I'll start with the bad part of this game. The soundtrack, while the tunes are good, don't seem to be made well for a video game. From the games that I've played, the BGM is supposed to be designed to loop; you're not supposed to be able to tell too distinctly when the music ends or starts when they repeat the song. In this game though, there's about 2 seconds of silence when the song repeats itself. For a game that took me well over 30 hours of "playing," that was a minor irritation.

Now for the good stuff. First of all, this is a romantic adventure game (a.k.a. dating sim). It's more akin to a novel or a drama CD rather than a game because you spend the entire time reading text on the screen. While your alter ego's lines are silent (I usually provide the audio for him :) ), the other characters are voiced by voice actors/resses. In fact, I have the two novels that I believe comprise much of the text with some more exposition. I haven't read them yet in their entirety, but I was able to use them to look up what characters had said earlier in the game. This is the second time I've forayed into these types of games, the first being the Ai yori Aoshi PS2 game which was a bit short. Man, I was not expecting anything like this.

Unlike the PC versions of the game, the PS2 version is rated G. There's not even a little underwear lining in any of the images and the most explicit description of romance is "kissed...and kissed some more." At times, it seemed pretty obvious where the censors were because people do much more than kissing, especially when passions run high, but that's okay. The story carries the game very well.

With the exception to the looping issue in the soundtrack, everything else about this game was more than perfect.

What attracted me to the game was the character design. I think highly of Ken Akamatsu, but Mr. Stupid Prince's (バカ王子) designs are just perfect, the epitome of what appeals to me. Haruka is perfect, Mitsuki's perfect, Akane's perfect, everybody. The voice acting was top notch. Given that you're presented with still images only, the voice acting needs to be good enough to convey emotions without much visual cues, much like drama CDs. At first, I didn't like Haruka's speaking style because she... never... spoke... in... complete... sentences. But as she became less shy, she started to speak more and I quickly forgave her. The theme songs were great too. They added a new song to the PS2 version, which is pretty good. However, the original 2 songs, the intro and ending, are my favorites. The intro song, Rumbling Hearts, has quickly become my second most favorite Japanese song, just under Naru's idol song. I'm particular fond of the duet version of that song sung by Haruka and Mitsuki's voice actresses. The ending song always makes me reflect on the 2 endings of the game, especially the Haruka ending.

The story is about your alter ego, 鳴海孝之 (Takayuki Narumi), and your relationship with two girls, 速瀬水月 (Mitsuki Hayase) and 凉宮遥 (Haruka Suzumiya). During high school, Takayuki dates Haruka, Mitsuki's best friend. She gets in an accident and falls in a coma for three years. When she awakes, Takayuki is dating Mitsuki and now he has to make a decision about who to be with, whether it's the original love or the new love. The decision isn't easy though and the decisions you make affect who you'll end up with (and who you'll have to dump).

I played the game to two primary endings out of the many possible (>12, but some are bad endings) ones. The usually emotionally stable self almost broke down into tears after finishing the game with Haruka's ending (when Mitsuki said, "I'll keep the promise, someday. But for now, please let me wear this ring a little longer" I felt my eyes starting to swell up). I don't think I've ever been so shaken up from anything cartoon or game related. And from reading the customer review on Amazon Japan, I don't think it's all that strange for people to cry at the end of this game. The second ending, which I believe is the one used in the anime because of the bonus book that comes with the last DVD, is very emotional and in some respects is probably a better ending because it provides and epilogue. However, my first impression is Haruka's ending and that's what I think of when I listen to the end song now. Playing the game twice removes some of the emotional impact.

This game has changed the way I look at a few things in life. First off, I'm not going to deride people who watch soap operas because this game's story is pretty much a soap opera. Secondly, I have much more respect for non-Japanese people who play dating sims and can understand what they're doing rather than just looking at the pictures. It requires some level of competence in Japanese to play these games, and that skill is not something to be taken for granted. And if I ever have a girlfriend who falls in a coma, I know exactly what to do.

The game is given a rating of 4/4 because giving it a 5/4 would crash my automated rating system, but it really holds to a class of its own. I just hope now that the anime series can reproduce the same effect, but I have my doubts because like almost all series, the original form (usually manga) is almost always better. But we'll see.

Ah, almost forgot. First edition of the game comes in a box (pictured) and includes a handkerchief.

Rating: 4/4

Comments

(Comments are Closed)