How will you Act when you Realize the Truth? Review of [161222] Shinsou Noise

Foreword: Without a doubt I’ve been slowing down. While there’s definitely my fault in this delay of finishing and writing reviews, I also want to place at least a portion of the blame on generic titles which I was simply not interested in or annoyed me to the point I put it off. Instead, I found myself going to doujin titles, games (admittedly, I played roughly 10-15 doujin titles between the last review and this one), and MMOs instead of galge, which is like one certain friend who went down this path (although for other platforms) much earlier than I.

For that reason, the bottom portion of this review (or where I place my “dropped games” explaining my reasoning) may be quite long. I still haven’t really figured out what I wanted to do with all these dropped titles because they’re now becoming rather increasing in number compared to actual review posts (wow much quality)

Let’s get to the review of the most recent game I played which left quite a bit of impression on me, I would first off say that as with a previous game I played, Senmomo, this game was actually rather fun. As that mystery game where you are required to use clues and various other hints to solve a crime or make various conclusions. It was almost like a puzzle game, which I really appreciated.

Obviously, however, this title wasn’t exactly the best ones out there, so I’ll be talking about the things that I found to be not-so-praiseworthy, which mind you, will take up quite a while. Let’s get started!

Please do note that this review may contain mild spoilers for this game! 

Title: シンソウノイズ (Shinsou Noise) [True Emotion Noise]
Producers: Azurite
Release Date: December 22, 2016
VNDB Link: https://vndb.org/v19684
Getchu Link: http://www.getchu.com/soft.phtml?id=916833
Game Type: Mystery/Suspense Novel with themes of Social and Human Psychology

Summary: Since he was born, Kazuma had a strange ability to hear the “inner thoughts” of people around him. These inner thoughts would never lie and always tell the truth, and would sometimes overwhelm the poor boy.

After being abandoned by his parents and raised by his grandmother who also had this ability, Kazuma learned to live his daily life by shutting himself apart from all his peers and refusing to associate with anyone. Despite how he was able to see the “truth”, it’s this very truth which pushed the poor boy into depression and despair as he saw the evils and trickery that humans were capable of.

It was around this time he meets Yukimoto Sakura, a mysterious girl who would often go to the rooftop of the school and simply stare at the sky. When looking at her inner thoughts coincidentally, Kazuma saw violent and gorey images of her death which at first made him almost want to regurgitate his lunch. However, this event also lead him to wanting to know more about this girl, as he stops her from committing suicide one day.

It won’t be long however, that on another certain day, Kazuma would hear a loud thud, and witness the death of the same person who was his first love, and the inner thoughts of someone who whispers:

“I Killed Her”

Scary!

I’ll protect the Elves! Review of a Doujin Title: Elf no Shugosha

Foreword: I worried about whether or not I should make a review for this game….. for about 1 hour. I decided to write one because I did have a review for another title from the same company on this website, and the publishing of this review will be on my birthday! Yay! Jason’s turning old now!

On retrospect, this game, titled “elf no shugosha” or “Guardian of the Elves” wasn’t exactly up to par with their last title, Lost Phantom. In general, the character designs were similar and a lot of the gameplay elements are kept intact, but the story kinda loses quite a bit. However, I’m planning to discuss this in a bit more detail along with the Author’s comments for the game as well (Yep, he actually adds his own comments to the game!)

Let’s see what I thought about this game!

Title: エルフの守護者
Producers: Cherish-Soft (Link to their HP. Warning: NSFW)
Walkthrough/Tips: http://haura015.at.webry.info/201211/article_1.html

Summary: The Silver Darkness brings about the awakening of the Guardian of the Elves… that’s a saying passed down for generations in the elven society, but at least for Yuuto, he only remembers his name and the phrase “Guardian of the Elves” as he wakes up in an unknown forest being carried by people who he doesn’t know. His lack of memory will be the least of his problems as a large army from the Thousand Empire invade the forest, but he’s luckily saved by a group of elves who repel the fiends. He meets a beautiful elf named Siris who decides to take him in as a hostage, but finds out that he has the seeds to the World Tree, which bewilders everyone at the Elven camp.

That night, however, the same army invades the Elven Camp, and completely outnumbered, Yuuto steps in and offers to surrender in exchanging for no one being killed. While enraged at Yuuto’s actions, the chief of the camp decide to place Yuuto in charge of their town as he knew about the “Guardian of the Elves”, and Yuuto agrees to assist Siris in any way he can to restore the former glory that the elves once held.

Story Length: Moderate (20 hours; gameplay included)
Complete Story Clearing Difficulty: Slightly Difficult
Comments: Another relatively story-oriented game, except the fact that there are minor changes within the game mechanics and while the setting is the same as Lost Phantom, there are small differences as well. It’s almost as if this game is a “spin-off” of the more recent release… (or vice versa)

Review of a Doujin Title: “Lost Phantom”

Foreword: Okay so nothing really fancy here; it’s a doujin game by Cheris Soft that I happened to randomly pick up one day and go “Hmm, seems interesting. Let’s give it a run”. As some of you know, I play quite a bit of doujin games solely because of the fact that doujin games are often created by those who actually enjoy the RPG+story infused genre, and actually fucking KNOW how to first write a story (unlike the idiots who write the same school-life bullshit and sell it as a galge), but also design a game revolving around said story.

Now I’m not here to give exclusively praises for this title, but I still want to point out that it’s been MUCH more worthwhile spending roughly 20-30 hours for this doujin game and reading its story than playing cheap charage like my last review.

For those who are actually interested in playing this game:
I’m uploading a save for Year 1 Day 1 where you have Max Funds, Troops, and Food. I highly recommend you view the prologue by clicking start on the main screen, then moving onto using my save file IF you’re not the type to want to spend hours mindlessly clicking to gather resources for battles. The choice is yours.

(Download, change file format into .dat and place in your savedata folder inside the game folder)

Title: ロストファントム (Lost Phantom)
Producers: Cheris Soft (Link to their HP: Warning [18+])

Synopsis: It is now the decade of 1660, and the Greaus Kingdom has been ruling over El Titania with justice and equality. One day, however, a huge earthquake shakes the lands and a suspicious masked man is spotted unconscious on the beach. The leader of a squad named “Trish” is assigned to investigate this man, who is literally butt-naked except for a suspicious mask he’s wearing. Strangely enough, this mask won’t come off physically, and the Commander (who is also Trish’s Father) gives this strange masked man his own armor as soon as he meets him.

This is the beginning of the adventure of Ash, and his conquest with Trish and other comrades. Ash himself has no memories of who he is and why he’s wearing this strange mask, but agrees to assist Trish fend off strange bandits that starts to attack the kingdom.

On the way, he will slowly encounter new comrades, and later on find out who he really is.