Hitomi - My Stepsister

Hentai Neko
By Hentai Neko Art/Animation: 9 Story/Plot: 8 Characters: 8 Sounds: 8 Gameplay: 8 Ecchi Level: 9  Why Hitomi? Why not Yoko or Yuki? For a dark bishoujo game, Hitomi is pretty much a bag of surprises. See, there are three women you can actually end up with: Hitomi, the default; Yoko, Hitomi’s mother; and Yuki, your secret love. I got Yuki’s real ending on my first run through the game, and it was anything but dark. It was bizarre, perverted, somewhat fun and exhilarating. Yuki will strike you as an innocent virgin at first, but you will come to realize later on that she loves experimenting. That’s why the only clue I had about the darkness of this game was the background music, which are incredibly haunting and poignantly beautiful.

Yoko’s path leads you to unearth a terrible past that causes a schism between the mother and the daughter. She can also throw you in for a loop, so I can’t say that her path is old and trite despite the woman’s age. If you can get past the several degrees of incestuous scenes, her road could be quite interesting.

Unfortunately, the main girl, Hitomi, has the longest, most tedious direction. Her ending is boring, convenient, and almost pathetic. Hitomi is any red-blooded pervert’s dream sex slave. You can do anything to her and she’ll let you get away with it. Can you say doormat? It doesn’t help that she seems to be the most nondescript among your three choices. Truth be told, the game wouldn’t be so good if it weren’t for the supporting characters Yoko and Yuki, so I don’t really understand why Hitomi got the title.

The first things you will notice in Hitomi are the breathtakingly exquisite artwork and amazingly chic layout. The fonts and graphics used for the game navigation are actually quite something to look at, since it’s a fresh change from the usual lifeless nav bars. The backgrounds are rendered in 3D and the artists obviously took a lot of pains making the scenery unique. The concept is just fantastic! I can’t get over how charming the protagonist’s house is. It didn’t look like your typical modern-style Japanese house, but is instead a nice, cozy-looking, red brick house. The character designs are pretty as well, with Yuki being my personal preference in terms of looks.

The gameplay isn’t too bad either. Of course, it’s still the regular digital novel game, with the extra CGs and auto/hands-free mode. What’s different about this game, however, is the Flow Option in the main menu that lets you see the selection trees. If you follow the branches and forks in the trees, you won’t need to make use of a walkthrough. I find this pretty convenient, especially when I was mapping Yoko’s and Hitomi’s endings.

One minor annoyance I have about Hitomi is the Virtual Mate system. It took me quite sometime to get it running, thanks to my very slow internet connection. I don’t really see the point of needing an internet connection for a game that’s not even considered an MMO (massively multi-player online game). Furthermore, you can only install it on 3 PCs and you can use one username and password for all three. Does this mean, I can’t give this title away or sell it? I question the security features of a system like this because, being someone who works for an MMOG company, I am not about to divulge my username and password to anyone. It also states in the License Certification Term that it looks like I’d have to wait for two years before the usernames and passwords will no longer be needed. I pity the stores that sell used/second-hand video games. Other than these minor peeves, I think the game is fine. It’s possibly one of the best games G-Collections have to offer.

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