VN of the Month October 1993 - Nooch 2 Remy no Gyakushuu

1. ANGEL [931001] Cocktail Soft

A collection of three short stories based on "Angel" manga:

1) Command selection adventure on the three days of Academy Sports Tournament which result in selection one of three girls.

2) Branching choice selection adventure containing one day of Academy Sports Tournament with 20 different endings.

3) SIM part teaching a girl to be sexually appealing which takes one week.

The characters are taken from Angel anime, so the designs are nice. But I can't really rate an erotic-centered anime adaptation multiple stories highly even when just one of the traits present, but when all three...

Gokko Vol. 02: School Gal's (sic) is very similar in structure to the previous volume, but - as the title implies - with a different theme. The player controls a young male protagonist (default name Lance), who has spotted a beautiful girl near the gate of the prestigious Finlandia Girls High School. He is determined to gain access to the school, which is also attended by his sister. Though men are strictly prohibited from entering the school building, the hero is resourceful enough to find a way in; what happens afterwards should be clear to anyone familiar with the many high school-themed bishoujo games...

First work was about hospital, this one is about school. Well, at least this time it's some kind of story. The series stands out because it has partial voicing and that all on those diskettes. Overall it's a light story with an emphasis on viewing beautiful CG.

3. Nooch 2 Remy no Gyakushuu ヌーク２ レミーの逆襲 [931008] Softhouse Bonbee Bonbon 1

Some time has passed since Umechiyo helped the genius girl Piliru to uncover the conspiracy in her homeland Paru. Now Piliru is about to attend a prestigious university in Japan. However, Remy, the leader of the Gilbert organization, will not give up so easily. She enlists the help of a foreign nation and concocts a devious plan. In addition, the relationship between the two heroes doesn't progress well. Umechiyo must find a way to stop Remy and restore peace and order.

The main difference from prequel is introduction of parameters, but they just roughly tell us how far we are in the story. Last time we saved the world from medicine that made all girls worldwide lewd, this time we get to the roots of the same nymphomaniac illness in one girl. The pair of Umechiyo and Piliru is as fun as always. The number of minigames has increased, but their quality degraded. Also at chapter 4 the game system suddenly turnes into Classmate-style one and it gets confusing since flag system turns over. The overall impression is slightly worse than that of the prequel, but this VN does not get boring and it's a rare trait.

4. Houma Hunter Lime Dai 05 Wa 宝魔ハンターライム 第０５話 [931009] Silence 1

In this episode Lime and Bass witness a strange incident in the school: for an unknown reason, female students are losing their clothes. The heroes immediately realize that the magical prank is being performed by a BEM.

The stage is now some doujin events and cosplay is the theme, so I'd call it a fan-service episode before the culmination in 6th part. The monster here is not particularly memorable, but he has a nice reasoning behind stealing Chinese dresses.

5. If 2 イフ ２ [931016] Active 1

IF 2 contains three separate scenarios (as opposed to four of the previous game); they are numbered 5, 6, and 7 (continuing the count from the first IF), but have no relation story-wise either to the preceding scenarios or each other.

"Scenario 5" is a rare example of "mainstream" eroge which deals with a male homosexual relationship. The adult content here is text-only; there are no graphics that depict explicit sex. The hero of the game is a young man who lives together with his boyfriend. A girl who works with him in the company seems fancy him, and the protagonist has to deal with her advances and his partner's jealousy, questioning his own orientation in progress.

This scenario has a branching story line; the premise is that the hero, a college student, is desperate to find a date. The episode is dedicated only to one day of the hero's life; during this day, he must locate and convince a girl to have a date with him. Depending on the player's choices, the story develops in various different directions from there.

The final, "seventh" scenario stars a female protagonist, a high-school student named Kumi. One night she dreams of her male classmate having a romantic relationship with her. Upon arriving in the school, however, she sees another girl obviously trying to seduce the man of her dreams. Will she be able to reclaim him for herself - and if so, by what means?..

Another ambiguous short stories collection. The first story is quite different in the way that it mimics Classmate on a much lesser scale.

6. Crescent クレセント [931021] Silky's 1 2

Crescent is divided into four unrelated stories, which can be accessed directly from the main menu in any order. The first story is set in a fantasy scenario with a protagonist who tries to defeat a sexy female magician and her equally sexy female demonic minions; the second story involves a visit to a female detective, which evolves into an erotic encounter and unexpected violence; the third story is a visit to girls' locker room in a school; finally, the fourth story features an Asian-style mansion inhabited by pretty young women.

Yet another multiple stories erotic work of 1993. The peculiarity of this work is that it allows both command selection and point-and-click gameplay and the stories actually change according to that selection, so we get 8 stories instead of four overall. The same artist as in Nova is in change here, so character design is very good.

7. Rakudai Tenshi Colon 落第天使コロン [931023] Peach Soft

Colon is an angel apprentice. One day on the way to an angel school, he caused a car accident with a car escorting three sinners who escaped to the human world possessing women bodies. Colon now needs to find those sinners if he wants to qualify for the angel exam.

The only way to separate the woman body from sinner soul is to make her excited, so development is quite normal. There are three chapters and as many as 11 girls to capture. There plot girls need special approach since going too easy on one girl may block the next girl progression.

8. Gokuraku Mandala 極楽まんだら [931029] Fairytale 1

Mandala is a mystical circle in Buddhist sacred art, while Gokuraku is the Japanese term for Sukhavati, "Pure Land", the heaven of Buddha Amitabha. It is not surprising that the game with such a name concerns itself with Buddhist themes, though mostly in a comical way. The three heroes of the game, a man named Tamon (the player-controlled character), the girl Amako, and her parrot Gon, are on a quest to find the mysterious Death God, who stole a valuable jewel from a Buddhist temple where Tamon was working.

Gag point-and-click adventure. I was overwhelmed by the level of craze and did not follow it through.

9. Ms. DETECTIVE - File #2: Sugatanaki Irainin ミス・ディテクティヴ　ファイル#2　姿なき依頼人 [931029] DataWest

Akane feels bad lately and following her friend advice she goes to a hot springs resort. But on the way there she sees a white ghost...

Another DAPS masterpiece with lots of animated live action scenes. I did not get to the detective part since the game is not hookable and that cuts motivation.

10. Vampire High School バンパイアハイすく～る [931029] Interheart

Kerotan is a teacher in girls high school and he's always having troubles of students actions. One day student council president purchased an original coffin from Romania. After that the behavior of some students got strange and two scratches on the neck of professors got itchy. Perhaps students can explain what's going on.

Game is actually quite short and can be done within an hour for a fast reader. And the majority of large 9 FDD volume occupied two-screen CG. Yes, they were popular with many games at that time. Characters are well done, especially the eyes. But as in any Interheart work, HCG take an important place here.