That game is still broken and unfinished.
You'd think that the developer would take time completing few features instead of listening to the fans and filling the game with unfinished features. That game is the best example of "feature creep". I am pretty sure it's what keeps the developer sick most of the time (and he is always sick, so he must have serious problem).
Exactly my issue with it. I think his focus with the game recently has been adding a new starting city, and all I can ask is, why? Just why? He's doubling the amount of work on his plate so we can have not one, but
two unfinished cities, and for what? What does a second one bring that the first one couldn't? I understand most people play the game to have a wank and nothing more, but wank material could be added just as well by fleshing out and finishing questlines like the Red Lily, or actually following up on some of the creepy shit mentioned in the player housing descriptions, and SM would also end up a better game for it. But no, let's just keep adding empty areas, dialogues that don't do anything and vanilla characters with no special effects as either trainees or assistants. Surely we don't have enough of those.
Magic Diary, Long live the Queen and Cute Knight on the other hand, are the best examples of shit. Developer has taken PM2 idea and shat all over it with shit manga art and terrible writing. Not to mention, I am pretty sure her games are actually shorter than PM2 itself.
I have a soft spot for Hanako somewhere in my heart because Cute Knight is how I found PM2, but yes, they are all very simple, easy games that don't compare in terms of quality. Hanako's experience is with VNs/dating sims, and when she tries to stray from that and add in other features they tend to be shallow compared to where the idea was ripped from (Cute Knight is a shameless PM2 knockoff and both LLTQ and Cute Knight 2 followed on from this by adding moar VN elements and further detracting from the gameplay side; Magical Diary came after she played Academagia, and I imagine there's a fair bit of difference there as well). It doesn't bother me until I see the likes of LLTQ getting mentioned around here by folks who haven't given PM2 a go -- then I feel a kind of quiet rage that I imagine is akin to what some die-hard fan of Fallout feels when they hear someone praising FO3 as if it were the second coming.
Her games are indeed shorter. Cute Knight gives you three years and somehow makes it feel like too much time; LLTQ is a year, week-by-week, which sounds pressurised until you realise that the game's extremely easy, with most of its value being as a VN, and there's additional cushioning in the form of the win-button Lumen skills if you somehow really need it.
Also, try out Jack-o-Nine if you are not turned off by some really fucked up shit. It's similar to Princess Maker.
Why must you say all this stuff I totally agree with and then say this thing is actually worth a try? Now I have to play it.
Not the kind of recommendation I was expecting, but. . .
PS: You can play Princess Maker 5 with English translation patch. I haven't played it that much so far..
I played the partial translation back when they were about 60% done with it. AFAIK the translation team fell apart at pretty much the final stages, and I waiting, hoping it might be returned to and finished, but I guess the English translation for PM5 as it is now has to be better than the English translation for the above thing.
Also, it's not strictly a porn rip-off.
). But still, I am guessing that if her audience is buying her romance VA's, then they know about porn too. She can get away with hardcore content, just saying.
