There
are two basic genres that you can divide eroge into, especially the ones with
more of a focus on the H content: the light genre with its focus usually on
slice of life and traditional romantic based ero scenes and the dark genre
which have a more oppressive atmosphere/setting around its characters and ero
scenes of the nonconsensual variety are more common. Now and then a you’ll see
games that try to be something in between the two and the kind that succeed are
usually story focused games like the Grisaia trilogy or Innocent Grey’s games,
while the nukiges usually don’t fare quite as well with cases like Gimai
Hitomi/Hitomi My Stepsister* or Magical Teacher (not that it’s impossible, the
Kansen games are mostly good). The game we’ll be looking at today is one of the
rare exceptions: Free Friends, released in Japan as Furifure by Noesis, a
(sadly now closed) sub-company of Innocent Grey, on April 3, 2009 and released
in English by Mangagamer on June 26, 2015. While not anything comparable to the
aforementioned story game successes, it’s still a decent game all the same.
Pros: Interesting characters, decent story, good voice
acting, mostly good artwork.
Cons: Story feels a bit short, a couple slips in the art
department, strange gallery glitch.
WTF?!: I get the feeling you’d get more than weird looks if
you listed a person as your hobby…
Free
Friends story focuses on two people: Yui Kurahashi and her teacher, who you
play as. After a fight with her parents, Yui leaves her house only to find
herself without any place to stay. A friend she contacts suggests using a
message board called Free Friends which Yui does, unaware that it’s actually a
site used for hook ups.Through this she
ends up meeting her teacher, and he ends up forcing himself on her. From there
your choices will determine whether Yui’s teacher will use the night’s events
as a means to blackmail her into being his slave or end up becoming involved in
her problem and become the savior she hoped for…
Okay, I
should probably get this out of the way: if you’re in this mainly for the
game’s good route then you’re going to have to go with the dark start first.
Obviously this is not going to be a vanilla romance story either way. While the
evil route is more diverse in the directions it can go it is pretty par for the
course if you’re familiar with the genre but it actually does make for a good
prelude to the good route since it drops hints about the characters that are
followed up in the good route (though just to be clear there's no enforced playing order; you can just play the good route if you want). Speaking of which, the good route has a bit more
substance to offer in how it takes some time to give its two main characters a
bit more focus on them as characters in between the route’s ero scenes. While
not as deep as you’ll find in more story focused games, there’s enough given to
at least our main character to make the story interesting as the writing does a
good job portraying him as someone beat down by the life he’s been leading and
this helps in conveying a sort of world weary atmosphere that matches with his
initial mood as a character.
Basically
what makes the story of Free Friends’ good route interesting is how it’s able
to do a decent job with its premise. Two people both struggling with different things
imposed on them by society and while their meeting does not end well a connection
between them is established, and the question is whether or not any good can
come of it. It’s enough to give both Yui and her teacher arcs, though
admittedly the latter gets more of it, and it’s good enough that not only did I
get some investment in the outcome but I even forgot that the MC doesn’t even
have a revealed name.
Still Free
Friends has its flaws and the ones in the writing department can be narrowed
down to the game being short. Basically there are certain story elements that
are kind of glossed over, especially in the good route, such as the main
character’s wife having about as much screen time as Maris Crane (but less
presence) or it might have been more interesting to see more from Yui’s POV as
it could have given some scenes more emotional weight. I admit that these are overall minor flaws as
there’s no way of knowing whether the inclusion of these would have benefited
the story or just ended up as padding. Still can’t help but wonder though…
Before
we move on to presentation there are a couple system related things that bear
mentioning. The first one falls into the flaw category where there’s an odd
glitch I encountered with the galleries for this game where there’s a black bar
covering about a third of the screen on the right. Strangely the select-able items that the bar covers you can still click on with the mouse, you just can't see them. I admit I downloaded
installed the game the day it came out so it may have been patched, but I
haven’t found any evidence of one on MG’s site. The second is a minor thing I
noticed, but the game’s menu screen uses the same option select chime that
Waffle uses. Probably just a coincidence but I admit it does feel a bit strange
hearing something I’ve associated with another company pop up in a game not
from it.
In the
area of presentation Free Friends does a pretty good job. Concerning the
artwork, the backgrounds are well drawn as is Yui herself. We have a bit of
hiccup in this area though as the only two males with character portraits look a
little less polished, and while I get it’s because of their role and it’s to
reflect that aspect of their characters it’s something that stands out enough
for me to nitpick. The sound department fares better with the music being
decent, the tunes accomplishing their respective purposes in the scenes they’re
designed for but admittedly not that memorable. As for voice acting, the only
one who bears mention is Yui’s VA Yukina Fujimori who some of you may recognize
from her other acting name Konoha, and has played many notable roles from Nene
in Eroge! to Ruseria and Elicia in the Kyonyuu Fantasy series. She may be the sole
voice actor in this game, but she puts all the effort into her voice work for
Yui all the same and you get a good feel for what the character goes through
all throughout the game.
As for
the ero scenes they’re all really good. First of all, the aforementioned
Fujimori-san does as good a job in the voice acting for these scenes as she
does in the story scenes, and second the artwork for the scenes is excellent
too. Whether you’re in it for the dark or light scenes you’ll definitely be
satisfied with either ones.
In Conclusion:
Free
Friends is an overall pretty good little dark nukige that manages to blend in a
little light into its plot without it feeling out of place. I admit it’s not a
particularly exceptional game, but it makes for a nice little read none the
less thanks to some decent character writing and good voice work for its
heroine. A shame this branch of Innocent Grey went under since this seems to be
an indication they might have had the makings to start a good nukige line.
Final Score:7/10
Great
Author Recommendation: Try It Out.
As for
the anime…it isn’t very good. Leaving aside the fact that the character design
for the anime just feels too jarringly different (especially the face they
decided to give the teacher), they really screw the setup up at the start. Not
only do they change where Yui and her teacher meet, they also change a pretty
major aspect of the teacher’s life from how it is in the game. The reason I
guess is so the episode could skip over the character aspects for him so they
can get right to the H content. The problem is doing so pretty much renders
this adaptation into as generic as the genre gets, so really just play the game.
*For anyone expecting me to review, Hitomi, I've considered it, but...that would require replaying the game and I think you can guess what I think of it from there...
Well as promised, here’s the
third in my unplanned line up of all girls’ school set game reviews and a long
overdue return to Atelier Kaguya. Though my last review was of an ultimately
second rate game, I can say that I experienced the proper antidote to what I
didn’t like about Harukoi Otome in Prima ☆ Stella, released by Atelier Kaguya’s branch company Atelier Kaguya
Berkshire Yorkshire on June 27, 2008. I hope that bit of hinting from the last
review didn’t give too many people the ideas that I’d be reviewing something else…
Pros: Story does a
pretty good job with its premise, characters are likable, very good artwork,
excellent voice acting.
Cons: Yu is
unwinnable, the common route has a bit of a writing flub, an event in the
latter part of this games can weaken things a bit.
WTF?!: Well that’s
an interesting choice for tug of war…
You
play as Kousuke Sakaki, an all-around nice guy and one of the top members of
the swim team at his school, enough to be considered for an international
tournament. Unfortunately his dreams of competing get cut short after saving a
stranger from an oncoming traffic accident, sustaining injuries that put him
in a coma and upon awakening learns that his body currently isn’t in any
condition to take any real strain. A second chance soon comes however, when a
representative of the all girls’ private academy, Etoile visits on behalf of
the person Kousuke saved. As the school’s students are mainly from rich and
powerful families, it also hosts an advanced program that could help Kousuke
rehabilitate and realize his dreams of becoming an international champion
swimmer and he’s being offered the opportunity to temporarily transfer to the
school to do so. Kousuke accepts and while his arrival is met with much
curiosity from the student body as many of the girls have had limited contact
with men, Kousuke quickly meets and befriends Shizuka Touhouin and makes more
through his childhood friend and cousin Kusumi who also attends Etoile. With
this, Kousuke’s road to recovery may also become a road to romance too…
While
the story premise has been done before Prima Stella makes for a good
demonstration of how far you can take a concept that’s been done before with an
enjoyable cast of characters (click here for profiles). The heroines are introduced well with their
personality quirks helping to get us to know and like them quickly while at the
same time setting things up so that when we get a more in depth look at them as
characters we’ll care what happens during those story events. Of course it
helps that these quirks fit well into the many humorous scenes throughout the
game such as Shizuka and Kusumi’s rivalry over Kousuke, Yu as the straight man to Kusumi’s often silly
antics or Miyabi’s subtle teasing/flirting with Kousuke. As for our main
character, I’d say Kousuke is good enough in terms of writing; he has just
enough depth to be interesting when the story needs him to be but at the end
his main character trait is that he’s simply a nice guy. While that may sound
too basic, I can say the writers for Prima Stella are able to utilize this
trait to give us a main character that’s likable and interacts well with the
heroines.
Another
writing element of note would be how well the episodic aspect of the game works
for it. The story is divided into eight episodes; the first five make up the
common route and each heroine’s route consists of three. The first five are
constructed so as to give each main character the right amount of focus, the
first being to introduce everyone and the remaining four focusing on each of
our heroines, each of them getting a plot that at times takes a slightly
serious tone, but its resolution usually foreshadows some element of the plot
of her route. All in all this setup works because it gives the heroines the
right amount of spotlight throughout the common route and helps make the story
is easy to follow and remember, even if you should decide to take breaks in
between episodes.
Before
we get to the routes though, I feel that the two most significant writing flaws
should be discussed. The reason for this is the first one has to do with the common
route and the second one concerns a plot element the routes all share. The
thing is explaining it will involve some light spoilers so I’ll give you a
brief explanation before cordoning the spoilers off behind some appropriate
pictures. The first problem is basically during the common route some events
happen throughout it that seem a bit contrary to how one of the characters is
written and the second problem is when the common route ends an event happens
that kind of weakens things a little for the routes, some more than others.
Anyway, to those unfamiliar with how I handle spoilers, see the spoiler warning
pictures below? If you don’t want to be spoiler about anything in this game,
scroll past that first set and the text that follows until you reach the second
set which marks the end of the spoiler section. You can read without fear of
spoilers from there.
The
problem regarding the common route is each heroine has at least one ero scene
in it. This is a problem mainly because this kind of clashes with Kousuke’s
character even if the writing tries to justify this and even though you could
write off the heroines not having a problem with this happening as “hentai
logic” it still feels a little weird that even rival heroines Shizuka and
Kusumi pretty much shrug off. Not to mention there strangely isn’t a harem
route in this game, even as an unlockable, which could have made at least a
more passable justification. I can at least say thanks to this I may have
encountered my first case of the (rightfully) much maligned gaming term
“ludonarrative dissonance” in an eroge. Though that does open up another
question: do ero scenes count as gameplay?
Err…anyway,
the second problem is basically what starts off the routes: Kousuke’s time at
Etoile ends and he goes back home. Now don’t get the wrong idea, this isn’t
wholly a bad idea and it makes sense story-wise, but the problem lies in the
change of scenery itself. Basically when compared to Etoile the new setting is
a bit on the dull side and even ignoring that in some routes it means there’s
none of the more entertaining character interactions with the more colorful
cast aside from the heroine of the route. Like the previous case it’s not something that
ruins the game, but it’s still a flaw that would have been nice if in some way
fixed.
With
that out of the way, let’s get to the route rankings:
Miyabi’s
route comes in at a very close second for a few reasons. First, she and Kousuke
have good chemistry as can be seen in quite a few of their interactions in the
common route and second, when things get to her route there’s actually writing
good enough that you barely notice the aforementioned second writing problem.
The third reason would be a really good performance from her VA: Maki Izumi,
who many of you would recognize as the voice of Akane in the Da Capo 2 games, Chihiro
from ef, and Tatsuko from the Majikoi games. While the other actresses turn in
a very good performance too, this case is a bit more notable in that she
manages to bring the character to life and do a voice different enough from
what you usually hear that it may take you a while to recognize it. What keeps
this route from tying with Kusumi’s is the dramatic part of her route is pretty
par for the course; you’ll know what’s going to happen the moment the
foreshadowing starts.
Now as
for Miyuki’s route…what’s that? Some of you have taken a look at a walkthrough
and seen she doesn’t have a route listed? Well, it turns out she does have a
route…of sorts. You see, PS has another extras section where you can view extra
ero scenes that aren’t in any of the routes which you unlock through
progressing through the game. Among them is a string of scenes that make up
what amounts to Miyuki’s route. I have a theory that the creators had a full
route planned, but ran out of time and only had time to write her ero scenes and
a rough draft of what the route’s plot. So they went ahead and recorded for
those scenes, made the CG and wrote summaries of the plot to give context for
why these scenes are strung together. While this means we essentially have the
bare bones skeleton of route, I can say they’re worth looking at as aside from
the (good) ero scenes, it is interesting to read hints of what we could have
gotten.
Sadly our
Lunamaria Hawke look alike, Yu, does not receive even that and joins the ever
growing roster of unwinnable heroines. It’s a shame since she does feature
prominently in the game’s story and has good interactions with Kousuke. As indicated
above, she does have a couple ero scenes, one of them probably written based on
the premise for what her route could be. It is a shame the second one couldn’t
have been incorporated into Kusumi’s route though…
In the area of presentation, Prima Stella does
really well. The artwork is really good, the music is nice and the voice acting
is excellent. The aforementioned Maki Izumi aside, we also have great
performances from Miru, Shizuka’s VA, Tomoe’s VA Yasura Chatani who some of you
may recognize as Yoruko from Comyu or Cat Sidhe Nekoko from Yume Miru Kusuri,
and Kaoru Momozono gets to be in a good game this time thanks to her role as
Miyuki. Should also mention there’s a couple male VAs in this too and they turn
in good performances, one more than the other who manages to do an entertaining
over the top performance but considering the gravelly voice he had to do I
wonder how many throat lozenges he had to take afterwards…
As for
the ero scenes, they’re all really good. Atelier Kaguya once again maintains
its quality in the H department at least as well as it does in the area of
writing.
In Conclusion:
Prima ☆ Stella is an enjoyable game with its
charming cast of characters, very good performances from their VAs and good artwork.
While it does have some writing flaws, they’re not too big a subtraction from
the enjoyment factor. If you want another example of the quality you should
expect from good old Atelier Kaguya, then this is certainly worth a look.
Harukoi Otome ~Greetings
from the Maidens’ Gardens~ Review
The
backburner: that ever growing pile of physical and digital media all of us
human beings have that only seems to get bigger no matter what we do to make it
smaller. Some of the items that occupy it are things we greatly anticipate
experiencing but don’t have the time to yet while others are those things we
have unfinished but dropped because better alternatives presented themselves.
For normal people abandoning the latter option is perfectly natural but for a
reviewer like myself it’s a different matter. We’ll be taking a look at an
example of that aforementioned latter category in Harukoi Otome ~Greetings from
the Maidens’ Gardens~, released in Japan by Baseson on January 27, 2006 and
localized by Mangagamer on August 9, 2013. I’ll admit this review is late,
you’ll soon see why it took me so long to get this game off my backburner to
review it.
Pros:Riru and
Ayaka’s routes, characters can be interesting and funny when well written,
artwork is pretty good, very good voice acting.
Cons: Yuika’s route, characters can be insufferable and lame
when badly written, weak plot elements in Umi, Kisaya, and Sonya’s routes.
WTF?!: Sonya’s route.
Harukoi
Otome has you play as Akihito Hayasaka, a sophomore attending St. Francesca
Academy, a former all-girls school that still has a noticeably higher female
student population compared to the males. Attending with him are his younger
sister Umi and childhood friend Yuika and through them Akihito meets other
girls and the potential for friendship maybe romance soon presents itself.
This
would be where I’d discuss story elements from the common route or ones shared
by the other routes, but to be honest the common route doesn’t really have any
stand out moments and the routes are extremely different from each other. Also
the game’s strengths and weaknesses are kind of dependent on the routes, so
with that let’s move right along to the route rankings.
1)Riru
2)Ayaka
3)Sonya
4)Kisaya
5)Umi
6)Yuika
Riru’s route ranks at the top for a
number of reasons, the first of which being it’s the best put together of the
routes. There’s a solid arc to both Akihito and Riru in how their relationship
starts out as a platonic friendship that feels natural but when the time comes
for it to turn romantic it’s believable. This is helped thanks to the writing
giving them good chemistry in both stages of their relationship and good use of
the side characters who help breathe further life into the plot. A good example
being a look at Yuika’s serious side that isn’t very long but manages to be written
in well and performed excellently by the aforementioned character’s VA. This
route also has the advantage of having not only good comedy, but a transition
into drama that feels natural to the story and never goes overboard about it.
Finally, this route has one unique advantage over the others in this game: it
has an epilogue and I don’t mean just a short scene followed by an ero scene
and then that’s the end. This route has a short story to tell and two ero
scenes to offer along with them. No lie here, but I actually didn’t know about
this until I actually played the end segment last since I figured I might as
well save the end ero scene of my favorite route for last since I wanted to end
on a good note and I can say thanks to this bonus, Riru’s route is pretty much
secured as being not only the best route of this game but also its chief
redeeming factor. If I were to nitpick I’d say the closing scene is a little
too long, but other than that this route is fine.
Ayaka’s route comes in at second
place as it too has a pretty good story to tell which does culminate in a
pretty good arc for our heroine that involves not just Akihito but also a
character from one of the other routes and a character we briefly see in the
common route but gets a better introduction over the course of the story
(including a pretty funny take on how looks can be deceiving). There’s also the
benefit of Ayaka and Akihito having some good scenes together from amusing
interactions to some decent serious ones. What keeps this route in second place
are a couple things: first, there’s a subplot introduced that’s concerning
Ayaka’s stepmother that’s only briefly touched upon over the course of the
story and second, while I don’t feel the dramatic part of the route is forced
in, the event that starts it is extremely obvious. I can guarantee you’ll see
it coming the moment it’s introduced. Won’t spoil it but let’s just say it’s a
trope we’ve all encountered numerous times since childhood in most forms of
media. What makes the transition into the dramatic part of the story not feel
particularly forced is because it makes sense for Ayaka’s character and there’s
even decent enough foreshadowing for it.
Concerning Sonya’s route…I’m not
entirely sure how to start with this one. This route starts out like your
typical cutesy romance and it does well at that with a combination of imagery
and the voice acting on Sonya’s part. Then things get weird, though admittedly
you might not notice that for a while since the middle portion of this route is
really boring as many of the scenes don’t feel like they go anywhere aside from
the ones concerning a puppet show Sonya and Akihito put together and even that
isn’t all that interesting since we don’t see the show when it’s made, just
told about it. The reason you wouldn’t notice is because the weirdness concerns
the dialogue, which is basically a strange disconnect between all the
characters when they’re talking to each other, like they’re talking to each
other, but each character is in another dimension. This doesn’t go well with
this slow part of the story as it creates a sense that you’re reading gibberish
and you’re either bored or annoyed and just want to get this route over with.
Fortunately things improve at the point where Akihito and Sonya start their
relationship, first by dealing with the foreshadowed dramatic part quickly and
then things get noticeably strange when logic essentially departs the story.
From there the story events and character actions just start happening with
very little (if any) explanation, but things are kept from being boring thanks
in large part to more interaction with the character Mai, played by Hokuto
Minami who matches this routes weirdness by hamming it up with her performance.
All in all while this route has its flaws and is one of the oddest I’ve read in
a while there’s enough appeal that I can say it’s something that needs to be
seen to be believed.
Umi’s route is in a bit of a
similar situation in that its later part is what hurts it. What ranks it below
Kisaya’s is from the beginning it’s just an okay route. Don’t get me wrong,
there are good moments like Umi’s love of horror flicks, some of Akihito’s
antics are at least chuckle worthy and you can tell that the writer was doing
his/her best to sell this pairing. The thing that keeps this route’s good points
from standing out more is the fact that the story doesn’t really do anything to
distinguish this from any other “imouto heroine” route story, which I admit is
partially because HO is a bit on the old side compared to most of what’s been
released in English but even then there’s nothing to really grab your attention
with this portion of the story. As for the later bad parts, there are two main
problems on the writing front. First the drama kind of trips over itself in
that a good part of it depends on the idea that people would disapprove of Umi
and Akihito’s relationship but we never see this come about at all. I suppose
you could argue this is more about the two coming to terms with their
relationship and this is just a psychological issue for them, but if that’s the
case then it should have been better conveyed. The second problem has to do
with how Akihito is written during this portion of the story but that’s
something that bears discussing in the next route because as bad as it is in
this case, the worst is still to come.
Finally we’ve come to Yuika’s route
and boy do we hit bottom here Icarus-style. No point in mincing words, this is
one of the worst routes I’ve ever played and the chief reason it took me so
long to beat this game. It has been a long time since I’ve played a route that
enraged me as much as this and over the course of at least 90% of the story.
Now some of you may bring up Sofie’s route from Harem Party or Super SecretSexy Spy, but this route is much worse not only because it’s longer than those
or even because this is supposed to be a story we’re supposed to take seriously
but it’s because it’s a route we unlock (by clearing Umi’s). Unlockable routes
are supposed to be special because their stories are supposed to reveal
something new and amazing compared to what we’ve played before, something that
turnsa previously read plot element on
its head and through that gives you a new perspective on the game’s story and
characters. Unfortunately what this route has to reveal is the furthest thing
from amazing and surprisingly inconsequential to the rest of the game.
One of the best examples of this
can be seen in the role they give comic relief side character Oikawa in this
route. I won’t spoil what it is, but it’s a role that doesn’t match with him.
First of all it’s too big a role for him when compared to his role throughout
the other parts of the game, second it makes very little sense considering this
isn’t hinted at anywhere else in the game (almost to the point I thought the
whole plotline was a ruse), and third it’s kind of out of character too,
especially since a major part of the role falls into the trope of “best friend
lends a hand by being a total douche”.This actually leads us into one of the main problems of this route: no
major character in this story comes out of it a likable character. And speaking
of which…
We now get to Akihito’s role in
this story, the amplified version of what was a problem in Umi’s route: the
incessant whining. The moment things take a dramatic turn Akihito lapses into a
seemingly endless stream of self-pity, even when the drama concerns Umi or
Yuika. I understand in stories there needs to be a low point that the hero hits
that he needs to overcome, but not in a way that makes the character seem
irredeemably weak and selfish like this does. Akihito’s constant bitching and
moaning about how pathetic he is when confronted with a problem related to
Yuika or Umi makes it seem like he’s more concerned about himself than his
intended love interest. In defense of Umi’s route I can say that it thankfully
doesn’t last very long in that case, but in Yuika’s route it’s there for the
majority of the story. I’d say this makes the romance between the two hard to
believe, but believe it or not this isn’t the main cause, which brings us to
the heroine of this story.
While the main reason Yuika is
unlikable as a character in this route is how emotionally distant she is,
that’s really only part of the problem with her in the writing department and
while one could argue that’s the point as it’s her main character flaw the
overall problem negates that argument. The problem is that even though this is
supposed to be her route, Yuika herself is barely involved in it. Since we see
things entirely from Akihito’s POV, Yuika’s screen time is dependent on how much
they interact, which is very little. I’m almost tempted to say she has more
screen time in Riru’s route than she does in her own route but that would
require replaying this route for comparison, but I can say that put all the
other routes’ scenes with her together and not only would Yuika have more
screen time but more interactions between her and Akhito, many of them giving
her more character, than in this entire route. A romantic pair kind of needs to
talk to each other for the readers to buy the romance and even more so we can
experience the trials and drama they deal with in the story. As a result we’re
pretty much just “told” the plot instead of “shown”. We’re told how we’re
supposed to care about these characters even though none of them have acted in
way at all likable in this story, we’re told about Yuika’s problem and at the
end we’re told about how she resolves it herself just so we can get a happy
ending.
If anyone were to ask me if I had
anything positive to say about Yuika’s route the only answer I could give would
that it introduced me to a new emotional cycle. That if you hate something
enough, such as the main characters of this route, all that anger and
frustration will eventually burn itself down to a weary sort of neutrality
known as apathy. By the time this route reached what was supposed to be its
emotional climax I was surprised at how little I cared. I wasn’t even rooting
against the characters at that point; the story could have had a zombie
apocalypse occur with them all dying horribly and it wouldn’t have brought me
any joy. That was certainly an experience, though one I hope to never
experience playing a game ever again (though with my luck…).
In the area of presentation Harukoi
Otome does alright. The artwork is pretty good though at times some of the
character portraits for some of the characters like Kisaya lack some polish.
The music is okay but forgettable, but the best part of the sound department
and the presentation overall is the voice acting. This game features some very talented
VAs and having already mentioned Hokuto Minami, others you’d recognize include
Riru’s actress: Yukari Aoyama who many of you recognize as Kazuko/Wanko from
the Majikoi games or Yuika’s: Ran Touno who you’ll probably recognize as Yukie
from the Majikoi games, Tonya from Ayakashibito and Kaede from the Shuffle!
series. A shame the latter’s character had such a crappy route…
As for the ero scenes, they’re
okay. Admittedly the better ones are the post credits scenes.
In Conclusion:
Harukoi
Otome is probably one of the best examples of the term “mixed bag” that I have
encountered in a while. Of the six routes we have two good ones, a flawed strange
one that’s still worth a look, two routes that are second rate at best due to
weak story elements and a one that is absolutely awful. There’s enough good
that I can’t completely write this game off as terrible, but at the same time
the bad stuff is such I can’t give this much of a recommendation, especially at
the current price of about fifty dollars. I advise waiting for a sale or price
drop, and for that to compensate for what some may think is my having mercy on
this game I’ll be creating a new recommendation not from the days of Blistered
Thumbs.
Final Score: 6/10 Above Average
Author Recommendation: Wait For a Sale.
As for
the anime, I like it even though I know it’s an okay adaptation at best. It’s
basically an adaptation of Umi’s route with bits of Yuika’s and Riru’s mixed
in. I admit some of the stuff in there is weird like Kisaya’s role being pretty
out of character compared to her game portrayal and this one scene in the
second episode where I think some of the creators may have indulged in some
recreational drugs while writing it.
And
speaking of clearing backburners, there’s another game I’m close to finally
finishing involving an all girls’ school where the MC ends up transferring
there after helping someone in need. Won’t spoil what it is but I can at least
say it’s been a better experience than the game I just reviewed…
