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??

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.