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: Noise
Made by: Carmine a brand of Assemblage.
Company page for the game: Not available
Getchu page for the game: Noise
Synopsis:
The main character, Inu (“dog” in Japanese) was left by his father at an old couple’s when he was very young - and from that point and on, things quickly went downhill for Inu. You see, the old couple were sadists and took delight into giving him any daily beatings and suchlike. Harry Potter’s time at the Dursley’s would’ve been a heaven for Inu in comparison. Eventually, one day, as the old couple prepares to give him the day’s beating, something happens to Inu: suddenly he can read the thoughts* of the old couple! Reading in there they might well kill him any second, his anger and fear of death makes him rebel. Without mercy, he kills the old couple and runs away.
From that point and on, he lives the life of a vagabond; wandering without much of a goal in life (expect for one in the back of his head: the hope of one day encountering his father and kill him), stealing food and money to survive - and often raping women as his only enjoyment in life. One day he follows a girl he suspects of having witnessed a rape he committed last night. Following the girl, he eventually reaches a big mansion where he sees the girl together with another girl, entering the mansion. At that point, Inu prepares to leave, when he suddenly senses someone behind him! Turning around, he notices a boy behind him, asking him what he’s doing there. Inu then tries to flee but instead ends up getting in a short fight with the boy - and he is, to his own surprise beaten easily (Inu’s a rather formidable fighter, even if he’s never had any martial arts training) and faints. When he regains consciousness, he’s in a room looking much like an office - with the boy who beat him next to him (and the office being part of the mansion where he saw the girl earlier). After some talking between the two of them, a look in a mirror, the showing of a secret diary and secret room, it becomes clear that the two of them are brothers! Not only that, but they look so alike that they might as well be twins! Apparently, their father, who apparently committed suicide a few years ago, was very… productive and was involved with two twin sisters, the result of his interaction with one of them being Inu and the other one the other boy, who now introduces himself as Kagura Yoshiaki.
Yoshiaki then proceeds to offering Inu to join the family, but Inu convinces Yoshiaki to let go of that thought, since that would mean that they’d have to tell the rest of the family of some of their father’s… more dark secrets, which might break the family or at least, not make them very happy. However, he lets himself be convinced into staying at the mansion, living mainly in the secret room plus the office he was brought into in the first place, watching Yoshiaki and his family from afar. Through his watching, he learns to know Yoshiaki’s family and those closest to him:
Kagura Ayuri: Yoshiaki’s stepmother, a kind middle-aged woman, still looking rather young.
Kagura Risa: Yoshiaki’s big sister, who’s the “sporty” type and very fond of teasing her younger brother. The second girl of the family whom Inu sees from afar.
Kagura Chiduru: Yoshiaki’s little sister, a sweet girl who’s rather good at cooking and attends the same school as Yoshiaki… She’s also the girl that Inu followed and eventually lead him to the mansion.
Kayama Mika: Yoshiaki’s cousin and childhood friend. A quiet girl whom Yoshiaki promised to marry when they were children. Attends the same school as Yoshiaki and Chiduru. She’s the first girl of the family whom Inu encounter.
After some time, having learnt to know the family a bit better (from afar), Yoshiaki convinces Inu into that they’re to trade place from time to time - kind of like the Prince and the Pauper. So things progress for a while… But Inu’s growing restless; having watched Yoshiaki and his family, he’s become rather envious and jealous of Yoshiaki, being able to live pleasantly like this and begins to make his own plans for Yoshiaki’s family… And furthermore, two things are bothering him: since encountering Yoshiaki, he’s been unable to “read” his thoughts at all! With other people, his ability always works, but for some reason, it doesn’t work on Yoshiaki - and furthermore, whenever he uses his ability on the others in the family, his “mind-reading” is sometimes interrupted by a “white noise”, that totally repels his ability! What is the “white noise” and what’s causing it…?
*Although this isn’t be best way of describing it; he can hear other people’s “voices” as it’s called - which is more or less their thoughts. But it’s more than just that; he can feel another person’s feelings such as sadness, pain, pleasure, etc… and he can also see images of events and suchlike a person he’s close to thinks of.
Gameplay:
Normal ADV-style - you follow the story by reading & clicking text and from time to time, you get to make choices that will decide the next few events - and eventually also the outcome of the game…
Summary, Own opinions, etc:
Carmine is the newest brand of Assemblage and as such, it has to make a certain impression to stay as such, I suspect - and they’ve succeeded in impressing me with this game, alright! I didn’t expect much of the game at first - the synopsis of it didn’t sound all THAT promising, but it contained kichiku and incest, so I decided to take a look at it - but the level of mystery, the secrets of the characters and so on… This all caught me unaware and made Carmine rise quite a bit in my opinion!
Carmine’s a brand of Assemblage, and as such, the art of the game is much like that of games of other brands of Assemblage, which means the art can be summarized like this: The art’s not top notch, nothing like the art of certain games I’ve had the pleasure of playing (like Wana, Yatohime, Meishoku no Reiki, Kutei Senki and many more), but on the other hand, the art leaves nothing to complain about either! It’s good - more than good enough, simple as that.
The characters are nice, indeed - and all of them have something hidden that it’s up to the main character to find out.
This is a game of incest, of kichiku, and about mysteries lying upon each others, layer after layer, that you have to peel through like an onion to reach the truth. If that sounds promising to you, then this is the game for you!
Overall, I rate this game as a very good game - and also a game I hope that Carmine will be making a sequel of sometime in the future…!
In Japan, the making of bishoujo games containing true incest is rather discouraged, so in a game containing incest, one usually expect the girls to be only stepsisters, at best one or two of them might be a cousin or such of the main character. But lately I’ve observed that this might be changing, as a few of games containing “true” incest (meaning the girls are blood-related to the main character) has stepped forth on the market - and “Noise” is among those! It’s a brave - yet also possibly risky - move by Carmine to release such a game as their first game - and I applaud this effort!
Misc stuff:
The skip/fast-forward function of this game is rather slow - hardly any faster than just clicking fast, which isn’t too good in my opinion - a game should have a rather fast skip-function…
There’s both scene and ending-replays available in this game, which is a good thing, because otherwise, if there’s a specific ending/scene you like, you might have to work all your way to that ending or scene again.
All Assemblage brands seem to use the same game engine - which always has the same troublesome technical issues: it reacts to mouse and/or keystrokes that actually are directed at another application’s window, so it becomes hard to do anything else but playing the game, unless you want it to go on by itself. I suppose that the Assemblage-guys who made the game engine never imagined the player might want to do something else but playing their game while it was running. In any case, this makes it a bit difficult to for example look up a Japanese word-processor to look up unknown vocables or such while playing the game…
[This message has been edited by Spectator Beholder (edited 04-20-2006).]