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Michael
Thomas (01.15.2001)
Bomberman...
Amy's Fantasies is very much a comedy-romance. Emi is put into
situations that are completely ridiculous as she looks for her
missing stepbrother. In the mean time, Emi is tempted by all sorts
of distractions; and starts to develop a 2nd personality, Amy.
Whereas Emi simply wants to find Tomomi, Amy is a little more...
hentai. The interaction of Emi/Amy with all the other characters
simply adds to the humor.
The story is very romantic (Emi trying to re-find her one, true
love), but it is told in a very tongue-in-cheek style. Overall
I got the impression that this game was a parody of the usual
"quest-to-find-your-true-love" sorts of games because
of the absolute ridiculous situations that occur.
I believe Csware originally made this game in 1996, and Himeya
ported it into the States in 1998. I was using the English version
for my review.
The graphics are very good. You can tell they are dated, and
they don't use many different colors, but they are sharp and clean,
with good use of lines and shadows. The characters also give the
appearance of being 'alive' because eyes blink and mouths move.
Still... I found them ho-hum. Graphics really aren't this games
strong point.
This games strong point is in the seiyuu (voice acting), and
the humor. Whoever Csware got to play the parts of Emi/Amy, Tomomi,
Reiko, Satomi, Kyoko, and the others did a great job. Emi/Amy's
voice is perfect... especially when she is getting excited and
her heart can't stop beating like a drum ("Doki-doki-doki").
A very good job by the voice actors.
To add to this, between each of the three scenarios is a short
"In our next episode" kinda thing done by the cast.
The cast even jokes about how their roles constantly change, and
they argue about who gets to play what part. About half way through
each scenario is a commercial (which is still in Hiragana as far
as I can tell). All in all, this makes it a very amusing and humorous
game.
The music and the sound effects are midi, and a good variety
of them play throughout the game. So you don't have to worry about
hearing the same 4 songs over and over again; I believe Amy's
Fantasies have some 12 or 13 themes. But, as with the older Csware
games, the music frequently drowns out the voice actors, and you
really want to hear what the characters are saying. So I had to
play the game with the Music off. This also led to the unfortunate
accident that some of the humor is based on the BGM (In one scene
the music suddenly changes to a more... intimate sounding music,
and Emi comments on it. But I had the music off, so I didn't hear
the sudden change in music).
The translation is pretty good. It keeps with the cheek-in-cheek
nature of the game. There are no 'Americanized' lines, though
sometimes the slang that is used seems very odd. There were a
couple of problems where the wrong character was listed as talking,
spelling mistakes, and spacing mistakes, but nothing that detracts
from the game.
The extras are very good. There are 2 long movie files from the
OVAs (one of Emi imagining she's with Tomomi, and one where she
marries Tomomi). Most of the pics you see in the game are present,
but some are noticeably gone; like the very first scene where
you are in class thinking ecchi thoughts about Tomomi, and start
drooling... even though the teacher is screaming your name. It's
not that big of a loss, but some players might be annoyed that
the pics section only has about 85% of the pics in the game. The
short commercial sequences you can't see either (unless you play
to that part of the scenario).
You can also play all the music in the game.
Lastly, extras wise, there is a short hidden game that you are
told about by the cast after you complete the entire game. The
hidden game includes more pics, a discussion on the use of contraceptives,
and a trailer for the game.
Now I did have some complaints with Amy's Fantasies. As stated
above, the music frequently drowned out what the characters were
playing, so I was unable to listen to the music until I beat the
game. With only one ending, and only one hidden extra, the game
has marginal replayabilty. Once you beat the game, it's pretty
much over. The only time you'd want to replay the game would be
to hear the great voice acting, or to see the commercials. Another
problem I had was sometimes the eyes and mouths didn't blink and
move; couldn't figure out why. The last problem I had was sometimes
the voice acting seemed to abruptly stop... and then restart;
though I do blame this more on plug-and-pray software apps then
the game since I couldn't get the problem to consistently occur.
Overall, a very fun and humorous romp of a game.
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