Archive for the ‘Hentai Games’ Category

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Moero Downhill Night Released By: Peach Princess Released: 10/09 Reviewed: 10/8/09 Rated: 18+

Shou Daichi is working on Himeda Ridge as a delivery driver barely making ends meet. He goes into work every day dreaming of something more but doesn’t know what he wants. While out making a delivery, destiny meets him head on in the form of getting hit by a car driven by the beautiful Michi Konozaki. After Michi deems Shou as being the the ‘legendary man’ she’s been looking for, Shou is dragged into the high speech world of street racing. Now serving as Michi’s navigator, Shou will be challenged by a string of beautiful female racers and navigators who want to take on the ‘legendary man’.

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Cosplay Fetish Academy Released By: Sekilala/G-Collections Released: 6/19/09 Reviewed: 7/20/09 Rated: 18+

Story

Living with his two hot, twin female cousins while going to high school, Ryouji’s life isn’t terribly complicated. That all is about to change though. When he and his cousin Shana go to visit Yuuki at the shrine where she works, a strange storm brews above them and strikes them with lightning. Well, more accurately it only strikes Ryouji but the effects are still felt on all of them. Don’t ask why, it’s not important. After leaving the shrine, the three of them find out something amazing: the lightning has transported them to a new world where everything is exactly the same except for all the women wear nothing but revealing outfits and cosplay.    Again, don’t ask why.

Making the best of their new home, the three of them go about their daily high school lives which includes getting ready for the cultural festival and eventually falling in love. So who is Ryouji going to end up with? The serious, studious Yuuki, the wild airhead Shana, the shy glasses wearing Kotori or the young but still sexy homeroom teacher Maika?

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Princess Waltz Released By: Peach Princess Released: 12/8/08 Reviewed: 12/14/08

Peach Princess scores huge with the epic game, Princess Waltz.

Story

Taking on the role of Arata Fukamori, things change when a strange new transfer student enters the class. He’s foreign, beautiful, athletic and rumored to be a prince. After Chris arrives though, Arata is pulled into a strange new world that he didn’t even know existed: Chris really is the prince of a foreign kingdom called Eldhiland and he is involved in a deadly battle between princesses called the ‘Princess Waltz’. All of these princesses are fighting to be the last one standing and take Chris as their husband. Only Arata knows that Chris is hiding a secret though and working together, the two seek to unravel the mystery behind the Princess Waltz and the secrets that it contains.

Artwork

The female cast for this game is quite varied. From the princesses to school friends, the audience is always going to be able to find someone in a scene to connect with on some level. Starting with the princesses, Princess Waltz starts on a strong note creating six very unique princesses that are strong in their own way. No two princesses are remotely similar which creates a very strong cast for the audience to have fun with. Standing out from the cast, Lun Lun (princess of the storm) and Angela (princess of the dragons) were not only designed in such strong fashions but their personalities constantly stood out as so dynamic. The design for these characters could have come across any better.

Blending the line between art and storytelling though, Princess Waltz moves three steps beyond the average ero game. All throughout the game, the audience will be pulled into the story even further with artwork being incredibly well used throughout. Backgrounds will fade away, some images will slowly animate, all of the princesses get their own transformation sequence; the effects just went on and on. What’s best about this is that none of the effects ever come across as wasted effort. Every time something blinked, or the background changed; you always knew that there was a solid reason for it and the story was moving forward. Nothing ever happened without a reason making the effects all the more powerful in their presentation.

The ero content in this game is one of the most surprising aspects in the fact that there is really hardly any at all. Early in the game there are two ero scenes that you won’t be able to avoid and then late in the game there is the opportunity to have one short ero scene with one of the princesses. None of the scenes are overly explicit and the artwork during these scenes really generates a very soft emotional feeling.

Writing and Story

With over a day’s worth of game play, one is instantly asking themselves if they want to put in that much time. Yes, you do. Staying in mostly just a couple of different settings, Princess Waltz has a story that never stops for a moment. From the drama, to the comedy (and there will be a LOT of comedy) to the romance to the incredible battle scenes (oh don’t worry, I’ll get to that in a paragraph or so) this title delivered on every level in terms of its story and presentation.

Perhaps one of the reasons why I was able to get into this game so easily is because of the easy going nature of the dialogue which made it feel very much like an anime series. More than a few early chapters doing a great job of developing the lead characters while giving the girls reasons to be cute and screamy. This works perfectly for this title though as the jokes were always hilarious (and they will beat one joke over and over until it is long dead in the ground… and for some reason it’s still funny).

Up until the very end, the characters in this series will continue to keep you laughing. Nodoka is adorable as the cute ‘loli looking best friend from childhood’ character and April filled the ‘maid’ void with hysterical one liners. The drama of the Princess Waltz however turns into another very surprising aspect of the entire gaming experience.

The coming together of the princesses makes sense in itself but soon after they are introduced, all of the princesses start to reveal why they are interested in winning the waltz. All of them have their own reasons and all of them are valid. Some of them are a little fiercer, some are a little purer and some are a little more honest but all of the girls have real reasons for wanting to win. Players will have absolutely zero idea about how badly these girls want to win though until they get to one of the battle scenes and that’s where the writing takes it to the next level.

The battle scenes between the princesses are not animated but the artwork combined with incredible writing will make you think that they are anyway. Every action and move within these battles are organized and laid out with such incredible detail. Just reading through the battles and seeing the character portraits on my screen I had absolutely zero issues with imaging the characters having these epic battles in my head.

Music

Normally a place where games lose the most points, the soundtrack to Princess Waltz is surprisingly another strong point for the series. With a soundtrack that contains three vocal tracks, the game starts things with a solid opening theme that really sets a good mood to begin with. Most of the themes throughout the game were easy enough to enjoy as background noise. The themes never felt intrusive or annoying to listen to on a loop though the organ theme did wonders to add credibility to the introduction of a character late in the game.

Bad Points

The place where Princess Waltz lost the most steam is in its final stretch. Telling its story in chapters, for almost the entire game the story remains strong. While some of the early plot twists are a little easier to see coming, it won’t take long before you give up all notions regarding trying to guess where the story in this game is going to go next. In the final chapters though, Princess Waltz seems to run into issues with tying up its loose ends. Arata ends up coming across as kind of an ass and the climax seems to come together a little too easily with not even a real boss character for players to beat at the end.

The second issue that Princess Waltz runs into in its final moments is that the princesses all seem to have similar final chapters. While there was certainly enough variety in them to keep me going back to complete the CG collection, the subsequent trips into the ending were increasingly difficult to get excited about with each trip in.

Constantly touted as one of the most innovative systems in ero game history, the card battling system adds a very unique element to the game. While players will rarely be allowed to make a real choice in deciding the game’s outcome or direction, the battle system does a great job of keeping things from getting monotonous for a short while.

After playing through the game however, it’s safe to say that the battle system could have used a little more work. It’s certainly not a bad system at least, it is a fun game that keeps things fresh and fun every once in awhile… it’s just painfully easy to beat. The card battle system basically is a game of war using numbers and colors. Your opponent will put out cards and you have to put out cards that are of the right color and high enough number to beat their totals. As long as you remember: blue beats green, green beats red and red beats blue there is almost no possible way to lose these matches.

Princess Waltz does attempt to add in a challenge factor to the game by giving players experience to boost up three primary stats, their color bonuses and even buy certain bonus skills. Even with that though, I found it easy to beat the enemies even on the normal setting. As long as I kept boosting up my stats and color bonuses, I never once had to use one of the bonus cards throughout the entire game and I rarely even took damage from enemies once I got past chapter four.

Replay Value

Upon first getting this game, I was devoting two to three hours to it every night before devoting two entire days to it which pushed me through to the end. If you enjoy marathon gaming sessions, this is a game that will keep you out of the public eye for quite awhile. Plus even with the fast forward feature going back to get all of the CG scenes is going to add another hour or two per princess that you decide to collect from.

With only one true ending though, the odds of me sitting down to play this game again from start to finish are pretty slim. I am certainly not sorry that I played it in the least but I just couldn’t see myself sitting down to play it again, at least not anytime in the foreseeable future.

Overall

This is a game for the collector in your life. If you know someone that has an established interest in ero games I can’t imagine them being anything less than ecstatic when they received a copy of this game and got to play it. While I couldn’t imagine anyone using this game to get their start into the genre due to how massive it is, this is a solid game for veterans to play through once and have as a prized piece of their collection. With a story and characters like this, having this release turned into an anime series would be a dream fulfilled but for now, Princess Waltz shines beautifully on a stage of its own. Very recommended!

Final Grade: B+

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Lightning Warrior Raidy Released By: G-Collections Released: 4/8/08 Reviewed: 5/11/08

Further proof that ero games and strategy games just don’t work well together.

Story

After arriving in the small village of Saad, the traveling warrior Raidy learns that monsters in a nearby tower have kidnapped the women of the village. All of the men who went in to save the women never returned. Now it’s up to Lightning Warrior Raidy, who earned her name because of her ability to wield thunder in battle, to save the girls and return them from the village. It won’t be easy though, Raidy has to fight her way through six floors in order to defeat the evil demon who resides at the top.

Artwork

Really playing up the fantasy setting of this game, the characters in this game are all very well designed. Raidy herself is a strong lead character complete with the typical armor that covers hardly any of her body while all of the bosses have their own unique look and class.

The supporting characters in this game were also mostly very well designed. On every floor there are three different types of enemies that Raidy will have to face. One of the ways that the game keeps things innovative though is their tongue in cheek enemies. To cite a perfect example would be the second floor which features a Minotaur. In this game though, a

Minotaur is simply a cute brunette with small cow horns and wearing a skimpy black and white suit that is torn from her body upon her defeat. Another great example of enemy design was the sylphs on floor four.

The girls that Raidy are trying to rescue could’ve been designed with a bit more variety. While they are all very nicely designed and all of them are attractive characters, it felt as though there wasn’t enough variety in them. After a couple of floors a lot of the girls just started to look the same which made me start to care less about saving them and more about just fighting the enemies and getting to the bosses so that I could see their designs instead.

The ero level of this game is fairly low. All of the enemies that you defeat will strike a sexy pose upon defeat but they are never graphic. The ero scenes with the bosses are where the most sex is seen actually. Every boss has a different fetish to get around such as whips or enemas. These scenes are never overly graphic themselves either but are well drawn and fun to look at.

Writing and Story

The initial story outline for this game didn’t sell me on this game. Going through it after receiving my copy of the game, I found that the writing and story didn’t get any better. While the story itself isn’t exactly innovative, the writing that it follows doesn’t do any better. While every floor has a few scenes here and there to keep the story moving along, most of this game is going to be about fighting and puzzle solving.

The scenes that are played out though really come across as odd and awkward due to cultural differences. A primary example of this would be Raidy fighting through the tower and yet every time she comes across a boss or enemy that she has to interact with, the speech patterns go right back into humble Japanese speech patterns. While it is completely understandable that the game would be written this way, it still struck me as odd that a fantasy warrior maiden who is fighting through a tower would have time to speak so politely. It really took me out of the element as a gamer and made it harder to get into the game and story.

Music

The dungeon crawl music is well composed and does a great job of sinking into the background without becoming annoyingly repetitive. The battle music on the other hand did start to come across as annoying by the time I had reached the third floor though so that got turned off fairly quickly afterwards. Perhaps the reason why this is though is simply because the battle music gets started and stopped every few steps while the dungeon music is on a constant loop.

I really was hoping to hear some nice tunes for the music but none of it stood out as particularly impressive.

Bad Points

The battle system is where this game loses most of its points. To be blunt, the battle system is terribly boring and becomes a repetitive chore every single time you start a new level. With only two different attacks to use (either a sword attack or a lightning attack) battles became constant button pushing on my mouse until the battle was over. Occasionally I would glance up and use a healing potion but most of the time all I had to do to finish any battle (including boss battles) was to just keep hitting the sword button and wait a few minutes.

The navigation in this game is also one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had while playing an ero game. The puzzles in this game are frustratingly difficult to get your way around at first since you have to collect the map for each floor after you get onto the floor (which is usually one of the very last items that you find on each floor). This leads to a ton of blind wandering around and hoping that you stumble upon it eventually. Even on the first floor I had already felt the need to open up notepad on my laptop in order to notes about which doors led where. But with floor tiles that will change your direction without you even realizing it and trick walls that you can’t find unless it’s an accident, this game will challenge your mind.

Though this becomes a silent point at certain points throughout each level since once you do find the map for that floor the levels become insanely easy in an instant. If this game had managed to find the balance between maddeningly difficult and pathetically easy, it would have gone a long way towards making this a much more enjoyable game.

Replay Value

With only six floors to get through and enemies that are quite easy to defeat, anyone who is good at puzzles will be able to get through this game within a couple of nights (possibly one if they’re diligent about it). If you’re not good at puzzles, this game is going to drive you nuts for many nights. Once you do get through the game though, you’ll have access to the extras menu which will tell you if you’ve managed to catch all the CG. There are only a few hidden rooms within the game though so one more trip through the game will likely net you everything there is to see. After that, there won’t be much reason to pick this game up again.

Overall

After some less than positive experiences with ero games trying to mix in some strategy in the past, I was wary about this game going in. Very quickly though, I found that this is a game worth killing a weekend with if you’re bored. While the fantasy setting is fun and the character designs are wonderful, the boring battle system and frustrating puzzles make this game one that will be more suited for experienced gamers and collectors. Newcomers to the genre can find much better games to start with and are better off waiting for some of the other upcoming releases instead.

Final Grade: 78% – C

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Snow Sakura Released By: G-Collections Released: 12/25/07 Reviewed: 1/21/08

 

Intro

 

            This game is easily one of the best I’ve ever played.

 

Story

 

            You play as Yuuji Tachibana. A high school kid who has lived an easy life in Tokyo until one day when you come home and discover that your parents have decided to move to Hawaii for your father’s business and have left you alone to go stay with your uncle and cousin in Hokkaido.

 

            When you get there though, you make lots of friends and learn about the Snow Sakura, a sakura tree that blooms every winter without explanation. Over the course of your winter term in school you’ll grow close to more than a few cute girls but which one are you going to fall in love with? Your spunky cousin Saki; the quiet and naive Misaki, the oddly perverted Kozue, the shrine maiden Rei or your homeroom teacher Misato?

           

Artwork

 

            I hadn’t had a chance to look at any of the character designs before I started playing this game and so I really had no idea who any of the characters were or which girl I wanted to pursue for my first time around in this game. Luckily due to an incredibly long opening of game play (more on that below), I had plenty of time to get to know the characters a little and take a closer look at the character artwork.       At first I have to admit that I was a little confused. I had to wonder about the character design. Do people really wear short skirts and shorts during Hokkaido winters?

 

            Getting past that very tiny nitpick was easy though and suddenly I found myself absolutely in love with the character design of each of the characters. All of the females in this game have such great qualities in both their physical design and their personalities (again, that’s down below).

 

            Even better were the occasional changes in background artwork. While there were a multitude of different types of jokes, there was the occasional chibi, SD or just typical anime artwork (usually involving Saki kicking the crap out of someone) which really highlighted the occasional visual gag. These occasional switches really broke up the pacing of the story sometimes and the visual gags always worked well for me.

 

            Going through the game I really only saw one big flaw in the artwork that I was really annoyed with. Late in one of my sessions, I came across a screen in which Yuuji shares a bath with a male friend and even if it remained censored I really think they could’ve put a penis on Itou’s nude character image. That’s not a spoiler of any type… unless you were expecting Itou to have a penis in which case I suppose it is a spoiler.

 

            Speaking of nudity, fans of games that have more story than sex (such as myself) will be very pleased with this title. The amount of sex in this game is fairly low and when they do appear (generally near the end of each story), the sex is very low key and erotic rather than completely pornographic.

 

Writing and Story

 

            I’d like to open this section of the review by saying that this game has some of the best writing I’ve ever seen in an ero game. When I first read all of the game summaries for this title, I really thought that this was going to be a deep romantic drama. Not once did I ever expect that this title was actually an over the top comedy!

 

            Starting with the story though, this game is absolutely incredible in terms of detail and so all players who pick up this title better be ready to put in some serious time commitment to this game. Just to name an example, I easily was playing for an hour before I got to my first choice. It was then at least another 30-45 minutes of game play before I got to my second.

 

            Even more interesting and innovative is the way that this game tells its stories. Just about every game that I’ve played thus far has the audience going through one grand sweeping arc of a story. This game is very different as instead it follows a group of six friends and their homeroom teacher having fun and every day events with each other over a period of three months of in game time. The title doesn’t try to tell one huge story but instead decides to tell a large number of very small stories over a number of chapters.

 

This was a huge change for me but honestly I found it to be an incredibly refreshing change of pace. I absolutely adored how much story there was to get through I this game, especially since I had grown so attached to all of the characters so quickly.

 

            The characters are written in a way that wins you over very quickly. With the game being a comedy title, it really lends itself to being able to get away with over the top characters that each fit a different mold that needs to be fit and all of them get to have their moments to shine in one way or another no matter which girl you’re pursuing.

 

            I’m certain that there is going to be a percentage of the audience out there though that are going to complain loudly about the comedy in this game since it is so consistent and over the top. Honestly though, I have never laughed this hard at an ero game in my life and I honestly can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard in general. While playing through my first story I tried to take notes on all of the jokes that made me laugh but after awhile I had to stop because the list was just getting too long!           

 

            I will say that the sheer amount of different joke types was impressive in itself. I loved how this game managed to keep itself from getting pidgeon holed in one type of joke for the entire game and instead they went every direction with silly in jokes about other games and anime titles, jokes that break the fourth wall and makes fun of the audience and even jokes about the ero industry itself.

 

            The translation in this game was top notch. It took over an hour of game play before I found my first typo and it’s an easy misspelling that was easy to overlook.  There were other typos but nothing serious and the ones that I did find were very few and far between.

 

Music

 

            I really don’t have much to say about the music in this game which surprises me. The opening theme is a typical pop song and is enjoyable but it didn’t stand out as particularly impressive. Equally unimpressive was the background music soundtrack. While I never got so sick of the music that I felt the need to turn it off I also never really paid that much attention to it. Still though, with all the good things I’ve said about this title having a poor soundtrack is not that bad.  

 

Bad Points

 

            I waited to write this section of the review last because I wanted to play through as much of it as possible to make sure that I found all of the little flaws in this game. Unfortunately for this review, I really could only find one real flaw. The big thing that plays against this game is one of it’s strengths. By that I mean that since this game is so story driven, repeat playing gets really dull, really fast. As with all games, the replay time is always going to be significantly less but with this game it’s not that significant because of all the time you’re spending in fast forward mode.

 

            This issue gets progressively worse as you get through more and more endings and have less new scenes to see. In other games this isn’t such a problem since they tend to all divert at a couple of early portions leading to very few repeat scenes.

 

Replay Value

 

            This game is all about breaking new ground with me and this is where it breaks even more with me. Usually with games, I’m not really big on collecting all of the CG and endings right away. Usually getting some of the endings is good enough for me and then later on I’ll come back to a game and get the other endings at my own pace. This is the first game I’ve played where I wanted to play through it over and over so that I could see all of the endings.

 

            The time commitment might scare off some people though. The first story I played through took me at least 7-9 hours to get through and subsequent stories tend to drop down into the 3-5 hour mark even with the fast forward feature. I know that some players will also grow a little frustrated with how random some of the choices are. If someone is going after one particular girl, it’s going to be hard on gamers when choices come up that seem to be completely random until after you make your choice and find out what exactly the choices were supposed to be hinting at. Luckily for gamers, this is remedied by having a girl appear occasionally at the chapter breaks indicating which path you’re currently on.

 

Overall

 

            Easily one of the best games I’ve played, this is a title that is going to get a large amount of replay from me plus recommendations to anyone that I think someone could use a gentle introduction to this type of game. The characters and story are hilarious which will appeal to the anime crowd and any other player who is looking for a light hearted gaming experience. Players who are looking for more hardcore sex action with harder pornographic scenes are going to have to wait a few more months for some of the releases coming down the pipe in 2008, for now though the rest of us have this game and I’m more than satisfied with that.

 

            This is a game that belongs in every ero gamer’s collection. Very highly recommended!

 

Final Grade: 97% – A

 

 

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Pretty Soldier Wars 2048 A.D. Released By: G-Collections Released: 7/20/07

 

Intro

 

            It’s hard to remember why I was so excited to play this game in the first place.

 

Story

 

            In the year 2048, the world is fighting World War III and is not playing nice about it either. After way too much use of chemical weapons, mankind is in a new war against the afterbirth of that which is very large mutant monsters called Yoju who attack humans and implant them with their monster seed, using the humans as incubators for the next round of mutants.

 

            With the world gripped in fear, the government comes up with a new plan which is to use a new force called Biosoldiers, beautiful women who were engineered to fight the Yoju. The girls all live purely to fight these monsters and save the world.

           

Artwork

 

            Outside of the battle scenes, the artwork and character design in this game is flawless. The characters are all absolutely beautiful and the h-scenes are all beautifully rendered in the game… mostly. Let’s not forget that this is a science fiction game and so if there are mutants, you can guess where I’m going with this. Yes, the vast majority of the ero scenes in this game feature tentacles attacking women in many different ways. These scenes did absolutely nothing for me as I’ve never personally understood the whole fascination with tentacles but that’s just me. The victims were all cute (I mean, aside from being violated by phallic tentacles) and the scenes with the biosoldiers were very beautiful aside from being terribly short with the scenes only lasting a matter of a few sentences and being over within 45 seconds or so.

 

            The artwork when you’re actually in battle though is laughably terrible. The graphics really do look like they were programmed back in the 90’s or early part of this decade. The backgrounds are very simple and the animations are terribly weak. Personally I didn’t mind this too much since I was really quite amused by the terrible graphics that I just laughed and moved on. Other people are going to be quite annoyed however.

 

Writing and Story

 

            The story in this game is fairly basic with the girls fighting mutant monsters while trying to save the world so there’s not really much to say there. The interesting thing comes in the form of the writing though.

 

            On one hand, the creators of this game did something absolutely remarkable in which they wrote a reference room option into the game. In here, you can read all sorts of incredibly detailed reports about not only your team members but the history of the fictional city that the game takes place in, history and data on the Yoju, the history of the unit and even more. The reports are incredibly long and boring to read but they are there.

 

            From here we move onto the other spectrum of the writing in which we are dealing with the banter in between battles in which some of the girls stir up various forms of drama like Marie not wanting to fight anymore because she’s sick of it or two of the girls fighting over something that one of them said, etc. The banter is not all that great and while I figure it’s meant to make you want to sympathize with one girl over the other or something along those lines. All it really does is fill up time until we get to the real mission and the fighting at which point we occasionally hear a little side comment from one of the girls.  

 

Music

 

            I was really disappointed with the music in this game. Not only was the background music during the battles just really generic sounding and low tech but there wasn’t an opening theme for this title which really bothered me. After seeing such other great opening themes (even from this company as Kana Little Sister had one), I really was hoping that I could see a hard rock theme for this game to open with but there was none.

 

Bad Points

 

            When I first heard about this game, I was excited because I love turn based strategy games (such as Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or Front Mission) and while I still remembered the sting of disappointment that I got from ‘Brave Soul’, I decided to give this one a chance. When I got the game, I was even more excited to see that it was made by D.O. which I wasn’t aware of before. Then I got the character intro screens (which, by the way, whizz past so fast you’ll be lucky if I can read them all) and I was confused but still excited.

 

            The reason why I was confused is because I started to look through the characters and I started to get to know their personalities a bit more, then I remembered the story and then I laughed because I realized that this game is just like the anime and game series Sakura Taisen with out the big metal armor and in the future. This game is absolutely the same concept with slight modifications.

 

            Then you get into the game and you realize that game is hard! When I say hard, I mean that you better be real patient because this game has very few battle physics. The first huge thing that leapt out at me regarding the battle scenes and how hard they were is that with these six girls that you have in battle, you can constantly trying to position them as best as you can because absolutely none of the girls can fire on an enemy unless they have a clear line of shot. If one girl or one enemy is in your way, you have absolutely no shot and it won’t let you take it. The enemies on the other hand, well they can hit you with their tentacles or long distance attacks through walls if they want to. Clear line of shot? They don’t need no clear line of shot, they’re mutants!

 

            Then there’s the fact that these girls couldn’t hit a target if their life depended on it. It is almost impossible to gauge on how you’re going to do on a level because the physics of hitting an enemy are terribly hard. The characters will always be given some kind of percentage point on the likely hood of hitting but it rarely means anything as you’ll seem to miss the 90% shots just as much as the 20% shots.

 

            Of course, this becomes even harder when you add in the fact that you have absolutely zero way to heal the characters in battle which means that if they’re running low on hit points and you want any chance at all to using them again later in the level you better withdraw them from combat or they will die at some point. It hardly even feels like there is any real point to any of the girls gaining levels since it never appears that their skills increase at all enough for it make a noticeable difference in battle.

 

            The game does move much faster when you start realize the fact that this game has no real strategy value. For the most part, games like this will challenge your mind and make you think about how to approach each level to keep as much of your team alive as you can. In this game, all you really gotta do is rush your team into some kind of hallway on every single level and stay there while the hordes of Yoju (they always vastly outnumber you, sometimes by as much as 4 to 1) bottleneck themselves into that hallway and you can fight them 2 or 3 at a time.

 

Replay Value

 

            With the game as frustratingly difficult as it is and the h-scenes being so short, I can’t imagine that anyone will want to fight through this game more than once or twice. There were many times when I was playing this game over the last week that I was growing so frustrated at the difficulty at beating a certain level that I had to walk away from the game and take breaks to compose myself before I tried again. It was really that difficult to beat!           

 

Overall

 

            As I stated, there are a lot of reasons to be disappointed with this latest release from G-Collections. It was definitely one of the more talked about games amongst fans before it’s release but I can see why many fans are going to be very disappointed with it as well. The battle scenes are terribly hard and poorly animated, the story is weak and while the girls themselves are beautiful, the ero scenes were just short and lacking. This is not a game that I think many are going to enjoy.

 

Final Grade: 69% – D

 

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Crescendo Released By: G-Collections Released: 10/21/03 Reviewed: 6/24/07

 

Intro

 

            Another game that is considered a classic by many has its flaws.

 

Story

 

            In this game, you take on the role of Ryo Sasaki in the final days of his high school life. The game begins five days before graduation and even though Ryo doesn’t realize it, these final days are going to prove to be the ones that shape his future. Over the course of the five days, he’ll talk with many girls that have been apart of his life: The beautiful fellow member of the Literature Club, Kaho; Kaho’s younger friend Kyoko; the girl who has worked her through high school as a prostitute Yuka; the school nurse Kaori and his beautiful sister Ayame. Though his memories remain, it’s his present and future that he must pay more attention to… while he’s thinking of his past, which of these girls are going to become his future?

           

Artwork

 

            The character design in this game is absolutely fabulous. The first girl you meet is Kaho and she’s gorgeous and it only gets better from there with the beautiful Yuka, Ayame and Kaori. I wasn’t overly thrilled with the design of Kyoko but she was still very nicely designed.

 

            The one thing that I absolutely loved about the artwork in this game is that the game uses very soft colors and curves in their design which leads to characters that are much more realistic looking rather than the usual bright colors and straight lines that keep girls looking like they came straight out of an anime. With more realistic looking girls, the art work really helps to bring you into the game that much more and helps you immerse yourself in the story.

 

            The hentai level in this game isn’t very high which makes this more of an erotic game rather than strictly pornographic. With such soft muted colors used, it also lends to a much more soft and sensual experience with each of the girls instead of lots of pointless sex with as many characters as possible which will always get more points from me. The story takes center stage here instead of the sex. None of the sex goes wild as well, you don’t need to look for wild sex involving toys or anything hardcore, it’s mostly just simple sex between Ryo and his lady of choice.

 

Writing and Story

 

            The story itself in this game was well done and well told with every girl that you encounter leading to a new type of story. For the most part the stories are all similar but they are still all different enough to warrant wanting to play through the game until you face every character and learn all of their stories. Some of the stories are happier but then some are tragically sad for various reasons. The biggest issue that I had with the writing is that the game would’ve been much more engaging if it had been written in first person perspective instead of the constant second person perspective that you might read in most books. By keeping the game in a constant second person perspective, it keeps the player from becoming as engaged as they might be otherwise.  

 

            I did think that it was a clever touch for each day to end with an eye catch though. This was a nice way of really making sure the player knew that one day was ending and another was beginning without breaking the stride of the game.

 

            Another clever touch was how the main character wasn’t used in every scene. It was a nice touch to see scenes that he wasn’t involved in to get alternate perspectives on what other characters were feeling or doing when he wasn’t around. Naturally this wouldn’t have worked if the game had been written in first person which shows that there is always a method to some of the madness.

 

            Using flashbacks isn’t new to the genre but using them to this extent is and in this case I think that it was a really effective plot device and really helped move the story along in ways that couldn’t have been done in any other way. It really great to see the back stories of some of the characters told this way as well. To just hear about the histories of the characters would’ve worked but this way you get to really see some of the pivotal moments that shaped the relationships of Ryo and the ladies of this game.

 

            For the most part I didn’t notice any major issues with translation or grammar within the game but poor use of screen space proved to be frustrating in a couple of places when I would have to constantly go back and re-read sentences because of the way one word would be cut off in the middle and then finish on the next line. Naturally there are a few grammatical errors but nothing beyond what one would naturally expect to see.  

 

Music

 

            Yes, another new section that I felt was missing from previous reviews. The music in this game never proved to be repetitive. Most of the original music from this game is very simple and low key piano scores with occasional violin or flute back ups. The music always sounded good though and never felt out of place and I never felt like it got repetitive or did it get in the way of my playing experiences.

 

            The opening theme was also a big winner with me and I really enjoyed listening to it. I’ve been looking for the single for awhile now so that I can add it to my collection but no luck so far.  

 

Bad Points

 

            Besides what I’ve mentioned above, there aren’t too many issues with this game that I found to be particularly annoying. Installation was straight forward and easy and the playing experience was easy and flowed well.

 

            I think that the worst part of this game would be in its endings. None of the endings are particularly bad but they always feel very anti-climatic and simple. The characters will always give you a basic idea of what is going to happen to them once the game is over but it’s always fairly vague and seems like it’s always just enough to tie up the loose ends but never enough to satisfy the audience leaving you wanting a sequel just so that you can see these characters down the road.

 

Replay Value

 

            The replay value in this game is actually fairly high because of how different each character is. The personalities never blend together; they are always very different which makes you want to learn the history of each girl and what makes them who they are. They all deserve a happy ending and that makes you want to give it to them.

 

            Unfortunately though, with only five girls to pick from (two endings each) it makes it very easy to get through all the endings but to help that point along is the fact that if you get 100% of the CG screens in this game (again, not very hard to do), you can have access to the special hidden ending in the game with a sixth girl. Each ending only takes about 2-3 hours to get through though so if you’re patient, you can make through everything game has to offer within a few days if not a weekend.      

 

Overall

 

            I won’t say that this game is a classic but I will say that the reputation that this game has is very well deserved. The story is very sweet and it’s well told which goes well with the beautiful characters and soft music. If you’re looking for a very well done game to play, this is definitely one to pick up before it goes out of print. Strongly recommended.

 

Final Grade: 89% – B

 

Purchase From J-List

Runaway City Released By: JastUSA Released: 1998 Reviewed: 3/19/06

 

Intro
 
        The first H-Game to be reviewed on this site belongs to this older, yet classic, title from JastUSA.
 
Story
 
        This game follows the path of Hiroaki Hanyu, who has extremely good luck his entire life. A few years ago, his family decided to commit suicide together but only his mother ended up dying and since then he’s been raised by his father. Hiroaki has recently graduated from junior college and the time has come to decide what he wants to do with his future but the choices are quite varied and you can’t decide. To make matters worse, this luck that he’s had his entire life has just been getting stronger and stronger and he can’t figure out why it is but he needs to know the source soon before it drives him insane.
 
Artwork
 
        Being an older title, the artwork on this game is a little dated but it still looks absolutely gorgeous to me. The characters are drawn with wonderful detail and having all the graphics uncensored is always a big plus with me especially since this game leads you into some very interesting situations (the scene with Rin Watanabe in the video arcade is certainly a new one for me!).
 
Translation
 
        The translation on this game was actually very well done which is another big plus for me. With older games, it’s not uncommon to see typos everywhere that really makes it hard to enjoy fully but this game follows a very high standard of quality.
 
Bad Points
 
        Following the standard point and click system, it’s very hard to go wrong in this game until you get to the very end (which I will go over in a second). Overall though, this game follows a very straight forward path. There are times when you have to click an option multiples times though which leads to a lot of extra clicking until you’ve met the subsequent times needed to move on which I found incredibly annoying at times.
 
        The very first scene with your father in your apartment is a great example of this. I must have spent at least twenty minutes just trying to get past this scene but after I managed to finally get past that bit, I was able to just breeze through the rest of the game.
 
Replay Value
 
        With only one ending this game doesn’t have the highest replay value and in fact it can be exceedingly difficult to make through the game just once because the ending sequence can only be finished in one way and one way only making it very easy to make it almost all the way through only to end up getting the bad ending and having to start all over again. I personally ended up giving up on the ending after a few tries and looking up a walkthrough so that I could finish the game finally.
 
        Multiple endings would have gone a long way towards making this good game a great game.
       
Overall
 
        I’ve heard lots of differing opinions on this game. Some people love it and some people hate it and I have to say that I fall into the really like it category. The story and the characters really make this game one worth playing as it definitely one of the more original ideas I’ve played through in a very long time.
 
        Even though it only has one ending, it’s worth playing through once. Unfortunately after you find that one ending, there aren’t a lot of reasons to pick it up again since nothing will be different no matter how many different point and clicks you make.
 
        There are ten girls to choose from in this game with all sorts of different fetishes being catered to and yet it’s only one that you get to end up with which is frustrating to say the least.
 
        An average title but I think that if you can find it (JastUSA does still have it on sale as part of their memorial collection), you should give it a try.
 
Final Grade: 79% – C
 
 
 

Divi Dead Released By: Himeya Soft / C’s Ware Released: 1998 Reviewed: 4/5/06

 

Intro
 
        A dark gothic thriller with plenty of sex to boot!
 
Story
 
        Your character is named Ranmaru Hibikiya who has been affilicted with a strange disease ever since childhood which makes him prone to seizure, bed-ridden and weak. After a quite wonderful recovery from one of your latest bouts, you are asked by your uncle to come attend his private school in exchange for helping him figure out a mystery involving the students.
 
        Lately the students have been getting more and more violent and increasingly ill. As you dig deeper you learn that this is more than just a simple trend but it all relates to something much more dark and deep involving a mysterious incense that is being passed around and some old occult legends involving the area leading you down a dark and twisted path that is filled with death and mystery.
 
Artwork
 
        The artwork in this game is what drew me to this game in the first place. Done in a completely gothic style, the artwork in this game is absolutely incredible with it’s dark details. Even the sex scenes are incredibly well drawn making me want to call them erotic artwork rather than just pornographic scenes.
 
        The character design is incredibly good with various types of people being highlighted throughout the game.

Translation
 
        This is where the game becomes an absolute chore to play at times with some very bad jobs being done with the writing and translation. One thing that bugged me above all else was the terrible job of labeling characters on who was talking at the proper time. When you get used to the voice acting this doesn’t become so much of an issue but if you have to play with the sound level down (for whatever reason), it becomes a major chore to have to sit there and figure out who is talking because you know that the name on the screen is not the person who is actually talking.
 
        I also couldn’t stand some of the porn speak that was going on during the game at times such as “You hit the spot, loverman!” When you’re dealing with an incredibly dark game such as this, comedy relief is the one thing that you don’t need and this game accidently gave plenty of that while playing.
 
Bad Points
 
        Another big issue I had with this game is that it’s so very drawn out! While the story is incredibly complex, deep and dark (which normally would be a great thing to have in a game such as this), the problem is that you only get to make choices about 4 times throughout the game which leads to a lot of clicking to get through lots of exposition dialogue to get to the next section of the game.
 
        The other problem I have is that it rarely gives you real clues on where you’re supposed to go next and so you can spend tons of time just clicking all over the main map screen trying to figure out where you’re supposed to go next to advance the story since there is always only one spot that you can go to advance things which leads to a lot of tediousness, especially when you’re positive that you’ve already hit everywhere only to realize that you missed one tiny little spot that you didn’t think to look in for the next story hook.
 
Replay Value
 
        With six different endings to work towards, this game does give you some reasons to pick it up and play it again if you needed any additional ones to go with the best task of collecting all of the beautiful artwork.
 
        The problem is that since you only get to make choices a few times throughout the game, it becomes incredibly tedious to get through all the dialogue that you’ve already seen in order to get to the next choice. If you have tons of patience I suppose that this wouldn’t be a bad thing for you but for someone who has already seen the story and just wants to see what happens next, this can be terribly difficult which is why I think it’s best to just save your game whenever you’re about to make a choice and then pick it up from one of those locations the next time you pick up the game.
 
        The first time I played through this game, it took me 8 hours of game play before I saw the first ending and a lot of that time was spent clicking around the map trying to find the next place to go so if you really want to know how to go about this game without any major issues, I would suggest you pick up a walkthrough to help you out.
       
Overall
 
        This game is still quite easy to find luckily because it is a great game despite all of it’s flaws with translation, writing and tediousness. The artwork is absolutely breath taking in it’s beauty and the story is one of the most original that I’ve ever seen.
 
        While you may not be able to force yourself through to find all of the different endings, it’s a pretty safe bet that once you start playing you’ll at least be willing to go through once to find the first ending (you might even do it in one straight shot).
 
        If you like dark, gothic artwork and hauntingly good music placed over a rich story that weaves you down many different paths than you’ll want to check out this great game from C’s Ware.
 
Final Grade: 89% – B