Prince of Tennis Doki Doki Survival ~Umi~

I had heard about Prince of Tennis from otome game fans, but for a long time I wasn’t sure if it actually had otome games, or whether people just liked some regular games (maybe with some love thrown in) because it’s such a popular series – especially with otome fans, since we love all those bishounen . But recently, someone told me that they DO have some otome games in the franchise, so I used La Primavera to figure out which one to buy, and settled on Prince of Tennis Doki Doki Survival ~Umibe no Secret~. It’s goes with ~Yama no Mystic~, and I think you’re supposed to play that first, since the series’ main character is there, but I didn’t know, so oh well. I don’t think it makes a big difference.

Anyways, here’s the story: you and a friend are going to an island down south for summer vacation, but there’s a mix-up with the travel arrangements and you couldn’t board the ship you had booked. So your friend’s father, a ship captain, is taking you along on a chartered ship with all (ok, 40) of the characters in Prince of Tennis. They’re going to be dropped off at a different island to do a special training camp, which is why players from several different schools are going. However, as you get close, a bad storm comes up, and you and your friend join some of the players on a lifeboat, eventually ending up on the camp’s island. All the players are accounted for, but none of the coaches or your friend’s dad are around. So you and your friend, along with the players, have to survive on your own until the adults or found, or someone comes to rescue you.

The first thing that happens is that the group splits into a mountain side and an ocean side. Your friend goes to the mountain side and you stay with the ocean side, thus Umibe (Seaside) no Secret. From then on, you go through the days choosing who to help with survival activities like finding food and water, and tennis practice as well. When you do so, you get some dialogue and maybe a question, and your affection with that guy will go up. To successfully finish a route, the guy’s heart (shown at the top right of the screen) needs to be at least 70% full, and for him to confess (as opposed to you confessing) it needs to be totally full. You have 4 days to do this, and if you stick with the same guy, it’s not that hard. There are a few events that you need to get, and there are also some ‘conversation topics’ that you can pick up from other guys to increase the dialogue and get more points.

I’ve never read or watched Prince of Tennis (well, I read the first chapter and wasn’t hooked), but this game is pretty fun. With 20 guys in this game, and 20 in Mystic, the routes are not that varied, and there aren’t very many CGs. There’s also not much romance – but it makes sense, since these guys are supposed to be in junior high (junior high!? I mean really…they all look and act and SOUND at least high school age). However, there a huge number of good seiyuu – in this one there’s Suwabe Junichi (Atobe), Takahashi Naozumi (Bunta), Ishida Akira (Mizuki), Ueda Yuuji (Akutagawa), Namikawa Daisuke (Ootori), Oda Yuusei (Saeki), Hiyama Nobuyuki (Jackal), and Yoshino Hiroyuki (Hirakoba) – plus several others, and the characters all have fleshed out personalities.

The minigames are also kind of fun, and apparently if you collect all the prizes from them, you get an extra – we’ll see if I ever manage that. A couple things to keep in mind before buying – if you’re not already a Prince of Tennis fan, check the character art first – it’s not awful, but it’s not romance-pretty either. Also, if you like a deep story in your otome games, this ain’t it.

However, with all the fun and good seiyuu, added to the fact that these two games are old enough to be out in budget form ($35USD at Play-Asia), I think they’re a good deal.