Btw Aikagi is going to be a low priced game, not full one. The art seems nice but I'm not sure if I'd bother with it.
The official site opened and it seems you're right, it's a single-heroine game so it's probably going to be low-price. As far as I'm concerned even a single route game with Amakano's quality would certainly make me interested but the writer isn't the same for this game so I don't know. The setting looks a bit too forced to me : the MC and his childhood friend end up living together even though he planned to live alone, and the heroine apparently is madly in love with him from the start. I can forgive the first point, but the second kinda lowers my interest, it's like skipping half of the love story from the get-go...
I've had a bit more free time (yes, even more than usual, thanks November and its holidays) and so spent a few more hours on
ふれるてラブコネクト. Reiko's route started in a fairly typical way but halfway through turned out pretty weird, with the other three girls all happening to peek on the MC and Reiko having sex in a variety of situations. It ends with the both of them having sex openly in front of them, that was... yeah. Other than that, Reiko's got a subplot in which she looks for something to do in the future. Tsukasa's route was actually a little better than the other two, if only because there's a actually some reason as to why she and the others started not getting along after the MC left for South America. Tsukasa is at some point in danger of moving away, but the situation is solved pretty quickly and easily, thanks to some help from the gang of girls and some (too?) understanding parents. Finally, as for Manami's story, I can't seem to remember what happened apart from the girls making up and her and the MC having sex, something about her having to move away but nothing very marking at the very least.
Even though I can't say I absolutely hated anything about the game, the general low quality feel and the rather uninteresting stories mean I can't recommend the game for anyone.
Going back through my backlog, last week I spend a good amount of time on
千の刃濤、桃花染の皇姫. Being my first August title, I had no particular expectations apart from Kri's earlier comments about the game. I did notice that the game scored pretty high on both VNDB and EGS, but then again that doesn't mean much to me either. I ended up finishing the main story of the game, as well as all the heroines branching routes, but I still have most of the side-stories to go through. Still, with 3 ecchi scenes per character still locked and only 4 side-stories to go through for each heroine, I can sorta guess around what these stories will gravitate around...
The main story of the game is actually pretty well done, even though the amnesia trope is never a favorite of mine to introduce a main character. His secret is fairly obvious and the game itself doesn't have too many surprise, if anything I was expecting a few more betrayals or plot twists that never came. I'll just hand it off to the writers for making good red herrings for once. As Kri said previously, the main story is focused very largely on Soujin (the MC) and Akari (the imperial princess), to the detriment of the other heroines. Not that their role is small or anything, but during the main course of the game it's pretty much set that Soujin and Akari will end up together and "branching-off" to one of the side heroines feels very much like a betrayal towards Akari, especially as the game continue on and their relationship grows closer. Akari herself is very understanding during all these routes though, so maybe it's just me feeling that way.
The structure of the game reminds me of
空のつくりかた, in that at the end of each main chapter, Soujin can "betray" Akari and end up in relationship with one of the other heroines as the result, forgoing the rest of the main story and branching-off to a short side chapter in which every problem gets resolved off screen (or not at all, in Hotori's case...). Thanks to Kri's comment I had not much expectations for the sub-heroines, and I actually enjoyed some of these little branches, though I have to say I only played them after completing Akari's route. I was especially glad to see Kanami stand up to Eruza, something that I wished she had done more during the main plot. Kotone's proactive attitude was also pretty funny. Eruza I wasn't fond of during the whole game and her route didn't change my opinion much, and Hotori's story could have been nice if it didn't just leave everything hanging in the air. Romance wise, they either start or quickly fall in love with Soujin after a quick hug, not much to see on that front, alas.
Back to the main plot then with Akari. It was certainly pretty nice and never boring to read, but I can't say I was moved to tears by it either. I can tell a lot of efforts went into the universe and the characters, but lately, as the scale of things get larger and larger I tend to lose my connection to the characters and just read on. For that reason, I'm not too annoyed that basically everything gets solved by some literal Deus Ex Machina, and that the happy ending is forced and cheapens both Akari and Soujin's resolve. But it certainly didn't help. There are interesting ideas thrown around, especially around everything surrounding 呪術, but I think something more could have been done with it, and there are still gaps in the explanations (mostly about Soujin himself). Still, the action moves around a lot, there's lots of beautiful particle effects and if you like stories about katana-wielding people fighting assault-rifle troops, military tanks and helicopters (and winning...), you'd be in for a treat on that front. I personally am not too fond of battles in visual-novel form but they were nice nonetheless.
There's quite a bit of political intrigue and a lot self-reflection by the various characters through the (over)abundant use of perspective change throughout the whole game. While it's nice to know the whole picture at any point, I tend to prefer only seeing things as the protagonist and be kept guessing as to the motivations of the other characters. I wouldn't be surprised if a third or more of the game is spent looking through someone other than Soujin's eyes, and even though not everything is revealed up front it certainly didn't help keep me on the edge of my seat (couch actually) while reading the story unfold.
I'll finish by saying the art was pretty good, with a lot of effort going into making the characters blend with the backgrounds, making me sometime wonder if I wasn't looking at actual CGs. I'm a bit disappointed that the ecchi CGs tend to skip the drawing of Soujin's body and rely on a transparent body or arm-length dick coming from off-screen, but I wasn't expecting much in the ecchi department anyway. Music was pretty nice though not to the point I'd look for an OST. All in all, a good game and I'll be sure to keep an eye on August, if they ever make something more up my alley.
Since this post isn't long enough already, let's throw in some of next month's releases as well. Here's what I'll be watching out for:
夏彩恋唄 : I kinda liked Studio Ryokucha's previous game
はにかみ CLOVER, and this one doesn't look like it has any succubi in it, which is a definite plus. I'm not too fond of the fake lovers approach but why not. Finally : Akino Hana.
学校のセイイキ : I played both
彼女のセイイキ and
妹のセイイキ, and with Maika and Yaeka starring in this latest feng release, taken together it's getting close to approaching a full game's offering. I'll bet more are coming with at least 店員－ちゃん as a heroine. Story-wise it's not spectacular but I like the two previous ones, good enough and far above your average nukige.
枯れない世界と終わる花 : SWEET&TEA's first game, with a rather interesting premise that can go either nakige or comedy. With both Akino Hana and Kiritani Hana as CVs in the game, I'm in for a try either way.
スキとスキとでサンカク恋愛 : Asa Project's latest. I'll be blunt and say I'm not at all a fan of love-triangles and I hated the humor in Asa Project's previous
プラマイウォーズ, but eh, why not...
Phew, that's about it.
Shine