5 -ファイブ- Review

I have the urge to punch the scenario writer after every route of this eroge…

Official

Getchu

Walkthrough

Some Rubbish Infomation

Company = RAM

Scenario = 山地浩志, 魁 (Also worked on Clannad. Yes, that Clannad), 管理人

Artist = Bang！(No really)

Genre = Dramatic snow-filled fantasy village romance

What’s so special = All, and I mean all, bad/neutral ends, nice pacing, unique storyline

Foreword

I’m going to say this first, but I don’t think the people who reviewed 5 on erogamescape did it justice. Sure it doesn’t have any good ends, but contains a pretty captivating story. Yes, I liked 5. Though playing too many eroges of this genre would be really disheartening.

Story

You start off as Takahiro, a somewhat normal city guy.

He’s together with his cow sister over at a small village in Hokkaido. They’re supposed to live there for the time being with their father’s friend.

After walking for some time from the nearest village, they reach their destination. And they meet the person who’s going to take care of them.

From here on starts their farm life in Hokkaido, where all things mystical may actually be true.

~END~

Yes I just felt like adding that at the end since this story is really not the realistic type.

Anyway, there is a one point I want to make about this eroge. It doesn’t have any happy endings. At all. I’ve seen some people complain about how it’s a blatant ripoff from stuff like Clannad or Kanon, but this is somewhat… different. They actually incorporated violence in this eroge. That means the main character or heroines don’t just die from “eternal sadness”.

However, it actually maintains a pretty happy and humorous mood throughout the entire eroge on the contrary to the endings. Only near the end, shit starts to pile up at amazing speeds. It does though, get somewhat draggy in a way that there are way too many unneeded character interaction scenes where the point has already been made a few scenes before.

Personally, I think what truly shines is the pacing. You get 4 routes at first, each unfolding and revealing their side of the story while contributing to the entire back story as a whole. Then, after all the routes, you get the true route which is called -5- and reveals the… Meh I think that’s a spoiler so I’ll avoid it.

Airi’s route though was probably the worst, even though it had quite a lot of potential. An abrupt ending and a sudden WTF moment is kinda >_>; Oh, and it’ll be best to leave honoka’s route right till the end.

Also, there are very obvious hints taken at how modernization is destroying nature. I mean really obvious hints.

But yes, back to the main point. If you can’t take utsuges, then you probably should avoid this. Or if you like torturing yourself if you’re that way then it’s fine. Either way, this isn’t ending with the kind of “you, me and the rest of the world in peace” thing which happens in a lot of eroges. If you can take it though, the story is definitely worth a read. It’s a pretty intriguing story. I do feel that the writing is done really well. Never knew that they cared so much about the environment though.

Characters

稲葉 孝弘 (Inaba Takahiro)

He’s your usual faceless protag. Pretty typical guy, with the usual fantasies about H but generally a decent guy altogether.

織戸　ほのか (Orito Honoka)

She’s a really bright girl who’s incredibly pure and simple. She seems to have taken a great liking to Takahiro, which doesn’t happen much. Also, she’s a pretty mysterious girl who can communicate with animals. Someone is always protecting her in the shadows, Likes saying ほにょおお for some reason.

She’s also somewhat clumsy

織戸　禰音 (Orito Nene)

Nene is the older sister of Honoka. She’s a really sensible girl who takes care of the cleaning, cooking and buying of groceries. The more quiet type of girl. She has a huge weakness for time sales and the sort, so she tends to buy a lot without realizing it. She also took a liking to Takahiro after Honoka introduced him. When she’s angry, the atmosphere freezes. Seriously.

She gives off an aura of sadness

奥菜　楓 (Okina Kaede)

The person who’s taking care of Airi and Takahiro during their stay in Hokkaido. She lives alone in a house not too far away from the village. Over there, she also rears cows and sell the milk they produce. She’s the kind of mature motherly character. But when she starts going into her “mode”, she would be in another world for at least 10 minutes.

She’s pretty cute IMO

稲葉　愛理 (Inaba Airi)

Takahiro’s sister. He calls her a cow because of her huge boobs. They get into fights all the time. But even so, she always tags behind Takahiro. She’s really caught up in weird stuff like some global milk club and her obsession with cows. Sharp tongued and pretty violent at times.

Like I said, she’s obsessed

System

The title screen. I like the simplistic design and the fact that it changes after every route. Every route you do, the characters would disappear one by one until when all of them are gone, you get the true route which will reveal yet another background picture.

The config. It’s actually a pretty good config that has quite some lot of options, but the whole design makes it look really clumsy. That said, the sound options are lol. 22khz?

The text box is decently transparent. You could also change it’s color and transparency so no biggy. The size is pretty much just about right too. Pokkun is awesome.

This appears when you right click. A menu where you get all the options you’ll ever need in the game. I really like the 5 sign in this eroge.

Day transition with Pokkun at the bottom right doing random things. Oh and the snow’s animated =3.

CG and Animation

There is a lot of snow scenes in the eroge since the entire storyline lies in winter. That said, the art is pretty good, though proportions are somewhat incorrect in some CGs. Emotions are pretty clear cut and the portrayal is well done. The art reminds me of the old eroge style with a mix of the new age style. There’s the simple lines that make the CG look animeish while the shading is done in the typical eroge way.

Still, it’s wonderful to see the subtle touches done on the snow and character movements.

I do have a question about why Nene’s scar disappeared in the H scenes though.

Music

They don’t have a music section, but they have a music playing bar lodged at the bottom of the CG mode.

I would say the music is really good in this eroge. There were a lot of tracks that sounded…. sad. The instruments used are pretty random. Somewhat like Kanon where it sounds a little digital instead of realistic. It fit the theme really well, no objections whatsoever.

H scenes

Surprisingly, there isn’t a lot of H scenes in the eroge. A lot of H CGs yes, but H scenes itself is not a lot. They keep swapping the CGs during the scene resulting in a high number of CGs but not so many scenes. The H scenes were done pretty well, with the characters still having their personalities intact. Nothing much to say here since the H isn’t really anything interesting in this eroge.

Conclusion

I really think if you can take utsuges, play this. It’s a really good story if you ignore the thought that the scenario writer may just be trolling you.  I enjoyed it, but I’m staying away from this genre for a bit since I don’t really want to get depressed over and over again.