VN of the Month February 1999 - Campus ~Sakura no Mau Naka de~

There aren't masterpieces this month, but Campus ~Sakura no Mau Naka de~ is the only title worthy of being game of the month.

1. Hakidame 吐溜 [990205] Zero Main character needs to choose among three girls and insult the girl of his choice. Game is very short and has nothing but insult scenes. Sound might be the best feature here. Praise it all you want, but game won't stop being trash because of that.

2. Hakoiri Musume 箱入り娘 [990205] Deep Zone Believe it or not, our protagonist is actually bored of his over fun loving girlfriend. A new transfer student, Nishizaki Satomi, seems just what he needs: a fresh love. She turned out to be a poor rich girl raised in her home not knowing anything about the real world. He can take advantage of that or try to help her. All Deep zone games look like each other so far. Specific style, animation and heavy emphasis on H, usually of NTR type. This one is no exception. Things turn H ultra fast and stay that way till the end.

3. Sweet Happiness [990206] For The protagonist is a lingerie salesman. Six months after graduating from college, he is finally getting used to his work. Can he find a good woman to marry? By weird logic working at a lingerie shop automatically means that all the girls there are easily accessible and protagonist is a pervert. Each day consists of morning and afternoon and it's possible to either work or go around each time triggering various events. Scenario is not monotonous at least.

4. Inda 淫打 [990210] Characters of Lady Lady God-damn Night show up and promise an unforgettable experience if the player gets through the numerous keyboard practice exercises.  The best feature of this work is... practicing English! After the phrase is correctly typed, it's being pronounced as a whole. Unlike following games of the series there is only one HCG as a reward after a pack of exercises which feels insufficient. As for real typing skills, software is not so good, especially irritating are panting sounds on errors and even on correct letters typing.

5. Seduce seduce 誘惑 -セデュース- [990210] Actress There is a choice between two heroes at the start. Choosing Shigeru brings up a gentle story about forbidden relations with his sister and mother-in-law. Choosing Kenichi starts a dark story about Kenichi trying to take over an enterprise through blackmail and insults of family members of its head.  Both stories are short and absolutely ordinary with H-events at the top. What only somewhat rehabilitates the game is unprecedented cuteness of characters.

6. The Guts! Theガッツ！ [990210] Authoring Heaven Hero gets a part-time job at a construction site. And if he still has energy after a working day he can flirt with one of the construction site girls or even with a gorilla-like section chief woman Minako Takahara. The start of muscular woman and shotacon genre. There is also a mini-game to click mouse multiple times to imitate work - somehow I failed to fill my job quota no matter how intensive I clicked. Content-wise, it's an erotic bakage as other May-be Soft games.

7. Active Ren'ai Houteishiki アクティブ恋愛方程式 [990211] Active A collection of special materials for Active's pure love games. This game includes: - Data collection - Mini ADV game - Ren'ai Houteishiki Encyclopedia Game starts on a train and the choice of the mini-story depends of where he's going to descend. Each story touches a different game of Active.

8. Satomi ~Yami no Kyouzou~ SATOMI ～闇の鏡像～ [990212] Otemoto The main character is a detective who is asked to bodygurad a girl named Satomi. Someone is sending her letters with threats of suicide. Client decides to stay incognito and sends a big sum of money for the task. Something's fishy... Hero infiltrates girls' school to guard Satomi and investigate the threats case. Suspense mystery story. First flowerpot falls on the head of Satomi, then her medicine gets swapped with drugs. There are three girls routes and Satomi route is the most shocking one since she has a split personality. Game freezes on XP and only runs on Win98 normally.

9. Bure ぶれ ～BURE～ [990214] Megami Our guy has special powers, which 1 person out of 30,000 in his world has. For his sufferings, he wants revenge on the world, but some girls will try to stop him. He can either capture and train the girls for revenge or not capture and chase them for love. If he wants love, he better watch out for his missing half. Game is all about H-events and unlocking different endings of different girls. Lots of endings are very disturbing.

10. Den'ei Shoujo Virtual Girl Lun 電影少女 Virtual Girl Lun [990214] Banpresto Inspired by the hit manga by Masakazu Katsura. The player is able to pursue eight different girls, including the new original character Lun. Fan-oriented work

11. Aegi no Yakata あえぎの館 [990215] Aquarius Main character is successful and has a good family, but something is missing in his life. In a bar some gentleman passes him an envelope with an invitation to a mansion. Upon arrival hero is asked to train three girls obedience and in case of refusal they would be trained by a real brute. After some hesitation the training starts. Yet another kusoge. The graphics are so similar to Pumpie kusoge maker that it seems to be rebranding with another name.

12. Kegarenaki Kimi o 穢れなき君を [990218] Vanilla Hero is an exorcist. In the middle of one exorcist act the evil spirit possesses his wife who bears three unborn triplets and it's impossible to know who of the children got possessed... Picture is rough. Story is short and there's only enough time to reveal the mystery. There is no voicing. Game looks like a shortened and degraded version of Kizuato by Leaf.

13. Geimu 芸夢 -GEIMU- [990219] Kaiz In the near future the human genome has been completely analyzed and the production of artificial life forms, chimeras, started. Main character Alf is a cat type human who is a professional trainer. He is tasked to train cat girl Jasmine in order to make her an obedient and skillful maid. Gameplay is very tedious and is all about torture with only the same events happening in between. Game does not take much advantage of the setting with the hero chimera type, but there are some more chimera girls to train later on - bunny girl, mermaid girl etc. Ending is very blank and discouraging to start again.

14. Mirai no Milk ~Usagimusume no Mureru Yoru~ 未来のミルク ～兎娘の群れる夜～ [990219] Nichiyou Ishi Technology has made a huge breakthrough over the past few years with the invention of nano-machines that affect the mind of the target after getting into his blood. Police, security and insurance companies in each country collaborated to deal with the situation and established a secret ASTCIS (Anti Silent Technological Crime Invisible Shields) organization. Hero has just uncovered plot of "Blue bloomers" female band to infect the minds of high school girls by selling them bloomers from a special fibers. His next task is to discover the secret Spiral Institute that is located somewhere in a hotel of an isolated island. So starts his exploration. Another erotic bakage, but now with gigantic sized breasts. Game uses old-school interface and command selection as the main means of advancing the story.

15. Shitsuren しつれん [990219] acute In the beginning of the game the hero is dumped by his girlfriend he was dating and he's devastated since he did not even kiss her. He asks her to name logical reasons to break relationship. Where will his broken heart lead him? So you basically wander around and try to heal your heart wounds with other girls. It's the same company that made Yume no Saka that I totally could not stand. This game inherits many of those flaws - difficultly composed sentences with lots of punctuation and weird dialogues that look more like monologues. Graphics is same weird and girls look ugly to me. The number of CG is minuscule. The fact that these games are also very difficult to launch does not add appeal either.

16. Aiiro no Kankei 愛色の関係 [990220] Nihon Plantech One day main character's dad suddenly dies in a traffic accident leaving only his young widow Mika behind. Sandwiched between step-mother, childhood friend and teacher, what will protagonist do? Game belongs to lust incest series, so it's hard to expect much of it.

17. Zutto Issho CD-ROM Collection -Sukisuki Miki-chan- ずっといっしょ CD-ROM COLLECTION -すきすき美樹ちゃん- [990220] Toshiba EMI Fandisc contains four mini-games: 1. Compatibility test Uranai Miki-chan 「うらない美樹ちゃん」 2. Memory game Youko no Machine Gun Talk 「洋子のマシンガントーク」 3. Memory game Mai no Okonomiyaki-ya san「舞のお好み焼き屋さん」 4. Dress-up game Omekashi Sayaka-chan「おめかし沙也加ちゃん」 Fandisc ; who cares.

18. Meguri Aishite めぐり愛して [990225] Sony Music Entertainment Our protagonist goes back to the city of his childhood as a high school transfer student. For one year and a half, he'll live an ordinary school life full of friendship, meetings and love. The game is presented as a collection of memories between the protagonist and the heroine of his choosing, who remember their high school years after graduation. Quite a classic dating SIM with increasing stats and pursuing events on weekends. Probably the most memorable thing about this work is that it has eight different minigames. That alone says how ordinary the work is. There are some 10 heroines and their characters aren't developed much.

19. P.S. 2 ~Shinjitsu no Tobira~ P.S.2 ～真実の扉～ [990225] Uran Five years after events of the prequel Hiroyuki is teaching at the college while also serving as administrator of the homepage "The Net" that recruits sex slave volunteers to give them  humiliating orders by the internet. One day he receives an email coming from the woman who created the old P.S. website inviting him to administer a new P.S.2 website. The story starts from here. It's just the time when the Internet became wide-spread, but fantasizing went full speed already. Difficulty level is high and it's game over when you send a wrong email to someone. System is bulky, only operational through mouse and crashing on keyboard input.

20. Rise RISE ～ライズ～ [990225] RISE Hero will live with robot girl Nanako for a month with a goal to win MISCON. Raising SIM. There are other girls than Nanako: Ayame, Totomi, Ryoko. There are some 10 endings and true ending is only available if you flag each heroine and win MISCON with Nanako. There are both serious parts and gag parts. There is not so much text and raising part takes the most time. Replay-ability is close to zero as seeing the same text is even more boring. Still, if one likes its humor and gets true end, evaluation might be quite high.

21. Works Doll ＷｏＲＫｓ ＤｏＬＬ [990225] TopCat Dolls become a common occurrence in human world. Their purpose is to calm and heal humans hearts. As technologies evolved new type of dolls got constructed - "sub-dolls" who make the owner feel a wide range of emotions. You're the person who creates and trains dolls. A raising SIM. Quite difficult system with text mostly in H-events since the training is done with animation alone. It takes much time to get to an ending and H-events are absolutely unsatisfactory. The uncommon setting and the young looking dolls are the only appeal points of the game.

22. Kouyasai 後夜祭 [990225] Astrovision 1 The protagonist sets up his school's festival with the help of his classmates. He's able to get closer to them, and will obtain eventually a love ending (if it's with a girl) or a friendship ending (if it's with a boy). Games for both gender auditorium never turned out anything good.

23. Acid Ware [990226] C's Ware C'sware fandisk, contains side story of Re-leaf, a couple of short novels, desktop accessories and pictures collection. There are scenes for several Re-leaf character. The main merit is that art style has not changed much and is same gorgeous.

24. Campus ~Sakura no Mau Naka de~ Campus 〜桜の舞う中で〜 [990226] Ather 1 A dream of the past and an improbable future... Night after night, Takakage's dreams take him away to another life long ago. A life of love and sorrow. A single passionate night in the arms of the beautiful priestess Ayame and the painful death that separated them forever. But that was all just a dream... When Takakage goes to a festival on campus with his friends, a fortune teller describes his immediate future madly in love with a woman... and his distant past exactly how he dreamed it! Could his re-occurring dreams of Ayame have been flashes of a real past life? When gorgeous Chisato crosses his path on campus, Takakage begins to believe that Chisato might just be the woman of his fortune. But is she the woman of his dreams? There are 6 heroines and 14 endings. But it's more than just a galge. It has plot, climax and fascinating endings, especially bad ones. Logic of events is difficult to understand, but plot twists add some spice to romantic story. The characters are well developed and very charming.

25. Endless Serenade エンドレスセレナーデ [990226] Diskdream Yuji can't deny it – he's infatuated with Satsuki. She's the center of his every waking thought, the star of his every wet dream… There's just one major problem. Satsuki is his late brother's fiance. Now, a year after his brother's death, Yuji is hoping the day has finally come to make his move, but a steamy night with Miki, the shy red-headed girl at work, could change everything. Should he be with the girl he's always wanted, or the girl who's always wanted him? Game is divided into two parts. First part is two weeks period to take different actions in the morning, noon and evening. In the second part the hidden truths of each woman are getting revealed and it all leads to a crisis and its overcoming. In addition to such system there are totally 5 characters for capture which all leads to an abyss number of endings - 48+1. So overall game structure makes the game look modern, but too many heroines and endings make it much less memorable.

26. I Wish... Todoke, Kono Omoi I wish… とどけ、この思い [990226] Janis Rush is a miner who dreams of doing something big someday. One day he sets on a journey to find secret treasure that makes wishes come true. His childhood friend Latia joins him on this adventure journey. ADV inside town and RPG outside. Up to three people including protagonist can participate in battle. Game feels half-baked. Control is only allowed with a keyboard and joystick - if mouse is clicked it crashes. Freedom of movement is low and story is forced and linear. Game is quite short and can be cleared in 4 hours.

27. Kyouraku no Yakata 嬌烙の館 [990226] 13cm One day hero woke up without memory in a strange building. All the exits are blocked and in order to get out he needs to examine surroundings, contact its inhabitants and gather some sort of keys. Game boasts to be the inventor of pant synthesis system and the keys are actually mixes of appropriate pant voices that open the doors. That makes the difficulty excessively high. But this game is fully voiced and that put a strong signal to voicing visual novels. Length is about 10 hours which is a bit short.

28. Machine Maiden [990226] Evolution Hero has only recently graduated and now he's been hired for a job. He is given the assignment to raise artificial intellect girl named Alia, but commonly known as Doll. What results can he attain in one month? A raising SIM. Gameplay is really boring, but Alia is very nice and pure. SIM elements are almost nonexistent and we mostly only direct where to go. Game got quite famous and spawned a side-story and a sequel, but party this success is owned to famous artist Carnelian. There is also a devil part of the story.

29. Mujintou Monogatari XX 無人島物語XX [990226] Pinpai This time around, nine survivors end up stranded on an island. A mystery explosion happens on the Island in a laboratory. Aoi and Shiori are amongst the survivors of six girls and three men. They are all isolated and stranded with no means of communication. These girls find out that the purpose of the laboratory is to transplant one's thoughts and emotions into the body of a victim. No one has come to rescue them and the beautiful girls are attacked one by one as they struggle for survival. Compared to prequel system complexity is increased and now each girl gets a separate ending. The aim of the game is to find 20 hidden pieces of a boat and escape the island together with a girl of your choice.

30. Shoukansha 召喚者 [990226] MBS Truth A long time has passed since the great collapse originating from the fighting inside the royal family. The art of summoning that caused so much confusion on the continent has disappeared from the memory of people. But the unrest still goes on exhausing people. These times got the name of Times of Chaos.  The story starts as Nash the adventurer travels in the forest. He meets fairy girl who sets to accompany him and many other girls on the way. This is an MBS Truth game, so abandon all illusions, it's just a H game. But still fantasy setting is much more appealing than previous titles. At the same time the presence of fairy companion widens the horizons of communication. There is at least one minigame since I got stuck at the spot where you need to place four different girl images in correct order.

31. Wake ~Futari dake no Himitsu~ 理由 ～二人だけの秘密～ [990226] Draconium Hero has to transfer from a boys' city school to a mixed town private school due to his father job circumstances. He's appointed responsible for the festival preparation and all his team members are beautiful girls. Thus the spring of his life begins.  Just can't take this work seriously even with an opening - the graphics are too dreadful. The gameplay is also bad since you need to move around some 15 town buildings and each move advances time, which inevitably brings save and load pain and charts drawing.

32. Kohakuiro no Namida 琥珀色の涙 [990227] Ange Max and his wife worked at police. But 10 years ago his wife got killed during a police operation and Max has led repeated, alcohol-dependent life ever since. One winter day at the dusk he and general store owner Koharu find a mysterious girl Mil in metal collar and shackles. Koharu persuades Max to give the girl shelter just for one night and Mil stays to live with him. Max falls in love with Mill and decides to protect her instead of his deceased wife that he could not protect. Normal adventure. The ending is decided by choices towards Mill and Koharu. It's some kind of nakige, but lack of voicing and weird graphics don't really leave much place for sympathy here.

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