私立秋葉原学園
The common route was fun, but once you enter the individual heroine's route it's h-scenes all the way to the end. Any scene the principal was in never failed to make me laugh. I was surprised to learn Yamaguchi Noboru worked as a scenario writer on this one. I wonder which parts he wrote?
ペンシラー☆カナ
Everything about this game was awful - the story, the randomized gameplay, the monotone voice acting. Luckily there's only one ending, which you can knock out in about 5 or 6 hours, but if you want to unlock all the CGs you'll have to torture yourself with 20 hours of flipping tarot cards, hoping to get the random event you need (at least, according to one review I read. I don't hate myself enough to try). I think my least favourite part was going to the convenience store 3 times a day to feed the fairy - the game gives you a variety of items to choose from, but as far as I could tell your selection has absolutely zero effect on anything else and exists only to make your life miserable.
One reviewer said he only knows two types of people who have played this game - people who can't bring themselves to delete it off their harddrive even years later, and people who can't uninstall it fast enough. I definitely fell into the later camp.
七人のオンラインゲーマーズ~オフライン~
From the same studio as AkiKano, but I enjoyed this one more. I never got into Ragnarok Online, but it reminded me of the fun I had playing Maplestory with my friends back in school. Guess it's that time of year where I download MS again and binge it for a couple days...
IDOL X IDOL STORY! 7
I think I'm going to have to give this series a break. The formula is getting stale for me and I don't like how slow-paced it's been - 7 volumes in and we've only eliminated 2 of 11 contestants. Also, my problematic sister yuri ship is dead :'(
アキバ系彼女 / Akibakei Kanojo
I don't think this writer has ever been around someone actively dying of cancer... also lol @ hatoko-nee's stomach cancer getting written off as constipation in mei's route
Read or Die 6
In this one Yomiko fights an enemy secret agent who turns out to be one of her favourite authors. She gets mad at him for committing evil acts instead of writing the continuation of a series he started 6 years ago, but he says he's doing it to fund his own publishing company. Does this explain why we haven't had a new ROD volume in 9 years...?
学園の姫攻略始めたら修羅場になってた件
A comedy featuring characters each with some sort of hang-up about love. It was a really fun read and I’m definitely looking forward to the next book -- according to the afterword this was more of an intro to the characters and the real battle starts in vol 2. Making the pages of Tsukihi’s monologue black was a neat idea and I liked her comparison of a princess no longer sitting around waiting for a prince -- 「指くわえて私が幸せになるところ見ててね、お姫様?」
ぼくたちのリメイク/Bokutachi no Remake 12
Making the digital-only short story about eiko was cruel 😔 at least we have the beta novels... though I don't like the implication that her route would be considered the "bad" end