My rank from most favorite to least:
1. Cleavage (…biggest lead; need to keep this in the running)
then these 3 about together:
2. Yume Miru Kurusi (Dream Drug)
3. Hello Spring
4. Summer Girl
then:
5. Yu no Hana (although this one is still quite good)
(Death Meta isn’t the artistic style I like.)
On Cleavage – I can understand where the nay-sayers are coming from since it’s normal for Western-otaku to look with skepticism at certain Japanese fetishes (and this is almost too obvious: few large breasts in Japan; let’s over-fetishize it with huge ones to the point of near absurdity) that don’t have near the same pull in the US. I sometimes feel that way, but nevertheless, Clevage is the only one out of this list that I noticed when the Japan release came out, and I wanted to buy it then, so of course I’d get the English translation. 2 main reasons/thoughts:
(1) the seriously first thought I had when I saw it’s Japan release was that my collection (and the English H-game market for that matter) needs a serious increase in more mature girls/plots, and this caught my eye right at that time. Say what you will about it being mindless (and it couldn’t be any more than Horny Bunnies, which I still liked), at least the jokes and conversations are adult jokes and conversations, and the situations look more work oriented than over-dramatic kid/high school stuff. High school oriented drama/humor just isn’t very convincing/funny for me unless I’m in a nostolgic mood or something, and it’s getting overplayed IMHO.
(2) Also, I really like Cleavage’s artistic style (large breasts or not), and since the large breasts aren’t a put off for me it’s only a plus, and one has to admit it catches the eye. It’s strange, though. I consider myself H-literate (if not a purist) and not a big fan of bigtit hentai generally, but for some reason I like it here and really want this game.
The others look vulnerable to a lot of the melodramatic high school stuff I want to take a break from. But anyway, that said, on the others:
I really like the artistic style of Dream-Drug, proto-realistic isn’t the right term, but attention to realist detail maybe is. A con, maybe: The girls all look pretty thin and “fragile” and from the CGs, look like they’ll get pushed around a lot which isn’t so fun, but since I don’t know the plot I can’t be sure. If it’s not so bad, then I could like this one.
Hello Spring has lots of characters, varied personalities, I really like the girls’ figures, and most of all it looks like a lot of fun as the different personalities interact. I know I’d have fun playing this.
[This message has been edited by Keido to Ido (edited 02-10-2006).]