Kanojo * Step (カノジョ＊ステップ) Review

No idea what those Japanese eroge developers were smoking this year, but most of this year’s new releases felt like… a huge step backwards compared to before.

From Hinakami Clover at the start of the year, through all the weird stuff in between — Sakura no Mori † Dreamers with its strong opening and weak follow-through, Kimi to Yume Mitsu which was so baffling it made me sick, even the well-received Maitetsu had that self-indulgent political show dragging it down, and Saga Planets’ new game had a creative final ending but couldn’t hide how boring the common route was. August I can’t even be bothered to talk about anymore. The more I think about it, the worse it gets. Every so often I genuinely want to see if those double-standard Japanese would dare to review-bomb this game below 80.

Broadly speaking, the story-driven games have all clearly regressed. Not a single one gave me that from-start-to-finish high like smoking weed. I had to go back to older games to numb myself. Every time I play a new story-focused release it just feels like getting shit smeared all over my face.

Of course, thanks to the games I had faith in constantly feeding me shit, I also found a lot of new fun games… like Seiken Tsukai no Meidai, like Oujo to Yamaneko, like Nanairo no Kokoro no Log, and of course, like Yuzusoft…

Yuzusoft! You know! I’ve always had this resistance to Yuzusoft in my heart! Even though Yuzusoft was the first game in my galge history where I cleared every route, after finishing I’d always warn myself, “this is moege this is moege this is moege this is moege this is moege this is moege this is moege” — I’m someone who pursues story, I can’t lose my mind just because a game’s characters are cute.

And yet the thing I least wanted to see seems to have happened… First, the only company that maintained its original level and even improved this year was indeed Yuzusoft, and on top of that Yuzusoft’s stories started having actual content… Meanwhile other companies either fucked up their stories or just cranked out moege… A pile of moege hit me so hard that even seeing something like ISLAND, a type I used to like, made me irritable. The old me wasn’t like this!

I compared the old me with the current me.

Anyway, I still don’t want to admit I’m a moe-whore. I’m just a voice-whore. Yes, a voice-whore, voice-whore voice-whore voice-whore voice-whore! (slams desk)

Anyway, according to unreliable news reports, Japan’s adult game industry keeps shrinking, and the reason is obvious. After all these years, I feel playability hasn’t increased at all — it’s actually regressing. Tons of money goes into graphics… And plenty of games have graphics that get worse and worse. Yeah, you, the one called Narumi or whatever, I’m talking to you. Besides people like me who can’t afford a console and can only play games during bed rest and buy a tablet to read galge, anyone with money has long since gone to Doto, LOL, WOW, WOT, or various PS4/XBOX One games.

So, you little eroge developers, think with your assholes for a second — if you keep doing this, of course you won’t sell well. Don’t give me that “we only make money selling merch” crap. If you want to sell merch, why the fuck make a game at all? Just shit out a character design and sell inflatable dolls. Besides, the scenario writers who write galge plots would definitely be more at home writing light novels — at least they wouldn’t have to type out scripts themselves, right? If you ask me, it’s all self-inflicted death.

And today another suicidal company shows up: SMEE, which has been declining year after year.

SMEE actually left me with a good impression. Fureraba back then, and last year’s Pure×Connect, both felt like solid games. SMEE’s games focus on “romance” and “comedy,” the daily life is light and fun, there are plenty of chances to communicate with the girls, and the girls aren’t so dumb and pure — they feel alive. In short, the story is funny and interesting, the romance is sweet. For a romance simulation game, that’s already pretty damn awesome!

So what’s SMEE’s game this year? Kanojo＊Step.

Kanojo＊Step, girlfriend * Step. The moment you see “Step” you get it — the game is going to play that “one step at a time” thing again. And indeed the official site says exactly that.

Sounds impressive, right? First you meet a girl, then you chat with her, and as you chat feelings develop. When the feelings are ripe you can ask her out, she agrees, ok, you’re no longer single.

So you’d think this game is a step-by-step, careful depiction of sweet romance? Something like Pure×Connect, or “If You Like Me, Say You Like Me”?

Let me tell you straight: you’re fucking dreaming!

The game starts with the protagonist moving to relatives’ place in the countryside. The countryside is remote but the people are honest and simple. Then he enrolls in school and meets lots of girls, including the underclassman Kuon, the insect-loving Noe-sensei, the student council president Kano, and the sporty Asuka. Then it falls into the routine: you get a calendar, you live day by day, and you pick girls through choices.

The game’s flow is obvious at a glance…

Basically, the game has a calendar for you to live each day, and each day’s story is split into “daily” and “personal.” Daily is the protagonist in class bullshitting with people; personal is picking one girl to chat with.

When the girl-chatting days are over, a special event for that girl is inserted, then you enter her personal route until the ending.

Seems orthodox too, but here’s the problem:

The “daily” parts of this game are way more interesting than the girls’ “personal” parts!

The characters who show up in the daily parts are the protagonist, his two bros, the teacher, and a female classmate. Their scenes basically carry the whole game. I even think it’s a waste to use these stories in a galge — they could totally be turned into four-panel comics, and they’d crush stuff like Seitokai Yakuindomo.

These common-route daily skits are insanely good. The protagonist’s acting is top-notch, his timing and support are perfect. Little bits like sperm observation, mate-selection training, porn-book appraisal, etc., had me pounding the floor laughing. But after laughing… I不知不觉 realized, fuck, I was about to enter a heroine route.

Every day you can choose to meet one heroine. The game pretends it made some school map where you can roam around and play with the heroines, but it’s all bullshit — there’s a heroine portrait in the bottom-left corner of the map, click it and you go to her.

In short, it’s still fucking choices, and you only pick once. After picking, most of the conversation with the heroine is still banter. In the middle there might be (might be, not every day) a choice for you to pick, usually one of three, and presumably picking right adds affection. Who you end up with is decided by affection totals.

So in this game, the protagonist’s every day is: first bullshit with classmates and tell jokes, then bullshit with a heroine and tell jokes. The jokes are actually pretty good — some are gems, plenty had my abs sore from laughing. But at this point maybe you’ve noticed something off…

Exactly — where the hell did the “step-by-step romance” from the game’s description go?

Boy Meets Girl is there, but what about the getting-to-know-you and falling-in-love parts? I didn’t fucking see them. All I saw was the protagonist constantly bullshitting and telling jokes with people…

Whatever, I’ll just treat it as a comedy game. Probably once you enter a personal route there’ll be romance like in Pure×Connect. So I entered the underclassman’s personal route, and inside… the daily banter with the bros and classmates is gone, replaced by banter with the underclassman. And…

It’s less interesting than the banter with the bros…

The confession scene is cliché as hell — still SMEE’s usual walk-home-and-chat-sideways routine. And it’s weird: the underclassman says she likes the protagonist early on, then the protagonist holds it in and says nothing. She asks him out to play, he still holds it in. She’s already treating him as her boyfriend, and he still fucking says nothing. He has to wait until the very end of the summer festival, pull her to the back hill all serious, and say:

“俺は君のことが好きだ”

Suki da my ass. Even an idiot can see the heroine has liked you for ages, and you’re there every day like a dumbass just telling jokes and jokes, and only when the shit is about to burst out of your ass do you finally confess?

Is this the legendary Love Step? Where’s the love? Where’s the step? This is a speed-dating show, isn’t it? Or maybe If You Are the One? And a comedy-style speed-dating one at that.

And the most fatal flaw is the heroine’s personal route: 10 events, and only in the last two does her personal story come out. For the underclassman, it’s that her biological parents abandoned her, she was raised by adoptive parents who were good to her, but she still wants to find her biological parents and get some closure. What a scene for stirring up emotions between a man and a woman! The heroine could have a knot in her heart, the protagonist helps untie it, touching developments, and romance could grow through it. Instead the game hands everything over to jokes…

You could say that if you deleted all the comedy skits from this game, the remaining content would be less than 10 minutes. Sure, light comedy and skits are SMEE’s signature, but don’t forget: in Fureraba you had 1-on-1 conversations with the heroine every day. You could talk about recent topics with her, and she’d react differently — pick wrong and affection drops. That itself was interaction, and you could learn more about her. It felt like talking to a girl in real life. In Pure×Connect it changed to texting, and even texts could show the girl’s personality; there were multiple texts to choose from. I remember the little sister’s texts were adorable. But in this Kanojo＊Step, a fake map with a single choice line fobs you off, and the personal route is still jokes. Where’s the communication with the girl!!!

Even if you give up on interactive choices, what about romance! Where are the romance elements? I know your company’s specialty is jokes, but you advertised romance! Isn’t this off-topic, like an essay that doesn’t answer the prompt? Isn’t this like buying a DVD of My Fair Princess, putting it in, and finding it’s Guo Degang? The product doesn’t match the label!

Only on the second playthrough did I discover the purpose of that interaction system. Turns out there’s a hidden character you can romance, and the condition is that every time you choose which girl to see, you pick the stairs.

Holy shit, how much of a dumbass do you have to be to pick the stairs every time? And the dumbest part is you can’t pick the wrong stair direction or you won’t meet her!

Of course I’ll admit that Kanojo＊Step’s daily comedy is probably the best recent example. In the trial version of Asa Project’s new game Suki to Suki de Sankaku Ren’ai (same HOOK umbrella), the jokes aren’t even worthy of licking Kanojo＊Step’s shoes. But if you love comedy so much, why not talk with Asa and swap? They start with comedy and drift into sentimentality; you’re the one who should be doing romantic sentimentality but you stuff in jokes…

After laughing, watching the baffling romance scenes gave me terminal cringe, plus every character in this game has that unfortunate face and those unfortunate eyes.

Anyone who sees the CGs and character designs will shake their head. Those cursed eyeballs are just terrifying — every girl looks like her soul has left her eyes. I don’t know how SMEE failed to keep their original artist; she went off to draw Kurenai Sekai to Owari no Hana, and her coloring there looks better than the art in your previous game.

And the cheapest part is SMEE won’t even say who the artist is — they give you a collective name: “Kanojo＊Step Production Department.” Did you outsource to interns?

Overall, SMEE’s new game not only reeks of being broke, it also feels utterly baffling. If the project had been announced as a youth comedy story from the start, I wouldn’t complain. But you slapped on the “step-by-step romance” label and filled it with jokes. The jokes are actually high quality, but every time I laugh, seeing those distorted character designs feels like my erection got choked — all the goodwill I had just evaporates.

Put it this way: if Fureraba is 90 points, then Pure×Connect is probably 80. Correspondingly, Kanojo＊Step is 75. Though 75 isn’t low for this type of game, SMEE’s quality has been declining. This time, aside from the comedy skits, the music, art style, and voice acting have nothing to write home about. If next time even the jokes can’t hold up, you’ll be done for in no time.

The name Kanojo＊Step emphasizes “Step,” staircase romance, but the game doesn’t show it at all — the whole thing is joke-based speed dating…

Might as well translate the name as “Step Girlfriend.” After the jokes are over, you kick your leg and you’re on the staircase to having a girlfriend.