Touch Detective（おさわり探偵 小沢里奈）

I really wanted to like Osawari Tantei, I really did. The game had me sold from the get-go just with the cute cover art alone. Combined with the fact that I'm already heavily invested in the nameko franchise, I'm probably the most biased customer Success would ever find. However, no matter how much I tried to like this game, it just wasn't very good.

You had me at hello.

First of all, this adventure game doesn't even have a single puzzle. This is more the old-school adventure game where the only puzzle is combining and using things in your inventory except... it doesn't even really do that!

I mean out of the 4 cases included in the game, the first case has some item puzzle solving and the 2nd case gets a bit tougher in terms of figuring out what you need to do as well.

Enjoy solving puzzles while it lasts (spoiler: it doesn't last very long)

But just when you expect case 3 and 4 to bring things up a notch, it's almost like the developers stopped caring because the last two cases consist almost entirely of visiting the same 6 locations OVER AND OVER, talking to various people in order to trigger an event to progress the game.

This game isn't exactly open-world to put it mildly

Another problem is that while the characters are cute in a weird emo way, they are totally one-dimensional. I enjoyed the first and second case but by the time I got to case 3 and 4, it was just kind of more of the same. Combined with what seemed like a total lack of effort in the latter half, the game was quickly wearing out its welcome, which is really bad for a short game that took less than 10 hours to finish. I have to admit though, the fleas in case 4 were pretty damn funny. Definitely the highlight of the game.

There are additional extra puzzles and whatnot you can do besides the tutorial and 4 main cases but at this point, I just don't feel like playing it beyond the game end credits.

In theory, this game should've been totally up my alley, but it really wasn't.
Score: 2 sometimes just being cute isn't enough out of 5 (9 hours to beat)

I really wanted to like this game and I did in the beginning but ultimately, I just ended up hoping that at least the two sequels are much better. If anything, the Nameko franchise that came about from this series seem far more successful for Success (yeah, I had to go there). Nameko has tons of merch, anime, children's books, games, you name it. This is great if you're like in elementary school or have kids. But yeah, as for me, I'll pop in the sequel 2 1/2 in the ol' DS sometime and hope for the best. Or maybe I'll even pick up the nameko 3ds rhythm game. (It's on my wishlist *wink wink*).

Get dat banana stand money!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Another Code（アナザーコード ２つの記憶）

I literally have nothing interesting to say about Another Code: Two Memories so this is gonna be a short post. I'd say that also reflects upon the game itself as it's not very interesting and very short.

It's not that the game is bad per se, in fact, I would have a lot more to say about a bad game. It does at least make clever use of the DS hardware with some of the puzzles. I must admit I got stuck on a couple of those, like closing the DS and stuff like that.

The graphics are not bad either and once again I just don't have much to say except, meh, I guess this game was aight. If you like puzzles and adventure games, at least get this on the cheap. For the 500ish? yen I paid, you know, whatever, it's aight.

yeah, I lifted this from hardcoregaming.net, that's how lazy I am

The story premise had potential for some feels but it kinda falls short. Ashley is a likeable character but certainly nothing special and somehow I don't really feel like the developers know what it's like to have kids as the story was just lukewarm in general. As for the game's length, sometimes a game is good because it's short and sometimes it's just... short

I guess there's a bad and good ending? I really can't be bothered to play this game again though. Here's hoping the sequel is better cause I paid like almost 1,000 yen for it. Oh, and as an obligatory Jhipster comment, I have to say the localized title "Trace Memory" is like the most generic and boring game title I've ever seen. Good job as usual, localizers.

Score: 2 I honestly can't think of a single clever thing to say here out of 5 (6 hours to beat)

Liked the main character so hopeful for a good sequel

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Toushin Toshi（闘神都市）

I have never played an 18+ game before (no, FOR REAL, I'm NOT EVEN LYING), but I wanted play this game before Toushin Toshi for the 3DS. And what a horrible name for the 3DS game because it's actually a remake of Toushin Toshi TWO and it totally screwed up my google searches for the original title. Anyways, being the obsessive compulsive as usual, I decided it was better, nay A DUTY, to play the first entry before digging into a remake of the sequel. You know, in case I would miss something important like uh... plot points?

Yeah sorry, couldn't help myself.

I debated whether to even post any 18+ games but whatever, you guys can handle it right? I promise what I post here will not get any raunchier than Cero D levels.

Originally released in 1990, this multiplat game was available on all your favorite, popular platforms such as the PC-9801, X68000, MSX2 and FM TOWNS. Ummm, yeah, we all totally had one of those growing up right?

OMG, I totally saw this ad in an issue of EGM. NOT!

This is probably the most retro I've gone so far but I'm playing the Windows version, part of the Aliceの館456 compilation released in 1997. I have no idea if it's any different from the original but for a game that came out 18 years ago, it worked impressively with no issues on my Win7 PC without any silly compatibility settings to fudge around with.

Can you handle this much retro? Can you? PUNK?

I guess Alicesoft or MS or whomever deserves some kudos here. But I'm just gonna go ahead and give all the Kudos to Alicesoft (cause you know M$) because they were kind enough to release a bunch of their older games as freeware. So you can go ahead and download yourself a FREE copy absolutely guilt-free! You're gonna have to go through the age check and find it yourself and if you're not Jhipster enough to do so, well, there's probably easier ways to find porn. I hear there's this thing called the Internet that supposedly has a small sample.

For the rest of us, there's actually a pretty decent RPG underneath the 18+ label. The nice thing about this game is that battles are REALLY fast. Not like ATB or anything fancy like that but you can just spam attack and end a battle in like 5 seconds. Maybe it's because my PC is like 1000000x faster than the original platforms but this game almost feels like an action game. In fact, my only major gripe was that pressing the keys so fast made my hand cramp up (don't even think about making a joke about my other hand). A controller would have been really nice but I guess there was ONE compatibility issue as my PS3 DS3 did NOT work with this PC-9801/X68000/MSX2/FM TOWNS game from 1990. (Geesh, these developers are SOOOOOOO LAZY)

There's even a really nice feature (bug?) where once you've fought enough enemies on  a single floor, the random encounters just stop altogether giving you free rein to explore the entire floor.

Apparently you have no issues with tearing this monster apart with your sword. Um, I'm talking about the attack options? Geesh, get your mind out of the gutter.

You play as a guy named Custom, which is ironic because you can't change his name. The premise is you (Custom) enter in a tournament to help a girl you meet traveling. Apparently, her dad won a previous tournament and then cut off all contact with her and her mom. Winners of the tournament get a special title and live in a fancy palace that only winners of the tournament can enter. That's where you come in as she'd very much like to meet her dad and ask why he abandoned her and her (now deceased) mom. Basically, you have a few days before each match to explore dungeons, level up, and complete various quests in order to defeat your next opponent.

There's actually quite a lot to do in this game. You have to talk to people in the bar, find items, learn how to use magic, etc., etc. I actually got stuck a couple times, which made the fact that the 3DS remake has the same name SO annoying when you're trying to look for information online.

There's even like a story and stuff. Off-topic but I also totally read Playboy for the articles.

Overall, the gameplay is fast and convenient for short play sessions. Buy a return item for 10 gold, go straight to the floor you want, do some exploring and whatnot, use the return item, and then go back to the inn to save. While you can heal by sleeping only a few times before it's time for your match, you can also restore your HP with items and by leveling up. The game is actually pretty easy for the most part and only near the end around the 7th floor does it get a bit challenging.

That is until you get to the final boss, when there's a huge difficulty spike. Basically the setup is that you lose all but a handful of items and I had to grind for a few hours just to finally beat the last boss.

Score: 2 are you getting tired of innuendo jokes yet? out of 5.

This was a pretty fun, fast, and dead simple game. Although the hours of grinding at the end was pretty annoying, at least I got a bit of satisfaction after finally beating the last boss with barely any health left. If you don't mind all the sex or the dated graphics, it's not a bad game by any means especially given the VERY nice price tag. Plus, now I don't have to be afraid of missing anything (probably absolutely nothing) when I play Toushin Toshi for the 3DS.

Some more bonus screenshots cause I had them laying around you know for uh, review purposes.

Features a very unique system for learning new magic spells: Girl in a box

Heisei 2  is 1990 in case you forgot this game was old. Alicesoft asks for any feedback but I doubt they care anymore?

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely