DS Dengeki Bunko Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu II（DS電撃文庫 イリヤの空、UFOの夏II）

You may be wondering, hey eminent Jhipster, if part one of Iriya no Sora DS was soooo boring, why in the world would you waste your time with the second half? Well, you must be new to this blog. If this Jhipster doesn't play through these games, who else will inform the greater English-only internet what they're missing out on? Sure, you can waste your money on one of those A-Z Patreon funded books cause I'm sure those authors are fully fluent in Japanese and actually played through all those games they throw in there with a token synopsis and some screenshots that you can google yourself in like 3 seconds.

Uh huh, yeah, sure. Whatever you say.

Anyways, Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu II is one of those perfect examples of why you shouldn't shit on a game you never finished (*cough* Jason Schreier *cough*). Though in my case, they split the story into 2 games so I technically finished the first game. Needless to say, the snail's pace of the first 2 volumes of the light novel rapidly speeds up in this game and some shit finally happens! For example, Iriya changes up her hair.

I'm pretty sure I know what white looks like and that's not it (screenshot from Nintendo's site)

Kidding aside, I finally realize why this light novel is regarded as highly as it is. It definitely went in a direction I didn't expect and it becomes clear that this is not a happy-go-lucky story as suggested by the first game. I don't want to get too much into spoilers but there might be a rape scene in there (sorry if this triggered you).

The main character is as spineless and useless as always so at least his character is consistent. But now that shit's starting to hit the fan, you do feel for the poor kid. After all, he is just a snot-nosed middle school boy.

He's just a boya (Ha! Get it? I'm here all night folks!)

The setting with the war, UFO, aliens, etc. was not really explained at all but it's merely just the backdrop for the love story. It's a very immature love story about a normal boy and a mysterious girl, a bit touching at times but also tragic. I thought it was worth the read even though it took a while to get to the interesting parts.

As for the rest of the features, they removed the multiplayer card game (oh noes!!) and that annoying feature of touching words to unlock cards. Now, you can just enjoy the story and play the mildly entertaining side-scrolling shooter, at your leisure.

Hidden gem shmup (check my $100 eBay listing, great deal!!) 

You can play as the fighter plane in the air or jump down to shoot enemies on foot Contra-style. I was quickly able to beat 4 stages but then it just starts over at a harder difficulty and that was good enough for me.

Score: 3.5 Cero D for sexual content? But it's just words, you guys didn't even illustrate it! out of 5 (16.5 hours to finish)

I'm not sure if this sound novel is above-average in general but it certainly got me hooked enough to finish it much faster than the first part. Also given how boring the first half was, averaging the two scores gives it about a 3 average which is around what I would score for the entire story overall. You never know how you'll feel about a game until you finish it all the way to the end. Good thing I have a real job that doesn't require me to poop out a diarrhea review in time for the release date.

In any case, it was good enough for me to be interested in picking up some of the other DS Dengeki Bunko games. All right, look like it's time for some SHOPPING!!!

Time to open up my monster amazon.co.jp wishlist!

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