3RRSS Michinoku

Another day, another yellow label 18+ Saturn game to play. Now there
is a heavy misconception for these yellow label games. While it says
they are for 18+ one would think the game would be filled with sex and
nudity. However, these titles were only available when the Saturn
started and before Sega put a ban on such things. After that ports of
dirty games came out with the naughty bits toned way down. But not
all adult games are just mindless filth. In fact, some might even be
educational. Here we have such a game "Michinoku Hitou Koi
Monogatari Special" (which I will now call Michinoku for short). The
cover shows a beautiful naked girl (from the shoulders up) bathing in a
country side location. But, it's not porn, it's educational, and to
advance in the game you have to play cards. Read on dear readers,
read on.

From what I gathered from the story, you play a wannabe camera man
who has left home to see the country and take pictures for a photo
contest. It is on one of your journeys that you meet the beautiful
Tokiko Sato. Somehow she agrees to join you and together you two go
all over rural Japan and take pictures. You meet some other nice
women along the way, and romance develops. So the concept of a
camera man and hot chicks traveling the country is pretty cool. But
what do you do with all your free time?

You play cards. Now as a camera man you want to take pictures of the
lovely ladies you meet. But you have to earn the right by defeating
them in some foreign card game. It's kind of like matching pictures and
getting the right set of pictures. A red arrow shows you which cards to
play each turn, which will get matches. Very confusing at first, but
after awhile you learn what the good cards are. The card with the sun
on it tends to be the best one. Beat a girl in the game and you can then
take some pictures of her. Not dirty pictures mind you, but just
pictures of her set to the background.

There are three modes to choose from at the start screen. Story, Card
Battle, and Album. Story mode is the typical one player mode, card
battle is just playing cards for fun, and album shows you all the
pictures you have taken on your journey. Story mode took a long time
to complete. Well over ten hours, probably closer to twenty. Not bad
for no walkthrough or information on the game.

You play like this. Usually you talk to the girls, and then an arrow will
appear on screen. From here you can choose to either take her
picture, play cards, save, talk, or move on to the next screen. You go
all over Japan and visit shrines, cities, forests, hot springs, and other
cool places. Losing in the card game battles doesn't really seem to
affect the story too much. I lost at a bunch (but beat the final boss on
my first try) and the story still progressed. I don't know if there are
multiple endings or not. I got a good one and ended up with Tokiko. I'm
not sure if it is possible to marry any of the other three girls you meet.

The graphics in this game are cool. You have anime style people set to
real life backgrounds. Therefore, it is really neat to see all these actual
places in Japan. Any fan of beautiful scenery will love this game
because of this. Characters do not move though, that is the mouths do
not move and the eyes do not blink when they talk, so that is a let
down. There are also not too many characters to look at. Most of the
game is spent looking at Tokiko in the same few poses. She's pretty
and all (kind of looks like Relena from Gundam Wing) but after ten
hours, I wanted more. But the backgrounds steal the show. They look
really nice, and showcase some of the finest spots in Japan.

The music in the game is very slow and relaxing, there was only one
real fast track, and that came near the end of the game when you
meet the final boss and when the Swan boat was leaking (ha yeah, you
can ride a swan boat). The title screen music, which is a very sad piano
piece, is the best in the game, and it also is played at key parts during
the game. The characters seldom speak though. They only have
voiceovers when certain important things are being said. That was
kind of disappointing, but oh well. The music played during the card
battle parts, were calm and relaxing. Overall, not a bad job at all.

Replay wise, you have the card game to come back to. You can also
take different pictures at different places and see if that does anything
to the story. You can see if taking many pictures makes a different
ending. You could also see if winning the card games affects the story.
But, I think the biggest draw will be the card game which becomes
quite fun when you (kinda) know what you're doing. Unfortunately
beating the game does not seem to open up any omake modes or
anything. A shame because that is a staple for these import adventure
titles.

This was a really surprising game for me. I was expecting another dirty
bird dating sim but instead got a very relaxed, very mellow, picture
taking card playing sim. The only real downfall is the fact that it takes
up nearly 250 blocks of memory on the Saturn. Make sure you're ready
for this one. Other then that, if you can find a copy (I hear it's kind of
rare and well sought out) do pick it up. It won't change the way you
feel about video games, but it is nice to just pass the time and play
some cards with pretty anime girls here and there.

Review by: Orochi Sonic