Kansen
2 ~Inzai Toshi~ Review
The
first Kansen game was a good example of making a good survival horror themed
eroge with its likable cast of characters and a story to keep you on edge for
both main routes (not to mention it made a pretty ridiculous sounding zombie
concept something you could take seriously). So naturally, it was a hit,
despite the fact that it was obviously made on a budget. The next thing for
Speed to do in light of that was to make a sequel, which was released June 15,
2007, and from the start it shows how they put work into making it bigger and
better than its predecessor with a bigger setting in a large mall (pretty
obvious what that’s a tribute to), a bigger cast of characters, improved
artwork, and a longer story. Sadly, all that effort failed as Kansen 2 turned
out to be a shining example of how bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better.
Pros: Some of the main characters are likable,
better artwork than the last game (for the most part), Maya’s route, story
revelations behind the outbreak are interesting, character POV switching was an
interesting idea.
Cons: A number of the game’s characters have no real
plot importance, Alice’s route, Miki and Naomi are unwinnable, no ero scenes in
the good endings, other ero scenes feel gratuitous, Infection route’s endings
are disappointing, timed choices, the zombies look ridiculous.
WTF?!: These are the game’s zombies…scary huh?
Kansen
2 takes place at about the same time as the first game, starting a couple days
before the outbreak. You play primarily from the point of view of student
Hiroshi Ohkura as he and his friends go on a class trip to the city’s supermall
for a look at possible future career choices. Soon the outbreak occurs and
Hiroshi and co. end up having to work with the few remaining uninfected that
they meet in the mall to somehow make it out alive.
All
of this sounds like the setup for a very good zombie story and at first it
looks it too with the game introducing a very diverse cast of characters
brought together by this one disaster and having to cooperate to survive. Unfortunately,
the story runs into two main stumbling blocks: the characters and its higher
ero content. The problem Kansen 2 has concerning its characters is that it
doesn’t really handle them well. While most of the core cast is likable only a
few of them are given good story roles, while the rest kind of get shafted as
characters go. This includes one of the two winnable heroines, Alice, who
already has the problem of coming across as a clone of Yu from the first game.
I will admit that the writer at least tried to deviate from that problem later
so I won’t count it as a major flaw, considering the flaw concerning her
character lies with her route. Let me start by saying this, both endings for
her route are good ones as we get either a nice bittersweet conclusion or a
dark almost cliffhanger-ish conclusion that hints at more going on behind the
outbreak and its containment. These two endings are sadly marred by a story
from Alice’s POV where very little except ero scenes happen and she has to
interact with two of the three most useless (and unlikable) characters in this
game, which really lessens the effect of both endings.
Speaking
of heroines that get the shaft, Kansen 2 also suffers from having two heroines
not being winnable, but for different reasons. The first case is with Miki, who
we’re introduced to fairly early on and not only is she a likable character,
but she also has interesting story behind why she’s at the mall with her trying
to find her boyfriend who she was waiting to meet when the outbreak occurs.
Sadly the game only uses her character as rape bait and nothing else, even the
so called “conclusion” to her subplot in the Infection route is handled badly.
Now I realize in a comment concerning the first game I said I didn’t mind
Tomomi being unwinnable since the story already has her in a relationship, but
in that case we know both her and Yuji pretty well, making their being
unavoidably infected such a tragedy while in this game we never see Miki’s boyfriend
except in one scene during the Infection route so there’s no emotional
investment there. Considering one of the main dramatic themes in the Kansen
series is the main characters having to deal with the loss of friends and loved
ones as a result of the outbreak one could have easily given Miki a route based
on that, so really she comes off as a missed opportunity.
Speaking
of missed opportunities, we now move on to the second unwinnable heroine to get
the shaft (no pun intended), Naomi. My main problem is that her only role in
the game’s story is in the Infection route as we play through it primarily
between her and Hiroshi’s points of view as Naomi is an SDF soldier sent into
the mall to look for and rescue any survivors shortly after all the main characters
get infected. What’s interesting is when Naomi encounters Hiroshi and co.,
Hiroshi is able to maintain his sanity and is able to get some of the group to
keep theirs and rather than try to kill them, Naomi ends up making it her
mission to get them out to try and get them treated while there’s still time.
The writing for the route does a good job in showing that Naomi’s choice to do
this isn’t one based on compassion alone due to the aforementioned portrayal of
Hiroshi and co. plus her willingness to go the extra mile to save them not only
helps in portraying her as an awesome character considering how much the odds
are against her, but it also gives some subtle depth to her character as you
wonder how much her motivation is backed by not wanting the rest of her team to
have died in vain. It’s no exaggeration that Naomi makes the Infection route so
memorable, but the problem is the two endings; they’re both insultingly abrupt
and Naomi is just suddenly removed from the picture. If the writer was trying for
a tragic conclusion, then I’m afraid that failed because of how abrupt both
endings are as it leaves you with more of a “that’s it?” kind of feeling than
anything else. Actually no, it does leave you with one more feeling; after
completing the Infection route and you reflect a bit about it, you wonder why
the writer didn’t have Naomi in the main story as there are a few
characters that could have easily been
written out, which brings us to the next flaw.
Perhaps
the one of the most significant flaws Kansen 2 has concerning its characters is
its inclusion of three characters who are completely useless to the plot. The
two biggest offenders (and also the ones that made Alice’s route suck) being
Ryuya and Chihiro Nagasaki. Part of what makes Ryuya such a useless character
is that his role in the story is supposed to be as a villain, but that role is
pretty much confounded by the fact that the way Kansen 2 is written it doesn’t
really need a villain as the zombies are more than enough of a threat. Now I
know you can have an effective human villain in zombie stories; someone who
comes off as a different but still very significant threat to the characters,
but in Ryuya’s case, he just doesn’t have the character for it. The only thing
that makes him threatening to the other characters is that he happens to have a
knife on him while the others are unarmed, but what really makes him such a
crappy villain is the fact that his only motivation throughout the game is to
molest anything female that he sees to the point that he barely seems to care
about the zombies. This makes him more annoying than villainous, but in all
honesty the main thing that makes Ryuya useless as a character is that overall,
he barely does anything storywise. He mainly just features in Alice’s route,
and is barely in Maya’s, and his only real role in the Infection route is for
Naomi and Hiroshi to yell at him from time to time.
Moving
on to Chihiro (notice I have no gripes about her being unwinnable), she
actually suffers from about the same problems I have with Ryuya, including
really only featuring in Alice’s route and contributing nothing to the overall
plot. However I have two main problems with this character, the first being
that similar to Ryuya she’s also attracted to just about anything female plus
she has a snooty disdain for anything male. I won’t play any anti-homosexual
stereotypes complaints card since I don’t know enough about the issue to make
an appropriate argument, but I really hate the man hating bitch character type
since it more often than not results in an annoying character and Chihiro is
sadly no exception since that and her attraction to Alice are the two main
aspects of her character. My second problem is that unlike Ryuya, we see a
glimmer of likability in Chihiro in the Infection route where she actually has a
couple of amusing moments interacting with the main cast like when she
basically has them raid the mall’s clothes shops since they need new clothes
and no one’s really going to care now. We actually get to see Chihiro have an
actual conversation with the other characters rather than her drooling over
Alice like in the rest of the game and subsequently this is one of the few
scenes where she acts like a believable character rather than a heroine whose
only real purpose is to be in ero scenes.
Finally
we come to the final useless character that the writer didn’t even bother to
name; basically Hiroshi and co., while fleeing the zombies, come across this
girl hiding from the zombies who they decide to take with them despite the fact
that she’s obviously mentally unstable. Now originally my problem with this
character was that their taking her with them even though she’s obviously been
infected seemed pretty stupid, but considering they don’t find out about the
infection until later I’m willing to let it slide on the grounds that the group
did it out of compassion. My guess is that maybe she was supposed to be a
tragic sort of character who we see is doomed to become a zombie and slowly
lose her remaining sanity and our not learning her name was supposed to add to
the tragedy, but if that’s the case the writer failed to accomplish that as
first the character’s lapses between sanity and insanity come off as annoying
rather than dramatic so they don’t illicit much sympathy for her either and
second the character has absolutely no impact on both the story and the
characters. This is seen best when she finally leaves the group so that the
infection can run its course away from them; this is supposed to be a dramatic
scene where we see a character sacrifice herself for her companions but this
scene falls flat because we never see her get close to Hiroshi and co. and she
barely interacts with them so there isn’t much of a sense of loss and finally
after this scene and Hiroshi and co. move on to the next part of the mall, this
character is never brought up again. In the end you’re left wondering just what
the point was.
Now
having said all that, you might think I utterly hate this game, but there is
one redeeming story element besides the majority of the Infection route: Maya’s
route. This is the only all around good one from its start as not only does
Maya make for a good sympathetic heroine as the writer did a good job in
demonstrating the personal loss she goes through as the result of the outbreak,
but the character development in the route is handled well in how we see Maya
bond with the rest of the group as well as how we see develop from the shy
introverted girl we initially meet into a significantly stronger young lady.
Also well-developed is the Hiroshi and Maya’s relationship as it does a good
job in first establishing it as friendship brought on by Hiroshi having a role
in helping in encouraging her to survive (it also helps in establishing him as
her first real friend) and when we finally see the beginnings of romance at the
end of her route it feels believable because of all they’ve gone through to
make it out alive and as it becomes apparent that they’re both really all they
each have by the end. There’s really only one flaw to this route, but I’ll get
to it later.
Now
while the game doesn’t have any real gameplay it does have it that you can
change character perspectives at certain points in the story and you unlock
more as you complete routes. It makes for an interesting addition as we learn a
bit more about some of the characters (it is interesting to see things from
Yuki’s perspective) and a little background info about the virus. Sadly this
isn’t used as well as it should and its main purpose is to unlock ero scenes. A
new addition that wasn’t in the original game, which I sadly have to count as a
con, is some of the choices are timed. The reason this is a con is because it
only gives you three seconds to make your choice, a bit of problem if you’re
only semi-literate, even if you are using a walkthrough as you need to read the
choice fast if you want to make the right choice. I get it was supposed to add
an edge to the choice making, but three seconds is way too short and comes off
as an annoyance instead. I realize Mass Effect 2 had those dialogue interrupts
that lasted about that long, but that did not result in a game over if you
missed it, and while other VNs like the Moero Downhill Night series and the
Sakura Wars series have timed choices those at least gave you enough time to
read the choices. I will say that the game at least gives you the option to
continue right before the timed choice after the game over, but it’s still
annoying none the less.
Presentation-wise,
this game does a lot right. For the most part, the artwork is superior to the
first games as the characters are better drawn and the music, while mostly the
same as the first game’s, does have better sound quality. There’s only one
problem in the art department; as can be seen in the WTF?! back at the top: the
zombies look ridiculous. In the first game, the zombies looked off but still
came off as creepy and intimidating, but in this game, they just look silly,
including the core cast that gets infected. This makes for a really bad
contrast with the first game because in that game, when one of the core cast
got infected and the group ran into them it was unsettling not only because
you’d grown to like them over the course of playing but also because the way
they looked and acted as zombies was almost like a twisted mockery of their
original personality. In Kansen 2 we only see this happen to one character,
Yuki, but all the other characters that get infected don’t have that depth of
change and they don’t look any bit intimidating (I dare you to take a look at
an infected Miki’s character portrait and not laugh).
Finally
we get to the ero scenes and this is one of the few cases where I have two cons
that seem so opposed to each other. While the artwork and voice acting is
pretty good, the problem is that the ero scenes just come off as gratuitous. In
the first game there was some actual purpose to each scene such as showing the
incoming danger of the outbreak or the horror of seeing a friend so utterly
changed by the infection, while in this game, the ero scenes just feel like
they’re there just to be there; like the game is more interested in showing ero
scenes than telling a story. This ends up making the game come off as boring at
certain points, which is not a good thing for a survival horror themed game. My
next complaint is that for all the ero scenes this game has strewn throughout
its story, there are no ero scenes between Hiroshi and either Maya or Alice in
their good endings, only in final bad ending for their routes. Some of you may
wonder why I’m complaining about that just after complaining about the
gratuitous ero scenes, and the reason is simple: if any ero scenes were of
importance to the plot those would be it. To better explain, in the first game
the final ero scene that occurred between Yasuyuki and either Yu or Hitomi
served not only as a way of showing them taking the solidifying step in their
relationship that had been built up from almost the beginning, but it also
served as a culmination of sorts of the pair making it through all the danger
and drama of the route and serves as not just some sort of reward or salve for
the loss they experience but also as a setup for them moving on past the events
of the route. The lack of this in Kansen 2 essentially lessens the
effectiveness of the good endings, and while I understand that with the way
both endings are written an ero scene would have been hard to include in the
main part of the end of the route but an epilogue could have worked.
Character Profiles:
Hiroshi Ookura:
The main character of the game, Hiroshi ends up
being the un-appointed leader of the group of survivors after the outbreak
begins. A good natured fellow to a fault, Hiroshi can’t abandon someone in
need.
Alice Hayami:
One of Hiroshi’s friends and classmates. Gets along
so well with Hiroshi one would almost assume they were a couple.
Maya Jinguji:
The daughter of the head of a large company, Maya
has lead a pretty secluded life and main company is her dog, Jean, and her
grandfather. Has seen Hiroshi, Alice, and Yuki while walking her dog and has
wanted to actually meet them, but never has had the nerve to do so.
Yuki Kobayashi:
Another of Hiroshi’s classmates, and his best
friend. Is very popular with girls as they consider him a pretty boy, though he
doesn’t seem all that interested by that.
Miki Anzai:
A recent graduate from medical school, Miki works in
the nearby hospital and is currently in a relationship with one of the medical
staff. Like Hiroshi, she also feels a need to help those who need it and takes
it upon herself to help Hiroshi and his friends escape.
Chihiro Nagasaki:
Popular, athletic, and intelligent, Chihiro is
admired by the many girls at her school like an idol and she’s more than happy
to return those feelings of her admirers. Hates men.
Naomi Tsuruta:
A soldier from the JSDF sent in as part of a team to
find any survivors. After she barely escapes her team being annihilated by the
horde of infected, she encounters Hiroki and his friends, unaware of their
being infected.
Ryuya Sugou:
A truck driver for a local transportation company,
Ryuya is a vulgar and selfish man who has no problem using the outbreak as an
excuse to satisfy his own self-interests, especially concerning any women he
may encounter.
Girl:
Hiroshi and co. encounter her while hiding from the
infected. Shows obvious signs of being mentally unstable from the start.
In Conclusion:
Kansen 2 is a game that I really wish I didn’t have
to render such a harsh judgment upon. It’s obvious that the creators put work
into it in order to make it a game to surpass its predecessor. However before
it can even take the first step forward, it stumbles back and falls on the
weaker story and characters, and bumps its head on the bad placement of ero
scenes, not scary zombie designs and timed
choices. It does get credit for picking itself up with Maya’s route and
an improved (but sadly flawed) Infection route. While those two elements save
it from being a horrible game, it’s still not that good a game, and (especially
considering the price for importing) I only recommend it to people who really
like the Kansen series and want a little more background information concerning
the virus.
Final Score: 5/10 Average
Recommendation:
Avoid it.
As for the two episode anime, I will say the first
episode is decent. However, there are two things I’m not particularly fond of
in it, both of which I’d consider just my luck. First, considering how much I
liked Maya’s route, guess who’s completely written out of the story? And don’t
tell me it’s because her character design looks too loli, they could have
easily changed how her character looks to make her look older in that case.
Then again since the anime adaptations always follow the bad ends, maybe it was
for the better. Next, the second episode focuses on Chihiro…enough said.
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