A Ero Rant: Doko no Donata no Kanjou Root

So after waiting a month for the other guys to write something, I finally caved and decided to get the job done myself.

Jokes aside, they haven’t been very actively lately. Most likely a couple of them are busy with Clover Days. I was also set to hop on the Clover Day’s train, and then somehow got side tracked into play DokoDona. So what made this happen?

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It was the OP >____>

So as usual when I play a game based pretty solely on the OP, it did not end well =(

Description

Shouta’s mother is the Kaguya-hime from fairy tales. This spring, a new transfer student Tsubasa appeared in his class. In her previous life, she was a prince who were rejected by Kaguya-hime. She recognized features of Kaguya-hime in him and fell in love with him at first sight. However, her confession was stopped by other girls who used to be Kaguya-hime’s suitors and who held feelings for him.

[Borrowed from Micchi’s Blog]

Opening Movie

A little bit familiar

As some fans out there might notice, the main heroine pretty much looks exactly like the heroine from Haganai, except for the fact that she has black hair. If the makers of the game didn’t think that THIS was enough, they even portray the game title so that it looks like the title from a light novel. However that’s not much of a surprise because their previous title also pretty much was like Haganai.

Introduction

This game is pretty much like a harem slice of life comedy anime. You have a clueless protagonist who sudden gets a harem due to the fact that his mother is “the” princess Kaguya that’s talked about in stories. The whole affair behind princess Kaguya is quite interesting, and it largely parody early parts of the anime series “Dragon Ball Z”. Despite things being very fast and SUPER wacky, the humour and general atmosphere created a very strong start for this game.

Characters

I didn’t particularly care for any of the characters, so let’s make this brief. Like most harem anime, the protagonist is some spineless bastard who doesn’t really do much. That being said, the heroines also don’t do all that much attacking until the beach scene (check “Routes and Endings” further down)

As far as heroines go, none of them are particularly memorable.

We have the aggressive kouhai Tsubasa, who doesn’t show much interest in anything except Shouta.

The tsudere tomboy Kokona.

The ever well behaved and reserved Miharu.

The cheeky senpai Sayaka, who also happens to be your long lost childhood friend.

Souta’s homeroom teacher Misato becomes quite childish once drunk.

The heroines taken at face value aren’t bad. I mean looks wise, I would say a couple of them are fairly decent. The problem is that most of the routes don’t really do much to appeal the heroines’ uniqueness, but rather go for something that’s quite generic. In fact, I think Tsubasa’s route was the only one that really showed her personality well. The other ones were….yeah….. >____>.

As far as heroine appeal goes, Souta’s MOM won me over the most. She’s funny, strong willed, has an awesome rack, understanding…seriously, she was like the whole package.

Game Progression

The game slows down quite a bit after the strong intro. The game progresses in chapters, with each character generally focusing on a single heroine. I found this quite odd because with the whole past life suitor thing I expected a HAREM attack, rather than a one on one. Chapters are very short, and the events shown are very generic. Think of stuff like Shouta getting sick and a girl visiting, or where Shouta suddenly remembers that Sayaka was his childhood friend. Basically, nothing fantastic happens. Oddly enough, Tsubasa who is seemingly the main heroine of the game doesn’t get any additional chapters. So basically you just see her in the first chapter, a bit here and there in the other chapters, then the beach chapter where the common route ends.

Nostalgia = Annoyance/Boring

Like any typical game, a number of different choices determine whose route you land on. The problem is that choices don’t really do ANYTHING. Seriously, most choices will show about one or two different lines of dialogue before getting back on the common route rails. As of late I’m more use to choices leading to a heroine specific event, so this made me feel a bit nostalgic. Of course that doesn’t change the fact that it’s boring. All you gotta do is leave skip on and check back occasionally >___>.

Routes and Endings

Okay the main problem I had with this game was how the relationship was formed. In EVERY route at the exact same chapter, the chosen heroine will pretty much force herself on Shouta. The chapter in question is a beach chapter, so think outdoor sex. Not only is it super repetitive, it just reinforces just how much of a spineless bastard Shouta is.

Routes are very short, and make use of very cliché plot lines. The past life relationship with Kaguya is never gone into any deeper, and you really just take it at face value. Kinda weird since the whole thing makes Shouta a Halfling. Tsubasa’s route wasn’t bad because it showed the various sides of her, which was decently interesting. Sayaka’s route was good in that it’s a tiny bit emotional, though I did not appreciate her being a bit S during H-scenes. The other routes were pretty much fodder.

Endings come in a number of varieties. Kokona’s ending was a complete gag ending, whereas Sayaka’s ending was a little bit touching. However typically it’s just a very normal end where you don’t really feel much.

Graphics and some other junk

This is something I would like to talk about for once because the graphics were also something that lured me to play the game. As the OP shows us, the graphics for the game are very anime-like. I haven’t really played many games, if ANY, that used this style of graphics. Unfortunately I found that the graphics in the opening movie oversold what the game was really like. The CGs weren’t as crisp as shown in the OP, and felt a lot duller colour wise. Character sprites make use of blinking and lip syncing, which is kinda cool. However overall the character sprites felt a bit cheaper than what had been portrayed in the game’s OP.

Final Thoughts

This game shows promise at the very start, but pretty much goes downhill straight after this. Granted, this isn’t completely bad. There are some funny bits mixed in there, and the heroines, though very undeveloped, are generally likable. However I can’t help but feel that the main component of this game that made it so bearable was how short it was…So yeah, that from that what you will.

Overall score: 50/100

Play or nay? => Nay

 

I’m currently looking for something to play to kill time before April’s releases. I’ve kinda lost motivation for Clover Days, but I”ll most likely end up playing it since I can’t really think of anything else I wanna pick up.