Jui Dr. Touma Joutarou（呪医 Dr.杜馬丈太郎）

As things continue to be fucked up because the US is so "special", I continue my never ending quest to... what do YTers call it these days? Ah yes, "curate" my collection so that it best represents ME as a collector. As I might have mentioned before, I'm trying to go through my PSP and DS games to see if they're worth keeping and so here's yet another obscure ADV game: Jui Dr. Touma Joutarou.

Look, we're not hoarders just because our entire house is filled with games!

I know you guys all love my impromptu Japanese lessons (ya right), so I thought I'd mention that this isn't some cutesy vet hospital pet game for kids. Jui here is a made-up word using the Kanji for curse as in "curse doctor". You can clearly tell the difference given that Juui meaning "veterinarian" has a long u-vowel sound. DUH!!

Thanks for the furigana reading for "Dr.", that's REAL helpful (fuckers)

Anyways, the basic premise of the game is you're a former forensics medical specialist who for reasons explained in the game, is now an exorcist. You'll tackle a number of cases all taking place in one condominium along with your loli goth assistant: Kotobiki. I mean, it IS a Japanese game after all.

Whew! I almost thought this was an EA game for a sec there!

For better or worse, this game is not voiced at all meaning much reading of bigly words even for Jhipsters. There are a couple screens of spirits or whatnot that might be considered creepy but on a scare factor scale I would rate this as extremely mild.

Where's the national pandemic response playbook?!! This is horrifying!

Overall, it thought this game was entertaining enough. The gameplay was nothing special just as long as you remember to save before you do your spirit dive or whatever it is. You check out various parts of the room and hope you find what you're looking for before your spirit bar or something runs out. The final so-called puzzle in each case where you have to pick the right type of exorcism is meh... whatever as well (shrug).

Looking for dead baby spirits or your luggage? You decide!

One annoying aspect are the sections where you have to choose to play as Juutarou or Kotobiki when they split up to investigate. Of course, I picked Kotobiki every time but you miss some of the plot no matter which way you pick. I guess this was their lame way of adding some replay value but really, it's just a stupid annoyance. I ain't playing this game twice, fuck that noise.

Score: 3 No pixiv fan art or loli yuri doujin of Kotobiki? Fuck this game! out of 5

I don't really have much to say about this little "hidden" gem except it's terribly average and mediocre. It's nothing special but totally playable I suppose. One minor annoyance is the main story about Juutarou remains unresolved leaving room for maybe a sequel. But c'mon, there was no way this was going to be successful enough for a sequel. So I guess we'll never find out what happens with his main objective. Oh yeah, that's really gonna keep me up at night (not).

I would probably buy and play the sequel for $5 or so if it existed and that's about the most complimentary thing I can say. Final verdict is that this game is going to be leaving my collection and will not be part of what defines me as a person. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to building a bunker under my house to add more room for my game collection. #BunkerGamer 

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

Sampaguita（サンパギータ）

I have not been in the mood to write about video games lately mainly because of how fucked up things are but oh well, what else is there to do these days? Go outside? Ya right.

So here we go, Sampaguita, the fall-themed 3rd entry in the Yarudora series. Once again, you play a random dude that happens to meet a girl that lost her memories for some reason or other. This time, it's a brown immigrant from the Philippines and thankfully in this fictional world, she doesn't get brutally beaten or killed for no reason by the police. (Did I mention I'm not in a great mood?)

You see any south east Asians... or any other suspicious colors...?

Overall, I think the Yarudora games are one of the more higher quality interactive anime series out there and this one is no exception. One big departure is that the male lead is voiced as well though you can turn it off if you're one of these weirdos that don't feel "immersed" when a character is voiced by well... obviously not you.

Damn accurate depiction of the real you, no I mean you, not me

Another interesting change was the addition of hints after you reached a bad ending that will successfully lead you to at least the first of the good endings. It won't help you reach all the other endings though cause it wouldn't be much of game at that point, now would it?

Based on a few Japanese reviews, this 3rd entry seemed to be viewed more favorably in the series due to the hard boiled story or whatever. Personally, I preferred the previous game's emotional drama even if it was more "galge". Maria's voice acting was very well done considering it was a Japanese person acting as a Filipino with supposedly 6 months of Japanese lessons.

Realistically, she should be like, "What the fuck you saying now?" half the time

Overall, I personally thought the story was not that super interesting. Well, I think the endings were pretty good, but the main events were nothing unexpected. I like the character design. I think someone from Ghost in the Shell was involved (dunno the details).

The story routes seemed a lot simpler this time around, most of the choices leading to the same overall plot with minor variations or just a bad end. It didn't have those side "what if" paths like Double Cast nor the complicated piecing together various events to figure out the truth in Kisetsu wo Dakishimete. Oh well, that just means I can move onto the next game even sooner!

Hey, are you going to buy me that animal crossing?

Score: 3 sitting here depressed that 40% of American STILL approve of Trump out of 5 (7 hours played, all endings)

As usual for this series, the music was pretty good but I don't think I'll be holding onto my PS1 copy of this game. I need to make room in my closet for that tiny Game Gear! (not)

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

Megami Ibunroku Persona（女神異聞録ペルソナ）

As I grow older by the day, I can't help but look at the pile of games that my sister keeps complaining about and try to gain some perspective. Like geesh, sis, you're barely even using your basement. And no, why should I go out and get my own place and a "real" job when my patreon and twitch revenue is earning plenty enough for all my essential needs (buying games, dew, and doritos). I don't know why you keep bothering me about rent and utilities. I don't even rent games and all my utilities are freeware!

Shut up, sis! I'm just about to get the Janus coin. Geez!!

What I actually meant by perspective is whether I would even live long enough to finish my games. I kind of thought about making a bucket list of sorts for all the best games I should probably play instead of oh, I don't know, fucking NIGHTRUTH? (Though to be fair, that one was so bad, it was hilarious.) I decided one of the series I definitely want to finish before I kick the bucket is Persona. Though I ended up beating P3 and P4 before I started playing things in order, I'm happy to announce that I just finished the first Persona game. For some reason, they removed the Megami Ibunroku part from the title in the PSP version.

What? A Japanese game title with less than 10 words? Blasphemy!

I know I've ranted about this before but notice that the Japanese cover makes no mention of SMT. Even the original PS1 title "Megami Ibunroku" has no "Shin" anywhere. So yeah, this is the only Persona title labeled as a spin-off to the Megaten series and boy, does it sure play like one.

YAMR (Yet another Megaten RPG)

First of all, while you do talk to people and walk around rooms in a top-down isometric view, the dungeon exploration is all 1st person, just like the various Megaten games that came before it. You can also equip both swords and guns. However, the big difference is the battle system where you have to place your members on a grid via a formation.

I'm a millennial so girls fight in the front (or at least those who identify as a "girl")

I don't think anybody likes this battle system? If an enemy isn't in your attack range, you just sit around and wait for your better placed allies to finish them off. Sure, you can set up various formations in advance but 1) it's too much hassle, and 2) you lose a turn to change formation so fuck that noise. Also, you can only put like 3 people in the front because for some reason, each person has to be a couple squares away from everybody else. You really only need to set up 2 formations, the second is so that when you get fucking back attacked, you have a second one to switch to. It's REALLY annoying.

Overall, the gameplay was just a mess with pretty much everything you could imagine thrown in. First of all, there's a stupid amount of elements that were (wisely) cut from later games such as "gravity", "nuclear heat", "revelation", "shock", and others I don't really even understand such as 「降魔」(descend demons?) and 「破魔」(break demon?). Oh, that's where hama comes from! Thank god at least that analyze happens automatically after defeating the enemy.

Unfortunately, my 奇跡 ("miracle")  element(??) skills were lacking against these guys

As for recruiting demons, literally the only thing you care about is increasing their interest level to get their spell card. Each character has a bunch of dialogue options so you have to choose the right character AND the right dialogue choice. Fuck that, google time. Also, everybody has 2 levels, your actual level and another one for the level of persona you can use. Both levels are almost always around the same so the second one is completely pointless (hence removed in later games). You also need to increase a Persona's rank by using their skills repeatedly to unlock new skills. Thank god their rank at least carries over even if you reassign to another party member.

The stats distribution is super weird too since the Persona's stats override yours. If you spread your points evenly across, they'll be wasted if your Persona's stat is higher. I dumped every point into TEC and AGI as they increase more of your base attributes.  Anyways, you get the idea. It's a big hot mess.

Oddly SP is fixed for each Persona so there is no reason to ever use a weaker skill

In addition, at least in the PSP version, the economy is totally broken. I read that they lowered the difficulty in this version and added a bunch more save points but I played on EXPERT mode so I assume that the difficulty is on par?  But boy, the last boss was pretty easy when you can buy 99 restore full HP items. It was so ridiculous that I ended up with almost 3 million yen with nothing to spend it on.

I'm no game designer but revive + full HP for 6000 yen seems a TAD unbalanced...

Still, even though the gameplay was a mess, I had fun with the game. At the very least, it was a relief to finish off the last boss on my first try after the grueling hell that was P3 FES on hard. Once you get used to the game, off you go, just good ol' regular dungeon exploring, leveling up, and googling demon negotiation and whatnot. I sure wished I read the manual however because the PSP version has a skip option for battles that I only discovered by accident during the final dungeon. Probably would've saved a lot of hours that way.

As usual, I liked the Persona aesthetics

As for the story, I guess I liked it well enough. There's no voice acting except for just one guy, which was kind of odd. As fit for the first game in the series, the theme centers on the various personas and masks we put on as members of society.

Hey, is that a Uzaki-chan poster? Why is the white underwear transparent??

Another interesting aspect of this game is the whole Snow Queen Quest thing. Basically, it's a completely different branch of the game that you can end up in during the first couple hours of the game. I did not play this scenario yet, something to do I guess on a rainy day... if I'm still alive by then.

One more game done! How many years I got left?

Score: 3 What? No Christmas date? No summer beach swimsuit break? This is NOT a Persona game! out of 5 (48 hours to beat)

This is not exactly a title I would wholeheartedly recommend but meh, it was still pretty fun overall. Obviously, I would have loved to use the skip option from the start but whatever. It was a serviceable RPG and the story is... not bad. At the very least, it's interesting to see how far the series has come from its humble roots. I liked the music as usual but man, I have to say the battle theme was a bit too much Persona to hear ALL THE TIME. However, the new PSP ending credits song was #BAE.

I liked it about the first 200 times but... might want to tone it down

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

Kisetsu o Dakishimete（季節を抱きしめて）

Some of you may recall that I didn't like the first Yarudora game Double Cast that much. After all, that's a post currently tied in first place for the record of most number of people to leave a comment. Unfortunately, it was not able to reach what would have been a record at 3 people but at least I know 2 people know what I'm talking about.

Would it kill you to leave a comment? Anybody? Hello?

Maybe this post will finally reach the record because I'm happy to report that the 2nd game in the series was much more to my liking. It may not be everybody's cup of tea as it's not suspenseful like Double Cast but I like these sweet, wistful love stories. This old man remembers back when I was young lad, playing FF7 by myself, holed up in my room. Back then, we jerked off to Tifa even if her boobs were a single triangle polygon, none of this complaining about sports bras. Ahh, to be young again!

Ack, the sun... and a girl! That's like gamer kryptonite and garlic!

Even if you prefer a more dramatic story like the first game, I'm sure all (three) of us can agree that the animation is much improved in this game. The PSP version constantly nags you with trailers of the other games when you reach an ending so I was reminded of how bad the first game looked every time I saw the trailer.

The story is about a young girl you run into that appears to have lost her memories... AGAIN. Yeah, I guess if you're going to make a sequel, might as well keep the same theme? However, this time, it's just a cute girl in a school uniform that thankfully isn't violent (except for the panty shot kick to the face).

This plot has a twist: normal brain functions!
Ah wait, nope, false alarm. Amnesia again.

You know, normally ADV games have a separate system save file that tracks what choices or endings you've seen and how many hours you played across your various saves. This allows you to save at what looks like an important point and then try both ways without having to play again from scratch. Unfortunately, these Yarudora games require you to keep saving over one file after you reach an ending. Even though the skip function is pretty good, it was annoying to have to start over and over again.

Fortunately, at least this game makes use of that annoyance by having some clever variations and endings depending on the last ending you saw. For example, if you make the right choices to make Tomoko happy in the beginning of the game, she offers to show you her legs. Like any normal gamer, I wanted to see that again, but on the subsequent playthrough, even if you make the same choices, and you're like, ok time to show your legs, she's like, "What the fuck you talking about?" I thought that was pretty clever. My translation may not be totally accurate. The only Japanese words I know are "Rasengan" and "kawaii" after all.

巨乳死すべし？ I'm fine with any size.

In fact, the last ending I unlocked was Bad Ending 12 because it requires 3 consecutive playthroughs. First, you have to slap Tomoko, then the game asks you at the beginning of the second playthrough if you're ok with violence towards women and if you respond, "Yes, the bitch deserved it." (again paraphrasing), you unlock Bad Ending 17. Then, you have to slap Tomoko again, and she fucking knocks you out with 3 hits to unlock Bad Ending 12. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere but I sure can't figure it out. After all, I'm just a normal, cruel, cisgender, white male with no perspective on anything other than how awesome life is.

Huh? Doesn't white privilege mean I get all the Japanese girls I want?

Score: 3.5 "Best not to think about how old Mayu looks like" out of 5 (9.5 hours to unlock all endings, 93% complete)

Ahem, joking aside, I thought this game was well done overall. The animation was good, both Tomoko and Mayu were cute and well voiced, and the music was great. At the very least, my plan to purge this game to make room was thwarted and I'll likely be holding onto my PS1 copy for now. Out of all the interactive anime games I played so far, if I were to recommend just one, this would be the one... at least for now. I'm not the only one that dug this game and the soundtrack as there's a theme song cover from Saekano, a reference I totally didn't get till now. (This old man still prefers the OG version, but cool cover for the kids.)

Oh I get the reference now! (Official anime game expert here)

I don't remember if there was a direct reference to this game in Saekano. It's been a while since I watched both seasons. Maybe playing the Saekano game will jog my memory (yet another game in my ever growing pile of games).

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

Double Cast（ダブルキャスト）

Long time readers of the blog (all 2 of you) may have noticed some recurring themes. Honestly, I'm running out of timely and topical material to keep these posts interesting. After all, there is nothing more boring than reading somebody's breakdown of a video game in a "traditional" review.

One issue is that YouTube is now a pedophile infested commercial sell out and I'm no longer interested in watching  "collectors" engage in their unhealthy obsessions. Speaking of unhealthy buying habits, there are going to be lots of anime games coming up. As I found out with Momotenshi, these games are great to blast through in about 5-10 hours and are easy to purge from the ever growing pile.

So why don't I start by giving a quick summary of the story of Double Cast, follow it up with my thoughts on the gameplay, and conclude with the good and bad points about the game... BOOOORIIIING!!

Wake me when you're finished or if Shitaku shuts down

Double Cast is the first title in the Yarudora series of anime games that I'm working on purging. As an anime, the animation is a bit rough at times and it's definitely not as well produced as Momotenshi. There were several scenes where it looked it was drawn by different people. However, it has a skip feature so that's a big advantage. Unfortunately, the skip option is buried in the option so I actually slogged through it 10 or so times before discovering the feature.

Not very automatic if you have to press △ IMO...

I played the PSP version as I owned the UMD (emphasis on the past tense). Fortunately, there is no real issue with the aspect ratio because the original PS1 game also had widescreen with a big black section for the text. You can either choose to view the text on top or adjust the aspect ratio to make room on the bottom. (why would you do that?)

I swear, this is like the 3rd WicDonalds I've seen in a anime/game.

Unlike some of the more "anime" type of anime games, this is definitely an ADV game with a whole butt load of endings and a fair number of dialogue choices. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out which choices mattered and I got stuck on a couple of bad endings. After the frustration of getting the same ending a few times, I eventually resorted to looking up a guide. The guide, by the way, has a whopping FORTY-FOUR playthroughs to get 100% completion. Like, fuck that shit, I played through it enough to watch all the endings and even then I only got like 93% or so. Good enough for me, I say.

These black screens show the MC's emotion without showing his face

Some saavy gamer who's played this game might catch me in the act and say, "Hey, these screenshots are from like the first 5 minutes of the game! I bet you didn't even play it!!" Oh my, you got me! Time to make an apology video on YT. I'M GOING VIRAL!!! Actually, I just loaded this up in an emulator to post some screenshots after I played it for like 15 hours (most of it spent watching it skip forward). I never could bother to figure out those plugins or whatnot on my PSP to take screenshots.

Trigger warning! There are a couple panty shots. (Spoiler: Pure white)

Score: 2 the panti is pure white but the girl... not so much out of 5 (15 hours played)

Kidding about trigger warnings aside, this anime/game is not super gory like Elfen Lied but the fact that I even compared the two might be a sign that some shit is going to go down. By the way, am I crazy or is Elfen Lied not even that great an anime?

Overall, I found the story pretty cliché and mediocre. I mean, it's a group of college kids making a movie and the title is Double Cast. Not so hard to guess what the game is about. The OST at least was pretty good. I jammed to a few tunes.

Granted, I haven't played a ton of these interactive anime games but the mechanics at least were ok provided you looked in the options menu. I can only hope that the later games offer up a better story and animation. However, watching the same anime over and over with a few scene variations is not exactly my cup of tea so maybe this isn't my type of genre. At the very least, I was able to sell this one on the ol' eBays to pay off 1% of my latest payday loan. #MAGA (obligatory hashtag)

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

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years（ファイナルファンタジーIV THE AFTER 月の帰還）

Like I said in my FF4 post, I wasn't sure if The After Years was a full game that would be worth its own post. For some reason, I had the impression that "After Years" was just a quick side-story fan service game that could be finished in like 10 hours or something. After all, could one expect a "real" game originally released on Docomo, au, and Soft Bank pre-smartphone days? (Obligatory Jhipster comment: I was a die-hard au customer cause they had the best student package.) Well thank god Square ported this from those dead platforms because this ain't no quickie 10 hour game, it's freaking FF IV-2 in episodic format.

Whoa, how did au take a photo of me here? Creepy!

I played the PSP version including Interlude which took a little under 4 hours to finish just by itself. I was not a big fan of the episodic format because you end up playing through the early events of the story again and again but from different perspectives. Objectively however, I'm not sure of a better way the game could have shown you what all the characters have been up since the events of the first game. Initially, I was afraid this was going to be a game about just the new kids on the block while you watch an old decrepit Cecil milking some imps.

What more you want from me? I defeated Zeromusu for god's sake!

Fortunately, the old cast are not shat on like some other franchises. Well, it was kind of annoying that your bad-ass party is for some reason weak as fuck again but oh well, not every game can be Trails SC. As for the new kids, while Cecil's son was as boring as you could ever imagine, at least we get to see some qipao sprite art. (Gamers, get your box of tissues ready!)

Is she a blonde Chinese? Geesh, I hope she doesn't go to the prom like that cause white people will be PISSED.

Really, the first few episodes are kinda boring and super easy but at least they're fairly short. You can blast through them with auto-battle on pretty much the entire time. However, the free ride abruptly ends with Fusuya's episode. I almost thought it was a scripted boss battle, I died so hard and fast. To make matters worse, there's a level cap to prevent grinding your way through. I mean we're talking DS level difficulty here. I'm not sure how game "journalists" were able to beat this 45 hour game without a handy cheat. Oh right, they didn't.

MY mind is blown that you get paid to rant about a 40+ hour game 20 hours in but I guess I'm "weird" like that

Once you get over the baby intro portion, the plot really does start to get more interesting. It was really satisfying to see all plot points left hanging in the first game get resolved. Kain (I used to think it was pronounced "Cane" in my ignorant pre-Jhipster days) was one of my favorite characters back in the day. Will he ever come down from the mountain? Is Cecil going to resolve his relationship with Golbelza? Is Seodoa ever going to get laid? Play to find out!

The answer to the last question: "fuck no"

Seriously though, while yes the last some 30+ floors of dungeon exploring with boss after boss might scare away those who need to get paid for the next game review, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. I found out in the DS version due to the nature of the ATB system, slow and haste are super OP. Casting slow on the bosses that don't spam reflect and having two members that can cast haste is the easy way to win. The moon phase also really matters so make sure you sleep until white magic is strong. (What is this, a Megaten game??)

Yes, grinding under-leveled members you ignored is a pain (Seodoa, I mean you)

I also really liked the fact that I made some choices in the game that resulted in some people getting killed. Unlike the original Hollywood "everybody is ok!" story, these characters stay fucking dead. I probably would have replayed it in my younger days but as a more mature gamer, I played through with the consequences of my choices.

Score: 3.5 How dare Square create a sequel of a beloved classic reusing the same characters and places! #MINDBLOWN out of 5 (49 hours to beat)

If you liked FF4, you really can't go wrong with this sequel in my opinion, it's everything that's good about FF4, just more of it. That is of course unless you're a "pro" journalist who can't handle a game with some real challenge. If you didn't like the original game, well you can just go back to streaming Fortnite or whatever you kids do nowadays. (You'll be famous one day I'm sure, don't forget to keep up that instagram too!)

One of like 3 new songs in the game

Are the dungeons reused? Yeah duh, just like FFX-2, I mean it takes place in the same world. Could they have added some more original music besides the few songs near the end? Sure, I could've have gone for some good FF4 remixes. Was the game balance a bit grindy for under-leveled characters? I mean it's no Trails the 3rd for sure. But overall, The After Years was everything I could've expected from a sequel to an old nostalgia tears classic and really is just as good as the first one.

OH. MY. GOD. IS THAT CANE???

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

Taiko no Tatsujin Portable 2（太鼓の達人 ぽ〜たぶる2）

So I started playing Taiko no Tatsujin Portable 2 on the PSP soon after I purged the first one out of my collection and I have to say this one is gonna be really tough to dump because I actually really like the game. There's no better way to flash back to the good ol' days than playing some numa numa on the PSP.

YT before it turned to commercial pedo shit

First of all, the sequel has quite a few more songs than the first Taiko Portable, many of them recycled DLC put on UMD. It's actually not a bad thing because all the online stuff is dead so at least some of the lost DLC is preserved. Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the missing DLC can be found on newer Taiko games on some console. The first game would have been a lot better if all this shit wasn't DLC to start with. In fact, two of my favorite songs in this game were originally DLC: 画竜点睛 and 真・画竜点睛. I just loved those songs because it was actually music meant for taiko drums.

Not the PSP version but I'm too lazy to record my own

Anyway, it was a good trip back in time to 2006 nostalgia salaryman overtime years with Hirai Ken's Pop Star, slutty Koda Kumi, and who can forget MOSKAU soramimi flash vid for some extra nostalgia tears. For you kids, flash was how we old folks made funny videos because as far as we knew, it was impossible to stream video unless you wanted to torture yourself with Real (ass) Player.

Oh and don't forget those stick fighting flash vids!!

Aaaah, the good ol' days when J-pop wasn't filled with all this creepy ass idol predatory sales tactics using underage girls. Sure there was Morning Musume but I don't recall idiots buying and dumping hundreds of momusu CDs into the trash just so they can get some idol election votes, live concert lottery tickets, borderline prostitution hand shaking event, or whatever else they stuff in the CD trash. Top of the music charts indeed.

Score: 3 don't forget to sign up for the AKB48 app so you can get personalized text messages for a small fee from a teenage girl, no it's not creepy at all! out of 5

Um so yeah, so talking about games. Yeah, I had a good time with Taiko Portable 2. Even though I could only clear around 7 stars on Oni difficulty, I did get up to Tatsujin rank. There's also a story mode about a girl's piano recital which was cute, as well as, more mini games which you know, are mini games. Even though, as I said, the Taiko series isn't my favorite type of rhythm game, I definitely had fun with this one and will probably come back to it after I play through more of these games to knock out some of those 8-10 star crazy hard songs.

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

Omoide ni Kawaru Kimi: Memories Off（想い出にかわる君 〜Memories Off〜）

You know, I'm just going to start out by saying that the Memories Off series has really started to grow on me. I know it's probably just a simple psychological reaction. When you spend about 100 hours through 3 lengthy games in the same setting, things kind of start to feel endearing and even nostalgic similar to the Trails series.

Spending 100 hours over 3 games (not for "pro" reviewers)

Speaking of Falcom, here we are on the 3rd game and I'm almost starting to feel like Shin is some galge equivalent of Adol. In the first game, he was your buddy in high school. In the second game, you happen to meet Shin after he dropped out of school and moved into the same building. He even got you that part time job over the summer at the family restaurant he was working at to save money to travel to India. This time, you play as a college student and Shin is a buddy that happens to be living nearby after he returned from India.

The guardian angel of galge guiding you to snatch some... um hush money? #MAGA

In the first game, you grew up with 2 girls as childhood friends and some stuff happened involving rain and whatnot. In the second game, you started out already with a girlfriend. This time, you start the game after your girlfriend left you 3 years ago without saying a word. She of course shows up out of the blue near the beginning of the game. Why did she leave? Are you going to somehow get back together or pick one of the other delectable girls you happen to meet? Are you going to be a two-timing asshole like the last game? You'll have to play to find out for yourself!

Oh geez Kanata, now my bed smells like another girl! Febreeze time! (not even joking here)

This game definitely feels a bit different in the beginning maybe because you no longer have a convenient school setting to meet with JKs everyday (damn riaju!) though rest assured, there are still some JKs ripe for the picking. Let's not get into the legal ramifications of being a college student dating JKs, these were simpler times. Or given that this is a clean game, maybe all you did was hold hands and smooch though I find that hard to believe.

16? Well, I guess it depends on which state you live in...

Kidding aside, this 3rd iteration of the series definitely seems more adult even though you're a privileged loser (#onepercent) whose parents apparently have enough money to afford your college tuition, living expenses, and your own private accommodations without you having to earn a dime. No awkward hand made sign to keep roommates out for shagging necessary. But I'm not talking about that kind of adult. What I mean is that the girls are literally adults and have grown-up people problems (eg finance) except for the Kashima sisters and Tama aka the "where the fuck are your parents?" JKs. In the end, this is indeed a Memories off game in all the ways that matter. Every girl has their own life issues and there are tons of great drama to be enjoyed.

But Neo, what about your little sister? You know, the one in a wheelchair???

You'll also have plenty of nostalgia time to see what some of the girls from the previous games have been up to. For example, Yue is still such a sweetheart, you can't help but fall in love with her again. I mean as the player, no you're not going to try to steal the first MC's girlfriend. That's a line that the game doesn't cross.

C'mon Yue, ditch that loser from the first game!

Some of the characters are a bit too quirky for me such as Hibiki who seems to have about a first grade education or Tama who seems borderline mentally impaired, her communication skills are so bad. I'm saying that even as a die-hard fan Nagato Yuki fan. Some of girls routes are not as thoroughly fleshed out either. For example, I would have liked to have seen more dere from Isako-chan. Still, for me, this was my favorite Memories Off game so far and I found the true route really took things in a direction I didn't expect. Without getting into details, let's just say this game definitely has some of that rain theme going on. I also liked how this was less of just a straight up galge with a male cast larger than just Shin and one other guy.

Wow, we look so cool! I hope the girls are noticing!

This is another one of those games like most post 90s Japanese visual novels that starts off really slow and frankly kinda boring. However, I would say with the true ending and plot points from other routes that tie neatly together, it's definitely worth the initial slog. Fully recommended renai drama goodness especially if you've played the first two games.

Ahh, the good ol' days!

Score 4 no wait 3, but I can't seem to break up with 4, but 3 is such a sweet number, please 4 take me back after all! Ok, let's average it out to 3.5 #polygamy? out of 5 (36 hours to complete)

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

ToHeart（トゥハート ）

I know almost nothing about the Leaf brand of games because it's smut which I abhor but from what I can gather, they started out with a Mahjong trash smut game on the PC-88 and followed it up with a trash garbage smut RPG after which, they released three heathen trash garbage barf filth visual novels called the Leaf Visual Novel Series.

RPG with memorable cast such as DURK BOLT, who also moonlights as pool cleaner and pizza delivery boy

Of course, I have no idea what most of these games are about and I wasn't able to find any screenshots probably because they were ignored by the wholesome internet community due to the filthy contents. As we all know, the internet HATES porn.

Girls from the Shizuku remake; I have no idea how this image got here.

All three games in the series were later remade with better graphics, full voice, and some with new characters, more endings etc. but unfortunately the first two games Shizuku and Kizuato are PC fap machine only. I avoided looking up anything about them in the fear that I might get inadvertently contaminated. Fortunately, ToHeart, the third entry was cleaned up for the holy rays "Oh Lord, please save us from sins of the flesh" Purestation.

I'm sure God will approve (or your diety of choice)

I'm afraid to say I had actually owned 3 copies of this game at one time until I purged my PS1 copy. Now, I only have the PS2 mega box and PSP limited edition exclusive UMD disc. Whew! Glad for the extra space!

No I don't have Trump tiny hands, this is actually the size of two PS2 games

While I know nothing about the first two games, Sizuku was kinda stupid with the whole denpa sex waves thing and at the same time extremely violent. Kizuato was also very dark and violent but it had a story line that seemed simple at first but actually had many hidden layers. In this game, I guess they were trying to go with something more cheerful and light-hearted or whatever but really it's just about the most vanilla, generic galge you can imagine. Like if DDLC was actually the game it pretends to be in the beginning but add a bunch more girls and you essentially have ToHeart. I could give it some slack if it was the first of its kind for innovation or whatever but no, it came out in 1997.

As dumb as Shizuku was, the music was not bad at all

I don't know if they were trying to ride the simulation Tokimeki/Sotsugyou bandwagon but going through each day of the calendar made the first run slightly more boring than watching grass grow. I'm actually impressed at how many ways they were able to describe getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, getting ready to go to school, etc. The all-ages remake is a lot better than the original 18+ version as it has auto mode but it's still mostly the same game except for a bunch of mini games inside the game. The shooting mini game is actually pretty good but I just wish you could skip it when you replay for all the numerous girls' endings.

Not bad for a game in a game

Once you reach one ending, you can skip all the daily routines (Thank the Lord!) and just go through picking the same girl at one of the 4 locations. The funniest route is definitely Remi due to her crazy American dad that carries a gun inside the house with live ammunition. The characters in this game definitely have a funny image of America probably based on the writer's impressions. After all, there normally aren't any car chases except that one time a car flipped over running away from the cops next to my house. And it's not like Americans all walk around carrying guns and firing them all over the place like fucking idiots... Ok... yeah... I guess it's pretty accurate after all. #ColdDeadHands

No real father would walk around with a dangerous rifle near children (looks up gun death statistics...) Oh.

Overall, I'm glad to be finally done with this yawn borefest. You would think in a setting with fully autonomous maid robots and psychic powers, things would be a little more interesting but nope. The only highlight is the voice acting and 90s anime nostalgia theme songs. My favorite girl was Rio just because she sounded cute. The various radio segments were cool too and bonus Jhipster points as it's not scripted and require near native listening comprehension (yours truly).

Needs more holy rays for the naked shoulders IMO

Score: 2 maybe the original sex scenes would have spiced it up but I guess we'll never know out of 5

While I'll never play the 18+ PC version, I can't help but wonder if Multi and other maid robots have you know... all the parts... for umm... various "functions".

All I could find of the PC version, you have idea how hard it is to find porn on the internet!

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

Dancing Blade: Katte ni Momotenshi!（dancing blade かってに桃天使!）

Well, that was quick! While I was going through my customary purge cleaning sessions in a desperate but ultimately futile attempt to make some more space in my Closet of Shame™, I came across a copy of Dancing Blade: Katte ni Momotenshi! (PS1 version). I kind of heard this "game" was short so I decided to pop it in and play through it before I toss it for the Gamestop dumpster divers and I'm now writing this 3 hours later. Even shorter than I imagined (always a plus for the pro reviewer #respectmytime)!

The blue "interactive anime" tag makes this a "game"

I'm not going into the whole hipster debate of what constitutes a game but straight up, this is basically 2 OVAs of about 30 minutes each with minor branching animation paths that lead to 4 different endings. In fact, the PSP version is just a plain interactive UMD Video. I would call this even less of a game compared to other animated adventure games where every other decision results in death (you know which game I'm talking about). It's literally just two anime OVAs with one short clip difference between the endings. Which OVA you "play" depends on your first decision to eat either Kibi dango or go to a restaurant. If you decide to eat Kibi dango, you watch the main story while the other option is kind of a fan service episode around Oinu (big boobs) and Kijime (even bigger boobs)

Aw fuck it, might as well watch

And that brings us to the plot, which is not exactly a Shakespearean masterpiece. You play some guy (voiced by Ogata Megumi-chan) surrounded by hot chicks whom you met by I guess whatever happened as shown in like 3 seconds during the opening song. Basically, it's like Momotaro but the dog, bird, and Momo are hot chicks and the monkey is some robot. Whatever, I'm not some Ebert anime reviewer but as animes go, it's about as unremarkable as you can imagine. At least the animation is pretty good and the transitions were almost seamless. The DC Complete edition seems to have a tiny bit more content but you have to hunt for it.

Pretty much half the game in a nutshell

The only real problem is that you can only skip the intro video. During the game itself, pressing start just prompts you to save and so be prepared to multitask as you wait for the animation to drag on to the next selection. Once you watch two of the endings, the rest of the hour or so will be spent watching minor variations and mostly waiting.

Score: 2 (well at least it's better than more SAO attempted rape scenes but that's just stating the obvious) out of 5

Besides the lack of skip option, there's nothing technically terrible about this anime but there's really no reason for this to be a "game". I will go with a 2 just based purely on the fact that it wasn't broken and the anime wasn't terrible but you can just watch the thing on YT or whatever. This will definitely be purged from my collection and so I have a bit more space to buy more useless shit. I guess onto the sequel!

Mission Accomplished!

The good ol' days...

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