April’s video.

Eushully
Telecards
Solid Eushully RPG card game.
Plot keeps on moving so you don’t end up doing random hippy things forever like you would do in Kamidori. Characters are generally a lot more interesting too, at the very least the imoutos are amusing. Gameplay takes a while to get going, not much you can do for a while, but same goes for most RPGs. Gameplay-wise it’s about as fun as Kamidori, but since it’s not really about running a shop and alchemy, in general you can’t do as much as you can in Kamidori. Of course being a card game you can customize decks and all, but I’m only on chapter 4 and from what I experienced so far making decks is less of a strategy thing and more of a jam in a bunch of strong cards thing, so I’ve yet to use more than one deck, or a full 30 card deck even.
Anyway, not much I can criticize without actually playing through it once since things might change as I go on, but if you liked Kamidori (which has been translated) there’s a good chance you might enjoy this too. Unless you hate cards and imoutos. Don’t know if you can sperg as hard as you can in Kamidori and spend 99 hours getting stuff yet.

Moogy comments: Imouto has the same CV as Aki in Baldr Sky. Isn’t that good to know.

—

すみっこソフト
Telecards
JUST A HAREM MOEGAME………..?????????????????????????????????

Aaeru comments: Omg I just finished playing this game the other day and its so moe omg xD u should play it it’s almost as good as da capo 3!!!!!

Moogy comments: Okay, to be serious… This game looks like a generic moege at first glance and opens up with a ridiculous harem route full of basically orgy eroscenes (15 of them before you even reach the OP). In actuality, though, it’s a pretty serious sci-fi story with a timeloop setting and some pretty clever writing. After seeing reviews to this effect on EGS, I ended up playing it myself and I have to say it was worth it. The writing and characters are pretty solid across the board (albeit pretty wacky in places too), the setting is well thought-out (though there’s a few elements that aren’t terribly scientifically plausible), and the ending is great. Unfortunately, they were working with a pretty strict budget and deadline for the project, so there are a lot of places that could have used fleshing out along the way and the focus of the game feels a bit inconsistent in places, but it’s still a great effort from Watanabe Ryouichi and the guys at Hanpamania-Soft, this time working with a commercial developer. If you like quirky games with quirky characters and emotionally-driven science fiction stuff then you should definitely give this a try; it’s a very competent and fun to read little game that will probably fall under most people’s radar due to the initial presentation.

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SHINY DAYS
0verflow
Telecards
How many school days spinoffs can you make 0verflow.

Moogy comments: None after this because they ran out of money or something, I don’t know the full details but this is apparently their final domestic release. Good job.

—

FOUNDATION
Telecards
Foundation’s first game. At first glance it looks like a pretty game with nice graphics and a deep magical fantasy setting, but apparently it is just a nukige with really terrible text and horrible scenario. Small size for an eroge nowadays, 1.4GB, has a lot of content for the size but it doesn’t matter if it sucks. So your best bet is to look at the fancy OP and then grab a save and fap, probably.

—

Aries
Telecards
Average moege. The word 平凡 pops up a lot in reviews. Also they ripped off Clochette’s illustrator.

—

SkyFish
Telecards
The Soleil series doesn’t really have a good track record but for some reason skyfish keeps making them. There are various complaints for each game but I never really grasped exactly what was wrong from reading reviews. This particular game has only one route. All of them seem to have a complicated setting so that’s probably worth something, but it also seems like you can only fully enjoy the game if you’ve played the previous ones (which goes for all of them). All I can infer is that it is “lacking”, especially because of bland battle scenes. It’s weird because there’s no hardcore bashing or praising, so I am a little curious. Unfortunately I’m not willing to read one just to find out what the hell is up with this series.

—

PeasSoft
Telecards
Third in the つくしてあげるの series. Extreme ero moe. I like how you can tell who they care about the most from the telecards. If you are interested go read all this crap.

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デモニオン　魔王の地下要塞
アストロノーツ・シリウス
Telecards
Some dungeoning+war game about being a Maou and raping a bunch of old hags.

—

デュアルテイル
Telecards
Venus Blood, Norse ver. 6th in the series. Not that I’ve played any of their games, but looks like usual Venus Blood fare. Be evil, war, rape girls, make them evil, take over the world, etc.

Moogy comments: Received well in #tlwiki.

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Rosebleu
Telecards
One of the writers of this game disappeared halfway in. They have five writers. Appears to be a normal character game that is… not very good. Probably because they have five writers.

Moogy comments: lol five writers.

—

CROWD
Telecards
If this looks good to you then… power to you. Also yes it’s blatantly ripping off precure. Except the two main were both originally male. I guess if you dream of turning into a girl and falling in love with your younger brother then this is a good game for you.

—

娘。
Telecards
nyann’s first game. It is about heroines forcing the protagonist to crossdress until he enjoys it and starts crossdressing himself. They even have a trapxtrap ending for some reason. Enjoy being homosexual you faggots.

Moogy comments: Protagonist isn’t voiced, what were they thinking.

—

ALL-TiME
Telecards
The title suggests that this is a game where the imoutos attempt to rape you and the genre suggests that it is an imouto impregnation game. But it is all a lie. You are the one trying to rape the imoutos. It also has the older sister raping and NTRing you.

—

lose
A crapload of very dangerous extras
Extremely beautiful graphics. 240 different CG (a fucking shitload). Youkai setting and countryside game. Extremely loli main heroine voiced by Kadowaki. And extremely boring writing. The system also lags for me, especially during event cg scenes.
The game has plenty of ero along with a dull slow scenario. You’d think with 240 CG you’d have something interesting but it’s not. On the other hand you can fap to loli as much as you want (after going through everything or just grabbing a save), but… the main heroine is also extremely loli mentally. Meaning she acts like a very little girl, which is kind of rare for normal eroge with loli characters. It makes it feel very dangerous and wrong.
Did I mention the pretty pictures, because it has a lot of those.

—

ねこねこソフト
Back to the usual nekonekosoft quality after screwing up with their previous game. Orthodox romance game, not much more it seems. Needless to say the main heroine’s route written by Kataoka is probably the best. …I’m trying to think of more things to say but I can’t imagine expecting anything else but a nekonekosoft quality romance game. No doubt enjoyable if you’re looking for that sort of thing.

Moogy comments: Strangely, one of the writers is Hayakari, the guy responsible for Gunjou no Sora, Shiokaze no Kieru Umi ni, Koi de ha naku, etc. His route is probably worth checking out too if you’re a fan of his realistic character dramas.

—

花散る都と竜の巫女
でぼの巣製作所
Telecards
Sequel to 花咲く乙女と恋の魔導書. Same ARPG/alchemy system as previous game. It actually fucking links to the previous game’s game system page if you click 戦闘. The illustrator is slightly better when not drawing lolis.

—

Angel Guard
Athena
Telecards
Athena’s first game. Uuh… nice setting. This game has pistols and helicopters and jets. And pistols. And pistols. Bodyguard plot. Probably not very good. Play Axl’s one if you want that.

—

あるてみす。
Ero.

—

魔法使いの夜
TYPE-MOON

Moogy comments: And obviously I couldn’t leave this one out even though it’s not an eroge. I made a 50 minute podcast about this one so go ahead and listen to that if you want my full commentary. Otherwise I’ll just say that this is a milestone game for the industry and, if you like Nasu, at least, probably the best game to be released since 2010′s SubaHibi. Also it’s not voiced and fairly short and the first game in a trilogy and nearly full-price so a lot of people are butthurt over it still but don’t listen to them they’re retards. It’s definitely worth the price. The box itself is really cool too.

Four months into 2012 and Tamiyasu is at first with roles in fifteen games, Ringorin at second with 14. That is not to say Kawashima isn’t working her ass off still, at third with 13 tied with Misonoo Mei.
Extra: What the fuck are you doing.

This month’s video.

【発売日変更情報】
03/30→04/27 AngelGuard(Athena)
03/30→04/27 はるまで、くるる。(すみっこソフト)
03/30→04/27 VenusBlood-FRONTIER-(デュアルテイル) (will probably be delayed again as they just got the trial out the other day)
03/30→04/27 ふたりはマイエンジェル☆(CROWD)
03/30→04/27 ものべの(Lose)
03/23→05/25 青空と雲と彼女の恋(KLEIN)
03/30→05/25 Fortuna Rhapsody(Symphony)

マテリアルブレイブ
戯画
Telecards
平均値 54
標準偏差 21
データ数 73
Unfortunate as I liked the illustrators.

Moogy comments: So bad people cancelled their preorders for Eiyuu Senki, which is by the same writer. Apparently it’s basically a single route with a different ending depending on the heroine and the NG+ elements are really shoddy. Plot is on the level of a really bad harem light novel and the text is terrible etc. Gameplay is also apparently very repetitive, you don’t get any new skills except for one hissatsu throughout the entire game and the balance is bad to boot (one on one is easy as fuck, one on many is bullshit). They’re also probably going to release a sequel/expansion/complete edition or something so you should stay away from this for any number of reasons.

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恋めくりクローバー
CLIP☆CRAFT
Telecards
They really need to list some sales points somewhere on the site because I have no bloody idea what this is about and what differentiates it from other charagames.

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ぜったい猟域☆セックス・ロワイアル!!　～無人島犯し合いバトル～
softhouse-seal GRANDEE
Telecards
seal’s fullprice bakanukige. Sex battle royale setting. Usual seal fare.

—

Friends
Aile
Telecards
I think Erika is cute. These guys seriously need to get a real web designer.
I burned so much time watching えみりお Friends.
If the game was just a comedy skit that goes on forever starring the two portrayed as dumb-looking SD with a bunch of silly expressions I would play it.
They’re literally saying things like hardly anyone’s watching this anyway or this game isn’t doing anything special with its story or nobody really cares about the story for eroge like this, and Erika does an extremely half-assed explanation of the plot. 第４回 is the best.
Honestly I enjoyed this little dorky corner more than I did any other extra crap on eroge homepages, especially the latter half of it. Unfortunately I’m willing to bet the game text is radically different and the other three heroines look very boring. Apparently the trial has 出張版えみりお so I’ll be looking at that.

—

水の都の洋菓子店
すたじお ちゃお
Telecards
Studio Ciao’s debut game. Protagonist runs a patisserie shop in yet another fancy 水の都 setting and the main heroine is a witch but is voiced by aoyama god fucking dammit. Also there’s kinta. It’s about happiness and using magic on cakes that makes whoever eats them happy. That’s cheating and has about as much (impossible) moral issues as making someone fall in love with you with a love potion. If you want a good cake shop game I recommend パティシエなにゃんこ instead. It does not have aoyama. I like this game’s OP though, would like a full ver.

—

英雄＊戦姫
天孤
Telecards
Tenco’s debut game. Just came out. Site is lagging like hell. Patch out already. Had lots of hype. Strategy war game. Eight million characters based on historical figures moefied. Take over the world as Zipang. Let’s hope it has good gameplay at the very least. Extremely short sentences got the point across I hope.

Moogy comments: MB’s awful writer, atm no real info on whether it’s a bomb or not. Apparently has a horrendous clunky interface.

—

‘＆’-空の向こうで咲きますように-
暁WORKS
Hino, Shuudou, and Saeki under Akatsuki Works team up again after Ruitomo and Comyu to bring ‘＆’. Hino appears to be sub this time for Shuudou is under 企画. For a small number of people this is enough information, for everyone else well screw you. Just came out. Needless to say looking forward to this. Also Itou Kanako OP.

Moogy comments: Aww yeah. This is the good stuff.

—

屋上の百合霊さん
ライアーソフト
Telecards (no ero)
Liar’s 30th game, and a yuri game. Does not look very eroge at all and seems as if it would be a lot better off as a manga, but who knows. At the very least the illustration style is very, very manga-like. Just came out.

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乙女が紡ぐ恋のキャンバス
ensemble
amenity.html
Crossdressing protag game by the same company that made the exact same type of game before. Protag gets forced into all girls school, moege, really nothing new.

—

Strawberry Feels ～ストロベリー・フィールズ～
Rose Liese
Telecards
Rose Liese’s debut game, just came out. Usual fictional Japanese island setting. Appears to be Yet Another School Romance as far as I can tell, except there’s mention of “special abilities”. Nothing is revealed about it anywhere, although the opening makes this game seem dramatic. Also this illustrator is pretty bad.

—

DRACU-RIOT!
ゆずソフト
Bonuses
Yuzusoft: cute heroines drawn by muririn and kobuichi, flat shallow writing for every game. And just came out.
If you want to fap to moe ero then this is the game for you.

Moogy comments: Cakes was saying this was boring on IRC earlier so it probably is. Also some dude on EGS said this stole the vampire virus setting from Draculius but it kinda seemed like Fujisaki was just making shit up as he went in that game anyway so whatever

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ヴァンパイアクルセイダーズ
Triangle
Telecards
A meteorite named “Abyss” crashed into earth turning some people into powerful vampires. They were ordered by “Mother Vampire” to take over earth, which they did, and so all of mankind ended up detained in human farm colonies.
Humans broke free of vampire reign from East Asia Colony 214 and escaped to Avalon Island. A vampire by name of クド・リクアリア, also known as “Bloody Last”, was assigned as the new overseer to this colony. A few days before his arrival, the colony was devasted by humans during their rebellion, and the previous overseer, his younger sister, has gone missing. クド transforms into a human girl to infiltrate Avalon Island in order to search for information on his missing sister. He also has the ability to make any girl he bites lose all resistance to sexual pleasure and feels bliss in giving sexual pleasure to girls. His younger sister is actually the one who freed the colony prisoners and is the first person he bit and turned into a vampire.

Christ I wrote a summary for a nukige just because the story page and character pages actually explained shit. So yeah it’d be cool if a comet fell and made me into a vampire that could transform into a girl at will.

—

Princess-Style プリンセススタイル
Meteor
privilege.html
Ojou-sama focused charagame. It lists 学力 level in the heroines’ profiles for some crazy reason. (GO FOR THE MAID)

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放課後☆エロゲー部！
MOONSTONE Cherry
Telecards
Successor to Imouto Paradise. Fap to your hearts content.

—

リア充催眠
C:drive.
Telecards
Okay I think you’ve made way too many of these hypnosis themed games C:drive. Your main illustrator however did ever so slightly improve.

—

マブラヴ オルタネイティヴ クロニクルズ 03
age
Telecards
Moogy comments: This isn’t an eroge but I had to add it anyway. Basically the main draw of this series now is The Day After, I would say. Episode 02 is looking pretty nice already what with adding a voice for Hibiki (the first voiced protagonist in age history, I believe) and all so I can’t wait to get to this. Note that the previous games in the series were indeed eroge, but they went all-ages with this one due to shenanigans related with anime cross-promotion and such according to Yoshimune.

—

リトルウィッチ パルフェ 黒猫魔法店物語
工画堂スタジオ
Bonuses
While we’re doing non-eroge, here’s the remake of Little Witch Parfait, just started playing it last night myself. I was expected an extremely honobono game, but it opens with debt collectors threatening to kill Parfait’s pet, break down her store, and rape her. You’ll get to see everyday scenes with the other girls after the opening scene, which are in general pretty fluffy, with Parfait being cute most of the time. She’s a rather typical protagonist, cute and nice but an extremely dumb dojikko. (She actually says ぷんぷん.) The main plot scenes are pretty harsh on her and are surprisingly solid, while the rest of the game is overall fluffy. Might change as I go on but that was my first impression.

Bonus content!!!!!!111

The guy who makes the monthly eroge introduction videos does an extra feature for his videos every half year where he takes a bunch of photos of his eroge and writes his progression status for each eroge. It’s pretty amusing because you can see all the physical copies of games he owns and his terrible progression rate. I’ve taken a bunch of screenshots most of his photos while ignoring a few of the less interesting ones. He tends to play moege but that’s not really of any importance here.
I’ve made an album of said photos you can see here.

There are a lot of other full price nukige and a shitload of low price ones that are way, way too much of a pain to go through (and they all look terrible and dumb). If you’re that curious just watch the intro video.
Kawashima Rino at the top this month with 8 games, making her tied for top with Tamiyasu for the current year with 12 games total. A loooot of nukige were released this month.

Moogy says I am not allowed to post in Japanese this time which does not do well for my motivation, so this time I will most likely be extremely lazy and just provide a list of games released in February without any real impressions or information.
Oh wait that’s no different from usual.

February Eroge Releases Video

Delays
02/24→03/02 認知しなさいっ！(HighRunning)
02/24→03/02 独り占め(Potage)
02/24→03/02 プリンセスＸＦＤ(Poison＠Berry)
02/24→03/23 性狂育(CLOCKUP)
02/24→03/23 青空と雲と彼女の恋(KLEIN)
02/24→03/30 Princess-Style(Meteor)
02/24→03/30 Fortuna Rhapsody(Symphony)
02/24→04/27 氷華の舞う空に(Rosebleu)
02/24→04/27 星空へ架かる橋AA(feng)
02/24→04/下 SHINY DAYS(オーバーフロー)
02/24→06/29 fortissimo EXS(La’cryma)

魔法美少女まじかる☆萌えりん♪S
rainbow cyc
Telecards
…I think you can judge for yourself.

—

お姉さまは保健医
Armadillo
Telecards
We’re off to a good start.

—

かみのゆ
light
Bonuses
My friend introduced me to a public bathhouse but IT WAS A BATHHOUSE FOR GODS!!!
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY DAILY LIFE?!!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!1
This is literally what the story page says.
The illustration style is something you don’t normally see in eroge, and while it definitely gets the atmosphere and direction across the simplicity of it probably won’t sit well with many people. A bad way to put it would be to say that it was too cartoony.

Moogy comments: I think the art has some of the laziest lines I’ve seen in a commercial eroge from a big studio. Oh well, I don’t care about anything from light that’s not by Masada anyway.

—

ランス・クエスト マグナム
Alicesoft
Moogy has already spent a billion hours on this and completed it. And he wrote a review on it. Go read that instead.

Moogy comments: It’s the post right before this one and is like 5 times as long!

—

グリザイアの迷宮
Frontwing
Telecards
Le Fruit De La Grisaia’s sequel. 2nd out of the planned trilogy. All three games combined probably makes this one of the longest eroge ever. Moogy has actually played both games and he wrote the vndb entries allowing me to exempt myself from writing a more detailed introduction.

Moogy comments: I wrote a review of Kajitsu on this blog as well. Should probably write one for Meikyuu too eh.

—

死神のテスタメント
3rdEye
Telecards
3rdEye’s second game. Suspense battle. The first one seemed to be a flop if I recall the EGS scores correctly. Here’s to hoping this one will not. Also the main page has an 8 minute long BGM you can listen to. Enjoy the Saga Frontier II ripoff at the 6:30 mark.

Moogy comments: According to EGS, better than the brand’s previous game by a wide margin. I’m not interested in chuu2 games by a team of unknown authors though. Or even a team of known authors, I thought 11eyes was horrendous. Stick with the pros like Masada and Nasu.

—

ツクモノツキ
Sugar Pot
Telecards
Heartful Romance ADV. Seems to center around the sickly imouto and Tsukumo, a mysterious girl he is reunited with and lets freeload off him for she has no place to go. The other two heroines have the ability to see spirits. Coincidentally they both also have the same name as their characters, and both comment on that.
Ringorin provides us with yet another silly comment on Tsukumo’s page so I am satisfied.
The rest of you can HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG to Tsukumo or something.

—

猫撫ディストーションExodus
WHITESOFT
Telecards
Don’t play this.
Moogy and I have played the prequel. Don’t play this. I mean look. They have to provide a わかりやすい版 for their story introduction. It’s the pinnacle of being intoxicated with your own text. The writers base the entire story on metaphysics, meaning they’re free to explain anything in any way they want and abuse every thought experiment that exists to do so. There is still no solid reason as to why Kotoko died or how she revived beyond “because it occured as so”.
But this is a fandisc thing it might be 10% less gay.

Moogy comments: What teru said. I played the entire thing and I have no idea what happened in any of the routes, other than the fact that the writers jacked off all over my face. Kotoko has a great design and is voiced by Samoto Fuuri, but that’s hardly reason to play the game/series… The soundtrack is also extremely good, so you might want to check that out at least. One of my favorite eroge OSTs, actually… but that’s hardly a reason to play the game/series either. Don’t play this.

—

はつゆきさくら
Saga Planets
Telecards
I heard this was getting bombarded with ridiculously high votes on EGS. Saga Planets isn’t really known for strong text, but they do seem to have solid scenarios and music. Just don’t expect anything thought-provoking. It’s currently impossible for me to figure out what this is about just by looking at the site and I am too lazy to go out of my way to provide you with more information. But it’s a moege, probably with some supernatural fantasy elements. RELIVE NEW AGE KANON. (No seriously this looks like a Kanon rip if you pay attention to the OP movie.)

Moogy comments: I have a bad impression of this game because it’s kousaku’d on EGS and moege fags who speak English are playing it. And I hate popular things. And normal writing.

—

ホチキス
戯画
Fancy Guest Wallpapers
Tapestries (no that’s not azusa)
For you morons out there hotchkiss means stapler. Protagonist joins a club that’s about helping one another out, main heroine gives him a stapler saying it’s a love charm blah blah. It’s a Giga moege what more do you want.
I do suggest taking a look at the wallpapers though.

Moogy comments: Gigamine.

—

初恋前線。
I.D.
Telecards
I.D.’s second game, featuring the sub-characters from their previous game as main characters. Coincidentally it has a timeframe setting similar to Hatsuyukisakura, taking place during the final winter of highschool. Appears to be straight up normal character romance game.
Kokoa is dangerously tiny in those telecards.

—

太陽のプロミア　Flowering Days
Seven Wonder
Telecards
Promia’s sequel/fandisc thing.
Reno has been my PSP wallpaper since before the first game came out. Someone give me that yodobashi telecard.
(I should play both games one day)

—

ネブ*プラス
Navel
Telecards
10000000% MORE NISHIMATA THAN YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH

Moogy comments: Ou Jackson actually wrote the Asuka scenario for this! Unfortunately apparently it’s extremely short, otherwise I would be interested in reading it. It’s kind of funny to compare the summary for the Asuka scenario to the other ones on the site… Navel sold this for full price and apparently the full content is on the level of stuff most brands offer for free so only buy this if you want to support Navel’s ridiculous business practices. Also Nishimata.

—

処女と魔王とタクティクス～魔王争奪戦～
Chariot
I guess this is a sign for me the finish the previous game.
Gameplay was solid enough but writing was extremely simple. It had pretty CGs and decent designs at least.

—

ＯＨ！ステルス紳士
MBS TRUTH
Telecards
Nukige.

—

エロゲーしようよっ！
HEAT-SOFT
Nukige with M yandere imouto who carries around a kitchen knife (and two other old whores).

Ringorin wins February month with appearances in five games,
I’m not doing softhouse-seal games anymore because softhouse-seal.
I might do March’s overview soon because I was pretty damned late this time.
But really, there’s not much to say this month again because most things are sequels.

Final note.
I’m pretty sure most people don’t know how long it takes to go to a billion sites, browse some of those sites thoroughly, read a shitload of crap, gather a shitload of links, and compile all the links into HTML, which would generally equate to a huge pain in the ass if I wasn’t satisfying my curiosity and looking at a lot of pretty pictures in the process, in which case it becomes just somewhat of a pain in the ass. Sure it doesn’t look like much but you’re not the one browsing through all the homepages and I’m willing to bet most of the links won’t even be clicked. I’m really just trying to provide a convenient list rather than write up impressions of games to be honest. I want you faggots to check out the games yourselves for the most part. Anyway, March will come whenever I feel like it so keep expectations low.

All right, I’ve been spending a lot of time working my way through the postgame of Magnum recently so I figured I might as well write a review. This poor blog desperately needs some content anyway, now that teru has abandoned it for the doubtlessly alluring nectar of… whatever it is that teru is doing. Ah well, let us put such trivialities as blaming teru for all that is wrong with the world today aside and proceed to pursue more meaningful discourse, such as determining just how many girls Rance fucks this time around.

For better or worse, this review will be a bit more bulletpoint-y than usual. The Rance series does not have a particularly deep plot full of subtext and underlying thematic elements to analyze, and so I am left to provide increasingly subjective criticism of such crass elements as the gameplay grinding interface and aesthetic presentation. Do bear with me here; I know you all visit my blog daily in hopes of stumbling across some new, utterly insightful analysis of a Japanese porn game no one has ever played, but some days even a genius of fictional scrutiny such as myself needs to afford his mighty brain a rest.

To abruptly transition into concrete information pertaining into the game, Rance Quest Magnum is an expansion to Rance Quest, the eighth game in the Rance timeline (if you don’t count 4.1 and 4.2, anyway). For all intents and purposes, this review covers both games, as Magnum is really more like the definitive edition of Quest, rather than simply an add-on. You see, Quest, though quite fun for fans of the series, disappointed a lot of people due its lack of any really relevant plot tying the events of the game into the saga overall. Sure, you got to meet Reset, Rance’s daughter, and the ending tied into the Helman chapter, but honestly that was really about it. In Magnum, Alicesoft has taken some steps to correct that with an entirely new campaign available after finishing the original game’s. Not only do all the annoying loose ends from the original Quest get tied up, but now Magnum feels like a proper entry in the series with relevant contributions to the setting – unlike the original, which could be said to be more of a fandisc. Sure, it still isn’t a “main” entry like 3, 6, 7, and 9, but I think it fits into the series rather well now and some of the foreshadowing and setting elements in it are definitely going to come into play in a big way later. It also helps that Magnum is roughly two times the length of the original game, assuming you’re crazy like me and want to do all of the content in both – and if you add in the new World 2 and World 3 content, you’re looking at maybe 100+ hours if you want to do everything from scratch. Alicesoft also heavily tweaked many gameplay elements based on user feedback, making the game a lot less of a pain in the ass to play in a lot of regards. I have no real qualms with declaring the system superior to 6′s at this point.

All that said, I really think Alicesoft should have just released Magnum to begin with instead of giving us Quest back in August 2011. They were and still are hot on the heels of Daiteikoku, a major flop, and I think it kind of hurts their brand image to essentially release a game in two parts like this. I did quite enjoy both Quest and Magnum, though, so I’m not going to be all gloom and doom and say Alicesoft is on their way out, at least. To put things in perspective, I actually lost my save data for the original game and ended up playing back through the entirety of the original campaign in Magnum, so that tells you how dedicated I am to the game and series, at least.

Let’s proceed with the review proper after the break.

Gameplay

I’ll be frank and state that I heavily dislike Sengoku Rance’s gameplay for a number of reasons that I won’t bother getting into now. As such, I was quite happy that Alicesoft decided to return to the traditional JRPG style of gameplay seen in Rance 6, my favorite eroge RPG and indeed one of the best RPGs I have played in general for any platform. For people who enjoyed the obtuse and uninviting gameplay of Sengoku, I suppose it’s a step backwards, but I honestly couldn’t be happier with this decision.

The gameplay itself is relatively simple to sum up – take quests from the base camp, go to dungeons from there, and then complete said dungeon while battling random encounters along the way. It’s obviously a bit more complicated than that, but I’d like to set the actual game progression aside for a bit and discuss a particular element, or philosophy, really, that Alicesoft has been bringing to the table in the Rance series since 6 – namely their decision to limit the player’s actions. Fans of Sengoku will be familiar with actions per turn and turn limits on generals in battle, while anyone who has played 6 knows that characters are simply limited to participating in a certain number of battles per dungeon excursion. Alicesoft’s approach in Quest (hereafter referred to as simply 8 for convenience’s sake) is a bit different, but I feel stems from the same fundamental design philosophy – here we have a set number of charges or usages for each and every skill in the game, including basic attack skills. Run out of skill charges on a character and they’re no longer useful as anything but a meat shield.

Early in the game, when you have few characters to use and even fewer charisma points with which to switch them in and out, this forces an almost roguelike approach to each quest, forcing the player to learn the most efficient path through them by retrying them several times each. Later on, once you have a wide selection of characters to choose from and the charisma to facilitate switching them in and out, the game is all about forcing you to balance your usage of characters wisely in order to both actually proceed through the increasingly lengthy individual quests and make sure you’ve still got the resources to tackle whatever bosses await you at the end. 6 is similar in this regard, but I think 8′s huge number of characters facilitates strategy to an even greater extent. Maybe you want to get the Magnum bonus for each quest, so you raise a bunch of attackers who can take the heat and send in multiple teams of them throughout the dungeon – or maybe you just want to get things over with as quickly as possible, so you run through with small parties lead by a Ranger and just run from every encounter. Once you figure out how to work the game efficiently, I think coming up with your own playstyle and deciding which characters to use is a lot of fun.

As for the gameplay itself, it’s your standard JRPG, this time with third person dungeons and first person battles, as opposed to 6′s first person dungeons and third person battles. Due to the game being based around the concept of tackling individual quests, no individual dungeon is terribly long (save for a few endgame ones), so the game generally moves along at a fair clip, which is always good. There’s a lot of text to read throughout the game, sure, but it’s mostly genuinely entertaining in one way or another and, more importantly, you never have to jump through hoops to reach the actual gameplay, which is something most modern console JRPGs get very wrong and that I am glad that eroge brands like Alicesoft and Eushully still get right. Battles themselves also move extremely quickly by default thanks to snappy attack animations and can even be sped up further if one so desires. The fast pace of gameplay and lack of orb grinding as seen in 6 really makes 8 easy to just pick up and play, moreso if you’ve already seen all of the cutscenes… Anyway, I think Alicesoft’s approach to the actual flow of gameplay is top-notch, and there’s never a dull moment even with the huge amount of text as compared to a console RPG.

Nippon Ichi is pretty much the only console RPG developer I know of that’s still making games without worthless forced NPC dialogues, grandiose and slow moving cutscenes, sprawling (and slow to navigate) 3D environments, and other flow-breaking elements that classic JRPGs on the NES/SNES (and even into PSX era, I suppose) never had to deal with – so, like I said earlier, I’m glad that there are people in the eroge industry still willing to carry the torch of efficient and involving gameplay flow. In other words, I am praising the hell out of Rance Quest for moving so quickly at all times and realizing that players don’t want to sit through 5 hour summon animations just to deal with a random encounter. For reference, I’m at 2500 battles on my save at the moment, with only around 60 hours total played. I played through from the beginning and skipped all of the text I had read back in the original last year, but I’d still say those are some pretty decent numbers.

Also worth noting is that the postgame and grinding elements of Magnum are much improved over the original. Unlike 6, there’s no real plot involved with anything after finishing the main scenario, but it’s still good fun to run through the game a few more times with the tweaks Worlds 2 and 3 introduce. The game as a whole I would say is a bit grindier than 6 overall, especially if you’re looking to raise a ton of characters, but if you’re just looking to play through the entirety of both campaigns it’s unlikely you’ll run into any real brick wall enemies except possibly the final boss of Magnum. Battles and dungeons move extremely quickly anyway, so if you do have to grind out a few levels from time to time it’s not really a big deal. That said, the Rance series does have a bit of a propensity for valuing straight up numbers over strategy once you get into battle, so people who want to eke by with a minimum of grinding might have a bit of a tricky time in places. Not to say that there’s only one way to approach any given battle, but the design is a bit oldschool in terms of “We want you to be this level here” in places, which is something I’m fine with personally, since it actually forces you to get your shit together when you’re lagging behind.

There are some elements of the original game’s design that I could complain about, namely the steep difficulty of the early game, but Magnum’s balance fixes and skill tweaking have pretty much eliminated my complaints entirely, which is the reason I’m not afraid to say it’s better than 6 as far as the system goes. Since I don’t want to go too in-depth about the system in a review, I’ll suppose I’ll go ahead and sum up my thoughts on the gameplay here: The snappy flow of Rance Quest combined with the unique strategic element of limited skill charges makes for an irresistible treat for any RPG gamer who enjoys puzzling out the most efficient way to approach gameplay. People who love to sperg out and grind will also find the high-level content mostly satisfying (I personally think 6 is better in this regard), while the oldschool approach to difficulty balance is a welcome change from the hand-holding JRPGs pervading the market nowadays.

Story

Honestly not a lot to talk about here, I don’t feel like spoiling every element of the story so I’ll just say that, unlike Quest, Magnum has a pretty satisfying main scenario and introduces a number of plot elements that will come into play a bit further down the road.

Some people have complained about the writing, since there are some new people on staff now, but I honestly didn’t mind. It reads a bit differently from 6 and Sengoku in places, but it’s the same old Rance we know and love at heart. One of the major draws of 8 is getting to see a ton of characters from throughout the series, and I think Magnum especially succeeds in that front. Plenty of fanservice for fans to the series and the new characters aren’t half-bad either. Or more like, Reset is just damn adorable and every scene with her is the most disgustingly cute thing ever. So yeah, classic Rance humor, all the characters you know and love show up, and the setting even gets expanded a bit. No real complaints here.

It should be noted that this is the main area where 8 lags behind 6 in my opinion, though. 6 is an extremely long and involved game with a fairly lengthy scenario to complement it, whereas 8, though made much longer by the Magnum content, is just not lengthy enough to feel truly epic like 6 did – this is of course not helped by the fact that 6 is a main chapter in the series, but 8 is simply the stopgap between 7 and 9 in terms of plot progression. So yes, 8′s scenario and overall scale may be just a bit disappointing if you were expecting another grand adventure like Kichikuou, 6, and 7, which is, I feel, its one major weakness in the end. That said, the Magnum campaign really does take steps to correct this, so it’s not as bad as it was in the original.

By the way, Sill is still frozen as of the end of the game in Magnum, but she does get briefly unfrozen here, unlike in the original. I know some people have perhaps gotten the wrong impression from some of the CGs in Magnum, so I figured I’d go ahead and make that clear. She likely won’t be unfrozen until 10 at this rate, maybe at the very end of 9, if you ask me. Speaking of which, Magnum also retcons the rather downer ending from the original, which is another plus.

Anyway, not as majestic as Rance’s major adventures, but still a serviceable scenario that I think manages to carve out its own place in the series thanks to the Magnum additions.

Graphics/Art

Rance Quest heavily utilizes 3D graphics for both dungeon exploration and enemy display in battle, much the same way that Toushin Toshi 3 did. Unlike TT3, however, dungeons are now free-roaming instead of tile-based, which I think is quite a nice change. I was messing around a bit in TT3 the other day and was surprised how restrictive the tile-based movement feels after having played Quest, actually. I must admit that I don’t have much of an eye for 3D graphics, but the models are all generally serviceable for what they’re meant for and the game runs better than TT3 did, so I have no real complaints other than the fact that sprites are no longer being utilized, which is more a sign of the times than anything, I suppose. I do appreciate that map movement uses a chibi 3D representation of Rance and the scale of the maps themselves is roughly what you’d find in a SNES RPG; in other words, dungeons might be 3D, but they’re not the slow-moving 3D which so plagues modern gaming in general. I’d also say the dungeon environments look nicer and are generally more varied than TT3, where everything starts looking the same after about the 1000th dungeon map or so…

As for the 2D art – in a word, brilliant. Orion has evolved to a level which can only be described as “miracle worker.” I really cannot overstate how much I absolutely adore the artstyle and character designs in this game – in fact, I am prepared to state that as far as style and designs go, Rance Quest has my favorite art of any eroge. There might be artists with better composition than Orion out there, but the quality of the character designs in Rance Quest is simply unmatched for me. If it is an eroge’s goal to present its heroines in an attractive manner, than I would have to say that Rance Quest succeeds for me like no other game does in terms of physical appearances; I do believe that I am actually a fan of the majority of the female designs in Rance Quest, which is a ratio I found unthinkable in anything before playing this game. The game is just a pleasure to look at because of how damn great all of the designs are, and I think this goes a long way toward facilitating long-term play for me, at least.

Music/Sound

Motherfucking Shade. Enough said. Impossibly hardcore battle themes and crazy smooth dungeon tracks combine to create an OST that won’t embarrass you even among the VGM tops. Shade is by far the best composer working in eroge and Quest is another excellent entry in his catalog – which is something I actually found quite reassuring back when the original came out, since Daiteikoku’s OST is rather lackluster in a lot of ways. Then again, I suppose that describes Daiteikoku as a game in general…

So yeah, up there with Sengoku and TT3 for me. Great stuff, if you’re a fan of any of his previous work you won’t be disappointed. Slice of life tracks aren’t half bad this time either, which is a definite improvement over TT3, heh.

By the way, Shade recently left Alicesoft due to health issues and will be working with them as a freelancer from now on. Here’s to hoping he can both manage to finish out the Rance series and keep his health in check.

As the Rance series is unvoiced, there’s nothing else to discuss in this section. Other than perhaps the fact that Alicesoft went full nostalgia mode this time around and included SNES-style beeps and boops for dialogue text as it scrolls across. Quite amusing if you remember the days when games actually used this technique, but unfortunately rendered ineffectual if you use instant text display like I do. Still a nice little feature.

By the way, if you’re going to complain about a game in 2011-2012 being unvoiced, you don’t understand Rance as a series. Voice just… would not work at all, and I’m glad Alicesoft has enough integrity to stick by their stance of never adding voice to the series.

Conclusion

Rance Quest, and especially Magnum, while not a main entry in the Rance series, more than holds its ground when compared to the big hitters it’s up against (in this case, Kichikuou Rance, Rance VI, and Sengoku Rance, also known as the only other Rance games with decent gameplay) and manages to carve out its own place in the timeline thanks to some well-implemented foreshadowing and one or two major plot developments. The gameplay can also be seen as an essentially more refined take on 6′s approach, and should be more than palatable for anyone who hasn’t forgotten the days when JRPGs were more than just cutscenes and autobattle. Meanwhile, in terms of aesthetics, none of Alicesoft’s other games even come close, imo, but your mileage may vary. Sengoku and TT3 give it a run for its money in terms of soundtrack, at least.

All in all, a very enjoyable game and worthy entry in the Rance series. Given what they’ve been pumping out recently, it’s also definitely Alicesoft’s best game since TT3… which may not be saying a whole lot, but at least that game had a proper system and story, even if the latter was horrible. Here’s to hoping that they continue in this direction and make Pastel Chime 3 and Rance 9 worthwhile too… Or more like, I am really damn excited for Rance 9 after Magnum, so they’d better not fuck it up!

By the way, since it’s very likely that most people reading this have only played Sengoku, if they’ve played a Rance game at all, I’d like to note that 6 should be played before 8 no matter what. I still consider 6 the better game (thus, some people might be inclined to play 8 first), but it’s also a much better introduction to the series than 7 or 8 are, not to mention the fact that the graphics, art, and music are… shall we say, lackluster, compared to 8′s. For someone new to the series, I’d probably recommend playing 6 –> 02改 (remake of 2, not a very good game but worth playing for the amusing text and introduction to several important characters) –> Sengoku –> Quest. Feel free to throw Kichikuou in wherever you want; it’s an alternate what-if scenario branching off from 4 (4.2, really) and covering the entire rest of the timeline. Its gameplay is most similar to Sengoku’s. None of the other games are really much fun to play, either due to being outdated, bad, or both, but they’re also all very short so if there’s an event or character you’re curious about it shouldn’t take more than 5-10 hours to play through one of them. And if you’re curious, major entries in the series released so far are 3 (Leazas), 6 (Zeth), and 7 (JAPAN). I personally hope they remake 3 at some point, like they did with 2, since the highly outdated adventure style interface makes it quite the chore to play through the original now.

Anyway, that about wraps it up for now. Hope I’ve managed to shed some light on a non-Sengoku entry in the series and explain a bit of the direction the series is taking in terms of gameplay. Let me know if you want a review of 6 as well.

Another – To be quite honest I don’t understand horror as a genre. But that’s ok this show is awful anyway.

Aquarion – This show looks like a lot of fun and has some nice character designs. Unfortunately I never watched the first series. Maybe I should fix that some day.

Guilty Crown – Holy shit best show of the millennium since Basquash. This show simply never stops surprising me, which is very important in this kind of wonderful horror party. Episode 17 was quite simply ineffable…the most ineffable episode since episode 12, in fact.

High School Boys – This just looks ridiculously retarded.

High School DxD – This show is basically about becoming 14 again in real life and it’s hilarious and awesome and I want a chuu2 arm and a cute Ashia of my own. Bestest ED sequence award. Other girls suck compared to Ashia though. I don’t really have much else to say about this except that Harem King is a pretty cool “abbreviation.”

InuBoku – The girl is cute but nothing worth sifting through shitloads of fabulous for.

Milky Holmes S2 – The manic energy and active visuals of s1 except without the fresh creative writing that drove the comedy and evolved the characters in fun amusing ways and ultimately made s1 into such a success. The result is a mere stoner comedy – an endless deluge of randomness and tired one-note jokes (Twenty’s nipples, Cordelia’s singing, Elly’s 露出, I could go on) without any real comedic spark. It’s still got its occasional moments, but as the series goes on I’m getting increasingly disappointed with this second season. Where the hell is Moriarty? She was all set to drive this season forward in fun new ways. But I guess actually coming up with something new is too hard for the writers behind s2 =/

Mirai Nikki – People who actually watch this like random yandere so much that they are willing to excuse bad writing and bad characterization and bad everything else.

Mouretsu Pirates – Serious sci-fi series + bad character designs + awful voice acting + nothing happening forever = unwatchable aural priapism. Come on I expected better from you Sato. The first episode looked like shit too. (I’ve heard this show gets better but bad voice acting and bad art keep me away).

Natsumachi – This is basically an early 2000s romance drama comedy done with a wonderful modern art style and Nagai’s deft directorial touch. It still remains to be seen if this will end well. The writing so far has been very solid (yessssss a male lead who clearly expresses his affections for the lead female instead of leading on the entire cast for most of the series), but I’m still concerned that the series will trainwreck toradora style in its final act. Well, no one is a terrible character like Minori was…also the most recent episode employed rather lazy writing by using surprise osananajimi to force drama. But I’ll forgive that misstep because surprise osananajimi is cute and has good chemistry with Kaito. Too bad she’s voiced by Kayano. Fuck Kayano she’s a talentless hack. Seriously go watch fucking Merry and tell me she’s not. I am ceaselessly irritated that she gets so many fucking roles these days. Also people Mio appears to be a budding nudist, not a fucking exhibitionist. Nudism is pretty much the opposite of exhibitionism, in fact.

Nisemonogatari – I don’t like Nisioisin (although to be fair I haven’t tried his dialogue in JP [and my JP hearing comprehension is quite bad compared to how much of the language I know so I probably won't be trying any time soon]) and I don’t like super Shinbo-y Shinbo. Nadeko is hot though.

Papakiki – The show where nothing ever happens except for Sora being hot and Hina being cute except Pixiv seems to translate “Hina being cute” to “Hina likes a bunch of dicks.” Seriously this show is fucking soporific which is weird because it has the fucking Regios director who is pretty good at making shows enjoyable. Perhaps this wouldn’t be as much of a problem if they adapted more than one LN volume in six episodes. It also looks like shit compared to regular Feel shows, what’s up with that. The best part of this show is the extremely addictive ED that is far better than it has any right to be.

Rinne no Lagrange – Serious mecha series + one dimensional k-on girls = unwatchable massive tonal clash. Come on I expected better from you Sato. The first episode had good visuals, at least. (I’ve heard the tonal clash problems with this show just get worse and worse).

Shana – So this show has a cute flame haze who just kind of started to appear around episode 12. She wasn’t given any sort of proper introduction and I don’t know her name. But she’s cute and she pilots a chuu2 fighter jet made out of lasers or something so she’s automatically the best part of the show. Seriously holy shit people this show is awful garbage with worse pacing than fucking Index s1. Except remember that the episode of Index that consisted of nothing but two characters talking on a bridge at least had the decency to involve two of the series’ major characters. Compare to Shana’s nonstop torrent of random new characters that no one knows the name of and that no one could possibly care about in any way unless they are fucking retards. And just look at those fucking monster designs! They are the utmost essence of the kind of falderal produced by the ravings of a mentally disabled meth head. Speaking of fucking retarded meth heads, Shana is not epic holy shit what the fuck is wrong with you if you think a show so awful in every way warrants such a descriptor. Here are proper uses of the word “epic”: Gurren Lagann has epic scale and nekketsu; NEEDLESS has epic irreverence; Eureka Seven has epic falling scenes; Mai-HiME has epic everything. Shana has uh…epic 翠糞蛞蝓髑髏（グリーン・シート・スラッグ・ヘッド） battles. ps I’m still watching this show unlike the other things I’m shitting on here because I watched s1 and s2. And then I watched them again to help get a friend through them so I would have moral support for s3. Fuck.

Symphogear – This show combines a bunch of great things I love. Magical girls, song fighting, Lord Blazer with super charged Durandal, cute lesbian snugglebunnies, badass fights, and all around well done directing and production in general. Unfortunately, it seems like it wants to be a bunch of other things too, to the point where it’s starting to feel overcrowded and whacked out. A couple of the characters have had odd sudden turns of characterization too. Still, the series is a shitload of fun, and really this is enough to make up for these deficiencies. This and Natsumachi are the only shows this season that I watch full screen, and in fact are the only shows I’ve given this kind of dedicated treatment in a very long time.

Zero no Tsukaima s4 – This show is so fucking bad. I wish Saito would just fuck everyone. At the same time. That would be a lot better than the hilariously bad attempts at writing an actual plot that this series feels compelled to include. I think I remember that s1 had interesting characterization at some point too…or maybe that was just a desperate dream of a fevered mind. Yeah, probably just that. It wouldn’t be the first time I thought a show was decent five years ago when it was actually terrible.

Ok that should be everything that I can remember the name of that’s airing right now. And anything I didn’t remember to put on this list is doubtlessly worthless. Come to think of it I forgot about Persona.

All in all not a bad season. In fact, the presence of Symphogear and Natsumachi, combined with the sheer fun of Guilty Crown and Harem King makes this the best season in quite some time. But if I learned anything from Penguindrum it’s that any show, no matter how good, can become a festering cesspool of hatred and pain in its final episodes. Will this season avoid this fate? Only time can tell.

(the answer is “probably not but I remain foolishly optimistic and it’s not like anything can actually fuck up Guilty Crown’s imponderable majesty at this point”)

今月の動画
前もって注意しますが、今月はエロゲ的にはかなり寒い月。証拠にこの動画の後半の内容は2月のエロゲの紹介デモのために割り当てられてます。つまり今月のエロゲに関する情報は今月のエロゲを紹介する動画の半分しか埋まってませんと言うことになります。あんだすたん？

【発売日変更情報】
01/27→02/24 死神のテスタメント(3rdEye)
01/27→03/23 烙印姫ルーンドプリンセス(Liquid-Touchable)
01/27→03/23 Remember(アトリエさくら)
02/24→03/30 ‘＆’(暁WORKS)

真剣で私に恋しなさい！S
みなとそふと
テレカ。ああ、久しぶりの裸リボン。素晴らしい。
まじこい続編。以上。

—

学☆王- THE ROYAL SEVEN STARS
Lump of Sugar
情欲的な特典色々
ジャンル：学校に行きたくなるADV。
究極至高の学園モノらしいですよ、奥さん！全エロシーン複数回射精だって、奥さん！！（このリンク先は概要や魅力を事細かに説明してるので私は不要。やる気がないわけではありませんよ？）
相変わらずave;newによる主題歌は健在。
えっちぃな体験版が二つあります。心行く迄どうぞ。

—

ティンクル☆くるせいだーすPSS
Lillian
色欲を催す特典
ティンクル☆くるせいだーす続編。発売日が２月１０日、でもチェックしておきたいから載せます。
なんか大人なリリアンちゃんがいます。なんかプリンセスうぃっちぃずのクルルと委員長もいます。どう考えてもPSP版のマカロンもいるっぽいけど何故かキャラのところにいません。
実はこのシリーズのノリちょっと子供っぽくて苦手。でもまあ面白いでしょうね。
かんなぎれい様、かなり上手くなりましたね。
こっそり励んでよろしくてよ。
ちなみに発売延期の理由がちょっと面白い嘆かわしい。

—

同棲ラブラブル
SMEE
煩悩の特典
究極のイチャラブゲームの続編。同棲はいいものですね。

—

プリズマティックプリンセス☆ユニゾンスターズ
ユニゾンシフト
ただの特典
全。
ウニゾン。
ヒロイン。
登場。
あとカードゲーム。

—

BUNNYBLACK ２
ソフトハウスキャラ
相変わらずやる気ありませんね、ゲームのHP。続編と言わなければわからないならあなたはきっと自分を吊ったほうがいいです。
３Dダンジョン探索ＲＰＧです。
娘がいますよー。娘キャラは癒しの元ですよー。

—

お尻っ娘ヴィーナス
Apricot Cherry
テレカ…みんな同じヒロインやん。
お尻。

—

すたどる！
abelia
テレカ
俺サマのラグナRock某アイドル対決戦略ゲームに似てますね。

—

喰ヒ人
Tinkerbell
人間変容の異生物にグチョグチョされるADV
フルプライスなヌキゲー。わーい双子凌辱ー。

—

夜勤病棟　零
M no Violet
夜勤病棟シリーズ、きっと永遠に終わりませんね…

—

昏き祟りの森で
hourglass/Snowflake
なんかホラーゲーム出てます。

—

烙印姫ルーンドプリンセス
Liquid-Touchable
絶頂メーターエルフ双姫淫辱ＳＬＧ。ん、まあ、そういうゲームらしいです。

—

華麗に悩殺♪ くのいちがイク！
softhouse-seal
もうsealのゲームに言葉なんて必要ない気がしますが…今回も遊べるゲームに挑戦したみたいです。アクション系っぽい。

はい終了。今月はちょっとさみしいですね。まあ積みゲーが山のように堆高い私にとって大して変わりません。今回は特に気の利いた締め言葉はありません。すみません。

UPDATE: 2011 stats for eroge voice actors here. I love everyone (but Aoyama). Who did you fap to the most for 2011?

November + December Eroge Overview which is late because nobody gives a damn. Also because I was busy playing Baldr Sky and things.

Anyway I have ignored eroge news for two months myself so I figure it’s about time to catch up. Somewhat irrelevant but I am currently staring at this eroge by the people who made gothderi. Very loli. Very pretty visuals. Sasuga gothderi team. Moving on.

November Eroge Releases Video
December Eroge Releases Video
I’ll omit delays this time because all delays were moved to December and it is the end of December and December’s delays aren’t really important.

By the way erogamescape isn’t loading for me and only me for some reason so I’ll have to do this without the power of reviews.

—

誰が殺したコマドリを

スマイル戦機
A tragic eroge with sex played deeply into the plot and told from three different POVs through three different timelines. It has yuri, rape, confinement, etc. Still a nukige no matter how you look at it. I mean this company makes erovoice.

—

輝光翼戦記 銀の刻のコロナ

ETERNAL
Telecards. I automatically assumed Corona was flat because of her mantle. I guess she is not.
The next installment in the 輝光翼戦記 series, sequel to Yumina. ETERNAL kind of messed up on their previous games with Yumina being their only real success, but seeing as this is a direct sequel of their first and best game they likely hopefully put more effort into this one than their previous works. The Yumina characters appear and get CGs and stuff so you’ll probably enjoy it more if you’ve played Yumina. The gameplay is smoother than Yumina from what I’ve heard.
本音：If Corona doesn’t have manzai on a silly backdrop it is a shitty game.
PS I like dragon girls.

—
現在もいつかもふぁるなルナ
MANATSU_8
Telecards.
本作のキーワードは『恋』と『魔法』と『女装』。
“Key points for this game: Love, magic, crossdressing.”
They are tossing the crossdressing unwillingly approach and making the protag a crossdresser who isn’t hiding it who also loves girls and is a complete hentai who walks into girls washroom and changing rooms and such.. Also Kokoro is the girliest name ever for a guy. I believe this game exists to fulfill your desire to be a straight trap. Needless to say it’s probably your everyday charagame. With Carbuncle. Not important but that fairy’s chest is way huger than 75. Also it has an imouto that is not a heroine but a brocon. I think those are the worst character concepts every because it will piss off everyone who wants to bone their imouto.

—

彼女は高天(そら)に祈らない

Es:cude
Telecards. I hate blonde hair blue eyes in general but she got all the cards. And she’s fucking Aoyama. And the most popular character. Fuck.
Man I wish I had access to opinions of people who have played the game so I have an idea of what the gameplay is like without trying myself. Probably really shallow and simple though. I’ve never actually played an escude game. But I am thoroughly amused listening to Ringorin’s character interview.
Oh right this game is about Japanese Gods that are now bishoujo and fighting. It’s probably entertaining, I don’t know about deep but I bet you’ll get some laughs. It might be cool. Just be sure to turn off Aoyama.
Oh Ringorin you are so silly. Tohno Soyogi is cool too.

—
守護聖女プリズムセイバー

Lusterise
Telecards.
Nukige. I like the SD a lot, it’s cute.

—

Strawberry Nauts

HOOKSOFT
Telecards.
Extra gallery.

Hook and all companies under hook just make moege now. And I mean moege. They push moege to its limits. They seek sugar sweet flirty cute love to its extremes, they pioneer beyond what has been already tried to death, which results in games like this. Look at this. Look how serious they are about their ideal romances. If you are feeling very ronery you can play this. Either that or if you just want to bone one or two of the heroines. Also lllolololo Imuraya doing a loli. Also there’s a secret heroine named Female Upperclassman C. OH GOD THIS GAME IS SO SUGARY AAAAAAAH

—

テンタクルロード-我が手に堕ちよ勇壮なる乙女-

Yatagarasu
Telecards.
A 3D raising game in which the protag is a chuunibyou king who calls himself a maou and uses tentacles to capture heroes (heroines). I wish I had access to erogamescape. The art is pretty good so guess I’ll be playing this maybe.
That’s three gameplay eroge so far. That’s a lot.

—

七つのふしぎの終わるとき
etude
Telecards.
Now this game I really can’t say anything about without erogamescape aside from the usual beautiful high quality CG by the usual etude genga. But I can say that the youtube promo video pulled me in. I am interested. Just watch that if you are interested. Man if someone later tells me it got crappy scores and was a letdown that’ll be embarrassing.

—

花散峪山人考
raiLsoft
Kusayanagi is voicing the faceless extras again. She does that for every railsoft game.
Railsoft’s games are kind of hard to explain. They read more like real novels and aren’t very eroge-like.
The protagonist here had his fiancée killed and now he’s partially insane and out for revenge, out to kill everyone who was involved. He is currently dragging a slave around who is being treated like a dog because she has a good sense of scent.
Moogy knows more about the writer mareni than I do.
Also this Q&A is very silly.

Moogy comment: I might know more about Mareni than teru does but I have nothing to say here.

—

晴れときどきお天気雨

ぱれっと
Telecards.
More Gods. Except the Gods this time aren’t special and aren’t that much different from humans except for the fact that they can use magic-like abilities and fight. Not much of a palette fan myself but if you enjoyed any of their games done by the kusukusu/NYAON combo might as well give it a go. They pretty much represent palette and all the other games aren’t really worth playing probably.

Moogy comment: Response to this from NYAON fans seems pretty lackluster.

—

ひよこストライク！

Ex-iT
Telecards.
Extra illustrations.
I spent more time on the seiyuu interview page than any other because I’m a huge eroge seiyuu faggot. The story is… uh… here you go. For some reason nobody else but protag can see this strange girl. Appears to smell like normal character game. I’d honestly play this rather than hook’s game.
Amusing fact: Kurata was shocked that her character (one of the main heroines that goes by Classmate A) did not have a chupachupa scene. So she asked the staff for one and they made her one. You can listen to her joy on the seiyuu comment page. She also talked for over 6 minutes while everyone else talked for under 2 minutes. Kuratarou quality.
Oh sorry this one was delayed to January 27. Too late I wrote about it.

—

ましろサマー

mana
Telecards.
This page pretty much explains the concept of the game along with what to expect and who should play it. So I get to be lazy. If you can’t read those simple few lines then you shouldn’t be playing eroge in the first place.

—

夢みる月のルナルティア

Arianrhod
Telecards.
I REALLY DON’T LIKE YOUR STYLE HINAMATSURI WHY DO YOUR AMATEUR SMELLING ILLUSTRATIONS APPEAL TO PEOPLE IS IT BECAUSE YOU’RE FEMALE IS THAT IT HUH.
Atelier style gameplay. I’ll be playing this. There is another atelier style gameplay eroge too. It will be introduced further down. I wonder which is better. Probably this one because I like the VAs. And Imuraya loli again.
The staff doing the system is listed as くまさんちーむ. There is only one くまさんちーむ and they belong to Kogado and do the aoi series, I wonder if it’s the same team. Speaking of Kogado, another related game will also be introduced later on.

—

揺り籠より天使まで
暁WORKS-黒-
Gaijin blocking so you get Getchu page only.
Modern day special power battlez. As chuu2 as you can get here. If you’re looking for shana, eroge style, this is probably it. The character CGs are pretty good though.

—

LEGEND SEVEN ～白雪姫と７人の英雄～
NONSUGAR
Telecards.
There was some hype for this game in #tlwiki because it was from the guy who wrote schatten but it turned out to not be as great as everyone expected. Which means there wasn’t as much badass cool burning passion etc or something I don’t know. Concept is modern snow white and seven heroes and lots of battles and saving the world from evil villains and inconsistent visuals.

—

あまかん～えっちな “ラブいちゃ” 詰めちゃいました～

PeasSoft
「あまあね」からアフターストーリー２本」
「君を仰ぎ乙女は姫に」からアフターストーリー２本」
「完全新作のラブラブいちゃいちゃゲーム」
「ツンな彼女デレな彼女　通常版」
So in other words 4 games in one, one all new, one old one, and two after stories for their other games. Icharabu stuff.

—

春季限定ポコ・ア・ポコ!

ALcot ハニカム
Telecards.
Music-themed game about a guy who made it into a music school as a scholarship student but gave up on music and is doing plain work to make money instead of going to class because he lost his passion in music, and as a result he was threatened to pay fees for all the classes he took up until now and the only way around this is to form a quartet and continue music activities and perform at the graduation ceremony.
…This is the most normal description I wrote for this post.

—

制服天使
SherbetSoft
Sherbet’s commercial game debut. One heroine. Pure love. Also a be an evil bastard route. Seifuku. If the main heroine appeals to you, go for it. She has angel wings. It’s an illness. There are people who hunt people with angel wings. You go on a journey with her to escape from this mysterious organization. OK? OK. This is the first game in a series. Later there will be another game in the series that focus on another heroine. I’d rather bone Ayane. But Ayane gets screwed over and loses hardcore and exists only to make the main heroine stand out. Even her seiyuu Himari said so. 当て馬…

Moogy comment: Isn’t that just 羽化病 from Eustia?
not-teru: yes. yes it is.

—

放課後キッチン
あてゅ・わぁくす
Telecards.
It’s cooking time. Also this is their last game and they died. Poor atu, five years in business and never made a name for themselves. They really needed to hire someone who could do better web graphics. I feel really sorry for this company for some reason. Out of curiosity I checked amazon and the game is roughly 5000 yen off. Sad. LOOK THEY MADE COOKING VIDEOS FOR THE HEROINES BUT THE NUMBER OF VIEWS IS SO SAD. SO. SAD.

—

魔法少女と恋＋
DisAbel
Sometimes I wonder if anyone really cares about abel/disabel. But they’re still in business. Is it weird if I want to bone eye-masked loli.

—

SUDDEN ADVERTISEMENT TIME!! ALSO KNOWN AS I AM DONE WITH THE NOVEMBER VIDEO HAVE A LITTLE INTERMISSION TIME

Little Witch Parfait
工画堂スタジオ
Stuff
REMAKE OF A THIRTEEN YEAR OLD GAME COMING OUT IN MARCH FOR THE PSP WITH ART BY FUJIWARAWARAWARA WHO DID SOME PULLTOP GAMES

SPEAKING OF PULLTOP THEY ARE DOING A TENTH ANNIVERSARY PROJECT IN WHICH YOU CAN GRAB WALLPAPERS DRAWN BY AFOREMENTIONED FUJIWARAWARAWARA
SPOILERS ALL THREE ARE LOLIS AND YOU CAN SEE THEIR CHESTS (yunohana kanoshino shirobell)
ALSO FOR SOME REASON MIYABI-CHAN APPEARS IN CORONA AS A BONUS CHARACTER

—

学園迷宮エロはぷにんぐ! ～イクぜ!性技のダンジョン攻略～
softhouse-seal
Seal made another RPG. I don’t think anything really needs to be said about seal at this point. If you’re still not familiar with them all they do is make millions of nukige with silly concepts and recently they’ve been making nukige with random gameplay. Looks like they made all the graphics themselves this time which is somewhat impressive.

—

戦極姫3～天下を切り裂く光と影～遊戯強化版－壱の巻－
unicorn-a Ge-sen18
Addon for original sengokuhime 3 with new routes and scenarios and improved system etc. etc. Need original sengokuhime 3 to play. Now you can enjoy this giant mess of a game even more.

—

あっぱれ！天下御免

BaseSon
Lots of telecards.
Baseson’s games always overwhelmed me with their overwhelming amount of characters. Kind of hard to comment on them because I always made fun of the games without actually knowing anything about them. Namely Koihime. Because it looks dumb. This game also labels itself as a love comedy. But seriously, with stuff that looks this chaotic you’re best off playing the trial if you want to know about it because if you’re like me you’ll just go what while browsing the site.

—

スチームパンクFullvoice ReBORN
ライアーソフト
3 of Liarsoft’s steampunk series now with fullvoice. Also extra CGs. Do I really need to say more. If you answered yes, you’re a retard.

—

White Album 2 -closing chapter-

Leaf
Telecards.
White Album 2, second half. …It’s White Album 2. A straight-up winter romance drama involving music. I don’t know what else to say. You might as well read a review or play the game instead of expecting me to provide useful information beyond what you already know. The story page from both official pages do not tell me anything. I cannot provide you with a plot summary or anything. All I know is that people are spamming fake scores of 100 on erogamescape and it is 4mb of text total. Now leave me alone.

—

お前のパンツは何色だ！？

Molamola.software
What is this game? Why, to find out, just head over to the system page and experience talk battles! …Despite this game having the title WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR PANTIES?! it is about saving people with the power of words. In other words silly talk battles with a bunch of weird heroines. And yes it has a focus on ero.

—

恋するコトと見つけたり！

Fizz
Telecards.
Guest wallpapers.
It seems ever since Merry Livingstone appeared in aquanauts and got first place in the character popularity contest for the same game it has become tradition to stick a not so bright moe English girl in their games. This time Koyomi Shizukukawa Livingstone appears, and she happens to be a ninja.
Oh and the game is about two samurai-type girls who are both your fiancee fighting for your love. Along with two other girls. I’d rather bone Livingstone and the girl below her. And they all love you from the very beginning. Complete opposite of the Hook game above where the protag meets all the heroines for the first time during the game.

—

花咲く乙女と恋の魔導書

でぼの巣製作所
Telecards.
Other atelier-style game. This one is in 3D. And by debonosu. Allow me to express my hate for debonosu’s terrible illustration quality. You really suck. In fact, I think hinamatsuri is better, and I loudly expressed my dislike for her earlier (she’s not terrible terrible but there’s no reason for her get so much work). I really think there’s something wrong when your SD illustrator can do better pictures. I might play it anyway with expectations very low.

—

HOTEL.
暁WORKS-黒-
Look at this two akatsuki black games in the same post. Chocho is genga and he’s cool though.
This one is about… a hotel. And a mysterious guitarist, Sara. The story starts when she visits the hotel. …That’s really all the information it provides about the plot. Who knows what to expect. I’d put my bet on this one out of the three akatsuki releases.

Moogy comment: Honestly who even cares about Akatsuki Works except for the Hino/Shuudou/Saeki team. Speaking of which, the ‘&’ trial was really really good, I was impressed! Gotou Mai as main heroine is so great, you guys don’t even know. Like I am overjoyed with that casting. Also uh the writing is the best I’ve read this entire year probably which is a bit silly seeing as it’s a trial. Music and art are great too. Anyway I have that preordered like fuck.

—

真夏の夜の雪物語 -MIDSUMMER SNOW NIGHT-

EX-ONE
Telecards.
Fully animated OP. Mikeou genga. Cousins as heroines. Two pairs of sisters. Town with eternal snow. All heroines have giant watermelon chests. Character game (most likely).

—

妹選抜☆総選挙

Latte
Telecards.
ANIMATED PORTRAITS!!!11111 You can catch a glimpse of them here.
Anyway, this is a very deep game with a theme on politics. It goes into heavy discussions of modern politics while criticizing and analyzing the current politicial system with clever usage of imouto factions representing left and right-wing politics without limiting itself to Japan’s political system but also providing thought-provoking insight on various other nations, effectively spreading a message beyond national borders. Each faction’s banner is cleverly designed, making usage of colors and symbols to express their ideals. You can see a heated discussion from supporters of each faction here. The comments are sure to provide you with a different point of view, many of them provide such convincing arguments. If you have no interest in politics it would prudent to steer clear of this game.

Moogy comment: I’m glad someone is willing to use the eroge medium to make a statement like this.

—

フリフレ2
Noesis
A story about 援助交際. I’m not explaining what that is. The protagonist uses a message board especially for this purpose and meets a girl with whom he begins a sexual relationship with, without knowing that they are siblings. The heroine’s mother died and she is alone and so she makes money this way. There’s a pure love route and rape forever route to fulfill whatever needs you have. …This seiyuu sounds really amateur.

—

めばえ

たぬきそふと
Telecards.
All of tanuki soft’s games are the same. They exist so you can fap to nonohara’s extremely young girls. Also wow there are four writers listed for this. By the way the lolier one isn’t a virgin and enjoys sex. Just a heads up for you virgin loving faggots.

—

パパラブ ～パパとイチャエロしたい娘達とひとつ屋根の下で～
ブルーゲイル
Telecards.
Fullprice nukige in which you sex up your four daughters.

—

美少女万華鏡

ωstar
……
…………Well I’m getting this 100%.
What. I’m just being honest here. Like the protagonist in this game.

This post took me all day.
I have a request for you readers who went through this post.
Please post a comment stating which heroine limited to the above games you would fap to the most.
If that is too difficult you can list two or three.

Moogy comment: Everyone give teru a round of applause for being so diligent.

YOU THOUGHT I WOULDN’T MAKE A POST FOR THIS MONTH’S EROGE DURING THIS MONTH HUH WELL GUESS WHAT YOU’RE WRONG. By the way it was my birthday yesterday I demand a present.

I have a confession to make. I actually didn’t get a chance to play any of last month’s eroge because ho****re died I was playing games I had to work my internet sucks I was reading other things I was looking at pretty pictures of 2D girls I had other eroge to finish I’m lazy I was trying to be creative I have a huge anime backlog I was being emo I was sick I was learning about TRPGs I was busy hoarding various other rare otaku things I was wasting time on IRC I was shopping for figurines I cannot get things done. Sorry, coming up with the right words was pretty hard there. This is also the reason why this post is late. Not that there’s a date I set aside from “until the end of the month”. ALSO GOOD NEWS JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING IN THIS POST WAS RELEASED 2 DAYS AGO!!! As a result hardly any reviews exist on erogamescape, so for some games I won’t have much information at all.

Oh yes, and there were complaints about my KKK overview last month where I said nothing but look at the site. This is because it was uncertain what the game had to do with dies irae, but the connection is clear now. It uses the same characters for dies irae in another completely different japanese setting, and according to reviews and people who have played it you pretty much need to play dies irae before you play KKK. This is the kind of information you cannot get until after the game is released, so there was not much to speculate about the game at the time.
Also if you’re sensitive enough to complain about that this month’s post will piss you off.

This Month’s Video

Delays:
【発売日変更情報】
10/28→11/25 晴れときどきお天気雨(ぱれっと)
10/28→11/25 夢みる月のルナルティア(Arianrhod)
10/28→未定 Trample on “Schatten!!” ～かげふみのうた～ REVOLUTION＋(NONSUGAR)
10/28→未定 ミステイク・バイ・ミスキャスト(ミニヨン)

lol at ミス×ミス which I brought up two months ago.
Since people don’t click on links unless there are pretty pictures I will include ouen banners this time for each game. If the site doesn’t have an ouen banner there will be no picture.

ネこグり。
Frantic LABO
Frantic LABO’s first game. Looks very amateur from all angles. Story is about a few students who get trapped in a school due to a curse. Calls itself a “Necropop Adventure”. Perhaps a challenger is willing to give this game a shot.
PS: I had trouble googling the title for obvious reasons.

—

君がいた季節

âge
Telecards.
MOOGY TALK ABOUT THIS GAME YOU KNOW MORE ABOUT IT THAN ME

Moogy comment: Remake of one of age’s oldest games. Has Marimo and Yuuko in it and is where Kazama and Munakata are from. If you know those names you’re probably going to play it so I’ll keep it to that.

—

かすたむアイドロイドAi
REAL
Telecards.
Another 3D custom girl game. I asked someone who played it for comments:
“The customization is pretty cool and it looks better than other 3D games about making a girl and fucking her but the sex itself is very bland also the guy’s shirt is a disaster. There is some clipping and skirt physics are as bad as every other game. I have no idea what the stats do.”
If you play this be sure to get the save data at the main site so you don’t have to play what is probably a terrible gameplay portion to unlock clothes and sex positions and such.

—

イヅナ斬審剣 (getchu link, site blocks foreigners)
暁WORKS-黒-
One of three chuu2 games akatsuki black is releasing consecutively for three months. Scenario done by some guy who mainly worked on doujin stuff which generally have high scores. The story page tells me shit about what the game is about.
I really, really hate browsing sites that block gaijin, they make my work so much harder. I’m sick of trying to browse I give up. I don’t want to waste more time looking at yet another chuu2 game from akatsuki black go look at getchu if you’re interested.

—

神聖にして侵すべからず

Pulltop
Telecards.
I talked about this game in last month’s post go look there instead.

—

せきさば！～私立せきがはら学園女子サバイバルゲーム部～ (blocks foreigners, getchu link)
スペルマニアックス
Survival game ero. Nukige. The end. I am not going to talk more about a game from a company named spermaniacs that blocks foreigners.

—

たいせつなきみのために、ぼくにできるいちばんのこと

だんでらいおん
Telecards.
From the guys who made sorafune. Two illustrators, not too fond of the designs. School setting, serious, probably mysterious elements mixed in. Not much else I can say unless I’ve played the trial. Nice Duca OP though.

—

プリーズ・レ◯プ・ミー！

Clockup
Telecards.
Another nukige from everyone’s favourite large nukige company. Next to atelier kaguya. Yes, the title says Please Rape Me.

—

Master×Re:master

Silver Bullet
Telecards.
Chuu2 game with Ninoko as illustrator. This story page is a pain to read so I’ll just say it’s about summoning demons and fighting. It also has mephisto like 99 other demon related contract things!!! According to erogamescape, writer has not worked on anything else.
You have a choice between silver bullet’s game and akatsuki black’s game. PERHAPS THEY ARE BOTH BAD BUT GOOD LUCK.

Moogy edit: Silver Bullet’s in-house writers are responsible for among the worst text I have ever read; I was swindled into reading one of their games, Hanafubuki, because they periodically hire Hino Wataru, the genius responsible for RuiTomo, to write for them. Hino’s work for them is about what you’d expect, very intelligent and clever with a lot of neat conversations and interesting narration. Unfortunately, the rest of their writers are, like I said, beyond bad and Hino has never actually written an entire game for them by himself, so if you want to read his writing you need to wade through the massive amount of shit from the other writers too. Of course this is all a bit irrelevant since Hino is not involved with this game, but I think I’ve made my point about Silver Bullet clear.

—

魔法神姫リリカ

LiLim
Telecards.
I refuse to say anything about this game.

—
翠の海

Cabbit
Telecards.
YEAH MANYO AND SHIMOTSUKI OP!! AND TWINS THAT ARE HEROINES!!!!
Cabbit’s debut game, genre is “Searching for fragments of the truth suspends ADV”. A mysterious mansion game where the characters are all amnesiacs, and there’s no way to leave. Has 16 endings, many bad, and it can get pretty depressing apparently. Includes insanity and death. Seems to be the scenario game of the month. Doesn’t appear to be entirely consistent, but that’s common for eroge. No votes under 70 so far.

—

恋愛0キロメートル

ASa Project
Telecards.
I played an asa project game before. The trunk was amusing but the routes were generic charagame junk. I’m going to assume this is the same.

—

ワルキューレ ロマンツェ

Ricotta
Telecards.
A game quite a few people were looking forward to. I’d play last month’s 恋騎士 instead. I’m going to assume this game has the same concept as 恋騎士, in other words, enjoy boning knight girls at a knight school in this charagame.

—

都合のよい、セックスフレンド？
Waffle
Telecards. (LOOK LARGE SAMPLES IF YOU CLICK ON THEM!!1)
Waffle’s pron game deserves more attention than the pron games listed above.

If you’re looking for a scenario this month your best bet is Cabbit or âge’s game. Two wonderful options for people with modern day battle needs at akatsuki black and silver bullet’s game. Pulltop’s is likely just a high level character game, and I’m betting the same goes for dandelion’s (which is completely shrouded in mystery). Otherwise it’s not a very exciting month.

ENJOY EROGE LIFE

Subarashiki Hibi ~Furenzoku Sonzai~
素晴らしき日々 ～不連続存在～

「幸福に生きよ！」 Or, for those out there who can’t understand Japanese, “Revel in life!”

Narrative

On the evening of July 12, 2012, Takashima Zakuro ends her life by leaping from the top of an apartment building. This event profoundly affects the lives of several individuals. A free-willed, perceptive teenage girl notices a pattern of similar suicides and investigates in the hopes of discovering the truth. A bullied, tormented geek seizes the unlikely opportunity presented by this event to turn his life around. Zakuro’s close friend plots revenge while seeking solace from the demons that haunt her. Finally, a young girl and her beloved brother struggle desperately to prevent the ensuing chaos from destroying everything that they know and love. Subahibi takes place over roughly a two week period of time, following these individuals as their lives intertwine. Narration is provided by several different characters, and they never tell the reader more than what they themselves know and understand at any given time.

Some circles label Subahibi as a mindfuck, while others tout it as a bastion of philosophical discourse. Certainly, what I have discussed so far suggests that elements of the former will be present. While both of these categorizations play some role in the overall construction of Subahibi, a complete picture of the game is much more complex – but at the same time rich in its simplicity. The main emphasis of the game, and indeed of the most powerful sequences it contains, is placed squarely on living happily. On seeking those wonderful days. On understanding one’s own identity. On the powerful bonds one forms with others in the pursuit of happiness. On the knowledge that all good things must come to an end.

Characters power the themes and plot of Subahibi. The actual plot is far less important than how the events occurring affect the characters and their relationships. Sca-ji crafts vivid and vibrant personalities for his main cast. Moreover, the characters are likable and unique, which makes it a joy to watch them and follow their lives. Personal goals and motivations guide the actions of each character, and watching how these differing motivations intertwine and create mutual relationships between these individuals is one of the great joys of reading Subahibi. The role of narrator shifts between each chapter of the game, providing extremely personal insights not previously apparent on the surface of some characters. In short, Subahibi made me truly care about its cast, which is one of the fundamental reasons that I was so deeply moved by several of the game’s sequences.

Of course, Sca-ji’s mellifluous prose propels everything I have described above. Subahibi showcases his deft ability to reduce difficult and abstract concepts and motivations to simple yet scintillating statements. His language flows wonderfully, maintaining a steady and vivacious rhythm that engages the reader. He crisply communicates the mindsets and thought processes of his characters, managing to present each member of the cast in a unique light. Occasionally, he pulls out all the stops and unleashes each of these elements in full force to create scenes of magnificent beauty and power. On more than a few occasions I was driven to tears. These scenes display Sca-ji’s keen ability to identify and accentuate the theme and character climaxes of his work. I am not exaggerating when I say that I consider some of these scenes to be the best I have ever read in any form of literature.

Perhaps the most notorious aspect of Subahibi is its narrative construction. As already mentioned, the game is divided into chapters that each feature a different narrator. However, these chapters are not sequential. Most occur during the same general time period. Moreover, the different narrators often disagree – sometimes in major ways – on the nature of events taking place around them. The result is, for lack of a better word, the mindfuck that the game is known for. It can be extremely difficult to piece together the “real” events taking place, or even at times to make any sense at all of the narrative presented.

But the mindfuck characterization does not do justice to Subahibi’s carefully constructed narrative. By the end of the game I was able to look back at most chapters and understand not only what was going on, but also why Sca-ji chose to present certain events in each chapter. Understanding the entire story casts many of the earlier chapters in a different, more vibrant light. Powerful structural and thematic parallels appear in each of the major “arcs” of Subahibi, and in retrospect arcs that once seemed disparate begin to reinforce each other in wonderful ways. The result is a narrative that is fantastically compleat.

Subahibi is not perfect. A couple of the more tangential chapters do not feel necessary or properly integrated into the narrative. In particular, the first half of the opening chapter is lengthy yet nebulously connected to anything else in the game. The canon branch of Zakuro’s chapter is also woefully pointless (though, ironically, the non-canon “what if” branch of her chapter is fun to read and ties well into the themes and plot progression of the game). Personally, I think Zakuro’s chapter would have been much more interesting and synergistic with the themes and structure of the story if told from Kimika’s perspective instead.

Similarly, the game’s prose is occasionally bloated and repetitive, particularly in Takuji’s chapter. His long, delusional internal monologues stagnate at several points and would benefit from trimming. The game’s infamous bullying sequences also overstay their welcome, lingering long after the point of a scene has been made. While these scenes have some relevance to the overall structure of the game, they are definitely cases where less would have been more. Some impact is irreparably lost once the reader grows bored of a scene.

However, these flawed scenes and chapters are not particularly vital to the overarching narrative. While they make reading the game less enjoyable at intermittent points, they do not significantly mar the tapestry woven by the end of the work. Indeed, I poured adulations upon Subahibi’s structure in spite of a healthy awareness of these problems.

I think that these issues reflect Sca-ji’s gradually shifting narrative goals over the course of Subahibi’s creation. The first half to two-thirds of the game contain a clear intent to confuse, mislead, and disturb the reader. Much of this narrative styling evaporates as soon as the fourth major chapter of the game begins. At this point Sca-ji’s focus shifts overwhelmingly to the characters and themes of his work, and the issues with pacing and bloat all but disappear. This is not to say that the first half of the game lacks quality scenes and generally quality writing. In fact, my favorite sequence in Subahibi – and I think in fiction in general – occurs during the second chapter. The writing is just less consistent than it is in later chapters.

As a minor quibble, I think Takuji and Kimika should have had more presence during the final movements of Subahibi. However, the climax that encompasses these characters earlier in the story is so overwhelmingly powerful that I don’t mind too much. And like much of Subahibi, this climax is even better when viewed in retrospect.

Also, Subahibi contains a shitload of ero. It’s almost completely pointless and mostly unreadable unless you are turned on by random 露出 and rape. It’s also nearly completely absent from the parts of the story that actually matter. Feel free to start skipping as soon as genitalia appear.

Aesthetics

Aesthetics play an important role in interfacing the reader with the text, plot, and characters. They ultimately factor into my overall enjoyment of an eroge, so I feel I must factor them into my analysis as well.

Subahibi wastes no time in revealing its musical opus, immediately unleashing the heartrendingly beautiful Yoru no Himawari upon the player. This song is used throughout the game to highlight its most powerful and thematically pivotal sequences. It is a masterpiece both in terms of composition and in terms of usage within the game. However, it does not stand alone. A number of powerful songs complement Yoru no Himawari and play an important role in communicating the mental state of a given narrator and in conveying the mood of a scene.

Unfortunately, Subahibi fails to utilize many of its quality songs until it focuses in on the plot and themes in its latter half. As a result, unimpressive slice of life and denpa tracks inundate the early stages of the narrative. But as with the narrative itself, the quality provided at the end is so high that it would be difficult to come away from the game with anything but a highly positive view of the BGM.

Voice acting is uneven. Sayada Shin (Takuji), Nishida Komugi (Hasaki), and Kawashima Rino (Yuki) give excellent performances that truly bring their characters to life. Hokuto Minami (Kimika), while not terrible, clearly cannot handle the wide range and powerful performances called for by her role. Suzuya Sui (Zakuro) is unforgivably awful, but thankfully she’s not around much. Other performances are generally competent. As per KeroQ/Makura tradition, non-Takuji male characters are not voiced, which I think is a shame. It’s actually a minor miracle that Takuji is voiced at all, and the game really benefits from the vigorous voice work for his character.

On the visual side of things, Subahibi has the best CG use I’ve ever seen in eroge. Nothing else even comes close. The CGs uniformly depict actual scenes and frequently involve multiple characters. It is somewhat shocking how many games fail to provide these elements in their CGs, instead opting to exhibit endless images of a girl eating random food or staring at the player or otherwise posing in a boring portrait with a dutch angle. Subahibi also contains a very high number of CGs when compared with other games. Nearly every important scene is represented by at least one unique CG, if not several.

Additionally, the composition of almost every CG is striking. KeroQ’s artists utilize an attractive visual aesthetic and a masterful touch in arranging visual elements on their canvas. Each visual is clearly informed by the characters and scene represented, to the extent that these visuals sometimes provide insight into situations and relationships beyond that provided by the text alone. The image above is a particularly good example of this effect. The CGs are a joy to look at even after completing the game, and they played an important role in grabbing my attention and visually engaging me in a given scene.

Tachie mostly look fine, if sometimes a bit busy or unimpressive. They lack the variation that I hope to see in a quality game, but the ample CGs more than make up for this deficiency. The UI takes a minimalistic approach, though I think the end result is a little ugly. This doesn’t really matter though, since it’s good enough that I didn’t have any issues with it after getting a few hours into the game.

Conclusion

Subarashiki Hibi tells a powerful story utilizing consistently high quality writing, audio, and visuals. At key times these elements resonate in a remarkable fashion, elevating the narrative to echelons I have never before seen in eroge. Unfortunately, Subahibi falls just short of being a complete masterpiece due to the constructional defects in the first half of the work. But these faults are relatively minor and do not significantly detract from my high opinion of the game. It is my favorite eroge of all time by a healthy margin. I suppose if I had to assign a numeric score to the game I would settle on a 93-95. More importantly, Subahibi carries my highest recommendation. I implore you to read it if ever given the chance.

P.S. I am an attention whore who maintains a twitter account where I ramble about random eroge, jrpgs, anime, and D&D. If you wish to be ensorceled by my brobdingnagian wit and pulchritudinous glamour then follow me at Kefit42!

As I’ve recently spent a great deal of my free time working my way through this game, I decided it would be only proper to give it some sort of coverage here, if only to show that my skills as a blogger far exceed those of a certain rain charm who will not be named.

Grisaia no Kajitsu is quite a popular title, reigning as one of this year’s top sellers. It caught my interest shortly after release both due to it being showered with praise from all directions and research of my own happening to uncover some (in retrospect, superficial) similarities to Akatsuki no Goei, a series of which I am a great fan. I decided to pass it over, though, because though the response was generally positive, a common complaint was that it lacked a true route and a sense of closure – add this to the fact that it is nearly four megabytes of text and you have an investment of time that I was at the time unwilling to make. Imagine my surprise, however, when a few months ago, Frontwing made the announcement that it was merely the first part of a trilogy! I found my interest in the game piqued once more – baited, as it were, by the promise of what could be construed as a true route or conclusion to the story in general.

So, over the past few weeks or so, I finally gave the game a spin. I’ll say now that while I feel the experience as a whole was definitely worth it and I do plan to pick up the sequels, when looking at it as a single game I cannot help but feel that it is critically deficient in terms of cohesion. While the individual routes are both full-featured and on the whole well-crafted, the story heads in entirely different directions in each and every one of them, in the end having nothing to tie it together, nothing to resolve the numerous dangling plot threads and realize the full potential of the setting; the simplest way to put it, I suppose, would simply be that it does not feel “whole.” This is my greatest complaint with the game and I feel that it is not unreasonable to state that is indeed the game’s greatest objective flaw.

I will not dwell too much upon this point during the review itself, but if you are interested in playing the game yourself, please be aware that you’re committing to four megabytes of text (I would estimate that my own total reading time was around 70-80 hours, though I am a rather slow reader in both English and Japanese) simply to read the first game in a series of three. To put it another way, while I have high expectations for the second and third games, I cannot deny that I felt underwhelmed by the first game in the end.

This review will likely be a little less formal than usual because Grisaia is nothing terribly deep or thought-provoking, leaning, I feel, more toward the “entertainment” side of the fiction spectrum, as opposed to the “art” side. That is not to say that it is not a solid, enjoyable read, however – not all of the routes are fantastic, but I would say that overall the writers approached their work seriously and that the end results are more than commendable for what they are.

I suppose the first thing worth pointing out is that Grisaia is very much a game about its characters, especially the heroines. Though it is of course tempting to simply categorize it as a character game, but I think it’s a bit too full-bodied, as it were, for that label. Either way, though, it is a game dependent upon its characters to move the plot, either through their direct actions or simply through the unavoidable manifestation of the chains which bind them. As such, it’s important for the reader to feel a connection to the characters in question in order to better empathize with their plights. In that sense, I would say that Grisaia is a great success.

You see, I would say that I’m fairly hard to please in terms of characterization, with my tastes veering in strange directions and the vast majority of heroines failing to catch my interest to the level where I feel an actual attachment to them. With Grisaia, however, I took an easy liking to all of the heroines, save for Yumiko, early on and found myself growing to like them more and more the longer I spent in its world. Now, it’s worth noting here that I think that Grisaia’s length works for it in the end – I stated above that you need to be aware of what you’re getting into in terms of time investment, but at the same time I feel that the characterization would not have succeeded for me if the game were, say, half the length it is now. The way I see it, the length of a game does not necessarily need to reflect the amount of sheer content in its plot for it to be worthwhile; games like Oretsuba and Grisaia prove that simply allowing the audience to spend time with the characters and bask in the worldview can afford them a greater appreciation of the work as a whole. In this case, I also feel that the volume of text the writers were working with allowed them to properly flesh out each route and afford them each the amount of time and attention they deserved.

Back to the original topic of the above monster of a paragraph, though – put simply, the cast of Grisaia as a whole is quite likeable and thanks to a lengthy common route and some strong development in the individual routes, their personalities and quirks really shine through over the course of the game.

It’s also worth noting that the character interactions are also excellent – the common route is wall-to-wall hilarity with snappy conversations left and right, and even in the more serious parts, the writers always do a decent job of keeping everyone in the picture to some degree (though some routes are better with this than others – Sachi’s route, especially, is excellent in this regard). So to sum up what I’m trying to say here, if you’re looking for a lively group of characters who are guaranteed to draw your interest, Grisaia excels in that area.

Though I really must agree with the other girls’ assessment of Yumiko; she’s a rather plain coodere character who I was never able to work up much interest for. I suppose they can’t all be winners. And in case you were wondering, my favorite character is Makina. She’s just so cute and hilarious that she’s impossible not to love. Runner-up would be Sachi, though that’s half due to Shimizu Ai’s great voicework with her. Though if we’re going in that direction, I would say that Mizuhashi’s performance as Michiru is the best one in the game, she puts so much energy into sounding dumb that I was rolling on the floor almost every time she got a line.

While I’m going on about aesthetics, might as well mention that I was a little disappointed with the music. The game as a whole obviously has a staggering budget, what with its scores of tachie for subcharacters who never appear outside of flashbacks and Faylan OP and all, so I really wish that they would have paid Elements Garden a little more so players wouldn’t be stuck listening to the same 30 tracks the entire game. 30 tracks is all well and good when you’re a normal-length game, but when things get this long, I think you need to go the extra mile and bump it up to around 50 or so.

Otherwise, no real complaints on the aesthetic end, though I think it might have been better to stick with one artist in the end for reasons of consistency. Poyoyon Rock is obviously the better artist, but Fumio did more work overall, so it’s kind of a tossup as to which I would have preferred they stick with. And this is of course just personal preference, but 1024×576 is my favorite resolution for eroge, so that hit my sweet spot as well.

Now that this is heading in a more casual direction, I think I’ll go ahead and just break the rest of it down into some short thoughts on the routes themselves and then wrap it up. I’ll sort them by writer, since I think that’s really the biggest distinguishing factor we’re dealing with here.

Common/Amane/Makina

These three are all written by Fujisaki Ryuuta, so I’m going to consider him the main writer for the game and the series as a whole. This is again getting into personal preference, but I’m going to have to say that more than the characterization as a whole or any individual plot, the writing in these three routes was the definite highlight of the game for me. Not only are the conversations a blast and the jokes absolutely hilarious, but the narrative itself is just really, really solid. Every line is packed with information, which is something I appreciate, and the frank, cynical, even sarcastic vibe that the style itself has to it also really appeals to me. In the end, I’d go so far as to say that the common route is the part of the game I enjoyed the most overall – the text kept me reading and the format (Yuuji’s anecdotes + skit, repeat) managed to keep me entertained the entire way. As for the actual routes he did, I’m not a huge fan of Amane’s – the flashback has fine writing and nice sense of buildup, but I don’t think it really adds much to the game overall, save for acting as an introduction to Kazuki. I wasn’t really feeling the developments afterward, either. Makina’s, on the other hand, is most certainly the best part of the game overall. It deals the most with the setting and Yuuji’s past in addition to some nice action and a heavy atmosphere that I liked. Gotta say I’m not a big fan of the ending, though – felt a little too convenient, wasn’t really buying some of the logic there. The bad end on the other hand is pretty damn good, that last line will keep you up at night for sure.

Anyway you should probably save either Amane or Makina’s route for last, these routes have the best writing and feel the most like the common route, so if they’re the first two you read, the rest of the game might feel a little off in terms of atmosphere.

Michiru

The text in this route is also very good; the writer is definitely a weird guy, but weird in an entertaining way. And indeed, the first half is absolutely hilarious, with completely off-the-wall narration and some grade-A Michiru harassment… but the problem is that everything that happens in the second half is just too ridiculous to take seriously at all, down to the very premise of the route’s plot. I really think that someone else on staff should have reined this guy in – clearly he can write decent text and has some nice ideas here and there, but this route’s train runs so far off the tracks that it’s honestly impressive. That said, it manages to remain interesting if only because of how absurd it is, so it’s not like it’s a pain to read or anything, just… wacky.

Sachi

The writing in this route is not nearly as good as the above ones – to put it simply, the text is too plain – but the story itself is fine and I think it does the best job dealing with its heroine’s trauma and growth out of all of them. Overall I’d just have to say it’s satisfying to watch the events as they unfold; I was kind of rooting for Sachi the entire way, I guess you could say. And I mentioned this already, but I really appreciate how much effort this writer made to keep every character in the story even though it was mainly dealing with Yuuji and Sachi. I think the way that everyone kind of pitches in and supports what’s going on helps with conveying a sort of unity among everyone at Mihama Gakuen. In terms of the game overall, I think that was something that was important to get across to the reader. They even manage to work in a little bit of foreshadowing with the setting, so it’s all good. If this route were by Fujisaki, it would definitely be my favorite overall, but there’s just too much of a different in writing quality between this route and the rest (other than Yumiko’s) for it to come out on top in the end.

Yumiko

Honestly I didn’t really like this route much at all. The climactic portions are fine, but the writing overall is pretty sloppy (worse than the writing in Sachi’s, there are basic problems like errors with consistency and grammatical mistakes) and the middle part drags endlessly. It doesn’t help that I could never bring myself to care about Yumiko, so it was kind of dead in the water for me from the get-go. I guess overall it’s not terrible or anything, but I just didn’t care for it much.

A few other complaints/observations/comments/whatever:

• I really enjoyed what the game did with flashbacks. I think they add a lot to the characterization and help you get inside the heroines’ heads and understand what’s going on with them more. Makina’s route needed more of this, I would say – she has kind of a low level of presence during the latter half of it in general, I wanted some more focus on her instead of just what Yuuji was doing and the whole deal with the Irisu empire and Yuuji’s “employer” going on kind of in the background.
• I can’t believe they seriously paid for a vocal theme song for Maguroman (a sentai parody that Sachi and Makina like to watch). How much money did they spend on this game!?
• Just so my overall score below makes more sense, I really can’t overstate that the game feels more like an extremely lengthy introductory chapter more than anything. None of the routes really have satisfying endings in context of the full setting and I didn’t really feel much of a sense of “accomplishment” when I finished the entire thing – it was more like “well damn, now I have to wait to read the rest.” In the end it’s kind of hard for me to score something that leaves me with that sort of feeling too highly, if you get what I’m saying. There’s also the fact that none of the routes really wowed me or anything – which ties back into the fact that there needs to be a true route with a lot of impact, something that this game doesn’t have.
• I didn’t really get the logic behind a certain plot point introduced on Makina’s route relating to Yuuji’s past and Asako. I hope the sequels address that in a more straightforward manner.
• Aoyama as Kazuki is the worst casting decision ever, and you can’t even turn her off because she’s just classified under other. Kazuki would be an awesome character otherwise, too.
• And finally, I’m hoping for Chizuru, JB, and Kazuki routes in the sequels, along with the true route and whatever further character shenanigans they have in store. Honestly, though, as long as there’s a true route/conclusion at some point, I’ll be satisfied with just random fluff like the common route, since the humor for me is like Ou Jackson/Kinugasa Shougo level, no joke.

Well, there you have it, I guess. To quickly sum things up, I really enjoyed Grisaia no Kajitsu overall because of some great writing, humor, and characters, but at the same time nothing really bowled me over and the lack of anything approaching a conclusion to the story as a whole left me pretty disappointed, especially given the overwhelming amounts of praise that the game has received, which means I was expecting something a little more. Treating Kajitsu as an individual game, I’m going to say that a score in the 75-80 range is appropriate, with the sequels easily having the potential to do something in the 85-90 range. I’ll say my own score is an 80 because Makina is just so cute that I’d feel bad rating it in the 70 range. Impeccable logic, I know.

In any case, I’m eagerly anticipating Grisaia no Meikyuu, and I think that Kajitsu is a success in the end simply because you’ll end up wanting to play the rest of the series one way or another.