The first time I heard of a dating sim was in elementary school, when I found something called Tokimeki Memorial from a pirate-game dealer. Not a CD version, of course — it was in a folder on a disc with a “Cangjinge” label. After installing it, I saw the name written as “Jun’ai Shuzha” (I even misread it as “Jun’ai Shouli”), and somehow, following the GameZ88 install wizard, I put a shortcut for the thing on my Windows 98 desktop. I played it for a while and found it pretty baffling. Bear in mind I was an elementary schooler then — I was dying to grab a gun and blast monsters, not sit down and hit on girls. The whole business of getting entangled with several women every day made no sense to me. “Why isn’t he fighting?” “When does the fighting start?” were the biggest questions in my head.

The reason I paid attention to Hana no Aruji (花の野に咲くうたかたの) is first, because of the scenario writer Kirizuki, and second, because of the coloring style. 桐月 wrote Tasogare no Sinsemilla (黄昏のシンセミア — the forbidden medicine at dusk, or dusk’s weed, call it whatever you like), and the game’s coloring style reminds me of [Clover Day’s] 1. Same artist as dusk’s weed, sure, but the coloring is way better than the old work — the girls are cuter and fresher. Honestly, I didn’t even want to play this one at first. I never played Tasogare no Sinsemilla either—people just hype it up to the heavens, and I figured a writer who’d produced at least one readable work couldn’t be all that bad. Then I took one look at the art style, fell in love with it, and played the thing. If I had to sum up this game in one sentence, it’s like a cup of gongfu tea carefully brewed by a soft-spoken girl — mild in flavor, nothing like the instant jolt of coffee or hard liquor, but it won’t leave you feeling bad, and if you sip it slowly you’ll find something uniquely its own.

While I was playing Yuzusoft’s Sanoba Witch, I was already aware of HanaSaki Work Spring!, the new release from SAGA PLANETS. Turns out I’ve somehow played two games from this studio already — Hatsuyuki Sakura and Kisaragi Gold Star. The former was pretty good, the latter was a total trap. And it’s worth noting that Hatsuyuki Sakura was good partly thanks to the music and the way the story was arranged; Kisaragi Gold Star is closer to the studio’s actual average. So I hesitated for a moment about whether to play this game that reeked of moege from a mile away — maybe 30 seconds of hesitation — then I saw Sawasawa Sawa in the CV list and jumped right in…

Boku no Hitori Sensou (ぼくの一人戦争) is AB2’s new title, and the reason it caught my eye is simple: the writer and the artist had previously teamed up on two classics, Sharin no Kuni and G-senjou no Maou. I found both of those endings a bit of a stretch, but the good parts in between were genuinely excellent — the way the Higher Education exam fleshed out each heroine’s personality, the psychological showdowns in G-senjou no Maou. They still influence me today. So when Boku no Hitori Sensou was announced, I couldn’t hide my excitement. I expected new scenes on that level… No such luck. Let me say this up front: today I’m going to criticize this game, carefully. Carefully because I only understood about half the Japanese — I got the gist, I followed the plot, but whether there are details and implications I’m missing, I can’t say. Still, in the parts I did fully understand, the game has plenty of flaws. All it gave me was confusion and endless disappointment.

fortissimo EXS//Akkord:nächsten Phase is a visual novel developed by la’cryma… I’ve played la’cryma’s early games! I even own physical copies! I’m talking about this one! But then this company called la’cryma apparently took something weird, because they suddenly cranked out a game absolutely dripping with chuuni energy, and they’ve been milking that one game for years. I looked it up—this studio has ties to Circus… so of course they inherited the fine tradition… First came the all-ages fortissimo//Akkord:Bsusvier Then fortissimoEXA//Akkord:Bsusvier, which added two routes and a final boss fight Then fortissimo EXS//Akkord:nächsten Phase, which took the previous version and added 18+ content And recently there’s the PSV version, Kadenz fermata//Akkord:fortissimo, which throws in artificial science-magic and what’s probably new story content Pit after pit, and I should mention I’m the type who gets suckered in by game OPs. If an OP looks good, it’s love at first sight with a girl. So when I saw fortissimo’s absolutely banger OP, I jumped right into this pit.

My take on whether ghosts exist has gone through several phases… In elementary school, when I heard there might be ghosts in the world, I was terrified. I couldn’t even sleep after watching those cheap Hong Kong and Taiwan horror flicks, and local ghost stories were enough to make me afraid of the dark. Then I saw some behind-the-scenes footage of those Hong Kong/Taiwan horror movies, and I started spreading ghost stories myself, and after that I was never scared again. Humans only fear the unknown and things they can’t control. That’s how I understand it. As for ghosts, humans can’t catch them, but they can’t deny them either. Some even go so far as to say ghosts have magic, supernatural powers, that they can control people and command wind and rain, which makes everyone even more anxious. Later I developed a new understanding of whether ghosts exist or not: if people become ghosts after death and can run rampant in this world… then wouldn’t the world be full of ghosts by now! Humans would’ve been wiped out by ghosts ages ago, right? So after Hatsuyuki Sakura, I played another game about ghosts: Kimi e Okuru, Sora no Hana is Cabbit’s second work — yeah, yeah, the same one as Midori no Umi last time. This time they dropped the artist whose art gave off a strong nukige vibe and had Yukie, the character designer for Chisa, who claims to be female, handle the art solo. From the outside it looks like a thoroughly heartwarming work. So is the story actually heartwarming? Trust me — if it’s not, you can come and fuck me up!