Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Kitty-tama!

Hello everyone, Kitty-tama here with yet another tester corner. The Most Forbidden Love in the World is unlike any eroge I’ve ever played, both in terms of the main content, and how it’s executed. It was a refreshing experience and I had an amazing time working on such a plot-heavy game for a change of pace. Before I get more in-depth with my thoughts, it’s worth mentioning that despite the title of the game, the storyline handles the content in a very mature, thought-provoking fashion, and never once did it feel off-putting or creepy, in more blunt terms. The game is one of the more memorable ones I’ve tested, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

What really stuck with me throughout testing The Most Forbidden Love in the World was how the story didn’t focus on students like your typical eroge does. Instead, the focus is on Osamu, a man in his late-twenties who has lost his job, falling to the bottom of society before eventually finding his way in life again, and the unlikely bonds that come with it. This is very much a story about redemption, kindness, family, and love of all kinds at its heart. It never feels too cheesy in its execution, though; instead, it’s heartwarming and even emotional at times.

The Most Forbidden  Love in the World is a more adult story than most eroge in that a lot of the heroines are in their twenties like Osamu, so a lot of the conflicts within the routes go beyond just simple “oh, I can’t tell him how much I love him!” storylines. Not to say that sort of theme isn’t present in the game. It’s all in how it’s executed, and there is more meat to the story than just that being the main source of drama. Some of the twists had me surprised! Of course, it’s not just the story and its execution that makes The Most Forbidden Love in the World stand out. I’d actually argue moreso than that, the characters are what really bring it to life and make it so memorable.

One of the best aspects of this game is absolutely the characters. Each one feels quite real and well-rounded, so I ended up getting quite attached to them! I got slightly more attached to some more than others; Mitoko is my most favorite heroine from this game, and for good reason! I found her hardworking nature, along with her tendency to be quick to anger to be quite relatable, and her story ended up resonating with me more than I ever expected it to. That’s not to say the other heroines are lacking, though. Kaya is a carefree flirt who takes any opportunity to take Osamu out for drinks or to tease him, but she’s also got a heart of gold despite how she might initially come across as aloof.

Himeo was a heroine I didn’t expect to grow on me at all as I usually don’t care for tsundere heroines, but she was so charming and cute during her route that she quickly became my second favorite heroine. Admittedly, at first she annoyed me. But I found her story to be much more interesting than I’d initially anticipated, and in hindsight made her early game interactions with Osamu more on the endearing side than the annoying side. Perhaps the most interesting heroine in terms of dynamics with the protagonist is Asami, Osamu’s ex-wife.

Her route came to a slight crawl but I’d say, save for Mitoko’s route, it had some of the most biting drama. She wasn’t my favorite, but the way she was simultaneously cool and collected but cared for everyone deep down led me to see why others would like her. It helps that the drama in her route really made me feel for her and her relationship with Osamu. I won’t spoil anything here, though. The side characters were just as entertaining, though I feel like they weren’t as well-rounded as the main cast was.

Given this is an older eroge, the H-scenes didn’t live up to my usually higher expectations when it comes to those scenes. Mainly, Osamu’s sadism felt out of character enough for me to be put off, especially during Kaya’s route. I guess it comes down to personal preference though—I vastly prefer my romance eroge to have non-sadistic protagonists and the heroines making love in a more vanilla fashion, or at least not as roughly as Osamu tends to do the heroines during the scenes. Additionally, the writing wasn’t as descriptive as I would have liked.

Granted, I’m more used to the more graphic writing style of Asou Ei (euphoria, Kuroinu), so perhaps it isn’t a fair expectation to have. But when the heroine who is super flirty and gives off borderline “I’ll take charge” vibes turns out to be a major masochist… I can’t say I was too into that, unfortunately. I was grateful that Osamu was at least a bit gentler with Mitoko in her scenes. Despite my complaints on this front, the H-scenes did at least serve an emotional and dramatic purpose within the heroine routes, so they weren’t entirely a waste! I like how they added to the romance between Osamu and the respective heroine within her story.

On the whole, I had an absolute blast working on The Most Forbidden Love in the World. I can see why it’s such a beloved visual novel. Did it blow my mind by any means? Honestly, not really. But the way this love story was told in particular was touching, sweet, and quite well-paced, in my opinion. Well, despite the slow crawl towards the end of Asami’s route, anyway. I was thrilled when I was given the opportunity to work on it, and I hope everyone enjoys this game just as much as I enjoyed testing it! If you like touching stories with well-rounded characters that are more than just cutesy moeblobs, I’d highly recommend checking out The Most Forbidden Love in the World. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience, that much is certain. Until next time!

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Xarrias!

Hello, this is Xarrias, and this is my tenth Tester’s Corner for MangaGamer. Woooo, the big One Zero! I’ll admit that this was a game that I knew quite little about going into it. I skimmed some reviews and was expecting both comedy and drama. However, one thing that struck me was how real some of this felt. Sure, there’s a lot of plot points that are a bit out-there and some over the top moments, but the core of it was very true to life, and actually quite depressing at points.

Yoshimura Osamu is a down on his luck salaryman. Actually, ex-salaryman. He lost his job through no fault of his own. His wife left him without giving him a reason. He’s got nowhere to go, and no purpose to his life. He’s at the point where you might hear about him in passing as a delay to your train. But a chance encounter with a woman led him to a run-down boarding house with a complement of quirky characters and the owner – her daughter, Mitoko. She, too, is down on her luck. Her mother ran out on her shortly after this encounter with yet another shady man, and they’ve always struggled with the bills. She’s working multiple part time jobs and she’s thinking of quitting school just to make ends meet. However, this chance meeting between two broken individuals sparks the start of a story about raising them both up to their feet and regaining control over their lives.

I know you probably want to hear about the romance, but I want to emphasize just how the game managed to capture the banal and everyday struggles one faces with employment, school, and money. It can be soul crushing to find employment these days, particularly if you’re young without prior experience. While the game doesn’t go into that side of things, it still gives you an idea of what it’s like to try and find work, or taking one step forward only to go two steps back.

One character that stands out to me, asides from our protagonist, is Himeo. She’s the rich girl who lives next door who is looking to buy the boarding house. She’s possibly one of the nicest and most generous characters in the game – to the point where she’s got a bonus ending – and her voice acting never failed to make me smile. All the characters are voiced well, but the style hers was quite distinct with her pace, and so stood out to me.

Speaking of endings, that’s admittedly something I had an issue with. The way the game handles branching means that some characters have their route split a lot sooner than others, and though their arc concludes, the ‘common’ route, for lack of a better word, loses out. There’s also one instance in Himeo’s where something happens there that should happen regardless, but doesn’t, which I found problematic. When events change between routes that aren’t affected by the decisions you’ve made it affects the verisimilitude of the world, as these things should still be happening in the background.

The sex scenes are probably best compared to something like Princess Evangile. Concentrated into the character routes and more fanservice for the player rather than something you’re there specifically for. Osamu can be an aggressive lover, and he isn’t voiced for them unlike the rest of the game, so that might be a positive or a negative for you. Otherwise it’s pretty vanilla stuff – the meat of the game is with the story and character development.

In conclusion, this is a game that will make you laugh and cry over the mundane trials and tribulations of life. Some of these things might hit home a little hard for some of the readers, but I’m of the opinion that when something is capable of playing with your emotions that it’s worth giving a go. It didn’t quite make me cry, but it certainly came close at points, and asides from the depressing stuff there was a good amount of humour to balance things out, too. If you want something that has adult themes, you can’t go wrong with Damekoi.

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Puffketeer!

On November 13th, Osamu Yoshimura was asked to remove himself from his place of employment. …That request came from his boss.

Deep down, he knew it was wrong, but he also knew that someday she would return to him.

With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the Terrace House Hinosaka, a boarding house run by the woman’s daughter, Mitoko Hinosaka. Some time earlier, her mother had mysteriously left, seemingly never to return.

Can an unemployed man and a precocious girl share an apartment without driving each other crazy…?!

Alright, so leaving liberties with the narration structure and parodies of title sequences to old television sitcoms aside, this is more or less how The Most Forbidden Love in the World (hereafter referred to by its JP contracted name, Damekoi) opens. Considering its original release came a good, solid decade ago, you’d think that having such a lengthy gap between original release and English localization would render it somewhat quaint, but in actuality, it is less of a portrait of 2007-era Japan and more of post-Lost Decade Japan in general, with a very much unconventional protagonist and eccentric cast of characters to boot.

For those of you not up on your Japanese history, the “Lost Decade” refers to 1990s Japan, where the economic bubble that had made it such a formidable world power throughout much of the 1980s finally burst, causing a period of economic malaise from which the country has struggled to recover from ever since. Indeed, the global economic crisis which was starting to reveal itself around the time of the original release has not helped matters much either. This provides the context for our protagonist, Osamu Yoshimura, a 28-going-on-29 white-collar worker whose monumental insignificance in the workplace hierarchy is driven home by the story opening with him having just been sacked for reasons which will become very clear as the story progresses.

Osamu is every bit as hetare as you’d expect from an eroge protagonist, but his is a particularly unique brand of hetare, since he is perpetually subservient to being “more dead than alive at a nine-to-five”, as Wham! once put it. Having gotten divorced as well, and bearing the brunt of judgment by others for it (in spite of that judgment arguably being unfair to him and to his ex-partner), he is a man jaded and broken by the cruelties of modern society. Indeed, it is only through his relationships, platonic or otherwise, with other down-on-their-luck people, that Osamu eventually finds redemption.

Damekoi was, and is, unique among Japanese erotic game productions in its pragmatic portrayal of Japanese society. Given the content of many modern day productions, you’d be forgiven for believing that visual novels tend to depict Japan through rose-colored glasses (never mind how they depict Japanese high schools through rose-colored glasses), but Damekoi is clearly a title written by and for people who know what the real world is like. The bureaucracies which Osamu’s livelihood hang on are all full of corrupt cronies who salivate like Pavlov’s dogs at hearing the word “merger.”

In addition, his being nearly 30 and once-divorced places him exceptionally low on the social ladder in a world where the idyllic household of a working man, house-tending woman and child (or children) is much less of a realistic option, and yet a belief still clung to by the privileged out of concern for Japan’s still steadily declining birth rate & aging population. He is a man who has repeatedly taken the fall so that others can save face. But as you’ll gradually come to see, he is far from the only character in this story scorned by a conformist society for not being able to fit in completely.

Mitoko, the master of the boarding house Osamu ends up moving into, is a young girl whose precocious shrewdness and ability to keep up with the duties demanded of her, both at home and school, disguises the crushing emotional void left by the sudden departure of her mother. Kaya is a twenty-something fellow office worker who drinks like Bridget Jones (with an acid tongue to match) and constantly sexually courts Osamu, though her justification for doing so is more than it seems to be on the surface. Asami, the teacher at Mitoko’s school and Osamu’s ex-wife, has also suffered through a lack of emotional completeness in her life, and her reunion with Osamu is every bit as painfully awkward as you’d expect.

The real reason for her divorce, made clear during her route, is simultaneously shocking and a surprising turn of events for a Japanese eroge, though in the interest of not spoiling the twist, I will say that it has something strongly to do with family. Indeed, that is one of the main themes of this game’s story—family. Or rather, the idea that family isn’t necessarily about blood ties, but rather, the deep-forged bonds made with other people. In other words, family’s what you make it.

And then there is Himeo, who is every bit the archetypal “Rich Girl” Hall & Oates once sang about—she is an extremely arrogant & sheltered girl who can rely on the old man’s money, she is completely lacking in self-reliance, and she possesses an emotional hole in the heart which no amount of currency in the world can buy. She uses her extreme wealth and privilege to get her way, and pressures her bodyguard Sasaki (a gay man who occasionally enjoys getting a rise out of teasing the “so straight he probably thinks watching Will & Grace gives you AIDS” Osamu) into doing the talking when she can’t.

She constantly talks down to and insults Osamu once she becomes acquainted with him, and yet still puts up with him as a company worker for reasons even she can’t quite understand. Of course, it isn’t entirely difficult to figure out where that leads. Despite her status as the “ice queen” of the story, eventually that outer layer begins to peel away; her route is probably one of the more fascinating ones.

And then we have the “Greek chorus” characters—that is, side characters whose main purpose is to provide humorous commentary on the events around them. While Mitoko’s classmates do fill this role to a certain extent, it is definitely the trio of fellow boarding house inhabitants Buntarou, Kihee & Yoshinori who serve this purpose in the story most thoroughly.

They, too, are people who’ve been chewed up and spat out by society, in the form of a college dropout, an elderly retired college professor with an odd talent for rakugo, and a complete freeloader respectively, and yet, they are casually resigned to their current way of life, sitting around playing mahjong video games, neglecting their rent and constantly pushing Osamu’s buttons for kicks. All the same, their status as the comedy relief stooges helps to alleviate some of the more extreme dramatic moments, and even while they tease Osamu, it gradually becomes clear that even they wish better for him.

When Andy Partridge wrote Earn Enough for Us for his band XTC, it was these kinds of people he was writing about—let down by society, living paycheck to paycheck, and generally just surviving the harsh world around them, but still finding happiness in spite of their lots in life. Damekoi is a pragmatic story about pragmatic people, and this alone makes it unique among Japanese erotic games, particularly in a modern landscape of seemingly endless moe titles.

While the scenario arguably takes a few notes from the classic Kazoku Keikaku (whose original release predates Damekoi by six years), it still does a lot of things which few other eroge, contemporary or current, have dared to do. For those of you desiring something different from the standard moe high school romance fare which most eroge makers seem to have fallen into a rut of doing over and over again in recent years like aging rock musicians putting out uninspired new albums in desperate attempts to remain relevant, Damekoi will fill that gap and then some. I recommend it.
As for the titular Most Forbidden Love in the World well… I’ll leave you to figure out what it may be.

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Mojack!

Hello everyone, mojack here and for today’s Tester’s Corner I want to do something a little bit different. Instead of talking about the charming story or likable characters of The Expression Amrilato, I want to commend just how in-tune the game is when it comes to the difficulties of learning a new language.

The Expression Amrilato such a refreshing diversion with the isekai genre because it takes an aspect that other isekai stories take for granted, language, and brings that to the forefront of its narrative. When Rin is suddenly transported to a parallel world, she quickly realizes that practically no one speaks Japanese, or any language she’s familiar with for that matter. With the help of a kind soul, Ruka, who gives a helping hand, Rin must learn this world’s language, Juliamo, to communicate with those around her.

Juliamo (pronounced “Yu-lee-ah-mo”) is actually based off of an international language called Esperanto, although it takes some liberties here and there to create its own unique identity. It shares many similarities with Spanish both in sentence structure and vocabulary. Anyone who has taken a Spanish class before will instantly recognize “infinitivo” and its purpose in grammar structure, for instance. That said, there’s plenty different about the linguistics that is sure to throw people for a loop.

Rin starts by learning the basics; nailing down numbers, interrogatives, and everyday object vocabulary. These learning segments are accompanied by quizzes to help the players themselves learn along with her, although these are completely skippable too. The story reinforces these learnings, though, by integrating what Rin learns into the narrative. When Rin felt proud of herself for being able to simply buy some vegetables, I felt proud with her because the simple joy of being able to communicate with someone you couldn’t prior cannot be understated.

Just as I vicariously share Rin’s joys, however, I also shared her frustrations. Her vicious reaction to turning to the “transitive and intransitive verb” page of her workbook was so relatable to my own Japanese language studies, that I had to take a moment to think if I was personally being called out. Developer SukeraSparo clearly knows where people will get tripped up the most and address those sections appropriately.

I’m not saying that playing The Expression Amrilato is going to make you an Esperanto expert, but given the fact that this is a visual novel meant for entertainment first and an educational piece second, it’s astonishing just how effective at instruction it is. By the end of the game, you may still not be able to understand every single word Ruka says, but at the very least it won’t seem so alien anymore. Long sentences won’t look like gibberish and you’ll be able to at least break them down into their respective grammar chunks.

Would I recommend this visual novel as an actual teaching tool? Probably not. Will I forget everything I learned from it a week after finishing the beta test? Probably. Even so, The Expression Amrilato provided numerous moments that felt like genuine accomplishments just as much to me, the player, as they did to Rin herself, and that’s not something I can say for many visual novels out there.

The Expression Amrilato is now available for purchase on MangaGamer.com and GOG! Purchase your copy during launch week to get 20% off!

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Jasmena!

Hi there! I’m here to say a few words about The Expression Amrilato. This was my first beta testing experience, and between the vibrant art, adorable characters, and a few surprises, it was a blast!

The game follows Rin, an awkward, insecure, and otherwise wholly relatable tomboy, as her mundane life changes forever when she is unexpectedly transported into a parallel world. Everything is eerily familiar, except the sky is pink, she can’t communicate with locals, and her house seems to have disappeared..?! Uh oh. Luckily for Rin, she quickly encounters the adorable Ruka, who becomes her best friend, mentor, and more~

While the story follows a fairly standard trajectory of developing friendship and romance, there is a special element that makes this game unique, and that is the language spoken in Rin’s parallel world: Juliamo. As the player, you follow along with Rin’s journey (and her struggle!) to communicate with everyone around her, including Ruka. As she learns Juliamo, so do you!

The gameplay is peppered with in-game activities, study guides, and even quiz mini games to get you reading Juliamo in no time. If that doesn’t sound like your thing, don’t worry–Juliamo is a central theme of the game, but the more formal quizzes and exercises can be turned off, leaving you as a spectator of Rin’s language journey rather than an active participant.

For those who do enjoy the language aspect, there is a further surprise: Juliamo is actually a real-world language called Esperanto, which is spoken by over 1 million people around the globe. That’s pretty cool, I’d say–how often do you walk away from a game with some shiny new language skills?

The game definitely has a science fiction tone and while the story focuses primarily on Rin and Ruka, the world they inhabit is mysterious and intriguing, leaving you hungry for more details about the setting and the people who live there. Overall, I had a lot of fun playing it. The characters are endearing, the language struggle is real, and occasional bits of insight about the world paint a much deeper story. As for the big questions: Will Rin ever get back to her own world? If it means leaving Ruka behind, would she even choose to? You’ll have to play the game to find out!

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from SSparks!

Hey y’all, SSparks here. Today I’ll talk about Farther Than the Blue Sky, also known as Byakko.

First, let’s get the important stuff out: This game is a solid 10/10 in my book and I really want more people to read it. When I was invited to test it, I definitely chuckled a bit, as I am an Aerospace Engineering student myself. This not only allowed me to compare some of the contents of the game to real life, but also made my own journey through the game much more personal. Kaho’s route in particular really affected me, for some reason or another. As such, I’ll approach this corner very personally.

Byakko tells the story of a club with the same name. A club that will launch a rocket, even if it kills them. A club of people who love rockets. With only five members, they have to surpass all others. Byakko tells a story of hard work. A story of perseverance. The club prez and totally-not-a-tsundere, Arisa.

The wroom brrrr fzzzzfzzzz… I mean, emotional and airheaded Nazuna. The cheeky pervert, Honoka. The logical realist, Kaho. And perhaps most important, the idiot with a dream, Otoya. Byakko is by no means a perfect club. They clash all the time, and they make many mistakes. But that’s exactly what makes you cheer for them. Even with all their differences, they still manage to get together for a single, common purpose: making rockets.

Each of the girls specializes in one field of rocket development, and you’ll be seeing that very often when you do their route. At school? Rockets. At home? Rockets. Having sex? Rockets! And on that note, sex almost always leads directly to realizing what they’re doing wrong, whatever that may be.

Oh, our engine is exploding? Let’s think about it. (One sex scene later…) Boy, I sure am glad having wild sex made us figure out this fatal flaw in our monstrous rocket engine which burns at 3000 °C. The rocket’s guidance and control system’s suddenly malfunctioning? What could be causing that? (One sex scene later…) Man, that was simple… You get the point.

That aside, there are still many moments of heartfelt character development. And rocket development. There’s lots of rocket development here.

The only complaint I could even have is that the main issue from each route plays no part in the others, but that’s also something Byakko deals with relatively well, personally speaking. It allows the game to focus solely on what’s happening then and there.

With every route, you learn more about the main characters, about the side characters, about Byakko’s past, and about Otoya himself. The content is extremely well divided among the character routes, in a way that nothing is ever said twice. Everything that’s said has a purpose. Every character has their time to shine, even the ones set up to be complete dickheads you should hate.

And this is where things get fun: the final route. After you finish all four girls, you unlock the culmination of everything you did up to this point. It had me in literal tears, though less than Kaho’s climax. I vividly remember the night I told myself I’d finish the game. When looking through the scripts to situate myself on where I was at that point, I accidentally jumped one script too far, and ended up reading a bit of what was to come. And that one bit settled it.

I wasn’t gonna even blink until I finished it. My body and my mind knew nothing but Byakko. And man, was it worth every single moment. With a magnificent conclusion, Farther Than the Blue Sky solidified itself as my newest 10/10. It had been almost two years since the last time I felt so strongly for a game, and I don’t think anything will ever bring it down.

On the technical side of things, the game features a glossary for terms important to the story. I personally checked through them all, and all the information in there is accurate to the things I have learned (do keep in mind that I’m still only a student myself though), so props to the writers, as well as the localization staff.

Thanks to this glossary, as well as character explanations, you don’t need any background in the subject to be able to understand the basics of what the characters are doing. There are also diagrams to illustrate the explanations in the game, and if Otoya can understand them, so can anyone! I also made sure to go through every single line twice to make sure things adhered to SI style conventions, but that’s just the nerd in me.

Byakko features great characters, great art, and great writing. If anything I said here piqued your interest, please make sure to read through the game yourself, and help make Byakko’s launch a success! With that said… Liftoff!

Farther than the Blue Sky is now available for purchase on MangaGamer.com!

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Toufu Guy!

Hi!! I’m toufu guy. This is my first time writing something for the blog here as a beta tester, and I’m pretty dang excited to talk about my experience testing Sengoku Rance, brought to you by MangaGamer.

I like to consider myself a Super Sengoku Rance fan, and this opportunity allowed me to work directly with this classic title in an official context. It’s one of the first eroge I ever played, and it sure has left its mark on me.

As many of you know, Sengoku Rance is a 2006 SRPG developed by AliceSoft, depicting Rance’s adventure in the legendary eastern island of Nippon. With the seemingly simple goal of “fuck every [hot] princess,” he ends up doing a lot more, like dealing with a civil war, an ancient beast, and several villains who don’t respect women.

Sengoku Rance is particularly well known for the several branching paths it can take. There are four main routes – an Official History route, as well as one for each of Ran Nanjou, Kenshin Uesugi, and Isoroku Yamamoto. Do you declare war on the peaceable youkai? Do you lock the Takuga clan behind the gate to Shikokalamity? Do you let the young Kazemaru commit seppuku? Or do you force him to wear a mustache? Does Rance join the local book club? While some choices are trivial, some of them fundamentally alter the course of the game, and it’s worth making sure you save beforehand to see both results.

Underneath all the political strife and difficult decisions, Sengoku Rance rests on a cast of over a hundred named characters, all with their own distinct personalities. From ohagi-munching Orime to sex-loving Chinu Kobayakawa, hotwing-riding Baba Shouen to arquebus-wielding Yuzumi Yuzuhara, they all spring to life. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played this game, but the jokes they tell are such zingers I still chortle to no end, and the tragedies they go through still make me weep.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. What about the sex? What’s the point of talking about Rance without talking about sex? Alright. Sengoku Rance has a healthy variety of sex scenes, ranging from vanilla romance sex to impregnation sex to awkward handjobs to BDSM yuri (if you want anything more… unique, I recommend that you check out Beat Blades Haruka or Beat Angel Escalayer instead). What makes it so great this time is that… it’s all uncensored! Have you ever wanted to see all four of the Shimazu brothers’ penises? Well, honestly, I didn’t. But I have now! It was rather nice getting to see the Hyper Weapon in all its glory, as well as all of the vaginas, waiting to get penetrated. Also, it turns out that many Nipponese women have some pubes, so if you’re into that…! If I had to pick the three scenes I enjoyed the most from the beta, they’d be:

Most Erotic: Rance x Ran, first scene
Most Amusing: Leila x Rance
Most Terrifying: Rance x Kou

But, toufu guy! Rance and Kou don’t have sex! She’s too pure! Well. Maybe they don’t have sex, but there’s enough Hyper Weapon in this scene to count as an H-scene in my book.

And I’m not the only one unamused by this scene.

Over the course of beta testing, I came across plenty of bugs and nitpicks. Sometimes text would be rendered a few pixels off-center, or a line would break in a weird spot. There was a couple of crashes towards the start of the beta, and once, after waking my computer up from a nice, long sleep, the screen was shaking like somebody had smashed my computer with a sledgehammer. Us beta testers were offered some debug tools to help catch issues in text that would be difficult to run into mid-game, such as the battle dialogues. However, the debug tool wasn’t entirely correct about putting the right portrait on-screen, so it led to some funny mismatches. I’ve included some mismatches and other random quotes from the depths of the game here for your amusement.

Sengoku Rance may be a thirteen year old game, but it’s proven to me that it can stand the test of time. Story? Check. Cute girls? Check. Gameplay? Check. Sex? Check. Epic BGM? Check. Legendary hero in green? You fucking bet. I encourage everybody to check out this seminal entry in the Rance franchise and experience one of the finest games in the history of gaming There is no other game quite like Sengoku Rance.

Sengoku Rance is now available on MangaGamer.com!

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Aki!

Hey, guys! It’s aki again, this time fresh off the beta boat for Hashihime of the Old Book Town. I expressed interest in this game upon seeing its art and knowing nothing else about it. I quickly learned two things: it has beautiful art and it’s gay. So hell yeah, you can bet I was on that shit.

I feel like there’s no way to really address any facet of this game without understating the sheer amount of consideration and care put into it. The character designs look a bit samey at first, but the lack of ridiculous anime hair really gives it that immediate sense of realism — you tell characters apart by subtleties rather than by the hues of their locks and the ornaments they’re decorated with. That’s the first thing I love about this game: the strength in the simplicity of the designs helps to lock you into a narrative that expands with each chapter, luring you in with mysteries and mythos that pique nothing if not your curiosity. If you’re not charmed by the cast (which, as I’ll talk about next, you should be), then you’ll probably be pulled in by the story.

I was stricken by this game’s character writing. I’ve played a lot of visual novels and I love nakige, but I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a game with characters quite as human as the ones in Hashihime. There are, of course, parts of them that are exaggerated to different ends, but what they feel is always undoubtedly rooted in something that you can comprehend as the player. Whether or not you would act the same, you know why they behave the way they do, which brings out a sense of respect from me toward the creator, ADELTA, for accomplishing such a feat.

The main character, Tamamori, is simply impressive in his characterization: he’s frustrating, he can be annoying, he’s selfish, he’s a dope, but he’s incredibly lovable and all of his flaws are traits that I could potentially see in myself. Being able to relate to a main character on a personal level like that really helps to engage the reader in a story, and Hashihime succeeds at that with flying colors.

I can’t go too much into plot without spoiling things, though. I’m of the personal belief that spoilers don’t spoil a story if the story is truly good, but with Hashihime, the slow trickle of data you’re fed and the information you garner with each passage is so clearly calculated that to disrupt that scripted flow would be a disservice to ADELTA’s hard work. With that in mind, I’ll keep my thoughts on the game as superficial as possible!

So LET ME TALK ABOUT THIS ART HOLY SHIT. Yeah, you saw it. You saw those colours. They were fuckin’ gorgeous, right? That’s right. One element of the game is the balance between reality and fantasy, illusion and materiality. Kurosawa Rinko (the game’s artist, planner, script writer, and designer) depicts that through her use of colors: the natural palettes evoke the rainy Taisho streets of Jinbouchou, but the fluorescent pop art springs the viewer into a completely different world. As you’d expect, it’s the divide between these two worlds — and the blurring of the lines — that make the story fascinating and the art breathtaking.

Now, there are definitely things I have to warn you about going in. It’s an eroge, so the likelihood of you playing it when you’re not comfortable with certain ~problematic~ topics is low, but I don’t want my effusive praise to lead anyone to reading a story that could be severely triggering: there’s a necessary content warning for murder, rape, abuse, suicide, animal cruelty, and pseudo-incest. There are some depictions of body horror and definitely discussions of depression, especially with regard to LGBT issues.

Oh, wait, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, this game somehow manages to be caring in its depiction of LGBT stories — it’s not just a game where dudes fuck dudes for the hell of it (not that there’d be anything wrong with that, either). It’s a game that thought, love, and research were poured into, and I think that shows when you play it. As an LGBT person myself, the first route of this game alone yanked on my heartstrings and played them like a gay-ass fiddle. If you’ve experienced the struggle of being LGBT, then this game may hit home for you, too. It’s complex, it’s emotional, and it’s, above all, sympathetic. At the end of each route, I found myself awash with all the feelings I’m positive ADELTA set out to instill in me, and I can’t even begin to overstate how great an experience that was.

Above all, I wish I could go back and play it blind once more, to experience that feeling of confusion, delight, fear, and intrigue that this game inspired in me. Considering it’s a game with the above-mentioned unsavory content and I STILL fucking adored it and don’t regret playing it? It’s absolutely worth it.

I may not be able to experience it for the first time again, so I can only hope that maybe this corner will convince you to give it a shot yourself. I truly hope you love it.

…hitotsurugi best girl btw

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from threepwood007!

Visual novels don’t usually contain a large quantity of gameplay. In fact, they sometimes don’t require interaction at all aside from a click to advance the text – and even that is optional if you use auto mode.

Then there’s Sengoku Rance. A game that, if represented it to the average gamer without any embellishment… and without the naughtiness… they might be inclined to give it a shot, even as an anime game. Grand strategy, conquering Japan, troop counts, resources, items, RPG mechanics, a dungeon-crawling mini-game; these are the ingredients for a game to be successful in the strategy gaming populace.

And then, there’s what makes Rance games so popular to begin with:

SEX. And lots of it.

Oh, and I suppose the bizarrely amazing story. That’s a thing.

Sengoku Rance is definitely a crazy game. It’s almost completely different from the rest of the games in the series, let alone other visual novels in general. To Rance fans, this isn’t anything new: Sengoku Rance has an excellent reputation as a top-tier game in and outside the fandom.

It is at its core a turn-based strategy game with a hardcore story element. It fits into the “new” Rance canon quite nicely and covers a great deal of important timeline events, but also serves as an excellent “first” for newcomers to the series.

As for a game to beta test? Hoooooooooooo boy.

Sengoku Rance is a very strange “visual novel.” More game than novel, it requires a larger testing base and has a much larger surface area to test. The scripts themselves are massive, of course, but similar to The Spirit Master of Retarnia there are a great deal of assets that can’t be simply loaded into a spreadsheet and checked. They have to be examined firsthand.

And the RNG of Sengoku Rance sometimes makes that a tad fun. Depending on the priority of events that need to occur, it’s possible to delay interactions between characters for quite some time, and that’s ignoring all the special once-per-turn events and other crazy shenanigans that Rance throws at the player (sometimes literally).

But as far as a testing experience goes, it was infinitely invaluable. Where else could you find a visual novel that was more 4x that foursome (though those were some good scenes), and where else a better anti-hero who only wants some sex from every girl in Japan.

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Niiko!

Hi guys, it’s Niiko.

Today I’m here to speak a bit about Hashihime of the Old Book Town, the wonderfully eclectic BL murder-mystery of which I had the great pleasure of testing for y’all.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Hashihime is a doujin work developed with much care and attention by ADELTA and released in 2016. Set in Japan’s Taisho era, players will follow along with the slovenly-yet-relatable Tamamori, a ronin who had failed the entrance exam for the Imperial University – the only one of his friends to do so. Of course, when it rains it pours, so when he gets booted from his boarding house for failing to get in, where else can a fantastical writer with delusions of grandeur turn to but…a used bookstore that only opens on rainy days? Throw in the sudden, inexplicable deaths of his friends and we’ve got the perfect recipe for a curious and bizarre adventure that only grows more twisted and addicting the further we go… If you enjoy deep, heavy-handed narrative you won’t want to put this one down; I bet you won’t.

But enough tiptoeing around the matter at hand, here’s what I thought of this beautiful piece of insanity.

ART

The artwork is exquisite. Kurosawa Rinko’s style is both breathtaking and sumptuous, whether the scene depicts a scenario that is colorful and wondrous, shockingly blood-spattered or somber and bleak. Clean lines contrast demure watercolors and striking, bold bursts of pigment…

I wish I could say more, but really the imagery superbly accompanies the story being told and does not overstay its welcome, simply adds to the layers that make up the world of 1920s Tokyo. Oh, and for those curious, the 18+ CGs are uncensored.

STORY/CHARACTERS

Now to the real meat of the title – the fiction told within the 40+ hours I spent on Hashihime sucked me in like no other VN before, and I am not exaggerating. Kurosawa worked magic here too, as the writing is solid, the tone painstakingly set and works excellently with the game’s system to tell the story deliberately like a slow-blooming flower. This is one of those “curl up with a nice cup of tea and lock yourself down for the rest of the evening” fantasies that will take you on a roller coaster of emotions while you work to uncover the truth, but we warned, men’s hearts can hide the darkest secrets…

Speaking of men, the tale is not completely without its lighthearted moments. Tamamori and his friends are all charmingly unique, each one-of-a-kind and play key roles in the precarious balancing act of this mind trip of a historical opera. Some are lovable, some you can’t help but hate, but what are we with (or without) our friends? Conveniently, some of these friends are potential romantic interests in the game. That’s not to say it will be easy to get in their pants, as the narrative is the predominant feature of the work, but love can bloom even on the battlefield after all. Each relationship is special in its own way and well worth unraveling.

AUDIO

Finally, I cannot complete my thoughts without a few words about the BGM (and on a lesser note, the voice acting); it is just sublime. Even from the title screen, the whimsical, vintage-inspired theme just screams “you are in for a wild ride.” And like the artwork in Hashihime, the OST perfectly accents the main drama with a variety of tunes spanning from Tamamori’s favorite toe-tapping jazz song to the delicate strains of a sole piano once a tragedy befalls our unconventional hero. The music is the proverbial cherry on top of the time-traveling spell we are placed under the moment we step into the gloomy, rain-drenched town of Jinbouchou. It’s truly otherworldly.

The VO as well is sound, no complaints here. I’ll admit, I am waaay out of the loop when it comes to BL seiyuu (the last BLCD I listened to was some years ago) BUT my ears still work, and each of the characters are voiced with a depth and realism you can’t not think they’re living and breathing as they guiltily accept how useless they are, or candidly confess what’s their favorite time of day to smoke.

Basically, Hashihime is an utter masterpiece. Now, like any other VN it has its flaws, but on the whole if you love rich storytelling that weaves into an intricate tapestry the more you read then this one is a treat. Like the extraordinary tale of Alice in Wonderland, this game takes you to an amazing and absurd world you could only see in a very vivid, intense dream, and by the end of it all you won’t want to wake up.

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Umbelia!

So here we are yet again- another Alicesoft release, another shining review. But this one in particular probably isn’t one you actually need more information on…

The big man himself doesn’t really need any introduction…

…and I doubt the game itself does, either. Sengoku Rance is here!

If you’ve been around in the VN scene for any nontrivial amount f time, you’ve definitely already played this. Sengoku Rance is a sprawling strategy/takeover, about Rance’s adventures in country of JAPAN. A lot of things happen. A lot of things. As is the way of Rance.

There’s really not much to this game that wasn’t a masterpiece at it’s time, and all of it still holds up extremely well.  Just starting with the gameplay, it’s exactly the kind of high quality you’ve(probably) come to expect from Alicesoft in general- a surprisingly deep tactical RPG where you pit armies led by the heroes of Rance’s world against… mostly no one of any real importance unless they’re a boss, as it shouId be.  How else would you recruit everyone you cared about? 

The game is played in three phases- at the start of each turn you can go to areas(mostly only ones under your control) and see events for a variety of effects- this plays out in typical Visual Novel format and is about what someoe who didn’t play Alicesoft before now would expect.

The second phase is combat, if applicable; you’ll be attacked by any states you’re at war with. Fighting is pretty straightforward- you pick the commanders for each fight, and each commander has a certain number of troops, the troops are both HP and effective attack power. There are active and passive skills and… well, if you’ve played an RPG ever you know roughly what to expect.  It’s amazingly solid gameplay for an eroge (though Rance always is…)- the ridiculous and surprising depth to the system can leave you discovering new things to play with pretty much any new playthrough you decide to do.

The music is, of course, a big ole monolithic masterpiece.  It’s done by SHADE of Alicesoft fame and, to me, Sengoku is probably one of his highest points in terms of the soundtrack being played on the whole.  Really not much to say, but I’ve been listening to several of the tracks from Sengoku for years at this point.  It’s seriously good stuff.

The story, again, is amazingly strong for an eroge (but, again, that’s just Rance’s thing!) and each of the six routes have a huge array of funny, dramatic, and stressful moments.  It’s really hard to talk about without spoiling anything, but if you’re new to the series:

Rance is a man living in a world dictated by the Planner Scenario.  What this means in a nutshell is that their lives are literally defined and operate with the rpg mechanics we know and love.  Skill ranks, levels, level caps, heroes, the good stuff.  Rance in particular is  a “Glitch” in this system, allowing him to level infinitely… though levels go down with idleness, and Rance himself is only really motivated by two things: sex, and also sex.  

Our anti-hero, Rance, is a complete menace.  He travels the world, saving countries and the world and countless people… all in the name of busting a nut.  One moment he will lead the army of a revolution against a demon lord, with the simple purpose of wanting to get laid.

And he’s very good at what he does.

Finally, the art…

It’s, again, great for it’s time.  It’s a bit dated now, but for the most part it doesn’t matter: it’s still great.  The portraits are very expressive and fun, but that’s probably not what you care about from this section…

If you’re reading this, then I’ll guess that you’re new here. Alicesoft games- especially Rance(and more recently, Evenicle), cast an extremely broad net of kinks.  You’re basically guranteed to find a wife to your tastes, and you’re actually guranteed for a scene for whatever gets your rocks off.

Space suit vanilla sex?  We’ve got that.

Horny mikos?  We’ve got that too.

The English release of it is noteworthy in that the censorship is all gone, and I was pretty pleasantly surprised to find that the dicks and vags were (mostly) fully drawn and not skimped on at all.  I’m avoiding getting into the messier things, or the spoilery things, but rest assured that unless you’re into the really crazy stuff(in which case you’re probably looking for Maggot Baits or Euphoria…) there is going to be something here fr you.

Anyway this thing is a mega classic and if you’ve not played it, you should.

Today on the blog, we’ve got a tester’s corner from Ant25b!

What would happen if you stopped believing in your dreams? What would happen if those dreams you once believed in, suddenly came crashing down from the stars right before your eyes? Well, Amatarasu Riddle Star aims to answer that in a fun, beautifully illustrated VN that takes cues from classic fairy tales such as Alice in Wonderland.

To kick things off well look at the general synopsis of the story. The story revolves around Doumoto Takaya and his childhood friend Yua, and the events that take place after having a late night picnic while star gazing. After some time stargazing, they spot a few shooting stars. They then both make wishes that will change their town and bring an end to the dull monotony of their current reality. The shooting stars that they had just made wishes on, begin to fall to their little town and changes their lives from then on.

As for the characters that you’ll be interacting with. The characters (I assume) are loosely based on major characters from Alice in Wonderland, with their own unique twist and personality traits. The character designs don’t feel out of place in the story and are very well done. There are the usual quirks with each character that have them fall under normal tropes, but the interactions with those characters allow them to remain unique to the story. When going through each character’s respective routes, different aspects of the main character’s past will be revealed as well as any secrets that character may have.

You get a handful of choices for each character before continuing on their route and it never feels like your choices don’t make a difference. The dialog between the main character and the potential love interests is fun and lighthearted to start, and after you get into the routes, becomes a bit more serious once you start to get to know the character and their respective pasts. There’s plenty of humor throughout the game and more then a few moments that will tug at your heart strings.

You get a handful of choices for each character before continuing on their route and it never feels like your choices don’t make a difference. The dialog between the main character and the potential love interests is fun and lighthearted to start, and after you get into the routes, becomes a bit more serious once you start to get to know the character and their respective pasts. There’s plenty of humor throughout the game and more then a few moments that will tug at your heart strings.

If you enjoy lots of fun characters with a very memorable story, then I can absolutely recommend this VN. This being my first beta test with Manga Gamer, I was very happy to be able to test such a lovely VN. Although I was a little overwhelmed at the start, I enjoyed every moment of testing this game.

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Mojack!

“It’s only one of the best fantasy stories ever… God I wish I was joking.”

So said my fellow beta tester, threepwood007, when the first Funbag Fantasy released on Steam. I’m not usually one to play what appeared to be a nukige, but was looking for a new visual novel to start and morbidly curious enough after he made such a statement, so I decided to give it a shot. While it may not be one of the best fantasy stories ever, I was taken aback by just how incredible the story was, especially for one called “Funbag Fantasy” of all things, so I jumped at the chance to work on the sequel.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Funbag Fantasy series, the franchise’s appeal can be summarized into two aspects. The first — medieval underdog stories laced with enough political intrigue and machinations that would even make Game of Thrones raise an eyebrow or two.

Funbag Fantasy 2 is a sequel entirely enjoyable on its own, even without knowledge of the first game. It steps into the shoes of Ruin Dimidium from the country of Hillsland, who has just graduated from the Royal Abbey with the lowest scores in its hallowed history. He’s ridiculed by his peers and given such an out-of-the-way position in the boonies it may as well be considered exile.

It’s a setup those who have played the original Funbag Fantasy will already be intimately familiar, with some lines seeming to be almost word-for-word reproductions. The defining difference between the original’s story and this one, though, is the way Ruin rises from that bottom-of-the-barrel starting point.

While Lute more or less bumbled his way through life with some life hacks courtesy of his succubus companion, Ruin is much more of an active protagonist that puts in the effort to realize his own success rather than just be handed it. The verbal circles he runs around his political opponents is a joy to watch, especially when they go into talks looking down on him. His quick and unconventional thinking gets him and his companions out of many tight spots, which is necessary given how high the stakes go in this story. There were numerous parts in the main route especially where the outlook seemed so grim, I honestly wasn’t sure if Ruin would pull through.

That’s not to say Ruin doesn’t have his own share of dumb luck but as they say, luck is a trait too, especially if you somehow manage to meet five ladies with boobs that shoot for the moon like Ruin does. Which leads us to franchises second selling point.

I mean… it’s in the name. Do I really need to explain any further?

If you’re into boobs big enough to have their own gravitational field, then you’re in the right place. There’s not much else to say on that front. I will mention that the women seem oddly well proportioned compared to the first game. Well, as proportioned as they can be with watermelons attached, at least.

All five of the heroines are memorable in their own unique ways with the chipper mermaid Lorina becoming my favorite by the end with her coy playfulness and can-do attitude. I’m also just a sucker for all things aquatic so there may be some bias in that. The strong and serious high elf Elysia was a close second, however.

Other side characters in the story aren’t to be outdone, however, with many of the male and daemon characters putting on some of the strongest performances in the game. In a franchise that very clearly puts the emphasis on its female cast, it’s impressive how the other characters manage to stand toe-to-toe with them so well both from a writing and a visual standpoint.

Like the first game, Funbag Fantasy 2 is meant to surprise you. It lulls you into a false sense of superiority in knowing what kind of game it is before slamming you a well-executed underdog story and characters that you can’t help but root for. If you’re a fan of such things, then I encourage you to put aside any preconceptions you may have of the game and give it a shot. Who knows? You might just end up finding a new favorite like I did.

Funbag Fantasy, Funbag Fantasy Sideboob, and Funbag Fantasy 2 are now available on MangaGamer.com and Steam!

Today on the blog, we have a Bokuten tester’s corner from threepwood007!

Hello! It’s another tester’s corner, this time from threepwood007! And what are we gonna cover today?

Sadness. Pure, unadulterated sadness distilled from the tears of 72 sobbing grown men and women.

Welcome to Bokuten: Why I Became an Angel. BYOT: Bring Your Own Tissues.

Bokuten was a fun game to test. I don’t usually get to take the first pass out of the other testers through a game, but this was a title I’d been wanting to get my grubby little paws on for awhile now and it also happened that, thanks to the holiday season, I needed to complete my deadlines ahead of schedule. That meant that I didn’t get to coast even a little bit on the tailwinds of my fellow testers, which is a nice experience to see what one can discover on their own and then, in retrospect, what was missed or what others suggested for certain scenes.

The main thing I’d like to cover here for Bokuten’s beta is the idea of consistency. It’s something that hopefully isn’t noticed by the player often because if everything is in a row then everything is honky-dory. One thing out of line, however, and then all of a sudden all anyone can talk about is the one thing. Never mind that 99% of the content is perfect: a single mistake can drive people crazy.

Which is fair. Visual novels are a literary experience first and foremost. Without the words, a visual novel loses one of the integral parts of the experience. And that experience is definitely critical as a hiccup or bump in the grammatical or syntactical road can leave a reader feeling like they hit a speed bump on a motorcycle doing 60MPH.

What helps prevent this in a game’s life-cycle is the editing and subsequent beta testing. From the get-go the laws of the land are made clear: make sure this character only uses these. This one never uses those. And for this game we’re using this spelling.

This may seem a bit obvious, especially if you’ve read more than a few localizations of large projects. It’s worth drawing attention to, however, given the size of some of these games (tens of thousands of lines) and the length of tests (this one took more than a month). So while it may seem like a given that a visual novel maintain its own consistency throughout, that’s only because a lot of effort went in to making it seem like something to be taken for granted.

And on that note, off to the tissue box.

Happy reading!

Today on the blog, we have a Bokuten tester’s corner from Xarrias!

Hello, this is Xarrias, and this is my 11th Tester’s Corner for MangaGamer. This is for a game that was announced all the way back in 2014. So, a wait of five years, give or take a few months depending on when this corner goes up. However, despite all these behind the scenes issues with engines and the like, how is the game itself? Let’s have a look, shall we?

Our protagonist, Tomoe, is just your average guy attending your average school in an average town. Well, no, that’s not quite right. Tomoe is… empty. Depressed, damaged, lacking life, whatever you want to call it, he is completely aimless and lacking in passion for anything. He’s drifting through life only because he lacks the effort to die. He doesn’t seek happiness, he considers not bothering others a virtue, and love? Love is the worst thing of all. And living in a town that’s full of churches dedicated to angels and love is just the cherry on top. The school is pretty average asides from being on top of a big hill, however. Life would have continued this way had he not had a chance encounter with one of these mythical angels who needed his help, and also wanted to help him. But why would an angel need his help?

Angels help heal fractured hearts, and they normally do this through the power of song. But when Aine’s guitar breaks, she has to rely on the traditional method of “shooting people in the heart”. But she skipped that class, and it turns out that Tomoe’s only hobby of sorts is archery! Tomoe, however, is highly resistant towards this – doesn’t love just cause more problems for people than it’s worth? This is where the meat of the game is as these two characters argue over the merits of whether it’s better to intervene in the love lives of others or let them sort things out themselves. Your choices, asides from affecting the route you ultimately end up going down, will also affect the lives of various couples in the game, for good or ill.

It was very interesting to see all these different couples come and go. While each of the stories focused on a couple was relatively focused and standalone, you get to learn more about the main characters, like Tomoe and why he feels this way about love, and we get to see Aine, often humourously, learn about living amongst humans. The story itself was very compelling, and while I managed to guess at quite a few things that were only revealed near the end, the journey itself was well worth it.

I’d definitely recommend this game to someone who is interested in something that is protagonist-driven rather than a self-insert, or who is a fan of numerous bittersweet moments, as you’ll find that life and love isn’t always as simple as an arrow to the heart. There are no unambiguous happy endings here, but the game as a whole is great at tugging on your heartstrings. When in doubt, follow your heart! OK, I think I’m done with ‘heart’ related stuff now, but yes, all in all, I had a positive experience with Bokuten, and I hope you find the long wait worth it.

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Paragonias!

Hello everyone, Paragonias here with another Tester’s Corner!

So this time we have Magic & Slash –Riru’s Sexy Grand Adventure–, a lighthearted 2D action RPG akin to games like Diablo, but sexier! And with actual sex, too!

The story is about Riru, an apprentice adventurer who came to her master’s home village after the latter received a letter requesting help with the disposal of some orcs. If only Riru knew that this was the start of her very own grand adventure…

As far as gameplay goes the game itself is very self-explanatory, pick a class you like, kill stuff, get better gear, and kill more stuff to get even better gear. I have to admit though, the loop of collecting items and killing mobs more efficiently is still as addicting as ever. Getting decked out in full legendary items and killing enemies in droves feels great after a little grinding and some luck with RNG.

Just keep in mind that Riru will face a fate worse than death should the monsters she’s fighting overpower her…

…unless that’s what you’re aiming for.

And since we’re talking about H-scenes already, there’s a lot of them for your viewing pleasure, with variations for the class you’re using at the moment. You absolutely can finish the game without Riru having sex whatsoever, but as you’ll see upon playing the game, it will make your life a lot more difficult later.

You might’ve figured it out by now, but the game itself is more game than Visual Novel so expect most of your time being spent on killing stuff, grinding levels, improving your stats, fulfilling quests and managing your inventory, instead of reading.

Magic & Slash was the first time I had my hands on an actual gameplay-focused game, so it was a new experience to me and I’m glad to report, that I enjoyed playing it from start to finish.

BIG props to fellow beta tester Galblade, the madman who volunteered to test the game on the “Nightmare” and “Hell” difficulties, the latter even driving some of the original Japanese staff to despair. If you want to challenge yourself, you know what to do.

I tried Nightmare mode myself for my own amusement and it didn’t go well at all, so I gave up on that, haha.

Anyways, with that, I hope to see you soon.

P.S.: Yes, the game is uncensored. No mosaics.

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from threepwood007!

We now gather together for 133rd “Funbag Fantasy is too well-written for porn” meeting. I’m your host, threepwood007, and I am definitely unbiased and objective when it comes to these games. Promise.

This is of course, not true. The latter bit. I am very biased when it comes to Funbag Fantasy, but at the very least this comes from having tested 2 of the 4 games released so far and discovering the first to be absurdly good. To level-set, funbags aren’t even my bag, baby. What makes Funbag Fantasy Sideboob Story 2 super amazing is definitely not the ero scenes but absolutely the narratives and characters and the medieval intrigue and political spookiness, making it no different than the usual Funbag game.

This by extension makes testing the games literally a roller-coaster of emotions and let me tell you, for a supposed eroge I have never wanted to be able to skip the H scenes more than in Funbag Fantasy (which I do do during a re-read).

Testing becomes a dissertation on the comedy and tragedy of man. Proofreading H scenes is already inherently taxing (for me at least), but there’s something especially repetitive about Funbag Fantasy that grates on endurance after awhile. You find yourself craving the intrigue of the throne room, the tension of a diplomatic scuffle, or even just the comedy of the protagonist, Lute, meeting a new heroine.

It’s not all bad though; at the end of the day, it’s still a Funbag Fantasy game. That also brings with it some interesting linguistic challenges in addition to the new characters, staggeringly good art, and spicy arguments. Funbag Fantasy utilizes some definitely archaic English, and my Google-fu has never been more used during a test than this game (with the exception of its predecessor, Funbag Fantasy 2).

Also, Funbag Fantasy Sideboob Story 2 (good lord that’s a mouthful) includes not just one but two of the most plot-relevant H scenes (heehee he said ‘scenes’) ever. So that’s cool, at least.

‘Gramercies’, ‘bating’, and others make ‘forsooth’ look like a common everyday utterance by comparison after awhile. Which is fine. Funbag Fantasy Sideboob Story 2 is supposed to be a “fandisc” but actually is almost exactly as long as Funbag Fantasy 2 and both games take that time to immerse the reader in the environment of medieval pseudo-Europe.

That the testers get to collaborate with the editor and translator to ensure that immersion is brought to the reader is just another way that Funbag sets itself apart both as a game and as a testing job.

If this is your first time hearing about this series, go back to ‘Go’ and try out Funbag Fantasy. If you’ve been looking forward to Sideboob Story 2, then I can heartily say it’s worth the wait.

Funbag Fantasy Sideboob Story 2 is now available for purchase on MangaGamer.com and Steam!

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Shiro!

Greetings and salutations, fellow ero enthusiasts. I am back again today to talk about Skyfish Poco’s NyanCafe Macchiato. Upon first glance, I was entirely ready to label this game a “Nekopara” clone from looking at the tin, and I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong this time. I can confidently confirm that I consistently had a great time with this title; albeit while hitting some minor bumps along the road. So, let’s talk about it!

First off, I want to address the elephant in the room. Although the game leans quite into the “cat girl” aesthetic it is not a game about cat girls. None of the ladies you can respectfully bone are of the feline category. If you are looking for something in that genre, you would be best suited looking elsewhere and not being fooled by the title screen. That aside, the story follows a struggling part-time teacher looking to make ends meet after his home is burnt down and he is stuck running his grandfather’s café (real cats included!) Along the way, he employees three of his students who all decide to declare their respective love for him and the crazy sexy times ensue. While this set up is nothing particularly new and each of the three girls are walking, talking stereotypes, the game does an amazing job of making you care anyway. Each girl has their own personal struggles and tribulations that you as the main protagonist assist them in overcoming (often with lots of vanilla sex along the way). What can I say? I am a girl who loves a little plot with her porn most of the time. So I can appreciate that this game tries to make you care. Good on them.

However, in regards to the sex scenes I think if you are looking for a truly vanilla experience you should be careful. Most of the routes in the game start out completely “normal” and take a swing for the kinky very quickly. Not that this is a bad thing; if anything, I enjoyed the switch up a lot. It kept things fresh and not boring especially since the sex scenes in this game tend to be on the rather short side. I could see this turning off some folks who would otherwise love this game though, so consider yourself warned. That being said, even the “kinkiest” of the kinks explored in this game aren’t outside the realm of possibility and are pretty grounded in reality (as real as a porn game can be, that is.) That being said, it is wise to keep an open mind in regards to not only the sex scenes but also the girls’ routes. You should really try them all in my personal opinion. One character in particular I was not a huge fan of but grew to love her by the end credit rolls of her route, for instance.

The only true disappointment I had with this game was with the art, but in a very minor way. All the character designs and CGs were serviceable but repetitive. When the sex scenes are short to begin with, at least give me something new to look at. Some of the same CGs are used even more than two or three times. The same could be said for the character sprites as well that are not entirely expressive and only vary in a couple different ways. I do however really enjoy the style and aesthetic of the game. It is cute, very cute. If my only gripe is I want to see more of a good thing, that could be a compliment in a weird way.

Overall, I entirely recommend NyanCafe Macchiato. While nothing entirely special, it was a solid experience. If anything, it could be a nice pallet cleanser after a more plot-driven or intense work. It’s soft and sweet, like a good dessert after a long meal. Is there much substance? No, but you enjoy it anyway. I hope many people give this title a chance and are able to come to enjoy it as much as I did.

Today on the blog, we have a tester’s corner from Ryechu!

Hi, all! Ryechu here! It’s been a while since I’ve done some testing for MangaGamer, but I couldn’t help but come back to work on Room No. 9. I’m a huge fan of No, Thank You!!!, and since these two games take place in the same universe (though that might only be because the two of the writers were on both projects…), I was certainly interested in checking it out! That, and… well, I remember reading Good Haro’s tweets as she was playing the game and thinking to myself, “Yeah, uhh, Daichi’s really hot.”

I’m not biased at all, right?

Anyway, Room No. 9 is daaaaark. Like, seriously, the plot begins with our two lovely gents wanting nothing more than to get their tan and sun on in beautiful Okinawa, maybe picking up some girls, going backpacking; you know, “best friends having fun” stuff! And then it turns into something out of the Saw flicks—you’re trapped in a room with no way out, no access to the outside world, and a tablet computer that tells you that “You have been selected for a study.” Might as well have told them that you wanted to play a game with something like that. And from there, it starts pretty straightforward: you can pick either Subject A must draw 600 mL of blood from Subject B, or Subject B must make Subject A ejaculate. The people running the study (or the kidnappers, whichever you prefer) will provide you literally everything you need to safely and successfully complete whichever task you choose, and then it’s up to you. Doing the daily task will give you 10 points and delicious food for the next day (they’re really big on the whole “comfort” thing).

Gather 100 points, and you get out. Oh, or if the number of occupants in the room goes below two. Yeah, you can get out that way, too.

Speaking of subjects, who the heck are these people? On the left we have Daichi: orphaned kiddo who tries to be a decent person but isn’t very smart. On the right is Seiji: cool, smart, rich kid. They’re best friends thanks to stuff that happened a long time before when this game takes place, and they slowly realize that friendship is gonna be affected the more time they stay in this hotel cell. So, they get to work.

For a mid-size game (I clocked myself at about 10 hours), there’s a TON that ends up happening here, and the choices really make you think about the current mental state of both Daichi and Seiji. One wrong move and one of them breaks and falls off the deep end. It’s a pretty crazy balancing act that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and it’s one that, as you finish routes, will begin to make more and more sense. That all said, there is an “Easy Mode” option that will make sure you end up in a particular ending if you’d rather not think about it, but it doesn’t tell you what that ending actually is until you read it yourself. I turned it off—it was much more exciting that way.

There is some content that might make some people shy away as well (blood, gore, scat), but there are options to turn that material off, if you’d rather not view it. It does add a bit of impact to the story, but it is by no means absolutely required to fully understand what’s all going on. I’d chalk that up to the writing, which was so much fun to read.

I really hope you decide to take a chance on Room No. 9. It’s dark, but it’s definitely a page-turner… or a window-clicker… or whatever you wanna call it. I wonder what that actually would be…

Anyway, I’m gonna go stare at Daichi’s smiling face some more. Haaaaah…

Today on the blog, we have a Rance 01 + Rance 02 tester’s corner from Mojack!

Despite doing work for MangaGamer for over two years now and being a heavy visual novel fan for far longer, I had never actually played a Rance game before. That makes it all the more appropriate that the first one I do play happens to be a remake of the very first Rance game all the way back from 1989.

One of the first things I noticed when booting up Rance 01 was how modern it looks. Character portraits are vibrant and crisp and CG’s are on par with what one would expect from any modern Alicesoft game. The music is spunky and jovial and nails the feeling of misadventures adventures. If I didn’t know any better, I’d never guess this is based on an older game from appearances alone.

It’s pretty dang apparent once you actually start playing, though, because Rance 01 is old school and proud of it. It took me a good thirty minutes before I realized that I couldn’t just save at any point and had to go to an inn to do so. Some monsters even in the starting zone will completely whoop your ass if you’re not prepared and some field traps sentence you to almost certain doom.

The first couple of hours were a swift kick to the balls that forced me to rethink how I approached the game. The game is more about preparation rather than strategy in battle, and once I wrapped my head around that I was able to start making swift progress throughout. It just took some patience and a little bit of grinding.

Learning the ropes was made easier thanks in large part due to how surprisingly easy it is to advance the story despite being based on an old adventure game. I was totally expecting to have to refer to a guide in order to figure out what obscure square peg I was missing to put in an equally obscure round hole, but that turned out not to be the case at all. Rance and his cast were always pretty clear on what had to be done next, which I appreciated.

I also appreciated all characters themselves, both in design and personality. Putting aside Rance himself who was just as much the unsympathetic horny bastard I’d always heard he was (if not more so), I was surprised by the number and variety of girls, and none of them were ready to let Rance jump their bones like I was expecting. Except for Sill… poor Sill.

I can definitely see why Rance has such a strong following after playing Rance 01. Even in this earliest incarnation of the man in green, there’s morbid humor that ties him altogether. With gameplay systems that have only supposedly improved in subsequent entries, I’m definitely curious to check them out. I’m glad I got to start from the beginning, though, if only because something tells me this is the only time Sill ever catches a break.

Rance 01 & Rance 02 are now available for purchase exclusively on MangaGamer.com!