Since preorders for Subarashiki Hibi seem to be closing on the 28th of February, I’ve had to decide on my March preorders a bit earlier than I would have liked to.
Out of the games I’ve been following (in a rough priority order):
Subarashiki Hibi (Subbed OP): Preordered, with a strong premonition that it will be the best eroge of the year (and possibly the best eroge ever).
To clarify why, I’ll start from KeroQ’s first game, Tsui no Sora, which is quite flawed in places but extremely interesting nonetheless. Tsui no Sora contains almost no slice of life; in fact there’s probably only 15 minutes of the story that don’t deal with the end of the world theme. It does give the game a very consistent and somewhat disturbing atmosphere (the closest comparison I can think of is Rasen Kairou), but it makes it hard to actually feel anything for any characters. Furthermore, the game itself is beyond weird, particularly when the story is told from Zakuro’s and Takuji’s POVs, which kind of made me feel like a detached observer, watching a (fairly extreme even for a denpa game) story unfold. Even for a 1999 eroge, the production values really suck, as there are very few CGs/backgrounds/BGM tracks, and the quality of the art is quite dire.
However, Tsui no Sora is very strong in two areas. Although I’ve seen at least one reviewer call the game the Japanese equivalent of literary masturbation, for me the writer manages to integrate a lot of philosophical/religious/literary references into the story in a way that attempts to clarify or provide alternate perspectives on the ???. To a certain extent, it’s probably helpful if you’re familiar with the topics discussed beforehand, as it’s far easier for a non-native speaker to understand Kant in Japanese, compared to their native language. The writer is also very good at writing the denpa sections of the title, and depicting the way certain characters descend into insanity. I’m expecting the ??? side of Subahibi to be at the same level as Tsui no Sora’s, but I think they might tone down the denpa aspects a little as as it stands, Tsui no Sora isn’t an eroge that a lot of people would like, and I think they want Subahibi to appeal to a wider audience.
As for the relationship between the two titles, some of the characters appear in both, including Zakuro, Takuji, Ayana (and seemingly Ruriri too, if you look at the OP at 1’33"). Zakuro’s personality in particular seems to be quite different between the two games, as in Tsui no Sora, the game begins from Yukito’s POV the day after Zakuro commits suicide by jumping from the school roof - the story does switch to her POV later, but her character still seems very different between Tsui no Sora and Subahibi. It’s difficult to determine whether or not Subahibi is an actual sequel or prequel to Tsui no Sora. Although it’s within the realms of possibility, I’d say that it’s probably a alternate universe story that shares the same characters + some similar themes. At this stage, I don’t know if playing Tsui no Sora will lead to a greater understanding of Subahibi, but since there are still copies available for a reasonably low price + it’s a rather good (for me, around 75%), and unique eroge, it’s worth trying if you’re interested.
So although Tsui no Sora was rather good, Subarashiki Hibi should be at least 1000% better. The writer’s abilities have improved out of sight in the areas in which Tsui no Sora was lacking, such as slice of life/strong characters/humour. Although it’s hard to judge how well he handles the denpa components in Subahibi, as there are only a few moments in the trial, they’ll probably be an improvement on Tsui no Sora’s as well. Additionally, the game is far longer (the web trial was around 2 hours, but the version distributed with Tech GIAN had extra content and according to KeroQ was between 5-10% of the total game, so the full game should be at least 25 hours - for comparison Tsui no Sora is probably 7 hours or so all up), the characters receive far more screentime and have much more depth to them. As a result, unlike Tsui no Sora (which was technically an utsuge, but didn’t exactly feel like one), Subahibi will probably be far more tragic (as suggested here). So for me at least, the seemingly very high level production values across all areas, coupled with the themes makes me incredibly excited about Subarashiki Hibi. Even if it’s not quite as good as I’m hoping it’ll be, I can’t see how it will end up being any less than an 80% eroge.
White Album 2 - introductory chapter: Preordered. After watching the promo movie, very excited about this title. Although eroges are going to be kind of unrealistic by default, White Album 2 (although it’s not classified as such) looks like a really good example of a painful, and potentially depressing ‘human drama’. That genre is how Looseboy categorises his eroges (Sharin + fandisk, and G-Senjou), but I’d argue it’s a bit misleading since a lot of his characters aren’t exactly ‘human’. It’s mainly the human aspect of White Album 2 that interests me, and that combined with the writer makes it a fairly easy preorder decision.
Cthulhu: Preordered. I was originally hoping this would be the game of the year, but after playing the trial, I have serious reservations about the pacing, and smaller ones about the music, casting (August’s seiyuu) and battles (not that they are bad by any means, but they don’t seem to be Itou Hiro’s forte - maybe they could have gotten Izumi on board to write the battle scenes instead?). That said, after Mugen Kairou 2, I strongly believe in the main writer’s general ability, and unless Black Cyc have a second work planned for the end of the year, it looks like it’ll be the only Cyc eroge from 2010 that’s worth a shot. It’s still going to be a unique and very unusual eroge, and (depending on how it’s defined) it seems to be the only story-driven full-length dark title that currently has a release date.
Koiiro Soramoyou: If this was being released in February, I’d possibly have preordered it, but since March is rather crowded :P.
Re:Seven: I’m not really familiar with Lilac Soft, but I know Lancer-X said that their first eroge, Ano Aoi Umi Yori was rather decent for a first eroge from a new brand. Although re: Seven’s writer is new to the eroge industry, the game’s concept looks quite strong (and oddly familiar :P), so if turns out to be decent, I’ll probably pick it up a few months down the track.
[bitter smile: (been pushed back three months to June). Would be a wait and see regardless. The main concern I have, shared by many others as well is Nekonyan’s role as a scenario writer as well as an artist (can’t find any examples of him having worked as a writer before). I’d feel a lot more comfortable if the scenario was very offbeat, suggesting that he might be able to handle it in a way that other writers couldn’t. As it stands though, it seems to be a fairly standard concept, and so if he spent more time on the art, and delegated the scenario to another good writer, the end result would probably be a better eroge. I’m hoping that the delays on bitter smile won’t flow onto Taiyou no Ko as well.]
Dosukoi: The concept itself is a great idea for a bakage (female sumo wrestling), but the production values are another matter, as it’s only partially voiced (not referring to say no male voices, but rather that a lot of the lines outside of the key scenes are unvoiced) and the art is kind of dodgy (it’s the first time I’ve seen a commerical brand put out a public appeal to hire an artist, and presumably this was done to cut back on costs as well). Not sure what to think of the trial, as the two biggest impressions I got from it were mixed, the bad being an excessive number of decision points, and the good being some very funny scenes with rather large quantites of ??? (‘a slap in the face’). Oddly enough, the OP, released after the trial gave off a very different impression, one more along the lines of a rather serious story. The gameplay is rather forgettable - when they originally announced the Sumo concept, I was expecting some sort of simple action game, instead of a simple STG. I don’t think this will have the production values to match any of the other March releases, and it might not have the length either. Depending on reviews, I might pick this up when the price drops, or else I’ll wait three years or so for Liar Soft to put it up for dl sales. 
(incidentally, this might turn out to have quite a large chunk of yuri as well, with the female protagonist + single male character (and if you lose your virginity, it’s a game over, which can be accomplished approximately 2-3 minutes into the story. :P)) Liar Soft have even made a paper demo, and a hilarious video of the staff playing it.
Natsu ni Kanaderu: Played a fair chunk of the trial, and for March, it’s definitely a wait and see work. The artist isn’t Purple Software’s best, and the characters and writing don’t appear to be all that strong, although things improved as the trial went on. The production values aren’t on Ashita no Kimi’s level either, as the cast is a fair bit smaller, and there only appears to be an average number of CGs + tachie. If they get the plot right, it might be around the 75% mark, but if that doesn’t work out it’ll probably just end up being a fairly average moege. No rush either way.
Happy Wardrobe (Shallot are a sister brand of Akabe2, so a proxy is required to access the site out of Japan): Mostly interested in this because of the writer (Nakahiro, who mostly recently worked on Hoshizora no Memoria + fandisk). The concept (and title :P) don’t sound all that appealing, especially compared to Hoshizora no Memoria’s. I gave the digest demo a spin, which was way too short to draw any real impressions about the story from (collection of vignettes, lasting about 10-15 minutes in total). No characters in it really caught my eye, plus the art’s a bit dodgy + the production values aren’t particularly high, so definitely a wait and see. Akabe2 + sister brands are also implementing some form of DRM on all their titles, and it’s unclear what effect it will have on gaijin.
se.kirara - Probably wouldn’t have even considered getting it otherwise, but since it’s free - there’s still no concrete news about how the game will be distributed though.
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and… Cross Days (assuming it’s being released in March at all)… even with a clear explanation for all the delays and an 100% assurance that it won’t be a bug riddled mess :roll: , it’s still not worth the preorder risk.
In the doujin area, I’m hoping that Corpse Maid will be released in March (or possibly April). I’m also keeping a close eye on two of Pancake’s upcoming games, Emeth (free) and ??? (Cage in the Rose?), which they’ll hopefully make available on dlsite. Lancer-X mentioned White Noise (OP) to me, which is being released for free in Spring.
Edit: Forgot to mentioned that HERMIT’s 2007 eroge, Sekai de Ichiban Dame na Koi is being rereleased for 2940 yen in March as well.
