Doth my eyes deceive me? Is bitter smile. a japanese game title that's not only NOT all in caps but actually foregoes upper case entirely??? Ok, there's a weird and pointless period in the title but still, bravo Giga for bucking the trend with an almost regular English title.
I cannot be obedient for the palpitation... ok, well, it was a good try at least
This is the 2nd Giga title I've finished albeit in all its TGL consumer port censored glory and my 4th galge overall so I guess I'm on a roll. It's not like I'm even really that much into the genre, it's just that these games are taking up space on my Vita memory card and as we all know, Vita memory is FUCKING ridiculously expensive.
The Cero C censored (non) sex has nothing to do with my play preference
This game doesn't have a platinum trophy so it's not a good game for trophy whores. Who am I kidding? Dumb trophy whores don't care that! Out of the 583 owners who use psnprofiles, almost half "completed" the game in under 3 hours which is total bullshit. Incidentally, it took me a little over one month, which currently puts me at around #508, which is like the last page of the fastest (aka slowest) achievers. Doya!
Trophy whores everywhere I go
Putting aside my usual griping of trophy whores (where the fuck do they come up with the money to waste just for fucking trophies???) ahem, the game itself was so-so. My main crush was your kouhai Arikawa Chiseka but unfortunately, she's just a side character with no route. BOOO!
My kouhai... not sure what's going on here cause Cero C censorship
All the routes were pretty uneventful except for one, and even that was just kinda meh. There's not much to see here except for a very standard love story. However, one thing to note is that the Vita port was absolute shit. This must be one of TGL's earlier ports because the control scheme is jacked and worse, NO VOLUME CONTROLS!!!
L+X to save?? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK??
The backlog was shit cause you can only see ONE LINE at a time and weirdly enough you can stop the music so you can actually hear what they're saying but only in the backlog after you already couldn't hear it in the game itself. Anyway, long story short, if it wasn't for the sex which my delicate enlightened mind cannot handle, I would say the PC version is far superior. Except you know, don't be a filthy pirate and buy your game, etc. etc.
Reader XXXonepieceinyofairytaleXXX sent in this screenshot of the PC version (god damn filthy pirate)
Score: 2 ok ok, I swear my next blog post will be for a real game out of 5
Given the pretty vanilla, standard story and the awful piss poor job done of the Vita port, I'm gonna have to give this one a solid MEH score of 2... barely. If only the consumer port added some extra scenarios namely censored (non)sex with ultimate tsundere Chiseka, it might have gotten a bit higher score but alas, she will be forever unattainable (fingers crossed for expanded nintendo switch port??).
Bonus screenshots for the future galge museum
How the fuck developers make this and not make her a route? Goddamn tease.
Chiseka school of tsundere 101 (sorry non-jhipsters)
Hot damn! Is it ok to have this kind of language in Cero C?? (sorry non-jhipsters)
Seriously, the story is not as moving as the broken English tries to say it is
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
It took almost 6 months but I finally finished my 3rd galge: Renai 0 Kilometer v. So I guess I'm practically an expert on the genre, eh? As far as I know, this Vita port is identical in content to the PSP version, which added a whopping 4 extra routes and 2 whole new characters. The only difference is that for some reason the Vita version is ridiculously expensive. I got my "copy" on a PSN sale (yeah, I'm still a sucker).
Don't worry Himuroya, you'll soon get your own route and even a theme song! No H though cause Cero C. Sorry!
One of the additional characters is voiced by none other than Tamura Yukari and she ironically plays the role of a High School student trying to become a voice actress. Tamura Yukari is famous for being eternally 17. (Sorry I have to explain this basic stuff for the non jhipsters). The 2 new characters don't have anything to do with the main story, they're just 2 broads you meet on the street (you playa you!).
So yeah, the main story is pretty much as you'd expect in a galge. It kinda reminded me of Marmalade Boy except more harem-ish. Without getting into the details, just in case anybody reading this is interested in playing it (pfft yeah right), you end up living with a bunch of girls who live next door (hence the 0 kilometer). Basically, 3 imoutos and 1 oneechan (if that's your thing) whom you're legally allowed to boink. Of course, I'm only guessing about that part because I played the censored "oh let's have a date at the mall teehee" Cero C consumer port.
A reader sent in this shot of the 18+ you're going to hell PC version. Thanks xxxOnePieceInYoFairyTailxxx!
Beside the silly premise, I thought the story was actually pretty good. Nothing happens outside the realm of normal reality in this one. No stupid magic tools pooped from a tree or time traveling Suzuha (though as I said Yukari IS in the game). However, even though the situations are very mundane, the dialogue is pretty damn funny. And though I did get tired of the game a bit with all the side routes, the main routes did keep me interested once I finally got to them. Also, a lot of 4th wall breaking humor. There was even a part where the girl said something embarrassing and disabled the backlog temporarily.
Noooo, my backlog!!!!!
The art style wasn't bad though some of the characters have tailored boob pockets and American porn silicon boobs. (Hate to break it to the protagonist, but dem melons ain't natural dude.)
Also conveniently serves as a face pillow in a pinch
Beside the fake boobies, I liked the design for characters that didn't get some uh "work" done. There are also a few scenes using a completely different art style which I thought was charming and cute.
This was apparently before she went in to get some "work" done
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this title and though I probably paid a bit more than I wanted to even with a "sale", at least I enjoyed my time with it. I would say, check it out if you can find it for a good price and don't mind a run-of-the-mill, imouto/oneechan-fetish, love triangle... urr heptagon story. I am of course talking to fellow jhipsters only, trophy whores aren't welcome.
I don't even bother talking about galge music anymore cause it's so generic
Score: 3 real boobs aren't shaped like that! ...or so I've read online... out of 5
While the Amazon Japan reviews rag on the Vita port for being pretty much a PSP game plopped onto a Vita cart, technically it was just ok. Yeah, the audio quality ain't exactly PC quality but oh well, at least it wasn't full of bugs like Harvest OverRay. All these Vita galge ports seem like a cash grab to me anyways. Hey, as long as it helps the Vita. You hear me Sony? Make a Vita 2, you chicken shits!!
Additional screenshots for the next generation of galge aficionados.
Dat Cero C steam is damn aggressive.
LOL this part was so funny! (Sorry non jhipsters...)
I never thought I'd say this but I think I can use an imouto break actually
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
My first galge '&' wasn't exactly one of the best games I've ever played, to put it mildly. Of course, what better way to utilize the valuable experience of trudging through one of the biggest waste of time ever by following it up immediately with another game in the exact same genre: Harvest OverRay.
Fool me once... shame on... shame on... fuck it, here we go again
In my defense, I bought it during a PSN sale and well, what can I say, I'm a sucker for "sales". On the positive side, while '&' took a painful year and 7 months to stomach, I found reading this one seemed to go much faster and was actually kinda interesting for the most part. It still took a bit longer than the 2 hours and 6 minutes that seems to be shortest amount of time it takes for losers to hold R1 for 2 hours to fast forward to a platinum trophy.
Loser hall of fame, yeah I'm talking about you paul... or ed linex?
I'm cautiously optimistic that "OverRay" with an "R" is a play on words instead of an embarrassing "lip my stockings" typo though misspelling "plot" in the end credits doesn't give me much confidence that it was intentional.
PREASE spell check
However, the correctly spelled "overlay" might be referring to the heavy use of AR (augmented reality) in the game's setting. In the not so far away future, technology has matured to the point where a contact lens device allows you to seamlessly see the "overlay" of a digital display on the real world (AR).
It's not exactly a revolutionary view of the future as say serial experiments lain, which came out during a time when we were cursing out Win98 BSODs and still using modems. After all, the big companies are already working on AR with Google Glass, MS Hololens, etc. Still, it's interesting to imagine what the world would be like if VR and AR are fully matured and seamless.
Is that a Sony Personal 3D viewer I see on the left? SO FUTURISTIC!
Whatever, who care about all that shit? It's IMOUTO TAIMUUUU!!! Remember I mentioned a game about chasing your little sister would be very different nowadays? Well, here, we finally have a game that takes all the innuendos of shows such as oreimo, oniai, and imocho and brings things to their natural conclusion. Unfortunately, given that this is the censored consumer port, you don't actually see anything and the game does throw in a cheap, "oh they're not related by blood" loophole. Even though the story does NOTHING to explain why they're not related.
Oniichan has a special dessert for you after dinner. Hehehe... what? It's ice cream!
As for the rest of the characters, Komachi was my favorite due to her voice being the least annoying and has absolutely NOTHING to do with her lolicon character design. Speaking of character design, the boob geometry was a bit umm... I dunno, maybe there's an artificial gravity bra in the year 2045? Yeah...
Tamaki, who has the most annoying voice, is the route for the true ending after you go through the other 3 girls and have censored implied consumer port sex. Lilia's route was pretty good but Sumi's was just totally unrealistic, oniichan-obsessed imouto incest stuff. Overall, I didn't really like how all four girls like you right out the gate with pretty much no effort. Yeah sure, who wouldn't like to be surrounded by 4 girls that are into you for no reason but unfortunately, it's too unrealistic for nerds like umm... not me! Ahaha, what you talking about? Girls CONSTANTLY be all up in my business.
Yet another galge OP... I guess this game was aight.
Score: 2.5 Incest? Loli? Weirdly shaped boobs? SURE, WHY NOT? out of 5
Overall, I enjoyed this game way more than '&'. Unlike '&', it didn't have a bunch of crazy, random choices that had absolutely nothing to do with the outcome and it was extremely easy to go through without a guide. All you had to do was just choose the girl you wanted in like 4 dialogue choices. The story was interesting mostly because I like the technological aspect. It has nothing to do with the fact that the main character is a 24x7 gamer as I can't imagine being so uncool.
Games, games, games （ゲーム、ゲーム、ゲーム） Not me, I'm talking about the main character, silly!
The Vita port was done poorly with a number of audio issues, including one glaring bug for every line that combined voices. It played only one track unless you replayed it in the history. The audio quality was pretty bad overall so minus 0.5 for the subpar port quality.
Yes, that is literally a TODO left in the game.
Some bonus screenshots for umm... archival purposes. You may want to skip to avoid spoilers.
Well, it IS Cero C after all. What were you expecting??
Cero C sure but English is totally not studied in Japan (at least not well apparently). Whoneedsspacesafterall?
Apparently that sweater comes with boob pockets...
There's even a free theme on PSN! Hey, don't judge my Vita library!
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY I'M NOT INTO LOLI??!!
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
