The fan disk for the well received Hoshizora no Memoria has finally been released. I’m going to assume everyone who’s reading this review has already played the original game. Now let’s return to the group and join the club in some stargazing.

I don’t really know how to review a fan disk, but let’s give it a try.

And for people who haven’t been following my reviews, spoiler tags hide ero content. There are no significant spoilers unless I give immediate advance warning.

Game:  星空のメモリア Eternal Heart
Developer: FAVORITE
Release date: January 29, 2010
Related links: Getchu

OP

Let’s start with the game system since it’s a fan disk.

Only Yume and Mare have significant routes in the game. All the other heroines have very short paths that are essentially epilogues to their own path in the original game. You must play through either Yume or Mare’s path before you can play the other heroines’ paths.

Download audio file (eh1.mp3)

And using the conventions of my previous review, Kogasaki You will be known as Kogayou.

Yume

Yume’s path fills in the details between her ending and her epilogue of the original game. After Mare is sent back, Kogayou and Yume must search for her meteorite to meet her again. Of course, they have no idea where it landed, making it a ridiculously difficult task.

To alleviate the boredom of their task, Yume and Kogayou do it like rabbits. That is, like rabbits that have sex three times during the span of a year or so.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Of course, you already know the outcome of their search, so it’s not all that exciting. Unless you’re one of those people who get anxious about which side will win in a World War 2 movie or something. Then this is just the thing for you.

Yume molesting a pillow. I liked the SD art in the original game more.

Mare S. Ephemeral

Even though this is technically Mare’s path, it’s more about Ima than anything. Ima shows up and tries to attack pretty much everybody. She lost her memories so they need to get them back and reunite her with her family.

Download audio file (eh3.mp3)

Some bad influence from Isuzu, eh?

Of course the danger to Mare’s life isn’t enough to prevent them from GETTING IT ON. And going on dates and cosplaying and stuff. Mare turns way too deredere in her path for my tastes. She goes down a ranking or two compared to the original.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Asuka Ima

Ima is Asuka Mirai’s brother, and she was sent by the same people as Setsuna. Her job is to send Kosame back, but she discovers Mare and Ren during her job, and she decides she has to deal with them too.

Ima is one of those serious about their job types. You could call her a weaker version of Setsuna.

Hisakaki Komomo

Download audio file (eh6.mp3)

Kogayou really is an uncurable lolicon.
(By the way, people need to learn how to pronounce loli. It’s not “law-lee”. Come on, look at the English word it came from.)

Komomo’s path is just about her and Kogayou gradually being able to say each other’s first name. Yeah, that’s it. Luckily, her deredere mode isn’t as extreme as the others.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

The rest of the characters

Since all the characters except Mare and Yume only get new CGs from sex scenes, I’ll just go over their short paths quickly.

Kosame’s path is basically a rehash of her original route, which deals with her anxiety about her existence, requiring Kogayou to reassure her.

Isuzu’s path is about her wanting to work and help Kogayou.

Asuho’s path is about her and Kogayou’s future plans.

Chinami’s path is about her visiting her parents’ graves.

And yes. Chinami is still as annoying as ever. Even with a new voice, which doesn’t seem that different to me.

You can see for yourself by listening to some her annoying catchphrases.

Download audio file (eh7.mp3)

Download audio file (eh8.mp3)

Summary

I’m not sure what to think. Neither Yume nor Mare’s paths were very good compared to the original game, but this is a fan disk. It’s not meant to be that story focused. It  was nice being able to revisit the characters, but I think I liked all of the characters less after playing through this game. They all turn very deredere, and in some cases, way too much for my tastes.

The side stories are very shallow, as you can see in my summaries. They’re basically there to add a sex scene and allow the players to spend a short time with their favorite characters. I can’t help but feel like there should have been a bit more in each of them. Maybe I expected too much since I don’t usually play fan disks, but I was able to rush through some of those side stories in like 30 minutes by skipping the sex scenes and voices.

The two main paths were good, but not great. This was probably due to the fact that the ending for Yume’s path is already known and Mare’s path isn’t really about her.

By then again, if you love these characters, more can only be a good thing, right? You get to spend some more time with them, do some sexing, and learn some more about their backgrounds and the background of the town.

So big fans of the characters should give this a go. If you didn’t care too much about the characters, you can probably give this a pass.

It’s also not really worth full price. It should have been like 5000-6000 yen MSRP.

Since this is a fan disk, I have no idea how to apply my scoring system to this, so a score will be omitted.

Stealth announcement: This site will be going into hibernation mode. That means updates will come much less often — only when I really really want to make a post. It’s been about 6 months since I started this blog and I’ve gotten tired of writing it. Also, the amount of time spent updating the site is too great to justify the amount of visitors. To the few people who’ve stuck around for most of this site’s existence, thank you.

Until I can find some more motivation to update, farewell.

Let’s just ignore the fact that the -ge stands for game since a lot of people in the English translated community call them visual novels. I’m going to focus on their properties, not their names.

Defense for “reading”: Eroge have a lot of emphasis on the text, and  basically the only thing the audience does is read. So they’re basically like books or manga — they’re read.

Defense for “playing”: Eroge have text, pictures, sound and usually at least some interactivity, therefore they’re akin to games and are played.

I’m part of the latter group. In case you haven’t read my previous “Thoughts” article, I wrote about the defining characteristics of eroge and why we play them. Voices, in particular, are a significant contribution to my enjoyment of the genre. So if we exclude interactivity for now, including voices, pictures, and text makes eroge close to foreign subtitled movies. Do people say they read them? No. They watch them.

So now let’s add interactivity — choices. If our baseline of text, voices, and pictures equals watching, we already eliminated reading as a potential verb. Adding interactivity would logically bring it closer to  traditional video games, which includes text, voices, pictures, and interactivity. We say that we play traditional video games, therefore it seems to me that we should also say we play eroge.

Some people may argue that the interactiveness is weak, but it’s still there. It’s still an important aspect of the genre. Most people probably want to decide which path they’re going to end up on and the order they play them in.

Yes, there are exceptions to every example I provided. There are movies and eroge without sound. There are eroge without choices. But in general, most modern eroge and movies fit my description. Instead of focusing on the outliers, focusing on the most common example makes sense. And from what I’ve argued, “playing” eroge makes more sense.

I finally played the game that everyone and their dog already played. Since another full review seems pointless, I only bothered playing Hime’s path. Also, I have a problem finishing games after playing my favorite character’s route since I lose incentive and don’t want to betray my waifu. Hime is too awesome to betray. I’m going to steal her from Zen. And I’ll take Sana away from Micchi so I have a maid.

Game: 天神乱漫 LUCKY or UNLUCKY!? (foreign access blocked)
Developer:  ゆずソフト (foreign access blocked)
Release date: May 29, 2009
Related links: Galge, Getchu

OP

Chitose Haruki is an extremely unlucky guy. Cars try to run over him and he falls into random manholes. One day a package arrives and a self-proclaimed goddess, Unohananosakuyahime, comes out and claims she’s here to save him from his bad luck. She kisses him and says that’s her method of reducing his bad luck. Haruki, being the spineless, worthless, cockless wimp that he is, is shocked and appalled and wants her to stop. Send her to me if you don’t want her, Haruki.

Haruki then sends me Hime. Everyone lives happily ever after. The end.

Okay, not really. Read the reviews linked above if you want to know more about the story. I’m just here to gush over Hime.

Hime, who also realizes Haruki is a spineless, worthless, and cockless wimp, constantly teases him.  She enjoys causing Haruki trouble just to see his flustered reaction to everything. Hey, Haruki. When a cute, awesome goddess offers herself to you, you might just want to act like you have a spine. Or not. I’ll take her.

Fake embarrassment. So cute <3

But ignoring Haruki’s worthlessness, Hime is a funny character who’s just fun to be around, assuming you can take her teasing. She’s pretty independent, carefree and loves to have fun, but she’s not overly energetic and she knows when it’s time to be serious. In other words, she’s pretty much perfect. I’d become religious to have her as my goddess personal goddess.

Unfortunately, Haruki does eventually get Hime instead of sending her to me. He becomes extremely whipped and remains spineless. It would have been much more enjoyable if he grew a spine. Since almost all eroge protagonists in this true love sort of story are spineless, it must be a requirement to get girls to flock to you. Haruki is no exception, with girls surrounding him and many secretly liking him. Unlike most girls, Hime doesn’t doesn’t take this well. Her jealously is scary. Yet somehow cute.

Jealous~

Her jealous stare alone is enough scare anybody, but her powers also go out of control and things fly around or break. Haruki probably deserves her divine punishment for being such an idiot.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Even though Hime’s teasing is awesome, I think she continues it for far too long. She’s just not honest with her feelings and runs away a lot. I suppose it’s more fun for her to just continue teasing Haruki. Her deredere + teasing mode at the end of the game is just awesome though.

The game’s story isn’t very strong since it’s pretty much just about Hime learning about her passing her goddess exam, but you probably aren’t interested in this game for the story. This is definitely a character game through and through. Though some parts of the story drag, Hime, who reminds me of Haruhi + Horo, created one of the most enjoyable and funny eroge experiences I’ve had in a long time.

I decided to look into what I think are potential reasons for why people play eroge, and then I’ll see where I fit.

Romance. One of the more obvious factors. People could play eroge because they like romantic stories or want a change of pace from typical games that usually feature war and stuff. Or maybe the girls in eroge represent an ideal that players want in real life but can’t obtain. This leads to the second point.

Alternate reality. People want to live a different life. Eroge provide a method to experience different worlds or new relationships. If romance is the key property, this could come from a lack of romance in real life, dissatisfaction with real life relationships, or simply a desire to try something new. Maybe Micchi the player wants a loud, jealous, energetic, and annoying brat imouto that they don’t have in real life. Or maybe the player wants a radically different world with magic and stuff, something that the real world can’t provide.

Story. Maybe romance isn’t your thing. Maybe the reason one plays eroge is for the story. Many eroge have epic stories that can be achieved due to the length of the game. The only other form of media that provide as much of a focus on story are books, which lack many properties of eroge, which I’ll discuss later. Another strength of eroge is providing a slice of life story.

Characters. This can be another part of an alternative reality. Players may find characters they like so much that they want to spend a lot of time with them. People who care mostly about characters enjoy the experience of daily life with a character they like. It’s not necessarily the story that they like, but the process of going through it with a character they really like.

Ero. This may sound self-explanatory, but I think it goes deeper than that. In other forms of media like anime and manga, relationships feel a bit underwhelming because they often move too slowly or don’t develop as much as real relationships do. In real life, people have sex. We wouldn’t be here otherwise. (Did I just make people think of something they didn’t want to? How about now?)  In most anime, you’d probably be lucky if characters ever kissed, let alone have sex. And don’t get me started about shounen romance manga. In eroge, relationships actually move forward, though not all of them do so realistically. Sometimes the ero is forced in the story, but if it’s done right, it can be satisfying and rewarding. Or some people just want sex. And lots of it.

Now let’s move on to the more technical aspects of eroge.

Download audio file (03_intro_ITI.mp3)

Download audio file (sample_ITI_02.mp3)

Since I didn’t have any voices in the Te to Te Try On! review, here are some clips of Ichino from their site.

Voices. Unlike manga and books, eroge have voices, which can add to the immersion of the story. This will obviously help the people who want an alternative reality. Obviously there are great eroge that don’t have voices, but I believe it’s still a very important aspect of the genre. They can make or break a character for me.

Music. Similar argument to voices, except music provides more of an atmosphere than anything else. Can you imagine playing an eroge on mute? It’d be a drastically different experience.

Maybe you really like this. Hey, it’s Shana.

Or this.

Pictures. Another obvious aspect. This puts the visual in the visual novel that the Western market likes to call the genre. Along with sound, this is what allows eroge to distinguish itself from books. Being full color is an advantage eroge has over manga, though eroge doesn’t have the sheer amount of unique images. On a related note, the art style of the game may be very important to some people. Some people may find it had to get into a game with an art style they don’t like, or they may play a game just because they like the art.

Now for some comparisons to other types of media.

Ability to control pacing. One of eroge’s advantages over anime, which has many similar technical properties, is the ability to control the pacing of the story. If you want to slowly go through a part of the game because it’s really enjoyable, eroge makes it easy to do so. If there’s a part of the game that bores you to death, you can hold control or another key and skip through it.

Ability to influence the story. Having multiple girls/paths is probably the biggest fundamental difference most eroge have compared to other forms of media. If the story in an anime, manga, or book features a character you don’t like, you have to put up with it. In eroge, the player has more of a choice of who to interact with. For games that have more life or death situations, the player feels more in control of the characters’ fates.

Gameplay. At least in some games. Some people may enjoy the minigames within eroge, which other forms of media except video games can’t match. And let’s face it, it’s pretty rare for a regular video game to have a good story or good character development.

As for me, after looking through a bunch of games the last few days and thinking about what I enjoyed in the last few eroge I’ve played, the main reason I play seems to be the characters. It used to be for the story, but over the last few years, stories have impressed me less and less on their own. Without a strong cast that I like, my enjoyment of an eroge plummets. If I don’t like the characters, why should I care what happens to them?

The second major reason would be for an alternate reality. People in eroge almost always seem to have a more enjoyable life and a better group of friends. Except the ones where they’re all dying or whatever. Sucks to be them.

All the technical aspects of eroge are also important to me. I can’t imagine the genre being the same or my desire to play them to be the same if they weren’t usually present.

Being able to control the pacing of the game is also really important to me. One of the main reasons I quit watching anime (other than the fact they suck now) is that I don’t like following everything at their set pace. I like to slow down and enjoy parts I like. I like to replay scenes/voices that I like. I like being able to skip the voiced lines of characters that I don’t like (Chinami).

Have I missed anything? Agree or disagree with the reasons I listed? Why do you guys play eroge?

Yes, finally. Another review. The game this time will be Pulltop’s Te to Te Try On!.  Technically, this isn’t a full review because I skipped one path, but I played the majority of the game so I think I have a good enough idea of the game. One format change with this review is that NSFW images are now hidden in spoiler tags. There will not be any story spoilers without advance warning, so feel free to click away.

I was also too lazy to do an unboxing, but the first edition comes with a ~15 page full color art book with character art from other artists and the soundtrack.

Game: てとてトライオン!
Developer: PULLTOP
Release date: August 29, 2008
Related links: Galge, Getchu, Walkthrough

OP

Scenario

Washizuka Shinichirou wakes up one day with his father gone. He finds a note from his father that says he’s going to be gone for a while and that he enrolled Shinichirou in a new school. Upon arriving at the new school, he finds nothing but a park with nobody around. He walks around and sees someone in the distance and follows them and finds this.

Orihama Natsumi was changing (though I don’t know where the pantsu comes into play). She doesn’t really seem to mind, and some things happen and she agrees to show him the school. They go back to the park and Shinichirou still doesn’t understand where the school is. After a while, the ground shakes and buildings come out of the ground. It’s the school!

After some more things happen, it seems like Shinichirou has some special ability to control the school’s computer systems, so he’s summoned to the student council, who with a few other people, are in charge of maintaining the school. The student council and maintenance team also happen to be comprised of all girls.

They discover that Shinichirou’s neckband from his father has some special power over the school’s system whenever he’s holding hands with some specific girls, so he’s made to join the student council to help them with their recent problems with the school’s system.

Yes, the game is about maintenance workers. Exciting, no?

Characters

Washizuka Shinichirou

The protagonist of the game, Shinichirou has lived with his traveling father all his life. His father is a researcher, yet he also likes living in the wilderness, allowing Shinichirou to develop survival skills and a strong body. And he’s going to need it with what the student council wants him to do, which is running around. A lot.

Since he’s been living with his father and wandering around all his life, Shinicihirou has never settled down for long and hasn’t gone to school for a while, making him unaccustomed to girls. This makes him the target of frequent teasing by the girls in the story. However, he’s a pretty good guy and dedicated to helping the school. But he’s not particularly interesting or anything. He’s your typical nice guy with girls falling all over him.

Orihama Natsumi

Natsumi is the main heroine of the story. She loves swimming and is often said to be like a fish. Being a carefree girl, she thinks being chased by robots and stuff is fun. I think she’s missing some stuff upstairs. Being a really cheerful and loud girl, she grabs onto Shinichirou pretty much whenever she seems him. In other words, too genki.

Her path reveals the most about the background of the school, and for some reason, the maintenance team suddenly compare her and Shinichirou to Orihime and Hikoboshi — the characters in Tanabata. There’s really no reason for it leading up to that point, so it struck me as odd and forced.

Hasumi Ichino

Ichino is the student council president, and she acts like a dignified and slightly conceited president in front of most people. But put her in front of her roommate Serina, and her act breaks down and she acts like a kid. When Serina is around, Ichino will whine and pout when things don’t go the way she wants. Though I said she’s a dignified president, she’s in no way one of those uptight quiet people. She still fools around a lot while doing her job.

Her pouting.

She loves the school and really tries her best to do the best for the school, and she’s good at inspiring others to do the same, making her a good and respected student council president. Of course she also tries really hard to create and maintain that image.

However, in her path, when Shinichirou finds out about her undignified side, her reaction is soooo cute. Eventually, she’ll stop putting up her act in front of Shinichirou, leading to events like this:

She hates green peas.

In addition, she really loves teasing Shinichirou, but whenever he responds to her sexual teases seriously, she gets nervous and flustered. The way she reacts is really cute. You gotta play it to understand.

Since she’s so close to Serina, people think there’s something going on between them. It doesn’t help Ichino seems to like fostering the misunderstanding.

Maybe it’s true.

Ichino’s path is just more about fixing the school and about Shinichirou finding out what she did in the past that she regrets. There’s no serious story behind it, but I found her relationship with Shinichirou the most entertaining and cute.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Tokura Temari

Temari is a computer whiz and is pretty much the brains of the maintenance operation. She speaks in a soft and pretty monotone voice, making her pretty unexciting. Takako, her roommate, is extremely overprotective of Temari and the biggest obstacle for Shinichirou in Temari’s path. Getting Takako to accept Shinichirou is an arduous and extremely annoying process.

Her SD images are cute.

She can eat a LOT.

Ever play Ever17? Yeah? Well, imagine Yuu’s path in that game. Except absolutely boring. Tenmari has to hack into the school’s central computer that her father helped create in order to take control of it. In the process, she has to solve riddles, including one that involves her name. Sound familiar?

Seem even more familiar? Yeah, that’s the map from Ever17.

However, in contrast to Yuu’s path in Ever17, there’s nothing that’s life-threatening. The solutions involve going to a place and using Shinichirou’s magic neckband. It wasn’t exciting, interesting, or funny. It was just repetitive. Takako made the process even more annoying with her constant overzealous protection of Temari. It doesn’t help that Temari keeps calling Shinichirou, “Darling.” ARGH! STOP THAT. Too much sweet deredere stuff. I’ve never wanted a path to end more than this one.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Kurumizawa Suzuki

Suzuki is the tsundere of the group, and my least favorite character in the game. Yeah, that’s right. A tsundere is my least favorite character.  She’s one of those tsundere that get really angry and violent at pretty much everything. And then once you go go down her path, she suddenly turns extremely deredere. I just can’t stand those type of tsundere.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Her path is the one I didn’t finish, but from what  I saw from the little bit I played, she met Shinichirou once when they were kids and they confessed to each other and promised to be together when they meet again. Right after she remembered that, she became super deredere and I couldn’t stand it, so I skipped the rest.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Subcharacters

Or at least some of them.

Fujigamine Serina

Serina is Ichino’s roommate and the vice president of the student council. She’s a serious person and often has to keep Ichino in line since she’s often fooling around. When she gets mad, she’s extremely scary.

Hayama Takako

Takako is Temari’s roommate and childhood friend. Like a crazy older sister/mother, she watches over Temari like a hawk and gets extremely mad whenever something potentially harmful or traumatizing is about to happen to Temari.

She’s a nutcase.

Hayama Hatoko

Hatoko is Takako’s twin sister. As the school’s reporter, she hosts the daily news show. And she’s extremely loud. And annoying.

H-scenes

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

To be honest, I have no idea what most of the sex scenes are like. I skipped through the sex scenes for everyone but Ichino. Ichino’s scenes were actually pretty decent and funny at times.

Every character gets two sex scenes, and there didn’t seem to be anything exciting about them. The only thing out of the ordinary was one anal scene.

Temari’s sex scenes seem forced in order to reach two scenes since her sex scenes come almost right after each other while all the other characters have a significant amount of time between them. Having a second sex scene shortly after the first one just seems to devalue the second one.

Overall

Te to Te Try On is a pretty laid back game about students who are pretty much maintenance workers for their school. Fun. The story for the game isn’t very important, and frankly, it isn’t very good. Romance is also not a strong point of the game. For the most part, the relationships aren’t interesting or well developed.

To make up for this, the game needs to have interesting events and characters. Unfortunately, the game largely fails at this. The events in the game are usually not very funny or interesting and most often revolve around the group trying to fix problems with the school. Stuff like berserk robots, power outages, broken showers etc. Yeah, that’s right. Fixing broken showers.

Fixing things seems to be the theme of this game, and it’s achieved by Shinichirou by holding hands with a girl to activate his special powers, hence the Te to Te part of the title. After they do that, the problems pretty much automagically get fixed. Blah blah blah, holding hands and fixing stuff seems to be an excuse to get him closer to a girl so they can fall in love and whatnot. It helps that whenever they’re fixing things, the neckband somehow makes them become mentally connected.

As for the characters, most of them are pretty typical and uninteresting. You’ve got your stupid genki girl, your quiet sorta-loli, and a (bad) tsundere. Ichino at least mixes it up a bit by less typical and you know, entertaining. And cute.

If I only played Ichino’s route and stopped, I probably would have had a really good impression of the game. Unfortunately,  I had to keep going until I wanted to pound my head into the wall. I couldn’t wait for the game to be over.

At least the game is only of medium length and only requires two choices for each path, though the results of the choices aren’t that obvious.

So let’s end it on a good note.

Score

My scale will probably be a lot different from most other people’s scale. My scores will be from 1 to 5, integer only. I don’t understand why people need to use a 10 point (or shit, a 100 point) scale. Do you really care about the difference between a game that gets a 3 or a 4 out of 10? Can you really tell me the difference between a 8.5 and an 8.6? Decimals are usually assigned purely on a whim. My score also is based on the overall game. My enjoyment of the game is the primary deciding factor. No subscores are given.

I also give games scores based on what they’re trying to be. For example, I won’t ding a slice of life game for not having an epic story. It’s simply not what the game is supposed to be.

The meaning of my scores and their rough equivalent in a 1-10 scale.

5 – Excellent. Must play (9-10)
4 – Good. Play if you’re a fan of the genre (8)
3 – Average. Play if something about the game really attracts you. (7)
2 – Below average. Only play if there’s something about the game that really really interests you. You need to have a die hard fetish for it or something to make it worthwhile. (6)
1 – Crap. Avoid no matter what. (1-5)

2/5

If you think you’d like Ichino, play her path and then quit. Her path alone is worth a playthrough, but the remaining parts of the game detract from the experience.

Where to buy: Amazon (How to), Getchu, Erogeshop (because some people just don’t want to save money)

Name: 赫炎のインガノック -What a beautiful people-
Developer: Liar Soft
Release date: November 22, 2007
Related links: Galge , Getchu, Walkthrough (Japanese)

There’s no first edition of the game, so this is the normal edition.

One of my first side shots in a while. I liked the art at the top. Mm… onigiri.

Instruction manual.

Black and white manual. Boooring.

Game DVD. And… that’s it. Yeah, pretty boring. At least the game is supposed to be pretty good.

The game doesn’t seem to be in print anymore. Meh, what’s the point of translating a game that isn’t available anymore? Oh, right, the translators probably just don’t care if everyone pirates it.

Rin <3. Colors are a bit off though and it feels cheap. Compare the official faceplate with this one below.

Official one is on the left. Custom one is on the right. The IR receiver thing wasn’t put on well and now it falls off on the custom one. Less metal is used and the plastic feels cheaper overall. Trade offs are worth it to have Rin on my 360.

To give another idea about the difference in quality, the official faceplate weighs about 63.8 g. The custom one, 57.8 g. 6 g difference may not seem like much, but that’s equivalent to a typical SD card case. That’s missing. From something that should have the same dimensions.

Mini review/rant of the place I got it from: I got the faceplate from Subcostume for ~$26 shipped, and I really can’t recommend them, which is why I’m not linking to them. They had a $3 discount for new members when I ordered, but I didn’t get it when I paid, so I submitted a ticket and they never replied. The day after I submitted my ticket, the banner mysteriously disappeared from their site. Hm… I wonder why. Tried another ticket and still no reply. My friend got a faceplate too and they replied to his ticket saying they would refund him, but it’s been about 20 days now and still no refund for him. They’re also kind of slow making it. Site says 2-4 business days, but it ended up being 7 or 8 regular days for me.

This is the first edition of the game.

Rin needs a bigger presence on the cover.

The user manual. Like the original, there’s a user and technical manual. And once again, the user manual is the only one of interest.

The new winnable heroines are on the left. Saya is the one that interests me most, but nobody beats Rin. The manual seems to have had less effort put into it than the original. It’s probably because they assume people already know about the story/characters.

Game disks. Am I the only one who thinks Rin should be rolling around with the cats on disk 2?

There’s a card for every girl. There’s also a trading card set of Little Busters!, but I’m not sure if these are from that set. There obviously a lot more in that set than included with the game.

Arrange CD. I’d probably never listen to it.

Very… brown.

Natsume siblings’ radio show. I’m going to listen to this because Rin is in it. The CD says “Natsume brothers” on it. Are they trying to tell us something? >.>

For anyone waiting for the review, it’s still going to be a while. I haven’t been playing it much lately due to real life.

Where to buy:  Amazon (first edition), Amazon (regular edition), (How?)

This is the first edition of Little Busters!, the original version (aka the ero-less one). Ecstasy will be for next time. A review will follow sometime after, but the game is ridiculously long, so it might take a while, compounded by the fact that I’m very busy.

Visual guide book

The visual guide book is one of the bonuses that come with the first edition of the game. It’s a bit smaller than the box and is about 125 pages. The following are some samples.

Some character info, CGs, and sketches

WANT.

Random character art

These were some pictures at the exhibit above with the statue. Also want.

Manual

One of two manuals technically. The other is a technical manual and is boring. This one has color and pretty pictures. It’s about 20 pages.

Short character bios. YES. There’s an official romanization of Kudo’s full name, so I don’t have to figure it out. Let’s just hope they don’t screw it up like Quartett!

Game disk

Arrange album. Another first edition bonus.

Some art from the booklet in the arrange album. Aww, so cute.

I bought this mainly for the extras since it was pretty cheap. I only wished I preordered it to get the store bonuses. But then I don’t have that kind of money.

Where to buy: Amazon (How?)

It’s less than 3000 yen used.

Name: 星空のメモリア -Wish upon a shooting star-
Developer: FAVORITE
Release date: March 27, 2009
Related links: Getchu, Walkthrough

Opening

Yep. Finally another review. The unboxing is also available.

Scenario

Hoshizora no Memoria is about Kogasaka You (from here on out, I will call him Kogayou to avoid confusing his name with the English pronoun), who returns to his hometown with his sister Chinami after moving to the city for seven years. The reason he moves back is because his mom died, so he has to live with his aunt. But he has a goal after moving back. Seven years ago, when he moved out of his hometown, he made a promise with a girl to meet again. They used to spend much time watching the stars at the observation platform in town. The problem is, Kogayou doesn’t know how to contact her. The only information he knows is her name and that they were supposed to meet again at the observation platform.

Armed with only this knowledge, Kogayou’s only choice is to go to the observation platform, where he meets a girl who looks just like the girl from his past… except the girl is the about the same age as the girl he knew in the past. The girl calls herself Mare and claims to be a shinigami who gets rid of nightmares.

Mare claims to have been waiting for Kogayou for a long time. She says her duty is to get rid of Kogayou’s nightmare, and she claims his nightmare is the girl from the past. Mare uses her power to make Kogayou forget the name of the girl from the past. With even less information than before, Kogayou has no choice but to live a more normal student life while trying to remember the girl’s name. He joins the Astronomy Club and continues to watch stars while trying to figure out who Mare is and how he’ll find the girl from the past again.

Characters

Kogasaki You

Not a completely faceless character, but you also don’t see his face a lot. Kogayou is a pretty likable guy, unlike many protagonists. He’s not a wimp. He’s not indecisive. He’s pretty much a normal guy that’s searching for his lost first love. Being a smart and dependable guy, you can see why some girls would fall for him, unlike some guys in other romances…

Mare S. Ephemeral

As mentioned before, Mare is a shinigami that gets rid of people’s nightmares. She’s also a nightmare herself because she’s pretty much the epitome of disobedient. Mare likes to disagree with or refuse to do anything anybody asks her to do. But she’ll usually do it anyway, so she’s not a bad person. She often gets mad at Kogayou and hits him with the handle of her scythe, just like a typical tsundere.

Download audio file (hoshizora.mp3)

“May I slash this girl?”
She likes slashing people.

Mare is one of my favorite characters in the game, but that’s not too much of a surprise. Tsundere <3.

Hisakaki Komomo

Komomo is part of the student council, and she’s a serious person who always works really hard. She’s opposed to the Astronomy Club because she hates stars, but her twin sister Kosame is in the Astronomy Club, so she gets a lot of yuri resistance. Komomo is another tsundere, but she’s not the same as Mare. She’s more the typical kind of tsundere, the type that gets angry easily. For some reason, she also seems to hate her own name.

Like this. (I want in on this.)

Download audio file (hoshizora2.mp3)

“If you ask, I’ll kick you!”
Like most tsundere, she’s violent. In a cute way.

Komomo’s path is about her having bad dreams and her ability to face the past. She always has a dream about her falling through a red sky until she hits the  ground and dies. Since she thinks this means she’s already dead, her path is about overcoming death. Always facing problems on her own, she finally realizes she needs someone to rely on, and that of course turns out to be Kogayou, which is actually her nickname for him. There’s a lot of deliberate confusion in her path, but her path explains a lot of things about the town and other people.

Komomo is my other favorite character for the same obvious reasons. I think she turns the right amount of dere once you get on her path. Girls who become too dere aren’t attractive to me anymore. Speaking of tsundere…

Download audio file (hoshizora3.mp3)

This is how you pronounce tsundere. Sooo many people get it wrong. Next up on my to do list: yaoi (almost nobody pronounces it correctly…)

Aoi Isuzu

If you’ve played Family Project, you can think of Isuzu as pretty much being the Aoba equivalent — a girl with a poisonous tongue who turns extremely dereでれ later on. Isuzu is Kogayou and Chinami’s neighbor, and they usually end up going to school together since they leave at the same time, much to the dismay of Isuzu. She can probably be classified as another type of tsundere (notice a trend?). Like Mare, she’s usually uncooperative.

Download audio file (hoshizora4.mp3)

“You should die.”
She says stuff like this with ease. Ice queen bitch.

There’s some nice SD art in the game.

Download audio file (hoshizora5.mp3)

“It’s tsurupeta fortune telling.”
Wait. WHAT?

Isuzu’s path is about her learning how to get close to people again. In the beginning of the game, she doesn’t want anything to do with others because she’s actively trying to distance herself, but that distance gradually breaks down. Blah blah blah, cliche cliche cliche. Her story isn’t remarkable.  Unlike m3rry, she’s not the type of tsundere that I like. Speaking of which, there needs to be a good article about tsundere. Maybe I’ll write one.

Hisakaki Kosame

Komomo’s younger sister, Kosame is pretty much the opposite of her older sister. Kosame is pretty much always nice, supportive and polite but not deredere. Most people probably wouldn’t dislike her. Her frequent yuri actions makes me think she’s actually bi.

Download audio file (hoshizora6.mp3)

“Penetration is a bit hard, but I can make you feel good and at the end…”
Daaaamn. Kogayou needs to get them in a threesome.

Kosame’s path is closely related to Komomo’s path, and you can’t play it without finishing Komomo’s, so I probably shouldn’t ruin anything.

SCORE! Nice shot.

Minahoshi Asuho

Now we’ve reached the genki characters. In my opinion, Asuho is the main regular character as much of the story revolves around her. Asuho is the class president and vice president of the Astronomy Club. When she was a kid, she knew and liked Kogayou, but Kogayou doesn’t remember her since he was anti-social. She works in a cafe that her father owns and she makes Kogayou work with her through her sheer positiveness. So she’s one of those kinds of people (whom Micchi apparently likes). While she’s the most supportive of Kogayou finding his childhood love, she’s also the one most jealous of it.

Since Asuho and Komomo are pretty much polar opposites in everything, they argue. A lot. Komomo likes to threaten to dissolve the club and Asuho can’t do anything but complain. She really loves stargazing and is probably the most enthusiastic member of the club.

Probably the most romance focused path out of the regular girls, Asuho’s path is mainly about her trying to decide whether or not she has the right to go out with Kogayou since hs has the childhood girl. There’s also some family stuff, but it’s pretty unremarkable.

Kogasaki Chinami

Kogayou’s younger sister,  also known to me as the annoying fucker who should shut up. As another girl in the genki group, she easily trumps Asuho in energy and annoyingness.

Download audio file (hoshizora7.mp3)

You’ll hear this about a million times. I want to smack her.

Other outstanding characteristics of hers is that she can’t cook and she’s obsessed with aliens. As expected from her, she tries too hard to get close to people, so she annoys Isuzu a lot. She obviously is a bracon. She keeps observational diaries of her brother for fuck’s sake.

Download audio file (hoshizora8.mp3)

Another example of her never-ending annoying machine gun speak.  I don’t even have the energy to translate it.

Download audio file (hoshizora9.mp3)

“I hate you cause you’re noisy.”
Mare says what we all think.

Chinami’s path is mainly about family. Their family has a lot of problems in the past, but Chinami and Kogayou also have to accept their aunt Shino as family. I didn’t really care enough about her to remember much of the path. Also, I’m not going to tell you if she’s blood-related or not.

Route rankings (excluding the true path): Mare > Komomo > Kosame > Asuho > Isuzu > Chinami

System

It’s SO refreshing to play a modern game after Family Project and Cross Channel.

As you can see, the history screen easily beats those two previous games. Pictures, full screen, and easy (and existent) voice playback!

There’s really not much else to say about the engine. It’s nothing special. The animations are pretty decent. The game autosaves each game day and at each decision point, but it seemed to overwrite my manual saves, which was annoying. I think it somehow got bugged because it didn’t do that in the beginning.

H-scenes

This game definitely isn’t one you should get for sex. Some of the sex scenes seem forced in there to meet requirements. Speaking of requirements, all the regular girls have exactly the same types of scene scenes. Two intercourse (one ejaculating outside, one inside) and one blowjob scene. Checklist, anyone?

On a note related to art, the consistency isn’t very good. The artist obviously changes in the later parts of the game. Compare the above screenshot with shots of Komomo earlier. Her freaking eye color even changes pretty significantly.

Overall

Hoshizora no Memoria is a game about students overcoming their past, their nightmares. It’s a story about friends and family learning to rely on each other instead of doing things alone. There is also a lot of stuff about stars and people’s connection with them, things like eternity, existence, and birthplaces. The game can get depressing in certain paths as characters make sacrifices, break down, or reveal their past. If you’re looking for a happy game, you’re looking at the wrong game.

The normal paths vary significantly in quality. The true path easily trumps the rest since it’s the one that deliberately plays with your emotions the most. Unlike some other games, the true path isn’t very dependent on the other paths, though you still need to do all of them (excluding Mare’s) to get the true path. It’s more about getting to know the characters and their backgrounds. Mare’s path can only be gotten after you finish the true path, which I think is the wrong order.

One more thing to note about paths is that the common route is extremely long. The character routes (again, not including the true path) are much shorter in comparison and can feel lacking in length.

Also unlike the other games I’ve recently played, the characters in this game are more likable to me. They’re not the most memorable characters, but they’re pretty easy to sympathize with. Of course, having multiple tsundere probably helped.

If you’re looking for romance, this game might not be for you since romance isn’t the focus of most of the game, but if you want a solid drama, this is a good choice.

Or get it for this.

Now excuse me while I get a telescope. And move out of the city.

Score

My scale will probably be a lot different from most other people’s scale. My scores will be from 1 to 5, integer only. I don’t understand why people need to use a 10 point (or shit, a 100 point) scale. Do you really care about the difference between a game that gets a 3 or a 4 out of 10? Can you really tell me the difference between a 8.5 and an 8.6? Decimals are usually assigned purely on a whim. My score also is based on the overall game. My enjoyment of the game is the primary deciding factor. No subscores are given.

I also give games scores based on what they’re trying to be. For example, I won’t ding a slice of life game for not having an epic story. It’s simply not what the game is supposed to be.

The meaning of my scores and their rough equivalent in a 1-10 scale.

5 – Excellent. Must play (9-10)
4 – Good. Play if you’re a fan of the genre (8)
3 – Average. Play if something about the game really attracts you. (7)
2 – Below average. Only play if there’s something about the game that really really interests you. You need to have a die hard fetish for it or something to make it worthwhile. (6)
1 – Crap. Avoid no matter what. (1-5)

4/5

Where to buy: Amazon (How?), Erogeshop, Paletweb