Chouchou Jiken

I thought Chouchou Jiken could be my kind of game, when it was announced: it looked dark, creepy and full of mysteries.

I was looking forward to playing it a lot, but being too hyped sometimes leads to a disappointment.

The common route was interesting: I realized immediately I couldn’t trust no one, not even my classmates or policemen; everyone seemed to hide something terrible.

As the plot unveiled, the bloody events started to make sense, and the suspance made me excited; I always wanted to know more, I would have played for 10 hours straight if I could.

All the characters looked interesting at first sight, but probably difficult to handle: some were difficult to approach, others suspicious; and the ones who seem kind, were even worse.

I’ve played Masanari first, since most of the routes were locked and the playorder is almost forced.

He was serious and cold, it took a lot of time before he started to open up and care about Elena, but when I saw him blushing I realized it was worth the waiting… he was absolutely adorable!

Even if the plot is dramatic and almost horror, there were still a few cute moments: their first date, the (fake) wedding and even Masanari taking care of her when she was sick.

I wished I could see more sweet CG, but most of them were for action scenes, as expected.

His route was good, but there was still something missing: too many questions were unsolved, but I knew I could find more answers in Haruka’s route.

Haruka looks like an elegant and sophisticated girl, but…… he’s a boy disguised as woman.

I won’t tell the reasons since it’s a spoiler, so let’s just talk briefly about his route.

At first it was a bit awkward, since it looked like some kind of friendship or yuri route: there are too many CGs with girl!Haruka, and ¾ of his route had him dressed as an high school girl.

Well, it’s not a great idea, it’s even sad considering how gorgeous he looks when he reveals his true gender. He started dressing as a boy too late, when there were like 2 chapters left; his final CGs weren’t even that great, I appreciated way more the “bad” ending one. It wasn’t even bad, I’d trade it any day with the “good”!

Overall, it was disappointing: he could have been my favorite character, since I loved his personality and he looks awesome, but the writing made this route awkward and forgettable. What a pity!

Sydney’s route left me disappointed too.

I liked him as a character, Suwabe’s voice fitted his personality perfectly and I loved his relationship with Elena. But still, something was missing for me.

All the great revelations came at the end, one after the other… if was too fast, there was not enough time for me to feel something.

Only the big revelation was surprising, but still not enough to make me impressed.

It was probably the less painful route to play, even from the heroine point of view, and maybe for this reason it felt plain compared to the others. Those sprites looked beautiful tho, even better than the CGs…. but it’s something I noticed in the game overall.

Finally I got to play Iori, the route I was looking forward to the most: he looked twisted and creepy…. well, my type! (you know my taste is bad).

I wasn’t disappointed at all, finally a route that left a great impression on me!

His bratty attitude got me hooked, I wanted to know more about him; I was more interested than angry, even if he honestly deserved a punch most of the times (maybe I’m just used to worse abuse, after Honeybee Black games).

He also got the best CGs of the whole game, they were really amazing!

It was without any doubt my favorite route, I pitied him for his sad past and all I wanted was to make him feel loved and accepted. I appreciated the writing too, I could see him self reflecting and starting to act as a decent human being while he deepened his relationship with Elena.

This route raised more questions tho, so I was excited to finally play Riitomo and discover the truth.

I don’t get why most of this route was basically the common route for Masanari and Haruka, all over from the start, without the possibility of skipping the scenes I’ve already seen in the first run; there were new Riitomo scenes and CGs here and there, but the pattern was the same and I was getting bored.

When the route progressed and it started revealing the truth….. I was shocked and horrified.

I got used to violence and creepy situations in otoge, but there was a scene that disturbed me.

I’ll be honest, Riitomo’s attitude also made me anxious: his constant lack of emotions was scary, he could literally do anything without showing any kind of empathy or feeling in general. Wow.

Unfortunately, I can’t express freely my opinion without spoiling, so I can’t fully explain the reasons of my disappointment about the true cause of the accidents and the goal of the culprit; anyway, it just felt stupid and too forced for me. It doesn’t help that Elena solved everything magically with the power of love and forgiveness, I was just disgusted….. I don’t even want to think about it, I’m out.

Would I recommend Chouchou Jiken?

I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t.

Which can seem weird, since the plot was interesting and the heroine was cool despite her young age; the sprites were amazing too. So, what went wrong?

I can’t find something specific, just little problems here and there that made my gaming experience tiring and not fulfilling.

1- Some characters were boring.

I tried to be involved in Sydney’s route, since he was really nice, but whenever he started talking about his past I couldn’t help but feeling my eyes closing. His pretty face wasn’t enough, sorry. Haruka’s route had the same problem: all those awkward scenes where he dressed up as a girl didn’t interest me at all, I just wanted to skip and get out of that yuri stuff.

Iori was my best guy, which is crazy if you think that he’s basically a psycho… but he kept me awake, at least!

2- There’s a BGM that makes me sleepy. SO SLEEPY. Every time it started, I could feel my psvita slipping out of my hands, while my eyes closed… this is not a joke, it’s a serious problem, I was so sleepy at some point that I selected “load” instead of “save” and I lost 2 hours of gameplay! It never once happened to me, that lullaby effect was tragic.

3- The font made my eyes burn.

It was visually pleasing, no doubts, but it was a bit difficult to read and I could feel my poor eyes suffering; I couldn’t play for a long time.

4- The art seemed lacking.

The artist has an impressive talent when it comes to close ups: the faces are beautiful, the eyes are amazing, but… when it comes to drawing bodies, something felt weird most of the times; the backgrounds were lazy too, the CGs always looked empty.

As you can see, it’s not enough to call it a kusoge, of course. But still, all this problems together ruined my gaming experience and made me want to get out of it as fast as possible (but I couldn’t even play for hours, or my poor eyes would be bleeding; or I would end up falling asleep).

If you enjoy dark plots, as I do, you may like it anyway. Maybe you’ll even end up enjoying more than me.

But if you are not interested in zombies, bloody stuff and overall creepy situations, just skip this: you’re not missing a masterpiece.