Archive for the Eleanor W Category


Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story on Nintendo Switch, Guest Review by Eleanor W.

September 13th, 2023

Hello again. I’m back for another game review. You can find me lurking around the Internet @st_owly as usual. Today I’m looking at:

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story. The Nintendo Switch Game

I LOVE Birdie Wing, it’s everything I ever wanted out of a sports anime, so I was very excited to discover this was being localised, but…

When you first load the game, there’s a quick tutorial to show you the controls, then on you go to “story mode,” which loosely follows the storyline of the anime and sets up matches against various characters. And when I say “loosely” I mean it. There’s no meat to it, barely any of the anime story is actually there, it’s more like random characters appear, there’s a bit of dialogue and challenge Eve to a match. When you finally beat the last stage it just kind of stops and puts you back to the main menu so quickly you don’t realise what’s happened, and there’s no resolution to the story or anything. My main thought was “that’s it??”

There’s also a free play mode which is just the Nafrece U15 course and Anri’s putting shop. 

The graphics are fine; nothing special, but not terrible either. One big omission is that there’s no voice acting, even just yelling the names of the attacks when you/your opponent used them would be better than silence. The multi hole stages are also incredibly frustrating, as you can’t save after each hole, so if you fail the stage you have to go right back to the beginning. I lost count of how many times I failed the final 6 hole stage, but I do think the game learns when you’re bad at it and matches your opponent to your level. It’s very bizarre seeing Eve and co get double bogeys.  (I HATE PUTTING). 

The best way I can really describe this game is half finished and wasted potential. It seems like there’s so much more that could be done with it, but for whatever reason it was rushed out in this incredibly incomplete state. 

Let the record show that I did *once* get an eagle. I’ve never yet managed it again. 

The music is also just generic elevator music, the developers definitely missed a trick by not even having “Venus Line” as the menu music. The translation is also patchy at best, with lots of spelling errors and awkwardly constructed sentences. A Chinese translation is also available in the settings menu but I can’t comment on that.  

Example of the type of spelling/grammar mistake the dialogue is littered with. 

 

Ratings:

Art/music – 5/10. Thoroughly inoffensive and forgettable

Yuri/service – 0/10. Both non-existent. 

Story – 0/10. What story?

Characters – 1/10. Who are these people and why do they keep challenging me to play golf with them?

Gameplay – 3/10. A couple of little tweaks would make it so much less frustrating. I eventually developed a strategy which involved as little putting as possible and eventually finished the game, but it took *many* hours. 

Overall 3/10. It’s just a golf sim which happens to be loosely inspired by Birdie Wing. Don’t bother with it, even if you like golf sims, because it’s not even that great at that. And for the love of all that is holy please get a native speaker to proofread the translated dialogue before you release something. 





Pulse, Volume 1 and Volume 2, Guest Review by Eleanor W

March 8th, 2023

Two women lay, clasping hand, sprawled in a bed of white flowers. "Pulse" is written in large cursive letters across the cover in a cursive letters that end in a heartbeat from a cardiac monitor.Welcome to Guest Review Wednesday, where you and I both get the benefit of someone else’s voice here on Okazu! This week we welcome back Eleanor W with a look at the Seven Seas edition of Rata Satis’ Pulse. I reviewed Satis’ own release of this book in 2016! Wow, time flies. I’m looking forward to hearing what Seven Seas has done with this series, so take it away, Eleanor!

Hello again, as always, it’s nice to be back. You can find me on various parts of the Internet as @st_owly, including the Okazu Discord. This is a series that has been on my radar for a while, but I’d never quite gotten around to it until I saw the first volume in the shops. I’m grateful as always to Erica for offering me the opportunity to review it. 

2022 was the year print editions of webcomics exploded, with several publishers now offering full colour printed graphic novel editions of popular comics from online platforms such as Webtoon, Tapas and Lehzin. Most of these releases are of Korean comics, but today’s review covers a notable exception. Pulse was originally released on the Lehzin comics platform, and is by Thai artist Ratana Satis. Due to the mature content, this series is not available on the Lehzin iPhone app, you can only read it on their website.

The synopsis from Seven Seas on the back of Pulse, volume 1 is as follows:
Mel, a renowned heart surgeon, is well-known for being a stoic loner. She views her erotic flings with other women as a tool for pleasure rather than a show of affection. Then she meets Lynn, a beautiful and spirited cardiac patient who needs a new heart, but refuses a transplant. The two women meet with minimal expectations but soon become enthralled in a relationship that changes everything for them both.

This Girls’ Love comic–and first place winner of the 2nd Lezhin Comics World Comic Contest–is one of the most popular series by fan-favorite Thai creator Ratana Satis, also known for Soul Drifters and Lily Love.

Seven Seas covers are usually excellent, and these two volumes are no exception. The title is embossed on the volume covers and spines, and the heart monitor line in the logo is a nice allude to the theme of the series. The volumes themselves are printed on nice glossy paper, and the lines and ink are crisp, especially important for a full colour release. Moving on to the actual contents of the books, it’s nice to read a yuri story where one of the main characters is openly described as a lesbian. The first 2 chapters are all about Mel. Lynn, the other protagonist, isn’t actually introduced by name until chapter 3, when after a chance meeting in the hospital corridor, circumstances mean that she and Mel meet formally as doctor and patient. Lynn strong arms Mel into buying her lunch the next day, and as the book progresses they gradually start getting to know each other. Read together, volume 1 feels like an introduction, setting the stage for the actual story to start in volume 2, but I don’t see this as a bad thing.

Volume 2 begins with Lynn showing up at Mel’s apartment and announcing she’s moving in with her. U-haul lesbians are a meme for a reason, but this is fast even by lesbian standards. There’s even an obligatory yuri aquarium date later on in the volume, where it’s lovely to see them both just genuinely enjoying each other’s company and, as the book goes on, Mel realising she cares for Lynn in more than just a professional way. Hints at Mel’s romantic past are sprinkled throughout the 2 volumes, no doubt all will be revealed later on, and I’m definitely sticking around to find out. The two of them are too charming not to, and I’m rooting for them to get their happy ending. 

 

Ratings:

Art: 8. Whilst it’s not particularly unique, it’s attractive and well done and some of the facial expressions are a delight.

Story: 7. Don’t think about it too much, just enjoy it for what it is and you’ll forget how implausible the scenario actually is (does this hospital not have an ethics board?) 

Characters: 9. These two really do make the series. Lynn reminds me of a little puppy with her energy and eagerness to please, Mel is the cold hearted one who “doesn’t like dogs” and their growth, both as individuals and as a couple, over the two volumes is very endearing. Service (level of salaciousness): 10. This one is rated Mature and shrink wrapped for a reason. The erotic scenes are plentiful (2 in the first chapter alone) and there is very little left to the imagination. 

Yuri: 9. Two women who need each other more than they both realise. It’s lovely to see Mel opening her heart (no pun intended) to Lynn. 

Overall: 8. If you’re looking for something with adult characters and a decent bit of spice which isn’t just porn, you could do a lot worse than Pulse. 

Erica here: Thank you so much! Now that this is available digitally, I might pick up the next volume and see where the story leads ^_^