I rate Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart very highly. Even the anime adaptation. I’ve never doubted scenario writer Hato’s sense of pacing, and I’ve always thought Hato was pretty smart—especially what they pulled off with the anime, getting maximum effect out of a minimal budget. So before long, Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart 2 arrived. Same team, same flavor, and by all appearances it could stand on the shoulders of the first game and recapture its glory. No need for any wild new developments—just replicate the formula of the first one and it should be a safe bet! But was it a safe bet? I don’t think so.

There was once a god-tier game called Onii-chan, Migi-te no Shiyou o Kinshi Shimasu (お兄ちゃん　右手の使用を禁止します). The gimmick, the marketing, the selling points, the story and art — all of it had real punch. Even people who can’t read Japanese see that title and their imagination runs wild. Combined with that cursed OP, the game hit a height that year, even though it looks like a nukige on the surface… Honestly I don’t think it’s a nukige at all — it’s a pure love game. It even gives every heroine her own route and ending theme. Nukige don’t get that treatment… The company behind Onii-chan, Migi-te no Shiyou o Kinshi Shimasu is Galette, a sub-brand built specifically for siscon games. But this company is… how do I put it. Unlucky. First, two brands to keep straight: Galette and GLace. Galette exists to put out siscon games, GLace exists to put out story-driven ones. Going by the lineup, the company’s real focus is clearly the latter — making nukige is just a desperate cash grab to stay afloat. Who wouldn’t rather be highbrow… But the games GLace puts out are kind of tragic… I never played that Koikami thing they released earlier, no idea. I did play Timepiece Ensemble, and in short: a pile of shit. Later GLace hyped up their new title Amanosora Retrospect (天ノ空レトロスペクト), and after playing it I thought… it’s okay. The setup up front is interesting, but the entire second half has plenty of problems. Worse, even though I thought it was passable, the Japanese didn’t agree — ErogameScape tore it apart and panned it into a landmine. After that the brand was basically poison, so they put on a disguise and kept releasing, putting out Amanatsu Adolescence (甘夏アドゥレセンス). That game has… some redeeming qualities, but overall it’s still pretty garbage… So GLace, the brand supposedly dedicated to building a reputation with story games, has had every release panned into a landmine from day one, even under a new name. Zero reputation to speak of. Did GLace ever put out anything good? Yes! 1/2 summer! But unfortunately 1/2 summer was filed under the Alcot label, and although it later came back to GLace, nobody remembers it as a GLace game anymore. So in most of the industry’s memory, GLace games = landmines…

I played サクラノモリ†ドリーマーズ last year, and my takeaway at the time was: strong opening, decent premise, peaks early and then nosedives, rushed ending. I remember the promo OP being absolutely insane. The buildup before the OP hits is done perfectly—basically the protagonist falls in love for the first time, confesses to the girl he likes, Madoka, and then the very next moment, because he wasn’t paying attention, she gets killed by a serial killer. His rage, despair, regret—all of it explodes the moment that blazing OP kicks in. Hell of an opening. I won’t get into the rest of the game. It’s a textbook high-open-low-walk. The protagonist starts randomly chasing the killer who murdered his girlfriend, randomly joins a few organizations, solves a few random haunted-house incidents around town, and the plot gets more and more psychedelic. The killer turns out to be a psycho, also bisexual, then the killer himself starts randomly getting superpowers, and the protagonist gets a parasite… This kind of escalation reminds me of a ghost story I read in high school. The mystery setup was solid, then suddenly the protagonist gains Taoist powers and starts having superpowered xianxia battles with all sorts of ghosts. I literally spat out my drink. It went from mystery to melodramatic wuxia, massive disappointment. Same with サクラノモリ†ドリーマーズ. Massive disappointment. Great start, then it turned into a mess. After that, the scenario writer for サクラノモリ†ドリーマーズ, Go Nii… oh wait, Mr. Go, went off to write other games. Still heavy horror stuff, but no longer the “dream diving” of the original サクラノモリ†ドリーマーズ. The game called 仄暗き時の果てより tells a story of aliens and Cthulhu-style time travel. It was actually okay, but I was starting to feel fatigue with Mr. Go’s approach of “not enough plot? add ketchup.” Then サクラノモリ†ドリーマーズ 2 was announced as a sequel. At first I was curious what kind of story サクラノモリ†ドリーマーズ 2 could possibly tell, since the first game basically wrapped everything up. The protagonist’s girlfriend died, killed by a bisexual psycho. By the end, Madoka had ascended to heaven and the protagonist couldn’t even see her ghost anymore. The mastermind, that bisexual psycho, had been taken out by the protagonist. The story had a relatively complete ending. All that was left were some loose threads with the side heroines. I could understand an FD, but a “2”? Are we just calling FDs “2” now? Then the game came out. After playing through it in bits and pieces over two weeks, I’d say as a “2” it holds up.