Name: Doukoku Soshite (81.48% in 27 votes) Type: ADV Platform: SATURN Company: Data East Release date: 1998 Reviewed by: Staisen
The storyline of this game resembles Isaku slightly. You are trapped in an old house with a group of girls and some males, with the ultimate goal being to escape. You begin on a bus at night with one of your female classmates when she begins to talk about the series of mysterious disappearances of high school girls recently. Soon after, the bus you are on almost crashes into a car, with the resulting impact knocking you out (you do hear some voices, but are unable to see anything). From what you hear, you understand that everyone is going into a nearby deserted house to rest for a while. Once you awaken, you find yourself locked in a room in the house and your struggle to escape begins.
The storyline for this game is GREAT. Endings are possible all seven of the female characters, but even those are divided into 'normal' and 'golden' endings. The golden ending can only be obtained if you experience certain important events with the character in question. For example, one important requirement to see the best ending with your teacher is to find a telescope and view the night sky with her (there are special full screen pictures for this). Almost all of the girls in the game has a life-and-death situation which you must solve, or the girl dies (one of them doesn't, but for a very special reason). In fact, three people have already been killed even before you even woke up. You will see a strange red picture on a red background of a girl crying just before you wake up in the house and the game begins (thus the name doukoku soshite....). This picture is extremely significant and can be considered to be the event which triggered the disappearances and subsequent murders, but you are unlikely to know what it means, who the person is or even the reason for the red background unless you obtain the last ending and experience the events that lead up to it.
The series of disappearances is directly linked to the events in the house. You will eventually find the missing high school girl who was mentioned in the introduction somewhere in the house (though in a very unexpected place). You may have initial suspicions about who the murderer(s) is, but the game is designed to throw you off track as well. Near the end, it may seem that everyone else has been murdered or at least been in danger of dying. You will not know the true identity of the murderer(s) with most of the endings. The truth will only be made totally clear if you experience the final and saddest ending. In most other cases you succeed in escaping but the experience continues to be a mystery to you. This a long complex game that takes up much time, especially due to the puzzles to solve. It would take at least three hours to complete the game even if you knew the solutions to all the puzzles due to the huge number of events. There are voice features as well for all the characters which makes the game much more realistic (and terrifying).
Storyline: 10/10 The storyline is extremely good. It is very difficult to identify the true murderer(s) as everyone will seem to have been killed. I doubt that anyone could even guess at the motives for the murders without seeing the final ending.
Graphics: 9/10 The graphics are drawn very well, especially in the case of the full-screen pictures.
Music: 8.5/10 The music is probably the weakest point of the game. There aren't that many tracks but they do suit the dark mood of the game well. The voice features does make up for this quite well however.
All in all this is a great game with a very good storyline (i have even seen trading cards for this game). The only down point is that it's only available for the sega saturn, production of which ceased recently (it's been replaced by the Dreamcast console). Thus, people without a saturn will find it difficult to experience this excellent game.
