Disclaimer/Legal stuff:
This review is written from my point of view. Because I am no professinal reviewer, but an amateur, it is only intended as an additional information for other bishoujo-fans who are not quite sure what to expect from the product and that don’t want to rely completely on the makers product description.
However, since I am an amateur, I might make some mistakes by reporting from my point of view (for example: ignore some points that are not important to me, but might be very important to readers of my review). So, I discourage anyone to decide about buying or not buying the product, only relying on my decription.
Further, it is inportant to point out, that this text only represents my own opinion of the reviewed product and not the opinion of the people who host it on their website.
In order to avoid problems with copyrights, I am going to post this review only on one website. As long as it is available on that website, I have no right to put it on any other website.
However, if the hosting website decides to either
a) notify me, they don’t want to host it any longer
or
b) take it down and don’t tell me when they will put it up again during 1 week after they have put it down
I am free to post it on any other website under the same conditions and the former hosting website has to remove it permanently.
… end of “Disclaimer/Legal stuff”, start of the mentioned "review"
Name: Dokusen
Made by: r√∫f (Will)
Genre:
Hmmm. This is not a simple question, regarding this game.
Well, first of all, it is of cause a multiview-multiending-adventure. In addition to this, in wo of the four possible views, there is also a slave-traininig-SIM part of the gameplay. Last but not least has any trainings-exercise an cumulative impact on the trained character, as well as not-training (=increased recovery from earlier training), that also reminds a bit of a RPG (but perhaps, that’s just a common feature of RPGs and SIMs).
But at least, it is a mutliview-multiending-adventure with a highly-integrated SIM-component (some normal ADV-choices affect the SIM-values and the SIM-values on the other hand have a strong impact on the ending).
Story:
This is a tragic love-story of four highschool-students: Takanashi Yukino, Inuyama Tsumugi, Ayukawa Kyouichi and Himegami Kaoru. All of them are students at the same school, but they are divided into two different classes: Tsumugi and Kyouichi are in one class, Yukino and Kaoru in another one.
Since Tsumugi is Kyouichi’s classmate, she got her sights on him. On the other hand, Yukino and Kyouichi are childhood friends and already both secretly in love with each other, but none of them has the courage to confess his/her feelings to the other one. Tsumugi is among all the boys of the school a very popular girl and Kaoru is no exception. But if he’d ever confess his feelings to her, she would most probably refuse him. But still, he can dream of a very small chance of getting her as his girlfriend. But a sudden turn of events turned this probability into imposibility and smashed his dreams: Tsumugi realized the situation between Yukino and Kyouichi. Since she (Tsumugi) has a crush on Kyouichi, she decides to make a quick move before one of them (Yukino and Kyouichi) destroys their status quo by confessing his/her feelings.
So, she (Tsumugi) rushes to confess her feelings to Kyouichi first. But this confession had two invisible witnesses: Yukino and Kaoru. And the two of them now have to decide, how to deal with the fact, that the two people, they themselves desire as their girlfriend/boyfriend are now about to become a couple.
But Kyouichi is in a pinch as well: He already loves Yukino and has to decide if he should turn down Tsumugi or give up his hopes for Yukino.
Gameplay:
The game can be playey using each of this charater’s views.
The really challenging parts of this game are of cause the boy’s views, since they also contain the SIM component and the player has to make a lot decisions while he is in these charater’s shoes. During the story, the player has to make a lot of decisions for his currently played male characters. Some of these decisions are only story-related, but there are also everyday the decision, if they want to train their “slave” that day or give her a break for recovering from earlier training. If for example the “master” abuses his “slave” that much, the “slave”'s health is in jeopardy, it may happen that the slave becomes rebellious and wouldn’t comply very well in later trainings. Since the SIM-part is a competition between the two boys about who trains his slave best (=most pleasurable skills as well as obedience).
The girl’s views are more like novels, but instead of a whole lot of interaction, they show with much more intensity how these characters feel about the things that are happening (since they are both the trained slaves). In fact, their scenarios have only one decision to be made and this decision determines one out of two possible endings.
Sound:
The soundtrack consists of $SAJ$xx themes, $SAJ$xx themes of them even songs. They are not recorded as CD-DA-tracks, but instead copied to HD during installation in files, similar to mp3. However, they sound comparable to CD-DA after all.
Only the female characters of this game have voice-acting. Even some female sidecasts (classmates, that remain nameless) have voice-acting, but not a single male voice during the whole game appears.
Graphics:
The graphics quality is on the same level as the graphics in “Snow Drop” or “Tokimeki CheckIn!”.
Animations:
This games features no movie-like animations as in ZyX-games or games of SOGNA’s VIPER-series, only changing poses or facial expressions according to the current dialog.
User Interface:
Usually, the graphic is displayed fullscreen and the transparent textwindow floats on top of the lower quarter of the graphic. The right side of this menu contains buttons for several in-game-functions: scrolling forward/backward, skipping text, replaying the voice-acting for the currently displayed text, quickload and -save (a special save-position, that could be used without calling the normal save-screen). The normal save-/load-functions as well as other not that frequent used functions are available from a menu that scrolls in from the top if the mouse is moved to the top of the graphic.
The decisions are usually made by selecting and confirming one of the currently displayed choices in the textwindow.
The user interface changes a bit, when the player has to select which kind of training should be done next: On the top left of the graphic appears a bar-char that displays the current values of the “slave”: “physical condition”, “love”, “sexual appetite”, “erotic sensation”, “tractability” and “synthesis”.
To the right of that graphic is the training-menu. This menu is divided into an upper and a lower part. The upper part displays all currently available categories of exercises. If one of them is selected, the lower part of the menu displays all exercises that belong to that category. Clicking one of these exercises commands the “slave” to do this exercise. After the exercise is done, the effect of this exercise on the values is displayed in the bar-chart.
Extras:
There are several extras available from the omake/option menu:
1.) the usual image-gallery, that gives access to all graphics that have been displayed
2.) the music-room that offers playing all tunes and songs from the soundtrack (even those, that have not been heard yet during gameplay)
3.) a memory/ending-room, that gives access to the special scenes and endings, that have been seen
4.) an overview of all the possible exercises (and variants of these scenes) for each of the two girls, giving access to these special scenes if they have been played in game
My personal opinion:
When I first heard of this game, I still was a lurker at the PeaPri-BBS. This game was at that time very much hyped by the BBS’s moderator.
After reading all the thread regarding Dokusen and the very small chances of it being localized, I decided to buy this game in it’s original japanese version. It was praised very much, so I had to play it in order to judge it myself. I admit, I had a lot of doubts about the game being really as good as it was described. On the other hand, if it was really that good, it would become a precious part of my collection.
After I have played it, it now is a highly appreciated part of my collection. Not every feature turned in reality out the way, I imagined it from that thread, but still this game was pretty good (and quite superior to all the games, that have been localized yet).
Starting with the characters, that have all their own motives and judging from each of their views, only do things that are at least understadable. Even though, some of them are not quite approvable, but these happen in a kind of “berserk”-state. So, even if the player does not approve with the things the character does, the things that happen make in their own way sense. Especially Yukino’s view was impressive, because it depicted the story from the side of the person who had to suffer most and transmitted her feelings pretty well (IMHO).
The graphical character designs rival the characters in text and might be even above the current state of the artr on the english market.
The backgrounds are at least at the current state of the art. Perhaps, they might currently have been surpassed by the backgrounds in “Private Nurse”, but the backgrounds in “Dokusen” are still definitely hand-drawn, while the backgrounds in “Private Nurse” more look like digital photographs that have been redrawn (however, not that obviously digi-photos as the backgrounds in “W.C.”).
Also the few voice-actors have once again done a great job. Two thumbs up for Hokuto Minami, the actress that lend Yukino her voice. It’s just a pity, the two guy’s didn’t get voice-acting too.
After all, it was a great experience toplay this game. In fact, it still is a challenge, because there are still 5 out of 16 possible endings reamining to be found be me.
I am just sorry for making this review far too late, because it seems, the game has been sold out in march 2003. So, if anyone has now grown interested in this game, he/she perhaps has to hope for a reprint by Will (they don’t do this frequently), the localization to the english language by PeaPri (even less likely, since it never was officially on PeaPri’s agenda, only in this former moderator’s mind) or japanese online auctions (probably the last remaining hope).