The keyboard critics on Quora once debated a question: Is a galgame literature? The question is itself a problem. Asking whether a game is literature is like asking whether “humans” are “perverts.” Sure, there are humans who can’t get through a day without licking something, and there are also normal people like me who have zero interest in that stuff. A galgame is still a game. Games have plots, and most non-nukige galgames lean heavily on theirs. There may be some “literary” elements in there, but on the strength of those elements alone you can’t begin to put it on the same level as literature. So as a game genre that carries “literary elements,” plenty of galgames try to break new ground in their plots. These days, if you don’t have foreshadowing and a shocking twist, people will call you boring. Which has led many to believe that only “suffering,” “dying,” “flying off the rails” and the like deserve to be called a god-tier scenario, while anything focused on the everyday gets sneered at. On this point I’m fond of the 2007 Chinese college entrance exam essay prompt: unexpected, yet inevitable. What it means is that no matter how your plot unfolds, no matter how high it flies or how wild the ideas get, as long as you can justify it and give people that “unexpected yet inevitable” feeling, your story is a success. Even slice-of-life, if written vividly and every character’s personality also lands as “unexpected yet inevitable,” is a success too. At the very least the story keeps you in suspense, is easy to follow, and doesn’t feel too far-fetched. Put more bluntly: write it however you want, but at minimum it has to be logical. That’s the baseline. Without logic, the whole story looks nonsensical — exactly like Haru nochi Kitto Nanohana Biyori (晴のちきっと菜の花びより).

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.

The Fruit of Grisaia has sequels — two of them, actually. One is The Labyrinth of Grisaia, and the other is the finale, The Eden of Grisaia. The Fruit of Grisaia already got a TV anime adaptation, and since the Labyrinth and Eden anime are both airing on the 12th of this month, skip this if you’re worried about spoilers.

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…

11月のアルカディア was one of March’s new releases. I’d figured there was nothing worth playing that month, then I saw the OP — looked like a mystery/plot-driven thing — so I tried the demo. And surprise, the protagonist actually has a CV. No idea who it is, but he sounds a bit like Yuuichi Nakamura. Going on the principle that “if an eroge bothers to voice its male lead, the story probably isn’t a total trainwreck,” I dove in without hesitation. And sure enough, it didn’t let me down. This is the first thing since Paper no Ue no Mahoutsukai that I can praise without a single reservation.

At first I had zero intention of playing Kujira-gami no TearStilla (鯨神のティアスティラ), because the premise sounded dull. Even using my shoulder blades to think, I could tell it was just a heroine with a whale skin slapped on. But then one day, while my nuts were aching (idle), I listened to the game’s OST, and both EDs—Kamisama Itsuka Kono Omoi and Ruriiro—were absurdly good. Then at some other moment of aching boredom at night, a time when I Can’t help myself touching my body, I dragged the game down and started playing. Conclusion first: this game is pretty good on every front except the story…

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.

I haven’t played that many Yuzu (Yuzusoft) games. Counting on my fingers, just Tenshin Ranman and Natsuzora Kanata. Most of the others I’ve only glanced at — “oh, a Yuzusoft one, I remember that face” — and then never got around to them. Still, I owe Yuzusoft some thanks: Tenshin Ranman was the first 18+ game I ever touched. Sure, I played the PSP version, but up to then everything I’d played was Ever17, MO2, MO4 and other genuine all-ages stuff. Thinking back to the first time I imagined Chitose Sana’s H scene still gets me a little excited… Ahem, that’s a bit off track. Actually I do have some feelings for Yuzusoft games, I just rarely play them. Mostly because I kept hearing people shit on them — that Yuzusoft games are pure moege, and trending toward nukige. And honestly, judging by the premises, that’s true. Whether it was the later vampire one or Sensei of the Sky Colors, the utilitarian angle got more and more blatant. Then at the end of 2014, a new title called サノバウィッチ just popped out of nowhere, and I didn’t read any of the intro — I just saw the word “heat.” Then I looked at the plot summary… oh boy… have they completely thrown away all decency? The heroine goes into heat on a schedule, the protagonist secretly sees it, and the story builds from there… what else could it be but fucking? A victory for the utilitarian crowd, a sob for the story crowd. For me, one glance at the premise and I’d already lost interest. I can stage a little fantasy in my head anytime about fucking a girl, and each one would be better than this. Is there any need to play the game specifically for that? But then I played the trial version and found it was nothing like that. The heat thing is just a gimmick; the story itself is actually decent… of course, I mean the trial version’s story. So after finishing the full game I figure I should seriously talk about a few things in this game.

Looking at the intro or whatever of Izayoi no Fortuna, you won’t spot any obvious highlight. But successful people always tell us that when there’s no highlight, you should go find one yourself… Case in point: in the game’s planning credits, we see a familiar name: Satoshi Yaginuma Who the hell is that? Right—the guy from fripSide who plays piano while shaking his ass, the one in MVs and lives who always looks like he’s desperately holding in a piss. Times really have changed. Even musicians are getting into Galgame planning now. According to a detailed expose of the Galgame production pipeline I read on Douban, the planner determines the basic plot and outline, while the scenario writer follows that outline to write the script. So the plot of this game was dreamed up by Satoshi Yaginuma… Out of sheer curiosity about what kind of story a musician would cook up, I played this game… Of course, I still don’t know if he was in the planning for those fripSide MVs…

The world says spring is when all things revive, and also the season for love. In this season of revival, I shook off the filth and mud I’d accumulated over winter, crawled out of my hole, rubbed my eyes that had spent years in darkness, steadied my mind, and hoped to see the outside world clearly again. At the very least, in this season of spring breezes, I ought to follow the trend and do the things I’m supposed to do. The sunlight above was blinding, the wind hitting my face carried the breath of life. Once my vision settled, I saw the source of the great light—besides the sun above, there was something gleaming gold on the ground. It was a book. On its clean cover were just two lines: a big title, SPPL, and below it a subtitle: alice the magical conductor. Nothing else.