Disclaimer:
The copyrights to the game in this review and anything associated with it belongs to their respective copyright holders. In short, I claim no rights to anything related to this game - expect this review itself of course. Further, everything that I have written in here expresses only my own opinion and nobody else’s. In particular, I am not liable for financial losses because of purchases that have been done, based on my own biased descriptions in here.
First and foremost, you who’d want to read this review should know beforehand that the game in this review is of the kichiku kind of b-games. This kind of games often contains things such as rape, non-consensual sex, torture, bondage, slavery, etc… So if these things bothers you, then you probably aren’t interested in this review of mine in particular. In short: Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here!
Being hearing impaired I won’t say too much about the sound nor the voices - especially not the later, as I’d not dare to consider myself a good judge of whenever a voice suitable or not - but I may say a word or two on those subjects, nonetheless¬Ö
This is an amateur review, so don’t take it all too seriously. My views here are mine and mine only, so if you have any problems with them or just want to comment on them, feel free to do so. This review is also mine and mine only and not to be put out on someone’s homepage or such without my permission (but feel free to tell others about this review and direct them to it by linking).
Game: Mayonaka wa ware no mono
Made by: Touchy , a brand of Assemblage
Company page for the game: Not available
Getchu page for the game: Mayonaka wa ware no mono
Synopsis:
The main character of this game, Ogata Seishirou, has great ambitions: to conquer the world. Or at least, that’s the final goal. But one has to begin somewhere, right? Thus, the current goal for him is to conquer Japan. To his help in realizing this goal, he has a secret criminal organization at his command. But this is not enough for him. He wants more power for himself in trying to turn his ambition into reality. Thus, using a book left by his late grandfather, he tries to summon a demon and make a pact with that demon to gain more power for himself. The ritual succeeds beyond Ogata’s expectations, as it summons one of the demon kings of Hell, Asmodeus . However, Asmodeus proves to be completely uninterested in making a pact and furthermore, irritated of having been summoned by a “puny little human child”, he moves to consume Ogata’s soul as punishment for him impudence. However, unexpectedly, the situation turns against Asmodeus! Instead of him consuming Ogata, he finds himself being consumed by the dark soul of Ogata! Thus Ogata absorbs Asmodeus, gaining his powers and knowledge, in short, he becomes a “Majin”. Thus, he has now the power he wanted and can turn his attention towards his ambitions…
However, as it later turns out, the path to realize his ambition is a bit more difficult than he at first thought. Especially since his organization catches wind of that a special group of people (all female) has been formed by the government for the purpose of destroying Ogata and his organization. Ogata, however, isn’t much worried by this. Rather, he is to the chagrin of his subordinates excited about getting a challenge to truly test his new powers. Thus he sets out to investigate and then eliminate the members of the group, one after the other, thus removing the threat…
Gameplay:
The first part of the game consists of the prologue, which works in the usual ADV way, not much different from the games so far released here in the west; you follow the story and make some choices that can affect events later… The second part of the game is when Ogata finally considers the time right to confront the members of the special group. Each of them has some sort of ability (one is an “esper”, another a miko, etc), so they’re not opponents Ogata can truly trifle with even with his new powers. Anyway, in this part of the game, you choose whom Ogata will battle and then you select where to search for that member of the special group in particular. This is nothing extraordinary, like the battles in for example Black Cyc’s MinDeadBlood, but you can still have a certain influence on what will happen during and after the battle. After this, the third part of the game begins (depending on the outcome). If Ogata captures the girl in particular, he’ll decide to try and turn her into an ally. This he does by using sex, his dark magics and torture… and then there’s the fourth part of the game too: the conclusion. Since this game is a multi-ending one, then outcome depends on your decisions, if the attempts at turning the girls were successful or not, etc…
Summary:
Well, it should be said that at the japanese b-game market, few companies make games that are as… harsh as Touchy’s games are. Indeed, even for me, who is rather fond of the kichiku genre, the games of Touchy really push my tolerance at times. What in my opinion makes Touchy’s games interesting are the characters of their games, though. Now I don’t necessarily mean the main character (the player) himself, but rather the female characters we meet. They are interesting to get to know and weren’t it for them, I probably wouldn’t pay as much attention to Touchy/Assemblage’s games as I do today. Also what made me interested in this game in particular was the fact that the girls nearly all have some magical ability or such. As we get to know them, we also get to know a bit of how that magic works (like, one of the girls is a miko, so we get to know a bit of what being a miko is and what kind of things she does). However, because of the often rather extremely brutish sex scenes and such in this game ¬ñ such as that Ogata may sometimes not act as some would think it logically to do for them, it’s not something I would recommend to everyone. But if you like interesting characters, magic and battles between people who possess this kind of power and very brutish sex scenes, then this is a game I recommend to you!
Misc stuff/info:
A sequel to this game, called “Mayonaka wa owaranai” has been released…
They apparently researched quite a bit of mythology when making this game! Asmodeus, for example, is a demon from the Old Testament and other demons or mythological beings ¬ñ such as Marbas and Sitri, two of the 72 Goetic demons (also referred to as the Lesser Key of Solomon) also appear in one way or another in this game…
Like most Assemblage game, this game will go on by itself if you switch windows to do something else than playing the game.
Ogata often gets into some fights that are quite impressively described in the text - but it is a pity that they made no CGs for these fights - could’ve been some pretty impressive scenes shown then…
Also like most Assemblage games, the art of this game isn’t anything extraordinary - but there isn’t anything to complain about in that regard either.
I’ve played many b-games and the main character in quite a few of those is not very nice, but you’d better be prepared here, because I’ve not yet encountered a character that is more evil than Ogata is! He’s a ruthless, heartless bastard, to put it bluntly, so if you don’t like the character you’re playing to be like that, perhaps this is not the game for you.
[This message has been edited by Spectator Beholder (edited 04-20-2006).]