If you like — or would like to like —  Flowers -Le volume sur printemps– the newest Yuri Visual Novel from Japan available in English, you may wish to re-read the fantastic review of the Japanese language version by Jye N. Before play, I re-read it myself just to be prepared.

With that said, I began Flowers-Le volume sur printemps- with no expectations. It is available on Steam, directly on the JAST USA website, or as a physical edition on J-LIST.

Immediately I realized that I had been thrown into a tale that was being marketed completely, utterly wrong. It’s not a Yuri VN. It’s a lesbian VN – with a lesbian main character suffering from crippling social anxiety and PTSD from an abusive family situation, put into a world so strange and incoherent that it’s a bit like a nightmare scenario.

Suoh has, we learn very quickly, no social skills, because of circumstance, a painful past, a bad home life and plot needs. But it becomes immediately apparent that “poor social skills” is not nearly sufficient to describe the excruciating pain and suffering this girl goes through to eek out a “Good morning.”

I was prepared to not like Suoh, but, when a week into the story, she was making minor progress, I decided to keep at it a bit longer. I played her straight, that is to say, I chose paths that fit the character we were given as a written and thought I was doing well when the game came to an end. ??? So, I went back and made a different decision. And then another. All of them ended in one of two ways, either, I screwed up or ruined everything. So I backed up again, and serially replayed every possible combination of the two questions …and there was no way forward. At which I grew bored and stopped. I consider it the story’s job to compel me to continue. As I had yet to feel anything other than pity for Suoh, and mostly to very much disliked everyone else, I did not feel so compelled.

Apparently I needed to have backed up to an earlier decision and changed my methods, but my nature doesn’t allow me to play characters out of character. A girl with crippling social anxiety is not going to suddenly be rude or forward. It makes no sense, and if the game requires me to act out of character for the character to proceed, they did a crappy job of writing, I say. ^_^;

Jye wrote that the art is beautiful. It is – if blandly but prettily realized imaginary westernish Christianish schools and schoolgirls is your thing. It’s a reasonable assumption if you read my blog, you know that, for me, it is not, in fact, my thing. ^_^ Again, if St. Miator appealed to you in a way that Lillian did not, you’ll probably like the art here at Saint Angraecum.

Technically, the game was relatively simple. The window-size made it impossible for me to access the controls, but once I shifted my configuration to fullscreen, there was no further difficulties. Jye noted that choices were colored red or green to indicate suitability, but all I noticed was green – even when I hit my dead end oubliette. All the choices were green and they were all wrong. And the negative ending didn’t honestly make all that much sense. But oh well…

The voices are pleasant but, as so often with VNs, randomly distributed. Clearly I missed some important memo about having every fifth line voiced…and never particularly important ones, but always every “…” and “ah” and breath. I apologize if I sound peevish here. This makes no sense. At all. I expect the important things to be voiced. Not the unimportant ones.

Which leads me to the translation. It was pretty good. The dialogue is stilted, and the writer had an odd obsession with throwing in “current” movie titles, which will quickly date the game, but in most cases, I felt that the translation was decent. There was even a surprisingly interesting conversation about the sexism and Christian themes in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series. I would have liked the story so much more if it had more of that, and less of the fetishized ballet lessons and stressing about being partnered with one or another character. The only problem with the translation was that there was something in the original that made the language puzzles make sense that were lost in translation – or, to be fair, I just completely missed them. But usually, I’m pretty good about that and the obvious connections did not work, so I don’t know, ultimately what I missed there. The kanji might have been more evocative than the English. (After research, I find that my initial choice was, in fact, correct. I have no idea why the game didn’t let me move forward.)

If you enjoy the stylized narrative of a impossible Christianish school in which girls act like no humans actually act and speak in mysterious ways, in order to pair them up as romantic and sexual partners, then Flowers is definitely for you. Not so much if, spoiled by the ridiculously well-written characters of Kindred Spirits, you were hoping for something similar.

In short, if Kindred Spirits is the Maria-sama ga Miteru of Yuri VNs, with compelling characters and decent dialogue, then Flowers is very much the Strawberry Panic! of Yuri VNs, with unreal, overblown dialogue, characters who function as types, rather than people, designed to be viewed with suspicion and distrust until proven loyal.

I want to come back to Suoh one more time before I wrap up. There is nothing at all that reads more like a character who is a closeted lesbian written by a guy than a hyper-oversensitivity to touch and sight of any portion of another girl. Suoh spends so much of her first week averting her eyes from even so much as glancing at a classmate in the changing room that I imagined her walking through her days, peering carefully through a hand over her eyes. Clearly, her painful past included a confession, although I never got that far.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story:  6 I agree with Jye, it’s not very tight. It’s trying to be too many things at once.
Characters: 7
Service: I’m going to quote Jye here directly: “5 – I bought it as demonstrating the girls’ attraction to each other.  Bump it up if you really like skinny sixteen year-olds?” I’d add sixteen year-olds with oversensitivity to being seen as lesbian.
Yuri:  5, as I couldn’t find the apparently appropriate route.

Overall:  6

None of this is to say it’s a bad VN. It’s targeted to a portion of the Yuri audience that does not include me. If you’re an avid VN reader, and like the challenge of bringing Suoh out of her shell and into the arms of a partner who will love her, you will probably enjoy Flowers-Le volume sur printemps- very much.

Many thanks to JAST USA for the review copy!

2016 has been a year of surprises for us here at Okazu. Among the many firsts, was the very first time I managed to get through a Yuri Visual Novel, with the extraordinary Kindred Spirits on the Roof.  Since then, I’ve had a number of opportunities to try out other Yuri VNs, but so far, being compelled to complete a story has eluded me. You know how I am. ^_^

Imagine my pleasure, then, when Highway Blossoms, from Alienworks and Sekai Project became the second Yuri VN I completed! High praise indeed, since I’m such a curmudgeon about the VN format. ^_^ I was provided a beta version of the game by co-creator Josh Kaplan – we’ll be talking to him later in the week.

The story has a unique setup – Amber is escaping dealing with the death of her grandfather who raised her, by traveling to California in his old RV. On the way, she picks up a hitchhiker, Marina, who involves Amber in a treasure hunt and a life-changing set of experiences.

Right off the bat, being freed from the confinement of a school setting was refreshing. The backdrop of an RV road trip was both uniquely American and a little nostalgic. Most Americans my age remember a great deal of their childhood spent on highways going somewhere or other. ^_^

The dialogue is some of the least awkward I’ve read in a VN, although I am already exceedingly tired of the cynical/naive  pair that seems to be common in VNs. I know that writing original characters is hard, but I have to say, I think folks who work in visual novels make it seem a little bit harder than it actually is. ^_^; Luckily for us, both Amber and Marina develop quite a bit during the course of the story.

I’d like to give the writing some props here, as that is, by far and away, the thing that keeps me interested. The achievements have no meaning to me and I find the whole unlocking-an-image-as-a-reward really exhausting and unmotivating. On the positive side, Amber is presented to us as a woman who has had girlfriends in the past, and is apparently well past discomfort with that, generally. Her feelings around Marina are, specifically still a bit of an issue, but it’s not that she’s attracted to Marina that’s the problem, it’s the relationship she’s created with Marina in her head that is the issue. Later in the story, we catch a throwaway side character flirting with Amber and it doesn’t faze her at all. Apparently fandom has embraced that pairing, as they do so often with the unlikely.

The treasure hunt, which seemed silly on the face of it, became a terrific lead-in to a tour of American western landmarks. I quite liked the travelogue bits and think the story could have stood up to a few more cheesy bits of Americana. ^_^

Acting as foils to Amber and Marina, are a trio of characters that I can honestly say added almost nothing to the story except a trio of characters. I wish so desperately they were written like really decent humans, rather than stereotypes. Again, I appear to be alone in this, but the screaming was so very unneeded to move the story or character development along. Every scene the “trio” showed up, I unconsciously rewrote in my head to make shorter and more meaty. They could have functioned as society, as foils, or even enemies, but ended up more often just being tropes.  The few times they actually added something to the story I was relieved. And they did, ultimately add to the story…they just could have added so much more.

The romance developed rather naturally, along with the story. A few of the scenes were genuinely touching and sexy. There is a voluntary patch that can be added in to supply adult scenes. They didn’t add anything specific to the story, but weren’t terribly written, which was a relief. There was one oddly realistic moment in the sex scenes, that was kind of dumped in our lap, but never dealt with, that I honestly had no idea what to do with as I read. It’s left hanging, unresolved and while real, felt out of place.

But these are small nitpicks in what is otherwise a very satisfying narrative. Individually, weak elements might be weak, but as part of the whole, it hung together rather well and I was actually moved to finish the darn thing.

In Louis’ review of Starlight Vega he discusses the place of sprites in the VN mechanism. I have to say, I found the transitions here much more natural….but I am still befuddled at the refusal to take a half second and simply draw the characters more naturally in keeping with the text. “X puts arm around Y”, could really just be a still of X with their arm around Y and I will forever not understand why it isn’t. I still find the 2-Dness of the characters awkward and in some places, laughable, specifically when they are being flipped back and forth to show them “looking around.” Coulda just turned their head, but nope. I’ll never fathom this, apparently.

There is no gameplay as such. You receive achievements as you complete scenes. There were a few goofs in the beta version, the journal entries were misnumbered and I was unclear on the meaning of some of the achievements, but Steam assures me I gained them all. Phew. The achievements have rather cutsey names and so am not sure what some of them actually refer to in the story.

The soundtrack is worth mentioning and while I personally often turned it off, because I read faster without the distraction, the fact that it was original music that suited the tone and location of the story was fun and impressive. The soundtrack is available for purchase as a separate download and I can definitely see folks wanting that on its own.

The art is generally good and has moments of excellence, with one exception. There is literally one scene that was clearly put together by a different team and was glaringly not as good, but all the main art pieces were lovely and a few worth adding to my Yuri screensaver. It was in the art that you could clearly still see the Japanese VN influence.

So…was Highway Blossoms good? I’d say yes.

Ratings:

Art – 8, with one scene as an exception
Story – 8 Generally satisfying
Characters – 9 They grow on you, which is a sign of good storytelling
Yuri – 10 Yep
Service –  5 There are the optional sex scenes, but they are surprisingly not skanky or service-y

Overall – A solid 8

If you are looking for an entertaining, and pretty chunky Yuri Visual Novel, I’d recommend Highway Blossoms for a nice bit of storytelling, freed from almost all of the most stifling tropes of Japanese media. And, at the moment it’s 15% off on the Steam store, which makes it a steal at $8.49 for decent bit  of content and a few hours worth of fun.

Check out the trailer if you haven’t already and let me know what you think in the comments!

Lulled into a false sense of confidence by the near-lack of interaction required for Kindred Spirits, I have once again attempted a game for you. Black Closet by Hanako Games is, in every way, as far from Kindred Spirits as a Visual Novel can be and still share a one-line description. Black Closet is a visual novel set at an all-girl school. After that, everything is completely different.

While Black Closet is a Visual Novel, it is also a mystery-solving game in which you, the Student Council President must solve mysteries in order to preserve the school’s reputation, sustain the student council’s karma and and generally be a badass President, which will, ultimately, get you a chance for romance and even to create custom characters.

After a spin or two with the storyline/gameplay, I felt completely out of my depth, so I brought in a “designated gamer” to help me out, one of Yuricon’s most dedicated supporters and my dear friend Kelli, who designed Yuricon’s very first “I Love Yuri” logo and contributed a great deal of Yuri and Midori fanart to Yuricon’s gallery over the years. Kelli is an experienced gamer, and loves mystery games so I had confidence in her opinion. And her opinion matched mine – this is a very complicated game.

As the Student Council President, you have several council members, among whom is a traitor. You must use the skills they possess to weed out clues, match them up with students and situations to solve these mysteries, by “persuading” or “questioning” or “guarding” or even “stalking or “assassinating” …but there is a tremendous amount of randomness in the game. You might do all the right things and still not solve the mystery – or solve it and really have no idea why.

After saving a game, I found a file that suddenly had useful notes about that “week”, but I couldn’t access those until after I saved – and you can only save after a week is complete. (You can suspend your progress anytime and return to the game where you left it, but you can only save the case at the weekend, which the game tells you and then you can see the case notes…something that is not explained anywhere. I just had to figure it out.

For instance, I knew which student I had to persuade to tutor an important student in French – and I was able to persuade her to do so, but the important student simply didn’t care and I didn’t succeed in solving the case. In Kelli’s case, she noted that “There was this one case where I was staking out this hallway and I was sure that was the right action… I did it several nights in a row… then the one night I don’t do it, a student tries to burn down the school”

Each case has a finite amount of time to “solve” and you get basically one action/turn a day. As Kelli said, “A couple of times, I was sure I would solve it the next day or two but then it just failed. It would tell me why it failed and at least once, I know I did the assignment that could have prevented it but apparently I didn’t do it on the right day.”

Kelli also noted that “there’s not a lot of back story to the game world and that makes it hard to get into the characters. Every weekend, you get to spend time with one or two and these little episodes can give you insight into them… but not much. I played it for about three hours off and on and I’m still kind of clueless. I’m hoping that a few more “weeks” of cases might bring up more story but if it’s there I haven’t gotten to it yet.”

You’re told that there is history between you and most of the council…but not what that history is. And several of the members seem impossible to please. Both Kelli and I noted that the game appears to want you to be mean and suspicious all the time, which seems like a stupid way to play, but I guess you couple play the game as a jerk to see what happens.

So gameplay-wise there is a *lot* going on. Maybe, even. a little too much. I think I’d have to play a lot more to bring the characters to the point where they develop a bit, as Kelli noted “if the characters don’t start becoming interesting soon, the gameplay isn’t going to carry me through to the end.” And we agree that “As your characters get more skill ups it would be easier to catch the bad guys, but that means a lot of initial failures,” and it’s hard to tell if the game is giving you any leeway or it’s got a rigid set-up at first.

Personally, I liked the weekends with the council members. I played a few weekend visits over several times, and so far haven’t unlocked anything critical in the choices. No one seems to care if you serve tea and shortbread or sandwiches, I still managed to gain loyalty points. But I never tried them being a jerk and maybe that might change things. So some choices don’t matter, but the actions in the game do.

On the positive side – the game is stylish. Really stylish. Not just good character designs (they range from cute to straight-guy-idea-of-sexy, with probably someone to appeal to everyone) but even the text boxes fit the mood. and setting. No boring box across the bottom here. And presumably, if you keep playing, there’s romance (although the screencap for “romance” feels awfully like I’m suddenly watching Speed Grapher‘s ubiquitous masked secret sex club scenes.

Black Closet costs $19.95 and can be purchased directly from the Hanako Games website or on Steam.

I would recommend it, with slight reservations. IF you really want to be involved in the story, then yes, definitely get it!  There’s  a LOT of content here and it deserves someone figuring it all out. If you prefer a linear narrative and/or just prefer a click-through story, you might find this VN to be more work than you want.

I’ve played five scenarios, one three times and still don’t quite get how the game works, really. ^_^ But I sort of want to be able to break it and make it work for me. OTOH, I have the patience of a four-year old child when it comes to games. So we’ll see if I get anywhere. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Gameplay – 7 A lot of mechanics to get used to, but once you do, it makes sense. Unless it doesn’t
Story – 6 I barely scratched the surface, playing five scenarios, and three weekends and I wish it had given me a bit more to work with.
Characters – 7 You know that’s what I care about but, like the story, I made Vonne smile once, Althea smile once and fed Rowan cookies and that’s about all I have for you.

Overall – 7, with potential for more. It’s almost like the game is a standoffish person on a date, that you want to get to know better, but it’s not giving you anything to work with!

Once again I asked the game creator about the name and the answer I got as awesome:

I have a great weakness for multi-level puns/references. Out of ‘black’ and ‘closet’ we get:

black room / cabinet noir: which works as a secret location for our detectives to be spying on everyone

black ops: clandestine work for the government which will deny all knowledge of it, again connecting to a lot of the secret work that the council is doing for the school to protect its reputation

black bag jobs: breaking-and-entering into locations to get evidence, which is something the student council does when it wants to search students’ rooms

closet: a general place people keep secrets, secret discussions between a restricted few (like a jury), and the obvious associations with hidden sexuality

Since the game came out I believe some horror TV show has also had a “black closet” which is possibly where the torture equipment is kept? I think I’ve also encountered a black closet in fiction where someone kept her BDSM toys, but I don’t think that one’s too commonly known. :)

I don’t expect anyone but me to think about it in QUITE that much detail, though.