Part 6

Part 6

Last time we finished with the actual investigation. So today, as expected, we gather everyone together and explain the mystery, Or, well, since our protagonist is silent, it's more like we gather everyone and then we all figure the mystery out together, led by the chemistry teacher! Well, it was mentioned that he's a mystery novel buff, so... at least that makes a bit of sense!

Click on the picture to watch the video!



And there we go. As for the mystery solution, it was kind of not that surprising, but it has to be said that at least most of it makes sense and fits together reasonably. What definitely DOESN'T make sense is why all those girls would be falling head over heels for this creep. But I was personally never a teenage girl, so what do I know. Still, most of these girls seem reasonably intelligent so it definitely seems a bit unrealistic that he could just be dating them one right after the other (especially after how he treated his previous dating "partners"). I mean I guess at least Haruka tried to stop it.

But anyway, here the last couple of pictures, and then I'll give a few of my thoughts about the game.





So, what can one say about this game in the end?

Lost masterpiece it definitely isn't; however, it not really that bad either. Honestly, mostly it seems like a game shackled by the technical limitations of the console it runs on. I mean on PC a game like Gabriel Knight 2 was released in 1995 (three years earlier) and although it's on 6 CDs as opposed to this game's 4, it's still way bigger in scope and it takes several times longer to finish. If I had to guess, the processing power of the PlayStation 1 was the limiting factor in how compressed the video can be while still remaining possible to have normal playback. So we ended up with a game like this which is relatively small in scope--don't forget that one train car is its entire playing field! So from that standpoint it's good that it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Apart from that, the other aspects of the game are fine. The acting is of more than acceptable quality with, to me at least, the standouts being actors portraying Haruka, Mabuchi and Dr. Ibuki. From the younger set, interestingly, it's actually the actress portraying Sanae (Fukada Kyouko) who ended up with the biggest post-game career. Though her performance here is hard to judge as her role is very small compared to the others.

As for the writing, it's also in my opinion somewhat better than expected. It actually at least tries to tackle some "harder" subjects such as nepotism culture and the abuse of power by the teachers and the consequences it has. It's also interesting for a mid 1990s piece of Japanese media that it's relatively unambiguously critical towards the student/teacher dating situation (which was definitely not a given back then). I also liked the lighter touches in the script, where e.g. the chemistry teacher looks like he's going to be a massive jerk, but then turns out to be just a normal guy, whose biggest sin is that he can be a little annoying sometimes.

Anyway, I think it's a decent enough diversion for a couple of hours (which is how long it will take you to play through it) and I just thought it would be fun to do a really short game, in comparison to the types of games I usually play here!

So, I hope you enjoyed this too, and I will (hopefully) see you over in my other, soon to be continued LP!

Until then, take care!