Kimagure Delinquent Road

There were parts about this game that I liked, but... I won't beat around the bush; this game has problems. First off, it's important to mention that this game is a porn parody of the series Kimagura Orange Road, originally an 80s manga. There are porn parodies out there that can be played just fine without knowing the source material, but this isn't one of them. I didn't know about Kimagura Orange Road before playing this, so I went in blind. And what I found was that too much of this game hinges on players already knowing the original story and the characters. Except for the villains there's pretty much no character introduction, and much of the story just kinda falls flat witout that "hey, a familiar face!"-factor tickling your brain. OTOH, I'm a sucker for this oldschool manga style. So there's that. Now, this game's art in general is... not that consistent in quality. The main sprites of the protagonist (Ayukawa) and her friends are good, as are the main sprites of the villains Mio, Yuji and Akane . But the sprites of most of the other villains are drawn much more amateurishly. I've seen worse, but they're still wonky in a way that suggests that the good sprites have been traced. The H-scene sprites likewise tend to be noticeably worse than the regular ones, with poor proportions and perspective. Gameplay-wise, the setup is interesting. A visual novel format where you have to click arrow icons to decide the course of a brawl? Not gonna lie, that's an approach with real potential. Not to mention that it's also kinda unique. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before. But the bad part is the way that the game handles this. Pressing the wrong arrow is not an immediate game over, and you can tank quite a few punches. But you still get no hints whatsoever, so all you can do is guess. The only way to play this game is literally just trial and error + savescumming. This also means that the fights get repetitive very quickly. The boss fights are generally not that bad as most of them go down with a single punch . But the goon fights tend to drag on, especially later into the game. Really, almost every goon fight in this game is a slog. Some of the boss fights do throw in a little variety, though; Spoiler: Boss-related spoilers Again, most bosses just go down with a single punch. Boom, and the fucker goes down like a bitch. But there are five exceptions: Akira, Yuji, Takashi, Shin, and the BT Group leader. Akira's the first boss who doesn't just go down after one hit. His gimmick is that he's a big brawny fat dude, so as you might expect, he can actually tank hits. His *other* gimmick is that he'll actually hit you back everytime you land a punch on him. He's literally the first boss who actually puts up a fight. Yuji also has a gimmick, but he's annoying. He will dodge all your punches no matter what you do, but he has no problem landing hits on *you*. His fight is a pain in the ass, and the way to win is counterintuitive - take enough hits to get knocked down, and then some karate guy who's raising hell in the background will accidentally punch the distracted Yuji out. Takashi is a pain in the ass for the same reason as that Yuji is - he'll dodge all your punches. But Takashi also has another unpleasant trick: whenever his dog Chappie shows up, one of the two attack options will cause the dog to pull down your skirt, causing instant defeat rape and game over. Other than that, the only way to beat Takashi is (as far as I've discovered) to let him knock you down and then let another character KO Takashi. Shin, the second-last boss, is essentially invincible on his own. AFAIK the only way to beat him is to let him capture another character (Kyosuke), and then choose *not* to knock Kyosuke out before the start of the fight. The BT Group leader is, by contrast, a much more doable and straightforward fight. No cheap gimmicks about the boss always dodging. Just like Akira, the final boss can take some hits without going down. But unlike Akira, the final boss doesn't have as much stamina. Losing to this boss is in fact harder than winning, which is more than a little anticlimactic. Then there's the plot... Again, this game expects that you're already familiar with Kimagura Orange Road, so it skimps out on introducing important characters and plot points. This is still tolerable in the first half of the game - I was just like "oh hey, a game about a delinquent girl who beats up other delinquents. No idea who these characters are, but it looks kinda cool". And then... Spoiler ...Kyosuke shows up. He literally pops into existence, and starts yapping about parallel timelines. I'm like "what the actual fuck?". I thought that this was just a story about schoolyard delinquents beating eachother up? What's this sci-fi plot about parallel timelines doing here all of a sudden? Then he starts running around like an idiot, approaching the MC and her friends all like "Ayukawaaaa! Don't you recognize me?". And then it turns out that they don't, and that they've never seen him before. Then that same Kyosuke becomes a plot device. He turns out to have psychic powers, which allow him to take out Takashi and Shin even though he's a total wimp physically. If you don't know Kimagura Orange Road, the whole thing just feels so utterly bizarre. If you don't know that parallel timelines and stuff are part of the original story, the Kyosuke thing and everything about it just comes utterly out of left field. Without that context, you'll just think that the writer was on drugs or something. Other than that, the plot progression is also pretty repetitive. The school sequences during which the MC gets challenged are basically the same scene recycled over and over again. The plot around Yuji has a bit more meat to it, but that part of the story isn't all *that* impressive either. As for the porn... I already largely covered that under what I had to say about the art. But there's one thing that just bothered me, though; Spoiler: Ending spoiler After Shin and the BT boss have been defeated, the MC invites Kyosuke to stay over at her place. Then late at night, she shows up in his bedroom wearing nothing but a towel, nervously saying that she wants to have sex. Pretty nice buildup for a happy romantic sex scene, right? Except Kyosuke evidently decides that this is a great time to be an oldschool shonen manga character. He immediately gets a nosebleed so bad that he splatters blood all over the MC's naked body - and the MC's response is to punch him in the face so hard that he instantely warps back to his home timeline. The whole thing is just bullshit. Yes, it evokes oldschool manga tropes. That doesn't make it any less bullshit. Especially because this is a porngame parody. Seriously, just give the dude the ending he deserves. Let him nut so hard that it knocks him back to his home timeline. He probably would have, considering how much he's been blueballed in the canon story. As I was saying, wasted opportunity. All that aside, I can say that the music in this game is pretty nice. Nothing spectacular, but there are some catchy background tunes. In all, I'm giving this one a 3/5.

Gameplay time: 2-3 hours (Might be more if you want to collect all scene) Before continue, this is as a perspective of non-watcher to anime Kimagure Orange Road, might be bias due to not understand any possible reference for the plot. Spoiler: Gameplay - VN focused gameplay, with very weird rng mob fight and linear rng on boss fight, basically some memory game but also save-scumming gameplay. - Early to mid fight are very linear, but some gimmick appear in later fight (win in different method). - Gameover collecting simulator, the chance to lose is (assumption) 33%. - For an old game, this more like a parody and gallery game more than actual game. - No full gallery unlock after reach good ending. Spoiler: H-Scene - Animated Scene in every scene, not ass at all. (For a fluid animation in that era is awesome) - Easy to acquire, but need to lose on purpose. (Can still be lose by rng or plot) - Confusing route, only discoverable by repeating making different choice throughout the story (not fight). (Maybe bias, I not play much VN to know it is normal or not) - One dog scene, leftover are gangrape or rape scene.| - Included side character scene. (Yellow Hair Villain only have one secret scene) Spoiler: Conclusion It is awesome H content as parody game, especially that kind of H scene quality made in old gen game. The downside is the game is outdated, so expect more repetitive grind for all scene. Story where esper enter is very out of nowhere.