Season of the Sakura

The Good
Can I just say, I've loved real girls before and I've been loved by real girls before. I'm not a complete loser and you don't have to be to enjoy this game. I'm not a Hentai fan generally speaking. Hentai is a dirty word that instantly makes veteran gamers run a mile or laugh hysterically. However if you can look past the sex for a second, this is quite an absorbing and touching game experience. It's more interactive fiction than adventure but it has some solid things going for it. For a start, the game has many endings like most games of this ilk. There are 8 "happy" ones and also some bad ones that I don't even want to see. The basic plot of the game is you play a first-year college kid and you develop relationships between the girls in your class. This already warms me to the game because I am roughly this kid's age and I will be in a similar environment to him soon (albeit probably not surrounded by beautiful girls who like you the second you open the door). Refreshingly for a game like this, there is no sex until the very end...almost, and the girls couldn't really be described as loose like most Hentai games. They have the strongest personalities in any H game I've played too (NOT many). This is probably the game's strongest attribute. You're bound to find one girl that you just adore in the course of the game; I know I have, the developers seem to have tapped into my ideal girl, kinda depressing when you know she doesn't exist. I have never cared about characters to this extent in a game before, ever. Some of the characters are very developed, and I don't just mean in the chest. Ruri is a fascinating person, and although the game doesn't let you understand her personality and pain as well as it could have done, it's a welcome break from all the breasts on legs that you get in other Hentai games. A clever addition to Seasons Of Sakura is that even the subtlest use of the interface can affect how the game reacts. For example, if you're walking along a beach, the first girl you think of will be the one who you will gain the most "points" for. Same way that if you're in a group, the girl you talk to first will be the most impressed by you. It's almost subliminal if you don't know what's going on and you may be suprised to find that the girl you liked the most in the course of the game is also the one who likes you the most. The artwork in this game is also nice especially if you're a fan of Anime. Basically; Seasons of Sakura is a mature, touching and fascinating game that is so much more grown-up than True Love. True Love being the only other Hentai game I've played that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as this one.

The Bad
Of course, this isn't Deus Ex here. This game is longer than most Hentai games yet still very short, it could be completed in hours if you get addicted. It's harder to replay than True Love because of the nightmare interface which requries you to quite frequently look at or talk to everyone you see before it moves on. Thankfully there is a button to skip through text you don't wanna read but it's still slow and monotonous, you'd be wise to save before important events so that you don't have to read long sections again. Your character is a little odd actually, his natural athletic ability is not something I relate to much :-P. Neither is his dislike of the spotlight. It's also a bummer that you can't change his name because that lowers the immersion factor a bit. True Love is more of a game than this is and has obvious qualities that this doesn't, such as the ability to choose your own assets and talents. I can't imagine paying a lot of money for a game like this, but I still enjoy it hugely.

The Bottom Line
Short and sweet, but very sweet. I felt genuine tangs of guilt and affection when playing this game and there is no girl in the world as cute as Mio. Certainly worth replaying and probably buying. Proof that games away from the mainstream can be something special. Just make sure you play it without any prejudices.

The Good
...and I was just looking for the dirty pictures...hahaha.

Well, I got more than I bargained for. Finally got Seasons of Sakura running on a emulator and it was dang worth it. The story starts slow...(ie. no one naked yet), gathering the plot on who's who in your life as the hero.

I feel whoever made this story was definitely a romantic (and a pervert) which makes the storywriter a male breed...hahaha, but seriously, for "just" a hentai game, this has a beautifully written story, where you actually take the time and effort to read the lines instead of "speed-clicking" the game due to standard boring hentai storylines.

Seasons of Sakura is a Love Story...an odd but familiar one at that. You are the perfect guy, surrounded by 8 beautiful women...which one will be your love of your life? Ah...a klise for any young boy growing up, but it still gets you every time.

As I said, the story starts slow, introducing yourself to the family: your pervert father, over-aggressive but loving mother, and your life at school...from beginning to end. Yes, in a time frame this is a long story indeed...telling the story of a boy becoming a man...maybe a lot of people will relate to this plot...I know I did.

Funny, but in this odd hentai game, you don't treat the female species as objects of lust. There aren't any "surprise" events of xxx scenes for the perversive eye. All the females in this game are your friends...close school friends where you grow to bond with them, care for them, have the urge to protect them...sometimes like in real-life. You started as friends and somewhere inside you, you'd like to keep it that way...but unfortunately, nature, biology and chemistry gets in the way of the "ideal" relationship, and you develop feelings for them and them for you. The character itself does not dictate which one you "should" go for, this itself is up to your personal taste and experience in knowing all the girls one by one.

This is a love story, and strangely enough, also became a story about friends. The "Seasons of Sakura" title, in a romantic way tells about the times you the hero and his class friends (and family) got to know each other and bonded throughout their school years. The Season of Sakura refers to a certain party during the Sakura Season, where everyone has a good time, gets drunk (due to their alcoholic but fun teacher), act stupid, but it is essentially the joy of youth that will forever be transformed to a smile in the back of your head. Somewhere along the way, you forget this is a game...and remember it as a story.

The Bad
As always, not 100% of the lines are that good a story, which makes you revert to "speed-clicking". Though "if" I was a hentai pervert, I maybe a little disappointed since the "action" isn't as fast occuring compared to other hentai games. Since I'm not ehem, I'm not complaining :)

I do recall incapable of saving this dang game...or was it another game? Hmm...yeah it's this one. Since I couldn't save the game, I only found out one ending, since I couldn't re-load to find out the other ending...didn't have enough patience to restart the game either. Oh, well.

The Bottom Line
A story about love, passion, friendship, growing up and making choices in life. Stop by and watch the Sakura flowers bloom...

The Good
Seasons of Sakura is somewhat known in the shady, murky underworld of hentai gaming fandom as one of the most well-known games of it's ilk. The reason escapes me really, but for what it's worth the game does have it's appealing features: Extensive character development forms the core of Seasons of Sakura, and it's actually pretty well done. Basically you are an average teenager and the game chronicles your life among the various school-related social activities, from summer vacations to after hour partys, etc. It's a laid-back form of storytelling that doesn't really go anywhere, but instead aims to showcase the various characters that surround your virtual life.

The good news is that if you enjoy that kind of slow paced game this is one of the best examples of it. With long winded talks while walking a beach, dates, and the occasional adventure such as being stranded in a forest and stuff like that (always with some female companionship, of course).

The Bad
The bad news comes if you don't like that sort of crap. Specially in, you know, an interactive videogame; and a hentai one on top of that! Basically the game boils down to sitting down through a sophomore version of "Little Women", with about as much interaction as reading the novel. You do nothing but scroll on an on through the reams of text that the characters spout as you learn about their likes, dislikes, pasts, traumas and whatever the developers could pull out from your average Teen People issue.

The game uses the standard text-menu japanese adventure interface, which is as dull as ever, though to be fair (and as another reviewer noted) it does use some sort of "subliminal" approach in order to add some interactivity to things. For instance, if you are supposed to make a list about what girls would you like in your team at a particular forest expedition, whoever you place first is gonna approach you later in the game, etc. etc.

But speaking of the characters, they are the most sickeningly detailed versions of the typical teenage animé stereotypes this side of a Square/Enix rpg, all distorted in some typical hentai way in order to cater to your specific fetishes, be them tomboys, lonely, somber girls, hyperactive teens or "mature" women (aka The Teacher, as every hentai game out there has taught us). However unlike your average Square/Enix rpg there are almost no male characters and you get to bang each and every one of the girls. Well.... sort of.... Actually what you get to do is listen and talk with them for ages, fall "in love" and eventually by the endgame go to bed with one lucky lady for a couple of screens worth of hentai fun.

I ask thee: Is that what you want from your hentai games?? Seasons of Sakura is the ancient predecessor of that ultra-gay new breed of hentai games like "Kana Little Sister" that have pretty much no sex, and are all about reading the innane happenings and melodramas of the assorted cast of characters.... groan. You might think that I'm some sort of perverted freak that wants nothing but hentai, but if I'm gonna have porn then dammit it better have some porn in it! Not some fruity teenage drama queen horsecrap! It's as if an fps had no guns!! And besides this game has no gut-wrenching "Bamby"-like melodramas like Kana, it's all Dawson's Creek-like crap... And if I wanted that in a game I'd fire up Final Fantasy 8, which at least doubles as a Maya showcase.

The Bottom Line
It just occurred to me that this game might have been designed for a female demographic really, as it is really a classically female version of porn rather than a male one. Complete with fluffy pillows, romantic walks around beaches and stuff like that. The fact that it stars a man and all the nudity is female puzzles me, but I'm willing to bet it's a concession made to lesbian markets.

Regardless of that, Seasons of Sakura is the original Dawson's Creek of hentai gaming, if that's your thing then go for it. But I have better things to do.