All good things must come to an end. By extension, that also includes things like this playthrough of Go! Go! Nippon! ~My First Trip to Japan~ (I'll miss you most of all, tildes!), an educational visual novel from H-Game developers Overdrive that was ported to Steam by MangaGamer. I will say that this game's been quite informative; a beginner's crash course in Japanese tourist hotspots and hoary anime tropes.
We're not done yet though. Akira's threatened to take us to Japan's major port city Yokohama for our last day. Is this where I reveal the feelings I've been harboring for her? Or has that ship sailed? I'm bound to run out of sailing puns schooner or later?!
Part 07: Sayonara
Yaaaaaaaay.Hey, don't you start, you'll set me off.So we start the day with Akira looking clearly exhausted and us being concerned, being the sensitive Saiyan that we are. She's immediately defensive though. This ought to be a fun day.Man, it's almost as if we're emphasizing all this for a future plot twist. (No, she doesn't have cancer.)Reaching Yokohama, Akira's in full tour guide mode. She's talking about the exciting landmarks in Yokohama's central theme park which, naturally, we don't get to see here.Must... resist... obvious... joke... parallel... playthrough's... salacious enough already...What tipped you off, Goku?Yeah, I must be psychic or something.Anyway, we get a bit more talk about Yokohama's Chinatown before Akira starts narcolepsing all over the place.No, I don't think you're boring, bipolar disorders are still a somewhat rare condition.Akira gets into a giant tizzy, runs away and we stalk her all the way back home. Bye Yokohama!I got close with that "open our borders" bit, I'll admit.Yeah, you'd think. It's not like Goku hasn't been performing thought crimes ever since he first met you two.So here's the real reason Akira was out of sorts today:She stayed up all night studying Yokohama, a city she'd never been to, just to impress Goku. Awwwww*hurk*.She was definitely an informative and cheery tour guide during the parts when she was awake."Man, this has been such a great last day of my vacation," Goku thinks, as he apologizes to a bedroom door.But Goku's fallen head over heels because she keeps yelling at him. Tsunderes gonna tsundere.Anyway, it's tomorrow now, but since my flight leaves in the morning I might as well squeeze it all in this final update.Farewell Japan, and farewell Go! Go! Nippon! ~My First Trip to Japan~. It's been, well, not so much a blast as a dull persistent thumping noise at the back of my skull. Thanks to everyone for stopping by, and I'll see you all again for something considerably less anime next time. Well, except I'm playing Tales of the Abyss right now, so really I'm just lying through my teeth. Dewa mata!
It's Akira! Wait, did I explain that blue text is Akira, pink is Makoto and white is Goku? Because now would be a great time to clarify that.Full Engrish love confessions yessss. This is why I play visual novels. I mean, don't play visual novels. One of those.This was written by Japanese people. I just want to make that clear before the hate comments roll in.If you can fogivu him for walking in on you changing then Goku can fogivu a great many things, don't worry. (I have no idea if all of this is accurate romaji or not. I guess it's gotta be?)I think she's asking that we guide her around our undefined archaic European principality. I'll be sure to show her where we shoe all our horses and burn all our witches.Ironically, I could probably understand her better if she was talking Japanese.But if there's anything Goku understands, it's the language of lurrrrve.Man she is super young, especially at this angle. Guess I'm going to have to peek out my window for police cars for the next couple days.Apparently I blanked on almost all of what just happened? Either that or I just woke up drugged on the airplane like B.A. Baracus (timely reference! Just timely!).Uhhhhhh."If not, I'll poke pins through the eyes of the doll I kept. You're a marked man, Goku. Don't ever leave me."Yeah, yeah, bask in it you creepy weirdo."We don't have electricity yet, so if we want to visit the plague pits we better go while it's still light out."It's funny, I somehow got the weird impression after three days of near-fluent Japanese that we're kind of already there. She's going to get pissed off whatever you say anyway, misunderstandings or no.Oh, this is nice. The credits frame all our treasured holiday memories as photographs we might've hypothetically taken. It's such a cute, sentimental way to see us off.All right, we're done with the credits.But wait... an epilogue? Goku's on his way back to Japan.Funny, almost as if she was a child in high school still. Yet here we are on a plane back to her.Now I take a closer look at our protagonist, he's more of a Drew than a Brad. No wonder all the anime ladies were swooning, am I right? It would also explain the weird focus on transit systems.AND THIS is the true conclusion to Go! Go! Nippon!. Thanks everyone for sticking with it!
I dunno, I don't really think there's much to this game to justify a purchase. It's even less interactive than Gone Home was, if that's something that concerns you, the average Steam PC game player reading this blog. I can say even with my minimal visual novel experience that there's plenty of better ones out there. Ones with puzzles, or adventure game elements, or an entire RPG bolted onto it, or more than three decisions even.
Still, if you wanted to learn a lot about Japan and were too afraid to, I don't know, read a book, then maybe Go! Go! Nippon! might teach you a few things about the Internet's favorite archipelago. They certainly cover a lot of Japanese history and geography in a week. It's a tad too earnest and adorable as well, which makes me think that - were it not for all the leering at women - it's the sort of game you'd use to introduce Japan or this genre of game to someone a lot younger, or maybe someone who doesn't play games much.
Anyway, that's it for this playthrough. There's still the other three Tokyo districts and an entirely different ending with Makoto if you're thinking of getting into it yourself. I might strongly suggest you shop around a bit before leaping into this VN abyss, however.
As for me, I'm all anime'd out for the time being. Though I did see that My Girlfriend Is The President in a bundle somewhere recently, come to think of it...
@generic_username: TotA has been a lot of fun so far. I plan to write about it at some point, but I'm still trying to figure out how best to set it apart from all the other Tales games in my head before I can start putting a blog/review outline together. I will say that it has way more lore and world-building than usual. It sort of respects your intelligence to be able to follow its story and the many allusions to its anime science nonsense, which is possibly why it's a series fan favorite. Still, I don't think I'm even halfway through yet, so I guess I'll be driving across that bridge in my giant land fortress tank when I come to it.
@video_game_king: Hey, you gotta betray your animes to the Empire before you get to come around and be the good guy, you know? That's probably an analogy that works here.
@mento: I also think that the battle system is one of the better ones of the series, where the ability to change your attacks by using other attacks of different elements really goes a long way towards makng the combat less mashy than other games in the series.
Have you gotten to the "turning point" yet? (by the way, that phrase has no bearing on the event I'm referring to, if you're worried about it being spoiled) That's where the story really gets good.
Wait a minute. I'm confused. Was Lando trying to get in Leia's pants in Empire? And is Leia even wearing pants? I know she's wearing a long dress, but....I don't know, leggings?
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