Review of [111216]&[130125]Gin no Toki no Corona Series

Foreword: I lied. In my Sakura no Reply review, I said that would be the last game in a while, but I went ahead and finished TWO MORE GAMES after that. I’m such a bad student OTL;;

Right, onto the review! Just as I expected from Eternal, a thrilling and interactive gameplay which was supported with a hilarious story and even better character design! Corona was pretty much a fantasy game, but what I REALLY appreciate about this title is that if you remember the Yumina series, the characters from Yumina will also appear in this game as well!!! In addition, while not contributing to the story, there’s a patch that adds three completely unrelated characters to the game, but that’s something you should find out yourself ;)

Title: 銀の刻のコロナ (Gin no Toki no Corona, Lit. Trans: Corona, the Silver Time)
Producers: Eternal
Release Date: Main Game–December 16, 2011/Fandisk–January 25, 2013
VNDB Link: http://vndb.org/v6668 / http://vndb.org/v11316
Game Type: Turn-based strategy game/Novel

Summary: Touka is not a normal student. After wishing for years to become a hero, he somehow finally gained an ability to detect strange distortion of space, that is caused by demons. Because he believes these demons are bad, Touka takes it upon himself to eliminate these demons to “bring peace to this city”. He enjoys his “secret job”, but is often tired since the distorted space occurs at night.

One day, the same space distortion occurs again, and as Touka approaches it, he feels that his opponent is very powerful. Entering anyways, he is easily overwhelmed and forced into a corner. Just as he was about to be killed, a girl appears and saves him. Her name is Amakasu Tokino, a 3rd year who is also the idol of the school that he goes to! Touka begs to join Tokino, after seeing her strength, but Tokino firmly warns Touka to stay away from this distorted space called “Shinya” (True Night).

The person who saves Touka, Tokino!

Story Length: Moderately short (15 hours) excluding gameplay, Long (30 hours) including gameplay
Complete Story Clearing Difficulty: Relatively hard
Comments: As stated above, this is a turn-based strategy game, so non Japanese players may have a hard time beating the games due to the enemies being rather powerful. The game requires that you utilize “Field Skills” and properly use the “Reaction” and “Order” Skills in order to defeat your enemy as quickly as possible. For the reference, the FD is considerably easier than its main counterpart.

A sample of what the gameplay looks like. Note that without extensive knowledge of Japanese or translators, beating this game will be extremely difficult.

Character Design Rating: 9/10
Story Rating: 3/10
Game Quality: Moderately high
Overall Rating: 6/10
Rating Comments: Great character design, as readers can see each character’s traits in a clear-cut manner, and most of it is very attractive. How each character connects with another makes this game one of the ideal examples of a “game that has great character design”. As an example, Yumina and Eri are so alike, they become “sisters” to a certain extent as well.  It is also interesting to see that while Kumi genuinely hates Touka, she is arguably the one who understands him the best. Despite this, the Character design rating does not get a full 10/10 because there are some “holes” within the character design, such as why Anastasia suddenly falls in love with Touka.

Shit just got serious O_O;;

This game also exhibits large amounts of tsukomi, which is best translated as a “jab” or “stab” at someone’s statement. This “stab” is also translated sexually by some of the other characters, and one can see throughout the story that “tsukomi” is performed even by Kumi as well, and then by characters in the FD.

On the other hand, story was very weak. Starting with the fact that Touka’s emotions seem to change rapidly with “side heroines”, the mere fact that essentially the same plot was repeated over and over was getting pretty boring.

Aka, the character on the right, only makes a brief appearance in the main story, but appears more frequently in the FD.

Sexual Content: Moderate

Comments: The main heroines are Tokino, Corona, and Muriel, but I feel as if some of the other character should have been main heroines just because of their design. As described above, Kumi understands Touka so well (even better than Corona, Tokino, or Muriel), that Tokino often misunderstands that Kumi genuinely hates Touka. Aside from this, the appearance of characters from Yumina was a pleasant surprise.

Affection for the Characters:  Low

But the SDCG is freaking adorable. It’s even more hilarious that both Corona and Aka beg Touka for koubi (“conception”, aka, sex) quite frequently in the FD. The reader can see the two fighting for Touka as well, which strangely adds to the charm.

CG Quality: Moderate. Eternal utilizes inanimate sprites, and only changes the profile of the character down on the dialogue area, which is rather unique. Despite this, readers will find that it makes skipping the dialogue much faster, and this “skipping” will be necessary in some areas. One of the negative traits I’ve found, however, is that Eternal did not draw in Corona’s Dragon form, which is disappointing…
Music Quality: Moderate. Again, Eternal focuses mostly on interactive games that challenge the player to think and formulate a strategy, so I guess they simply loosen their focus on other areas such as music.

Addictiveness: Moderately low. The humor is hilarious, the gameplay is nice, but the overall story pretty much kills all of the desires to come back to this game.

The entire crew :D

Conclusion: A very nice game filled to the brim with humor, and for players who like strategy or gameplay in general with their eroge, this is the game for them. Adorable characters fill the crew, but be sure to thoroughly understand the plotline, so  you don’t get confused with what’s happening at the end.