Company: スミレ (SMILE)
Game site: ラヴレッシブ
Release date: February 28, 2013
Links: VNDB, Walkthrough

On Valentine’s day, Kaname was confessed to by four girls at the same time: carefree osananajimi Kotora, blonde rich transfer student Reo, baka genius kouhai Ryou, and small meddlesome senpai Mao. They vowed to try to make him love them before White Day. His objections would not waver the resolves of these aggressive girls who are after their man.

[from Micchi's blog]

Opening

Common Route

The first 30 seconds of the game made me feel like I just scored a harem ending; it’s Valentine’s Day and four girls confess to you! IT WAS AWESOME. The game then jumps back to the start of the school year. During this prologue you see how Kaname gets acquainted with the main heroines of the game. Kaname is your typical nice guy protagonist, so you can probably imagine how things play out. After getting a small taste of how things started, the game jumps back to the present.

Though the name of the game is “Love-ressive”, the girls aren’t as aggressive as you might expect. This is because the girls make a pact to keep the love battle fair. What you mostly see in the common route is situations where all the heroines try to appeal to Kaname at the same time. The “aggression” suggested by the game’s title is probably referring to how heroines force you to accept their invitations if you fail to respond during timed decision.

As you might have guessed, this game has literally ZERO story. Instead what you see is a lot of slice of life “slapstick” comedy (think tsukkomi). The comedy is quite funny…to start off with anyway. All the comedy is pretty similar and it happens quite often, so it gets kinda old.

The common route ends with Kaname confessing to one of the heroines on White Day. Honestly, the confessions feel quite abrupt. The development between Kaname and said heroine easily doesn’t feel enough to establish “love” However I never really expected much in the ways of development given the nature of this game.

Characters

Though the build-up is lacking, the confession scenes themselves were ALL awesome and each had a unique feel to it. Once the relationship is established basically ALL you   basically see is comedy, romance and icha icha. The mixture of this stuff is generally done quite well. A tiny bit of drama is added near the end of each route to lead up to the ending. The routes are quite short despite each having 4 H-scenes.

Okay let’s have a quick look at the heroines.

First you have freedom loving and energetic childhood friend, Kotora. She’s been in love with Kaname since childhood and is constantly causing trouble. As her nature probably suggests, she’s quite the idiot.

Next is the cheerful and slightly naïve transfer student, Reo. She previously went to an all-girls school and was very popular for being a male-like figure for the other girls. Because of this she isn’t very accustomed to being treated like a girl.

Third is Ryou, the cool child prodigy. She is so smart that she’s given the special privilege to attend classes as she pleases. Though Ryou’s a genius, she sometimes struggles with some aspects of common sense.

Last is Mao, the short senpai heroine who loves food. She often tries to act like an older sister figure towards Kaname. Her family is famous for the art of “tea ceremony” and she is quite adept at it.

Reo’s route does things PERFECTLY. The romance is good and the comedy is funny. The dash of drama at the end of her route leads to a very nice ending. Ryou would be a very close second if the not for her ending, which overuses the “genius” aspect of her character. As for Mao, I’m not a big fan of characters who keep insisting on acting like an older sister. The drama added to her route was relevant, but quite poorly executed. Kotora’s easily the most aggressive of the heroines and she uses the childhood friend excuse to try to “claim” Kaname. I don’t particularly care for her character, but her route was well executed and the ending was also good.

Route Ranking:

1) Reo

2) Kotora and Ryou

3) Mao

After completing the routes for the 4 main heroines you gain access to 3 mini routes for Ena, Miki and Mimi. Ena and Mimi are quite similar in the sense that they’re both pessimistic and prone to misfortune. Miki is weirdo who enjoys seeing people troubled and often lies to Ena to get her fix.

These mini routes are EXTREMELY short; maybe 15 minutes? The ending appears shortly after the single H-scene of the route, so there’s not really much room for any real development. Ena’s route and Mimi’s route were extremely entertaining because the comedy was super funny. Miki’s route is a lot more general and because of that my opinion of it is a lot more neutral.

For better or for worse, there isn’t a mini route for the Sakamata triplets. I’m sure a lot of you guys would’ve wanted to see a 4P scene, but I didn’t really care for them. Unless you’re into girls who are OLDER than you called you “onii-sama”.

System, sound and graphics

The game uses a timed decision system which they refer to as “Love Judgements”. A heroine will make an invitation and if you don’t respond within the time limit they’ll “force” you to accept. Heroines act fidgety during the love judgement and will have a reaction at the end of it. HOWEVER the reactions for the accept, reject and time out instances are the same across heroines.  So heroines will often feel VERY out of character because of this fixed reaction.

In the game there’s a SNS called “Tsubuyakii”. The heroines claim that they’ll use it so that you can choose which one of them to meet. However in reality this SNS isn’t actually used for anything and is really just there as an extra.

There’s no feature to load from the message log, which is annoying.

Nothing much to say about the graphics and sound for the game.

To conclude

Characters: 7/10
Romance: 7/10
Comedy: 7/10
System: 5/10

Overall: 65/100

If you’re not a fan of slice of life romance comedy then this isn’t the game for you. Even if you ARE a fan, think carefully before deciding to play this game. The characters are quite cute and the comedy is very decent. However the severe lack of storyline makes gameplay a chore at times. The love judgement is somewhat interesting at first, but it gets super old once you see how flawed it is. The only routes in this game I would say are worth playing would be Reo’s, Mimi’s and Ena’s. So if you DO choose to play this game, I suggest finding a 100% save file so that you have access to the mini routes.

Titles I’ve finished lately which I consider write worthy are:

• Shukufuku no Kane no Oto wa, Sakura-iro no Kaze to Tomo ni
• Aete Mushisuru Kimi to no Mirai ~Relay broadcast~
• Lovesick Puppies -Bokura wa Koi suru Tame ni Umaretekita-
• Lovely x Cation 2
• Hitotsu Tobashi Ren’ai

I intend to write a review for “Shukufuku no Kane” and that is slowly coming along. Amoirsp expressed interest in joining me to write something for “Aete Mushisuru Kimi to no Mirai”. However it seems he only intends to write about his love for “Kei”, so that’s in the “maybe” pile for now. I suggested to Oot about doing a joint review for “Lovesick Puppies”, but that hasn’t really expanded into anything solid so far. Aedes and Fuzzyhobo are currently both playing LxC2 and there are plans for a 3P for that (LOL).

As for when what comes out, I have absolutely idea as of now.

When I offered to review Mottoane, Aero seemed to think it was a nukige. On the contrary, Mottoane is a family comedy with a healthy mix of story and slice-of-life. Plus, there are 8 BLOODY ROUTES…and none of them are short. Since that’s a lot of ground to cover, I’ll forgo an in-depth review so that I can at least mention all the routes and heroines.

I had COMPLETELY forgotten that Fuzzy mentioned he wanted to write a review for this game.  He doesn’t mention it for months, then BAM! He emails me with the whole thing >___>. 

Anyway, this review here was written up by Fuzzy and I’m just posting it on his behalf. Enjoy ^^

Company: CandySoft
Game site: もっと 姉、ちゃんとしようよっ！
Release date: July 30, 2010
Links: VNDB, Getchu, Walkthrough

Souma Ichijou goes to an all-boys school by himself in Hokkaido. One day, he received a call from one of his older sisters, telling him that their father had become sick and collapsed. He quickly returns to Hakkakubashi and seeing his five downcast sisters and sickly father, he decided to stay to take care of his father (Borrowed from Micchi). However, this is all turns out to be a ruse to make Souma come back home. Now starting high school, Souma must come to terms with his family and friends, who have all drastically changed in the 3 years he’s been away.

Opening

Characters/Story

Instead of a common route, Mottane has an extended prologue followed by the route selection.

The story arc of the prologue revolves around Souma reacclimating to life in the Ichijou house. Although his sisters re-welcome him with open arms, Souma thinks an unresolved tension exists between him and the family for various reasons. You see, Souma is very conscious of being the only adopted child of the family; and why he left in the first place involves when their mother passed away… How the whole thing resolves is very touching, although Souma’s paranoia is ridiculous at times. Eventually, Souma is convinced that his family loves him and he opens up to his sisters again.

Ugh…that was too serious. Mottoane is a COMEDY first and foremost. Besides his sisters, Souma also reunites with his neighbors the Asuharas, his childhood friends, and meets new companions. The majority of game focuses on Souma’s daily interaction with his sisters and his friends…which spirals out of control quite often and is also Mottoane’s strongest aspect. What would be the common route shenanigans is scattered across the slice-of-life elements in the 8 routes. In many routes, I was looking forward to Souma hanging out with his friends (mentioned later) more so than spending time with the heroine.

As for story, you get bits and pieces of what happened with the Ichijou and Asuahra families over the 3 years Souma was gone and investigate further depending on the heroine. The game has 5 Ichijou sister routes, 2 Asuhara sister routes, and 1 non-sister route. The story in some routes drags and/or falls flat, but there are several strong and heartwarming moments. The routes also don’t emphasize taboo/immorality that much since Souma and his sisters aren’t blood related. But that doesn’t matter anyway since most of the heroines don’t see Souma romantically till about halfway through their routes. Consequently, slow burn romances mean the icha icha is scarce in game, but to compensate there’s plenty of solid comedy and slice-of-life.

Souma

The only adopted son of the Ichijou family. He’s polite and kind, but timid, shy, and afraid of depending on others. He is oversensitive and overthinks EVERYTHING. In my book, Souma is a hetare. However, by the end of the prologue, Souma realizes how useless he is and tries to amend his ways when the individual routes begin. Souma’s character arc entails navigating the perils of youth and learning when to depend on others and when to man up. Initially, he tries to apply himself by spending more time with your selected heroine and repaying their kindness in various ways. Gradually watching Souma break out of his shell and score little victories with the heroines is appealing. In the real world, Souma would still be considered useless, but being slightly less useless = CHICK MAGNET by eroge logic.

However, all this goodwill sours at 1-2 crucial moments in some routes, when Souma temporarily relapses to a hetare at a climax. Souma chokes, his character progression gets thrown out the window, and it’s is INCREDIBLY frustrating. The scenario is decent overall yet the writer seems to think true character development requires hetare moments. Nevertheless, Souma always gets outside help, everything works out in the end, and all routes have happy endings…no thanks to Souma. I want to emphasize that there are much worse protagonists than Souma, but the writer should have considered that putting more effort into fleshing out Souma’s hetare doesn’t make it any more appealing.

Fuuko

(CV: 真中海 = Manaka Umi = Harumi Sakurai)

The oldest Ichijou sister and the substitute mother of the family. Despite her beauty and loving personality, she is clueless to romance. In her route, Souma helps Fuuko with housework and sees more of her moe side, which involves sweets, alcohol, and her ditziness. They also ward off Fuuko’s persistent suitor while at the same time they both agonize over crossing the sibling boundary. In addition, since Fuuko has always been taking care of the family, she missed out on much of her youth and future dreams. Thus, Souma tries to help her find fulfillment in life beyond taking care of the family. She also has a complex about being compared to her mother and Souma must decide later whether he loves Fuuko as a woman or a mother. Ultimately, Fuuko’s character arc with comparing herself to her mother is very heartwarming and well done. Fuuko is a high quality onee-san and probably has the strongest story route.

Touka

(CV: 一色ヒカル = Isshiki Hikaru)

The second Ichijou sister. Touka wears the pants in the house when their Dad isn’t around. She’s also the principal of the school <_<. Touka is all about gap more: she’s upright and serious in public but lazy, fickle, and loves to be spoiled at home. Her route did not play out at all like I expected (in a bad way). Instead of taking advantage of the implications of having a school principal heroine, the majority of the route takes place outside school. Souma helps relieve Touka’s stress from work by spoiling her/letting her depend on him (massages, naps,…boob sandwiches) until they get more and more intimate…that’s it. The only drama relates to the their father and elaborating on some events in the prologue. Overall, Touka isn’t my type and her route was disappointing.

Kyou

CV: 海原エレナ= Kaibara Elena = Hyousei)

The coodere middle Ichijou sister. Kyou is a college student and also a part-time instructor at Souma’s school. She hardly talks and has the least screen time of all the Ichijou sisters outside her route. Deep down though, she struggles with expressing her emotions and gets embarrassed easily. Kyou’s route focuses on her secret nightlife of fighting evil spirits (transformation included!). Souma stumbles upon this secret when trying to learn more about Kyou and is inevitably intertwined with her mission. We also learn more backstory around events alluded to in the prologue. Unfortunately, you spend far less time interacting with Kyou than other heroines and instead get a serious route that is predictable and cliche.

Suzune

(CV: 理多 = Rita (Yes, that Rita))

The fourth Ichijou sister and a 3rd year student at Souma’s school. Without a doubt, the best performance and character in the game. Labeling her just the genki airhead nee-san is an insult to her awesomeness. Suzune says and does a lot of silly/crazy stuff, but she is VERY funny and VERY moe (CandySoft describes her as 残念可愛い). There’s no telling what will happen when Suzune enters a scene. She might go berserk, she might shuffle speaking styles, she might complain about dieting, or she might show unexpected heart and great dere. Most of my favorite moments in Mottoane involve Suzune and I had no complaints except MORE MORE MORE.

She is also a fledgling idol known as Hidari (it’s obvious so not really spoilers, her seiyuu is a singer too). However, on stage, Suzune is meek, clumsy, and the polar opposite of her normal crazy self (but still funny). After learning the truth of Suzune’s part-time job in her route, Souma becomes her manager. You learn about what motivates Suzune to sing and Souma tries to instill more confidence in Suzune as they get more intimate. The actual story was okay, but more Suzune make ups for anything. You can tell WAY more thought was put into her character than the other heroines (she also won the character popularity poll). Overall, Suzune hits the comedy/dere/moe pressure points a hundred times over. I already liked Rita as Yuuki Amagase from Lovely x Cation, but she goes above and beyond with Suzune. I wish she would do bigger eroge roles more often…

Mio

(CV: 桜あずき = Sakura Azuki)

The youngest Ichigo sister. Mio is your otaku loli imouto onee-san. She is a sheltered child and the family struggles with trying not to spoil her. Mio likes mirroring the words and actions of her family and friends and is especially fond of Souma. She also has a teddy bear that she never separates from. Since they are in the same class, Mio is attached to Souma for most of the routes. While Mio is a great companion throughout the game, I didn’t really remember much from her route because she’s not my thing…mainly insubstantial Mio moe and her coming of age.

Misa

(CV: かわしまりの = Kawashima Rino)

After clearing an Ichijou sister route, you unlock the routes for the Asuhara sisters. The Asuharas siblings are half-French and their family runs an okonomiyaki shop next door to the Ichijous. Misa is your typical strong-willed queen type and she considers Souma a sibling just as much as the Ichijou sisters. Beside Souma obeying the whims and commands of his onee-sama, Misa’s route focuses on the two working on a garden shared between the backyard of their houses. You also learn how Misa’s relationship with the twins soured, which involves Misa’s work potentially ruining her family’s lifestyle. As much as I like Misa, her route is pretty mediocre with hardly any romance until the end.

Aruru/Kurara

(CV: 桜川未央 = Oukawa Mio)

The middle Asuhara siblings. Aruru (Arles) on the left is tsundere and Kurara (Clara) on the right is deredere. Whereas the other characters are fleshed out despite their archetypes, the twins play their archetypes too much.Their route is loaded with forced melodrama and near the end, you have to choose one or both of the twins. I don’t care to say much more…the twins are pretty messed up and the worst part of this game.

Claudia

(CV: 楠鈴音 = Kusunoki Suzune)

After clearing an Asuhara route, you unlock Claudia’s route. She is a member of the student council and the leader of the Hanagumi, an all female club which is supposed to represent the girls in the school (although they only gawk over Claudia onee-sama). Despite being an English foreigner, Claudia acts very Japanese and is essentially a Yamato Nadeshiko. She’s hot when she’s graceful and cute when she’s flustered.

Claudia is the only non-sister heroine and her route is surprisingly refreshing in a game like this. The student council president, Ryuudou, and Claudia ask Souma to join the Hanagumi in order to bridge the gap between males and females on the student council. Ryuudou is a gynephobe and Souma’s childhood friend that likes to pop in and out of each route. Claudia has a crush on Ryuudou and so Souma and company try to hook them up. However, Souma falls in love with Claudia in the process. Fortunately, Claudia might like Ryuudou for the wrong reasons…and Souma and Claudia might have a closer past than they realize. There’s some squicky  melodrama later in the route, but overall, I thought Claudia and Souma’s relationship outweighed the bad parts.

Route Rankings: Suzune=Fuuka=Claudia>Kyo=Misa>Touka=Mio=Aruru/Kurara

For the best routes, the character quality and comedy outshine the story, but the weaker routes just can’t compare. Other than some inconsequential plot points, what you will miss out on in the weaker routes is more screen time from the amazing secondary cast.

Other Characters

Mottoane has a strong ensemble cast that is very entertaining and that is as fleshed out as much as the heroines. They’re present in most of the routes and Souma usually depends on them or his sisters to help solve problems. Noteworthy mentions include Kirinji Tachibana, who is related to the Tachibanas from Tsuyokiss, Shanti, another foreigner glued to Claudia with a split personality, Ryuudou mentioned earlier, and the eccentric father of the Ichijou family (voiced by the immortal Norio Wakamoto).

Nevertheless, the male character who steals the show along with Suzune is Chidori Asushara. He’s the youngest in his family and is Souma’s best friend through thick and thin. Chidori is the tsukkomi in a world of boke and has some great reactions to all the crap he has to deal with. He also crossdresses for…reasons <_<. (CandySoft admits they might have made Chidori TOO interesting, he ranked higher than half the heroines in the popularity poll.) The meat of the game is the daily interaction of Souma, Mio, Chidori, Kirinji, Shanti, Suzune, and Ryuudou. I never found their time together boring because they had great chemistry and interact in a variety of situations. In fact, what kept me going through the weaker routes were the shenanigans of Suzune, Chidori, and other secondary characters.

Graphics/Sound/H-Scenes

Despite having almost 100 CGs, the CG count in game feels much lower because there are so many heroines. I like the art of Sumeragi Kohaku, known for his work on nukiges and the LL Milk doujin circle. Some of you might protest the heroines’ proportions, but I’m okay with kyonyuu ^_^. Soundtrack is good but it is only a measly 13 tracks, so the bgm gets repetitive. Several main characters voice minor characters too if that bothers you. Other than that, no complaints with voice acting. Each heroine has 1-3 scenes. The couple choices in each route are all ero related.

Most of the heroines have one short scene and one medium length scene. Some 3P fantasy scenes are unlocked in the extras as you clear routes. Most of the scenes are story based and some are awkward. Overall, the game prioritizes content over ero.

Final Words

Story 7.5
Characters 8.5
Graphics 7
Sound 7

Moe: 8/10
Comedy: 8.5/10
Setting: 7.5/10
Romance: 6/10

Overall: 75/100 (not a total)

Despite mediocre production values and some disappointing routes, Mottoane has plenty of amazing characters/routes, comedy, and slice-of-life for an overall above average eroge experience. I will play the fandisk sometime in the near future. I hear good things about Gun Knight Girl too, also by CandySoft and with the same writer and artist.

ATLAS Friendliness: Easy/Medium

Kyou’s route goes into some Japanese mythology that is beyond Atlas’ capabilities. You’ll also have to rely on your personal proficiency for some of Chidori’s delinquent speak and Suzune’s occasional craziness. Other than that, the dialogue is straightforward.

Short Impression

Name: GunKnight Girl (ガンナイトガール)
Company: CandySoft
Release: 2012/12/21

Route Taken:

Nanami Renka
A yandere who will stab herself to get your attention.

If you are looking for a good story and thriller, GunKnight Girl is a perfect choice. The writer(s)  is very good at building up the suspense which made the readers unable to stop reading. The heroines in this games are also very interesting…in a twisted way. For a weird person like me who love twisted girls more than  pure girls, this is a big appeal point.

Name: Prism Recollection (プリズム◇リコレクション！)
Company: クロシェット
Release: 2013/02/22

Route Taken:

Uisaki Hinano
slightly tsundere, ドM, 後輩 and 巨乳…can’t ask for more XD

Unlike Aedes, I love big breast(巨乳) and I hate flat-chest(貧乳) so I have no complaints whatsoever about the heroines’ bust sizes in Prism Recollection. Actually, other than the overly large breast size, this game is a pretty normal charage. It comes with various types of heroines and if there is a heroine that you like then go for it, otherwise I don’t see you should be bother playing this game.

Name: Hapy Maher (ハピメア)
Company: パープルソフトウェア
Release: 2013/02/28

Route Taken: 

Hirasaka Keiko
I am not really a fan of Ringo’s voice and also not into kuudere…so I really have no idea why I played her routes =.=”

At beginning, the motivation that made me played this game is the sexy costumes that the heroines wear when they are in dream world. However this game proved itself to be more than just that, since the story that the game spinned were surprisingly good. The mysterious air build by an excellent set of soundtracks reminded me a lot of はつゆきさくら. Another selling point of this game is that all the heroines are voiced by very famous seiyuu: 五行なずな, 青山ゆかり, 風音, 青葉りんご and 遠野そよぎ.

Name: LOVESICK PUPPIES -僕らは恋するために生まれてきた-
Company: Cosmic Cute
Release: 2013/03/22

Route Taken:

Karakouji Orie
when a strong girl like Orie go dere and wear a choker and willing become your puppies…hnggg!

Hoshina Yuki
A very well done childhood friend character and probably the best heroine in the game

Lovesick Puppies is very well known among erogamers for its catchy opening song and in fact that is the main reason that made me played the game. Although the common route of this game pretty long and interesting, it is very unfortunate that the individual routes are short and very lacking. The best thing that I find in this game is how the Main Character is not whimpy and useless, but is instead very capable and respected by all the heroines.

Closing

If you feel that this post is very sloppy then you are very right because I find writing short impressions is surprisingly harder than writing a full review and on top of that, I dont have much time to spend correcting and rewriting like usual. I hope that I will have enough time to write something better than this next time and sorry for such a rushed  article.

Cao~~~ (￣▽￣)ノ

Putting aside whether you agree with me or not (that corruption is a good thing), I would like to thank those who have commented on the Introduction to Corruption (Part 1). Many of your comments have inspired and helped me to decide on what to write for this article, the second part of the introduction.

WARNING: Since the topic of this post is on corruption, naturally there will be HARDCORE NSFW pictures, usage of vulgar words and opinions that some people are not comfortable with. If you think you that will be unable to stomach what to come, I suggest you stop reading this article.

YOU HAVE BEEN STRONGLY WARNED!

Reason 4 to play a Corruption Game:
A Corruption Game allows you to see a story from a different PoV.
I especially like playing as a Demon Lord(魔王) or Prince of Darkness.

Opening

The main ideas for this article actually came from a comment made by Tyr(@Tyrosn) on my previous Introduction to Corruption. Although we do not have the same point of views in regard of Corruption Games, I am really grateful at him for posting his thoughts because different opinions are always good a source of inspirations.

“I never understood the fascination of “pure” corruption. For me it is a very predictable concept with little respect to the characters original personality. From the beginning you know that the characters will try to resist but eventually they will fall down to the evil path.” — Tyr(@Tyrosn)

Reason 5 to play a Corruption Game:
Corrupted Heroines are extremely loyal and devoted.
They will betray their friends and lovers for your sake.

Fascination toward Corruption

Corruption Games are Very Predictable

It is true that corruption games are usually very predictable because we know that the heroines will most likely succumb to sexual pleasure and fall into the dark side. However when you play a charage, don’t you also know or at least expect that the heroines will face hardship together with the main protagonist and later fall in love with him? What will be your reaction if the should-be pure love charage you are playing suddenly end with a NTR? You probably will not be happy at all. My point is that being predictable is not a necessary a bad thing because a predictable game guarantees an outcome/ending that you want.

What is it then you enjoy from playing a Corruption Game?

Let us go back to our charage analogy. When a player plays a charage, he is of course playing for the characters, that is why the game is categorized as a charage in the first place. The same line of reasoning can be applied for playing a corruption game as well, people who play a corruption game simply enjoy the idea of corrupting the opposite sex.

The challenge in making a good Corruption Game
is to come up with a new and refreshing method of Corruption.

In other word, there is no way a person can enjoy a corruption game if he does not like the concept of corruption in the first place. This is why on my previous article I wrote that: people who like it will like it, people who don’t will never get it.

Difference between Corruption Games

Corruption Games are not as linear and shallow as many of you guys may think. Simply because there are two individuals who like Corruption Games,  does not necessary mean that they will like the same games. Even if both of them like a particular game, they may like that game for very different reason. There are more to Corruption Games than just converting heroines into sex slaves.

So what is it that make a certain player prefers a particular Corruption Game more than the other?

1) Physical Method of Corruption
Different Physical Methods of Corruption usually entertain players through visual and audio means. Some people may like to see heroines full of bruises after being whipped while some other people may like the heroines moan like crazy after being fed with aphrodisiac. Some people may like to see heroines with blank eyes because they are under the influence of hypnotism, while some may like heroines in blank eyes because they are dead inside due excessive sexual trainings.

2) Psychological Method of Corruption 
Psychological Methods of Corruption on other hand, provide the thrills through situations. In one case where a corruptor wanted to corrupt another man’s wife, he might try to drown the wive in guilt by pleasuring her in front of her husband. There are also stories in which the heroines got consumed by hatred because she was abandoned by her comrades and decided to give in and work for the dark side instead. Some people may prefer one situation more than other.

3) Speed of Corruption
This one is pretty straightforward. Some players like the heroines to fall fast, while others like the heroines to get corrupted little by little.

4) Using the Corrupted Heroine

One Interesting Way to use a Corrupted Heroine:
Tell her to control and corrupt another man

Once heroines are corrupted, all the fun shift from corrupting the heroines to exploring in what ways the corrupted heroines can be used. Unfortunately, there are not many varieties in using the corrupted heroines.

Respect towards the Characters Original Personality

When one heard the term “Corruption Game” or “Corrupted Heroines”, the first thing that most people have in mind is probably something like this:

A condition where the heroine is broken completely to a sex slave.
None of their original character left intact.

However, people need to know that there are also Corruption Games that do not break the heroines to this extent. For example, in VenusBlood ~Frontier~ there are eight events for each Goddess, four before they are corrupted and four after they are corrupted. Through these events, you can see how the character of these Goddess change over time. Each Goddess has her unique initial personality and unique corrupted personality.

Regretto from VenusBlood ~Frontier~
She turn from a shy and timid girl
into an aggressive and spoiled girl after being corrupted.

Concerning ‘character development’ in Corruption Games, there are two common versions:

1. Corruption Games which force Heroines to submit, strip them of all human rights and treat them as sex dolls or sex slave. In this version,  the heroines most often lost their original personalities
2. Corruption Games which force Heroines to submit, grant them the power of darkness and take them in as allies. In this second version, the heroines usually still have some of their original personalities plus their new personalities.

For those who understand Dungeons&Dragons terms, the first version is an example of Chaotic Evil while the second version is an example of Lawful Evil.

Ending

Although I still have enough materials to go on for another 1000 words, I think this is a good point to stop for today and save those materials for the next time. For this reason, I can safely say that there will probably be a third part of this Introduction in some time not so soon（￣～￣;）.

Before I completely end this article however, I want to remind everyone to keep an open-mind and forgiving heart. Please refrain from leaving any hate messages or comments. Thank you.

Reason 6 to play a Corruption Game:
Corruption is a fetish that can easily merge with other fetishes if needed to,
especially the costume fetish.

Cao~~~ (￣▽￣)ノ

Now I shall spend the rest of the post explaining why you should blame everything on Kurafuta.

I’ll also be saying a few words to make it look like I’m actually doing stuff around here =D. 

I didn’t know she can read my mind, until this image came along then it became clear she is a true psychic echoing and even translating my thoughts almost word for word. You see, all throughout the route she made it her mission to make sure you never forget the fact that you two are twins. “It’s only natural that twins sleep together.” “It’s only natural that twins live together.” “It’s only natural that twins spend every waking moment together.” “It’s only natural that twins _____.” Yes, I get it the second time around, or maybe the third since I can be a bit slow at times, no need to remind me every other sentence. I’m not suddenly going to mistake you for a stranger when you’ve the same hair color, same eye color, and is pretty much me with boobs attached.

You can see they’re really trying to sell particular archetypes here. Just in case you didn’t catch it on their character profile page, they made sure you know exactly who each character is catered to by shoving their moe points in you face so much it becomes suffocating. You like twins? See previous paragraph ↑. You like the energetic but dumb type? Count on Mikoto to show off her athletic prowess and fail every exam thrown at her. You like the shy, easily embarrassed housewife type? Guess who’s in the kitchen nearly 24/7 and has “hauu….” as her answer to life, the universe, and everything. And there’s also the perfect in school but absolutely hopeless everywhere else type too. Don’t think I need to mention the lolis doing things lolis do; I wouldn’t have played the game in the first place if there aren’t.

You can tell that they tried REALLY hard to make this game moe. Sure the heroines themselves had a lot of moe traits, but they failed to utilize this moe-ness due to how crappy setting and plot of the game. Yep, I did not get the moe fix that I was expecting when I played this game.  

Ok, back to twins for a bit here, since the entire game is based around that concept, I expect it to be fully fleshed out. I don’t know about you, but that to me means 3P. Lots of it. Too bad you only get that during the common route, 5 scenes each for the 2 pairs to be exact. The goodness suddenly stops coming once you’re locked into a route and they haven’t even gotten to the good part yet, if you know what I mean. This, to me, just ain’t right. Why don’t they understand the more the merrier, especially when it comes to twins?

Yes the lack of any REAL 3P kinda takes out the appeal of twins setting. 

Which is kind of related to the next point I’m making. I don’t think I quite got the genre of this game. Is this supposed to be standard moege fare? I may not have the extensive eroge knowledge some of the *cough* old farts *cough* around here have, but I don’t think they have onscreen sexy time every 5 minutes in those. But then again, this can’t possibly be a nukige to test your fap hand right? Because if so, they’ve certainly failed in this regard despite the storm of HCG’s sent in my face; my tissue box sat untouched all throughout the game’s playtime. Perhaps I’ve gone too far to the dark side, but that’s a topic for another day. I get a game like Pure Girl, it has a clear focus on what it’s trying to do and it does that fairly well. I don’t know what to think of this.

I hope you’re not referring to ME as the “old fart” >____>. 

Another thing that bothered me was the voices. I don’t want to say they’re bad; they’re merely trying too hard to act their part through no fault of their own. Ema’s lethargic and overly quiet voice is sleep inducing and made even a lolicon like me avoid her route based on that alone. Yae’s voice is similar, if she spoke any softer she may as well be whispering. I have a more personal gripe with Izumi’s voice, that I think Sobzob put it best – “She speaks like she has dicks up her nostrils.” Although I’m fine with the other two’s voice, that’s an uncomfortable 3 strikes out of 5. Is it too much for me to hope for the voices to finally break out of their pigeonholed parts and sound more like they belong in ordinary, everyday conversations?

Though I understand where Aedes is coming from here, I didn’t really have anything against the voices. 

And finally, here’s my biggest gripe with the game out of them all that I believe this one comment from erogamescape hits the nail on the head. 背徳どこ？ Where is heck is the immorality in this? Absolutely no one in the cast finds it even one bit unusual that they’re siblings dating? Oh right, they’re all too busy trying to get into this pants. And of the ones who aren’t, 2 are their carefree parents who decided it’s a good idea to abandon their kids for a month, 1 is the usual pervert best friend, and the last is the useless teacher. A bigger cast will definitely help with this, but even without, how about some sneering and finger pointing from their faceless fellow classmates? Don’t tell me none of them notice; a pair of lovebirds are painfully obvious to see. Just look to the room next to mine where the dude does I-don’t-wanna-know what with his girlfriend every night. I can almost see the pink aura and steam coming out of that room.

I can’t believe I’m saying this either, but maybe, just maybe, in this particular instance, some drama may do more good than harm. I thirst for that immoral feeling, that me-and-you giving the finger against the rest of the world feeling. The game failed completely in that respect. It’s the biggest reason why I’m a siscon in the first place, and also the reason you see Sora, who gave me exactly what I was looking for, everywhere associated with my weeaboo presence. Whether Yosuga no Sora is a good game is debatable (though I’m not listening), but isn’t immorality the point of playing an imouto route? Without it, it’s no different from best friends, kouhais, or whoever if they’re given the typical imouto traits.

The lack of immorality was also something that really bothered me. If no-one gives a damn that you’re getting into a relationship with your blood-related sister it’s no different from getting into a normal relationship, which is what it felt like here. Sure a normal relationship isn’t bad, but the selling point of the games is TWINS. Also the relationships themselves were pretty damn crappy. So yeah, this game was pretty much a waste of time for me.

Ignoring the fire, the pyro, and basically everything else in the pictures, this basically sums up the difference between what I want and what I got.

What I got

What I wanted

In hindsight, I realized I’m probably as deranged as that pyro for wanting to see something terrible like that to happen in such a sweet game as this. But then I never claimed I was completely sane in the first place. Anyway, onto the next ordeal. Since I was away from this ero scene for so long, relatively speaking for someone who always play the latest releases, I’m sort of at a lost of what to play next. I’m currently planning something by Alcot/Alcot Honeycomb but suggestions, no holds barred, are welcome!

YOU HAVE BEEN STRONGLY WARNED!

aquaspirit39 here~! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

I am sorry for being inactive last month but it was a very eventful month for me, starting with Chinese New Years, my birthday and my 妹 birthday. Aside from that, I have also made a decision to pursue further education and for this reason I will probably be fairly busy for the next four or five months (Deadline for universities applications are around June and the examinations are around August). Until then, I will not be very active.

The Grand Plan in the beginning was for me to write a giant blog entry by reviewing a certain corruption game while introducing the concept of corruption and hopefully ‘corrupt’ some of you guys along the way. However, with all these universities applications and preparations for the examinations, I decide to break this post into two parts: the introduction and the game review.

Reason 1 to play a Corruption Game:
A Corruption Game will almost always come with a Harem End XD

aquaspirit39 and Corruption

eww…that is a sick fetish you have there. How,Why and since When do you develop such a hobby?

Considering that most of the games reviewed in this blog is pure love eroges, many readers probably do not share the same enthusiasm on this topic. Many will also have doubts as to why and how certain people like me developed such an inhuman fetish. Therefore, I decide to use this chance to share my experiences on the journey to Land of Corruption .

Reason 2 to a play Corruption Game:
A Corruption Heroines often wear very sexy clothes and armors which you don’t often find in usual eroge >:)

Believe it or not, the first sign of this fetish could actually be seen in me since I was in primary school. At the time, just like other children, I loved to get up early on Sunday to watch television programs for children and not surprisingly, there was always a version of Power Ranger every week. Contrary to other normal children however, I often find myself cheering for the bad guys instead of the good guys and this is the very foundation of my Corruption fetish.

As I hit my puberty and learned the Art of Masturbation, the demand for masturbation materials(おかず) naturally arose in me. Although I have  read several ecchi mangas by that time, the existence of hardcore porn or even eroge was still unknown to me. Despite of not knowing the concept of Corruption, my imagination effortlessly created many Corruption stories for my masturbation needs.

My next development of this fetish came much later. It was around one and a half year after I knew about and started playing eroges constantly, when I stumbled across this game called 超光戦隊ジャスティスブレイド3～アルタード アポカリプス～.

It didn’t take me long to realize that this is exactly what I have been looking for; events in this game is exactly what I have been hoping to happen every time I watch those Power Ranger series. Armed with this one title, I look diligently for other titles with the same theme until I become how I am today.

The Fact – About Corruption

Corruption or more widely known by the Japanese as akuochi(悪堕ち) is defined as a condition where a heroine betrays her friends and switches to enemies side by the mean of brainwashing(洗脳), training(調教), or etc.

The word akuochi(悪堕ち) itself is made up of two words: 悪 which mean evil and 堕ち which mean to fall down, so together akuochi literally mean to fall down into the evil path. Even though the situations of 悪堕ち have been around for a very long time, the term itself was believed to be used for the first time in 2002.

One of the more well-known corruption/corrupted character: Black Saber.
Though I think this one is the Lily Version of Black Saber.

Corruption Classification

Corruption can be categorized based on the method of Corruption that are being applied to the Heroines.  Here are five most common Corruption techniques:

Sexual Training(調教)

The most orthodox method that can be found easily in many hardcore nukige. I personally break down sexual training further into two types: training that hurt physically and training that didn’t hurt the heroines physically. This maybe sounds like a strange thing coming from an evil bastard like me, but I am not really into hurting girls physically. I find that drowning and making the girls submit through extreme sexual pleasure is a more arousing than just torturing and making them writh in pain.

Brainwashing(洗脳)

Brainwashing can also be categorized into two different types depending on how they are handled:

1. Rewriting heroines’ memories. This method will often make our heroines forget completely about their friends, comrades and/or lovers.
2. Forcefully changing their way of thinking. In this case, the heroines often know that they have been brainwashed, but due to their new way of thinking, they gladly embraced their new self.

Possession(憑依) and Parasitism(寄生)

Possession and Parasitism are very similar to each other in a senses since in both methods, the heroines’ minds are being completely taken over by other entities(ghost, parasitic worm,etc). However, Parasitism is often accompanied by re-modelling of body parts.

Body Part Remodelling(改造)

Generally speaking, Body Part Re-modelling technique has pretty much the same goal as Sexual Training, in that both method aim to drown the heroines in sexual pleasure. This version of corruption however, achieves that goal by changing the heroines’ body parts and make them more sensitive toward sexual pleasure. Common example of body part re-modelling are breast enlargement, clitoris enlargement and futanari convertion.

Closing

Even after reading this one thousand words essay, you may still be unable to understand the Beauty of Corruption. In that case, all I can say is people who like it will like it, people who don’t will never get it.

Either way, I sincerely hope that all readers can be open-minded and forgiving, such that they will refrain from leaving any hate messages（￣～￣;）. There are so many people in the world with so many different point of views and I believe that as long as they do not cause any trouble to people around them, there is really no need to care about what they do to themselves.

Reason 3 to play a Corruption Game:
Not only are Corrupted Heroines often wear Sexier Costumes. They also make sexier facial expression.

Cao~~~ (￣▽￣)ノ

Anyway fuzzy hobo was pretty passionate about writing something for Walkure Romanze, so I decided to write this joint post with him. To prevent confusion:

Black text – me (Aero)
Red text - me (Aero)
Green text – Fuzzy

Fuzzy provided all the images that are in this post, along with the accompanying comments that appear when you hover your mouse over them. Along with this, Fuzzy has kindly written up a summary of the jousting rules which I’m sure that potential players of the game will find useful. It can be found at the end of this post.

Greetings all! I’m a long time reader of this blog and other English eroge blogs. When Aero expressed an interest in Walkure Romanze, I “gently” encouraged him to try the game. I still use ATLAS, but Japanese proficiency-wise, I suppose my level is at what Aero’s was before he made the non-ATLAS jump. Anyways, whether I contribute more reviews to this blog in the future is up to Aedes and Aero. So let’s get the show on the road!

Company: Ricotta（リコッタ
Game site: ワルキューレロマンツェ［少女騎士物語
Release date: October 28, 2011
Links: VNDB, Getchu, Walkthrough

The protagonist of the story, Takahiro, studies at a prestigious academy where jousting is the main sport. Takahiro was once a promising knight, but he retired from jousting due to a past incident.  Now he is a begleiter, something like a knight’s assistant/advisor, although he idles the days away with his friends and horseback riding. The new school year begins and he is soon approached by two female knights requesting him to be their begleiter for the upcoming annual tournament. One is Noel, a knight with a mysterious background; the other is Celia, the student council chairman and the current school champion who has won 2 years in a row. As he ponders these requests, Takahiro’s childhood friend, Mio, somehow ends up being forced into a jousting duel. Wanting to help out his friend, Takahiro decides to become Mio’s temporary begleiter.

Opening

Characters/Story

The common route introduces the main and supporting cast briefly before it focuses on Mio’s sudden duel. In preparation, Takahiro teaches Mio the basics of jousting and knighthood. You also learn the rules of jousting during the training and actual matches, which are explained in quite a bit of detail. Although the rules can be confusing, the characters always explain which side is winning during the matches. Again, a summary of the jousting rules can be found at the end of this review.

Anyways, the common route can feel tedious at times since it focuses on Mio’s jousting duel more so than character interactions. You get a feel for the characters’ personalities, but you don’t learn much to do with the characters. Not great, but it does the job.

I thought the common route was decent, but short and left you wanting more character banter than jousting. Then again, jousting is an obscure sport, so if they DON’T explain it we’ll have no clue what’s going on. How much you will enjoy the jousting depends on if you like sports anime/manga. If you think the jousting is uninteresting or too difficult to understand, you might feel the romance and other interactions are insufficient. Personally, I like the mixture of sports, romance, and medieval stuff even if it’s unbalanced at times.

Why is it that they still wear SKIRTS when they’re jousting? Not that I’m complaining or anything =p

When has practicality triumphed over sex aesthetics in any character design? Japanese love that zettai ryouiki…even in armor.

I have a feeling it’s just because they wanted an H-scene in there where the heroine is wearing the armor.

Well the artist Komori Kei has said he’s obsessed with armor. Add in modern ojou-sama/nobility stuff and you get Walkure Romanze.

Well whatever it is I like it ^^.

The individual routes are much longer than the common route and they also deviate significantly in quality. I found that the routes which explained more about the backstory of the characters were generally better than those that didn’t. In my opinion, EVERY route had insufficient development leading up to the confession scene, which made most of them feel odd. However, the romantic development that occurs after the confession scenes is generally quite solid, in terms of quality and quantity. There are a few date scenes spread out through the routes and H-scenes miraculously do NOT occur right after confession scenes.

Content-wise, all the routes are a mix of training, romance, heroine specific drama, and conclude with the jousting tournament followed by an epilogue. I also agree that the build-up to confession was rushed in almost all the routes, but I was satisfied with the romantic developments afterwards. Mixing sports and romance is always tricky to execute. Although Ricotta made a worthy effort in balancing the two, the game could have had more romance and character development in the beginning. But, yeah, some routes aren’t worth your time while others MAKE the game.

Takahiro

Unlike the useless protagonist of Princess Lover, Takahiro breaks out of the typical eroge protagonist mold since he is not really dense, kind, or hetare. While Takahiro seems like a carefree slacker at first, when motivated, he’s prudent, talented, and quite passionate. Takahiro is very knowledgeable about jousting; as a begleiter, he’s a hybrid coach, caretaker, tactician, and later lover for the heroine. He also has an interesting backstory that is fully explained only in the Celia route while the others get bits and pieces.

I’m a little surprised that you FINISHED Princess Lover; from what I hear, it’s basically just tons and tons of H.

That’s exaggerating, no more ero than this game.  Although the ero was the best part of Princess Lover…Komori Kei’s art forgives a lot. Ricotta did switch writers for WR, which was for the best.

Mio

After the duel Mio shows a desire to keep training as a knight and to participate in the annual tournament. Mio’s route was the same as watching the underdog of a sport climbing up to the top through the help of the most BS miracles that could ever exist. The lack of backstory in this route really baffled me; seeing as they’re childhood friends, I expected a ton of it. Furthermore, given that caring osananajimi status, Mio’s jump from friend to lover lacked impact. The romance was rather plain and the jousting was pretty unbelievable. This was easily the worst route of the game. Lastly, Mio’s short hair is a REAL turn off. Honestly, if the makers had kept her hair long I would have liked the route a bit more.

Ricotta seriously trolls you by having Mio cut her hair at the end of the common route; unfortunately, I don’t think long hair could even redeem the stupidity of the Mio route. The game has irritating double standards when it comes to Mio. While the other heroine routes have believable and more interesting struggles, everything in Mio’s route is solved with ~MAGICAL PLOT~ and a nonsensical ending to boot. Despite her awesome VA (Ai Shimizu) and her character having some good moe and dere moments, the dull romance and unbelievable story makes Mio’s route avoidable and a waste of potential.

At the very least long hair would’ve made me more into the H-scenes.

True dat.

Lisa

I didn’t talk about Lisa in the introduction because she was difficult to throw in there. Lisa is the tsundere first year jousting prodigy who has never lost a match. She does not want a begleiter and believes that they serve no real purpose. Her best friend, Fiona, shares these thoughts. Naturally, the route focuses on Takahiro and friends trying to make her rethink her opinion on begleiters. Betrayal serves to be the other major factor of this route and boy did it sure piss me off. The romance in this route is weird because there’s a complete 180 from tsun to dere which basically happens overnight.

I counted more 180s than that! There were some cringeworthy moments in Lisa’s route, but they didn’t bother me as much since it did lead to character progression. Fiona is still an awful character. Then again, I’m not crazy about Lisa’s archetype so I never felt invested in her route. Her character slightly changes in the other routes anyway, minus the melodrama. Probably the only heroine that felt like a throw-in in order to appeal to Aedes.

White Hair, red eyes, and twintails; she has Aedes written all over her.

AND the same VA as a certain twincester plastered on the blog’s front page…the resemblance is almost intentional uncanny.

So with those two routes out of the way, we can move to the routes that are actually good.

Noel

Despite being an ojou-sama, Noel has a very cheeky personality–the type I love. Anyways from the beginning, Noel claims that she’s aiming to win the tournament. You later find the reason behind her desire to win has to do with her sick younger sister Mireille. The reason itself isn’t very surprising, but I found just her HAVING a reason to want to win was better than other knights who want to win for the sake of…winning.  Given the whole nobility status, it’s not odd to see an annoying father figure that talks about arranged marriages in the route. At one point these issues escalate, however they never really develop into much and I feel that they were just trying to add in some pointless drama. The love between the two is solid and I think Noel is the only heroine in the game to show jealousy, which really appealed to me.

Noel’s route is Princess Lover + jousting. Compared to their past game, Ricotta’s doing you a favor, Aero, by downplaying the ojou-sama/nobility melodrama. Princess Lover was LOADED with it.  While I do like Noel and her sister, I felt her route depended too much on Mireille driving the action rather than the dynamics of Takahiro’s and Noel’s relationship. She even blatantly uses the imouto lure to hook Takahiro! Nevertheless, Noel’s capricious, teasing, yet affectionate personality is irresistible. Despite the anticlimactic ending and relationship balance, the route was overall enjoyable.

I actually liked the imouto driving factor in this route; I found it touching. Would’ve liked to see more siscon scenes though =p.

I’m sure many of this blog’s readers agree with you, lol. The Sylvia route in Princess Lover also had an imouto factor that was good too.

Celia

Though not quite perfect, Celia’s route was pretty damn good and was easily the best route of the game. The most interesting and unique aspect of this route is that Takahiro serves not only as a begleiter, but also returns to jousting as Celia’s sparring partner. In general, Celia is a composed noble/student council chairman and a chivalrous knight. However, she shows a lot of unexpected cute and dere moments throughout her route that were priceless. Her older brother, Julianus, plays a big part in this route. Along with being one of the top jousters in the world, he was also Takahiro’s former master. As you might suspect, you learn the exact reason why Takahiro gave up jousting … unsurprisingly, Julianus has something to do with it. Overall, Celia’s route was solid and very interesting.

ALL BOW TO THE QUEEN! Not perfect, but THE reason to the play this eroge. Considering how she’s a last boss/ever present figure in the rest of the game, Celia’s route has a True End vibe (not showing my bias  <_<). The Celia and Noel routes have equally great romance and character interaction for different reasons. However, the jousting, Takahiro’s involvement, and the overall scenario quality is best in the Celia route. Not to mention she’s hot, kickass, and surprisingly dere. This route is the pinnacle of what Ricotta was trying to achieve: a beautiful blend of an intriguing sport competition, romance, and how our bonds and passion for doing what we love strengthen each other.

I found this route to be very refreshing because you see the tournament from the viewpoint of the 2 year champion, which makes things a lot more interesting. Celia’s dere moments is definitely one of the major selling points of this route and they made sure to give players a lot of service ^^.

Route rankings: Celia > Noel > Lisa > Mio

Ditto!

Other Characters

Since the art in this game is fantastic, there are several eye-catching non-heroines. Foremost is Akane, the samurai girl in the Western world that should be a heroine. She’s Mio’s best friend and a knight that is serious and stubborn, but also polite and easy to tease. Akane gets completely embarrassed if she’s caught acting girly (the shame of eating cake…). She also goes into yuri mode at the mere mention of Celia.

Akane is a VERY high quality heroine and I wished that they had replaced Mio’s and Lisa’s routes with an Akane route.

Well the game was supposed to have five heroines originally. *cough* Akane *cough*

Other secondary characters I liked are Noel’s imouto Mireille, vice-chairman Reina, and Takahiro’s older cousin and caretaker, Ayako, who is also the school nurse and runs the local café. Some important secondary characters are exclusive to an individual route while other characters are fleshed out more depending on the route. Overall, the supporting cast is a decent size and quite solid. On a side note, Ricotta’s already working on the fan disk and Ayane, Bertille, and Ayako will be promoted to heroines.

I’m wondering just how much jousting will be included in the FD. While completely removing it would be impossible, I would like to see more romance and icha icha instead. Looking forward to playing the routes for Akane and Ayako. Though I find Bertille’s personality funny, she isn’t my type…especially since she has INSANELY huge boobs.

And THAT ARMOR she wears, lol. But yeah, Akane, Ayako, and after stories for the world.

Graphics

I’m a huge sucker for Walkure Romanze’s CGs. With a whopping 150+ CGs (SDs included), there are plenty of high quality graphics used for jousting, romance, ero, and other key moments. Excluding excessive proportions on some females, I love Komori Kei’s character designs and the armors look gorgeous too and unpractical. The game also has several SDCGs, drawn by Hiduki Yayoi, that were used for comedy or dere moments. Other highlights are characters having several sprites/costumes, detailed backgrounds, and some nice visual effects like falling sakura petals at key scenes. It’s no wonder that Walkure Romanze won 1st place for best graphics/cg on the 2011 Getchu rankings.

Sound

The game has 44 tracks, 4 of which are OP, ED, and 2 insert songs played at key moments in each route like [Shooting the future] with slideshow below:

The soundtrack is an unusual mixture of synthesized and instrumental music. The closest eroge comparison stylistically I can think of is Majikoi S meets G-Senjou. Whether comedy, romance, jousting, or other situations, the soundtrack has classical-like, contemporary upbeat, and hybrid pieces that are each used in almost any situation. This odd variety is refreshing compared to your average eroge BGM and complements the scenario well. The OP song [本当の勇気に変わるまで] also has several variations played throughout the game and I especially like the acoustic version. While I overall enjoyed the BGM, the majority of these tracks are more situational and mood-setting rather than replayable tunes I could listen to even if taken out of context (ex. Majikoi). Other than that, I liked the sound effects in jousting combat, the voice acting is great, and all characters have voices.

H-Scenes

I asked Aero if I could add an AEro section because Ricotta has always put a special effort into H-scenes, which shows since Walkure Romanze won 2nd place for best ero on the 2011 Getchu rankings. Each heroine has 1 Kissing Scene + 5 Story Scenes + 1 After Story Scene. Rather than some half-assed throw-in required to sell units, the writers tried to integrate the H-scenes to match the increasing intimacy of the relationship as the route progresses. The first scene is not even an H-scene but a kissing scene, which is a passionate make-out session…and that’s it. The eventual H-scenes are looong and have 2-5 cgs each. The dialogue is also romantic and erotic even in the kissing scenes. Add in Komori Kei’s artwork and you…yeah…it’s awesome.

I usually don’t have an H-scene section in my review, but since Fuzzy was pretty passionate about writing one, I’ll let it slide this time. However we won’t be showing any of the H-scene hawtness here and things will remain SFW. If you’re looking for NSFW content on this blog, please look through Aedes’ posts.

Final words

Story: 7/10
Characters: 8/10
Graphics: 8.5/10
Sound: 8/10

Moe: 7/10
Comedy: 5/10
Setting: 7/10
Romance: 8/10

Overall: 70/100 (not a total)

Despite having high quality characters, the game does a big fail in two of the routes. Jousting is somewhat interesting at first, but after awhile it gets too predictable. I wished that Jousters used more creative techniques, but I guess they wanted to keep the game ‘realistic’. Not much comedy in the game, but the romance will probably be enough to keep most players going. If you intend to play this game, I suggest you skip Mio’s and Lisa’s route.

Story: 8/10
Characters: 8/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 8.5/10

Moe: 7/10
Comedy: 6/10
Setting: 8.5/10
Romance: 9/10

Overall: 80/100 (not a total)

While I’m a big fan of this game, I won’t deny it has flaws. Much like Natsu no Ame, Walkure Romanze has 2 amazing routes and 2 awful routes. How much you enjoy the total package depends on if you can get into the setting and the jousting. Even if you don’t like the jousting, I believe Walkure Romanze is worth playing for the Noel and Celia routes along with the great romance and high production values.

Jousting 101/ATLAS

Walkure Romanze overall has good compatibility with ATLAS and other translators. The difficult parts are knowing the word begleiter (ベグライター), understanding the rules of jousting, and combat descriptions…which is where the writing is most complex. Here’s the summary of the rules:
-Each jousting match is the best of 2 out of 3 games.

-For each game, you win by being the first to score 3 points. Jousters exchange blows until someone scores at least 3 points, then that game ends and the next one begins.

-You score points by getting clean hits with a lance to: leg or arm (1 pt. each), torso/chest (2 pts.), or knocking an opponent off their horse (3 pts. = win current game).

-Performing a feather fly (i.e. clearing the opponent’s feather wing off their helmet) is considered an instant win for the entire jousting match no matter the score/games won in the match, but it is also a high risk/high reward move since you’re vulnerable doing it.

As for combat descriptions, your best hope is making sure your dictionary is up to date and that the character explanations after each exchange of blows are easier to understand. ATLAS or not, it might take a couple routes to comprehend the jousting in detail. Don’t let that discourage you from trying the game though!

A final note

Making this joint post was quite an interesting change from the ones I normally write up with Aedes. I’m quite open to the idea of doing more guest joint posts in the future where possible. Feel free to send me an email suggesting a game you’d like to do a joint post on, preferably one that I haven’t played, and we’ll decide things from there ^^.

Speaking of a new year, it is often associated with new aspirations, new resolutions and…new エロゲ〜(￣▽￣〜) (〜￣▽￣)〜. Nonetheless, I feel that re-challenging some of the older games that I have not managed to finish is as important and for this reason, I decided to open my 2013 erogaming with an old game that I have dropped in the past.

Shiden ~Enkan no Kizuna~ is the title of this game which I have attempted once before, but was unable to bring myself to complete it. It is not because this game has a poor storylines or boring heroines; it is a more basic and fundamental problem that I was having: I had no idea what the stories is about!

This game was released on the 26th of November 2009, which was approximately four months after I started my career as an erogamer. Naturally, my Japanese was not very good at the time and ATLAS was not of much a help either. After several gameplay hours, I found that I barely understood what was going on and eventually chose to drop the game.

About three and a half years have passed since then and my Japanese has improved considerably too….maybe（￣～￣;）. Therefore, I see this as a good opportunity to gauge my current Japanese language proficiency while enjoying some actions and chuunis. Hopefully this time around, I will be able to have a better grasp of what is happening in this game.

Let us get the review started then and I hope everyone will be able to enjoy their stay here, お手柔らかにお願いします。

Game Name: 紫電～円環の絆～
Website: http://www.hibiki-site.com/shiden/
Release date: 2009/11/26
Categories: Adventure, School Life, Duel, Japanese Mythologies

Opening

This game opening is my all time favorite which I have looped for who knows how many times. I have watched this opening before the game was released and re-watched it many times even after I dropped the game. For those who are wondering, the song in this opening was titled ‘Tengoku to Jigoku no Tanshikyoku’ and it was sung by Faylan.

Story

In this modern world where people live peacefully, confrontations between demon(妖怪) and human with supernatural abilities(異能力者) are constantly happening behind the scene. Not only are human fighting against demons, demons are also fighting against themselves and human are struggling against each other for control over powers and authorities. Standing on the top of this power hierarchy are two gigantic organizations: the Onmyou Bureau(陰陽寮) and the Rokuhara(六波羅).

One day, an immortal warrior named Kongousai(金剛斎) appeared out of nowhere and together with his three undying underlings, he started a war against the world.

Although Kongousai’s real aim remained unclear, his actions made it evident that he needed the power of a certain priestess(巫女) in order to accomplish his goal. Who exactly is Kongousai and what is his objective? and why do he need the priestess?

Character

Kamitsu Misoka

The main protagonist in this story is a high-school student called Kamitsu Misoka who belongs to Rokuhara Information Department. As an informant, Misoka’s jobs consist of mainly information gathering on the fields by the mean of infiltrating enemies’s headquarters. Since Misoka works for Rokuhara, he comes to know about both demons and ESPers despite of not being one himself. Due to a certain incident, Misoka has become overly sensitive toward the action of trusting and betraying.

Hieda Saku

Hieda Saku is a priestess affiliated with the Onmyou Bureau and the priestess wanted by Kongousai. Even without Kongousai around, Saku’s existence is controversial enough to force her into living in secrecy. Saku lives a sheltered life so as not to attract any unwanted attention and moves constantly from one place to another. As a result, she does not have many people who she can call friends and is a little lacking in the common knowledge department.

Kaguyama Azami

In order to fulfill her promise to protect Saku, Azami ran away from Rokuhara so that she can work for the Onmyou Bureau and become Saku’s personal bodyguard. Beside protecting her master from outside threats, Azami also takes care of Saku’s everyday needs such as cooking and washing. Trained as a ninja since she was small, Azami has never lived a normal life, and thus she can sometimes be a little ignorant about the modern world.

Mononobe Tomoe

馬鹿な子ほど可愛い is a Japanese proverb that describes exactly what I feel toward this character called Mononobe Tomoe. She is always cheerful, earnest in her spear training and is a little…I mean very stupid. Her stupidity often made her into a juicy teasing target for Misoka and I find myself enjoying their manzai exchanges more than I have expected. Tomoe is Misoka’s classmate, neighbour and fellow Rokuhara workmate.

Laila Ria Soreille

This ボインボイン gaijin in revealing rider suit is an exorcist dispatched by the Church to Japan in order to hunt a wanted criminal called Warlock. Laila herself seems to have a personal grudge with this man since she was blinded with rage in many occasions when fighting him. When she is not busy hunting for Warlock, Laila is actually an easy-going girl who are fun to be with. Laila uses scythe as her weapon and is capable of cast high level destructive spells.

Mibu Tsuzuki

Mibu Tsuzuki is the second and a supporting main character in this game. For those who dislike multiple main characters in your game, do not worry, because the shifts in point-of-view between the two protagonists are pretty short and kept on minimum side. Together with his loyal assistant Kaguyama Rindou, Tsuzuki serves as a member of Rokuhara Public Safety Department.

Kaguyama Rindou

Readers with good observation skills may have already realized that Rindou has a same family name as Azami. Kaguyama family is a ninja family that works under Rokuhara and Rindou is in fact Azami’s cousin. Rindou who does not have any sibling, has always treat Azami as her own younger sister and because of that, she can not forgive Azami who betrayed Rokuhara and become a nukenin(抜忍 – runaway ninja).

Graphic

Battle effects in the CGs of this game is probably one of the the best that I have ever encountered. Orbs of light, petal of flowers, lightnings from weapons striking at each other and many other effects were illustrated in such an amazingly detailed manner.

That last CGs made me wished that I was playing a corruption game (￣-￣ﾒ).

My Thought

The stories for all routes are average at best since they all suffer from the usual chuuni sudden powering-up  when in crisis setup. This kind of setup inevitably made developments during the climax scenes very predictable. Our main character simply got stronger and stronger every time he was driven into the corner until he finally managed to overpower and eliminate the bad guys.

My another complaint is in regard to the uneven pacing of the events throughout all routes. In the beginning, the stories developments were accompanied with a great deal of details and carried out by a lot characters interactions. However, as the stories came closer to their conclusions, things started happening one after another without any intermediate scene in between. As a result, readers may feel that the transitions between events are too abrupt and unnatural. Although it seems like the writer was rushing through the stories at the very end, the ending for all the heroines are pretty satisfying.

All in all, 紫電～円環の絆～ is a pretty average chuunige with some pretty awesome heroines. There are surprisingly many funny and memorable scenes mainly involving Misoka and Tomoe interactions.

Story: 6/10
Character: 8/10
Moe: 5/10
Comedy: 7/10 
Setting: 7/10
Romance: 6/10

In this game, there are actually several rape scenes and many deliciously tempting situations(for the antagonists). Nonetheless, since this is not a hardcore エロゲ, naturally these kind of events are not the focus of the stories. Consequently, I am now craving for some corruption actions and thirsting for a corruption game, which may as well be a good material for my next review article（＾＿－）.

Closing

As usual, I am going to close this article with my favorite screenshot from the game. However, it turns out that my favorite scene actually involves several CGs and none of them are good enough by themselves. For that reason, I decided make a GIF out of these CGs instead. Enjoy!

Cao~~~ (￣▽￣)ノ

Excitement level from JET interview notification: 7/10

More importantly, last Friday I was basically checking Anime-Sharing every hour to check if Majikoi A-1 was out.

Excitement level when Majikoi A-1 download links up: 10/10, and rising

Yes that’s right; an eroge release was more important to me than prospects of working in Japan. Honestly I was a little surprised myself =p. Anyway it’s time to talk about Majikoi A-1.

Links: Walkthrough, VNDB

A-1 is the first of the 5 Majikoi A fan-discs and it features routes for Benkei, Azumi and Sayaka. For those of you who don’t already know, I am a HUGE fan of the Majikoi series and I often find myself daydreaming about it. Among the Majikoi heroines, Benkei is one of my favorites. So as one might suspect I was SUPER looking forward to A-1.

Azumi’s route (5/10)

This route follows on from Monshiro’s route from Majikoi S in the sense that Yamato is working as a butler for the Kuki household. The major interaction among Yamato and Azumi is initiated when Yamato offers to help Azumi’s one-sided love towards Kuki Hideo. Given how Hideo like Kazuko, you might see how this is a problem.  As Yamato, Stacy and Lee think of ways for Azumi to appeal to Hideo, Yamato finds himself falling for Azumi.

After Azumi is rejected by Hideo Yamato swoops in and confesses his feelings to Azumi. Despite being rejected, he comes back and confesses over and over. Seriously, his similarity to Miyako is even mentioned in the game. At this point where Yamato starts confessing (over and over), you don’t really see anymore romantic development occurring and things stay like this until the end of the route.

There are a number of time skips in this route…three I think. Through them you see Yamato’s progress as he climbs the ranks among the other serving staff in the Kuki household. The other purpose of the time skips seems to be to show how bloody long it takes Yamato to ‘capture’ Azumi; at the end Yamato’s 26. But I have to hand it to the guy for holding out with an unrequited love for that long.

I found this route to be extremely average and half of me feels that it was a waste of space. To me, constant confessing doesn’t account to good romantic development. Also, since the two actually don’t actually get together until the very end, there’s NO room for icha icha; it’s basically just SEX. Another thing that didn’t sit well with me was the fact that most of Azumi’s dere isn’t caused by Yamato. However I did like how the final time skip let you see some of the cast when they’re older.

Sayaka’s Route (7.5/10)

This route was quite solid and I have to say that Sayaka’s personality is pretty funny. Not too much of a lolicon myself, but I’m thinking that Sayaka will satisfy some of the lolicons out there. 

Things start off with Sayaka visiting Kawakami city during the start of summer vacation. You soon find out the reason behind Sayaka’s sudden visit is because she had a fight with her father. Turns out her father set up a marriage meeting for her and she left home saying that she already had a boyfriend. Obviously this leads onto the fake lover setting. I’ve seen a lot of fails when it comes to using this setting—mainly in manga.  However Sayaka’s route pulls it off quite nicely because the setting isn’t in effect for too long. Before long the two realise that they’re pretty much in love with each other.  However lying is never good, especially when you do it to a girl’s father, and the two are required to ‘prove’ their love.

Sayaka’s bright and friendly is very interesting, given Yukie’s awkward and shy nature. However she’s similar to Yukie in the sense that they’re both a quite perverted deep down.  Whenever she misunderstands what someone says she silently rambles off, which was hilarious. It was too bad that this route was pretty short.

Benkei’s route (9.5/10)

Benkei is an amaenbou; Nuff said.

LOL, that above line REALLY doesn’t suit my personality, but it basically expresses how I feel about the route. I went into the route with high expectations and came out very satisfied.

As in Majikoi S, Benkei and Yamato often meet up with Hige-sensei for what they like to call the ‘Lazy Club’. After the two get closer, by Benkei’s request, Yamato gets into a routine of patting her on the head. YES, IT’S MOE. What’s even better is that this leads to more amaenbou behaviour, which equals more moe XD. Benkei shows a few moments of jealously throughout this route, which only added to the awesomeness of the route.

Plenty of icha icha and the romantic development progresses at a nice pace. It’s a little unfortunate that the confession scene is an indirect one. However looking back on it, it was done pretty well. Not much drama in this route, nothing major anyway, for which I’m grateful for. The inclusion of any drama would have probably ruined this route. Benkei’s fighting ability is never really observed that much in Majikoi S. Fortunately there are several battle scenes in this route which give a pretty good indication of her true strength. The ending was solid and shows Benkei’s mental growth.

Overall this was a very awesome route and I’ll probably play it again very soon. Actually, I think I’ll play it right now =p.

That’s enough about the routes themselves.

The game basically had the same Majikoi system that I’ve gotten used to over the years. However one thing that REALLY bothered me was that sometimes when there were close ups of character sprites, the images would be pixelated. There was a similar issue that affected the title screen of the game and made the game feel cheap.

In the config menu there are various screen settings, but the game forced me to use 800×600; I’m assuming the pixilation is due to my computers specs. However I’ve never seen these issues in the older Majikoi games. Anyway here are a few more CGs to keep you going.

I’ll end things off with my thoughts of the other Majikoi A discs that are to come. Here’s the list of them:

Ａー１： Benkei　 Azumi　 Sayaka　
Ａ－２： Seiso　 Monshiro after+　 Cookie 4 is
Ａ－３： Lee　 　Stacy       Tsubame after+
Ａ－４： Homura　 Rin　 ——-
Ａ－５： Yoshitsune　 Takae　 Margit after+

Of the Majikoi A FDs I would say that this one (A-1) was the one that I was looking forward to the most (Benkei XD). I’m HOPING that the blank space in A-4 will be used for a Benkei after route, but I have my doubts. Seiso looks like she already has a love interest in the Majikoi universe, so I’m interested in seeing how they’ll squeeze Yamato into there. If I recall correctly, Rin’s strength is similar to that of Momoyo. Since she wasn’t really talked about at all I am very curious as to what her personality is like and the fights you’ll see her in. I really don’t see the point in routes for Lee and Stacey; both of them aren’t particularly interesting or attractive. Well Lee I can sorta understand, but a route for Stacy looks like it’ll be a waste of time.

Anyways that’s it for now. I’m currently working on a joint post which should be up some time soon.

General

My name, my handle name to be exact is aquaspirit39 and I am nothing more than an average erogamer who have given up completely on the reality. Even though currently I have only been playing eroge for at most three years, erogaming has integrated itself so deeply into my lifestyle that it feels like I have been doing this my whole life. I doubt that it will be easy or even possible to get rid of this unusual hobby of mine（￣～￣;）

My initial motivation for playing an eroge stemmed from my frustration at anime couples pairing which often favor the less qualified main heroines instead of much better sub-heroines. I understand that there is probably favoritism in my part toward certain (sub)heroines, but that does not change the fact that it is painful to see them getting rejected. This frustration piled up higher with each anime and it was this very scene that pull my internal trigger:

At the end of this episode, I rushed to Hongfire, had a crash course on AGTH and ATLAS, downloaded Da Capo II: Plus Communication and played the game despite of my incompetence in Japanese language at the time.

Why Chuuni?

Aero ‏@aer0gam3r
@aquaspirit39 What are you playing atm?
aquaspirit39 ‏@aquaspirit39
@aer0gam3r lol, another chuunige, here is the openinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOR41TKTPm4 … ,its pretty unique opening catch my attention XD
Aero ‏@aer0gam3r
@aquaspirit39 You keep playing all these games that I’ve never even heard of >___>. Also, what’s up with that wild west opening??? >___>
aquaspirit39 ‏@aquaspirit39
@aer0gam3r lol, is it a good thing or bad thing? i know right, the opening is pretty well coordinate, I am impressed although it got no song
Aero ‏@aer0gam3r
@aquaspirit39 Well it’s not really a good or a bad thing, just wondering how you end up deciding to play it. Must be the chuuni >__>

I believe many readers may have the same doubt as to why I choose to review only chuunige. The reason behind this goes all the way back to my original motive for playing an eroge: a happy end for my favorite heroine. Consequently, I find it extremely hard to complete all the routes in charages since there will always be some heroines that I am not interested in. For this reason, I feel it is unfair for me to write reviews about these games despite of not completing them.

aquaspirit39 Status Page

Handle Name: aquaspirit39
Eroge Career: Approx. 3 years
Favorite Characters: Alisa Crane Femiruna(W.L.O), Makishima Amane(Okiba ga Nai), Minagase Sakuya(Tasogare no Sinsemilla), Daikanyama Sumire(Suzunone Seven)
Favorite Animes: Durarara, Acchi Kocchi, Kyoukaisenjou no Horizon
Favorite Eroges: Tasogare no Sinsemilla, RuiTomo, Grisaia Trilogy(although the third one is not out yet><)
Moe Point of a Character: Tsundere, Ojousama, fickle/capricious(気まぐれ), devoted(尽くす)
Fetishism that I adopt: Corruption, Mind Control, Hypnotism, Brainwash, Drugs, NTR
Fetishism that I reject: Anything that involve physically hurting the girl, Femdom

Closing

Let us stop here for today since I doubt none of you people want to read one thousand words essay of self-introduction. Before closing however, as this will probably be my last post for this year, I would like to wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.

Cao~~~ (￣▽￣)ノ