Tsukikage no Simulacre is a free game. I was pretty surprised when it got announced. My first thought: when a Japanese company suddenly announces a free game, 99% of the time it’s a card game. Turns out nope, not a card game — it’s basically galge-style content. Then I figured, if you’ve got the balls to make it a galge, are you gonna charge me for every choice? And then the bastards went and slapped “完全無料（ゲーム内課金無し）” on it in giant letters. So now I’m even more confused. Everyone says the eroge industry in Japan is dying — since when did they start doing charity? And isn’t the standard playbook for disruptive low-price launches to hold a press conference like Meizu used to? Whatever. Just download it and see. It’s free anyway. Gotta hand it to those dumbasses in Japan and their bargain-bin servers — the official site went down almost immediately, the Dropbox links blew through their traffic cap right after, and only the Google Drive one still worked. As expected of the almighty Google. Is it really that hard for you Japanese to rent a VPS??

We’ve always said the Japanese have an island mentality. What does that actually mean? It has two senses. One is the textbook island mentality — a reluctance to take in culture from the outside world. The other is the one we toss around online when talking about Japan, which is sort of the opposite but comes from the same root: the feeling that you’re on a tiny patch of land with no resources and no long history, squeezed on one side by America and on the other by a rising China, with things not exactly peaceful at home either. So you’re always on alert, feeling like you’re at rock bottom in the dark, on the edge of being ruled by someone else, and you’d better be ready to suffer. Honestly that sense of crisis is correct. The old saying goes, “Born in adversity, die in comfort.” Which is why the Japanese work so hard — and at least on that count, I’d say it beats China’s habit of being woken up from its “celestial empire” daydreams by a slap across the face. But “island mentality” isn’t a nice word. It’s distorted, a little forced, and a little delusional, and it shows up in Japanese culture and all sorts of works. You’ve seen it in anime — Japan gets colonized, Japan needs a revolution, Japan gets surrounded like livestock, the world ends with Japan at the center. Etc. Etc. (I’m just talking off the top of my head. I didn’t name Guilty Crown, I didn’t name Code Geass, and I certainly didn’t mention Attack on Titan.) And by extension, of course there are visual novels that display the same mentality. Like the one I played this time… From the Future Undying.

I’m not really a fan of “guns, cars, and balls” games—I find they get old fast. After all, run-and-gun always boils down to the same few formulas, so even during the years when CS was huge, I didn’t play it for long. If I had to name what I genuinely enjoyed playing the most, it’d be Chinese RPGs. Like everyone else, my first was the Xianjian series. Before RPGs I never read the story — the run-and-gun stuff wasn’t translated back then anyway, but it had GPS-style navigation: open the map, follow the route, kill whoever you run into. RPGs don’t let you skip the story, though. It’s a narrative, and no walkthrough is gonna sit there and recap the plot of every game you’ve played the way I stupidly do. So starting with the “Xianjian” series, at first I was mashing Enter to skip every conversation with anyone in Yuhang County, until I got to Suzhou City, where I started actually reading the story properly. Bit by bit I settled into it, and felt the pull of “game plot” for the first time. Of course you can’t say the “guns, cars, balls” games of that era had no plot — it’s just that games back then didn’t say much about their plots. How was I supposed to know that Delta Force 3 Land Warrior had a cute little sister character named Mako who nearly got killed off… the game didn’t mention a damn thing about it. What I’m actually getting at is this: riding that wave of Chinese RPGs, I started playing games “as stories to read,” and somewhere along the way RPGs drifted apart from the whole “guns, cars, and balls” crowd. The latter chases a “rush”; the former chases a “read.” Chinese RPGs had a golden age once. Plenty of them, even now, could wipe the floor with a lot of Japanese visual novels — China’s history is longer than Japan’s, after all, and there’s a lot more material worth showing off. Even if the cultural climate on the mainland keeps getting worse, at least the Chinese-speaking world still has Taiwan. The Xuanyuan Sword (轩辕剑) series counts as a pretty unique presence in Chinese-language RPGs: it was the first to fuse “history” with “mythology,” and the side stories in particular weave “emotion” into the mix.

First off, thanks to the people who cracked the PSV. Yeah, it’s not exactly ethical, but I’m genuinely broke. I’ve bought a pile of PSV games by now, so let’s call it even on the guilt front. Next, thanks to the person who dumped this game. Without that legend sharing it, a cracked PSV would mean basically nothing. And last, thanks to the driver who posted the link: Eric Sitounel. Without his tip I would’ve assumed nobody had dumped this thing at all… The game I’d been wanting to play was this one, because it has an additional route and a new character voiced by Ari Ozawa: Ichinoe Kingyo. I got it downloaded and the PSV cracked in a hurry, and since I’d already played the original Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai and the FD too, I went straight for the new heroine. How do I put it — way better than I expected. Quick impressions.

Lately I’ve been really into pure-love confession games. Probably because pure me is just too pure. Watashi ga Suki nara “Suki” tte Itte! (私が好きなら「好き」って言って!) is exactly that kind of confession-raising game. To borrow the words of the well-known bishoujo game voice actress Kyoka, this one’s a “恋愛シュミレーションゲーム” — a love simulation game, basically. I’ve played a few of those before. The deal is that it isn’t structured like a novel; the heroines’ affection shifts dynamically based on what the protagonist does, and at the end whether you end up dating depends on how much affection she has for you… That’s the formula from Purely X Cation, Pure X Connect, and the older Fureraba. No real story, just pure romance — and school life, of course. But If You Like Me, Say “I Like You” has a couple of things that set it apart: the story and the system.

Tearjerker stories, everyone thinks they’re so moving. So the moment you say tearjerker, naturally someone’s gotta die. There are a thousand ways to kill someone off, but the handiest is terminal illness. Blaming it on terminal illness is super convenient—everyone can just curse how unfair the heavens are. So of course visual novels use terminal illness too. One fairly well-known one was Dekinai Watashi ga, Kurikaesu.. What did I think of that game… one word: trash. So the same staff went and made a new one, still about terminal illness: Inochi no Spare I was born for you. What did I think of this one… still trash. Actually, it’s even worse than the last one…

HanaHime * Absolute! was announced back in 2014, then delayed, delayed, and delayed until now. Nobody’s heard of the developer Mira, but if you look at the intro and OP, you’ll get a strong sense of déjà vu. Where have I seen this before? That’s right—Twinkle Crusaders (ティンクル☆くるせいだ). Same artist, same system, same coloring style, same OP animation director, same OP music… basically this is the spiritual successor to Twinkle Crusaders (I’m using “spiritual successor” correctly, right?). And since it’s a spiritual successor, you know Twinkle Crusaders was a game built around its combat system, so HanaHime * Absolute! is also combat-focused. As for the story? Who the hell cares…

I’m tired of saying whether LASS should just die already… I’m a bit conflicted. On one hand I want it to croak pronto, on the other I still think it should at least finish Liber 7 before kicking the bucket. Anyway, for now it’s better if it doesn’t die. So this “won’t-die-when-you-want-it-to” LASS has a new game out, and it’s a sequel to that old nukige series. Turbulent Snow, Moon, and Flower Moonlit Lewd Dance, Oath of Madness

I was feeling pretty empty yesterday, then I saw an imouto game got a fan translation… and after looking it up, it seemed like the playtime was only an hour, so I figured I’d play it to relax. The Chinese name is 《妹妹的朋友与我的日常》, but that translation is already off. The original is 《妹とその友人がエロすぎて俺の股間がヤバイ》, which should really be “My Sister and Her Friend Are So Fucking Horny That My Dick Is in Trouble.” Of course, a name that dirty probably got sanitized—daily life it is, I guess… But as a fan-translated game that’s only an hour long, playing it was more exhausting than the fucking Japanese version. The whole thing felt like taking an exam… I guess that’s where the “educational value” comes in…

Every so often on some SNS or other, I run into people who claim to know me. I don’t know them, of course. No idea how they found me. “Oh, Mr. Li, I’m a fan of yours.” That’s what some stranger who messaged me on Telegram recently said. “I really love reading your blog, especially the eroge impressions.” Well, that brightened my day a little. Most of the idiots who claim to like my blog all say they enjoy watching me self-deprecate, and the moment they see eroge impressions they announce they skipped it—some even act like my constantly writing about eroge is an eyesore. It’s my own damn turf, I write whatever I want, and these guys strut around like they own the place demanding I serve dishes to their taste. Give me a break. “Is that so?” Usually I don’t bother with people who harass me, but this one said something I didn’t expect, so I decided to reply. “Yeah! Though the recent eroge impressions aren’t as good as the old ones.” Honestly, I had to agree. Lately I just roughly retell the plot, say “good” and “bad,” and call it a day. I can’t even be bothered to think up titles anymore. “The old eroge impressions were really great, especially the little intros you wrote at the front.” “Intros?” “Yeah, the ones before the boring game plot summaries. Your memories of the past, and those little skits about getting dumped in arranged marriages lately—those were fantastic! You don’t do them anymore, it’s just boring game introductions now…” I don’t know what he said after that, because after I blocked him I couldn’t see the chat log anymore… Everyone’s time is precious. It’s not worth wasting on boring idiots. In this day and age, when the prologue of a single visual novel can take at least 4 hours, having a super-fast-paced visual novel should feel like a breath of fresh air…