After the 1.0.2 update last week, I saw the complaints on 2ちゃん about the various changes and checked (I don’t use the SHARE functions but I just like to check things for myself).  You could still save videos and screen shots (just not in Free Mode) but trying to use the Broadcast function in the regular part of the game showed a message that said you cannot use this for this application.

Thus my immediate thought was this was related to the patch (due to changes made with Free Mode) and something initiated by D3 Publisher.

Then while looking through PlayStation Live last night, I saw one player broadcasting the game.  My first thought was that someone just deleted the application data and played the original release version of the game w/o updating it.  So I checked and sure enough, the broadcast function is available again (and another player was broadcasting the game on USTREAM).

So it looks like this functionality is controlled by Sony and NOT D3 Publisher where it was indeed pressure from Sony (thus the Free Mode changes) such that they put a total block on sharing (including broadcasting) and re-enabled that (maybe after finally verifying the changes to the Free Mode portion they objected to).  For players not being able to utilize a built-in function like streaming the game, it would not bode well for the game in general (thus why I previously mentioned this franchise being toast).

P.S. my friend says she wants to try playing this on PlayStation Live (to USTREAM or Twitch) so I lent her the game.

Some motions were also removed (previously, almost all of the games movements were available and some of them allowed some suggestive motions to be recorded/screen shot) as well as limitations implemented in the intervals that game models can be placed together in some poses (again, this change was made due to the amount of suggestive posing).

The quest achievement completion percentage was also displayed incorrectly (higher); I checked and mine is now 69% (down from 75%).  Some fixes were also made to heroine routes (Naomi and Ranko) as well as the news department ending amongst other general issues.

The Dragon God’s shrine offeratory was also changed where an animation of the Dragon God is now played before you receive an orb.  Your character is then also placed a few steps back from the box preventing the easy spamming that was allowed prior to this change.  Basically, spending just 1 yen allowed acquiring a white orb that can (still) be sold at the antique shop for 1000 yen (excellent profit margin).  So this was being used to quickly acquire currency since its far more faster than fishing.  All this change means is that instead of say 15 white orbs per minute, it slows down to around maybe 10 per minute.

To be honest, the “Free Mode” changes is seriously a ridiculous move (Japanese players on 2ちゃん are pissed off about this update where they are calling it a downgrade) given how much hype was given to the hentai aspects of the game.  As noted before, I haven’t even bothered engaging in that aspect of the game since the open world adventure aspect is what intrigued me more.  But given that D3P has made a name for itself when it comes to the quirky nature of their titles, this change (along with the noted game play issues) is going to have a longer lasting effect with their mostly niche customer base.

Basically, some players are already calling D3P (and Tamsoft) “shit” and saying this update has turned them off from any potential DLC or sequels to the game (let alone, support of their other franchises).  I have to agree since they really aren’t fixing and improving the most glaring issues.   And Japanese gamers can be a really hard headed bunch when it comes to sticking to their guns (much worse than western gamers who threaten to boycott games, developers, publishers).

Whether or not this came about from pressure from Sony (due to Live from PlayStation) isn’t known at this point.  If it is, then Sony should address the issue with better parental controls for PlayStation Live where games that have a certain maturity rating (CERO in Japan) can be blocked via those controls and/or mature content clearly marked.  As far as I know, Free Mode content was never really streamed on sites like Twitch and Ustream during the first few weeks of the games release (nothing like what happened with Senran Kagura Estival Versus where it isn’t even available on PS Live and Twitch eventually banned it completely).  So I have my own doubts that it was serious pressure from Sony (more so when there are other games like GTA and The Witcher that haven’t had their sharing functionality nerfed or their broadcasting disabled).

Additional update: it turns out that they completely disabled the ability to broadcast the game using the built-in Share function (the ability to share screen shots and saved videos was disabled back in late June).  This game franchise is effectively toast.


August 1st Note:  See this updated post about the broadcast ability being available again.

Outside of the customary troll posts, let’s just say that for this game, it hasn’t been favorable especially in regards to the open world aspect.  Some players feel the game is an unfinished product (this is actually par for the course with many games).  One recent post caught my eye:

このゲームは個人的にすっごく惜しい ギャルゲーの世界をオープンワールドで表現したゲームが欲しかったんだが 実際はクエストクリア型オープンワールドにギャルゲーをくっつけたみたいな…… リアルタイムに、一緒に登校したり、昼休みに一緒に弁当食べたり遊んだり、デートの移動中の会話も楽しめたり そういう方向に進めばな……

It roughly says they regret (buying) this game as they were hoping it’s open world play would allow quest clearing (following the formula used in most gal games including this game) where there would be more real time activities (like being able to go to school and eating lunch with the other NPC’s, being able to actually engage in conversation during the movie dates, etc).

I’ve pretty much covered this in my initial post.   Tamsoft just doesn’t have that kind of open world adventure development experience though.  Thus most of the open world parts of the game is more about your character running around from place to place (in what would normally be just a simple load screen or animated cut scene) with limited real time engagement with other NPC’s including the games main heroines.

Some folks also complained about the resolution of the graphics; I touched on this as well where the decision to also release this for the PS3, resulted in not taking advantage of the PS4.  Even then, there are some serious performance issues on the PS4 (there is often times a lot of lag time to render and load NPC’s into a zone, and there is noticeable lag when there are a lot of NPC’s moving in an area like towards the end of the day when a large number of them are walking out from the school).  Those performance issues are in the code since the PS4 can handle much more complex details  without much problems (Diablo III Ultimate Evil Edition is a perfect example since it has far higher density, particle effects, and physics during combat where it doesn’t have any issues).

I do understand the dilemma Japanese game developers have since there is still a sizable player population on the PS3.  But designing a game this way where its is held back due to the lowest common denominator rather than being designed specifically to take better advantage of the underlying hardware is a sure fire way to catch a lot of deserved flak.    This isn’t an issue specific to this title though; it’s a common theme with a lot of current day Japanese games where it’s still using designs from the 90’s (you don’t need the horsepower of something like a PS4 to run what is mostly turn based text dialogue with nearly static graphics).

A good example of this is Omega Quintet and to a lesser extent Hyperdimension Neptunia VII on the PS4.  Both (from Compile Heart) still follow the same dialog heavy turn based mechanic with static graphics and fairly simple textures (along with very generic character models) as opposed to more real time action and combat (again, less so with the latter).  Then there is the actual game world which is mostly non-explorable.  I do realize there are many players who enjoy these aspects of JRPG’s but this kind of outdated design on this level of hardware doesn’t even justify their pricing.  And that is why I was hoping the open world adventure design in this game would be good enough to push game design in JRPG’s.

Digressing, I do agree with some of the criticisms regarding how earned items and currency are dealt with.  Currently, the carry over applies when creating a new game after the initial playthrough.  However, the same restrictions still apply anytime you load an earlier save game where any additional currency and items earned are only applicable to the latest game save.

If you load an earlier save for example, you’ll only have access to what you had to that point.  Likewise, if you earn anything during an earlier save and reload a later save, that data remains only with that earlier save.  If you want to keep it, you’ll have to continue playing through the game from that point.  It’s a really messy implementation; one that made sense for the initial playthrough but one that doesn’t make sense after the carry over when creating a new game.

That data is maintained separately in a larger 800+MB “system” save file (that is where quests achievements and the photo gallery data are also stored).  This data should just be universally available (after the initial playthrough) where you can freely load game saves and not have to worry about that.  The smaller game saves however also maintain a snapshot (and that takes preference).

Yen isn’t really a big issue since you realistically don’t need a lot.  You start off with 200,000 and there is a trophy for 1 million but even that is overkill unless you want to get a lot of the higher end “ryu-dama” or magical Dragon Orbs that you get when making an offering at the Dragon God’s shrine.

Ni-channel netizens being what they are, have been letting D3P know about their disappointment with the game play by sending them e-mail.  As I noted, fixing these issues isn’t going to be possible because they are part of the games core design (you cannot just simply patch in real time interactivity due to the costs involved with creating all of that new content).

But I now think the reason for the lack of DLC content (I noted previously there is a Shop button on the main menu) is due to this feedback.  The games avatar mode seems really geared towards outfits (there’s a small amount already available) which is where they usually make a killing with DLC’s (which is why I found it unusual to not see anything).

The game has seen two small patches (1.0.2 was released on July 23rd Japan time) since as noted before, there are a lot of bugs.  And releasing DLC at this juncture when the game has all of these issues would be seen as putting the cart before the horse.  It’s hard to tell if there are a lot of bugs with conditional flags though for specific heroine routes.  What I’m also finding in my second go around is that the Japanese guide that I’ve been following is just that; a guide that is mostly crowd sourced.

While it is fairly accurate, it still isn’t a 100% definitive one.  I’ve already encountered quests and events (that I’ve ignored in this playthrough since I’m following a specific route ending) that roll over to future dates that don’t mimic what’s in the guide.  The info there hasn’t been updated since June 25th though so there could be a lot of feedback that hasn’t been processed.  But this does highlight how extensive the open play is generally outside of the route/ending specific parts.  Had the game been designed with more of the above mentioned real time interactivity, the game could have set a new bar for what’s expected from a Japanese ARPG.

I finally had time to finish playing through the game.  I did manage to get 75% of the quests completed as well as 74% of the NPC’s in the game photographed (yes, you need to take a snapshot of each in order to fill out the character gallery).  Trophy wise, I have around 40% of them which is far more than I expected to get even following the Japanese guide.

Not too surprisingly, I didn’t get any specific heroines ending.  What is surprising is that the trophy awarded for what is the standard ending (さよなら報道部), has been acquired by just 10% of those playing (so many who bought the game haven’t even played through to the end).

There are several important points after completing the first playthrough.  Once that happens, you have access to all your items and currency when starting a new game.  During the first playthrough, if you restart over (new game), none of this carries over.  Thus it is recommended to do an initial playthrough and to acquire as much items and currency so that time does not need to be wasted again to earn money.  Note that this carry over does not happen by simply continuing a game and reloading an earlier date.  You need to actually start a new game to get this carry over (again, only after an initial playthough) to start from the July 7th date.

Finishing the game also reveals the “Free Mode” menu on the main screen.  This mode allows you to bring most of the character models (this also includes the animals) into the game where you can free pose them (X/Y/Z axis, motion, and expression).  Up to 30 characters can be used.  Time also passes in this mode (can be accelerated pressing L3) to allow afternoon and evening scenery.

Unlike avatar mode (which is unlocked for each heroine that you get an alternating ending with except for Megu who is already available), there is no way to change outfits and there is no quick access to other parts of the island (free mode starts off at the school gate) so you have to run your character over to those places if you want to pose them elsewhere (you can’t slide since the square button brings up the character selection box, and there are no bikes in this mode).

Since almost every single emotion, expression, and motion is accessible, it’s not surprising the amount of creativity some folks have come up with.  I just played with it for a short while and found that while it is an interesting novelty, it’s also held back by the inability to change the outfits.

Which leads me to the interesting observation that while there is the “Shop” button on the main menu, that it seems like they aren’t bothering with any DLC for the game.  This is highly unusual for D3P since that has always been a huge cash cow for them.  Part of it might be practical though since there are 300+ NPC’s (some of the artwork assets would need to be specifically modified for some characters due to differing body types).

As far as the game itself, I pretty much covered the bulk of it before.  What I wanted to do was play the game all the way through to give it an actual grade.  Content wise, the game has a lot of it (it just starts off very slow); there’s more I haven’t yet encountered since those will only become available when you pursue each heroines specific route to their individual endings.  For that, I have to give the game an A-/B+.

What hasn’t changed is my opinion on the actual open world game play when it comes to the lack of conveyance with many events and objectives.  Playing through the game without the use of any sort of guide is an exercise in futility given that the majority of it is calendar/time based.  If you removed that aspect, then the puzzle solving nature would be far more tolerable.  For that part, I have to give it a C-.

Overall, I give the game a C+ which is an actual improvement over my initial impressions which wasn’t very favorable at all (I gave it an overgenerous C- which in actuality was more like a D or F).  With the use of the Japanese guides, I actually did enjoy playing it.  And I’m interested in experiencing the other content from playing through to the alternate endings (which is a huge change from initially where I thought my game play would end after one playthrough).

I’m not sure if it would be worth the effort for this game to be localized though.  For games that have a fighting angle to it (like Onechanbara, Senran Kagura, and AKIBA’S TRIP), it’s a lot simpler to do.  AKIBA’S TRIP has some story line to it but it is nowhere near as extensive as the decision tree branching that exists in this game (so there is far more dialog that would need to be dealt with).

I mean, outside of the main characters, even a lot of the Japanese voice dialog is non-existent as you get further into the game.  And as I mentioned before, just having it localized does not help with the lack of conveyance when dealing with completing many quests and events.  And that is the bulk of the game.  The quirky angle of the game that was hyped is really just a tiny novelty (as noted in a previous post, I haven’t really engaged in that part since I know it would get old quick).  I guess we’ll see if XSEED decides to actually tackle this one.

I’m now on August 26th (51st day out of 84) and the amount of overlapping events and quests that have been occurring since around the August 16th has my own game play diverging from the Japanese guide.  Some quests advance the clock by a large margin which results in the inability to catch all events and quests that may also occur on the same day.

This is clearly an intentional design since I’ve only completed 44% of all the quests at this point and there are some heroines who no longer offer events per the guide (meaning my own flags are causing the game to take a different route).

As it turns out, the game actually does have a considerable amount of content (both dialog type and things to actually do) packed into the narrow period of time.  The problem is as what I noted before; the slow initial pacing with the lack of conveyance that progresses into a near frenetic pace as you head into the home stretch where there is literally not enough time in the day to do everything.

And there are clearly different routes to playing through the game.  You can just ignore trying to get any alternate endings with the each heroine or any alternate endings with some of the other NPC’s and just shoot for completing as many quests as possibles.  Events are more pertinent as a tool (along with some key quests) to achieve those alternate endings.  In a nutshell, the games content in terms of its decision tree is not as shallow as I originally opined.

The game play is the issue where you need to figure out the pieces of the puzzle that happen to be vague (like when it isn’t clearly spelled out in the quest objective checklist).  So even if the game were localized into english, players are still going to be running around futilely without having played through it at least once or like in my case, using a guide.

I’m hoping to capture at least 75% of all the quests during my first play through.  To be honest, I wasn’t even expecting to get this far even using a guide as I thought each game day would be fairly repetitive in its nature (to the point where I would need to just stop playing since there is a point in any game where I just cannot do the same thing over and over again – case in point is why I often have to stop playing something like Diablo 3).  But it turns out there is a good mix of events and quests (some that happen on the school ground, others that initiate in town, ones that have a set deadline on the day it was initiated, others that are started earlier and need to be completed by some later date, etc).

Given that I almost put this game aside, I can now say I’ve actually gotten my yens worth out of the game play so far being just a little over the half way point.  And I initially mentioned there was no way I could see myself trying to play for the alternate endings; I’m actually warming up to that idea once I finish the first play through.

July 18th Update: 1st Playthrough Completed

I’m now on August 9th in the game (34th day out of 84 on the island).   The pace of events and quests have picked up and I have to thank those initial Japanese players who crowd sourced all of this information into this ongoing guide.  It’s not 100% yet.  Do note that you still need to have an idea of where certain places are in the game (for ones not noted on the map).

I normally like to play adventure games like this by discovering the objectives on my own.  To be fair, some quest objectives are straightforward but others are still vague.  Like I wouldn’t have known that I would need to go back to the police koban to talk to Ayukawa (the police woman) 2 more times after the initial one (which started the quest to find Shigeru who is lost).  And at least 20 minutes has to pass on the in-game clock for each of those to happen.  The 3rd one is important since she gives you the keyword (blue cat).

These keywords are of course supposed to be used to talk with other NPC’s (the right ones) who can clue you in on more details (likewise, you can come across the final objective on your own without talking to these NPC’s since it spawns in the game once you have these keywords).  Also, this particular quest once initiated, needs to be completed by 18:00 on that day (some quests are like this while others can be discovered earlier, but are only completable at a later date).

Trying to do that (playthrough without any guide) in this game where you are dealing with a 84 day (technically 83 since the final day is basically what ending you get) calendar along with days that start off at 13:30 at the earliest and ends at 19:30 except for those few evening ones (unless you buy that overtime extension ticket for 200,000), would mean multiple re-plays of the same days with a lot of trial and error.

In some respects, parts of this (trial and error) does remind me of when I played Wizardry in the 80’s where I had sheets of graph paper to plot out the dungeon (especially where traps, pits, teleporters, stairs, elevators, areas of darkness, one way doors, and turn tables existed).  This was years before the commercial Internet existed so deciphering games were often a personal exercise until you found a gaming user group or similar dialup BBS where other players shared their findings.  I did have access to the early Internet (which was primarily military and higher education) so I also had access to UseNet newsgroups where I eventually found someone had created a LaTeX document of all 10 floors graphed out (at the time, I had graphed out up to the 5th floor.  Current day versions of these maps are much better since they also show where some of the key items are located.

Natsuiro High School requires some strategic play when it comes to getting around.  There are many short cut paths including the winding road areas where you do not have to take that pinhair turn.   Opening a door consumes 1 minute (so this is something you only want to do when required or when trying to eat up time to get an event/quest to trigger).  5 minutes in game (just standing/running around) is equal to 1 minute real time (yes, in the name of science, I used a stop watch).  Events and quests also may have their own time advancements during and at their conclusion.

Once you’ve gotten the quest where you are able to take on part-time jobs (arubaito) to earn money, each of those have their own specific windows (when you can do them) as well as the amount of time it advances.  The majority of these job giving NPC’s are in the town (except for the cow milking one).

Thus knowing where places generally are and the shortest path to them can make a huge difference in being able to take on and complete everything.  I always use the open walkway on the 3rd floor (when leaving the journalism club room) if my next destination requires going down to the 1st floor or other location since you can just jump down ( I don’t use this however if I have a quest where one of the heroines is following along).  And sliding as a movement speed increase is a continued must as is using the bike when necessary.  Just don’t run into other NPC’s by accident since that will shave off some of your reputation points.

As noted before, all one needs to do now is hold down R2 to pedal.  But to pedal faster requires spamming R2.  Once your character has its head slightly lowered (to indicate faster pedaling), you can just hold down R2.  But continuing to spam R2 will yield the fastest movement speed since doing that yields a slight but noticeable increase over just holding it down.

The game does offer some open dates that can be used to initiate and complete missed quests and events that occurred a few days earlier.  Some of these do not follow exactly what is noted in the above linked Japanese guide if you have any sort of game play deviation (since again, there may be some flags that other players had such as their reputation rating that allowed some of these to trigger earlier/later).

Alternate hair styles are available from the barber if you utilize the final option (where the barber randomly selects a hair cut including ones not initially available).  The barber also offers quests where you take a photo of someone with an interesting haircut and return back to him.  After that, he gives you that hair style and it becomes unlocked.  The samurai style can be purchased at the antique shop for 150,000.

The antique shop also sells a good luck omamori (charm) for fishing which probably helps with getting more larger fish catches (which is where the bulk of your currency will come from).  I haven’t bought it yet but I notice the biggest catch I’ve gotten is the large size; never the extra and very large sizes which is probably where the possession of this charm will help.  The music CD’s you also catch unlock background music that can be changed using the smart phone.  So in what I consider a very surprising move, it looks like they aren’t going to bother offering much DLC’s (even though there is a Shop button) since they would’ve released some by now (the game as far as being streamed has fallen off a cliff just two weeks since launch).

So now that I’ve played the game much more, I get the intent with the systems they went with.  The keywords were meant to allow more engagement with NPC’s.  The problem as I mentioned in my initial posts, is that this starts at the very beginning where the game takes it easy on you by giving you only a few events and quests to deal with.  But you still end up spinning your wheels trying to find the right one (and that initial impression of the actual game play cements itself where many including myself, did not have very favorable ones).   And those first few days are still only priming you for the real madness that is to come.  As I noted in my first revised thoughts post, that pace of quests and events along with their respective NPC’s begins to pickup.

Long dialogs do represent a bulk of the content for events and quests; there are some that do require you to actively take part in something (like the before mentioned bike riding challenge), one that requires you to fish at a certain spot for around an hour (and there are several of these later in the game), one that requires taking a photo of a particular flower (which happened to be on the south side of the island where the winding roads are), another that requires you to find/pickup 30 seashells within 30 minutes (game clock), one that requires you to help find a girls lost bikini at the beach, one where you cleanup the park by picking up 30 pieces of trash, and probably more that I’ve yet to encounter.  Quests that require you to find an item are of course those very faint light orbs that can be hard to spot until you are nearer to them.

The most interesting one to date was the quest initiated at the tourist office (after this quest, the town NPC’s began offering part time jobs) where successful completion required going around the island and taking photos of the noted locations (a little over 20 places).  I had gotten all of them except one that required taking photo of this mountain (which is viewable from near the train station closer towards the marina where there are benches).  I was already near the end of the day and no matter what angle and zoom level (with the mountain top in the viewfinder), couldn’t get the flag to go off.  Worst of all, I could only take 8 more photos (you are able to only take 100 photos each day) as I had burned through over 60 trying to get it to take and had no time to truck it all the way to the school (to use the computer in the journalism room to delete some photos), and then back to town.  I eventually got it with only 2 more free shots left (and less than 2 minutes in real time before the day ended) when I had repositioned myself just a little to the left of where I had been standing.

My point is that it turns out the game has a mix of dialog based content and actual activities to do; but some players were so frustrated early on that they quit playing/have a very poor impression of the game play, and aren’t going to bother.  As usual, it’s more of an execution problem at the game play level than the intent of design itself.  With the above linked guide, the games playable content actually isn’t as bad as I initially felt (and this is still with a little more half of the game play remaining).  I would’ve preferred just playing it the way I usually do (without guides) though.

As I also found, there are designed branches in the game where doing some events will cancel out your ability to do the other.  That is where strategically placed game saves (the game allows only 20) come into play if you want to capture all quests and events (and potentially alternate endings) without starting over from the very beginning.

One thing I am not certain about is how your reputation rating plays into the conditional flagging of certain events and quests.  The antique shop does sell a 100,000 item that wipes out your “past poor record”; something that can happen if you just messed around early on in the game like running into other NPC’s by accident/on purpose, getting caught by the school counselor or police too many times due to poor behavior, selecting the”incorrect” response in a conversation (incorrect is in quotes because some alternate endings will require purposely lowering your affection level for a particular heroine).

I did give the game a very generous C- (realistically, my initial impression was just between a D and F) in my initial game play posting.  I put this around C+ now while the actual content around a B.  I’ll reserve my final grades once I’ve completed a playthrough.  Note that I haven’t engaged in the novelty parts of the game since that is going to mess with my reputation level (and I want to get as much quests and events completed the first time around).

June 26th Update: Revised Thoughts #3

In my initial overview of the game, I made a really brief comment about how the game doesn’t even try to take itself seriously.  I mean, what Japanese game publisher would even have the nerve to actually push the concept of a game that takes place at a high school where the protagonist goes off into the creep zone factor by being able to actually take upskirt shots or even include a transvestite standing outside what is a gay bar in town? (yes, you can choose to take upskirt shots of this dude if you want to since he is wearing a dress).

D3 Publisher (the main Japanese one and not its US counterpart), that is who (the same folks behind OneeChanbara).  They are the ones who come up with the more outlandish concepts and then work with various game developers (who had their original designs embellished with D3P’s) who do the actual coding.  And they are an endless source of what would be considered the B-rated movie equivalent of games (like the first person shooter PS Vita game called Bullet Girls where outfit degradation and groping as a form of interrogation training is part of the deal).   This game publisher has never shied away from controversial, erotic, and taboo subject matters.  While the west and Japan may have some cultural differences, the things Natsuiro High School touches on aren’t meant to be taken seriously either (and anyone who thinks that performing this kind of ninja shotting in Japan is even remotely acceptable must have a few loose screws themselves).  I mean even the choice of character style and the lack of detail should be a clue.  It also often times pokes fun at the reality.

A perfect example is with their other popular franchise, Dream C Club (one of my gal pals who happens to be a big fan of the series, gave me a heads up about this title).  The game is often times characterized as a “dating sim”.  As a dating sim, the game play would be considered seriously lame.  And that is by intent because it is not meant to be a good dating sim.  The publishers are more or less poking fun at the entire hostess club industry though due to the ridiculousness of the costs as well as the fact that the chances of any type of client to hostess romance happening, is virtually zero.  And the game plays on that with its dialog as well as the ability to get each host girl into a state of inebriation where they spill out secrets or even will perform drunken singing/dancing for you.  And what happens if you don’t get any of the alternate good endings?  You get songs normally performed by the girls, sung to (horribly mind you) by the male game designers.  That is the kind of trolling humor we are talking about when it comes to D3 Publisher.

That same level of non-seriousness exists in Natsuiro High where it is poking fun at those guys who go through great lengths to secretly take upskirt photos, only to end up getting caught anyway since often times, their strange behavior gives their intentions away (might as well just do it out in the open like the protagonist does).  Still, some folks may feel that a game that promotes taking upskirt photos of high school girls is pushing things a little too far.  The operative word here is GAME.

Western games tend to focus on military style/thugs shooting and killing with a lot of blood and gore.  And in the case of game franchises like The Witcher, also throws in a lot of sexual elements including nudity.  Are there a lot of stereotypes and objectivism going on many of these games?  Of course there is.  Nothing is sacred.  And for sure, due to the game industry still being male dominated, it isn’t surprising there is this tendency towards objectifying females.  It doesn’t make it right (nor am I saying I’m okay with females being constantly objectified in this manner).  But when it comes to games and films, one of their core elements is the ability to go beyond reality.  And with games, there is also the fantasy role playing element that is often times not based in any reality.  The fact that I can hijack a car, go on a killing spree, or also take perverted photos in GTA is just that.  Someone could do it in real life, but most people know that doing so isn’t legal.

There are also some aspects in Japanese culture and society where it seems there is this tendency for the country to be a source of some of the weird and perverted.  It’s why a comedian like Hard Gay (aka Masaki Sumitani) could be a thing in Japan whereas anyone trying this in the US, would be castigated.  Without going full on into a discussion about social and cultural norms in Japan, lets just say political correctness and gender equality/diversity is still not at the level that it has reached in the west.  Furthermore, while there are a lot of “black and white” issues in Japan, some are less so.  It’s one reason why foreigners are often confounded by the country’s seemingly odd stance when it comes to the morality law (put in place by General Douglas MacArthur during the occupation of Japan after the Japanese surrendered in 1945) where it was strictly forbidden for genitalia (including pubic hair) to be displayed in any adult related media while nudity is often times common place not only on broadcast television, but in comic books and other readily available media.  The laws have since been relaxed where pubic hair is allowed but genitals still need to be censored.

As a result, the sex industry trade in the country has this quirky side effect where the sex related aspect is just that.  It is neither objectified or vilified in the moral sense.  It’s just considered an act that is part of the trade.  Which is why the industry often times has regular people who engage in the activity to make extra money because they are able to separate it from their normal every day lives.  I’m not saying everyone in Japan sees it this way.  What I am saying is there are topics like this in everyday life where Japanese people have this kind of neutral take on what is considered moral and ethical.  From a western view, this would seem kind of wacked in the moral sense since for married people, this would be considered adultery.  I’m not saying this isn’t the case in Japan (as there are many divorce cases resulting from infidelity).  What I’m saying is there is an array of social and personal norms when it comes to morals and ethics that are dependent on the context.

And that aspect often times gets lost in translation because in the Japanese sense where context can be at times specific, and at other times very subtle, these things cannot be translated directly to a western equivalent since a written pictograph as in the case with Kanji, often times has multiple meanings (another aspect of Japanese society and culture that can drive foreigners crazy because they often times view this as vague indirect engagement when it comes to verbal communication).  This attribute also extends to games which by their nature, have a lot of role playing fantasy attached to them.  And Japanese content designers know this full well which is why lot of things including anime, manga, and games, tend to breach a broad range of subject matter that in reality, would be considered taboo.  In those forms, they are considered acceptable because they are not based in reality.  But westerners who tend to see only this oddball side of Japan, tend to form a skewed and incorrect view of Japanese culture.

D3 Publisher also has a female focused RPG game with all male characters (what is good for the goose, is good for the gander).  But female players of these games tend to be less interested in the hentai aspect, and more about the romantic/love interest angle (and so that is the key angle that many female focused RPG’s have taken in Japan).

This same aspect applies to those particular creep level elements in Natsuiro High School including the before mentioned role playing/non-reality based context.  It’s why even the average level headed Japanese female will see that part of the game for what it is; kind of stupid and humorous (from a juvenile angle) where even the small numbers who bought it have a kick at role playing the male protagonist.  Why?  Because they know this isn’t reality where they would take offense to when it does happen in real life.  And this game makes it abundantly clear that it doesn’t even try to take anything seriously because there aren’t much stealth systems (except one of the magic orbs) used for that part of the game.

Whether or not this game gets localized depends on whether or not a company like XSEED picks it up (the European arm of Marvelous Gamings did tweet back in May they are going to keep an eye on it).  They did it with AKIBA’S TRIP 2 (renamed to AKIBA’S TRIP: UNDEAD & UNDRESSED for the localized release), the soon to be released OneeChanbara Z2: Chaos, and are currently working on a winter US release of Senran Kagura Estival Versus.  They actually did an incredible job on AKIBA’S TRIP with adding in the localization while allowing players the option to keep the original Japanese audio and text, Japanese voice acting but with english text, with the english voice acting and text, or with english voice acting and Japanese text.  What may be the deciding factor in not localizing it isn’t the perverted angle but the actual game play issues that I’ve highlighted since those go beyond the language barrier (even Japanese players who don’t want to use guides have ended up calling it “kusoge” or literally shit game due to the conveyance issues I noted).

However, I just wrapped up July 19th (a Saturday) in the game and that date was filled several events and quests where I actually missed two events.  There are also quests that I initiated but don’t need to be completed until a later date.  And as I surmised earlier, more NPC’s appear and can be actively engaged (and eventually begin offering quests).

One of the July 19th quests was actually a rather fun “challenge” which allows you to earn reputation points.  And that quest (upon the first successful completion) changes into an event that you can run as many times as you wish (and earn up to 5 reputation points per successful completion).  It’s a timed bike riding event where you need to ride from the beach to a lookout point at the top of a mountain (and back) where you cannot hit any people (if you do and/or take too long, you fail the goal and don’t earn any reputation points).  It’s a a rather easy challenge since the course doesn’t change and there really aren’t any people in the way.

Since games like this tend to use conditional flags to trigger events, reputation and favorability are likely used.  Continuously running into other NPC’s can lower ones reputation (blue informational dialogs pop up on the upper right for both good and positive changes) so this event can be used to quickly restore those points.

I’m of course following some Japanese guides for those who are completing them as they play.  As I’m finding, the further into the game you get, the more events and quests you begin to encounter.  Most game play videos on YouTube don’t help in the cause since most are footage of players going through trial and error.  Basically, give it several more weeks, and there will be better/edited video guides with what needs to be actually done.

Which leads me to my revised thoughts.  The problem is related to with what I noted earlier with how there are a lot of events that trigger only at specific times in the game.  Because I’m following what others have discovered via what amounts to initial trial and error by many players (where more of that crowd sourced information is now coming together), it’s a whole lot easier for me since I can just head to specific destinations and do the actual quests and events at their specific times and within the deadlines.  And I’m finding the game (outside of some of the unnecessarily long conversational dialogs) actually fun now that more things are actively happening.

However, the lack of structure early on results in many players missing those times, missing those events or quest activations, and are thus having those exact initial feelings that I had with the game feeling devoid of things to actually do where you are kind of just running around and not really accomplishing anything.  In hindsight, the game does start off very slow in terms of the number of quests and events you need to do.  And when you combine that with the lack of conveyance, the game unsurprisingly comes off feeling tedious, frustrating, and just plain bad.  Unfortunately, those initial impressions are lasting ones for many where they just put the game down for good.  But this is why I like to at least try to play the game all the way through to the end.  Some games start off seeming to be fairly decent, but end up being terrible as you get more into it.

But now that I headed into what is the 2nd week on the island, the pace has begun to pickup.  Indeed, if I were playing without any of this information and trying to discover where an event or quest is taking place, my original thoughts would still stand.  The problem is a game design one where the execution of the quests and events (ones that are not initiated from the news room on the 3rd floor of the school) system provides no clues/pointers.

Yes, this is an open world adventure where that kind of hand-holding should not be required, but unless you have a larger majority of the NPC’s spawning into the game where they are all available to hand out quests and events, then some primer needs to be offer.  But as I’m finding, some quest/events are actually linear in their design (they are dependent on having completed something else prior) so the game world in Natsuiro High School is not really one where you can just do any event/quest in any order and still come to the same completed objective.

As of the July 19th game date, I have around only 10% of the quests in the game completed and have only met just 8% of the NPC’s in the game.  Which means that the game is only beginning to pickup. At this juncture, I’m going to continue keeping an open mind about the game and note my playing experience as I go.

June 21 Update: Revised Thoughts #2

The bike riding behavior was changed with the R2 button.  Now, all you need to do is hold down the button to go (no more pressing and releasing continuously to move; which I had mentioned in my other post about how ridiculous this was).

Sliding (when it comes to timing) also seem to be less sensitive than before as I did notice less extra input being missed (part of that might be related to the walk speed changes).  This patch however seems to have introduced a bug with the news room on the 3rd floor though where the pulsing gold event marker is always activated even when I’m inside the room (this is even when there isn’t an event).

Some events themselves may also be bugged.  Like I didn’t get Megu to spawn outside the station for the movie and cafe event even though all conditional flags (favorability and e-mail reply) were met.

The following are additional game play observations

I also didn’t realize before that the faint blueish light orbs that show up randomly on the ground were actually currency.  That exact same graphic is also used for many quest objectives though when you need to find at item (like one of the first quests at the start of the game is to find a black wallet; but that wallet was just this very faint blueish light on top of the green roof that only spawned once I jumped down from the walkway onto the roof).  The only reason I knew it was on the roof was I watched a video of someone who did it (and this isn’t the only quest that is like this).  Yeah, you can go run around and try finding the right NPC to use the keyword with to get more clues but talk about tedium.  My point is they are often times unnoticeable until you get near one (and they often times just spawn randomly once you are in an area).  Again, simple conveyance issues.

Anyway, for dropped currency, they range in denomination from 10円 to 10,000円.  The higher amounts are fairly rare though.   For 10円 coins that you find, those are automatically kept.  For everything else, you are given 3 actions to chose from.  Going from left to right, the first one seems to increase your favorability rating (basically returning it to the person that dropped it), the middle choice allows you to keep the currency at the expense of lowering your reputation, and the last one is where you take it to the police koban and you get 1 or 2 reputation points restored.  This last choice also acts as a quick transport to town if you find one of these far away from the koban.

While not specifically mentioned (probably one of the ones under the miscellaneous category), they also seemed to have patched the bug where you could feed the turtle bait to the cats and dogs.  Feeding them increases their favorability rating to the point where you can get them to follow you around and/or perform tricks (like shaking hands, rolling over, etc).  The turtle bait at the antique shop sell for 350円 while cat food sells for 1,000円 and dog food sells for 2,500円.  You need to feed each animal more than 6 times to get them to do something (which is why many were using the turtle bait since it was the cheapest).

Also, just to give an idea of how far I did not get in my first few days of play, I’m only on my first weekend in the game (July 13th).  The reason is I restarted at least 4 times having failed all but the toilet paper event by trying to figure out the objectives on my own.  The problem is you end up running out of time (and on some days, you may have multiple events that can trigger).  I don’t mind puzzles but for many objectives in this game, they are like this.  I’ve thus resigned myself that I am going to have to rely on other players game play videos/guides (no, I am not going to just not play it as that would be a total waste; I’d like to at least play it to the end, get most of the quests and events, and at least unlock “free mode” since that is good for laughs).  What I won’t do is try for all the alternative endings as it will be really masochistic to try and platinum this game.

I also noticed this first Sunday is devoid of any events and quests.  I’m not sure if it is always like this but I ended up spending most of the game day fishing and then went to the beach where there was absolutely NO ONE (you’d expect at least a portion of the games NPC’s to be spawned here on weekends).  Such days would be good to have missed events spawn so that you can complete them.  General conclusion as noted in my other post is that it really isn’t worth it to run around the other parts of the island (there are only a small number of NPC’s in those locations) since most everything happens at the school or around the town.

The one part that I could not properly assess was the actual control aspect of the game play.  The game play itself was neither better or worse than what I had observed previously.  Character control is fairly standard with the left stick used to directly move the character while the right stick is used to rotate the game world.  The buttons on the left side are used to make the character crouch, lay down, roll left/right, and stand up again.   “X” is used to jump and “▢” is used to slide.

During conversational dialogues, the standard “X” and “O” are used while “△” is used to toggle between manual and auto dialogues (some of these are several minutes long exchanges which means you’d need to manually click through many of these).  Some dialogues offer up the “▢” which allows skipping the rest of the conversation.

R1 is used to bring up your smart phone (for e-mail as well as controlling the music that is being played).  The main audio for that background music (BGM) can be adjusted in the “options” menu (as is the volume level for special effects and each main girls speaking volume).  I usually turn down the BGM audio to where it is just barely audible.  R2 brings up your camera (where R1 becomes your shutter, L1/L2 used to control zoom).  L1 becomes an option when another NPC is involved in a quest (it disengages that NPC when a quest involves them following you).  L2 is used during bike riding (more on that later).

The touchpad becomes available when there are other onscreen UI info as a means to reduce that clutter (such as when previewing outfits in avatar mode which is immediately available for Megu; the rest of the heroines need to be unlocked via favorable game endings).  The games “free mode” photography only becomes available when the game is completed.

With this basic synopsis out of the way, some of the more aggravating issues with the controls present themselves when it comes to sliding and bike riding.  Sliding for example offers faster movement than just running but requires constant mashing of the “▢” button that has to also be timed to slide continuously (if your timing is off, the slide will stop even when you are hitting square basically resulting in needless extraneous input).  Sure, you develop that timing rhythm after awhile but all of this still amounts to excessive button mashing that does little to provide any real visceral feel to the sliding action.

Bike riding is even worse in this regard though.  Bike riding itself offers the fastest means of getting around.  When near a bike, the “O” is used to get either on or off it.  When you are on the bike, L2 is used to back up.  The terrible part of the implementation though is in the forward movement.  That is accomplished by the R2 button which needs to be continuously pressed and released to pedal the bike (the left stick is used for your directional control).  And like sliding, those presses/releases need to be timed to move at a constant or faster speed (faster presses).  Once you move too slowly, the bike stops with a squeak (that can grate on you after awhile) and prompts you with the “O” button to get off (pressing/releasing R2 again will get you moving again).

This may seem like a minor quip but it’s this timed presses (button mashing) that adds unnecessary tedium to the action (the island is filled with narrow and winding corridors which if you hit the sides, can slow your movement down unless you’ve fully mastered navigating those areas with the bike.  I suppose it could’ve been worse where they made you press the left and right buttons to simulate pedaling.  How would I have handled this?  Well, once you are on the bike,  instead of controlling the actual cycling, I would’ve made the R2 button a brake and the left stick forward movement also controlling the speed but with a caveat.  The more you press forward to move faster, the higher the possibility that you can lose control and actually crash (where you would lose 5 minutes of in-game clock time).  Thus you would need to continuously adjust your forward input and/or press R2 to apply some braking.  And all of this would take into account terrain as well as curves.

Speaking of the in-game clock time, I find the lack of a clock on your smart phone really lame.  As noted in my other post, many quests and events in the game are time based (some events will only trigger at specific times and some quests need to be completed within a certain time limit as based on the in-game clock).  On regular weekdays, the day starts off at 15:00 and ends at 19:30 (3PM-8:30PM) while on weekends/other days off, you have the option to start off at the train station an hour earlier.  The date indicator at the top left of the screen does not give any in-game time except for the position of the sun (or moon if doing an event that happens to be in the evening) on the lower semi-circle.

With that said, the game does provide certain places that do have a wall clock (several rooms in the school, that burger place in town, the train station roof, etc) which leads me to believe this was designed on purpose as a form of time sink to force you to move around (else you could just AFK your character and periodically check your smart phone).  Thus the reason players are constantly running around like a chicken without a head.  Note that time still passes when AFKing and during conversational dialogs.  With the latter, I am not sure if this is an intentional design in the game or a bug since as noted earlier, some of these dialogs aren’t short (and in those cases, using auto may not be beneficial since you can quickly skip through such dialogs by spamming/holding the “O” button).

The easiest time accelerators are using the urinal (10 minutes forward for every pee) or heading to the nurses office on the first floor (which is in the wing on the side facing the lighthouse) and standing near the first bed (when the “O” button will pop up).  There will be 3 resting options based on your answer to the dialog buttons (30 minutes, 1.5 hours, and 5 minutes from left to right).  There is a wall clock in here as well.  Opening room doors (when starting a new day) doesn’t shave much time off the clock (I didn’t really check but it seems around 1 or 2 minutes per door opening at most).

One of the more productive time wasters is fishing since you can sell whatever fish that you do catch, to a town merchant that runs a shop in the city (you can also buy items here that can be given as presents which can increase your affection level with any one of the eight main heroines). The bigger fish naturally sells for more and is one of the key ways to increase your base currency (all characters start off with ￥20,000) besides those occasional random orbs that you can pickup from the ground.  You can not only catch fish, but other items like CD’s, bra’s, panties (these other items don’t seem to be sellable but can be given away as presents).  Fishing is also timing based (when the “!” mark appears/controller vibrates and when you press the “O” button).   I am not sure exactly how much time passes with each line cast since the nearest clock is the burger place in town (I didn’t bother doing a game save which would also show the in-game time).

Yes, some quests have a time limit deadline on them once initiated.  Like one that I came across needed to be done in 30 minutes.  That is not 30 minutes real time but 30 minutes on the in-game clock.  So if you perform any actions in the game that shaves off time like peeing 3 times for example, you will have literally pissed your quest objective away.  This of course is not unique to this game as many JRPG’s have these kinds of systems in place especially with calendar based games.

And that is where the lack of proper conveyance that I noted in my other posting, becomes an issue.  The map does not provide any sort of ping or objective markers so you are left to run around as quickly as possible from place to place.  Many quests themselves are of this type (go to destination A, then B).  This aspect of the design does not lend itself well to exploration because you need to beat the time deadline; not that it really matters much since as mentioned, the game world is devoid of many NPC’s to begin with; the vast majority of them seem to exist primarily in the school and city center and some of them likely only spawn/become actively engage-able after certain calendar dates.  Furthermore, most of the island is a un-navigable forest.

There is a pasture with cows where once activated, you can earn money by milking a cow.  Getting there is out of the way though (and thus takes more in-game time than needed); you have to take that road that runs around the east-southeast part of the island, then go up a narrow/winding path, and then back again (since the main action is usually at the school/city) whereas the nearest area you can fish (the marina) is near the school and city.

My point is that the game lacks real overall content for what is billed as an open world adventure, and uses plenty of time sinks (in the form of long and often times, uninteresting dialog/banter or the above mentioned running around) to disguise this aspect.  Being a long time ARPG player on the personal computer (dating back to the original turn based Wizardry in the early days), the repetitive nature of the genre is something I’m used to.  What makes the difference though is how that repetition is handled.

In those kinds of dungeon crawler game where its this balance of character progression (in terms of how your experience level affects your characters abilities via the points that are put into key attributes and skills) as well as items that are found that enhances your offensive and defensive capabilities, the repetition of the content is offset by directly impacting your characters overall potential (you may find a better item for example, gain more experience and leveling up your abilities, obtaining more currency that has various sinks associated with them to potentially increase your characters abilities, etc).

Basically, it’s this constant tension of effort and reward and the dopamine effect when something good happens.  Repetition of content without this leads to a very boring and eventually frustrating game play experience.  Games like Wizardry I-III and the first two Diablo games did a fairly decent job in this area (whereas Diablo 3 got this part totally wrong from the start, and has been constantly bandaid patched since release to try and “fix” what is a flawed underlying core design; something I’ve noted ad nauseum many times in this blog).

Natsuiro High School’s repetitive nature wouldn’t be so bad if the open world adventure aspect of the game wasn’t this underwhelming and lacking in the fun department (the game play becomes mostly robotic to trigger events/quests and to quickly do them for the purposes of unlocking all the trophies; the adventure and exploration part is mostly non-existent).    Again, I didn’t really expect much since this isn’t Tamsoft’s forte (and as noted in my other post, their first stab at it).  The disappointment level when it comes to expectations is nowhere near as bad as it is with Blizzard’s Diablo 3 though (which is the worst for me when it comes to being a game that under delivered at launch in terms of living up to the Diablo name, and continues to under deliver 3 years later; and no less from a AAA studio where the expectations are even higher).

As for this game, not even the novelty factors can really justify its release price either (7,480円 on PS4 and on 6,980円 PS3).  I rarely buy Japanese games new since used ones (in as good condition as newly released ones) often can be found from Japanese stores/sellers/resellers a few weeks after launch.  So this one is my fault for not waiting a bit (having seen enough game play, I wouldn’t have even bothered to pick this up at all unless it hit the sub ￥1,000 bargain basement bin).

The main menu does have a “shop” button but there currently isn’t any DLC in the PlayStation Store.  D3 Publisher normally releases DLC in bunches and I’m surprised there wasn’t an initial group at launch besides the pre-order micro-bikini bonus.  Given the “avatar” and free mode parts of the game, I’m presuming any DLC content will be in the form of outfits and alternate hair styles.

Sorry, but this game in its current state isn’t worth spending any more additional money on as far as I’m concerned.  For a 2015 release, it’s far from a quality one when you just look at the basic graphical and pathing issues in the game (I didn’t even cover programming related glitches since at this time, I didn’t bother to try to see if they were reproducible).  Nor does it even try to take advantage of the horsepower of the PS4 (the graphics in this aren’t even going to be taxing for a PS3).

I’ll be even more blunt; it’s like Tamsoft didn’t even put in any effort in the underlying design.   Yes, I do realize that D3 Publisher is not a big publisher with a huge budget to throw to the actual developer (Tamsoft) but seriously, the kind of bugs in the game are basic QA stuff that should’ve been caught from basic testing (because you would expect some general level of personal pride in the quality of the code that is shipped for your clients).

The default background music when on the high school grounds, is a perfect example of this lack of attention to detail.  The music itself is an upbeat piece.  But it is at times ironic in its upbeat tone since there are times during a dialog where the mood doesn’t match that music (like when the overly tsundere Tamaki goes off on an anger filled rant at the protagonist or when Megu is telling a somber story).  I don’t care if the game doesn’t try to take itself seriously.  BGM should at least offer some context or at least convey a subdued neutral tone if in a setting which has the possibility of offering a wide array of moods/emotions in those dialogs.  It’s like how the Benny Hill theme song can make anything seem “funny” even if the actual content isn’t.

D3 Publisher has one major franchise that they have yet to bring to the PS4 as far as a proper game is concerned, and that is its Dream C Club franchise (Tamsoft is also the developer).  There is the free but DLC heavy Host Girls on Stage for the PS4 but that is only the karaoke singing part.  Everything else in that is reused content including the DLC.  After seeing Natsuiro High School, I really doubt they will put much effort into taking advantage of the hardware (PS4 and Xbox One) for that franchise.  I will even go out on a limb and say they will use the same decision tree based dialog system that is used in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game.  And since they have yet to announce anything, that new game will probably be a 2016 release (and likely have no better graphics or game play compared to the one released in 2009).

If I were to grade Natsuiro High School, overall it would be a C- at best.  And that is being somewhat generous.

June 14, 2014 Update: revised observation