February 2014 Eroge Releases

Love comes in many different forms. It could be a battle like in Sugar House’s Otonari Koi Sensou! or the sweetest dream, similar to Purple Software’s HapyMaher Fragmentation Dream. It’s enough to make people form ‘love observation’ clubs, like in FLAT’s Hikoukigumo no Mukougawa, or undergo special love training classes, as shown in Glacé’s Koishiki Manual. What is love to you?

Sigh, I had some small hope for Light’s game to not be complete failure but sadly they chose to disappoint me more than a parent watching their child major in performance art. Other than that it feels like more of the usual, the same settings we have seen a hundred times before, the same characters, and the same lame reasoning to turn protagonists into schoolgirl chastity absorbing black holes.

Otonari Koi Sensou!

Company: シュガーハウス (Sugar House)
Game site: おとなり恋戦争！
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
Yui and Suzuka lived next door to Yuuto and they’ve been together since they were born. They often fought over him and made promises to marry him when they grew up. He thought these happy times together would last forever, but they came to an end when Suzuka moved away.

Many years later, they re-appeared in front of his door. However, their love battle for him isn’t only limited to the two of them now, with his imouto-like neighbour Hotaru, lively kouhai Yuzu who calls him ‘oniichan’, and the respected daughter of the school chairman Manami also joining the fray. Surrounded on all sides, there’s no place to hide!?

Love is a battle. And it’s also a great spectator sport (can we add this to the Olympics?). I’m putting my bet on the two kouhai Yuzu and Hotaru who are fighting over the imouto position. All the heroines have a perverted quality, whether it be stalking, exhibitionism or a smell fetish. But Hotaru’s skill is top notch! She can sneak close to him undetected and she’s a kiss demon! She even has a key to his room already. How can anyone else win?

There is something reassuring about games that don’t even try, handing the reader the supposedly hard earned affection of all things attractively female within a ten mile radius so they only decisions they are forced into making boil down to which of  broad selection of four to five cardboard cutout’s virtual panties they would care to blitzkrieg. Why bother with all that writing and focus on developing characters, their relationships, motivations, and the setting these unfortunate Sims rejects find themselves railroaded along can be summed up with a paragraph shorter than the obligatory pedo bait in every game. Once this point has been reached to such a degree that a caption is enough to make one feel they have already played the game start to finish, capturing all of the leg humping inexplicably overly affectionate bipeds with a chest protrusions as though they were trying to earn a promotion at the unwanted heroine pound along the way. Being so completely sure that I have experienced all the game could possibly offer in the five minutes or so it requires to peruse the site peddling its animated humanoid wares, means I have saved myself the ten or so odd minutes I would have required to realize the game is tedious and generic were I to actually play it with a broken ctrl key.

Hikoukigumo no Mukougawa

Company: FLAT
Game site: ひこうき雲の向こう側
Release date: February 28, 2014 Delayed to March 28, 2014
Comments:
Eiri is a beautiful girl who is perfect in studies, athletics and style. She knows most things in the world… except for love. Lately, she’s been interested in her classmate Kouji who had turned down a confession by the school’s number one bishoujo Risa. Why would he not go out with her when every other boy would? Could it be because he already has a girlfriend? Or maybe he’s gay? She did some checking into it, but none of the possible explanations satisfied her. So, she started up the ‘love observation club’ to uncover the special circumstances behind his decision.

FLAT’s making a school-based game? And the scenario writer is Sakaki Kasa (Tsuyokiss)? Well, colour me interested! The soft graphics are just what I like, so I’ll just have to see how the trial is before making further judgment. But having a pure imouto is always a good start for every game. It’s probably why he turned down Risa. You’re free to dote on me anytime, Mina! Also, there’s a badminton CG! Woo!

Finally a game where you get to play from the perspective of a crazed stalker heroine, hunting her prey, observing him, finding a home for discarded products that have touched this youthful Adonis’s body picking up a few delicious skin cell flakes along the way. Then when you have amassed enough knowledge of behavior and a large enough pile of discarded combs and stained porno mags, that you can bring him to the home your parents abandoned you in to live a life of bliss devoted only to each other. What’s this you say? The game has nothing to do with anything remotely fun or interesting and all those thoughts were just hallucinations I had while being bored into a near comatose state by a game with less character than the pet brick named Shelly I keep to save braincells by bludgeoning my head with? Well that is just great, another game where they could have done something unique and interesting, flirting with greatness before deciding Icarus was the ideal role model for business decisions. Thus we are graced with yet another game where the school of pre caught fishy heroines all hop into your boat, eager to be the one chosen to grace your dining table just to spite you as they remove all the enjoyment in fishing for them in the first place.

Hitonatsu no

Company: ハイクオソフト (Haikuo Soft)
Game site: ひとなつの
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
During the summer of his third year, Masaru transfered to Kamakura Gakuen in his hometown which he hadn’t visited for nearly four and a half years. He used to pretend to be a ‘hero’ with his osananajimis Eri, Masaru and Miyuki, but they’ve since moved on from that childish stage. He didn’t think that things would change, but something happened during over the years he was gone.

“It’s almost time for the athletic festival. Let’s make it the best one ever!” Those words from the school’s popular broadcast personality Ako made him think back to that time. At the lighthouse, his friend Masaru’s imouto Chiharu touched her left ring finger and asked him if heroes existed. He felt a bit crushed, but hoped that things would be like they were before. “Yes, there’s a hero in this town.”

This is a game about nostalgia and youth. Who doesn’t want to relive those happy moments? Masaru hopes to bring back the night school festival and tries to get everyone back together. It reminds me of &, which I liked a lot, although this will definitely be less fantasy oriented. I’ll see how the trial is when it comes out. It probably won’t be for a while, as I expect this to get delayed multiple times.

If there ever was an argument that no hero or god for that matter, exists to be made, this game makes a strong point for both. Were either to exist we can be assured the people responsible for this game would likely not. I know as well as anyone there has not been a good eroge in quite some time, and even lowering expectations to mere mediocre appears to be aiming too high anymore. I can only wonder if these games are now made while drunk on cheap homemade moonshine and tripping on acid while sexually assaulting a selection of blow up dolls for the sake of inspiration despite just basing them on whatever show happens to randomly appear on late night tv. In this case their celebration over freshly minted means of conning idiots out of money called eroge, appears to be based upon power rangers meets anything written by Seo Kouji drama. Apparently in their minds the word “hero” is enough to turn plain bread into cake.

Innocent Girl

Company: フロントウイング (FrontWing)
Game site: イノセントガール
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
There are two types of artists: those who wish to portray something and those who wish to convey something. Wataru had given up on being either of them. Hiding his past, he planned to live a life unrelated to the arts. However, due to some family circumstances, he ended up transferring into the arts boarding school Kurisaki Gakuen. He shared a dormitory, “Dream house”, with four fellow students, who all have their own eccentricities: quiet classmate Kagari, reunited imouto Hinako, friendly osananajimi Konoka, and the beautiful semi-pro artist Kanae. His biggest secret was blown the first day of school. What will happen now as he has no interest in the arts at all?

Pure Girl was a very nice nukige with great art by Nanaka Mai (and a lot of H scenes). This looks to be almost identical to it. There’s the bracon imouto whose dream is to be oniichan’s bride. There’s the pure osananajimi, who’s actually a do-M (although not a perorist). They like in a dream house. And the cutest chara is a trap; last time it was Lemon-chan, this time it’s Ichigo-chan. Yes, he gets a H scene too. Well, even though there’s no originality to be found here, the writing is still good and the characters are adorable, so I’ll be playing this. Doridori.

There are two types of BS, the kind that is obvious to all that no one cares is BS because its so obvious, and the pretentious covering a messy litter box with a doily in the hope that no one notices BS. Guess which this is, go on, give it a whirl. In this case people care about story in a nukige to the same extent the average American cares about the rest of the world, so I have a hard time understanding why they even bother when a series of HCG on slideshow to a soundtrack of moans would be the same game.

It’s more fun than your average nukige because of the comedy, and you can’t get that from a HCG slideshow.

Sure you can, wacky HCG slideshows always make me laugh at least.

HapyMaher Fragmentation Dream

Company: パープルソフトウェア (Purple Software)
Game site: ハピメア Fragmentation Dream
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
This is the fandisk to HapyMaher. After a certain accident, all of Tooru’s dreams became lucid dreams. However, after that winter incident, his happy nightmares came to an end. Yuuko was finally starting to recover from her illness and could attend school again with him. With the help of his osananajimi Saki, Yuuko’s friend Keiko and the somewhat helpful Yayoi, they gradually became accustomed to the school life.

However, he could not forget about ‘her’, even though he knew that he would never meet ‘her’ again. He noticed his dearest nightmare Maia appear by his side. “It’s true that there is no dream that one doesn’t wake up from. However, it doesn’t mean that one will stop dreaming.” She whispered into his ear: “This is the story of a dream leading towards a sweet happy end”.

Wooooooo!! More Maia!! Come to me my dearest nightmare!! ^o^

Fandisk not shy about shoving the camera for the cover up some skirts.

Baka Moe Heart ni Ai o Komete!

Company: プラリネ (Praline)
Game site: バカ燃えハートに愛をこめて！
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:Re
Renren Gakuen is a school which promotes romance, with couples-only meals, events made specifically for couples, and a shrine where only couples may enter. It is said that a couple who ties the knot in front of the legendary goddess statue in the shrine on the day of the Christmas party will be happy forever. These phrases of “legendary” and “eternal love” make Shoutarou burn with excitement. He vows to find a girlfriend and confess his love for her in front of the goddess statue.

However, there are the ‘juubakusha’ who stand in his way. They despise the lovey-dovey atmosphere given off by the couples in the school and want to cancel the Christmas party! They also play tricks on couples to try to make them break up and attempt to destroy the statue. Shoutarou won’t put up with their ill actions! Nothing will stop him from becoming the best man there ever was!

There’s a horse on the character page. Ok, now that I got that out of the way… Whether or not you will enjoy this title will probably depend on if you can put up with a hot-blooded idiot like Shoutarou (or maybe he’s just very honest). Good thing he has an imouto Kurumi to somewhat keep him in check. Love those imoutos who still support their brothers even when they make total fools of themselves.

Nothing quite like pulling all the motivation for the character from the setting itself, virtually forcing him to trick some unfortunate girl into thinking he is attractive despite his vapid lack of personality no matter how many drugs it takes, a victim of society indeed.

Owaru Sekai to Futagoza no Paradise

Company: コットンソフト (Cotton Soft)
Game site: 終わる世界と双子座のパラダイス
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
This is the fandisk for Owaru Sekai to Birthday and Futagoza no Paradox. It includes after and side stories, some bonus H scenes and a mini game. Most importantly, it features a full route for chara poll victor Misaki, where she becomes Touya’s osananajimi and Ili is his true imouto. Misaki brightens up my life with her cheerful attitude! I only wish the best for her! Ahebero~n☆

Fandisk for a game I don’t even remember which begs the question of why it deserved one in the first place, oh well.

Shoujo Kyouiku

Company: たぬきそふと (Tanuki Soft)
Game site: 少女教育
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
New release date after being pushed back from January. The protagonist is in his thirties and is a teacher at a girl’s school. Not even having dated before and his dream of marriage being a distant memory, he only wished to train his students well and help them graduate successfully. It was at that time that he was transferred to another school as part of a school district reorganization brought about by the declining birthrate. He thought that things would like before, until he realized that there was a girl in his class which didn’t show up on the class roster. One day, due to a prank played by her, he was suspected of being a pervert by the rest of the students. Thus begins his relationship with three girls with communication problems who haven’t adjusted to the class and a ghost.

Tanuki Soft: our saviour in combating the balloon disease. All these mischievous little girls. They need to be trained well.

Creepy game for creepy pedophiles.

St. Monmosu Festival!! ~Omatsuri da yo Zen’in Shuugou!~

Company: Vanadis
Game site: 聖もんむすFestival!! ～お祭りだよ全員集合！～
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
This is the fandisk for the Monmosu series. All the characters from the past five games make appearances here, along with new heroines tapir Letes, dryad Prunus and baphomet Methi. With many mother-daughter pairings available, this should please those who want more of their favourite monster girls. Just don’t expect the scenario to be good with the size of the cast.

More fandisk, this time for those who enjoy a girl with a little less of that human disease we have all heard of.

Soushuu Seishinkan Gakuen Hachimyoujin

Company: light
Game site: 相州戦神館學園 八命陣
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
Yoshiya has been seeing continuous lucid dreams every night since he was small. Even though his mind doesn’t get to rest during his ‘sleep’, he still doesn’t experience heavy fatigue nor have ill health. Instead, he is brighter and more capable than other people his age. He thought of his special ability as one of his good points, and intended to live a relatively normal life. That was until he met Mizuki, who also had the same ability as him.

They were able to enter the dream world at will, but soon they found themselves caught in a world which could kill people and change history. It was a world from which one cannot escape. They were faced with the choice of either giving up and taking their own lives or to charge forward and try to break through this nightmare. However, they all felt like they were not caught up in this absurd situation by chance, but rather because it was their own wishes.

Another hot-blooded chuuni battle title offering by light’s G Yuusuke and Masada Takashi. I’m hardly passionate about this genre as a whole, but the trial didn’t put me off like other chuuni titles, so that’s probably a start. The protagonist seems pretty cool. It’ll probably take me a bit to accept the ‘die in dream = die in real life’ idea though.

While there is nothing wrong with expanding settings beyond the standard high school romance alternative to counting sheep, it seems companies like Light and Nitro+ have forgotten the word subtlety. Arbitrarily imparting world ending significance to events because they say so is not the way to establish a setting or connect the reader to the setting. This is the difference between “The characters fight an evil organization in their dreams” and “The characters traverse a new world populated only by naked consciousness while sleeping”. Though both sound similar, one makes you think about the possibilities while allowing for growth of the setting and characters, the other spells everything out from the start, removing the element of mystery and exploration while you read. Especially with the theme of dreams, the setting and exploration of it becomes even more important as the reader is supposed to question the reality of both settings, while having fewer restrictions on setting in a dream world allows for more creative design. Sadly none of these issues have been addressed here, and what you get is a generic battle eroge without much going for it. Blue pill for me, thanks.

Koisuru Kimochi no Hanakotoba

Company: ヘクセンハウス (HexenHaus)
Game site: 恋する気持ちの花言葉
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
This is the first title by HexenHaus. Takumi was entrusted with managing the student dormitory that had previously been taken care of by his grandmother. He went to the dormitory with his osananajimi Kana and greeted new residents Nanakusa and Sara. After the busy spring break, he started the new school term with Kana, Sara, and his friend since last year Tsubaki. Due to bad grades, Kana and Tsubaki also ended up living at the dormitory as well. Thus began the awkward house life with his osananajimi, friend, kouhai and senpai, as a new dorm manager.

This ‘plot’ has been used many times before, so there’s not really a need to dissect it. The art by Iroha and Satou36 is OK for a new company, but I am worried about tiro’s writing. With many other similar titles this month, I think I’ll try out something else.

I am getting tired of saying this, but a new company cannot afford to make generic games, even more so when choosing to take shortcuts in writing the characters meetings and interactions. If a new company is not going to try to innovate at least a little, let alone put some effort into their writing, what chance do they have against more established studios? All a game like this would take to make me at least consider the writers potentially competent is avoid throwing the protagonist into a pit of ravenous girls as part of the setting. Expand the dormitory, make it a male dorm, perhaps next to a female dorm, a co ed dorm separated by floors, or even remove the dorm itself as a tie in, ya know giving him a life outside of skirt chasing. Instead they chose to worst possible solution, forcing him to manage a dorm with all his female choices, not just one but all of them stationed in close proximity from the get go, with effort like this put into their story and setting I have to wonder how they would expect anyone to take such a company seriously.

Koisuru Shimai no Sextet

Company: PeasSoft
Game site: 恋する姉妹の六重奏（セクステット）
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
Shouma had been living with his mother in this green seaside city, but he found himself suddenly alone when she went overseas to be with his father. However, not soon thereafter, his sisters Kotone and Shiho returned to Japan to be with him, bringing an end to his ordinary daily life. Along with his close neighbours Yuuka and Suzuka and his classmates Mai and Miyu, which sister(s) will he choose to spend the summer with? 

SISTER SEK! SISTER SEK! SISTER SEK!

What? You thought I was saying something else? Well, it’s probably not far off considering this is a nukige based around three pairs of twin sisters. It seems like PeasSoft realized that their plots aren’t that good in the first place, so they just scrapped them altogether. There’s a game from ALcot coming up with a similar set-up, but with an actual story, so look forward to that instead! (I like slightly tsun twintailed imoutos though…)

I would rather walk on burning hot Legos for every hour this game would consume.

Koisuru Doll to Omoi no Kiseki ~Poupée de souhaits~

Company: sugar pot
Game site: 恋する少女（ドール）と想いのキセキ～Poupée de souhaits～
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
When he was a young boy, Tomoki met the puppet master Asuha who didn’t ‘use’ the dolls, but cherished them like people. He doesn’t remember those times clearly, but he felt like the dolls there were alive when he snuck into her mansion and talked with them. Those days were his most distant and happiest memories.

Now he works as a part-time freelance figure modeller while attending design classes at Tourin Gakuen. One day, there was a rumour of a suspicious person around town. He openly dismissed the rumours as unfounded, but was actually afraid due to his timid nature. It was actually a strange wooden doll which attacked him. However, a hooded girl with different coloured eyes which were bright like jewels leapt out to defeat the wooden doll and protect him, collapsing from exhaustion afterwards.

Then, another girl named Ena appeared before him as he was still dumbfounded at what occurred. She pulled out a figure from the doll, which he instantly recognized as his first figure Towa. She nodded and pulled up the hood from the fallen girl. She had the same face as the figure. “I… returned… to fulfill our promise… master…”

Fantastique! Charmante! Mignonne! Elles sont siiiii mignonnes, je les ramène chez moi! It’s not unlike sugar pot’s last title Tsukumo no Tsuki, from the mix of characters to the plot structure. I played that one due to the cute charas and loli-style art by Naruse Mamoru and Tsukishima Yuuko, and I’m sure I’ll do the same here (I’m treating it as a cute chara-ge). Towa and Ena are adorable, and the slightly tsun Amane is fine too! They’ve got a nice cast of seiyuu working on this title too, with Kawashima Rino, Aoba Ringo, Ogura Yui and Moka Choko voicing the heroines. I wouldn’t mind having some of my figures come to life too. 

Somewhat reminds me of Gekkou no Carnevale stripped down to be a moe eroge version of Rosen Maiden. Another of those games where they had some potential in their setting to make a decent story out of it but then decided that would be too much effort, so instead copy pasted the standard eroge template with a few terms switched around to account for Mr. protagonist playing with dolls. Ah well, for those that only care for cute CGs, aka Micchi, there may be something worth playing here.

Well, I don’t think it’ll be a memorable game, but it’ll be fun to play at least.

Koishiki Manual

Company: GLacé
Game site: 恋式マニュアル
Release date: February 28, 2014
Comments:
Ichinose Gakuen is a famous private school which is the best at everything, except its students have no romantic appeal. One fine autumn morning, the principal’s daughter Himeno declared that they will have a test to determine each student’s riajuu level. For someone who has never had a girlfriend, Hiroki naturally flunked the test. He was moved, along with five others girls who failed, to a special love training class called the ‘love manual’. Let the lessons of love begin!

I find it hard to believe that all the other guys in the school would have girlfriends already. The heroines are your typical ones: the delusional one, the ultra shy one, the hot-blooded one, the cool one that doesn’t talk much. Don’t worry, there is a love life for all you… unless the ‘juubakusha’ have their way! None of the heroines caught my eye, so I’ll be passing on this one.

And so the month ends with the laziest of the lazy games, forgoing all sense of logical progression and simply throwing some heroines out there with yet another half assed means of stapling them to the protagonists hip. It seems that slowly yet steadily all games are drifting closer to nukige, effort put into CG, with the rest of it being worthless trash.

Micchi’s Top 5 for This Month

1. Otonari Koi Sensou!
2. Owaru Sekai to Futagoza no Paradise
3. HapyMaher Fragmentation Dream
4. Hikoukigumo no Mukougawa
5. Koisuru Doll to Omoi no Kiseki ~Poupée de souhaits~

Zen’s Top 5 for This Month

1. When you wish upon a star~
2. Makes no difference who you are~
3. Anything your heart desires~
4. Will come to you~
5. … Except eroge it seems.

SUPER ORIZUKA TIME!!

Someone didn’t read Micchi’s warning label and gave him sugar I see.