High School Terra Story for the Sega Saturn: A Review

The packaging of this game says "You Will Find True Love," but it seems the only true love you will find in this piece of rhubbish is the eject button. First of all, this game is completely in Japanese, which already takes away some of the fun factor. I played it at my friend's house, and somehow I got addicted to trying to figure out how the game operates, how to get further and accomplish goals. I had no idea it was "hentai" until I tried to search for it on the web some time later. Then my friend gave the game to me, along with a Sears television that has no headphone jack and no way of connecting with my computer for good screen grabs, even if I knew how to do that. I copied some of my screen grabs from the web. Even though I don't know what the hell they're saying, I've figured out enough to be nauseated. They say games like this are good if you want a game where you can play and smoke at the same time, but you'll end up going through five cartons before you actually get anywhere in this one, and frankly, it's just not that entertaining. The game seems to be designed for a different system, as you only make use of a couple buttons for everything. You use Start to begin the game, and to hide text boxes from the hentai pictures. The trigger buttons hide the player statistics box on the bottom left corner, or make it pop up during sequences where it doesn't need to be there. You use arrow butons to highlight options, A is used to select them, and B is used for fast forwarding through text and the chibi animations. None of the other four buttons have any use whatsoever. Well, the C button is used for the insipid rhythm game, but that's about it. When you start out the game, it's like you're just thrown out in the middle of nowhere with no sense of direction in terms of what you're doing. A giant red clock spins around to remind you that your life is slowly draining away every minute you sit in front of this game. You cannot skip the clock animation, nor can you go up and microwave a burrito while it's spinning because it's not long enough for that. The cityscape is poorly designed visually, and you don't really get a chance to explore it. It only exists to burn into your retina like that stupid square clock. Asian people think it's a tacky morbid gift to give clocks for birthday presents, and this game is the reason. For a couple days, you just watch the clock spin around, and watch animations of a chibi character doing various boring school activities. Sometimes his face will turn purple and his hair will explode in apparent embarrassment, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. After that activity, the clock slowly spins some more, and you end up in your bedroom, which will soon become as tiresome as the clock after a few hours. You can select an option to go to bed, or you can save the game, provided you have a Japanese memory card. I do not, so what happens is I will save the game, unplug the system, and then be forced to start over from the beginning, and be subjected to the same stale animations over and over again. (I have since deposited the CD under my bed to gather dust and get corrupted until the event of me purchasing a Japanese memory card, but I digress.) After going to bed, you get to watch an animation of the hero sitting up in bed belching, or lying flat on his back looking like he wishes to commit suicide, or, if you really suck, he will don a clown costume. The animations of your school hours consist of only a tiny handful of scenes, which are recycled over and over an infinite amount of times. 1. He reads a paper in front of the class. His hair will explode if he does bad, and nothing interesting happens when he does well. 2. He writes on a piece of paper. If he does poorly, he falls asleep, though it makes you tired instead of healing you like sleep does. If he does well, he will look like he's nodding off, then he will straighten up and nothing interesting happens. 3. He draws a picture in art class. If bad at it, he will hold up an ugly picture of a clown or something and his face will turn purple. If done well, you'll see a picture of the Venus De Milo, or he might show the clown picture, then scribble a bit, and turn it into the Venus De Milo. 4. He goes outside and runs in front of girls. The better he does, the more times he runs across the screen, comes back from the opposite side of the screen, and runs again. If he does so-so, he'll stumble and run across the screen. If he does poorly, he trips, and sometimes falls. 5. In science class, he pours stuff into a flask. If you do good, he grins like he's insane, and the vial will fill with purple liquid. If poorly done, it will explode in his face. Again, if there were only a button that could get rid of these animations instead of just fast forwarding them, this would be a better game. And that damned clock. You can't even fast forward the clock, and all you see are its hands moving around. This is the video equivalent of watching paint dry. He goes to work and school every day of the week except Sunday, which is kind of lame, but I guess that's how it is in Japan. After doing this a few times, you get introduced to this bald toupee wearing Asian guy who apparently is either your dad or the school principal. He stands in front of the same building all your classmates stand in front of. I'm not sure if this is the school or an apartment complex, but it really doesn't matter. I've heard that Asian people sometimes live in their schools. After this, you go to work at a grocery store and meet the boss, who looks grumpy except when you see him in the chibi cartoon. There are only two animations you can see of your character at the store, except for the occasional still. 1. The guy cleans the windows and stacks cans on a display. If he does poorly, the cans fall down. If he does well, the cans don't move. 2. He stands behind a counter. If he does poorly, he sees a girl, and she shocks him and he jumps back and his hair explodes. If he does well, he stands in front of the girl and nothing happens. I have yet to find any connection between the girl and any of the existing female characters. The hair is all wrong for that. You'd think he'd date her occasionally because she's always in the store with him, but the guy's IQ is at the level of a bag of rocks. The school principal is a pervert. When you're working in the grocery store the first day, you see him sneaking around on the floor, staring into a shelf. He comes up to you, says something, and then you are treated to a panty shot, which is strange because I'm still not sure why a girl is lifting her skirt in front of a shelf of bread. I suspect I know whose panties those are, but the reason for why they can be viewed from that position baffles me. Was someone giving the old dude a free show? Anyways, after that, you see the clock. And your bedroom. You go to sleep, you wake up, etc., etc. At school, you meet a girl with blue hair and a smug effeminate looking guy, and they give you their numbers. When you go home, I guess you're supposed to call them, but it really doesn't accomplish anything at this point in the game, so I skipped doing that, and ended up with them popping up by a park bench and at a shopping district, as if they're trying to tell me they want me to call them. Go to hell. Eventually, the two take you down a sidewalk, chat with you a bit, then you see principal dad on all fours, peering over the hedge of some house. A pair of panties then floats over the hedge. Slowly. Oh so slowly. Even when you hold down the B button. After this, the guy apparently gets hit by a bus. You go to the hospital, and meet the nurse. Clock. Home. Clock. School. The blue haired girl takes you to the subway, where you see a purple haired girl, and a super slow animation of her turning her head that you can't speed up with the B button. Clock. Home. School. After this, it seems you're visiting principal dad in the hospital. The nurse talks to you, and apparently it must be bad news because you never see him again. It also seems she has the hots for you. You enter a routine of watching the clock and crappy animations for several turns. The first time, you see a black screen with text saying something. And then you see this angel character that looks suspiciously like principal dad. I guess he's explaining the rules of the game. This is where we're treated to this picture of the strange half naked girl in the green skirt thing: This girl gives you a long speech as she lays there, moving only her mouth and blinking from time to time. It seems that every girl in this game likes to recite something the length of Magna Carta as they lay half naked in bed. And then we see this purple demon and he shows a chart of character names with hearts next to each one. This chart can be accessed from the bedroom at any time, but it makes you tired, which is another thing going against this game. At home, you keep getting calls from a stranger. You talk to this person and earn relationship points, and then the next day you see a girl with pigtails at the apartment/school place. Inside the classroom, the blue haired girl hands you a letter. It would seem the girl is a bit shy. You have two options. Accept the letter, or get stuck in a spot where nothing happens but clock watching and stupid chibi animations of school and work forever until the game tells you it's all over in Japanese. No matter how many times you call anyone, nothing will ever happen. After this, some new things open up. You encounter this fat kid with a Tomagatchi around his neck. Later on, you talk on the phone to the girly anime guy, and he gives you a pencil, which you apparently use to pull out the kid's nose hairs. After playing the game normally a few times and getting pissed off, I used the action replay to get maximum hearts for all the characters, but it doesn't help very much. However, the "never get tired" cheat was useful. I'm thinking the cheat took advantage of something relating to the option you have to call the nurse, because you automatically visit the hospital every day, and she keeps asking you questions. I don't know what the hell she is saying, but I kept testing different options, and eventually for some reason you see her lying on the floor showing off her lacy underwear. She looks like she's in pain or something, but I guess you make her feel better, because there's a scene that looks like she's moaning, and then a couple other semi nude images. They say that this game is hentai, but it's censored nudity. You can get the idea, though. Once you get this far with the nurse, she disappears from the game. My guess is she got fired or something. Not really surprising if you think about it. I made this seem easy, but it's not. It takes a long time to get this far. Because of that damn clock. No matter what you say, you will not avoid having to play in the band. The guy and blue haired girl will corner you, and then a group of ugly chibi characters appear on a garishly designed stage background, all moving at a sluggish pace that is painful to watch. You see a box in the corner of the screen, which shows what button you're supposed to press next. No instructions. It just jumps into it. I went along with it, assuming it to be like Parappa the rapper. It basically was Parappa without the fun. Worse, when it got to the middle of the song, the button instructions flashed so fast that only Data from Star Trek could keep up with them. I kid you not, no human being could possibly keep up with them when flashing by that fast. It was like a subliminal message. The Japanese pop music would have been great but when you get a button correct, the song is interrupted by cheering sounds, and when you miss a note, you are tortured with what I can only describe as the sound of a constipated robot trying desperately to pinch a loaf while scratching on a chalk board. After awhile, I gave up and just took a shower and ate breakfast while the main character got booed for lousy guitar playing. You can't skip the game, so why not make the best use of the time? The secret of this game seems to be calling the girls a lot until you can set up a date. I don't know how old the girl with the pigtails is. I'm not sure I want to know, either. After awhile you go out, and as long as you don't give her the GIRL DOLL TOY and say a few other things correctly, you'll go out on dates on Sunday. You pick her up at a place called Himawari Dai, which I suspect is a construction company. She likes the zoo. I can tell because it shows a big picture of her, and you get to hear animals and earn 10 points. She also likes the amusement park, which has a mascot that looks suspiciously like Pikachu. She also wears outfits that make her look suspiciously like a grandmother. If things turn out well, you'll be treated to the picture from the title screen, which is a panty shot of the girl running in her skirt. Then shit gets really weird. She just stands there, talking, with her head turned in an unnatural position like something out of the Exorcist. You can also take her to the beach, and if it turns out well, you see a picture of her holding her shoes as she dances in the water, then a scene where it looks like she's kissing someone, but you don't see the other person. An eternity of calling and dating and watching the clock spin around, you're suddenly in her house, and there's more semi nudity. The presence of a teddy bear and a room resembling a child's playroom makes this a very disturbing, potentially illegal moment. It seems it takes more to make her disappear than it does the nurse. Probably because she can't get fired from a playroom. Well, enough about her. The Sailor Scout pops up at the subway tunnel and the store. She seems nice enough. You answer a few questions, then she gives you her passport and eventually her phone number. For some reason, she asks you to hang out by a wall occupied by two jocks., and it earns you 10 points. It seems impossible to get anywhere with her after this point, and this may have something to do with the brunette, her best friend. The brunette meets you in the supermarket. She asks you a question one day, then the next day, if you answer it the wrong way, she ends up in your bedroom half naked. The drawing is crudely executed, which should have been a big hint, but if you choose this option, the next thing that happens is you see the princip-angel with his ass sticking out, saying something on a microphone. A little while later, she introduces her friend, and then, some time later, you see Sailor Scout crying on your bed. After calling her repeatedly, she cries on your bed again, and then you just talk on the phone and that's all you can do. The blue haired girl introduces you to a shrewish woman, and you go on dates because apparently Blue Hair isn't interested in you and wants you to see other people. I haven't gotten the brunette figured out yet, but I managed to get her to go on one date. At some point, you go into a forest and see a girl in a tiger costume. She blushes, and later, after saying the right things to her, you get to the point where you can take her on a date. Taking her to the zoo seems to be a no-no, because after I did that, no matter how much I called her, she wouldn't ask for another date. If you select another option, you somehow end up beating her up in the park, and I'm really not sure why. There's a red haired girl, and she seems to be the sister of Pretty Boy, because she always shows up after he does. I managed to get her to hang out by a telescope for some reason. And the rooftop of the supermarket, I think. As if the crappy Parappa style band segment wasn't bad enough, you end up getting forced into a game of bowling, which proceeds with agonizing slowness for 7 rounds. You basically wait for the swinging bar to line up at the correct position between the red and blue symbols for straight and wiggly throwing, fast/forceful and slow ball hurling, then push the A button. The only good thing about this segment is that it doesn't go on for a regulation 10 rounds. If you call Pretty Boy and pluck the fat Vulcan kid's nose hair, you eventually meet Purple Haired Girl. After stalking her outside her apartment a few days, you meet her by a telescope, then catch her wearing a white shirt in the rain. Since I couldn't save the game, and it took about three to four hours to get that far, that's as far as I got. It seems she doesn't answer the phone. Ever. It's always busy. So it's pretty much impossible to do anything with her. Also, she works at Himawari Dai. It seems your involvement with the pigtails girl affects her somehow, or vice versa, because it's a lot more difficult to date after hanging out with her. Further on, you see a girl sitting on a chair, and you are forced into another mini game. This time it actually makes sense for there to be no escape route. You're given some sort of quiz, and you have to guess three numbers. This was easy, but I found the noises and the flashing Japanese logos really abrasive. All you do is type 0-1-2 and if it doesn't work, type 3-4-5, etcetera, until it gives a gold text instead of a blue one. After the "test:", the boss at the supermarket gives you a radio, and you might talk to a girl on the roof. And then, if you keep calling Blue Hair ("Rina"), there's a scene where she pulls up her skirt and shows you her panties. This is confusing, because she points at her panties, then looks at you, then points at her panties again, then looks at you again. I'm not sure what that means, exactly, except maybe she was lying on the floor with her crotch pointed at the bread shelf or something. Or maybe she threw her panties at principal dad. You pick some option, and you see a guy (you?) kissing her or something. And then you enter that limbo of calling everyone but nobody answering, and watching that damn clock spinning around and those stupid animations over and over forever. That's about all I could get out of this game. I simply do not have the patience to keep playing it, especially considering the fact that if you leave the machine on for an hour, or bump the machine, it freezes and you have to start over from the beginning again.