True Love Publisher: Otaku Cost: $39.95 US Technical: Minimal Graphics: Good. Music/Sound: Very Good. NPCs: Excellant. Writing: Good, despite a few nagging translation errors. Plot: Good. Interface: Very Good. Sex: Very Good. Kinkyness: Strictly Vanilla. In Short: First-class romance sim. I had a sense of foreboding as I first slipped True Love into my CD drive. I had read the hype, seen the ads, heard about the new interface, but I still had a bad feeling about the game. Why? Bluntly put, it's an Otaku game. Otaku does not have a good track record with H-games. They were responsible for the pointless Paradise Heights, the substandard Timestripper Mako, and the atrocious Ring-Out. They also have a problem with favoring pure sex over characterization and plot. And their ads tend to make a game out to be more then it actually is. So it was with trepidation that I booted up True Love. Heh. That'll teach me to go into a game with preconcieved notions. The setup is your standard junior-college romance sim, with an interesting twist: the main character is a pervert. Not the stalking, panty-snatching, crank-calling kind of pervert, though. He's a harmless breed of pervert- essentially an exaggerated version of a testosterone-crazed teen. The kind that looks and talks abundantly, but won't touch unless she's willing. This gets him into a number of humorous situations. During a conversation with his teacher, the first thing that comes out of his mouth is "breasts... bouncing...". He accidentally catches a glimpse of a woman's panties, and later on runs into her, asks to see them again, and gets slapped. He doesn't take the hint, and gets slapped three more times. His pick-up lines elicit responses like "Excuse me but would you please f*ck off?" and "I'm not going to give you my number because I think you'll use it to make obscene phone calls!" He even propositions women he barely knows out of the blue, for no apparent reason except that she just happened to be around. Despite all this, with your help, he will eventually get laid... maybe. Well, by SOMEONE, probably, but maybe not the woman you're hoping for. As I said, it's a classic setup- from the pool of available women (ten, in this case,) select one to be your true love. First, though, you've got to win her heart- no small feet. Complicating matters is the fact that one of the available women, Mikae, already has a love-hate kind of crush on you, and keeps scaring away the other possibilities. What makes this game so innovative is the statistics system, which gives it an almost RPG like feeling. There are seven stats: Passion, Appearance, Fatigue, Scholarship, Physical Strength, Art, and Money. Every day, you make a schedule for the day. Early Morning is also the time where you can save your game, view an inventory screen, view a calender of scheduled major events, or quit the game. To make a schedule, you choose three actions from a pool of eight: Sports, Study, Fashion, Pleasure, Break, Art Learning, Work, and Shopping. There are also two other actions: "College" i.e. classes, which is pre-selected for you at appropriate times, and "Promise," which you can schedule only if you've made arrangements with a girl. (And you better, too. Standing a girl up will ruin your chances with her.) Each action has an affect on your stats. For example, "Study" increases Scholarship, but causes Art and Strength to decline. Your stats can also be affected by events that happen during the day, such as the "Gods" that will occasionally visit you in your sleep. At the end of the day, changes in your stats due to the days events are calculated, and your stats are raised or lowered accordingly. If you're in need of a few quick points, you can also raise your stats by buying items: a study book for Scholorship, an energy drink to decrease Fatigue and raise Strength, or a Misanga of Passion. These stats are crucial to getting women to notice you: to turn heads, you'll have to appeal to their individual likes and dislikes. If you want to get together with the intellectual Remi, you better keep your scholarship up. If you don't build your strength, Chiemi won't give you a second glance. And so on. In addition, your actions of the day determine who, if anyone, you'll run into. Both ways, snagging a girl is a matter of keeping her interested in you. You get the point: the design is unique. That said, is it a good game? Oh, yes, very. With one or two exceptions, characterization is very well done. Your potential partners are complex characters, and you learn steadily more about them as the game progresses. Your path is totally up to you: you can treat Mikae like dirt, or come on to her. You can be a playboy, or remain faithful to one specific girl. The game has collosal replay value, and the sex scenes are some of the best non-interactive ones I've seen. One thing that bears special mention is the music. Normally H-game music tends to irritate me after a while, but True Love's music is some of the best I've ever heard. I found myself tapping along with it, and sometimes even going into the music room just to hear it. So what's wrong with True Love? Offhand I can think of only two minor things: the occasional translation error ("Continuity is power. Keep on Studying!") and the fact that the graphics, which are typically good, start to look too swelled and cartoony when the script demands a close-up. But really, those are just things I have to point out because they irked me. True Love is an exciting and emotional piece of romantic I-F. More importantly, it accomplishes what every good H-game should do: It draws you in to the game world and makes your experiences seem real. Here at last is an Otaku game that lives up to the ads. -Craxton