player is cast into the role of Foster, a manager of a large mansion. The owner is a young lady named Carol, daughter of the late baron who was successfully running a brothel in it, until it was burnt down. Now the house is rebuilt, and the business can start again. Carol entrusts Foster with teaching and managing the work of the maids, who double as hostesses and prostitutes. What is meant by "teaching" is actually training in all things related to sex. Again erotic raising SIM. And again cards introduced for some reason. If you watched the hentai anime version, you already know not expect any story here. The genre itself was in the bloom thanks to SEEK. 14. Ojou-sama o Nerae!! お嬢様を狙え！！ [970328] Scoop 1 Adult dating game featuring both teenagers and a couple of older maidens. The interface follows the standard Tokimeki format with a conversation portion where you engage the target of your interaction in conversation and action. The rest of the screen is taken over by the animated persona of a girl. Her facial expressions and attitude towards you will change depending on your level of social skills. 15th rank game by sales in the first half of 1997, that means something! Actually, that only means that it had sound and H-scenes and that was still new with few Windows games released. Contents-wise it's a transformation period work, not nampage already, but without character depth or good story.

I don't know Japanese in the most important way - I can't read Japanese texts. After several years of interest in Japanese I'm quite confident in my grammar and speech recognition skills though. I tried watching Chibi Maruko Chan (English subs don't exist) series a year a go or so and constantly could not understand plot twists. Surprisingly enough, now there's no such problem. I was struggling with JParser(Edict)+Mecab and moved at a horrible speed all the time. In March 1996 google translate Japanese got a neural update and that changed everything. The quality was on par with JParser and handling of proper names became much easier. I think in May 1996 I registered first wiki variant at some free hosting in a desperate attempt to organize material on VNDB. Did I play all those listed games? No, because it's impossible due to technical and time reasons. How can you trust what's written if I did not play it? - You can't. I only translate synopsis and retell what's written in Japanese reviews and only then play something if I like what I read.

The only masterpiece game of February is Yatsu no Na wa Diamond 1. Let's! Pirates Trouble Vacances Let’s！パイレーツ　とらぶる・ばかんす [970207] ZyX Two female pirates earned lots of money and are came to a resort. They get interested in rumors of a mad scientist experimenting with monsters creation and look into the matter only to get caught themselves. Les SM H bakage story. The interaction between the main heroines is pretty fun, but rather short. Windows version has a nice 3 minutes intro animated video and seems to have more animated scenes, but I failed to launch it on modern pc. 2. Seiyoku Gakuen Seraphita 聖翼学園セラフィタ [970207] Space Project Futanari Rei transfers to an all-girl school to seduce all the pretty girls in the local student dormitory. First of all, game is from Space Project that only produced really trashy works to the moment. But this time they initially create a supertrashy environment to stir up the craziness. Second part of the game is mostly erotic, but first part is quite enjoyable as there are many strange jokes and dialogues. Some lines are voiced, so atmosphere is relayed all right. It has some charm, but second part quickly hit all the enthusiasm out of me. 3. Yaku Tsuu ~Noroi no Game~ 厄痛　～呪いのゲーム～ [970207] Idea Factory Co., Ltd. 1 2 A game company has released a title only for it to be received coldly by the press. The company's president disappears soon after, and mysterious deaths begin to occur. For all those very small number of people who liked the prequel - here's the awaited (?) sequel. At least they have the guts to joke about the curse of the game company after releasing a bad game. Graphics are so weird and scary that this game received one of the worst ratings everywhere - probably from people who never played it. Game is quite short, hardly reaching two hours. You start just as before, in the group of five. It's also a sound novel, but the story is much more impressive than in the prequel and it tackles some deep themes. 4. BS Tantei Club ~Yuki ni Kieta Kako~ BS探偵倶楽部 ～雪に消えた過去～ [970209] Nintendo R&D1 1 2 3 Ayumi Tachibana returns to her parents home in Ochitani village over vacation to visit her mother, Toshie, who is recovering from illness. She meets with her mother and her old friend Reiko for the first time in years, hoping to ease her fatigue by relaxing at her childhood home. However, Gozo Kusano, the former mayor of Ochitani village, is found dead the next morning in a secluded area outside his house. Toshie was the discoverer of the dead body, and she is apprehended by the police as a suspect because her footprints were the only ones found in the snow near the crime scene. While waiting for her mother to return from the police station, Ayumi learns of a long-lasting feud existing between the Tachibana family and Kusano family. An ochimusha legend passed on in the village, an investigation from 18 years ago, and this new murder all tie into a set of serial killings which Ayumi must solve before it is too late. Quite famous NES detective series. There is an English review. 5. Amagi Shien 天城紫苑 [970214] Clip House Kimido Fumi is a popular mystery writer. But she also solves incidents in real life. In a local ryokan she is asked to investigate the death of a man. The main feature of the work is live action and two famous former AV actresses playing the main roles. There seems to be a 18+ PC version, but Saturn one is much more widespread. Content is quite specialized and aimed at detective dorama viewers. 6. Ekudorado ~Kagami no Naka no Oukoku~ エクドラード ～鏡の中の王国～ [970214] Black Package 1 2 A young high-school student named Seirou has a normal, boring life: days resemble each other, and so do the nights: every night he sees the same strange dream: two girls talking to each other, one of them saying something about a coming darkness... One day, he and his female classmates find a mirror in an abandoned house; when they touch the mirror, they are transported into the magical medieval land of Ekudorado. The hero must first find his classmates, who are scattered around this world, and then find a way to return to our reality... RPG and card battles mix. Story is one-way road and there aren't grinding opportunities, but if you lose, you're transported to the closest town and can gain some more exp on the way. Cards balance is not the best and some elements are just better. There's no real connection between the battles and H-scenes. There's very little justification for inventing the whole parallel world rather than just start in it. There's no story behind using cards. Game feels like its elements are gathered randomly and it does not encourage to explore its world. 7. In Days 淫DAYS [970214] Lunar Soft Collection of five short stories: 1. Over the Dream 2. 罠 3. TU. I. SI 4. 究極解決因果マン 5. あたしはあたし Stories are of erotic nature and end in 5 minutes each. 8. Roommate ~Inoue Ryouko~ ROOMMATE～井上涼子～ [970214] Datam Polystar 1 Ryoko is seventeen, her family has moved from Tokyo to New York, and she is staying behind to finish school. Her father (a friend of your father's) has asked that she move in with you in your apartment (where you have a spare room) so she can complete her studies. But Ryoko misses her family and is emotionally vulnerable - so it's time to for you to do some moving in of your own. In Roommate Ryoko you have three years to develop a relationship with her. Using a truly innovative real-time feature, the Saturn's internal clock affects how the game plays out. There is an English review. 9. Yatsu no Na wa Diamond 男の名はダイヤモンド [970214] Pis-Ton Soft 1 2 In the beginning of 21th century, technology has evolved in unprecedented ways. But so did crime. Huge corporations, which were in fact criminal organizations, came to control the world. Finally, a mega-corporation known as Connection has taken the power in its hands. Everything was sponsored with its money; the governments and the law were silent. Only vigilante groups called "Connection-Killers" still tried to resist. In 2015, in Detroit, one of those people, nicknamed DD, witnessed the death of his comrades... A year has passed. DD moves to Brain City - a highly developed, modern city, the center of scientific research. It was built on an island in the Atlantic Ocean, which appeared after a volcano eruption. It is controlled by Connection. DD opens an investigation office in the city, trying to get to the heart of Connection and defeat his old nemesis, despite the hostile atmosphere and the grave dangers that await him there... Gameplay is walking around the town and encountering enemies beating them, so not too intriguing. But game is chaotic in a good way - it uses all kind of weird enemies and lots of gags. A work with lots of charm, but it came for PC-98 when the tides already turned for Windows and romance games. 10. Hizumi 歪み [970220] MBS Truth 1 Hizumi is Japanese word that literary means "warp" in English. Like the word "warp" implies, the whole game is so twisted that it is [almost] impossible to happen. Basically, the game is about you, the main character, doing the same twisted thing everyday. You're constantly having sex with the girls in your class, teachers, mother, and friends. Having sex with girl is just like a normal exercise in game. Hizumi first starts with the main character [I don't know how to translate his name] having "fun" with his stepmother and ended next day still having fun with his stepmother. After the special "treatment" from your stepmother, who is no longer living with her husband or your father, you went to school and have more fun with your classmates and teacher. During the break of each class, you will walk around the campus and talk to many people (mainly girls). If you went to the correct place at the right time, H-scene will follow afterward. After you got home from school, you will find yourself reading adult novel and all the sudden your stepmother came in and night excercising with you. Hizumi is a game filled with twisted fantasy. Every event happened in the game is twisted. You would have fun with an OL (Office Lady) while taking the subway to school. You would get special couching from your teacher in her office. You would be invited to a "special group basketball training" from your friend. You would play a doctor-patient game with a girl you grow up with. And, the most twisted part of game is that you would have fun with your stepmother every day and night. There is an English review. 11. Tasogare no Kyoukai 黄昏の境界 [970220] Tiare 1 2 This is a horror-adventure about a high school student who is a treasure hunter. You'll need to explore some horrifying dungeons to investigate a mysterious sequence of murders. Hero lands hands on one of five manuscripts stolen from mysterious village shrine. When all five are gathered, it's rumored to be possible to summon a demon. This is ... an exploration game, sort of. You see the dungeons from first person view like in old rpgs and have to watch your lamp and draw maps to get through the maze. Events are generated on moving through the map. There are ghosts encountered on the way but they are mere obstacles - if you fight them you die. Game deliberately tries to confuse leaving lots of things hanging in the air. For example, the meaning of the title is not clear at all or the conclusion that this demon is involved with the murder. There's a lot of torture in map drawing and getting through the maze. Probably the best part of it is that we get an ending with one of three female characters once we deal with the demon. 12. M Hard [970221] Aaru 1 You're a normal college student. Your mother needs a heart transplant. Your father's mechanics shop can't pull in nearly enough money to pay for the surgery. Just then, this rich sadistic woman shows up and makes you an offer. She'll get the best doctors and pay for the operation, IF you become her slave. There is an English review. 13. Ningen Konchuu ~Nozoki~ 人間昆虫～覗き～ [970221] Poison Breath When the guy was a child, he killed a lot of insects, about 100 a day. Now, as their revenge, he got turned into insects and has to live as a mantis, bee, spider and beetle. Will he ever be able to return to human form? He will never view insects the same way again. Poison Breath games are always nauseating and dark, but this time they surpassed themselves. The vision of two humanoid insects with insect attributes having sex is not that easy to sweep away. But since the second title relates to peeping, most of the time this disgusting insect just peeps. 14. Boku wa Keiichi Onna Janshi no Itazura 僕は圭一 女雀師の悪戯 [970228] Segue Laboratory Hero arrives to the dormitory only to find that no good rooms left. He decides to challenge his female sempai in a stripping card game to get the room. Very short straightforward game. Game uses some specific BGM handler so it only launched with BGM off for me. 15. Taxi Genmutan ~Strange World Act. 2~ ＴＡＸＩ幻夢譚 ～ストレンジ・ワールド Act. 2～ [970228] Sorciere 1 Hero is a taxi driver. He chooses which passenger to take on a ride and can opt to interfere in his client's affairs at any moment. Same as prequel, some uncommon entourage is chosen for the stage. Lots of different stories can originate from the taxi and game provides lots of variants for development. Total number of branches is 42, but stories are very short.

TLWiki is what formed my interest in VNs, anyway. I think I discovered it quite early and dashed through all the fully translated works in no time, mostly at work. For years I thought that this is the full compilation of translated into English visual novels, so went into free sail of untranslated works from then on. And I started with YU-NO as an appetizer since it was the smallest in size and with the most dated graphics. And that was actually the longest game there. I played without sound at work and tried to rush it, but school part ended and it went deeper and deeper in totally unexpected directions. Five years from then I'd definitely be able to enjoy it more now with luxurious sound and more appreciation for the text, but I cherish those memories as YU-NO takes a unique spot among them.

Ryouki no Ori Dai 2 Shou and Rookies are the masterpieces of January. But Rookies is a more traditional story-focused visual novel with charming characters and lots of kind humor. Rookies is VN of January 1997. 1. Watashi 私 ～わたし～ [970110] Pearl Soft Shizu is a shy high school student girl who wishes to change herself. One day day she gathers her will and starts acting. What she's gonna do? Well, there are lots of branches in the game depending of who you choose to be with and at what circumstances. There are 24 endings overall, but a great majority of them are wasteful insulting ones. There is also a happy ending somewhere, but it won't be that easy to track. 2. Ryouki no Ori Dai 2 Shou 猟奇の檻 第２章 [970117] Nihon Plantech 1 2 3 A mysterious game that centered in a theme park. An accident happened three years ago has caused the theme park to be shut down (But is it truly an accident or a murder? You will find out as you go deeper into the game). Now the theme park reopens, and you are hired by Amano Miyukias (Fantagen's director) as one of the security guy that patrols around the park. Before you start working, you will be introduced to the theme park. There are six major areas around the park and one central area. In every area, there will be one girl that is in charge of the area. After the brief introduction, you will be able to meet all these girls around the park. Next day, you came into the park and patrols around the park. Everything just seemed to be fine, but you realized there are something wrong. You realized these girls are trying to hide something from you. You began to search what is going on in this mysterious theme park. There are two English reviews for this game (one is actually for remastered version but still). 3. Jorou Gumo 女郎蜘蛛 [970124] PIL A guy got a part time job with a very strange family. During the daytime, he can explore the house or sort documents. During the evenings, he gets to play rope tricks with the mother and two daughters. If he can survive and find out what's going on, he might end up happy with one of the girls. Another H training SIM, this time with bondage as main theme... I could say, but actually it's a command selection ADV with SIM part only about bondage itself. So systems are simplified here. Moving on... 4. Shinsetsu Kamiya Ukyou ~Zouge no Tou~ 真説 神谷右京 ～象牙の塔～ [970124] Altacia In 1985 fund regulation law was enforced and there are many companies that fall under its jurisdiction. You need to gain consent from one of such funds. Yet another work in the series and there's nothing new to say, actualy. Work based on a true case and has lots of lawyer terminology in it. There's little drama in here - just professionalism in handling a case. This is an alternative version of part 2 of the series. The author stopped writing leaving series discontinued so these alternative versions appeared. 5. Viper-CTR ~Asuka~ ＶＩＰＥＲ－ＣＴＲ ～あすか～ [970124] Sogna 1 2 The sequel to the short VIPER-V10 story, Northern Lights, subtitled Asuka. The budding romance between Asuka and Captain is put to the test when Captain's sultry cousin Miki moves in with him. Captain's focus wavers... There is an English review. CTR is the first Windows Viper game and it's a paradise for an eye - nearly every scene is animated and the flow goes without choices nearly till the end. There are three endings and the branches are very clearly drawn. I liked the game and only short length (50 minutes) prevents me from calling it a masterpiece. 6. Mix Candy 2 みっくすキャンディ２ [970131] Cocktail Soft Fandisc containing screensavers, wallpapers and a short erotic story そして。。。as a part of the Erotic Baka Novel series. Story is too short to remember. 7. Rookies ルーキーズ [970131] Umitsuki Production Tsuyushi Kusabe describes himself as a detective. But he never got a request so he's been working on part-time jobs. On his 30th birthday he got a request to investigate narcotics circulation in an all-girls school. His girlfriend makes him promise that this is going to be the last case if he fails. One of the last masterpieces of pc-98 era. Game has many cute girls and it's fun interacting with them, but this is hardly a gal game. The game is mostly about the 30-year looser protagonist and his rivalry with another similar looser who also got a request. The game has lots of animation and feels like a movie. It's not a coincidence that this company later spawned Jellyfish that's famous for fully animated works. The game has a catch phrase "dreams pave the way to the future" which belongs to hero's girlfriend at the time when she allows this immature looser to follow this investigation which feels very supportive and nice. Happy ending is difficult to reach even though story is a one-way road. Game has warm pleasant palette, good drawing, lots of fun scenes, but unfortunately can not be hooked. 8. Exciting Milk Dai 2 Wa エキサイティングみるく第 2 話 [97] Silence Amon transfers to the same class as Kurumi. He's very moved by the fact that seaweed still exists in 20th century and is going to liberate it by animating it. I got the impression that second part got even shorter, hardly reaching 10 minutes at all. Basically there's nothing in it but school lunch and then fighting the seaweed mutant. The story pretty much stays unfinished, but the direction is clearly seen now - our usual magic girl fighting beasts. 9. Last Message ~Saraba Itoshiki Hito Yo.~ ラストメッセージ ～さらば愛しき女よ。～ [97] FAB Communications "Last Message" is a romance simulation of sorts with an odd twist: you love the girl, the girl loves you, and you have to dump her. 'You' in this case is a salaryman in his thirties rapidly climbing a corporate ladder, three months away from ending an assignment at the Kyoto office. Back home in Tokyo is a wife and kids; in Kyoto is a colleague/girlfriend with whom you started a passionate affair a year ago. The object of the game is to "break up with the love of your life beautifully." No info, but there is a video showing the gameplay. 10. Last Message ~Sayounara Watashi no Aishita Hito~ ラストメッセージ　～さようなら私の愛した男～ [97] FAB Communications "Last Message" is a romance simulation of sorts with an odd twist: you love the guy, the guy loves you, and you have to dump him. 'You' in this case is young professional woman born with a silver spoon in her mouth, three months away from marrying a rich, good-looking heir to a major fortune. The only snag in this convenient turn of events is a beloved boyfriend/colleague of one year, who loves you with his heart and soul. The object of the game is to "break up with the love of your life beautifully." No info.

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 Halo2. Be-Yond ~Kurodaishou ni Mirareteru~3. Bounty Hunter Rudy4. Es no Houteishiki5. Harlem Blade ~The Greatest of All Time.~6. Kakyuusei7. Kichikuou Rance8. Kizuato9. Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo YU-NO10. Ma Doll11. Mujintou Monogatari 3 - A.D. 1999 Tokyo12. NOëL NOT DiGITAL13. Pia Carrot e Youkoso!! ~We've Been Waiting for You~14. Sakura Taisen15. Star Platinum16. 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.

Kichikuou Rance and Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo YU-NO are masterpieces of the month, but even Rance can't compete with YU-NO this month. 1. Kousoku Inran Jugyou Tokareta Ribbon 拘束 淫爛授業 解かれたリボン [961205] Persian Soft Mayu is a female student who is in secret relationship with another girl Minako. One day Mayu opens her bento and finds there a photo of her tied up with a rope. It also has a note requesting to come to clerk room at noon or the photo would be made public. There are several branches with different outcome. System is bad as each time screen changes it takes a lot of time to load and it breaks the story. It's really unclear why such story needed to be sold in two volumes since the content is thin. 2. Kousoku Inran Jugyou Maid-tachi no Shigoto 拘束 淫爛授業 メイドたちの仕事 [961205] Persian Soft A relative of Mayu notices changes in her behavior and sends family maid Kana as a transfer student to the same class to watch after Mayu. The school kingpins aim to make Kana a slave, but since they lack any compromising materials, they plan to use obedient Mayu to break the will of Kana. This time even the choices have only cosmetic meaning. Same dark content as the prequel. 3. For Elise ~Elise no Tame ni~ for elise ～エリーゼのために～ [961206] Craftwork 1 Hero is an ordinary salary man. In his dreams he starts to do something strange to familiar women. Gradually dreams intertwines with the reality... Game is the origin of Sayonara o Oshiete released in 2001 and overlaps with it at times. It's an utsuge with strong motives of depression and insanity. Some moments are disgustingly unforgettable like fulfilling a desire to make a trash can out of woman. Game has its cool atmosphere, but need a stomach for a real utsuge. 4. Itazura いたずら～悪戯～ [961206] Interheart 1 Main hero is a pervert who harasses girls on a train. Itazura is the main title for Interheart company with as many as 9 games released under franchise. There's no story so nothing to discuss. 5. Ranchou 乱蝶 [961206] Trush Hero is the editor of a talented young girl writer. The year of his publishing company exclusive rights over this author is coming to an end without any book written, so hero isolates the girl in a small hotel populated by other girls to produce a creative atmosphere. After all it's just chasing busty girls in a big mansion with many rooms. 6. Angelique Special 2 アンジェリークSpecial 2 [961209] Koei 1 2 3 4 5 Second installment in the series. Angelique Collet, a girl who lives in the cosmos that the heroine of the first game now rules, is chosen as a queen candidate for a new cosmos. The count of male characters increases to include the nine Guardians, as well as three Tutors and three Collaborators. There is an English review. 7. Tokyo 0 Ku Sadistic Mary 東京0区 SADISTIC MARY [961210] J-Box Tokyo Zero Ward is commonly known as Lost Area. Mary is a female bandit who inhabits this shady area, rides a bike and targets only bad people for crimes. However, once she assaults a senior government car and gets fiercely targeted herself. After introduction there are some seven episodes to choose from, each presenting some kind of story about Mary. 8. Cry Sweeper クライスイーパー [961213] D.O. 1 2 A series of mysterious events has occurred in a seemingly normal high school somewhere in Japan. Girls have been reported missing or assaulted under mysterious circumstances. The police is helpless. Two people are determined to solve the mystery: Kai Shuri, a man who can read minds and recall events from the past, and Ami Kanko, a girl who controls the powers of telekinesis. Will they ever be able to get to the bottom of the things, or will gruesome events continue to happen amidst innocent teenagers?.. It's one my first played visual novels. It's actually about rape after aliens/demons invasion into the school, but it has a lot of coolness about it. A trash game in a good sense of this word (if it has any good sense). Lots of gore, impressive demons and good old insanity everywhere. Voicing is really well done. 9. Dangerous Toys デンジャラス・トイズ [961213] Love Gun 1 2 This game has 10 stories about girls having fun with interesting toys and other girls. There are two English reviews. 10. Hana no Kioku Dai 2 Shou 花の記憶 第二章 [961213] Foster Collection of five short erotic stories. 1. Lesbian intercourse at a family restaurant 2. Nurse encounters a number of delusions 3. Affair with a married woman 4. Assault on the office lady clerk 5. Forced sex at the preparatory school Ero-centered work, nothing much changed since the prequel. 11. Houkago Ren'ai Club ~Koi no Etude~ 放課後恋愛倶楽部 ～恋のエチュード～ [961213] Libido 1 2 3 4 5 6 You are a teenage boy in high school. You join the Casual Romance Club in order to meet other people and perhaps find love. There are twelve girls you can approach, each one possessing her own unique beauty and personality. Use your time and efforts wisely and you may just get yourself more than a casual romance... You are given a month to shop around and win somebody's love, after which you'll ask the girl of your choice to keep seeing you even after the club adjourns. Each game day starts at the Starry Sky restaurant, with the club notebook laid out for you. The club notebook has the lowdown on all the girls -- their basic statistics, pictures, horoscopes, likes, dislikes, etc. The girls also record their thoughts and reactions on daily events next to their horoscopes, so reading the club notebook can prove vital to your success. Game has many English reviews. 12. Injuu no Datenshi ~Requiem for Fallen Angels~ 淫従の堕天使 〜Requiem for Fallen Angels〜 [961213] Discovery Hero lives with a lovely younger sister and suppresses affection for her. However, his friend knows of such feelings and invites hero to attack surrounding women. But hero has a subtle feeling that his sister is going to be involved as well sooner or later... Despite "injuu" in the title, there's not a single tentacle. The work is of insult nature, but among all that ruckus there is also one romance route. 13. Kyouiku Jisshuu ~Joshikousei Maniacs~ 教育実習 ～女子校生マニアックス～ [961213] Tetratech 1 2 The plot of Kyōiku Jisshū: Joshi Kōsei Maniacs is rather simple: the protagonist is an ordinary Japanese man named Shingo, who is about to become an intern in a prestigious school. There is only one thing that makes the young man slightly nervous: all his students will be girls. And if that weren't enough, some of his new co-workers are young attractive women. Will Shingo concentrate on his job or succumb to the pleasures of the flesh? There is an English review. 14. Mel Mel Melty Marchen メル・メル メルティーメルヘン [961213] Queen Soft Classic western fairy-tales return adapted for adult taste, but to get to adult part it's needed to to write what's shown with sign language. The main feature of this work is that H content is only available after writing correctly what the girl shows with the sign language. With each story the phrases become longer. 15. Muku 無垢 [961213] Nikukyuu 1 A girl went to work for our guy to pay her family debt. Our guy already has a butler(male), secretary(female), and maid(young female). He can train the new girl to be a maid, secretary, slave or fun object. What she does when she pay off her debt depends on how he had treated her. Kusoge. 16. Pet Inga~ ＰＥＴいんが～★ [961213] Pumpie 1 Hero is dumped by his girlfriend after poor sexual performance. He meets a man in the store reveals him the true secret of sexuality - to stay dressed. Hero is required to have petting with three girls in seven days to regain confidence and get a reward. A bakage. System is not comfortable due to the need to press on-screen buttons and repeat the same moves over and over during long interactive H scenes. 17. True Love Story トゥルー・ラブストーリー [961213] ASCII Corporation 1 2 You are a male second year student at high school. Your parents got a sudden transfer, so you've just moved to a new city. You'll be transferred again in one month, so you only have that time to make one of the nine heroines fall in love with you. A degraded version of Tokimeki Memorial. Dating sims boom has come to playstation. Main feature of the game is going home together with the girl and taking on the way. It had good animation and sound so found its niche. 18. Kichikuou Rance 鬼畜王ランス [961219] Alice Soft 1 2 3 4 This game is not part of the official Rance universe timeline, forking off after the events of Rance 4.2, as a "What if" episode. The prelude starts with Rance leading a band of bandits in rural Helman Empire. The Imperial Patrol crushed his band with overwhelming force, and captured his slave, Sill. Rance fled to the borders of Leazas where he was rescued by Kanami, personal ninja of Lia, queen of Leazas. Eager to take revenge upon Helman and rescue his slave Sill, Rance agreed to marry Lia. As the new king of of Leazas, Rance set his first step on a path that eventually leads to world domination, or death. There are English reviews. 19. Can Can Bunny Premiere 2 きゃんきゃんバニー　プルミエール２ [961220] Cocktail Soft 1 2 You are one single lonely guy who wants a girlfriend. And when you went home a huge explosion occurred. Inside your room, you saw seven little midgets: the Japanese Gods of Luck. Along with them was a beautiful girl with green hair and she gave you something which she called the "Star of Guidance". The next day you ran into some cute girl, and mysteriously, the "Star of Guidance" glowed... The promissed earlier full title (after 5 1/2). A good quality game that follows exactly the same line as the prequels. Sawady and Swatty are both present for the first time. And you've got only 10 days to capture the heart of your love interest. But after Pia Carrot fabula looked really old already and lacked freshness. 20. Alice In Cyberland Yamiyo No Madoushi ありすインサイバーランド闇夜の魔導士 [961220] Glams 1 Tokyo, the 21st century. The internet has grown to be an enormously important part of life, and a digital world called "Cyberland" has come into existence. This digital world is divided into eight levels, with more important and confidential information being granted higher levels of priority, with the highest levels being inaccessible to anyone other than those with the highest government security clearance. A young junior-high student named Alice Minazuki is the daughter of one of the developers of this system. He left her with a very special "dive system," which allows the user to enter the deepest parts of Cyberland. Together with her friends Rena Ohtori and Juri Yagami, they are ALICE-3, a team tasked with maintaining peace and order in Cyberland. Alice in Cyberland is a traditional Japanese-style adventure game divided into chapters. Each chapter begins with Alice and her friends in Tokyo, and you can move about the city talking to people to find out more about what's happening. Eventually, she'll need to "dive" into Cyberland, which is also represented by a city. Your team will be able to move around, investigating different systems and looking for information, and eventually running into enemy "guard programs" which must be fought. The battle system is simple, allowing for either attack, defense, and character change. Defeating a guard system will continue the story. It's a single road story in five chapters. Battles take place in the Cyberland while real world is just for hanging around and trying various mini-games at gaming centers and such. Battles are the biggest drawback while the core of the game is really enjoying. There is some lesbian development. 21. M ~Kimi o Tsutaete~ M ～君を伝えて～ [961220] Nexus Interact 1 M is a love/dating simulation game. The game immediately starts by asking you a series of questions to determine your personality, after which the heroine is determined based on your personality. Similar to other simulation games, player has a set of skills that may be upgraded by performing various tasks. Things like sleeping, working, shopping and such. The game story takes time during the 85 days where you exchange the diary with others, reaching good ending if you connect with someone by the time the time runs out. Another strange SIM. 22. Ars Amatoria アルス・アマトリア [961221] Aspect Corporation Daisuke walks along the streets of Tokyo. The night is full of love. Which girl will attract his attention next? Each part has some 8 HCG with some text prior to it. The final part has as much as 15 HCG. It's a practical work with random encounters in random situations, so it's wrong to search meaning in the small text introductions. 23. Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo YU-NO この世の果てで恋を唄う少女YU-NO [961226] Elf 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Takuya Arima is a young student whose father, a historian who has conducted various researches, disappeared recently. During a summer vacation Takuya receives a peculiar package from his missing father, along with a letter containing information about the existence of various parallel worlds. At first Takuya doesn't take it seriously, but soon he realizes that he possesses a device that allows him to travel to alternate dimensions. Is his father alive, after all? If so, where is he? Game has many English reviews. 24. Bloody Bride Imadoki no Vampire Bloody Bride いまどきのバンパイア [961227] Astrovision 1 2 3 You play as a young vampire who has reached (vampire) adulthood. He is sent to earth to suck the blood of a girl with a 'platium aura'. However the girl has to willingly allow him to suck her blood. The character is given three years to complete his mission. There are several English reviews. 25. Making Candy ~Okinimesumama~ Making Candy ～お気に召すまま～ [961227] Curott Keita started to live together with a girl who he met in a movie theater. Where will this cohabitation lead? Kind of a SIM that takes place over 50 days. There are as many as 16 endings available, so pretty much all the outcomes are prepared, most of which differ only by the erotic fetish. It's something in-between Ayumi-chan story and Custom Mate 3. 26. Instant Clarity インスタントクラリティー [96] Neko no Kessha A collection of two stories. Episode 1 tells a love story between protagonist and childhood friend Miharu. But he starts to lose grip with the reality and through delusions relations between two people take another shape. Episode 2 is an incest story between siblings. Coersion, insult and intimidation... can these elements bring a happy ending? Doujin H-oriented work. 27. Minako no Suiyoubi 美奈子の水曜日 [96] Echigoya Corporation Every Wednesday tutor Minako comes over. Main character has big plans for hear, and these plans are to be implemented today with her arrival. Some more H-oriented stuff. Sadly, no normal picture is found, but this small icon shows how terrible graphics was for the game to be discontinued at dlsite.

After starry October nothing really shines this month. If we narrow down the candidates I'd have to choose from Mashou no Kao, High School Days, Sotsugyou Shashin 2 ~Raspberry Dream~, Tsuiokuand Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Hihoushima Arata Naru Sangeki. Last one is out as PS1 exclusive (win version nowhere to be found). Sotsugyou Shashin 2 is out as a difficult type of game for modern players. Tsuioku is way too obscure. High School Days is a really nice game, but even warm vanilla school game can't really invoke much interest with poor graphics and no voicing. I can't believe myself, but I'm nominating Mink's Mashou no Kao as VN of November 1996. This crazy nymphet game has a strong personality and leaves a lasting impact through the years. 1. Mashou no Kao 魔性の貌 [961101] Mink 1 Keiichi Hayama is an ordinary Japanese high-school student, who has lost his parents and lives together with his foster mother and her daughter, which he considers his own sister - or so he thought... Because all the boy can think about is sex, and the two women he lives with are both very pretty, not blood-related to him, and also sex-hungry. To make things even worse, an exceedingly well-endowed exchange student comes to live with them. In short, what follows is a series of increasingly erotic encounters, which pretty much sum up the plot of the game. Graphics make the charm of the game. Exchange student Reika manages to be both young and mysterious and she makes the whole family degenerate. There were also multiple endings and partial voicing in the original game, so it had quite an influence. 2. Reijou Sera 隷嬢セーラ [961101] Guilty Sera awakens in a mansion and is told by the owner that her relative owed a huge debt. Now Sera has to serve at the mansion to pay the debt. And there's a strict punishment for every small mistake there. Yes, this is one of the least offensive images that I found. 3. Tania TANIA ～タニア～ [961101] Tips 19th century. Girl Tania is born in a well-off family. But at the age of 6 a pillar of light pierced the girl making her faint and leaving a black mole on her chest. Now when the little girl grew into a young lady she starts to see strange dreams and to have strange desires... I did not find reviews on the game, but the game develops mostly as an eroge and the inner demon inside Tania literally shows up and soaks the house with blood. Not sure if there's also a good ending to all that. 4. Jun'ai Monogatari - Shuugaku Ryokou no Yoru 純愛物語 修学旅行の夜 [961101] Art Soft Main character becomes is a normal student. During this school trip he definitely wants to lose virginity. He can try to spark the waning relations with his former girlfriend who never let him close or seek an adult woman company. Basically it's a conversation game. Need to guess emotions and use phrases accordingly. 5. Umizuri Wakadaishou Satsuki 海釣り若大将さつき [961101] Echigoya Corporation Today I came to participate in the fishing tournament. I'm looking forward to catching lots of fish, but it's my utmost desire to reveal the mystery behind the mermaid legend at these waters. Kind of more of a gameplay game, but there is a dialogue window that's always on with some descriptions and phrases, so it should qualify. 6. Rekiai 轢愛 [961108] Blucky Hero is a student who studies till 3 AM and goes to convenience store for refreshments. There he sees the clerk girl having sex with a man. When the vision passes the clerk stands normally at the counter. Upon leaving the store something gets changed in the hero... Well hero starts to be violent towards women around him, so it follows an ordinary eroge trail. So it's a dark and serious development. 7. Tenshi no Hohoemi 天使のほほえみ [961112] Masys Desktop Collection Vol.3 Summer Desktop Items "Angel smile" includes among other goodies five theater episodes: 1. The story how three girls met each other 2. Taking action to regain memory 3. Riko regains memory 4. An incident occurs. What happens to Riko? 5. The aftermath 8. Muppet Box まぺっとぼっくす [961115] Muppet Box A collection of three stories: 1.「らぶらぶせらばに若奥様」 2.「がんばれ美佳ちゃん！！」 3. 「ソフトハウスの哀れな調教」 The stories are of erotic nature, but with comedy touch. Each story only takes about 10 minutes to read. 9. High School Days HIGH スク～ル DAYS [961122] May-Be Soft Takashi Sakamoto follows his father's job appointment and transfers from a high school in Saitama to Hokkaido. What kind of exciting youth adventures are bound to happen to him there? Quite a truthfully told story about adolscense. There aren't adventures, just everyday school routine. There aren't heroes, just shy and awkward children. The story is light and starts from comical sequences to prevent being bored. Game system is command selection. A well-balanced modest work without affectionate moves or ending. 10. Little Step Ｌｉｔｔｌｅ　Ｓｔｅｐ～リトルステップ～ [961122] Lay-Up Talent cultivation simulator with the aim to become industry leader. Scenario is flat and SIM part is affected by luck more than on strategy. And only save/load helps from bankrupcy. Ending is shown after three years without bankrupcy for all the girls that have high enough affection level. 11. Saorin to Issho!! ~Amusement Soft Vol.1~ さおりんといっしょ！！ [961122] Leaf Leaf's fandisc Oh well, I did not even find the text story in this fandisc. Can't stand fandiscs anyway. 12. Sotsugyou Shashin 2 ~Raspberry Dream~ 卒業写真2 ～Raspberry Dream～ [961122] Apollon Create Yosuke Katsuragi is a 3rd grade high school student. During the summer vacation he walks around the city without particular reason and encounters various girls. Who will be smiling beside him on the photo stand the day the summer vacation ends and the day of the graduation ceremony? Could not find anything about part 1, but part 2 was quite popular. Simplified Classmate system game. It's mostly romantic focused and has big volume, lots of characters and interesting story. But... characters aren't too cute and the difficulty is insane to the point that no single person could beat it alone and with the internet loosely spread that was a devastating blow for buyers who could not finish the route. 13. Tenshi-tachi no Hohoemi 天使たちの微笑み [961122] JAST 1 September 31, 2000, you accompanied your friends to job interviews. You and your friends are senior college students, but unfortunately you need to continue college for two additional years due to some reasons. Since you cannot graduate from college now, you are in a bad need of a part-time job to continue your education. At the same time you accompanied your friend to job interviews, you received some messages. Since that day, you become a private tutor for four girls. There is an English review of this game. Formally it's a tutorship raising SIM game, but due to the ease of this part it should be referred as an ADV work with some SIM elements and quizzes. You train your students but you can also go on a date. Even passing an exam excellently raises relations with the student to a point that H-scene happens... Windows version of the game had a fatal bug and the patch only dealt party with it. So it's an average work without advantages and disadvantages, but it was definitely not a good enough quality work to resurrect the Angel series. 14. Tsuioku 追憶 -ついおく- [961122] Bell-Da A year after your graduation, you've become a security guard, and your first post happens to be at your old school, where you used to be the president of the student council. But everything there seems off: the school is set to close, and everyone you knew seems depressed, or acts strange. Nothing like the flourishing school it was a year ago. And nobody will answer your questions about how this happened. To your surprise, you get a chance of being the student council president once more and right the wrongs that have happened. No impressions found on the game, but first H event arrives as soon as 15 minutes through which is quite early. So I guess the option to do everything right is not the only option in the game... 15. Gedou Kyoushi ~Ryoujoku Shuukan~ 外道教師 ～凌辱週間～ [961129] Misty Teacher arrives to a school full of girl students and has to teach there for one week. You can only move 3 times per day so only 21 move prepared and it's easy to miss everything. There result is either good or very bad. Trashy insult work. 16. Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Hihoushima Arata Naru Sangeki 金田一少年の事件簿 悲報島 新たなる惨劇, [961129] Digital Frontier 1 2 Treasure Isle is rumored to hide a vast bounty of gold said to be guarded by the legendary beast "Yamawara", which Kindaichi and other treasure hunters gather to search for. But the host is killed before the group even arrives, and a bloody slaying takes place during a time in which none of the people on the island could have done it. Will the island's mythical monster-guardian claim more victims? Famous boy detective franchise. Game is difficult in the way that there are lots of choices and one wrong choice makes you out off the board. There are locations in the form of interactive dungeons as well where you can perform a lot of actions. There are some 25 animation minutes promised. There is little mystery, it's definitely not a suspense story. 17. One Way Ticket ~Fushigi na Katamichi Kippu~ One Way Ticket ～不思議な片道切符～ [961129] Aquarium Hero mistakenly receives a one way ticket. Train takes him to a strange world. When train goes uphill hero finds himself in embrace of maid girls with cat ears and when going downhill - under special care of nurses. Kusoge. One playthrough is only 10 minutes. Almost all CG are HCG. To see other variants it's needed to play over and over and messages can't be skipped. 18. Saint Diary ~Sei-chan no Nikki~ せいんと☆だいありぃ ～聖ちゃんの日記～ [961129] Desire 1 Saint Diary is a visual novel focusing on the romantic life of a high school student named Kiyoka (the Chinese character used to spell here name means "saint"), who works as a waitress at the local cafe during a vacation. The protagonist of the game is a male college student who frequents the cafe and gradually develops a relationship with Kiyoka. Though there are two other female characters in the game, the dating aspect focuses exclusively on Kiyoka. Quite a short story. Command selection within limited time was still fresh, main heroine is cute and has huge number of emotions showing on her face. Saves are also limited to the times when there is an option for it. After the ending there's the girl side of the story, which is probably the main feature of this work. 19. Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Mikan no Report 探偵 神宮寺三郎 未完のルポ [961129] Data East Corporation 1 2 3 4 An overseas package containing a small key arrives at the detective agency from Jingūji's journalist acquaintance. Jingūji must uncover the hidden meaning of the key. 5th installment of the series that has been pestering me since the late 80s. There's quite enough information about it in English.

Star Platinum, Angel Halo, Stone Walkers and Bounty Hunter Rudy are masterpieces of the month. That's a difficult choice! I believe that Bounty Hunter Rudy is the worthiest for being VN of October 1996 1. Girl 2 ガール２ [961001] Juice Reiko is a female tutor of three young girls. Here are three stories of what happened at the lessons. Game is focused on H events and the feature of the series is small windows that show only some part of the body. 2. Eternal Melody エターナルメロディ [961004] MediaWorks Main character is a normal high school student who gets into an accident at the construction site. Instead of dying he finds himself in a strange world. There he learns that he needs to find a powerful artifact in order to return to his world. However, there are also other contestants for the treasure as it can help to conquer the world. Will protagonist return to his world safely? Genre is raising SIM to train four people including yourself and fight in the battles to come. 3. Hokenshitsu no Akuma 保健室の悪魔 [961004] Neko no Kessha A mysterious organism attacks a private school. This is an omnibus drama showing aftermath of the attack in different parts of the school. Kind of horror tentacle insult themed doujin work.. 4. Star Platinum スタープラチナ [961010] Custom 1 2 3 4 High in the heavens, there was a girl who was training in a shrine to be the successor of a goddess. One day, the goddess had to leave the shrine to attend a meeting of the many gods, leaving the girl alone at the shrine. The goddess warned her to leave alone a box of star-souls within the shrine, and that under no circumstances should she open it. Naturally, as soon as the goddess had left, the girl's curiosity got the better of her and she opened the box. The star-souls escaped, turned the girl into a small fairy, and fled down towards the Earth. She must track down and capture the star-souls, now causing mischief on Earth, before the goddess returns to the shrine. However, while chasing several of the star-souls through the sky, the girl crashes through the window of a young man who lives on Earth. She decides that since he can somehow see her, that he's going to help her out, and so the two of them begin their adventure. In the story mode the story unfolds until a character in need of exorcising is encountered and then a special card battle is held. The biggest feature of this work is totally unique style of graphics that's impossible to confuse with anything else. 5. Heroine Dream ヒロインドリーム [961010] Map Japan 1 Heroine Dream is an idol simulation game in which the player takes a role of a producer whose goal is to help Shizuka Maiki enter the scene in style. But that doesn't happen over night, in fact, it requires many weeks of training. The heroine herself has many attributes that lack in quality and as her producer, you will have to balance her training (ballet, dancing, swimming etc.), but at the same time keep an eye on her stress level. The game features voice-acting, but without the ability to see subtitles, only the answers you can select during conversations with other characters. Depending on what kind of a star producer you turn out to be, the game may reach one of several different endings. Just another raising SIM mix. 6. Toriko 虜 [961011] D.O. Main character is a new teacher with a notion of love and lust. He imprisons his student Yumiko Saeki at the request of Asami Tamura who enslaved her and took her virginity. During the summer vacations fierce and dense training begins. Shocking game and spiritual follower of SEEK. Training scenes are even animated. System is too difficult for modern players. There are some ardent fans of this work, but majority won't even come close to it. 7. Angel Halo Ａｎｇｅｌ Ｈａｌｏ −エンジェル・ハイロウ− [961017] Active 1 2 3 The protagonist, Kusakabe Makoto, is living a normal school life without knowing he is the reincarnation of Lucifer. One day an angel named Sofia and a demon named Lilith come to him. They are the messengers of Heaven and Hell. The day of Lucifer's judgement is approaching. I have a full review prepared. 8. Katei Kyoushi 家庭教師 [961018] Interheart Michiko-chan is a normal student girl anxious of love. When her friend suggests tutor variant, Michiko agrees. Again ero-centered Interheart work with some voices and some animation. 9. Stone Walkers ストーンウォーカーズ [961018] Sunsoft 1 Stone Walkers is an adventure game in which you take the role of Randy a teacher similar to Indiana Jones and his two girl helpers in a dangerous adventure searching for a mayan artifact called the Jade Mask. The adventure begins when they travel to Guatemala to start the search in some mayan ruins. Playstation exclusive title. It's command selection, but at times different forms like setting up traps that trigger trouble events. And you can not bruteforce all the commands since you've only got limited selection number, so need to think carefully what to choose. And there are multiple endings so the weight of choice increases even further. As a non-romance adventure story it returns to the origins like De-Ja or Nook series and that's why feels fresh in the launched romance novel era. 10. Bounty Hunter Rudy バウンティはんたぁルディ [961025] Scoop 1 Rudy is a famous space bounty hunter with top notch skills. But she's famous mostly for her ability to fall into troubles due because of uncontrolled destruction power. In order to deal with the debts she goes to casino but drenches down into even deeper debt. She is offered a top secret military case and she's in no position to reject it. Rudy is bisexual in the sense that with women she becomes a futanari... The main feature of the game is parody... it has reference to dozens of contemporary western and eastern media works from Start Wars to Crayon Shin-Chan. The evaluation of the game greatly depends on the ability to find and enjoy those parodies. I've a full review prepared. 11. Cherry Moderate チェリーマドレット [961025] Ucom Hero and his classmate argued about who of them was more popular with the girls. Now with the nanpa competition launched hero needs to win the hearts of as many girls as possible. Capture is not really difficult since at all times you can consult the school nurse who tells exactly what to do in each girl's case. The number of girls is big, but each girl story is plain and short - and ends with a CG. There is a time limit and all the girls that aren't conquered by the hero are conquered by his rival - that guy has a 100% success rate! 12. Ikumoto 生本● [961025] Illusion At start there is only a remote control. But when channel is chosen, a world of horny drama lies before your eyes. It's an adult channel with all kind of hardcore content. There are also casters and commercials between the show pieces. It's hardly a game - just choose a program and watch. It can be weird or funny, like when on the alternative of discovery channel there are still girls having sex in Savannah. 13. RAM 1 - New Evolution Organize ラ・ム１ ニューエボリューションオーガナイズ [961025] GMF Shinsuke is a teenager from modern time. He has a special mark on his forehead which is said to kill him on removal by his father. RAM is a girl who comes from 10.000 years ago in the past to the modern time. She searches for NEO where NEO stands for New Evolution Organize or in other words human with evolved cellular organization, a superhuman. After RAM removes the patch from Shinsuke forehead the bright light fills the room and a new sign is formed there. RAM is going to turn Shinsuke into NEO before DOMI from future arrives. Game actually follows Classmate as there is top down travelling around the map and time dimension. Shinsuke meets different girls at different locations. I'm bad with such type of games and there's next to zero information about the game. 14. Haruka no Sora ~Gekitou Mahjong Taikai Hen~ 遥の空 ～激闘麻雀大会編～ [961025] This is another strip majong game. In the story mode, you can pick one of 6 girls to fight for a banshee tear, which can grant one wish. I've no words for strip mahjong. 15. G no Kyokuhoku Ｇの極北 [961031] Bunny Pro. Main character decides to become world's strongest guy in masturbation. He gathers six girls from all over the world and starts an international contest. Masturbation scenes have text descriptions, but there is zero plot there.