Import Games for Adults Halloween: Kansen Ball Buster

Kansen Ball Buster Review

                For our next entry for this year’s Halloween reviews, we’ll be finishing up the Kansen series by looking at what is now the latest entry into the series, the fandisk: Kansen Ball Buster…and with that name alone expectations for this game probably just took a nosedive. I can understand with a name like that, but back when it was announced I decided to remain optimistic. There’s a lot you can do with a fandisk and considering the Kansen series (which I remind you I really like) is far from perfect, there’s a number of things a fandisk could offer like after stories or extra routes for unwinnable heroines (and yes, I’m still hoping someone at Speed will one day give us fans routes for Miki (Kansen 2) and Sato (Kansen 5).  Sadly those were not what the creators decided to do, but instead opted for a short original story (plus the Chronicle Teller). Now that could also work provided the story is good, and how did it turn out? Let’s just say a more fitting name would have been “Ball ‘Crusher’” instead…

Pros: Artwork is good, Shizuka’s route is actually good, we finally get an adult as our main character for a change and not a school student…

Cons:…unfortunately our MC for the most part sucks, the True End story is badly told, the ero scenes are handled poorly, the new music sucks, the Chronicle Teller…all of it.

WTF?!: Even as engrish goes, I didn’t think it was  possible to spell “yeah” wrong like this…

                Kansen BB has two parts to it: “The Other’s Aspect” and “The Chronicle Teller”. The Other’s Aspect is an original story set at the same time as Kansen 3 and 5 and tells the story of Kazumi Senou and his going out to rescue his younger sister Tsugumi and their childhood friend Shizuka when the outbreak occurs. The Chronicle Teller is, I guess, an (attempted) abridged take on the previous five games. I’m guessing because that particular part of this game has its own problems which I am definitely going to address later in this review.

                Okay, I admit I showed mercy to Kansen 5 in regards to its flaws, but Ball Buster is not going to be so fortunate. Out of the entire series, this game is without a doubt the worst of them. So congratulations to Kansen 2 as it is now no longer at the bottom rank of this series, because even though it had lots of flaws I at least didn’t feel like my time was wasted upon clearing it like I did with Ball Buster. At least with Kansen 2 you could see there was genuine effort put into its creation, its writers were trying to make a good story to top that of the first one, but in this case while there are inklings of what could be a good story you can tell that Ball Buster ‘s story did not receive anywhere near that level of attention. In fact I’d dare suspect that The Other’s Aspect portion of this game was the rough draft of a story for what would have been a complete Kansen game rushed out the door by Speed to make a quick buck.

                One of the biggest stumbles in this part of BB’s story is its tonal difference from the other five games of the series. Rather than being a largely dark and serious story with light scenes occurring at certain points to give the players some relief (as well as add more to the game characters’ personalities), The Other’s Aspect seems to have been written in a comedic tone instead. Now I should point out I’m not faulting this game for trying something different (though the Infection routes of the first and fifth game are kind of dark comedies), nor am I saying zombies can’t be funny (one of my favorite zombie movies is Return of the Living Dead for crying out loud),I’m faulting it for trying something new and failing at it. The main aspect of this game’s story failing at being a comedy can be seen with our protagonist, Kazumi. While I give the writers credit for finally giving us a protagonist who’s an adult and not a school student, that positive change is completely negated by the fact that Kazumi is for the most part a complete and utter buffoon. Almost from the start he acts like a complete idiot, and since unlike all the other protagonists Kazumi doesn’t have a group of friends we’re pretty much left with just his antics to pass the time until the zombies show up…and even then it only reduces in frequency. The closest thing we get to a scene with him that’s actually funny is when he wakes up the day of the outbreak and goes about his normal routine, not noticing the zombies. It’s obviously trying to be like that scene in Shaun of the Dead but fails at being anywhere near as funny because the joke of Kazumi barely missing obvious signs of the outbreak’s occurrence doesn’t work as well as the movie scene it’s based on since we’re told rather than shown for the most part. Another problem with Kazumi is that he’s the only character being silly while everyone else acts more seriously whereas in other comical zombie stories most of the main characters get their silly moments, making the comic relief from our main character feel very much out of place. So as you can guess, you’re going to be annoyed at our main character almost the entire game and like the very infection that’s the focal point of this series his buffoonery spreads to other parts of the story and dooms them.

                Now don’t get me wrong, it’s possible to create a silly protagonist and still make him an effective character, in fact I get the feeling the writers were trying to create a loveable but reliable goofball of an adult protagonist like Bang Shishigami or Eikichi Onizuka, but here it just isn’t well implemented in the story. For one, Kazumi’s antics pretty much ruin the cameo appearances of the cast from Kansen 3 and 5 where all it is pretty much him ogling the heroines from both games during a scene from the prologue of said games. Aside from making you like our hero even less, this also makes him stick out like a sore thumb from the scenes you remember from the previous games and does nothing to convince you that the guy was actually there. Another problem brought about by Kazumi’s idiocy is it creates moments of sudden tonal change in some scenes that will leave you groaning in frustration rather than laughing. A good example would be how in the true route there’s a scene where Kazumi’s trying to sneak past some zombies to try and rescue his younger sister Tsugumi and what looks to be a suspenseful scene is suddenly made to be comical by having Kazumi start stumbling around narrowly avoiding being noticed by the zombies. A scene like this just gives you the feeling like the writers are just trying to force you to laugh and leaves you wanting the scene to be over with quickly in hopes (which are sadly in vain) that the scene that follows would be a better read.

                Aside from a badly written idiot protagonist, this part of BB’s story also suffers from having a pretty badly told and unsatisfying true route.  Some of these problems can be blamed on the game’s shortness such as very little to explain how or why things turn out differently in each route since it’s a little unclear how exactly your choices result in such different outcomes. Another problem that falls into this category is how the side characters, Naoko and Miki (different character than in Kansen 2) aren’t really given much to do though the few scenes of interaction with them do hint at the possibility of interesting characters.

 Of course it’s not just time that hurts the True Route, but also some genuine writing problems. The most prominent would be that the route lacks tension, and not all of it can be blamed on Kazumi’s goofiness. Since Kansen 3 it’s been a given that in the true routes all the main heroines at least are safe, but at least in those cases the routes were written so you felt the group was in some danger that they had to overcome and while the MC and main heroines were guaranteed to make it out okay the same couldn’t be guaranteed of the side characters. In BB’s case the zombies seem like less of a threat because they don’t really threaten the characters very much in this route.  Even the writer’s attempt to add in tension at the end isn’t very effective since it involves making a villain out of a very minor and forgettable character (who also lacks a character portrait), and it doesn’t help that this villain proves to be more of an annoyance than a threat. Finally the ending itself isn’t very good since it seems to be trying to be both triumphant and bittersweet at the same time without really succeeding at either. It fails at being triumphant because the story’s shortness hasn’t given us much time to know the main characters that well and through that feel satisfied in their survival and it fails at being bittersweet because when it comes to the unavoidable tragic outcomes of the outbreak it tells rather than shows.

                Now with that said you might be wondering if there’s anything good about “The Other’s Aspect” and I have to admit there is in Shizuka’s route. This route actually feels like a story that fits the Kansen series as it does a good job establishing Shizuka as a heroine (though admittedly not as good in developing the relationship between her and Kazumi) and there’s a really good story element involving just how much a person’s personality can endure after being infected. Also unlike in the true route there’s a real sense of danger for the characters as they make their way from a school surrounded by infected to a safepoint guarded defended by the JSDF. Best of all this is the only time Kazumi acts seriously and in that case he actually shows signs of being a good character. It’s too bad the rest of the game doesn’t have that same quality of writing (and to anyone who’s curious Tsugumi’s route is okay but forgettable).

                Moving on, it’s now time for The Chronicle Teller…and boy do I have a bone to pick with this part of Ball Buster. On the surface it doesn’t look so bad, the game’s website shows it as a look back at the entire series, showing a mix of important scenes from each game and several ero scenes. The thing is…it’s not. The Chronicle Teller is, for the most part, really just a long commercial for the series and a bad commercial at that. The whole thing is set up as a look at an official report covering the events of each game, but rather than an abridged look we instead get story and ero scenes jumbled together in no real order. For example, when it gets to Kansen 2’s segment they have a scene from the end of Alice’s route on the first of two pages, and it’s the second entry and all the other entries take place way before it. Then when you finish this jumble of scenes for one game you then get a brief sum up in which a narrating voice always ends with what’s essentially “Kansen __ ~______ _______~, please buy it” before you move on to the next game’s section. By itself this would only be bad because it would come off as a boring and pretty unnecessary part of the fandisk (I mean why would you buy a fan disk for this series if you’ve never played it?) that could have at least been cut to give “The Other’s Aspect” some much needed substance. Sadly this is not the worst offense The Chronicle Teller commits, that is reserved for the very short story segments that the previous game segments follow. 

It’s hard to believe that a series of short segments that put together amount to maybe fifteen minutes of reading time can accomplish that but somehow the people who put this game together managed it. In these segments we see a returning character in Aya Masaka, the main heroine of Kansen 4 as she’s now a part of the JSDF and presenting the report of the events of the previous games. The problem with this reappearance occurs at the end of The Chronicle Teller when the events of Kansen 4 get a focus. Basically the story surrounding that segment at the very least retcons Aya’s True End as it’s pretty much made clear she’s alone and at the very worst it could very well retcon the other two True Ends because there seem to be implications (I admit/hope there’s a possibility I read it wrong) that Aya is the only survivor of the events of that game. Now before anyone tries to excuse that* by pointing out how Kansen isn’t a happy series (not to mention it’s a zombie series) and a tragic outcome should be expected, let me remind you that Aya and Makoto’s True Ends weren’t happy (not really worth mentioning Kozue’s), they were both bittersweet conclusions that made for good representations of what one does after losing practically everything in a tragedy. Each ending had just the right amount of writing that conveyed a feeling that even after so much loss Daisuke and either Aya or Makoto had established a path together that would eventually move them past it. To see such strong story conclusions sacrificed simply to try to inject a brief feeling of drama into an unnecessary and shoddy commercial disguised as a fandisk is just plain insulting to me as a fan of the Kansen series. I know it’s been overused but this particular video pretty much sums up Chronicle Teller…

In the area of presentation BB does well in the art department as the characters and CG are well drawn. I should point out that for the first Kansen game’s segment in the Chronicle Teller, the artists touched up the art a bit to make it look better. I think it just looks okay, but in a couple cases it looks like all they did was make the characters’ skin color whiter. In the sound department the voice acting is good too with the VAs turning in good performances, especially Tsugumi’s. Unfortunately the same can’t be said about the two new music tracks for this game “Wake Up” and “XXX (Ball Buster)”. The latter track isn’t that bad on its own, but it just doesn’t fit a Kansen game as it sounds like something you’d use for an arcade style video game. The former on the other hand…I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more irritating and obnoxious sounding tune in any visual novel game. It’s basically a guy screaming gibberish in what sounds like a megaphone mixed in with music that on its own would be forgettable, and guess what? That’s the music for the game’s ero scenes and speaking of which…

When it comes to the ero scenes, the only good ones in BB are the ones shown in Chronicle Teller from the previous games. “What about the ones in The Other’s Aspect?” you ask. Well, the only good thing I can say about them is they’re well drawn. The problem is they almost all follow the exact same premise: Kazumi makes the wrong decision, a group of female zombies overwhelm him, and the customary ero scene follows. That’s it; that’s almost every ero scene in the game. There are no “good” ero scenes with the heroines at all as the only ero scenes with them are bad end ero scenes where they’re already infected. BB has essentially made an even bigger fumble than the second game on the ero scene front because at least Kansen 2 featured “good” ero scenes even if they were in the bad endings. To any fans of the darker kind of ero scenes, hate to break this to you, but in every case where the heroines are infected, they catch it by non ero means. The only one who gets screwed is Kazumi…and anyone else who bought this fan disk.

 

In Conclusion:

                Kansen Ball Buster is a pitiful excuse for a fandisk, let alone a Kansen game. The few good things like Shizuka’s route are lost between the unsatisfying story of The Other’s Aspect and the crappy commercial that is The Chronicle Teller, which adds insult to injury by shamelessly betraying the story of Kansen 4. Not only do I not recommend this game to anyone, especially fans of the series, but I also beg any fan of the series or anyone curious about the series to avoid this game like the plague.

Final Score: 2/10 Garbage!

Author Recommendation: Devil SPAWN!

 

And yes, I am aware of the OVA adaptation for The Other’s Aspect coming out this November. My only reaction is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSr8KZgvir0

 

*Now before anyone posts any messages about how the extra reading material that came with copies of each game strongly hint at what’s canon, let me point out that those are, as I just called them, “extras” meaning I can take or leave them as I please and still enjoy the series.

Import Games for Adults Halloween: Kansen 5 ~The Daybreak~

Kansen 5 ~The Daybreak~ Review

                Well, considering the overwhelming (and international) success of the critically acclaimed The Last of Us it seems this is the perfect time for me to review another Kansen game, especially as an opening to this Halloween month. While the fourth game wasn’t bad, you could tell the creators were trying to play it safe so as not to disappoint the fanbase in light of how good the third game was, and sadly that resulted in a game that was only above average. From what I’ve been able to gather, others who played it had similar thoughts on Kansen 4 so customer feedback probably had some influence on the design for its sequel as it’s obvious from the beginning that Kansen 5 is trying to be like its much more successful predecessor, Kansen 3. As for how well it does at that…I kind of wish I could trade this in for The Last of Us.

Pros: No timed choices, introduces some interesting concepts for the Kansen universe, characters are mostly likable, some character development is handled well, new view switching system is an interesting and good idea, artwork is good, voice acting is good.

Cons: The fake routes get too much focus, Akari is not well written as a character, unwinnable heroine, the glitches…oh God the glitches!

WTF?!: The older sister heroine and the Oneechanbara reference.

 

                Set at the same time as the third game, Kansen 5 follows Makoto Nakazawa, a boy who lost both his parents and memories during the first outbreak. While on a school trip to a nearby island, the second outbreak occurs.

                From the start you can see that Kansen 5 is definitely trying to provide an experience similar to the third game, but with improvements. You can probably guess from the way I ended the introduction how that turned out, but before we get to this game’s many faults let’s take a look at what it does right. First it does a good job establishing a bit more of the Kansen setting in the aftermath of the first outbreak, a good example being people suspected of being infected along with being quarantined also had a barcode tattooed to their arm so as to keep track of them. Unfortunately, this results in the survivors of the quarantine facing persecution by the rest of society who fear they might actually be infected. Also done mostly right are the characters as the main cast (click here for profiles) is interesting and likable, and the same can be said for a couple of the side characters. This is mainly due to the fact that the common route does a good job introducing all of them and the character interactions between them do feel genuine such as the MMO online friendship of Makoto, Soichi, Taya, and Sato. The game also does a good job in portraying the zombies as a threat once again, with the infected versions of some the heroines coming off as genuinely creepy, especially Akari.

                Concerning the routes…well, in the long run I’m going to have more complaints than praise, but I will give credit where credit is due. Before I begin though, I should explain how the routes are structured. There are the non-canon individual routes for each heroine which you’re required to play first and the then unlocked True Route which has an ending for each heroine. Out of all of them, I’d have to say the good ones are Satsuki’s non-canon route and Taya’s non-canon route. Satsuki’s route I consider the best first because not only do she and Makoto have good chemistry, but the story concerning her is really good. Her backstory is interesting as it not only ties really well with Makoto’s character at points in the story, but the mystery surrounding it and the secrets that are slowly revealed over time make for a good story to read. Taya’s route I enjoyed for a couple of reasons, first the interactions she and Makoto have are pretty well written and being a gamer myself I kind of have a soft spot for gamer friendship stories, and second, once the outbreak occurs the story of the two trying to make it out alive and the tragedy they encounter make for a good survival story with a bittersweet end reminiscent of Maya’s route from the second game. The only thing that makes Satsuki’s route win out is I think maybe there could have been a slightly better transition from the relationship Taya and Makoto have as friends to lovers as I think it happens a little quickly.

                Now we get to the not so good routes: Natsu’s and Akari’s. I’ll start with Natsu’s since of the two, hers is better by having a good start with a pretty natural progression of her and Makoto’s relationship, and a decent ending. My problem with it has to do with the story in between, which I found disappointing mainly because it essentially reduces Natsu to the role of damsel in distress, which just doesn’t fit her character all that well considering the other routes portray her as pretty badass (when she doesn’t get infected). As for Akari’s route, this is the one I really have a bone to pick with. I will say it has a couple interesting moments such as trying to portray Arai, one of the side characters, as being more than just a character that falls into “the bully” trope or its approach to Akari and Makoto’s relationship as a platonic one, but those parts aren’t given enough attention to make them truly effective story elements. One of my biggest problems with this route has to do with Akari herself; while not an unlikable character by any means she’s not a very well written character either. While there is potential for an interesting character there such as her family’s connection to the first outbreak (which is only given the minimal addressing in the entire story) or her martial arts skills with a naginata (which she barely uses even though a CG of her using it is one of the most prominent promotional CGs), what the writer chooses to focus on is Akari’s secret sex fetish over any other character traits that would have been interesting. For a cheap sex romp eroge that’s not a problem, but for a game in the Kansen series, an eroge series that (for the most part) balances its story and ero content  and offers at least decently written characters to follow, this comes off as incredibly weak writing especially considering that this is supposed to be our main heroine.

                Moving on to the True Route, I should start off by saying I don’t outright hate this route as it does have good moments. The buildup to it is nice as there are hints at better character development for a couple of the side characters, Makoto gets a chance to be awesome, the official start of the route has interesting story potential, the reveals about Makoto’s lost memories are told pretty well told (with one exception but we’ll get to that later), Akari actually has some decent character moments (not to mention she FINALLY uses that naginata of hers) and the end scenes with each heroine would make for a satisfying conclusion. The main problem is…the route is too short. All that buildup and an interesting start, but from there the route wraps up in about 30 minutes at most, and that’s just playing it the first time. Once you finish the route and load your save so as to see the other heroines’ endings through that route, there’s so little diversity you finish in 10-15 minutes (and most of that time is because of the route’s heroine’s ero scene). This really hurts the route because it not only cheapens the satisfaction of everyone surviving, but it also leaves you baffled as to why the True Route is so short while the fake routes are so long and in some ways have more emotionally satisfying conclusions. It also doesn’t help that the True Route flat out ignores or barely acknowledges important story elements from the fake routes that might have made it more interesting and even given each of the heroines’ endings in that route some plot diversity. Speaking of which the fact that the True Route is largely the same regardless of which heroine Makoto ends up with results in a bit of a feeling of contradiction in that the story for the route is obviously written with Akari in mind as the heroine. That also brings us to my one problem with the reveals concerning Makoto’s lost memory. While for the most part it makes for a good backstory, it seems as if the writer decided at the last minute to tie it in with Akari’s role as the main heroine by introducing a completely new character almost completely out of nowhere and having said character be an important part of Makoto’s forgotten memories. Aside from coming off as a weak addition to the plot, it also comes off as a copy of a major story element from Satsuki’s non-canon route and big surprise, it’s not as well executed.

                Having covered all that, I have one more story related complaint. After two games straight, Speed has once again given us an unwinnable heroine in Taya’s friend Sato Murasaki. She interacts with Makoto about as much as Taya in the common route, is a pretty humorous character, makes it out fine in the True Route, and the game hints at several points that she’s attracted to Makoto. In fact, the Infection route (which is basically a joke route) outright teases you with the possibility of a route. While I could accept time limits for the game’s development as why there isn’t a route for her, considering the True Route endings are 10-15 minutes long with only the heroine related scenes I’m pretty skeptical that they couldn’t have just squeezed an ending for her into the True Route itself that maybe could have been unlocked after getting Taya’s ending.

                Regarding the system aspect of the game, Kansen 5 does add a new way to switch character POVs. While the standard part where at certain points in the story the game pauses and you pick from multiple character POVs is still there, when it’s just one alternate view point an icon for the character shows up at the upper right of the game window. You can either select it to go to that viewpoint or ignore it and go on with your current scene and the icon eventually disappears. It’s an interesting new addition and a good way to keep the story flowing with little feeling of interruption. Of course, the biggest improvement that Kansen 5 brings to its system over its predecessors is this:  the removal of those accursed timed choices!! While I’m sure many a fan of this series would be celebrating  at that, I’m afraid that joy would be offset by the one area Kansen 5 surpassed 3…the glitches…

                To this day I don’t think I’ve ever played a glitchier eroge, let alone visual novel, than Kansen 5. The third game did have bugs but they were just three game crashing bugs and a game freezing bug, Kansen 5 has (ironically) five major glitches that I had to deal with.  The first and perhaps worst of them would be that the game can’t remember what text you’ve read, basically after clearing a route and starting a new one when you click the skip text option to skip past already read text the skip function will work for a few seconds and then stop and treat all the text from that stopping point as if you’ve never read it before. This means you have to rely on the “skip all text” function and hope you have a good enough eye to catch when a new scene is coming. Moving on to the next glitch, this also has to do with the game’s faulty memory in that some of the ero scenes don’t show up in the extra gallery after you’ve seen them.  The remaining three glitches are all text related. First off, to add insult to injury with the game’s bad memory with the text, if you use the skip function for a few minutes it will often times cause the game to crash.

Then when you get to the unread scenes, you’ll at times have to deal with odd spacing errors in the game’s text window…

…and completely blank text windows in between occupied ones.

                Now before anyone sends me any comments or messages about Speed releasing a patch to fix these glitches or how they didn’t encounter any of these glitches, let me explain. In regards to the latter, you probably got a later release, my copy was from the run first released. As for the patch, while I certainly have no complaints about that (I ended up using said patch after clearing a few of the non-canon routes) I can’t help but wonder why Speed would release a game with so many glitches considering the previous game had next to none.  Did their beta testers get sick during the testing period or something? Also, the patch doesn’t fix the text skip crash glitch.

                In the area of presentation Kansen 5 does well. The artwork is good (though I will admit Natsu looks better in her CG than her character portrait) as is the voice acting. The music is mostly the same as  in the prior games, though there are new tunes. They’re okay, but of the bunch the only one I found particularly memorable was “The last Good-Bye”.

                As for the ero scenes, they’re all good, be it the good end ero scenes or the ones of the darker variety.

In Conclusion:

                Kansen 5 is an overall decent entry into the series, but much like the second game it’s a game created with a lot of ambition so it could surpass its successful predecessor only be brought down by story flaws that really should have been looked over before being given a pass. To its credit it does have a good story supported by a likable cast of characters, but the bizarre choice to considerably shorten the true routes in favor of the non-canon routes really hurt the story’s effectiveness.  It’s certainly worth trying out if you’ve been playing this series from the start and shouldn’t come as a waste of your time or money, just keep the bar low when it comes to expectations.

Final Score: 6/10 Above Average

Author Recommendation:  Try it out. 

                As for the anime…I don’t really know what to say about it since after watching both episodes I’m not entirely sure what I watched. What it is seems more akin to a dime a dozen hentai doujinshi than an adaptation as the setup for the two episodes (I’m not even going to bother calling it a story) do not occur at all in the game. The villain of the OVA is really an overall minor character in the game and for some strange reason his appearance was so greatly changed I’m still not sure if I’m only guessing it’s him. He goes from looking like this…

…to this!

 

And for some reason the creators of this OVA gave him a nameless (and butt ugly) flunky (ignoring the fact that the guy was a flunky himself in the game) that wasn’t in the original game, even though he already had multiple nameless flunkies who didn’t even look anything like that.

Also the only main heroines this focuses on are Akari and Natsu (Hanazawa is a minor character in the game) with the rest of the cast mysteriously absent except for a couple seconds worth of a group shot in the second episode.

All this and yet the oddest thing to me is…I don’t hate this OVA. Don’t get me wrong I don’t particularly like it either, but I’m honestly just too astounded at just how hard it fails as an adaptation that I can’t hate it. It’s like asking someone to make a simple shape out clay like a ball and when you see that person somehow failing so spectacularly at doing that you’re too amazed at the how wrong that person got it to condemn his/her attempt.

               

Games for Adults:The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era!

The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era!

 

                Well, here I am reviewing another softhouse-seal game, a company I admit I’m a tad cautious about after the geyser of crap that was Super Secret Sexy Spy. Still, a lot of people who had played this game before it was localized seemed happy about its announcement and I had more assurances that this would be funny (though to be fair, I had no assurances with SSSS), so I preordered The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era! and come its release date of June 21, 2013 began to play it. Upon completion…maybe SSSS was a fluke after all…

Pros:  The comedic stuff is genuinely funny and mostly works, the main characters are good enough, the artwork is good, the music has a couple of nice tunes.

Cons:  The minor characters could have been handled better, harem ending is a let down, WHERE’S MY SAKURA ENDING DAMN IT!?!?

WTF?!: One of Kyousuke’s inventions is the Asura bun (extra points to those who get the original pun)…

Considering what it grants you to make you like Asura, does that mean in Asura’s Wrath…?

 

                In The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era! you play as Kyousuke Daiguuji, the gym teacher of Hanabatake Academy with a secret passion for inventing many a wacky contraption in the name of science (and who bears an uncanny resemblance to the title character of Toriko). When it comes time to reform the school’s science club, Kyousuke is mortified when the school’s science teacher is picked to be the head of the club instead of him (gee, I wonder why?), so he decides to form his own science club for the purpose of taking revenge on the school for this great offense with the aid of his trusty (but not too bright) new club recruit/minion, Fuuka.

                In the case of this game’s story, we see SHS essentially use a similar set up to Sexy Demon Transformation by taking a much used genre of countless dark eroge and/or hentai OVAs and manga. In this case, it’s the “evil rapist teacher” genre and while the writer does turn the trope of the main character of said genre on its head similar to SDT by having Kyousuke be a foolish but not really so bad guy, it’s both distinguished from that game and helped by how effectively wacky his portrayal as a mad scientist comes off. Almost all of the scenes where Kyousuke introduces and uses his inventions are hilarious, and many of the joke references and puns associated with the inventions are at least chuckle worthy.

                Our two main heroines, Fuuka and Matsuri also make for good parodies of tropes from that genre too. Fuuka is a play on the “accomplice” heroine of the genre, but that trope gets turned on its head by not only having Fuuka join Kyousuke over extreme gullibility, but also in the many leader-minion comedic scenes between her and Kyosuke in place of the generic master-sex slave interactions of the very genre it parodies.  Matsuri actually makes for the better of the two parodies as she’s a take on spending time the heroine that tries to go up against the rapist MC but always fails, and the trope is spoofed by making her a hot headed magical girl with a bit of an indifference to some of the finer points of heroism who frequently challenges Kyousuke and kind of wins at the end of each battle.

                Now while this game does as well with comedy as SDT, it doesn’t do as well when it comes to the handling of its minor characters. Part of the reason is because there isn’t much plot diversity compared to SDT (which isn’t  a problem by itself), and aside from Fuuka and Matsuri there really isn’t much of a sense of character exposition. Two of the sub heroines, Yuuki and Ururu are introduced and after their obligatory ero scene(s) that follow just completely disappear from the plot. You never see or hear about them again. This just comes off as weak writing even for a sex romp game and leaves you wondering what the point of the characters were aside from introducing some new inventions. Our remaining sub heroine Sakura fairs slightly better as she has a little more screen time which does help to make her character interesting and likable, enough that you wish she had her own ending. Alright, technically she does but all that happens in that ending is it hints about her possibly hooking up with Kyousuke, but we never see it.

                The final story related problem this game has is its weak harem ending. First off the name is pretty deceptive since the only heroines Kyousuke ends up with are Fuuka and Matsuri with the side heroines (of course) being nowhere to be seen. Still, that’s the least of this ending’s problems with its main one being its lack of substance compared to the other endings in the game. The harem ending is basically just a threesome ero scene and that’s it, and while the other endings also end on ero scenes at least those had enough writing around them to convey a better sense of closure.

                In the area of presentation this game does well with the character artwork being good and the design of some of the inventions are amusing. The voice acting is all around good with the voice actresses for Fuuka and Matsuri doing a good job at bringing the comical aspects of their characters to life. Also the music for the game has a couple of good tunes to it, particularly the menu theme with its upbeat sound to it and the music that plays when Kyousuke and Fuuka are meeting in the club room does a good job in conveying a feeling of the fun of light hearted mischief making. I’d say what the names of these two tunes were, but there’s nothing in the extras section that gathers or names the music.

                As for the ero scenes, they’re pretty good and most of them are pretty funny. I’ll even say they’re the funniest ero scenes I’ve seen from softhouse-seal so far.

 

In Conclusion:

                The Greatest Inventions of the Sexy Era is a good example of how softhouse-seal can release eroge that are short and cheap, but still enjoyable. While this is by no means a perfect game, it’s definitely a recommend for anyone who wants a decent sex romp type eroge that also has some good laughs to offer, at least enough to make up for the lackluster endings. I will say the jokes might be easier to get for those with some trope familiarity in regards to hentai, but that’s something you’ll have to see for yourself. Let’s hope this game does well enough that we get the sequel.

 

Final Score:  6/10 Above Average

Author Recommendation: For Fans Only!

Demo Impression: Eroge! ~Sex and Games Make Sexy Games~

Demo Impression: Eroge! ~Sex and Games Make Sexy Games~

                Earlier this week, Managagmer announced the release date of their first game from their new partner Clock Up!, “Eroge ~Sex and Games Make Sexy Games~”, which will be September 13, 2013. Along with the announcement came a demo for this game, which I’ve played…and boy do I have some things to say about this game.

Pros: The concept is interesting, Nene and Iori seem like they could worth reading more about, music is nice.

Cons: Kisara and Momoko.

WTF?!: You know if you had more likable heroines I’d have a more positive answer…

 

                In Eroge! you play as Tomoya Mochizuki, an avid eroge player who wants to enter the eroge industry. Unfortunately for Tomoya he has not been able to find any work with any of the companies as he doesn’t really have any game making skills. His chance seems to come when he’s able to land a job at an eroge company called Flower…until it’s revealed that said company is facing going out of business unless their next game sells well. Upon discovering the problem lies with how each of the girls in charge of making the games is talented in their field but not very good at applying it to making eroge, it’s up to Tomoya to use his vast knowledge of the genre to help ensure a good game is made.

                From what I’ve played of the demo, I have to say the story concept is interesting as it provides a look at how an average eroge company goes about making a game and I can’t help but notice similarities between that and how an indie developer works. Also having a light hearted take on it would help to give players a look while at the same time keeping them from feeling bored. Sadly, whatever enjoyment I could have had of the demo’s story was ruined by two characters that made this feel like more of a chore than cleaning a bathroom.

                Before I begin though I should point out that of the four heroines of this game the other two weren’t so bad. Nene for one came off as a pretty funny character and I am interested in seeing just how she got into the role of president of an eroge company, and Iori I could at least appreciate for making me interested in her (though part of that concerns I’ve heard…things about her route). The same cannot be said for Kisara and Momoko who I quickly despised soon after they were introduced and the demo does nothing but add to my dislike for them.

                My main reason for disliking these two characters is quite frankly there just isn’t anything to like about them. They both treat Tomoya like absolute crap, and with practically every other line they have to say being an insult it gets old and annoying really fast plus it ends up taking you out of the story. The fact that this seems to be their only character trait (aside from their role in making their companies game) really weakens whatever character they’re supposed to have because it makes them seem like they’re the same character, the only difference being that Momoko is the slightly nastier of the two. When you have heroines that are one note and annoying like that it really doesn’t give player good prospects about playing their routes. Now I’m sure some of you are probably thinking that “Maybe this is a phase that they’re going to develop out of”, but I should point out this demo does skip ahead after the first available character interaction and subsequent ero scene. From what I could see that may apply to Kisara, but in Momoko’s case the scene seems to take place further into her route…and not much has seemed to change about her character.

                In the area of presentation, this game does alright. The music is pretty good so far and the voice actors did a good job. The artwork I’m not sure about yet; it’s been okay to good for the most part but a couple of the character portraits look a bit off at times. I’ll have to play the actual game before I can give a solid opinion.

                As for the ero scenes (yes there are ero scenes in this demo), well Iori and Nene’s were decent. Unfortunately the first ero scene you get is one played for jokes which sadly aren't very funny. As for Kisara and Momoko's I'm afraid my dislike for the characters carried over to their ero scenes.

 

In Conclusion:

                Eroge! is a game I really want to like, not just because the concept of the game’s story was interesting but also because the company behind it, Clock Up, has several interesting looking games in its library and if this bombs we probably aren’t going to see them localized. Unfortunately the demo for this game isn’t doing much to impress me with two of the four winnable heroines being downright insufferable. My advice to anyone thinking of getting this game, at least play the demo before putting down forty dollars on this.

The demo can be downloaded here (and warning NSFW images):
http://www.mangagamer.com/detail.php?goods_type=1&product_code=4

Import Games for Adults: Kyonyuu Fantasy 2

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