Ever since I cooled off on audio gear, I switched to buying CDs. Buying CDs is actually pretty nice too—you focus on the music itself instead of using earbuds to listen to the same few crappy songs on repeat. I picked up a bunch of CDs recently, so here are some quick thoughts.

Someone once said that in a highly mature market, to raise production efficiency and lower costs, everything gets strictly standardized — even put on an assembly line. Which is why Japan, that special place where eroge still actually sells, is no exception for something like the visual novel. Before I started RSS-subscribing to various release sites, I wouldn’t have believed it — turns out there are a shitload of new eroge coming out in Japan every single week. The release lists alone are a sea of stars, like falling into an ocean of porn where one mouthful of semen-flavored seawater chokes you until you feel like you’re drowning in it. Lots of releases doesn’t mean high quality. Aside from the monthly big releases, most are small productions or just selling pure porn appeal, not much quality to speak of — the kind of thing you play for a bit and move on. It’s like liking horror novels: you can camp out at the bookstore for new releases, or you can wallow in 5ch horror threads chasing web serials. Different taste, different flavor. But once you’ve seen enough, you start noticing patterns — especially in a market as mature as Japan’s… Uh… I mean, even for eroge there’s a “basic formula” baked in. Most studios that want to play it safe follow that formula. Sales might not explode, but they sure won’t tank either… Games like that have passable art, passable voice acting, passable writing, a passable price tag, and end up being a passable eroge… Which brings us to Koi wa Yumemiru Mouretsu Girl! (恋は夢見る妄烈ガール!) — one of those “about right” eroge.