殻ノ少女 Review

There we have it, Kara no shoujo. One of the best eroges ever created (totally my biased opinion).

One of the few rare eroges that actually sticks very much to slice of life (gore version).

You gotta agree, it’s rare for eroges to have this genre. Absolutely wonderful.

Without further ado.

Official

Getchu

Walkthrough

Some Rubbish Infomation

Company = Innocent Grey

Scenario =  鈴鹿美弥

Artist =  杉菜水姫 (Catagura’s artist)

Genre = Abstract detective slice of life  gore romance

What’s so special = Excellent art, Absolutely gripping story, Gore, Detective gameplay

Foreword

This is an excellent eroge that everyone should try even once. No wait all Innocent Grey eroges are actually very well made. Replaying this was very enjoyable.

Company

Innocent Grey. Its not exactly extremely famous since the things this company produces is totally different mainstream stuff. It focuses on the old theme mostly, mainly stuff that gives an old feel like people wearing yukatas and stuff like that.

Both PP and Catagura are excellent examples of this, and both of them were absolutely excellent as well. They’re making a new eroge (god knows when it’ll be finished)  but it’s something I’ll be looking out for. This is definately one of the more unique and better eroge companies.

Story

The whole feel is a mix of modern and traditional Japan/Europe. Modern as in you get cars, trains and the like. Traditional is the girls wearing Yukatas at home. The buildings actually have a european feel instead of a japanese feel. Very nice touch.

So you start off as Reiji, a private detective. He solves random cases and stuff but his real drive is to find a murderer 6 years ago.

One day, while on the road home, he meets a mysterious girl sitting on a bench. Noticing him, she stands up and says “I have a job request for you. I want you to find the real me”

One fine day, he got a call from his detective friend Kyouzou. It’s about a murder case, one which the victim is gruesomely killed and disfigured. Exactly what happened years ago. He jumps onto the case.

The person killed was a girl from some prestegious all girls school. It’s a school with strict rules and the very atmosphere of it seems to be totally different from the outside.  The headmaster hires Reiji to find out who the murderer is, so Reiji went into the school, under the fake mask of a temporary teacher.

*DRUM ROLL*

And there you have it. Im writing without referencing so forgive me for any shitty mistakes I may have made.

The story plays a huge part in this eroge and it requires you to remember the facts that has been said. Even with the notebook, there are a little too many facts in there so it’s going to be pretty messy.

It’s gripping in the way that there is realistic gore but it’s not overdone. You feel tension and fear whenever it reaches that moment and relief if you manage to crack the case. It’s so well written that I’m wondering why I chose G senjou as my top eroge.

Also the fact that there aren’t actually any character routes is something that makes it stand out from the rest. You get different endings but not individual routes. You get to interact with different characters with the choices and places you chose to go, but the main plotline is the same. Excellent way of uunfolding this story. Each different ending reveals something different about the girl.

The whole theme is really dark. Very nice atmosphere and setting. You gotta admit this dark eroge has got to be at the top. The fact that every character may be a murderer is quite some thrill.

It’s not for the weak hearted as almost every character has a death scene. So it’s not exactly a happy eroge.

Absolutely fantastic.

You do need a pretty decent grasp of the Japanese language though since they use pretty complicated japanese in some places and they’re Kanji freaks. So yeah have a dictionary with you.

Characters

One of the main things that also make this eroge stand out from the rest.

There are a lot of characters to interact with and each and everyone of them has a distinct personality. I think there were 30 characters or something like that. Not to mention the voices were brilliant and I actually bothered to listen to the voices even when I finished reading the text. Doesn’t happen very often.

時坂　玲人 (Tokisaka Reiji)

Cool dude Reiji. He’s probably the best protagonist I’ve ever encountered. Cool and composed, he thinks about the facts and go around investigating cases. He’s somewhat weak towards girls/ladies but still he’s composed even if someone he knows dies. Very nice chara.

時坂　紫 (Tokisaka Yukari)

Reiji’s sister. She’s intelligent and calm always. Though she IS a little weird. She likes bugs -_-; and sometimes cook bugs. She would make a great wife. Art club member.

朽木　冬子 (Kuchiki Toko)

The mysterious girl that asked Reiji to find her true self. She’s an artist. Very cute girl. She’s the whole point of the eroge so you would do well to get to know her. She has health problems. A little naughty sometimes which just makes her cuter =O. Good friends with the other Toko. Art club member.

水原　透子 (Mizuhara Toko)

Toko’s best friend (and yes they have the same name). She follows Toko around all the time and thinks there is nothing left in the world is Toko is not there. Jealousy supreme. She has her own problems to deal with too though. Art club member.

四十宮　綴子 (Yosomiya Tsuzuriko)

Reiji, being lazy, calls her ドジ子(dojiko) because her name is very long and bothersome to call. She aspires to be a writer and has written books. She has a bright a cheerful personality but behaves like a lady in school. Best friends with Yukari for some reason even though their personalities are 180 degrees different. Art club member.

月島　織姫 (Tsukishima Orihime)

The head of the student council. She has a proud aura surrounding her and doesn’t trust people. She’s cold towards Reiji for some reason.

葉月　杏子 (Hazuki Kyoko)

She’s the ladyowner of 月世界, a cafe that Reiji frequents. Btw she’s Reiji’s osananajimi. Her husband died a few years ago. She likes talking to Reiji and Kyozo. She’s actually an interesting character since she has almost no connections with the cases.

雨宮　初音 (Amemiya Hatsune)

The girl working at 月世界. She has been taught by Shugo before and therefore admires him a lot. Used to work in a brothel (not as a prostitute). Interesting girl who should NEVER cook because her inventions are somewhat dangerous sometimes.

夏目さん (Natsume)

One of the characters with the weirdest personalities. She is however someone who does her job right. She’s in charge of performing autopsies on the murdered so you should keep watch of everything she says. She knows how to manupilate Reiji well. Shuugo’s sister.

朱崎　寧々 (Akazaki Nene)

She’s the teacher in charge of the houkenshitsu (The room for resting and stuff like that. Kinda like a small doctor room in a school?). She has the health info on all the students in the school. Mysterious woman.

マリス・ステラ (Maris Stella)

Obviously ain’t pure japanese. She’s a little slow and my pace kind of character. But her information is excellent and very detailed. She works in a art museum.

魚住　夾三 (Uozumi Kyozo)

A detective working for the police. He works with Reiji quite a lot. Also old friends with Reiji though Reiji thinks the relationship is nothing good (腐れ縁).

高城　秋五 (Takashiro Shugo)

Another old friend of Reiji’s. Also a private detective. They help out each other by asking each other to keep a lookout for what they are searching for. This dude’s quite a joke because he’s kind of half sleeping all the time.

System

Wonderfully artistic starting page. 

Not a lot of settings in the config. They do let you adjust the voice volume of each and every character though, which is a LOT.

We got this really cool save screen which has all the usual stuff with a thumbie. Actually I found the save slots to be a little lacking since this eroge practically requires you to save everytime you make a choice since you die a LOT and very easily.

The transition screen. I really like how this eroge is really artistic. It’s really amazingly nice (maybe because I’m somewhat an artist also).

Day change screen. Text effects on the words. As you can see it’s using a very old way of counting. Not to mention the thing in the pacground looks suspiciously like blood stains.

If you remember, I said that I loved eroges giving titles to the chapters. This probably has the most abstract titles I have ever seen. They make you ponder a LOT. Wonderful.

Nothing too special about this. If you’re wondering why I’m not saying anything bout the text box yet that’s because it’s below =D

But of couse these’s aren’t anything special. So let’s go on to the special part.

The typical screen you should get. Take note there’s a note book which SAVES your life. Flip through it. Dammit. Please. Just do it.

There’s also the date+place on the top left which informs you where you are, a nice unobstructive touch. Since everything in this eroge happens in less than 2 months, dates are pretty important.

The text you get when they’re telling the story from someone else’s point of view. It’s classic Japanese style writing so you have to get used to it since it’s left to right and up to down. I love it though. Really cool stuff.

Now for your notebook

Character list of everyone you’ve met. Not to mention it updates the character description as you find more and more facts about them. Very useful if you missed out a point.

Evidence list. Flip through this from time to time since you have to choose what evidence you’re using to suspect a suspect (wow XD). Very comprehensive and long so just browse through it. Reading through it would take like 15 minutes.

Some sort of diary about what you did. Though it’s just for investigation use. Doesn’t have much real use IMO.

Map. It tells you all of the places that is avaliable to you. There is also the incident map which tells you where the incidents happens and marked it with a X.

Probably one of the most fun things in the notebook. It shows what connections the charas have with each other. Nearing the end, the notebook is extremely messy with lines all over the place. But this is one easy way to find the connections.

Here’s what you use to move around. It’s like a choice. When it pops up you choose where you’re going to next. It affects the whole goddamned story so please CHOOSE WISELY.

A very nice system, you get to investigate the scene of the crime. Literally. You click on what’s there and check it. Note that some things can only be found after multiple clicks and some things must be clicked in order. If you miss an item, it may result in a game over so think twice about checking random stuff since there is a limit on the number of things you check.

When you get to this screen, it’s time to arrange your facts. You gotta point your needle to the right direction and find the true suspect or at least make a clever guess.

This is an example of choosing the evidence you’re gonna use to suspect the suspect.

You do get the classic choices.

Now there is a lot of gameplay elements in this eroge that makes you feel invovled in the story. But the more choices means the more chances of hitting a dead end. So keep saving and persevere till the end.

CG and Animation

Just look at that.

I mean seriously I don’t even have to bother emphasising how incredible the art is. It’s got it’s own style. Not to mention it’s ridiculously high detailed.  The lighting and perspective of this is beyond me. This art is in a whole category of awesomeness of it’s own.

There are little bits of animation here and there. ドジ子’s heart shape bubble for instance or when you choose an option. The choices itself also have a particle animation in the background. So yeah this eroge has little bits and pieces of animation. It’s subtle but it’s there.

Music

The music of this eroge is bent towards classics. Somehow the dark ambience seems through so it’s kinda dark classic if there’s such a thing. Since I am a classic lover, I snapped up the OST a long time ago and it’s like the one with most plays on my list. So long story short. The music pwns. Everything.

H scenes

I’m going to say the H scenes are AWESOME. They let you choose whether to go in or out too. 

The gripe I have though is that the H scenes come out of absolutely nowhere. It’s not like the other eroges where it’s in around one time area. This eroge has it’s H scenes spread all over the place. Not that it’s a bad thing.

Last Word

Just play this. It won’t let you down. Unless you can’t take blood of course.

This eroge is just… too different. In a very good way. INNOCENT GREY FTW!

Screenies