Review: Back to the green (Green Green PS2 KD)

As most who have read my blog and other ramblings of eroge may know, Green Green was the first eroge I played and completed. I can admit now that my understanding of Japanese was nowhere near what it is now, so I've been thinking of giving it a second look for a while.

Even after all this time, I'm a little surprised at how little the populace knows about the series as a whole, as most people I've come across seem to know only the anime and that abomination known as Erolutions. The fact that in its day it was generally well-received (after all, it did spawn not only the anime but two sequels, a couple of short novels and audio dramas) seems to be tossed aside by Groover closing its doors sometime after Green Green 3 came out.

Rather than dwell on the direction the series took over time, I think we should first take a look at one of the adaptations of the game that started it all. I originally planned to do a really long review to cover both ports, but I realized they shared a lot of the same content. That and the PS2 loading times were killing me. Since I've covered pieces of one of the two ports in rants, I'll focus on the other for this review.

Game: Green Green ~Kanenone Dynamic~

Green Green ~Kanenone Dynamic~ was one of two PS2 ports for Green Green that were released on April 24, 2003 by WellMADE in collaboration with Groover. Much like the PC version, both games feature scenarios by Yamaguchi Noboru and Kuwashima Yoshikazu, with character designs by Katakura Shinji. Milktub also returns to provide music and sound direction.

The player takes the role of Takasaki Yuusuke, a second year student attending Kanenone Gakuen (lit. Sound of bell academy). The school itself is known as a "paradise for men", where boys can grow and develop with no interference from the outside world (a result of the school being in a forested region with nothing but trees and mountains as far as the eye can see). While our protagonist tries to get through daily life, his three hormone-driven friends (Ijuuin "Bacchiguu" Tadatomo, Ichibanboshi Hikaru and Tenjin Taizou) tend to get him in trouble from time to time. Though Yuusuke isn't bothered by the lack of girls and other things teenage boys are prone to think of, his friends insist that their youth is wasted away in an all-boys school. As luck would have it, a bus full of girls arrives along with the announcement that Kanenone Gakuen will undergo a one-month trial with female students in preparation of going co-ed.

Amidst the excitement and numerous misadventures, we are presented with seven heroines for Yuusuke to meet, get to know and potentially fall in love with as he and his equally clueless friends get a crash course on what girls are really like.

Review: The top of the bucket list (R.U.R.U.R. -petit prince-)

I know it's been a long time since I've reviewed anything, and after some encouraging words have decided to try to make the time to look at my backlog and get back into things. It sort of helps that I don't have much to do while I wait for the Final Fantasy XIV expansion to come out, too...

Anyway, console ports of eroge tend to be hit or miss when it comes to the elements that make them tick. The main point of contention is the inclusion of "clean" scenes and how the overall presentation is affected by adapting the game for consoles. In some cases, the transition is seamless and one can barely tell. In others, the result is not as good as one would hope.

To me, what this effectively boils down to is the effect on the story. Games like Comic Party are written in such a way that you can make a clean port and get away with it. Riskier story types along the lines of Tenshi no Inai 12-gatsu wouldn't work with a simple scene swap and require a rewrite of most, if not the whole, story. A game like today's review falls in line with the latter. Now whether light did what was necessary for R.U.R.U.R. to transition from eroge to console visual novel remains to be seen...

Game: R.U.R.U.R. -petit prince-

R.U.R.U.R. -petit prince- was released on September 22nd, 2010 by the game studio light for the Playstation Portable. Like with the original PC release, the PSP port features a scenario by Itou Hiro and Nakajima Hijiri, with contributions from Oota Yuu. Character designs were done by Izumi Mahiru. Seeing that I have already reviewed the original PC version, this review will be part recap and focus on the differences between the PC and PSP versions.