So in the end I decided to call my section “RenAI” games rather than Eroge since some of the games I plan to play don’t have any porn in them, although they are intended for the male audience. Anyway the real reason I wanted to check out this game is because the anime’s coming out in a few weeks and it has cell phones in it so it sounded interesting. I also liked the character designs of the (what appears to me) the main girl Ichiru. However, this is the type of game where looks can be deceiving and it was so awful I could only make it through the story of 1 girl.

So basically the premise of the game is one day you see this “keitai shoujo” on your cell phone and you decide to download her. What then happens is she literally REPLACES your phone and tells you that if you don’t get a girlfriend by Christmas, she will disappear (along with your phone.) Your immediate thought is “Oh noes! Not my new expensive phone!” So with that in mind you decide to try to snag a gal, and in my case I went with Ichiru because she is the generic childhood friend and also the one that I think he will end up with in the anime.

By the way it appears that you are 17 and have never had a girlfriend in your life, but what else is new for eroge/renaige heroes? Oh and to make things more ironic your name is Hiro. Soo anyway Ichiru is really into sports. She’s on the track team and has a senpai that I guess makes you jealous when she talks to him. Because of the “childhood friend” barrier, at one point in the game she gets mad at you thinking you are in “girlfriend making mode” (which you are) but then she realizes that your friendship is more important than anything and she forgives you anyway. Surprise surprise. Oh and also Ichiru is voiced by the seiyuu who did Tenko in Kamisama Kazoku and Tenma in School Rumble.

The way the game works is every day you go to school and you have to go to a certain place to have events happen or talk with a girl. When you come home that night, you have a bunch of emails on your cell phone that you have to respond to properly or they don’t count. You have to respond so that you get +3 points because anything less will not count and not get the “she likes you” meter up. OH and since your phone is now the keitai shoujo (whose name is Rin - as in ring tone), she’s always telling you to do a “Rin Check” to check on the “love level” of your harem. Also at some points of the game, you STARE at the girl with cheesy music and sparkles everywhere while she goes “uhh can you stop staring at me?” but if you stop she gets mad and says “geez it wouldn’t hurt you to look just a LITTLE!”

So eventually after following a guide twice, and trying to figure out what to reply on all the emails (because no matter what guide you follow, the emails will be out of order), I finally ended up with Ichiru’s route. For Christmas the two of you went to an amusement park and then to an indoor pool. You confess your love to her, she accepts, but because you didn’t do it on time, Rin (and your phone) disappear. Lame. And to add on to the lameness, since this is not an eroge, there’s no porn, but the most you get to do is be chosen best couple with her at the school and all you do is put your hand over her shoulder. THERE’S NOT EVEN A KISS SCENE. THIS GAME MAKES MY OTOME GAMES SEEM LIKE HARD CORE XXX BABY.

One of the other girls whose story I was thinking of playing was Momoka. She’s the kouhai who keeps going “HELLO SENPAI!” every time you see her. The other stupid part of this game is when you go to places to like “interact”, the only interaction you get half the time is a hello or a goodbye. It’s so retarded and there’s days where you have no interaction but yet you get home and you have something to talk about in your emails. Also it seems like you do more interaction on some days with your fat necked otaku friend Keisuke…who has the hots for teacher.

The other girl here, whose name I forgot, is voiced by the seiyuu who voices Ayako in Mamoru-kun ni Megami no Shukufuku wo. Everytime you run into her, rather than hello or a goodbye she just MOANS. It’s rather disturbing and she’s typically that quiet shy girl but really…WHY DO YOU HAVE TO ACT LIKE YOU’RE ON EXTACY ALL THE TIME. She needs to drop her drug habit. There’s 2 other girls but the only one I actually interacted with a few times was Ichiru’s cousin, Aya, who’s voiced by the seiyuu that does Negi from Negima. At some point JP kept calling her Negi cause I was starting to forget.

So the final thoughts is this game is god awful and probably the worst dating sim game I have ever played. In the end, there’s no actual value behind any of the girls’ stories. Every game I ever played (that even had porn in it) at least had some kind of back story…however in this one, the WHOLE IDEA is “i need to get a girlfriend before Christmas” and so you learn absolutely nothing about them and you choose it at random like in some kind of blog poll. Also the art is pretty crappy and some CG parts make it look like the guy’s ganguro or something. As I mentioned before while Keisuke has a fat neck, some of the other girls have necks that look like they could snap at any time like a twig. I just hope that when the anime comes out, it’s much better…at least they fixed the neck problems on the character design page.

P.S. And there better be some kissing. (Or at least a freaking hug.)

P.P.S. I’m off to play Clannad.

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