Name: Syuumatsu no Sugoshikata (30.00% in 3 votes) Type: NVL Platform: WINDOWS Company: Abogado Powers Release date: 1999 Reviewed by: Kyubi Fox
The TV channels are shutdown and the newspapers are gone, communication with the outside world is basically dead. The only thing left is a radio station. From there you heard that there are riots in several major cities in Japan. You also heard that Japan and some other nations have declared temporary peace for a week, and after that...
It's going to be the end of the world. What are you going to do? Go spend your time with your family? Go confess your love? Go spend your time alone and wait quietly? Or go kill yourself before the end?
These questions are more real than ever now that we are reaching the end of the millennium. Syuumatsu no Sugoshikata came at a perfect time to let the player get a feel of what it's like to be at the "end." There can be so much room for imagination. I was really looking forward to this game, but sadly, the short storyline really dragged down the potentially great visual novel.
Ratings:
Gameplay: 3/10 - Ok, this is a visual novel. You just read and read and read and read your way through. The number of choices you can pick is really limited (about 10). Everything that should be there is there, like message history, background brightness, descriptive save/load screens etc.
Storyline: 4/10 - In this game you play as a student pretty much stuck in your local area. You still go to school every day, but there are not much people there anymore. The prologue gives you a survey of who you will encounter, which is pretty good in preparing the mood for "the end." But after that things don't really lived up to what they are supposed to be, especially the end, which seems quite cheap like the EVA TV ending...
The storyline is definitely sub-par for visual novels. The setting is interesting and unique, but the story is way too short. The makers chose to present the story in a way such that the player can survey the different possibilities for people to face the end. Everyday you will see the story about the main guy for ten minutes, then it will switch to the school nurse for another ten minutes, then another guy, etc. The conversations are very short, which leads to the weak development of character personalities. The sad thing is, the h scenes are much longer than most of the scenes in the game... A normal person can probably get a ending in 3 hours or less.
Graphics: 9/10 - The graphics are wonderful. All the CG's look like watercolor pictures with a light, faded out feeling. The fits perfectly with the theme of "the end." Things look lonely and seems like the world is really fading away. The slight flaw comes from the spriites. They look very different from the background so they don't fit in too well.
Music/Sound: - 7/10 - The music fits in very well with the game. They helped a lot for the player to really feel the mood of the surrounds. The majority of music are slow and soft. There are really not much sound in the game except opening and closing doors. The lack of voice acting also makes it less interesting.
Overall: 6/10 - A potentially great game with a unqiue setting down the drain because of the weak storyline. If Abogado Powers had put more focus on the story this game will no doubt be on the list for best games of 1999.
Japanese Level: High - As expected for a visual novel. You can get through by just clicking but the pictures are not quite descriptive of what's going on.
