Posts Tagged ‘storm lover’

Storm Lover Natsukoi!! Mini Review

I’ve been playing through several heavy story games on the PSP and got a bit burned out, so for something a bit more casual I put in Storm Lover. It’s great during times when I only have a few minutes, because there’s no huge plot you have to remember, you can play a few days quickly, and you really don’t need to use a guide. It does take a while to get through a year, but overall it’s great. It’s kind of like Tokimemo, but less random in who you encounter, and easier in general (no need to figure out what subjects or datespots your guy likes!)

After finally getting Kyousuke’s (CV: Terajima Takuma) best ending (I think), I thought I’d try the fandisk, Storm Lover Natsukoi!! It plays pretty much like the original, except compressed into a few days of a beach field trip, with no need to study and higher limits on texting, as well as a little minigame to choose who you sit beside on the bus to and from the beach. There are two different modes, you can choose to start either already dating one of the guys or single. I don’t know what happens in the first mode, but I think you can build up someone else’s affections like in the original and have some love triangle drama. I believe that you can also get endings with two side characters, Takashi (CV:Kimura Ryouhei) and the school nurse Inuzuka (CV: Onosaka Masaya, or Momoshiro, for any PoT fans out there), and a totally new character Shiina (CV: Okamoto Nobuhiko). So far it’s a lot of frothy casual fun, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who liked Storm Lover and wants some more.

Storm Lover Review

I’m finally getting around to playing Storm Lover thoroughly, which I mostly missed last year when I got it because 1) the first guy whose route I got into didn’t interest me, and 2) so many games were coming out that once I put it down, I never really picked it up again.

However, since I haven’t gotten games in a while (I’m trying to save up money for my trip to Japan in October), I finally put it back in my PSP and am really enjoying it. I always thought it was an interesting premise, and once I decided to just start over and go for a different guy, things worked great. And the fandisk, Storm Lover Natsukoi!!, is out this summer, so perhaps this will be useful for anyone who’s seen it and hasn’t played the original yet.

For anyone who’s not familiar with Storm Lover, it looks like a standard high school otome game, no fantasy or mystery plots really. What makes it different from others in the genre is that you’re never locked into one route, as in most visual novels. Usually, you have a certain amount of story before your previous choices bring you to a certain storyline, and from there your choices only decide whether you split betweeen a couple stories (or fail entirely).

In Storm Lover, which goes through a year of high school by day, as far as I’ve played (I’m only up to October so far, with about 5 months to go), your relationships are never set in stone.
At pretty much anytime you can:

• start dating someone within a month or two of meeting them,
• get into “bakapuru” (baka couple/stupidly in love) status,
• flirt and go one dates with someone else,
• have them confess to you and either deny them or break up with your current boyfriend,
• ignore your boyfriend enough that he falls for another female character and breaks up with you.

Right now I’m on my second relationship, after deciding once to stay with my first boyfriend when someone else confessed, and then dumping him for another guy (I felt so guilty! but I wanted to see what would happen), and I’m trying to decide whether or not I should stay with the same guy again, or start a new relationship again.

It’s quite fun, and to be honest, I find it kind of refreshing to not have characters in high school locked into one relationship forever and ever.

To make this review complete, I should probably comment on other aspects of the game. The art is very good, I like the character designs (same artist as Little Anchor), it’s interesting that they’re obviously drawn (like, the shadows of their necks etc. are clearly drawn in as opposed to CG shading), voices are of course great, the music is pretty forgettable, and the scenery is fine but fairly generic city/school type backgrounds.

Some other things I liked: after you dump or refuse someone, the next few times you see them it’s awkward and you can’t talk to them. However if you persist, they’ll come around and you can be friends again. I haven’t tried to see if you can get up the affection levels to confessing again.

Apparently, you even get a special ending if you go out with ALL 6 guys, heheh. I don’t think I’ll go for that now, but it actually sounds pretty fun to do at a gaming party…

Mag news

I caved and ordered VitZ Revo, and got it a couple days ago. I’ve done Tendou’s normal route, and am in the middle of his dream route. Aa, Vitamin wa tanoshii na~!

I must say though, it looks great on the PSP – very clean and crisp. I also got Dear Girl Stories ~Hibiki~ at the same time, so I’m kind of comparing it to the DS as well. By the way, apparently DGS doesn’t really have any romance in it – d’oh! It’s just a stat-raising game with some almost-romantic-but-not-quite moments in it.

I also got some new magazines, and ooh good stuff in them! Girl’s Style came with an 8-page book about Kazukiyone and Hakuouki, as well as Hakuouki bookmarks and Starry Sky stickers! It’s probably because there’s no CD or DVD-ROM.

I didn’t even realize that Starry Sky got animated, but um yeah, it is! Haha. Girl’s Style also had info on the PSP versions, which will have several additional scenes, backgrounds, and other changes (one is that you can choose to show the heroine’s face, which is good, but sounds creepy that she didn’t have one before )

Storm Lover had some info as well, it will not only have routes leading up to a relationship, but will be about maintaining the romance or breaking up if you fail, and maybe even getting back together later! Interesting.

There’s also an article on the game system and some of the scenes in Xechs, it seems kinda complicated so I think I’ll post on that later.

Oh, and Mahoutsukai to Goshujin-sama has a release date! It’s set for July 31.

Storm Lover Characters!

Just a little cast, character and story summary to tide you over. I was hoping to get Corda 3 today but no luck Should be here on Monday though! Since all my recent posts got erased, I’ll be doing some updates on games that I may have already mentioned (not that I can remember because my memory is like a sieve!)

Storm Lover
Scheduled for Summer 2010 release on the PSP by D3P
Set at St. Louis High School, the heroine transfers here because of her father’s work. The school is pretty liberal, and perhaps because of this, she meets lots of people with very individual styles and some quirky personalities.

Uzuki Yuuto CV: Hatano Wataru
The confident, charismatic student president. He’s a bit arrogant, and tends to view anyone who stands out or is more popular than him as a rival. His family is rich, so he doesn’t really understand regular folk.

Mikoshiba Kyousuke CV: Terajima Takuma
Though he’s hot-tempered, Kyousuke has the top grades in the heroine’s class, and can’t leave people in trouble without helping them. He hangs out with Yuuto a lot and their nickname is the KY Combi, though he dislikes it.

Toratani Rikka CV: Kaji Yuuki
A younger student who uses his innocent looks to get away with pranks and teasing. However, he doesn’t deal well with being teased himself. He’s popular but hasn’t dated anyone, apparently he’s quite shy about the topic of girls.

Mishiro Takumi CV: Miura Hiroaki
A classmate who is repeating the grade. He’s hard to figure out, and seems to enjoy confusing people. He’s rumoured to be involved with a bad crowd.

Tatsuhara Souya CV: Miyano Mamoru
Dedicated to music, Souya is alive. He loves surfing and biking. Not great at school, but his open personality makes him popular with everyone. He sings for a popular indie band.

Ikawa Mio CV: Namikawa Daisuke
Even more puzzling than Takumi. He talks at his own pace, and is often told that people can’t understand him. He sometimes forgets to eat, but when he does start, it’s impossible to stop him. He uses polite language with everyone but doesn’t like it being used with him.