November 2010 Eroge Releases

This is a light month with not much substance. The relative highlights would be AliceSoft’s miko-raising battle ADV Shaman’s Sanctuary, Liar-soft’s latest steampunk title Shiei no Sona-Nyl and ABHAR Trumple’s beautiful school-based Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete. One month closer to Koisora FD….

What a boring month this is, at least there are fewer games to cover making my workload that much lighter. Or that would be the case were it not for WordPress failing to autosave and my browser crashing thus forcing me to rewrite much of this post, as such I apologize for the writing, trying to rewrite something already done is quite annoying.

12+

Company: アニゼッタ (Anisetta)
Game site: 12＋（トゥエルブプラス）
Release date: November 26, 2010 Delayed to January 28, 2011
Comments:
New release date after being pushed back from October. Anisetta’s debut game is based off Arthurian legend. In a period of chaos and war, the throne is vacated with the death of the previous king. Arthur becomes the new king and is attacked by the 11 surrounding countries, but he fights them off and instead is viewed as the king of all countries. With peace finally in hand, the magician Merlin tells him to marry a princess from a neighbouring country. Even though he had taken her advice many times, he refuses to do so this time. She believes that it is necessary to strengthen the newly-found peace and that he is just afraid because he’s not used to being with girls. Don’t worry, she has a plan and the Knights of the Round Table will gladly help out.

Soon, every legend will be moe-fied. I was somewhat interested in the plot until it’s obvious that Merlin just wants every female to have sex with him for the future of the country. In essence, the setting is out the window. Regardless, the art is pretty horrible. I guess you’d only be interested in this game if you’re into armor-clad weapon-wielding bishoujos.

Let us ignore for a moment the terrible artwork with proportions resembling something created by a South American jungle tribe and focus instead on the well lets just call it a “Plot” for lack of a more descriptive term. We start with Arthur and the legend everyone is familiar with, then the oh so very clever creators of the game decided to spice things up a bit for their game. What we get in the end is little more than a random concoction some third rate writer who happened to believe using names from a popular myth would strengthen their story. Essentially the only real connection to the Arthurian legends are the names, everything else is a haphazard collection of poor excuses for H scenes.

Arthur was already moe-fied five years ago with Fate.

Jinki Extend Re:VISION

Company: 戯画 (GIGA)
Game site: JINKI EXTEND Re：VISION
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
Akira is a normal student who falls in love with his classmate Akao, who is also a miko of the nearby shrine. One day while walking together in the nearby forest, they come upon a mysterious container. They meet a man with murderous intent and a group of robots. This was an omen of the ‘lost life phenomena’ and the intense battles with the ‘Jinki’. Will they be able to survive this battle?

This is a parallel-story eroge based off the popular anime/manga mecha series Jinki: Extend by Tsunashima Shirou. It is considered the first all-ages manga to eroge adaptation. The seiyuu will be different from those in the anime. I wonder if they’ll put a lot of focus on mecha designs or more on the characters. I’m not too familiar with the series, but I’m sure that this’ll be a nice pickup for those into mecha. Hey, it’s GIGA and mecha. What can go wrong?

More terrible mecha plots to make me wonder why anyone who is 18+ would want to play them. Not having anything to do with this series to start perhaps I should not comment but this setup looks so shallow I feel it is best avoided for fans of quality mecha. Those who think everything GIGA touches is great or happen to enjoy shows like power rangers may find something to enjoy here however.

RPG Gakuen 1.5

Company: CIRCUS
Game site: あるぴじ学園1.5
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
This is a ‘powered-up’ version of RPG Gakuen. It adds a new OP (filled with bouncing breasts), a memorial dungeon, voices for all moemon, bonus voice clips and wallpapers.

Circus is such an apt name for this company.

It’s a place to have lots of fun, right?!

I’m afraid of clowns.

Sakura no Shippo ~Sakura Tale Fandisk~

Company: Fizz
Game site: さくらのしっぽ～さくらテイルファンディスク～
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
This is the fandisk to Sakura Tale. It features after stories for each of the 6 heroines from the original game, as well a route for Natsumi. There’s also an extra story featuring a crossover with Asanagi no Aquanauts, however characters from that game will not show up.

Fandisk for a game I have not played, so very interesting.

Shaman’s Sanctuary -Miko no Seiiki-

Company: ALICESOFT
Game site: しゃーまんず・さんくちゅあり -巫女の聖域-
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
Post-war Japan makes religion a mandatory part of education to heal those with wounded hearts. A few decades later, Japan is 99% religious with many different religions, some of which cause problems with their illegal recruitment of followers. The government decides to unite all the religions by selecting the ‘god amongst gods’. Itsuki has the power to heal injured people. His childhood friend Mizuno knows about his special ability since he saved her in the past and she persuades him to join the battle. Itsuki summons protection mikos to battle with mikos from other religions. However, there is an unusual side effect where he gets sexually aroused when he uses his powers.

AliceSoft’s latest title is a miko-training battle ADV. The game is split into 3 parts: ADV, training and battle. You can train your mikos’ stamina, intellect, attack and defence, as well as other stats. Then you can fight against other religions in a turn-based format. Victory will be served with delicious ichaicha. Of course, you can also get that from your own mikos (often many at a time). It actually sounds quite fun and AliceSoft is good at these types of games. Highly recommended if you’re into mikos.

Wow I am extremely impressed with Alicesoft, it is not every day you get to see a story with such a stupid setup ready to abuse a single specific fetish, it must have taken quite a bit of effort to think up something this pitifully shallow. I really don’t know if people just refuse to take pride in their work, are just lazy, or actually think concepts like this are a good idea, and to be honest I am not sure I really want to know either. As far as the game itself is concerned we have a protagonist that uses sexual healing, and a bunch of mikos who exist to fight, and presumably get injured in order to take advantage of his unique “Gift”. Even were I to ignore everything else, whenever a game focuses on a single trait for all characters, the story always suffers as a result of the concessions necessary to work in some level of individuality for the characters. The only way I could recommend a game like this is if you happen to only care about miko H scenes.

That actually would be quite a few people…

Touche.

Nanairo Kouro

Company: Journey
Game site: なないろ航路
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
New release date after being pushed back from October. This is Journey’s debut game, featuring the D.C.II scenario writers and illustrators from HOOKSOFT, MOONSTONE and Marmalade. Separated from his parents, with no school to attend and living in the large pipes in the park, Sakuta has been unlucky all his life. However, one spring day while on his way shopping, he gets drenched by a lot of water and a girl named Enishi also shows up proclaiming to be an apprentice goddess of marriage. Shortly thereafter Mirai, the ojousama of a wealthy company group, falls in love at first sight with him. She brings him along to the girls-only Princess Mary school aboard a luxury cruiser liner and helps enrol him in it. As the only boy among high society girls from many countries, has his fortunes finally changed? This will be a typical moe-ge, no more no less. Sadly in this month, it actually ends up in the top 3 for me…

Nice to see that even with a company composed of people from an all star group of established companies the writers can still manage to put my own laziness to shame. A plot this ill conceived does not bode well for this company’s future, given the first game has nothing but moe going for it without a story or protagonist to stand out amongst dozens of better written games. The biggest problem, more than the lack of impact from the setting and core plot is how easy everything is, even when you like moe games there is something missing when everything is pretty much handed to you on a platter at the start. Why even bother playing when there are plenty of better games which are just as moe to choose from. Nanairo Kouro is little more than a cute version of Classy Cranberries.

Love Death 555! ~v-Realtime Lovers~

Company: TEATIME
Game site: らぶデス555！～ν-Realtime Lovers～
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
Yuu has the ability to foresee the near future. He thinks it is more of a nightmare than a gift. His childhood friend Mizuno has bad luck and he has always saved her from accidents. One day, he saves her from dying in a traffic accident. In her place, someone else that they didn’t know passed away. A girl appears before them and tells her that she should’ve been the one to die. That’s when his bad luck began.

Ok, let’s be honest: no one cares about the plot. The latest game in TEATIME’s Love Death series adds an online multiplayer function. Along with the past features, such as webcam recognition, customizing your heroines, climbing walls like Spiderman, and shooting ‘webs’ like Spiderman, now you can shoot bullets that act like bombs, drive itasha into the ocean, do 5P with strangers, do 5P with strangers while tweeting about it… How exciting! The characters are cute though and I’m sure they put lots of effort in rendering them, at the expense of basically everything else. Well, at least you get to have sex in improbable positions.

Instead of numbering in numerical order, I believe this time Teatime has decided to warn you ahead of time about the number of bugs present, see if you can find all 555. I for one am hoping this game manages to crash Twitter so I have a legitimate excuse to ignore that worthless site. I have to admit having a good laugh at the idea of a multiplayer eroge though, reminds me of MMOs, where everyone you meet is a guy no matter what they look like.

I’m not even sure if most people would be able to run the game, considering how awful the framerate was in the past games.

Just another form of idiot proofing.

Kicking Horse★Rhapsody

Company: ALcot ハニカム (ALcot Honey Comb)
Game site: キッキングホース★ラプソディ
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
There’s a saying that goes: “Those who disturb the love of others should be killed by a horse’s kick”. However, it’s not only people that are obstacles in love. There’s lack of money, lack of time together and other little accidents that threaten romance. And of course, there’s actually no horse to kick people. So that’s why the “Kicking Horse Rhapsody” is here! They’ll get rid of all the nuisances so couples can focus on furthering their love. Souta realizes that he’s surrounded by three attractive girls within the group. However, how can he possibly fall in love with a girl when the other girls will be jealous and try to get in their way?

This is another mid-price game from ALcot Honey Comb following Riaimo. This time the focus is on jealous girls. There’s more comedy, and I do like the stories by Hozumi Kei. Personally I don’t like Shino’s voicing, but for a short game, this should be a good pick-up.

I would like to take a moment to point out the biggest disturbance to romance in eroge tends to be pesky little sisters, and I would be more than willing to join a group dedicated to killing them in the name of justice. The story itself is nothing special though it does feel like a fun comedy game to play. In fact this ends up as most likely the only game I will definitely be playing from this month as I have always had fun teasing jealous girls, it is just so fun, so a comedy game about just that makes me chuckle evilly already.

Shiei no Sona-Nyl ~What a beautiful memories~

Company: ライアーソフト (Liar-soft)
Game site: 紫影のソナーニル～What a beautiful memories～
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
In 1907, the advent of steam power and excessive use of it caused the air around New York to turn dark. There was an unexplained disaster called the “great disappearance” 5 years ago and the government blocked off the city. Now, there’s only one girl who walks in the ruins of the city: Elicia. Meanwhile, down below the ruins, Lily looks at the ‘sky’ which is stained purple. She doesn’t have any memories, but she knows that she has a mission to reach the edge of the purple sky, Manhattan. A mysterious boy A accompanies her and along the way, they learn more about the truth from others and are attacked by monsters on their journey. What is her true purpose? What actually happened 5 years ago to New York?

This is a fully-voiced game written from the perspective of Elicia and Lily. I appreciate that Liar-soft’s stories are much different from other titles, as well as having a different feel due to the art. It’s a little more complex than most games, but it should be entertaining. Nice OP too. My only problem for their games is that there’s never a character in the game that makes me want to play.

I will give credit where it is due for coming up with a setting that is unique for eroge, this is definitely something worth praise in a market where almost everything follows the same setting. Of course this also means that I should point out the story itself is little more than a standard “Fated adventure” type of storyline and therefore not worth much mention. Even if I had been interested in the story and setting which I most certainly am not, I have had trouble with the pacing of the overly descriptive writing Liar-soft uses, it bogs down reading and the flow of events to the point reading becomes a chore. The only real point of interest would be the setting if that happens to be something you find interesting.

Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete

Company: TRUMPLE
Game site: 失われた未来を求めて
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
New release date after being pushed back from October. Uchihama Gakuen has seen an increase in enrollment in recent years and as a result, a new school building will be constructed. The story takes place during the final school festival in the old school. All the club leaders decide to give it their all to make this the best school festival. Sou is a member of the astronomy club, which no one knows what they do. They are asked by the student council to solve the school’s mysteries before the end of the summer to cure the students’ uneasiness.

This was originally produced by ABHAR, before their bankrupcy announcement. Now it’s just the same production staff under a different company name. The seiyuu list is impressive, with the heroines voiced by Aoyama Yukari, Kawashima Rino, Arisugawa Miyabi and Tamiyasu Tomoe. And of course the art is high quality, especially their backgrounds. The only reservation is the storytelling, which seems a bit too normal, and also so far the feedback from the trial has been mixed. I might get it just for the art, but I’m not going to hold my breath for something spectacular.

While the artwork is probably going to be the first and last thing of note for this game, in between I find myself wondering how the creators of this game thought that this plot makes sense. Why would the student council ask an astronomy club to solve the mysteries of their school for the sake of students peace of mind when they are about to leave the school building to begin with? Furthermore it is an astronomy club and therefore would have nothing whatsoever to do with the schools mysteries in the first place, even if we assume they explain matters there is frankly no good reason for such a connection. At best I could understand if they asked an astronomy club whom most likely stay quite late at the school for activities to scare the students a bit by using the mysteries as a template. Given the weak plot I am not too enthusiastic about the game to begin with, but I will give it a shot considering how little else there is to play this month.

You should know that the astronomy club has links to the occult club.

Then I hope a meteor hits them.

Kazegahara Gakuen Spy-bu!

Company: スプートニク (Sputnik)
Game site: 風ヶ原学園スパイ部っ！
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
Kyouichirou belongs to a strange club at Kazegahara Gakuen called the ‘Spy Club’. It’s not actually a real club, but an unofficial one. The club members are all very eccentric: the club leader Chikae, unrivalled in leadership; his osananajimi Karin who is a hacker; super-mechanic kouhai Uta; and, reckless ex-gymnastics ace Haruna. They go around the school every day, completing various missions. One day, a strange person by the name of ‘Ghost Dog’ who causes mischief in the school. They start a mission to uncover ‘Ghost Dog”s true identity, but the student council is watching their every move in the shadows…

Dun dun dun. I wonder who the mystery man is! Ok, crazy people in a crazy setup. The characters are a little bit interesting since I want to see their antics, but the art feels like it hasn’t improved since echo.. The sample of missions on the website are not impressive at all. Maybe that’s because I’ve watched too much Bond.

And so my precious few braincells begin committing suicide in order to escape from what amounts to weapons grade stupidity. As much as I love wacky comedy along the lines of something like Excel, a plot conceived by turning the first thing they happen to see on TV into an eroge is hardly what I would call a good idea. The least they could have done was come up with a setting to match their nonsense characters and plot, but no they had to stick with the standard high school setting that makes suspending disbelief that much more difficult. Sure we all know this is not a serious story to begin with, but what is the purpose of reading to begin with when it honestly doesn’t even look very funny.

Yuusha to Kimi ni Hanataba o

Company: クライン (KLEIN)
Game site: 勇者と彼女（キミ）に花束を
Release date: November 26, 2010 Delayed to January 28, 2011
Comments:
The magic city Reifan is where thousands of years ago, a goddess saved the world from being taken over by the demon lord. The protagonist is an adventurer who travels around the world and he comes to Reifan. Along the way, he saves a female knight who was attacked by a monster. Before losing consciousness, she says “to the magic school in Reifan…”. Upon arriving at the school with her, the principal informs him that she is Princess Cynthia from the neighboring country, and that monsters have been threatening the area lately. He asks him to become friends with her so that she will not be worried. When he was leaving the room, a girl named Teana calls out to him and she gets him to stay at the Crystal Goddess Inn where she works.

I really don’t like it when the protagonist doesn’t have a name. It makes the whole story sound so tacky. But good for him in saving Cynthia, even though she should’ve known better than to take a walk alone. If it was a tentacle monster that attacked her, she would’ve been done for good. This is a typical adventurer in a fantasy setting theme. Kinda reminds me of Tanodan, although at least that had a somewhat unique system. Pass.

I don’t know if it is just me, but the word “Adventurer” is a taboo among taboos for fantasy stories, it is not only lazy but seems to be used in order to replicate the feeling of playing an MMO where your character is a generic “Adventurer” among thousands of others populating the game world. Not content with just one offense Klein even had to use the overused “Monster” moniker to complete their lazy setting. Even worse is how even the character interaction is reminiscent of MMO relationships, help someone, join party, go kill more stuff and meet others along the way. Have to love how this time it is even lazier than normal and we have a third party enforce a friendship, then a random character come along to live with according to flawless timing. I have had more than enough of the MMO ambiance while playing the games, I do not need my eroge to replicate the feeling of grinding as a faceless entity in a fantasy environment.

Ren’ai Saimin ~Tsun na Kanojo ga Dereru Saimin~

Company: C:drive
Game site: 恋愛催眠～ツンな彼女がデレる催眠～
Release date: November 26, 2010
Comments:
Takumi is a guy who always helps those in need. A person that he helped rewarded him with the ability to use hypnosis. However, he has no desire to use this for his own personal gain. However, one day, the mood has turned tense due to the banning of love within the school. He realizes that those girls opposed to love actually are afraid of being hurt in relationships, so he decides to use his ability to make all his classmates become honest with their feelings. Everyone goes works well, except that 5 girls all confess to him… and they’re all tsunderes!

Most hypnosis games have dark themes, but C:drive’s latest work instead turns it into an ecchi love comedy. It still doesn’t change the fact that because of it, he gets his own personal harem, even if he’s doing it for the ‘greater good’. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. I wonder how long the hypnosis lasts and how long it’ll take them to go from ‘no, I’m not ready yet…’ to ‘give me more!!!’. I’d rather my bishoujos not have to need a catalyst to fall in love with me, so pass.

I find myself hating this protagonist right from the start. Nothing ticks me off more than pointlessly “Nice” characters and their hypocritical inflexibility. Of course the fact all the heroines are tsunderes doesn’t help matters much as I have said many times before, focus on a single trait dilutes the value of that very trait defeating the entire purpose from the start, only the most shallow of readers can enjoy a story about a single trait no matter how much they may like it.

There might be a hint of truth in that. But I’m still waiting for Imouto Paradise!

I love when Micchi helps prove my point.

I-It’s not like I’m trying to help!!

Correct, I just hypnotized you.

Micchi’s Top 3 for This Month

1. Koiiro Sora Moyou FD Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete
2. Kicking Horse★Rhapsody
3. Nanairo Kouro

Zen’s Top 3 for This Month

1. Kicking Horse★Rhapsody
2. Ushinawareta Mirai o Motomete
3. December.

Same time. Same place. #ld555

One of those months where our top lists almost agree, I had almost thrown Nanairo Kouro in there just because it is perhaps the only other game I would consider playing, but I really don’t want to play it unless I hear it somehow manages to defy all odds and wind up being a good game.