Almost nothing worth playing came out in the second month of 2017 in the adult game space—except for one title called Ouka Saki (桜花裁き). Strictly speaking, Ouka Saki isn’t a pure “eroge.” It’s a “bugyō mystery” game. Plenty of games wave the mystery flag. The famous early one is Ace Attorney, and later there’s Danganronpa. Lump of Sugar also put out a mystery-ish game, though its story was more of a comedy. But come on—was Danganronpa’s story not a comedy either? Word is Danganronpa 3’s plot has gone so dumb it can’t even help itself, the final twist like tossing a grenade into a squat toilet and spraying shit everywhere, leaving players in a fury like burning-sea mad maggots. So I wisely didn’t play it. I couldn’t even be bothered to buy it. Even for Danganronpa 2, my verdict back then was: stop caring about that dumbass main plot and just enjoy the minigames. So for Ouka Saki, at first I figured it’d be some Danganronpa-imitating goofball game—claims to be mystery but is really just bullshitting, and in the end it’s a forced verdict. But after playing the trial version, it was actually surprisingly good. At least its case descriptions have something like a real mystery core. I can’t vouch for anything else, but compared to Danganronpa’s goofball motives, Ouka Saki is way better.

For a long time, one of the big reasons galgames get doubted and looked down on by a bunch of hardcore princess-type players is this: the damn thing doesn’t count as a game. Honestly, I don’t think it counts as a game either. At best it’s an audiobook. I’ve said more than once that when Westerners talk about Japanese eroge, the word they use is always Visual Novels. When our local Japanophile shut-ins are solemnly announcing “I’m playing eroge again this month,” the Westerners are all saying What are you reading?. Of course, galgames themselves have increasingly become novelized, gradually turning into commercial products that sell purely on art, story, music, porn, or even just first-press bonuses. Development costs aren’t high either—plenty of small doujin circles start out as galgame companies, and it has that vaguely Chinese-youth-startup vibe. But this thing wasn’t like that in the past.