fortissimo／／Akkord：Bsusvier delaying review

Having finished Fortissimo, I would normally be reviewing it now. Unfortunately, it looks like the game wasn't even complete when they released it!!! I guess I'll have to wait until the patch comes out in February.

Review: Lovekami

In the future of a slightly different Japan, the gods (kami) come down from the heavens to live once again amongst the people. However, the gods lack the basic common sense for living in the human world, so Amaterasu proclaims that they should be educated so that they can live alongside humankind. As a result, Souta's school becomes the trial case for the new program, and his school life takes a rather hilarious turn.


Plot 8/10: Really, I'm giving this score mostly because of Tsukuyomi's path and the sheer hilarity of this VN. As a break from my usual dark choices, this eroge was perfect. It's story is light and for the most part cheerful, without turning into a sex-romp like most games geared toward the 'megami-fetish' crowd seem to end up being. It's references to Shinto are fairly accurate, and for those who are interested, it explains some of the oddities that are hard to figure out using wikipedia and whatever random books on the religion end up in your local public library. The heroines and other characters have lively personalities that interact very well with each other, and the individual heroines' stories are interesting in and of themselves, even though there is definitely a level of absurdity to things overall. The protagonist is a hot-headed, dense type, though oddly it doesn't come across as painfully as most such protagonists tend to do. He's definitely an idiot, but he's also an idiot you'll end up liking despite yourself.

Visual 8/10: Hrm... what can I say about this? The appearance of this game overall is fairly good, with the chibis and chibi-cgs being outright hilarious just to look at. In addition, the other CG's, while not the best I've ever seen (considering the VNs I've seen in the past, that isn't an insult at all) are also good looking and definitely grab your attention.

Sound 7/10: In terms of voices, this VN did a very good of fitting VA's to characters, each one seeming to fit into their individual personality and body type quite well. In terms of soundtrack, the funny and cheerful tracks that make up the majority of what's in this game are good but sound exactly like you would expect to hear in any given light and cheerful eroge. The few serious soundtracks were once again somewhat generic but well suited to the scenes they were fitted to.

Overall 7.5/10: Overall, for those looking for a light game to play that isn't a sex-romp, and for those who have a thing for Shinto, foxgirls, and the like, this is a good choice. I can't recommend it to people looking for a serious or tragic experience, because this really isn't that type of game. At the same time, there are no real fight scenes and most of the game is seemingly constructed to make the player laugh until his ribs crack open. From that perspective, I could have probably given this a better score, but I'm reluctant to give that high a score to a game that isn't technically one of the best games I've ever played.


Note: Yeah, I figured I would go ahead and review this, even though I don't normally review the light eroge I play. I originally just wanted to play this to wash the rather nasty taste of Kourin no Machi (no fault of Akabeesoft there, I was just not in the mood for being depressed) out of my mouth, but this game turned out to be enough of a winner that I went ahead and played all four paths.

Review: Boku ga Sadame Kimi ni wa Tsubasa wo

In Boku ga Sadame Kimi ni wa Tsubasa wo, the struggle for power is split between two groups, fighting over holy relics that hold incredible technological knowledge. One is the Church, who says that the holy relics are a power beyond human abilities to handle and the other is RDA, a corporation that seeks holy relics for the sake of using the technology for the sake of the world.

Touya, the protagonist, is the son of a samurai family whose father died serving RDA's cause, and he too joins RDA in order to both avenge his father's death at the hands of the Church and succeed his father in RDA's holy relic recovery team.

Story 6.5/10- The first eroge to be produced by Akatsuki Works, it is easily the weakest I've played so far, story-wise. While the action scenes are up to Akatsuki works usual standards, in exchange the action-packed story moves so fast you don't really have a chance to get attached to the characters and the end comes before you have a chance to gain an emotional attachment to the outcome. To make things worse, a similar fight happens at the end of each arc against the same guy - though the people who oppose and ally with you depend on the heroine you pursued. On the plus side, for people who like dark VNs, the Church's blind belief in a predetermined future and RDA's hidden face are both creepy enough to give any sane person goosebumps, and that gives the story another facet that - while not really pursued to its full potential - is nonetheless compelling in its resemblance to existing and past organizations in our own world.

Visuals 8/10- Overall the CG's and backgrounds are well done, even though the contrast between the details of the characters' clothing and their somewhat less well-defined facial features are sometimes a bit of a put-off. Still, the style itself is visually pleasing for someone like me who is a bit tired of the over-smooth styles used by most eroge.

Sound 7.5/10- While the soundtrack is pretty good, with the action scenes having fitting music in particular, the sound effects are surprisingly weak, which made me deduct points, naturally.

Overall 7/10- Overall, this is a decent action VN with a number of near-fatal flaws to its pacing and visual style that can likely be attributed to this being Akatsuki Works first project. However, even so I still found it enjoyable enough once I stopped comparing it to the giants like Devils Devel Concept that came after it.

Review: Abyss- Homicide Club

'Sasayama Akira was born into a family of assassins and trained as a child to become one of them. However, due to psychological issues, his father decided to send Akira to a relative's house, to live a normal life.

Several years later, Akira gets asked by the student council president to investigate a rumor of a group called Abyss, a shadowy group of students responsible for abducting and killing students in a grotesque game.'

Summary borrowed from VNDB.com

Story 9/10: This is one of the better written VNs I've played, and it reminded me very strongly that Type-moon started out as a doujin eroge-maker as well. The writing and concept for the plot were truly excellent, the plot twists were well-designed, with tragedy and horror mixed in with bright moments that are often shattered in classic utsuge fashion. The humor is the story's only weak point, but that can't really be helped since the game's focus is on the serious part of the story. The characters in this story are compelling and the reason for the enforced playing order is evident from the start, as each playthrough adds more pieces of the puzzle, leading up to the final route which solves both the mysteries surrounding the protagonist and a good part of the ones surrounding the greater Abyss organization. There is enough brutality in this VN for the average blood-addicted fan, though probably not quite enough for those who revel in games like Gore Screaming Show. The protagonist is an interesting influence as well, with his actions being very characteristic of what you'd expect from his personal profile. Akira is not the strongest protagonist I've ever run into, but he definitely makes it onto my list of favorites. Overall, I felt myself to be satisfied with the last ending, which pretty much tied up all the loose ends from the other routes.

Visual 7/10: The style and level of the art is at about the same level as Tsukihime, very good for a doujin VN. I really fell in love with certain CG's, such as the one above. Other than that... the backgrounds were again similar to Tsukihime's (I almost thought that it was a tribute to the game) with faded out real-life scenes being the main.

Audio 9/10: Why am I giving this game such a high score in audio despite the somewhat low-budget music and the lack of voice actors? Perfect usage. The way they use the soundtrack in this eroge is truly magnificent, in a way that I haven't seen very often since the end of the psx era. Even though the soundtrack itself isn't always impressive, the way that it is used is a reminder of what is quickly becoming a lost art in the video game industry.

Overall 8/10: Overall, I can easily say that this game is one of the best eroge's I've played in a while and I'd recommend it to anyone who can stand the somewhat tragic tendencies of a horror-type utsuge.

Review: EXE

Synopsis: In a small city, a guy named Toya lives with his little sister Makina and his surrogate parent, Sayo, having lost his mother in a hospital fire ten years before. However, at night he passes a woman on the streets who looks exactly like his supposedly dead mother and follows her, joined by the transfer student, Yuu. When he catches up to her, she attacks and Yuu repels her with flames, only to be attacked herself by a girl with a katana.


Plot 6/10- To be perfectly honest, for a dark story-focused VN, this one lacks the depth that games like Devils Devel Concept and Dies Irae (or even Comyuu) possess, with the protagonist being your usual 'quiet, stupidly stubborn/naive, shounen' type. His personality, while rather straightforward, comes across as shallow in comparison to the depth of the protagonists from games like Dies Irae or even Draculius, where the protagonists' personality and drives were more clearly defined. However, the plot in general is interesting, with each arc having its own individual main antagonist (except the one 'peaceful' arc and the 'extra' arc with Sayo). The heroines are each distinctive personality-wise, with Kono Natsuki being by far the most memorable, both in appearance and personality in my opinion. If the story has a weakness, it is that it moves too fast and often lacks detail, skipping over parts where people die (though this is understandable, since Yuzusoft is normally a comedy VN maker). The real weakness, however, is in the lack of a real after-story for any of the arcs. Once the conflict of each individual arc is resolved, the rest takes little more than five minutes to read, leaving you still buzzing with the effects of the climax with no real tie-off to leave you satisfied.

Visual 8/10- Decent CG's, beautiful and unique characters, and some really good expressions (especially the psychopathic ones). Overall, it was one of the better looking VNs I've encountered.

Audio 7/10- The soundtrack isn't all that memorable, though the tracks are decent enough. If I had to point out a strength to the audio in this game, it would be the voices of Momiji and Kono. Momiji's sadistic personality hidden behind a flowery smile is well expressed in her speech patterns, making her one of the most memorable antagonists I've encountered in a while. Kono Natsuki's somewhat halting way of speaking does well in expressing her character's inexperience with human interaction.

Overall 6/10- It's sad when a story-focused VN's weakest point is the depth of its plot, but in this case it can't be helped. Despite that, this is a good choice to play if you like a supernatural/dark edge to your stories, but don't want to go too far in that direction/don't want to think too deeply. The character visuals and voices definitely pick up some of the slack from the story's flaws, but overall I can't give this one of my best ratings. I especially take off points for the individual endings, since none made an attempt at a serious after-story, even though they went out of their way to develop the heroines in their individual routes (to an extent that it made me seriously want to know what happened to them later).

Review: Hanachirasu

Note: I'm only doing a short review of this one, because frankly there isn't that much to talk about...


The story of Takeda Akane the crazed swordsman and Igarasu Yoshia the man who seeks vengeance upon him, it is based in an alternate Japan where the nuclear bomb was never dropped and Japan was never fully subjugated.

Story 5/10: To be honest, this game is the worst Nitro+ game I've ever had the misfortune to deal with. A story with a lot of potential is utterly ruined by loads of unnecessary information about sword techniques and other such information. While the story itself was actually pretty good, the amount of pointless text one has to wade through to reach the meat of the story is ridiculous, making it impossible to give this a high rating.

Visuals 7/10: Like all Nitro+ games, the visuals are well-done, if not as clean as some of the other games of theirs that I've played. However, the weakness is the backgrounds, which are horribly done in comparison with the characters, and at times make it difficult to get into what you are reading.

Sound 8/10: Sadly, the best aspect of the game is the music and the sound effects, with decent tracks and some lovely blood splatter and sword slash sound effects. Unfortunately, the sound isn't so good that I would consider it to be 'excellent', so I can't give it that good of a score.

Overall 6.5: Worst VN I've played since Princess Lover, with its only redeeming quality being the endings, which are actually fairly good, and the general violence of the game.

Akatsuki no Goei and FD Review

Synopsis: In a world where the gap between the rich and the poor in Japan has become so great that there is no hope whatsoever of filling in the gap, and persecution toward unregistered citizens has met its height, a young bodyguard cadet named Asagiri Kaito, who intended to quit the school where he was learning, saves a young woman from some kidnappers on accident, bringing about a truly odd turn of events...

Protagonist: I feel a need once again to stress that this is a protagonist that I very much like. He is a joker most of the time, messing with those around him and doing whatever he feels like at any given moment, not giving respect to anyone, whether they deserve it or not. He is seen as the class dropout, but in actuality he is stronger in terms of combat skill and physical strength than anyone else in his class. He has no hesitation whatsoever when acting for the sake of his own objectives and is for the most part level-headed under his trickster's mask.

Story 7/10: This VN is seriously funny... beyond funny. The character interactions and the frequent use of nori-tsukkomi, as well as Kaito's antics make for almost constant laughter. In opposition to that, when it is serious, this VN does it well, with the characters being nicely articulate (despite Kaito overusing slang and having a tendency to tease people, even in the most serious situations). Its greatest weaknesses, however, are how short it is and the lack of a real epilogue for the various stories. The fandisc makes up for this somewhat, especially in the cases of Tsuki, Tae, and Aya, as well as the new story with Anzu. However, the fact remains that this game was definitely made to have a sequel, rather than to be complete in and of itself, and thus I can't give it a score on the same level as the amount of fun I had with it.

Visuals 8/10: With nice character models with a wide breadth of expressions, as well as a style that is easy on the eyes, I found nothing to complain about with the visuals... As a guro fan, I'd have liked some of the action scenes to have accompanying CG's, and I would have liked to have seen more of Kaito when he's in a fighting mood, but those complaints aren't enough to cause any real problems.

Sound 8/10: The voices in this VN are very good, with each voice properly fitting the characters. Unfortunately, the music is unmemorable, though not badly done.

Overall 7.5/10: For various reasons, I would have liked to give this a higher score, but the little flaws added up, as well as the fact that they were obvious setting it up for the sequel from the very first. For fans of VNs with a high dose of comedy, some violence, and an occasion dose of human darkness, this is a decent VN to play...