HadlerER

Hadler · @HadlerER

1st Mar 2015 from TwitLonger

Finished Bokusen, I pretty much spent the last 12 hours doing nothing but reading it
Quick preamble first, Sharin was one of the first eroge I did in Japanese so I used to be quick a big Looseboy fanboy
Even had to live through G-senjou's being pushed back again and again
So I can't be too hard on the people who shit on Bokusen because it's not another brick shitting game because I probably would have thought something similar back then, basically being an ignorant fanboy suck

The biggest difference between Sharin and Bokusen is the way they are written.
In Sharin it felt like every other line was made to be screencaped while in Bokusen the text feels like a natural "flow" that is hard to take apart
I won't say that one style is better than the other, I won't deny that I really liked the way Sharin was written back then too
But it's nice to see that Looseboy can change style and still pretty good like this

Anyway to talk about Bokusen itself, and I'll try to not spoil much but be advised

Bokusen was advertised as a "human drama" and it goes for just that, everything about the "plot" and setting are really just excuses to deliver that drama and the theme that Looseboy is going for.
Personally the way I see it the setting itself should have went for a more meta direction, in the end it was hard to know if I should take the 会 setting seriously or just consider it a vehicle to deliver the theme, it sure wasn't very well developed the way it was presented in the game

The way the game is composed is similar to Sharin in that the game itself, that is straightforward with no route, can be divided in parts that each focus on a certain character(s).
I liked the cast quite a bit overall and most of them felt "human", though surprisingly Rumi was my least favorite heroine in the game by the end
(Nagato is the best character of course but that was pretty obvious)

For the "human drama" itself, honestly this is probably the sort of game where the less title of that genre you experienced the better, to be blunt.
The writing is good, the cast is good but yeah... it's hard to pintpoint exactly where it's lacking but I can't say I really felt the catharsis going
I guess it lacked theatrics, in a way the game is so straightforward about everything the "manipulation" itself feel a bit too obvious
Not to say that there was no good parts, I liked the whole thing between Shinobu and Yuka for example
But I guess it wasn't climatic enough overall, it's a pretty bad criticism and I could understand that people accuse me of being shallow but this is what I felt

So do I think it's some kind of kamige or whatever? No but who care
For its price it actually has quite a bit of content, the art is good, the soundtrack isn't bad, the writing is very solid all around and it shows that Looseboy still has it so I don't feel like I lost my time

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