VN of the Year 1986 - Gall Force - Eternal Story

The masterpieces of the year 1986:
1. Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu ~Rinne Tensei Hen~
2. Wingman 2: Kitakura no Fukkatsu
3. Boukenshatachi Kenja no Yuigon
4. Alpha
5. Hokuto no Ken: Violence Gekiga Adventure
6. J.B. Harold no Jikenbo #1 - Final Mystery - Murder Club
7. Casablanca ni Ai o Satsujinsha wa Jikuu o Koete
8. Gall Force - Eternal Story
9. Maison Ikkoku ~Omoide no Photograph~
10. Suishou no Dragon
11. Little Princess
12. Toki no Tabibito
13. 1000-nen Oukoku

There's actually a harsh competition here, but no obvious winner at the same time. I don't want to nominate NES titles, because this platform is not really suitable for the genre. Maison Ikkoku was nominated by me previously, but in the long run it's a NES game again and it's not particularly entertaining. Wingman 2 and Little Princess are way too short. J.B.Harold is a detective genre that I can't stand. Casablanca does not have a normal release. Boukenshatachi is mostly a parody with some jokes difficult to understand already and text parser ruins it all. But I was really shocked by production values of Gall Force - Eternal Story. It has pure command selection gameplay, really nice dialogues, lots of CG and plenty of action scenes as well as worthy sound support. That's what VNs should be like and that's why it's the VN f the Year 1986!

1. Final Lolita ファイナル ロリータ [8601] PSK 1 Final Lolita has little to do with PSK's previous similarly-named titles gameplay-wise; however, it shares with them the macabre premise of sex with underage girls, and is the most explicit and violent of the three. The game's genre is closest to RPG format, since it focuses on a character's attributes and allows the player to increase them. These attributes are Power, Arm Level, Defence, and Technique, each playing a role in upcoming battles. The player can choose to distribute a hundred points among these parameters in the beginning of the game. We get to set four parameters from the beginning and start the search. Just walking alone spends your precious power, so first of all gasoline and bike need to be found. It's indeed the final loli work of PSK - next ones feature more mature characters.

2. Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu ~Rinne Tensei Hen~ 白と黒の伝説 ～輪廻転生編～ [8603] Soft Studio Wing 1 The second part of the "Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu" tells the story of the victims of the Bermuda Triangle, which was pulled into the distant past. To get back to their world, the crew of the ship will visit the ruins of Atlantis, medieval Europe, ancient Japan, and fight demons. Again, MSX exclusive and again pretty obscure. This time even more since this work does not seem to be remastered in the future. The game system is the same. One drawback of it is that in order to save there's a need to shift cassettes. The work is memorable for its music that occupied a full cassette. The story is very intriguing. An anomaly is found in the Bermuda triangle and UN mission is sent there. As a result the Atlantis land is discovered that drifts through the time with the power of demons. We get to execute a number of missions through the time to resolve this anomaly like the hundred year old war in France (meeting Jeanne d'Arc, of course) or the end of the Warring States period in Japan. This game is quite crazy and that's a pity it's forgotten.

3. Wingman 2: Kitakura no Fukkatsu ウイングマン2 - キータクラーの復活- [860410] TamTam Co., Ltd. 1 The aim of the game is to find the killers sent from Podrimus dimension and neutralize them. The clues are to be found in the eight locations of the school. Original story. This time it's more fun since we're accompanied by Aoi or Miki who do all the feedback. It's a pretty cool system that it's enough to write the proper verb and just click on the object - that's almost point-and-click here! There are three chapters with first two moving between the same eight places and the third final one without any moving. In the prequel the fights were happening on a narrow black line with two small characters - this time there is a full battle screen and animation is much better. The scene of transformation to wingman was especially impressive since it has "Ching!" real voice cry coming out and there have not been voiced games yet. There seems to be only two battles in the game though compared to four in the original. So with only 8 locations and two battles the game is really short and a perfect run can be done in 10 minutes if know the exploration part already.

4. Arion アリオン [8604] ASCII Corporation Game follows the story of anime with the same title. In Thrace, Arion is taken from his mother Demeter by the god Hades. In the Underworld, Arion is trained to be a warrior. His training is driven by revenge: Arion was told that his mother's blindness was caused by Zeus and Zeus' death will remove the curse. Finally, Arion and Geedo (a huge ape-like creature who had become Arion's friend and companion) left the Underworld to find Zeus. Seneca, a small thief, makes off with Arion's sword and this leads Arion to his first encounter with the forces of Zeus, commanded by his daughter Athena. Arion is captured but is later set free by Lesfeena, Athena's mute serving girl. As Arion rejoins Geedo and Seneca (and worries about Lesfeena), the forces of Zeus and Poseidon face each other in battle. In the background sits the scheming Hades, and the calm Apollon who seems to have plans of his own. Game has very beautiful graphics since the real scenes from the anime are digitized and used as CG. Command selection is used. There are battles with commands and hp bar, but the result depends on luck and it's not unusual to lose to average even though you're an ultimate assassin god with superior weapons. The story is about Greek mythology and is quite specific - it's actually easy to get stuck without knowing the contents of the OVA. Sometimes you need to not do anything at a certain map in order for a new opportunity open up elsewhere.

5. Galppo Club ギャルっぽクラブ [8604] Micro Cabin You are a teenager in glasses and with 450,000 yen in the pocket at the center of entertainment part. There are a lot of girls around to get to know. The systems of the game are quite peculiar. There are 9 squares you can move around. There are random and not random encounters with girls. There are also lots of stats that deteriorate with certain actions like fighting. The rules are actually quite difficult and need lots of dedication to get to know. Game seems to be influenced by Tokyo Nampa street.

6. Boukenshatachi Kenja no Yuigon 冒険者達 賢者の遺言 [860523] ASCII Corporation Chinese style gag-comedy. You train in the mountains with your master. One day a mysterious stranger hands over a golden a key. And so the adventure starts... Game symbolizes transition period between text parser and command selection. You start writing a verb, find the needed command in the list and then set it to function key and can use it from there later on. There are over 100 CG here and most of them are really funny, so the gags must be alright. There are some nude images and you can just undress yourself and walk like that - haha - but don't expect for anyone to talk to you while you're like that.

7. Alpha アルファ [8605] Square Co. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Once the natural resources on the Earth were exhausted, mankind started to look up for the next world to go to. Now their destination is a planet in the system of Epsilon Eridani - a star 10.7 light years away. As no means for faster than light travel or frozen hibernation exists, many generations of people will live and die on the ship "Daedalus", before it reaches its target... There's enough of English information on the game, including English reviews. Great characters and graphics are alone enough for it to be a masterpiece.

8. Hokuto no Ken: Violence Gekiga Adventure 北斗の拳 バイオレンス劇画アドベンチャー [8605] Enix 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the story follows a man named Kenshiro - successor to the deadly martial art known as Hokuto Shinken . Kenshiro travels the world fighting ravagers and rival martial artists, whilst also protecting the innocent and weak. The game covers the first arc of the story, where Kenshiro goes up against his old rival Shin. I was really astonished by the quantity of information in English on this game. This seems to be the beginning of fighting franchise that really stirs people's minds even today.

9. Mahoutsukai no Deshi 魔法使いの妹子 [8605] Teikoku Soft In the first part wizard apprentice gets caught in a variety of troubles in the village on her adventure path. Initially a doujin game that got commercial rerlease in 1986. The drawing is surprisingly nice, but game is quite short.

10. Cosmo Angel コスモエンジェル [8606] PSK 1 In the year 2888 an interstellar organization named Gammos began to terrorize space. Using a powerful new weapon known as GRAY-Q, Gammos launched an unprecedented assault on the headquarters of the Galactic Federation. The special government squad Cosmo Angel was assigned to infiltrate the Gammos base and destroy GRAY-Q. The agents in charge are a young woman named Lina and her ex-boyfriend Akira. A new PSK game and finally not about lolis... Or wait... is it? Lolis fighting in space? For realz, PSK? The story is quite absurdist and is made just to present cool SF nude pictures as I see it. Just as other PSK works, it's still the same text parser without any development.

11. Day Dream デイドリーム [8607] Cross Media Soft The theme is visit of aliens. There are three scenarios to choose from: "driver", "policeman", "pilot". Depending on the scenario chosen the story starts from different points, but the fabula is the same - you get restrained by the aliens in some room and need to get out of there. Otherwise there's no novelty - a very slow drawing speed combined with text parser.

12. Erika エリカ [8607] JAST Near future. The unknown black shadow enemy is planning to conquer the Earth. Erika is a special agent on a mission to investigate enemy's new weapon Spectron. Protagonist is an information agent that gets into contact with Erika to receive information from her. Together they must infiltrate enemy base and destroy the secret weapon. So JAST abandoned its Aftrernoon Angels series for the serious SF action? Not really. The game is mostly about Erika H scenes both with hero and enemies and there's not that much adventuring compared. The system is the same as in Afternoon Angels - command selection out of big list of commands.

13. Seijo Densetsu -Five Holy Girls- 聖女伝説 -Five Holy Girls- [8607] Studio Blue The hero is a detective who chases the mysterious criminal girl Remy who is rumored to have stolen the treasure "GOLD LADY". In the game you get to interrogate girls one by one with the aim to get information about Remy. That's a pretty lame synopsis, but anything really goes for a nukige. There are five chapters each for a new girl and the sixth chapter finalizes the deed. Game is pretty disgusting since pretty much all the time is spent on interrogating the girls and there's nothing "saint" or "holy" in it.

14. 1000-nen Oukoku 1000年王国 [8608] LOG 1 2 The prophet Nostradamus has foreseen that the world as we know it shall end in the year 1999, and the thousand-year kingdom of angels and children will commence. A young boy named Shou is at first unaware of these prophecies, enjoying a normal life with his sweetheart Alisa. However, a series of events changes his life forever, as he is entrusted with the task of saving humans by discovering the ancient continent of Atlantis. There's a good big walkthrough in English and mobygames article on top of that.

15. Five Sweet Dream ファイブスイートドリーム [8608] Great There are five rooms and you are to fulfill the wishes spoken aloud there. This piece of software is quite close to the Five Holy Girls. Same number five, same doing H to five girls, same troublesome and long process. The company actually had to take all the extreme scenes out of it and publish them separately.

16. J.B. Harold no Jikenbo #1 - Final Mystery - Murder Club J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 - 殺人倶楽部 [8608] Riverhill Soft inc. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 A horrible murder has taken place in the sleepy little town of Liberty. Bill Robbins, a wealthy man known for his wild womanizing ways is the victim and, list of possible suspects keeps growing. As J.B. Harold you must figure out the who, what, where and why of the case. To solve the mystery you will need to travel to various locations, interview people and search for clues. Game was localized in English and sold over 20 millions copies in the West, so it has a great press coverage. I only list here five of the more conventional sources.

17. Shoumakyou no Densetsu 照魔鏡の伝説 [8608] Starcraft Co., Ltd.  Main character is caught by the enemy and starts in prison. He needs to break free and explore Japanese castle to find five pieces of the mystery mirror within time limit. There is both time limit and number of commands input limit, but overall commands aren't difficult.

18. Casablanca ni Ai o Satsujinsha wa Jikuu o Koete カサブランカに愛を 殺人者は時空を越えて [8610] Thinking Rabbit 1 June 1945. Chicago newspaper female reporter Jerry Randolph gets a letter from missing school friend saying that friend's father Mr. Edgar was conducting a dangerous scientific research. Jerry hurries to that adress only to find out that Mr. Edgar is stabbed and the research is a time machine. Jerry undertakes a time travel to year 1916 to get to the root of mystery. Quite an ok nostalgic SF mystery story, but it's stuffed with the same text parser so feels ancient while everyone else already shifted to command selection. The colored X68000 version actually uses command selection formula and colored screens, but misses much of the charm of the original version along with the cool original character designs. It still can be called a masterpiece.

19. Christine クリスチーヌ [8610] PSK 1 2 3 A young girl was enjoying a happy life with her boyfriend when suddenly, out of nowhere, a powerful spell was cast and the poor boy was turned into stone. A sorceress named Christine appears and says that another sorceress called Jane was the culprit. The young heroine must find a way to defeat Jane and revert her boyfriend to normal. There are two English reviews of the game (from the same person, but for different versions and are somewhat different).

20. Kudokikata Oshiemasu 口説き方教えます [8610] Hard Nampa game with CG reward for the right answers in dialogue for each girl. The game does not really leave any doubts of its content with nude images showing up twice during first couple minutes of the game. So each girls needs her own approach and you can use hits to try to guess her likes. If you still fail, you just move on to the next girl. Thus is the title - Please teach me how to speak.

21. Nichiyoubi ni Uchuujin ga…? 日曜日に宇宙人が…？ [8610] Soft Studio Wing Absurd story based on a novel. A reporter and photographer are sent 20 years back in time with the help of mad scientist to write a special article. That brought attention of aliens who attacked from Andromeda. Soft Studio Wing again which means that the game is MSX exclusive again and is difficult to find. The development is quite absurt, but the commands set are fairly usual. The text drawing speed has increased significantly since the Legend of White and Black. The difficulty level is reported to be moderate and the progress quite fun.

22. Dead Zone デッド ゾーン [861120] Sunsoft 1 2 3 4 In the space calendar 0385, the Earth suffers from overpopulation and humans started to build space colonies. Kirk, the protagonist of Dead Zone, works for the Earth federation's space development office. He is a brilliant engineer in space physics and he is working for Sirius third planet colony. He also got engaged with his beloved girlfriend Marry, but they had to postpone their wedding. Five months later, Kirk, accompanied with his robot Carry, decides to meet Marry at last, and prepare the ceremony. But when he arrives at the space station, everything is quiet. Then a beam of light hits him. He wakes up sometimes later, inside a sort of underground graveyard. The game was released for NES and thus it's more familiar for the Western auditory than pc88 counterparts. There are some English reviews on the game.

23. Cinderella Perudue シンデレラ ペルデュー [8611] STUDIO ANGEL The hero gets a strange message from communication club "BC" one day. In the encounter with five girls he needs to get the information to decipher the message. Five holy girls, then five sweet dream and now five Cinderellas. This time there's at least normal gameplay. You have time limit, 45,000 yen and the girls in the town to talk to. This is an actual talk, not an interrogation with torture, but there are enough H events in the game anyway. There is no explanation of the title in the game - the best I can think of is that we're give time limit (24 hours) to settle the deal as well.

24. Golques ゴルコス [8611] DataWest Hero is dragged into an alternative dimension in pursuit of woman named Daisy. This dimension is a battlefield between warrior girls and grotesque monsters who serve the Queen. This is not really a game to reflect on. When I tried to make a longer video I encountered two H scenes right after that. It's more about cool and cute girls assaulted. Text parser is still used for game progression.

25. Lolita Hime no Densetsu ロリータ姫の伝説 [8611] Bond Soft An adventure to rescue princess Lolita trapped in a certain castle in Europe. A kusoge from the creators of Time Secret and Time Tunnel. The evergreen text parser is present. This game was shocking as it introduced scat scenes for the first time in game history.

26. Seijo Panic 聖女ぱにっく [8611] Studio Blue The game picks up where the prequel ended. The "GOLD LADY" turned out to be a fake and the hero chases the girls to reveal the truth. So five holy girls weren't already enough and thus here you with a sequel made just 4 months after that. Five more girls to assault. Game system pretty much the same. The ending is reported be kind of heartwarming, but I'm not going to check out with this kind of a game.

27. Gall Force - Eternal Story ガルフォース Eternal Story [861210] ScapTrust The game is based on the anime series. Gall Force is a unit of seven girls that reach the satellite and get on a mission to protect if from the Paranoids. The game implements command selection (short list!) and looks absolutely gorgeous for pc88 game. I totally loved this game and would probably get to an end of it... but I found video walkthrough and thus I recommend it instead.

28. Maison Ikkoku ~Omoide no Photograph~ めぞん一刻 ～想いでのフォトグラフ～ [861210] Arrow Soft 1 2 You are Godai Yuusaku. You begin the game in Godai's room no. 5. Now then, what should you do? First how about trying to get the beautiful Kanrinin-san of Maison Ikkoku? To do that you will want to enter her room right? And you can meet her face to face and drink tea... And after that you can take her hand and... There are two reviews of this game with one being of yours truly.

29. Suishou no Dragon 水晶の龍 [861215] Square Co. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The game is set in a science fiction-like setting, where the teenage main character must investigate a series of kidnappings and the mysterious dragon that suddenly appeared in outer space. The game is released for NES and has multiple English reviews.

30. Little Princess リトルプリンセス [861225] Champion Soft 1 2 3 4 5 The first game for Windows OS of Champion Soft (the later Alice Soft), contains pretty girl Miki and young warrior Kentarou trying to save her beloved one kidnapped by some evil guy. The game has an English release for Windows and there are some English reviews of it.

31. Toki no Tabibito 時空の旅人 [861226] Kemco Corporation 1 2 Based on the events of anime work with the same title. Time Stranger is the story of several teenagers getting transported back in time through Japan's history, and getting mixed up with samurai shenanigans. There is an English review and a guide for this NES game.

32. Cream Lemon - Star Trap くりぃむレモン スタートラップ [8612] JAST 1 2 The game faithfully follows the part 10 "Start Trap" of anime series Cream Lemon with some insignificant for the plot additional scenes. The game does not really follow anime episode faithfully. The very start shows the battle with the robot. Then there are some everyday life scenes and then the H scene that I failed to get through even with walkthrough. The text parser is very painful even with a list of frequently used commands to the right.

33. Luna City Satsujin Jiken ルナシティ殺人事件 [8612] Bond Soft You play as detective in charge of investigation of Luna city mayor murder in 2216 AD. You have both male and female body with a single personality and can switch them on will. The zapping potential is not realized here at all since everything important for the plot can be done with either character, but it's still the first zapping game. The personality is single between the two bodies, so it can't even be called multiple perspective one or multiple sites one. Otherwise nothing special.

34. Pop Lemon ポップレモン [8612] Champion Soft Game is a gag comedy. Main hero aims for a true pedometer. He sets on a journey to get "Eros", the source of power of lolicon. I failed to get through the text parser, but there is actually a full video walkthrough at nicovideo. And there is too much loli dubious content to even try to investigate it.

35. Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu ~Asuka Hen~ 白と黒の伝説 ～アスカ編～ [8612] Soft Studio Wing 1 The final part of the trilogy "Shiro to Kuro no Densetsu" takes us into the 199X-th year. Humanity is on the verge of extinction because of mysterious climate catastrophe. The city lays in ruins, food supplies running out, day temperatures reaches +50, and at night drops to -40 degrees. Rumor has it that all of these events are associated with the advent of the demons in our world and are signs of impending apocalypse. A group of brave heroes decides to use the last hope and goes into the mountains in search of a mythical temple, which according to legend hid all the answers. The third part brings some point-and-click elements. This is hands off the darkest work of the trilogy and the most depressive one. And the ending here is quite miserable, so I fail to see the appeal in this final work.

36. Youkiden 妖姫伝 [8612] Hot-B 1 Coming to rest on the nature, six friends accidentally stumble into the woods on a strange cave. For fun they decide to look into it and find there the remains of an ancient temple. That's a find! Inside the temple, the main character catches the eye of a beautiful comb - and she decides to take it with you as a souvenir. But as you know, steal things from the temple - a very bad idea. From this day girl nightmares every night, and her friends begin to die one by one. "YoukiDen" became the first Japanese horror containing erotic scenes. Another notable feature of game is the abundance brutal shock-content - a scene, where a zombie samurai cut hands alive girl (and then raped her), made ​​"YoukiDen" most brutal and bloodthirsty horror game of its time (however, this status from the game will last long, because a year later in the arcades will legendary "SplatterHouse"). The novelty of this work is that the screen is displayed as manga strip. There are 9 commands given for selection, but soon you realize that you need to manually enter other commands as well. It's not the first work to introduce eroticism together with gore (Christine had the same stuff), but the first one with such huge amount of it.

37. Soapland Story ソープランドストーリー [8612] Hard City nampa adventure. There's nothing special about this work apart of the fact that it paved the way to future SIM mixes such as Welcome to the Cinema House by Hard later on. There are stats so it may even be called an RPG. The view is top down and the graphics are rough.

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