A Teacher To Lust For – Nympho Sensei Ryoko Review [NSFW]

Nympho Sensei Ryoko, published by JAST USA and developed by Code Pink, is the nukige (masturbation aid) visual novel that puts players in the role of the titular Ryoko Sumeragi as she goes about her days as a highschool teacher with an insatiable sexual appetite. Throughout the story, players will be tasked with choosing where to find people to seduce, as well as participating in an oddly sexual story. Much like in any nukige, players with various fetishes may find that theirs is catered to in at least one spot within the game.

The story starts with Ryoko awakening one morning, feeling too lazy to get out of bed to go to work. Almost immediately, we are given a choice on what we want Ryoko to do, stay in bed or get up early. For this playthrough I opted to stay in bed which lead to the story heading in the direction of Ryoko catching a later train. This lead to her being (willingly) groped, and more, sexually by an unknown man that is soon revealed to be another teacher. From there, the game advanced to what is essentially the gameplay of the title, choosing which areas of the school to stalk for some more of the sex. There are also some storyline sequences involving Ryoko’s brother, Akito, and the siblings sex-slave, Hitomi, that the player makes choices to kind of control and for different kinds of h-scenes.

Pretty much every choice you make in the story is purely made to unlock a h-scene (sex scene) in some capacity. However, the story itself, when it’s there, is pretty interesting… even if it is entirely shallow. The story in Nympho Sensei Ryoko deals entirely with the teachers relations with her brother, Akito, and their sex-slave, Hitomi. At first it seems as though Ryoko is controlling the reins on the trio’s sex, and romantic, life. But soon, it appears that perhaps, Hitomi is falling for Akito and would sometimes break her promises to Ryoko to favour Akito. The choices you’re given in these storyline circumstances do appear to have an effect on the story slightly too, with h-scenes and references seemingly being brought up in later dialogue.

What’s interesting about the gameplay is that one New Game to the ending constitutes one day in the story. At the end of a playthrough, you’re given a rating on how many people you slept with in that day, and how much sperm was collected. What’s interesting, and confusing at first, is that after you finish the game, hitting New Game will take you to the next day in the story. When I first finished it, I thought that I had somehow missed a lot of content or the game was buggy so I reloaded an earlier save. But instead, hitting new game gave me a new day and a new story to play. It’s interesting, but still a little strange. I liked it, but wish also that it was more apparent. Maybe if New Game was titled New Day or something it would work better.

As you can guess by this point, Nympho Sensei Ryoko has sex-scenes. It has a lot of them. The gameplay in this title revolves entirely around unlocking these scenes by choosing where you want to go within the school grounds in order to find someone to sex. To do this, players are given a limited number of movements, represented by a heart, where they can choose a location to travel to and see if there is a scene available. What’s interesting here is that depending on where you are in the game, you may not actually always find a scene when you go to a location, which will consume a movement. There are a lot of scenes to find and enjoy, all of which are pretty well detailed and pornographic, and some of them even tie-in to the overall narrative.

Nympho Sensei Ryoko’s h-scenes are pretty well drawn, even if some of the characters suffer from Hirai face, and always seem to be angled in just the right way erotically. While a lot of newer visual novels feature all kinds animation techniques, or have a multitude of different pictures for each scene, Nympho Sensei Ryoko instead is a lot more simple with only a small number of images per scene. However, this game is designed with a quick fap session in mind, and not so much a game that wants to torture you sexually. That’s not to say that the torture fetish isn’t represented… because it is, it’s just not the focus. Pretty much, in this game, if you have a particular fetish, it is more than likely covered in some capacity. They even have a scene for swimsuits. So definitely, outside of lolicon stuff (I haven’t encountered any on my playthrough), there isn’t anything that I don’t think isn’t covered. If you need a fap, you just need to hunt down the scene that works for you.

As is becoming more and more standard for Japanese developed visual novels, the game is voiced by Japanese voice actresses. However, it is only the female characters, and Akito, that get voiced within the game. Gamers expecting an English voice option should know that it is unavailable, but the Japanese dub is amazingly well done anyway. The main voice that you will be listening to is Ryoko’s own, as she is in most of the scenes, but each of the supporting characters are all also pretty well done.

One thing that might be a bit interesting to some people is that the voices can become quite loud. Especially late at night. So, uh, make sure to turn the volume down a bit before playing. Unless you live alone, then by all means crank that volume to the max!

Overall, Nympho Sensei Ryoko is definitely a fun time waiting to be had. If you want to try something different, but also something that caters to your needs, this game will likely have you covered somewhere. Keep in mind that it is not a fully interactive experience, but it’s definitely intended to keep you interacting ;).

Rating: Lusty/10

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Nympho Sensei Ryoko is released on PC in English by JAST USA. This review is based on a code provided by the publisher for the purposes of review. You can purchase the game here (non-affiliate link).

Mass Effect: Andromeda (PS4) Review

Mass Effect: Andromeda is the latest title in, and spin-off of, the Mass Effect franchise. Gamers take on the new role of Ryder as a “Pathfinder”, an explorer that can do whatever they want as they are mostly above authority, to help establish colonies across the Andromeda galaxy. However, the Andromeda region may not be as hospitable to life as the team had envisioned. It’s a new galaxy, and with it, a new adventure and new dangers await.

I’m going to say this as soon as possible so that people can immediately determine whether or not they will enjoy playing Mass Effect: Andromeda or not. The writing in this game feels as though it was written by a 14 year old fan-fiction writer from tumblr. And not one of those good ones either. The kind that writes themselves in as a Mary Sue character that has all the side cast eating off of their every word and exist only to further their whims.

So the game starts with the crew of the Starship Enterprise Colony Ship of the humans reaching Andromeda galaxy. Their job is to explore new worlds and to establish contact with the new Nexus base set up in the Andromeda Galaxy. Immediately upon entering the system, the crew decide to take a tour onto a nearby world, shortly after their ship is damage from some kind of dark matter nebula. It’s not the smartest move, considering there is a Nexus base nearby to get repairs done, but, fan-fiction tier writing.

While on the planet, the games narrative really starts. After some explosions and some linear pathfinding, you come face-to-face with the mook soldiers of the game’s primary villains, the Kett. Anyway, more poorly written exposition later and suddenly you are no longer a regular explorer, but are now the Pathfinder. Breaking protocol on becoming Pathfinder, because your dad passes it down to you, and the rightful next-in-line gets shafted.

This part is another example of poorly written story in this game. The rightfully trained next-in-line Pathfinder doesn’t even care in the slightest that all of her years of training have gone to waste. She is just like: “Yup, you’re the Pathfinder now. That’s cool. I will follow you to the ends of the galaxy and die for you.” In fact, just to see if at any points she becomes resentful about it, I’ve taken her on every mission I could and spoken to her often. It rarely, if ever, comes back up as a topic. Heck, you can even kind of become her friend (I played female and didn’t notice romance options, only the friend heart; I will also admit to rushing this a fair bit). If this was the first two Mass Effect games, there’d have been some kind of tension here for sure.

The way the story is told and progresses isn’t particularly appealing in comparison to previous Mass Effect games either. At no point did it feel like there was any kind of urgency to my mission, nor did it particularly feel like there was a reason to explore. Definitely though, the narrative was dis-interesting enough for me to not want to pay attention to it. I can handle dumb narratives, but the way it’s delivered here, it was just boring.

Let’s look at an example of an urgent quest that you get locked into. There’s one quest where you have to rescue some aliens from an alien brainwashing facility. You go in, none of your party members use their talents to help you get into the facility, nor do you get the opportunity to bond with them through special dialogue via them helping, unlike in the other Mass Effect games. After that, you fight a bunch of enemies, not too much happens but the person you’re doing the quest for giving some dialogue. None of it meaningful. Soon, you fight a boss. The boss was actually slightly challenging if you don’t realise that you have guns and his only damaging attack is a one hit kill melee attack and are hit by it. And then his ending dialogue gives you two choices, each as stupid as the other, and finally, you go through an actually challenging firefight that is easier if you do it wrong.

I want to expand on the dialogue choices on the boss in that scenario, as it is major point that echoes throughout the game in almost every conversation. You’re simply not given enough realistic options to deal with a scenario. Spoilers: Your two options are to either save the person you came to rescue, or, let them die and rescue all the brainwashed people. It’s dumb, because in previous Mass Effect games, there would surely be a third option to save everyone the hard way. In this very specific instance, it’s kill the bad guy and bomb the base to save the one person, or, let the bad guy live and save all the brainwashed people.

Now, we could have just added a deceptive third option here and had our cake, and eat it too. Shepard would have done this. This is dumb. The writing in this game sucks. And this one scenario echoes this weakness throughout the entire game.

I don’t want to spend all-day talking about just how poorly written this game is, or how poorly thought out the choices that progress the story are, and so I will end that discussion here. It is a shame that Bioware’s writing has fallen so far in recent years, although the signs were all there, pointing to this inevitable conclusion.

A thing I’m not sure if Bioware intended with the gameplay or not is that all the decisions and things that you do in the game, can very easily be done by the people asking you to do them. This isn’t just reflected in the quests either. There are small mundane things in the dialogue as early as the start of the game that make you feel less like a hero, or an explorer, and more of a galactic delivery boy. I remember being in shock at how dumb some of the NPCs in this game sounded asking for you to do things that are literally right in front of them. “Ryder! I have arms, with hands on them! Can you touch this thing for me that is literally right within not even a full-arms length of distance from me?”

Speaking of dialogue, it plays a huge part in this game. It’s just too bad it’s uninteresting, mostly useless, and seems to serve some point other than creating an enjoyable experience. Why is it that literally every alien you meet in the first few hours of the game gay? I get that gay representation is seen as good in games, but why are there no gay humans? Are Bioware trying to tell us that all gays are aliens? Wouldn’t it have been more believable if there was a more varied mix of characters? Why does their sexuality even matter?

Actually speaking about that, in a (SPOILERS) cutscene where you first meet Peewee, you are on a hostile alien world where literally everything is trying to kill you. What does she do? She runs into you and pushes you onto the ground with her grotesque alien body that is sure to make anyone being tackled on an alien planet immediately react in a self-defensive manner. Does this believable scenario happen? No? Instead, we get instant sex-eyes.

I’m going to be honest, I was ready to drop this turd of a game at this point. Nobody can write, and nobody knows anything about anything. This is worse than: “DO YOU WANT TO RIDE THE BULL,” because at least at that point we were asking for it. Here it’s just: “HEY LET’S NOT REACT DEFENSIVELY TO ALMOST BEING KILLED OR MOLESTED ON AN ALIEN PLANET WHERE EVERYTHING WANTS TO KILL US.”

There is also a lack of opportunity to make your character into a Paragon, or, a Renegade in this game. As I previously mentioned, the dialogue makes almost no difference to story progression, and when it does, it is dumb. Regardless of if you pick the smart option, the emotive option, the curious option or the friend option, not much really happens. All dialogues lead to the same place, outside of the specific ones that don’t, and it just seems like cheap differences with no consequence. No longer can you be a good dude, or a dude that just goes around punching people in the face and shooting them in the head, or a deceptive dude, nope. Now it’s just: advance dialogue>choose 1/4>advance dialogue in similar manner>if story mission give two dumb options. There is no real depth here, just slightly different scripts.

Anyway, the combat gameplay in Mass Effect: Andromeda is actually pretty good. It’s pretty reactive and the jump-jets make an awesome addition to making firefights fast and visceral. Particularly, if you have a fast shotgun you can just rocket in and kill things with relative ease. The melee combat is a bit iffy though, that could have had a bit more effort put into it. Though, if you imagine that you are a robot and not a person, you are making excuses, but they are fun excuses.

One thing that I don’t understand in Mass Effect: Andromeda though is that you can effectively jump-jet everywhere. Because this can be spammed, it effectively makes sprinting useless as it comes out ahead in movement speed. It’s not quite as fast as using the not-mako, but it’s still pretty quick.

When it comes to the game world and the scenario in Mass Effect: Andromeda, the game is a little different to previous games. In the first two Mass Effect games, moreso the first, big open worlds were relegated mainly to mako drives and not many main scenario missions utilised these sandbox style worlds. Instead, most of the roleplaying is done on bases and in stations. Very tight areas that were interesting and made you want to explore. In Andromeda, you will be mostly running around empty sandbox planets, going from copy-paste station to copy-paste station to find the one item that will advance the mission you are on.

It feels like a lot of the game’s length was artificially created through this egregious, and often annoying, spacing. There’s just not enough to do to justify the vast amount of space between objectives. And if you’ve come out of previous Mass Effect games, it just feels like a lot of wasted time.

Interestingly, the sound in this game is really well done. The background tracks give an awesome feel to the game that really makes this worthwhile. Unfortunately, the soundtrack carries the game, rather than being a supplement to a great package.

The voice acting in Mass Effect: Andromeda is also done okay, but you can tell that even the voice actors began to feel how dumb this game actually was from a writing perspective. There are a few standout performances, but on the whole, it felt like a lot of lines weren’t given enough context to make it work. Or, everyone involved knew they were making rubbish and simply didn’t care. The only voice actors that seemed like they were happy to be working on this game were the not-kitty-twilek aliens.

The Frostbite engine used in this game really does do all of the hard-work in making Mass Effect: Andromeda truly standout. And standout it does. All the blemishes of amateur modeling and amateur rigging stands out like a stick in the mud. I mean, the developers couldn’t even be assed making a detailed character generator. How much effort do you think they actually put into making decent models themselves. 0. It was outsourced to someone else.

Honestly, Mass Effect: Andromeda is a symptom of a bleeding western game industry. You have talentless hacks being hired because they know the right person, or they wrote some erotic fanfiction that someone at the studio got the tingles over and ended up getting the job as a writer. After that, because nobody can actually do anything except write fanfiction, all the grunt work gets pawned off to someone else to do, someone that doesn’t care. And the end result, well, is Mass Effect: Andromeda. Note: This whole paragraph is supposition, and may not be truthful. But damn, this is the only explanation for how things could have gotten so bad with this title. How do you mess up Mass Effect with such a Mass Effect?

Overall, I just can not advise people buy this stain on the franchise. Your money would be better spent on buying the classic three games if you’re hungry for some space-faring sci-fi. If you’re a fan of the series, do not tarnish your memory. Stay safe. Avoid.

Rating: DO NOT BUY/ 10

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Mass Effect: Andromeda is developed by Bioware and published by EA. This review is based on the PS4 version of the game, as supplied by EA for the purposes of review. You can buy it on Origin(PC) for $99 dollarydoos, PSN(PS4) for $99 dollarydoos and Microsoft Store(Xboner) for $69.99 USD.

This has been cross-posted to MCXV.

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Souzou Sengoku Risshiden Review

If I had to quickly describe Nobunaga’s Ambition to someone completely unfamiliar with the series, I would say that it is pretty much the Japanese version of the Civilization series. Only, a bit more complicated, and confusing. However, for fans of history, and those that like tactical depth, there could be a lot that would interest those people in Nobunaga’s Ambition.

The main story in Nobunaga’s Ambition plays out a little differently depending on which clan you choose in the games Recommended screen on opening the New Game button. However, interestingly, if you choose to go back, you are taken to a menu where you can choose an era and character to play through. It’s honestly a little confusing how this works, as you would expect to kind of choose an era –and then– choose a clan. Also ideally, it would be clear that you are playing a specific scenario when choosing a clan on the first screen, rather than having to go back and choosing a scenario from the list.

Anyway, the game is actually rather light on story content, instead focusing strongly on the gameplay of the title. After beginning a scenario, you could be convinced that you’re not even really playing a game for its story, but instead are playing a game for its period and gameplay. And really, the gameplay in this is really the entirety of the game. Like, really. Learning how to play the game is, in itself, a game.

And honestly, that isn’t even really necessary. The best way to play this game is to just let the retainers make all the decisions for you. At most, you may want to manually take control every so often to make it feel as though you’re actually doing something useful, but outside of that, there’s no real point. The game doesn’t make this process of non-automation more appealing either, the in-game menus are complicated as heck, and way too overwhelming. Once you work out which of them are actually useful, the two pages of menus feel like they could have been reduced significantly, or made more useful elsewhere.

Visually, this game looks like it was made back in around 2004. As a historical civilisation simulator, I wouldn’t really expect it to have photorealistic graphics and so the visuals do work for what the game is. However, this game does feel aged straight of the box, which doesn’t give too good of an initial impression.

I did really like the character artwork and the overall designs within the UI. However, as previously mentioned, the menu’s are a mess to navigate and no amount of good artwork will fix that. However, fans of the samurai era will definitely really enjoy the art from this game.

The audio in this was pretty unremarkable, and with the game closed, it’s hard to remember any significant track that really stood out to define the experience. While video games are visual experiences, sometimes the audio really helps to make it just a little more complete and can even make a badly made game slightly more enjoyable.

There are some voice clips however, which does show some effort went into the audio. I just wish that it was more memorable. Even the combat noises were pretty generic and nothing to really push this experience into a memorable one.

Overall, I just really didn’t enjoy my time with this game. I feel like the hours spent trying to learn it were for nothing when the game will always do a better job at playing itself for you. It almost feels as though if you don’t spend hundreds of hours trying to progress, it was designed to be played for you with how obtuse the UI is. If you’re a fan of these kinds of games, you’ll probably love this, but for me, this is too similar to other games that do a much better job.

Rating: 6.5/10

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This review is based on the PC version of the game which was supplied to us by Koei-Tecmo for the purposes of review. It can be purchased on Steam for ~$60.

Critical Hit [Adult Content Warning] Review

Critical Hit is the debut single player visual novel release by TsukiWare for PC. It is filled with the sorts of DnD adventures that a 13 year old you might have created and the adult you more than likely still wants to indulge in. It tries to offer the player something a little different than the ordinary. How does it stack up to heavyweight fare? Let’s see. Let’s get this out of the way, first and foremost, Cirtical Hit features a trap as its central character in the story. If this is the sort of thing that will add some allure to the character (cough cough, raises hand) then I am sure you will get more out of the game.

So, how is the game? Lets talk about the characters as that is where I feel the game best shines. In Critical Hit, there are three main characters that you will be dealing with in the game. Akira himself, a very mild and shy boy who wants to be a hero. He is a very feminine looking boy who wants to go on adventures to rescue his princess pony toy… yup you read that right. Then there is Spirit Akira, who is an anomaly that seems to represent Akira while also filling in as the observer to the audience about what is happening. Akira is unable to interact with Spirit Akira which makes for a lot of humourous dialogue as Spirit Akira seems to be aware of what is really going on.

Lastly, the game is set under the whim of an all seeing and all powerful dungeon master. This DM likes to send Akira into all manner of situations that he must overcome, seemingly delighting in using cliche deviant scenarios to push Akira into the situations he wishes to be privy to.. In true adolescent pulp fantasy; this will mostly involve the use of Akira’s pert young body and its ability to entertain objects of various size.

The dialogue is very tongue in cheek and plays off a lot of the common expectations we are used to seeing in such a game and indeed, in the general DnD universe as a whole. I found myself enjoying the conversations between Akira and the characters around him, from people joking about him having a weaboo name (okay he kinda does) to a pair of goblins coming across him and deciding he needs to judge who is the best out of them both by molesting him.

I literally laughed out loud a few times playing the game, just seeing the situations that Akira found himself in and it was the sole reason I continued the story. That isn’t to say that the graphics in Critical Hit are bad. I personally think that Akira is quite alluring, however I found myself wanting his scenes to be more drawn out, as it felt that by the time I was getting into a situation and really getting prepared for what was to come, Akira was taking it like a pro and moving the story along.

The story has it’s own conclusion but it all happens very quickly and the game will be over before you know it. This is the problem with Critical Hit as a whole. You have an awesome dynamic between a spirit that servers as a link between the player and game, a game master who interferes with what the spirit really wants to do, and Akira who is the pawn dragged into everything. These characters work well and you want to see more development from them. You want each scene to have more details, for there to be more individual choices as to what Akira will do, how he will resolve his dilemmas with the monsters that desperately want to spank his tight boy pussy and how it will shape the story.

Maybe I am expecting to much from a small title but I think that speaks to the games credit, it left me wanting more than it gave. If it’s asking price was say, $5, then I could fully justify the purchase and would argue that every one of you should experience Akira and his quest of boners for themselves. However, unless you have the money to spare or are a huge trap fan, then the asking price of $9.95 is a little much considering the very short length and linear nature of the game.

I hope that Critical Hit will give TsukiWare some exposure and allow them to develop more fully realised visual novels in the future as they have shown themselves to have a good sense of humor and and the ability to create likeable and visually appealing characters.

Score: Jackhorn / 10

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Critical Hit is developed by TsukiWare and released by MangaGamer. This title was supplied by MangaGamer for the purposes of review. You can purchase it on their site for ~$10.

Funbag Fantasy [Adult Content Warning] Review

Funbag Fantasy, or Kyonyuu Fantasy, is developed by Waffle and is a game about big boobs. Or rather, it’s a game with a medieval fantasy setting with a main protagonist that has a thing for big breasted women and all the women that he happens to encounter all have big breasts. From the outset, it seems as though Funbag Fantasy is a game for those that are a fan of the… funbags, and a lot of the H-scenes focus heavily on this aspect of the body. Expect lots of paizuri/ boob-jobs.

Lute, the protagonist, is the worst ranked member of the Knight Academy. His grades are so low that the story begins with him being refused entry into the castle in order to receive his certification for becoming a knight, that’s how un-knightly he seems. After being given his certification after some complications, he is given a new assignment. He is to look after the town of Boan, and work with the Lord there. However, while in Boan, it seems as though things may not be as they seem.

The story told into the town of Boan is really a taste of the kind of storytelling that the entirety of Funbag Fantasy has to offer. On the one hand, it is incredibly interesting, with tales of behind-the-scenes manipulation and a plot to overthrow the throne, but on the other, it is also incredibly fun with how the main character kind of accidents their way through everything. Even more, the games secondary protagonist, the sexy Succubus character, adds a lot of life to the game, both sexually and in the characters writing.

Using the early scenario of Boan as an example, there is a simple plot of what seems like an idea to have the Lord of that town have his wife executed so that he can remarry. However, this soon becomes an even bigger conspiracy that unfolds into a plot to overthrow the throne. However unlikely that it is, out hero is able to tame a succubus and sleep with the Lord’s wife without anything bad happening. Even more, he ends up the hero in this instance.

The above is pretty much the formula for how the story in Funbag Fantasy plays out continually. However, the formula never gets boring or uninteresting. Somehow, things just keep getting better and better and you want to keep on reading through. It’s so weird where a formula doesn’t eventually wear itself out, but, in this case, just keep going.

Much like in most Visual Novels, the players are presented with choices at times. Typically in this game, the choices don’t really amount to much other than a change in lewd imagery, but, there is a point where it seems like one choice may make a big difference on the gameplay. This review is only based on one route, so, I’m not too sure what plays out if you take the other option, but looking in the menus at all the unlockables, it seems like the story may diverge at that point.

As someone that prefers the booty more to the booby, I wasn’t quite sure that I’d enjoy the artstyle in Funbag Fantasy as much as I did. It could have been the more fantastical and medieval style art that drew me in, but I can’t say that the boobs weren’t uninteresting either. I also really liked the artstyle in general, with the setting and characters working really well together, even if the designs aren’t typically realistic.

All of the H-scenes in the game revolve around boobs. I can’t recall a scene off the top of my head that didn’t have a boob take up most of the screen. Even more, there is a lot more paizuri than vaginal or anal sex, although there is a fair bit of fellatio. If you’re into boob-jobs, definitely, DEFINITELY, take a look at this game.

One of my complaints about this game is the background music. While it is quite cheerful and engaging most of the time, it doesn’t feel like there is enough variety to make it not become annoying. I wasn’t a fan of the soundtrack, but I think that some people will like it. You can always turn the music down or off if you’re not too big on it.

Meanwhile, I really enjoyed that Funbag Fantasy is only partially voiced. For the most part the protagonist and some side characters are not voice acted at all, while the female characters in this game are fully voiced. This kind of lets you self-insert into some situations, and not lose your boner while dealing with dudes. However, sometimes the voices are a bit on the loud side, possibly due to being higher pitched, so I recommend not playing this at full volume.

Overall, Funbag Fantasy is a fun title with some pretty decent art with a focus on the mammaries (which my computer dictionary is telling me isn’t a real word). As mentioned, if you like big boobs, you’ll love this game. However, as someone that isn’t too big of a fan of them, I really enjoyed what this had to bring as well, so I suppose that it has a level of universal appeal. I definitely recommend picking up Funbag Fantasy.

Rating: 9/10

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Funbag Fantasy comes courtesy of MangaGamer. This review is based on the PC version of the game and was supplied by MangaGamer for review. You can purchase it here for ~$45.

Dead End Junction Review

Dead End Junction is an interesting take on the Wild West. Developed by sole member of 773, Hizuma (with help from others) and published by Culture Select for the Western market, Dead End Junction turns out to be a good visual novel. It centres around Josette, a free spirit looking for adventure. She finds it after discovering her father’s past. There is a good story, great characters, a decent soundtrack and an unique art style, but there are some flaws which are hard to ignore.

The visual novel centres around Josette, an orphan living with her uncle in the town of Cow Stone Bell. As with most young protagonists, she is tired with her lifestyle in the small town. Instead, she has a desire for adventure and wants out of the town. That opportunity comes one day during a freak storm. A man in a hooded cloak appears in front a Josette. After telling her uncle, it’s revealed Josette’s father and uncle had From there on, it becomes a story of self discovery, the meaning of friendships and tackling social issues that were prevalent during the Wild West period.

The story is quite slow to start. There was too much exposition delivered in one hit, but the world is thought out quite well. The pacing felt off as well, as it took its time to get to the meat of the story. However, as the story progressed, it did become quite interesting. As Josette discovers the world outside of Cow Stone Bell, the visual novel explores several social issues that were present during the Wild West period, such as relations between settlers and Native Americans. They were presented in a mature and objective light and can easily apply to modern society, allowing the reader/player make up their own mind. With that said, the ending didn’t provide any closure at all and the story got quite repetitive.

As for the characters, they are all well developed and interesting. The reader/player will enjoy Josette. She is the typical free spirit that wants to to go on adventures rather than staying in a small town herding cows. She is also quite brave, but also reckless as she rarely thinks about the situation. She’s quite headstrong as well. Her polar opposite is Flanel Hopefield, daughter of the owner of the biggest ranch in Cow Stone Bell. She is usually shy and reserved, but also more lady like due to her upbringing. The friendship between Josette and Flanel is actually quite special. They are very close to each other, to the point where Flanel doesn’t want Josette to leave. These two characters are the standout in Dead End Junction, but the overall cast is quite good.

The art style is unique but not magnificent. However, it does the job. The characters rarely have exaggerated traits, but that makes it more interesting. The art style lends itself to look like a comic book, right down to the panel look and different dialogue boxes. Ther backgrounds look decent enough. The soundtrack fits with the overall theme of the visual novel and that’s all it needs to do. It’s a decent soundtrack. There are also homages to famous country western songs like “Home On The Range,” which was a nice touch. However, there is no voice acting, which makes it stand out from other visual novels on the market.

Dead End Junction seems like a hit and miss visual novel. Overall, it’s a good visual novel, but it’s plagued with several narrative issues that could’ve taken the novel to further heights. The story is good overall, but it starts off too slow with too much exposition to cover the world. The ending needed closure rather than what was offered. Josette and Flanel are standouts in a cast of good characters, while the art style and soundtrack fits the theme of the novel. Considering the price of the visual novel, it’s worth picking it up for the good story.

Rating: 6/10

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Dead End Junction was provided by publisher Culture Select for the purpose of this review. It is available on Steam for US$8.99.

Wish -Tale of the sixteenth night of lunar month- Review

Wish -Tale of the sixteenth night of the lunar moon- is the kinetic visual novel from the doujin developer Migiha. The story revolves around a group of people capable of using a secret energy known as Prana, which has the ability to manipulate objects and do all kinds of magical things. Of course, things are not all as they seem for the main character, Tenka, who has been unable to harness the power of Prana until a chance encounter with his adoptive families cursed katana. The story itself seems to be influenced by Type-Moon’s style of games (think Fate/Stay Night), but with a bit more of a doujin feel to it. Fans of really long kinetic novels may want to try this one on for size.

The story of Wish -totsnotlm- is one that follows the character Tenka as he falls in love with a mysterious girl after developing a power known as Prana. He is your average guy adopted into a strange family that has the ability to use a strange magical power known as Prana. This Prana is a mystical energy that allows its users to basically do any kind of magic that they need. However, it takes a lot of training to become a Runemaster, which is essentially a person powerful enough at using Prana effectively. Tenka, however, is unable to use this power and must watch from afar as his adoptive family is able to do things that he can only dream of. Until one day when he is cut by a mysterious Katana at the shrine where he lives.

The story itself is incredibly long, with just the Prologue taking 2-5 hours to get through, and there being numerous actual chapters after that. As a Kinetic style visual novel, the story is told dialogue box by dialogue box, with pictures and not too much interaction from the player. Unlike a visual novel, a kinetic novel has no player choice at all, and progresses the story in a linear fashion. What makes Wish a bit better than usual is that as you unlock chapters, you’re able to choose them from the menu in game, making returning to a point quick and easy, rather than having to review pages of save files to one you might have saved at the beginning of a chapter.

While playing Wish -totsnotlm-, I thought that the story was really well written. Like, not in a ‘this is a lot of content’ kind of way, but it was actually an enjoyable read. There were some things that I thought were a bit strange, namely that a bunch of teenagers living at a shrine were getting drunk and partying every night while legally buying alcohol at a convenience store somehow. But still, content aside, well-written is well-written. In this case, I should say that it was also translated in a pretty professional manner.

I think that anyone that has the attention for long visual novels will probably really enjoy the story in Wish. If not, they may want to avoid this one. However, it’s quite an interesting read, even with some things that I think make not a lot of sense, particularly when it comes to characters lifestyles.

The art style in Wish is a bit of a mixed bag. It definitely gives that doujin feel to it, considering that a lot of the character art looks like fan-art and not a top-tier production. Even more, the backgrounds look as though they are photographs put through like three different filters, rather than actual art. It’s a very strange art direction, but even so, it still has moments where it works out really well.

A lot of the time, you’ll be seeing portrait images of characters above a background of whatever the scene is. The text, like some forms of visual novel, takes up the majority of the screen, unlike some where it is a text-box at the bottom of the screen. This type of Visual Novel works pretty well, and the style isn’t one that I see too often. Hanachirasu was the last VN of this type that I remember reading.

What I really liked about the character art is that it does a lot better at angles rather than as a portrait view. This is quite interesting as I think a lot of people would find it more difficult to draw angled characters than portrait characters. Perhaps it has to do with the art-style itself more than the actual quality of the art. But still, it’s something that I thought was pretty cool.

The backgrounds though, they’ve pretty much convinced me to not use filtered photographs in any visual novels that I might develop. I really didn’t like the look that they gave each of the scenes and I felt that they removed some of the value in each scene. With drawn backgrounds, you can do things to help give more of a presence to the feeling of a scene, which I felt that these filtered photos didn’t do all that well. Like early on, there’s a fun scene in a supermarket, but the weird effects kind of go against that feeling.

When it comes to the audio in Wish -totsnotlm- it is something that is there. It isn’t particularly memorable, or it might just be that I don’t remember it. There isn’t any voice acting in the game, but it does feature a pretty decent soundtrack. It’s just unmemorable.

Overall, Wish -Tale of the sixteenth night of lunar month- is a pretty decent Visual Novel offering from Culture Select and developer Migiha. Some gamers may find this a bit long, and the non-interactivity will be a bit of a put-off for people looking for something more substantial. However, it is a pretty decent story and fans of the genre will enjoy it for that.

Rating: 7 /10

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Wish -Tale of the sixteenth night of lunar month- is published by Culture Select and developed by Migiha. This review is based on the PC version of the game as provided by Culture Select for the purposes of review. You can buy it in the Steam store for ~$8.

A.O.T / Attack On Titan – Wings of Freedom Review

Shingeki no Kyojin – Attack On Titan, if you haven’t heard of it, is one of the largest Japanese anime and manga franchises on the market at the moment. The franchise is about humanity being on the brink of extinction thanks to relentless attacks by a mysterious enemy, known as Titans, for generations. To repel the titans, humanity have built several walls around their territory and have developed some rather unique weaponry that excel in butchering these foes. The A.O.T / Attack On Titan – Wings of Freedom video game follows the storyline of the anime adaptation of the popular manga series, and it somehow is way better than expected.

If you’ve seen the anime or read the manga, the story in Attack on Titan will feel very familiar to you. In fact, it will feel like you’re playing through the same exact story as those. And that’s because you are. Omega Force have done an incredibly good job at adapting the story content of the anime series into this awesomely fun Musou-styled Attack On Titan experience. The story being told here is literally a short-story form, footnote version of the Attack On Titan stories best parts. If you ever wanted to live out any particular moment from the anime, this games story mode covers it!

It’s hard for me to talk about the story in any real meaningful way because I’ve experienced it in so many different mediums that all the plot points no longer feel shocking or have that first time punch to them. But, all of those points that were initially as previously stated for me are in this game, albeit, in a slightly more condensed and to-the-point kind of way. So I can imagine that anyone’s first time experience with Attack On Titan being with this game having an exceptional response to the story. This is simply because the story is such a simple concept that can be told really well across multiple mediums.

What I liked about the story, the way that it is told in the game, is that it consistently switches between the perspectives of multiple characters and has you play as the character that is the current focus of that part of the story. This somehow makes you feel like an active driving force within the story, rather than an observer going through the motions of experiencing the story. It’s a lot of fun.

The highlight of Attack On Titan – Wings of Freedom is its core gameplay mechanics. This game is just so amazingly fun to play. It’s so simple, yet so fast paced and fluid that you can’t easily describe the feeling of playing.

In the Attack On Titan story, the main cast are part of a military squad known as the Scout Regiment (Recon Corps, Recon Squad, Scout Battalion– I’ve seen this translated 100 different ways). What makes this interesting is that unlike traditional soldiers, the soldiers in this universe are equipped with gas-propelled grappling hook launchers called the Maneuver Gear. This device fires hooks in two opposing directions to form a kind of sling. The purpose of the sling is to turn the soldier into a fast-moving aerial fighter in order to get to the back of a Titans neck in order to cut open the weak-point and defeat them.

Now, as you can imagine, being propelled through the air, on what is essentially a sling, would be a heck of a lot of fun. Dangerous, yes. But a lot of fun. And let me tell you, doing it in this game is really, really, fun. Somehow, flying around Trost and the outer wall districts, is the best aerial experience that you can ask for. It fulfills your “gotta-go-fast” instincts, while also feeding into your needs for more speed. Oh, and if you want more speed, all you have to do press the gotta-go-fast button and use a small amount of gas to propel yourself even quicker.

This mechanic also ties-in with fighting the Titans themselves. By locking onto a Titan, you can select a body part to fire a hook into in order to attack that part. What makes fighting Titans extremely fun is that you can re-attach yourself to a limb after you’ve become detached. I found that it is amazingly exciting to hook into a limb, do a fast slice, propel backwards and then repeat until it is lobbed off. It’s just so good.

Much like other Musou styled games, like Dynasty Warriors, players are put on a map and tasked with completing objectives while also saving their allies from being killed from time-to-time. However, unlike other Musou styled games, A.O.T is slightly different in that you’re not fighting hundreds of enemies on screen at once, and are instead fighting a smaller battalion of giant humanoid Titans. This formula works amazingly well for Attack on Titan. But, I do have to say that there isn’t enough variation in mission objectives in the Story Mode. Almost every battle ends with the player having to kill a bigger Titan, and when the gameplay mechanics do start to kick up a notch, it is literally the last story mission in the game.

I would like to say that the majority of the gameplay in Attack On Titan is in the main story, but it’s really not. There is a massive tonne of side-content that easily eclipses the main story. I personally haven’t worked through it all, but it’s a heck of a lot from what I have played through already. Even more, the objectives do get a bit more complicated, so it seems like this will be the bulk of where players will be spending their time. And they’ll love every moment.

It can’t be stressed enough how fun this game is to play. I would recommend it– even if you’re not a fan of anime-style games, or game adaptations of anime series’. The maneuver gear mecahnic alone is worth the purchase, but mixed in with actual gameplay, it is just amazing.

There is too much to praise in this game, but I’m going to praise it some more. The music takes its cues from the anime series, with a lot of the notation sounding incredibly similar to the show. However, it has that signature rock element to it that Omega Force is known for introducing into its games. I loved what they did to the Zelda adaptation, Hyrule Warriors, and I love what they have done to the Attack On Titan soundtrack.

A.O.T is a mostly fully-voiced game, with only side-conversations not being voiced. I’m not sure if they’ve simply lifted voice samples from the anime, or if the lines were completely re-recorded from scratch, but the voice acting is highly reminiscent of the source anime series. In particular, I really liked the delivery behind Levi’s lines. They felt really rigor and fitting to the character. (I’m totally not a Levi fangirl or anything, I swear!).

The only really significant fault with this game, much like many Musou styled games, is that the graphics do lack a little. Obviously, this game is a bit more cel-shaded and made to look like the manga, so it does hold up a bit better than usual. But in comparison to many other titles, and even to the anime series, the look does seem a bit strange. However the gameplay is so fluid that you’re hardly noticing the lower graphical fidelity anyway. But still, I feel like a graphical presentation, particularly since this was a PC release, of something a bit more detailed would make this feel like a much more truer Attack On Titan experience. But still, the game we have is fantastic and I’m not going to not recommend this because of the graphical level.

Overall, A.O.T / Attack On Titan: Wings of Freedom is the most fun I’ve had going fast since F-Zero GX. I’ve said this multiple times in this review, but I’ll say it again: The game is a heck of a lot of fun. Even after the 10hrs or so I’ve put into it, it has only gotten more enjoyable. Definitely pick this up, even if you’re not into anime at all.

Rating: Needs more Titan boobs /10

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A.O.T / Attack On Titan: Wings of Freedom is developed by Omega Force and released by Koei Tecmo. This review is based on the PC version of the game as provided by Koei Tecmo for the purposes of review. You can buy it on Steam for ~$60.

Flowers -Le Volume Sur Printemps- Review

If there is one world to describe Flowers -Le volume sur printemps-, it would be beautiful. Developed by Innocent Grey and published by JAST USA, the yuri visual novel tells the story of Suoh Shirahane, an introverted young girl who starts attending Saint Angraecum Academy, an all girls school isolated from society. While there, she becomes good friends with her fellow classmates, but she also discovers a mystery that needs to be solved. The story and characters are likable, the art style is beautiful and the music is excellent. There are, however, a few issues with the translation, but that can be fixed in the future.

The story is centered around Suoh Shirahane, who is quite introverted and shy. She isn’t able to fit into a school due to her personality, but she asks her grandfather if she can attend a school by the name of Saint Angraecum Academy, an all girls boarding school. There, Suoh hopes to make friends and break out of her shell, but, as she finds out, there is more to the school that is isolated in the world. The story is great. The game takes two paths, focusing on Suoh’s friendship with one of two characters. The pacing is great, but it does feel restrictive when there is only two paths to follow. There is also a mystery to solve as part of the plot. While the mystery element to the story was great, how it was paced was poorly executed. It felt like you’ll learn about the clues after the fact rather than before making the decision.

The characters are well developed and fleshed out. Suoh is an interesting character to follow throughout the game. At first, she is shy and reserved, but, as the game progresses, she becomes more open to her fellow classmates. She is also quite emphatic and intelligent. She is very likable and a great protagonist. As for her classmates, there are a few who stand out. The two characters Suoh befriends closely are Rikka Hanabishi and Mayumi Kousaka. Rikka is like the mother hen of the group. She is calm and kind, yet strict when she needs to be. Mayumi, on the other hand, is a social butterfly, the opposite of Suoh’s personality. Despite that, she is also a hard worker when she puts her mind to her task. The rest of the cast are hit and miss, but the main trio of characters are very interesting and like able.

The visual novel really excels in its art design. The artists employed a water coloured art design, similar to Valkyria Chronicles. Each scene leaps off the screen with the beautiful strokes of each character design. They are also quite expressive with the character portraits. With that said, the art design leans towards a low contrast presentation. As such, the night scenes are too bright and takes away from the atmosphere. As for the music, it is as beautiful as the art design. Each piece fits the scene. The voice acting is also quite decent.

Despite the great story, characters, art design and sound design, there are a few flaws with the visual novel. Flowers -Le volume sur printemps- felt unfinished in terms of the story. Although there is some closure contained within this visual novel, it is, in fact, part one of a four part story, so it does feel unfinished by the end. There are also issues with the translation side of things. There are a few errors with the grammar of sentences, such as weird contextual sentences, as well as spelling errors. Also, there was the mystery during the visual novel which was annoying and all over the place.

Flowers -Le volume sur printemps- is a beautiful visual novel. The story is interesting, well paced and well told, the characters are interesting and like able, the art design is beautiful and colourful and the sound design is very enjoyable. With that said, there are issues with the translation, certain parts of the story do get annoying, some characters aren’t interesting and there isn’t proper closure by the time the visual novel ends. This is a great visual novel to check out.

Rating: 7/10

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Flowers -Le volume sur printemps- was published by JAST USA, who provided a Steam key for the purpose of this review. Flowers -Le volume sur printemps- is now available on Steam and JAST USA’s website.

Umbrella Corps Review

Note: This review is based on a very limited playthrough of the Umbrella Corps game as there are rarely any players online at the same time to even have a decent go at this title.

Umbrella Corps, or BIOHAZARD: Umbrella Corps as it also known as according to Steam, is the latest spin-off game in the Resident Evil/Biohazard franchise from the publisher Capcom. In Umbrella Corps, gamers take on the role of a faceless Umbrella mook that engages in Deathmatch style arena battles to complete objectives against other players. This game makes little sense, and doesn’t really do a good job of trying to do so. It seems like a game that is a justification for more DLC purchases and to further suck the life out of franchise that focuses on the lifeless.

The storyline, it seems, is pretty simple. You’d probably miss it if you didn’t do any of the side missions because there were no online matches to play. Basically it seems like it’s your job to do objectives to get samples for the Umbrella Corporation, for some reason. There’s no real long and overarching story in this one, just some flavour text to get you into killing some zombies. And the story that is there… it isn’t very deep. At all.

I would have liked to have seen that the story take on a slightly larger presence within the game. Even though this is a gameplay oriented title, even having a bit more of an overt story would have made people playing the multiplayer portion a little more satisfied. Without something giving you a purpose in the game, the gameplay itself feels really pointless. It’s like: ‘why should I care about winning and collecting samples when I have no idea what it is that these things are actually for’? ‘Am I helping someone? Am I the bad guy? Who knows!?’.

The gameplay in Umbrella Corps is pretty flaky too. You can tell that this is a game made in Unity, even before the big Unity splash launches itself across the screen. It’s like it’s using the default Unity shaders or something. Do you know how Unity games just have that Unity look to them? Well it’s apparent in this release. Nothing against Unity, but I’d rather not be reminded of the engine running the game while I am supposed to be immersed in the game.

Running around and shooting stuff is pretty broken if you’re a keyboard and mouse player. The default settings are too unsensitive to do anything, and when you turn them up, it’s apparent that nobody knows how to program for a mouse at Capcom. This means that unless you have a gamepad laying around (or like me, 2 broken Xbox One controllers because Microsoft can’t build down buttons on D-Pads for the life of them), you wont be getting much enjoyment from playing this in a traditional PC oriented control format.

The game maps vary from tiny arenas to slightly bigger arenas. This makes each map turn into a sprinting knife fight, rather than an excercise in learning new weapons. I knocked out most of the available solo missions by simply running everywhere and knifing all the zombies. In the two online matches that I could find, ever, it seems as though the same strategy is in play online too. There’s just not enough variation in viable strategies or map sizes to even bother trying to create one. Sprint and knife is the key to victory. But on the guns, much like in any shooter, you can ADS, but it’s pointless to do so. In the few instances that you will use one, hip fire is simply more quick and accuracy trade-off is negligible. But why shoot when you can safely knife?

There are a few gametypes available in Umbrella Corps, and they’re mostly variations on things we’ve seen before. In one gametype, you need to kill zombies to collect samples, in another, you need to collect briefcases. There’s also a gametype that is like king-of-the-hill too. Mostly your standard stock gametypes. However, due to how small the maps are, they pretty much turn into knife fights on the objective. And if there isn’t a knife fight on the objective, two people are probably having a sprinting match to knife each other.

Umbrella Corps background OST is the best thing about this game. No joke. It is actually pretty amazing. The limited voice over work is also pretty well done.

Overall, I can’t seem to justify telling anyone that this will be an enjoyable purchase. However, if you’re a diehard Resident Evil fan, you’ll probably still want to get this. But really, with more robust multiplayer gameplay coming out of the actual main releases themselves, buying this seems to be a pointless endeavor.

Rating: Not enough players for zombies /10

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Umbrella Corps is released by Capcom here in Australia. This review is based on the PC version of the game as supplied by Capcom’s local PR firm for the purposes of review. You can buy it on Steam for ~$30.