Shira Oka Review

Wow, it's been a couple of days now. For the most part, I've been playing a game called Shira Oka. I really enjoy it, but after seeing a good amount of the random events in the game, the endings I still need to get tend to drag on. Here's a super simplistic, but a bit long, review for the game.

In Shira Oka, you play as a guy who is a total no-good loser. No friends, he goes to the bar all alone. All of a sudden, he gets sick with a fever. He wakes up , totally burning hot, and sees a strange girl in his room. She explains that she's Satsuko, and has sent him back in time so he can try to do better and not be a loser. You get to do a character creation, in which you name the guy and set your stat points, it;s a pretty typical process. Some things of note though are the "sliders" for things like intelligence, fitness, creativity, and charm. They can slide one direction or the other. As an example, for intelligence, you can choose whether you're organized, clever, or in-between. These sliders can effect the way things happen in the game. You also choose a blood type and star sign, which also has an effect on the character and events. Then there's Quirks. At first, the character REALLY sucks. but if you spend XP points on the quirks, you can fail less. But they;re expensive. You meet 10 characters that you can get endings for. 8 girls: Aya, Alice, Kiku, Rena, Naoko, Suzu, Yui and Kasumi; 2 guys: Hiroshi and Kazuki. I'll say this here for anyone who plays: The game require that you go for Kasumi last! no matter what you do, you can't see her ending until you've seen everyone else's end.

During the game, you do activities like Literature, Math/Science, Fashion, Chatting, Art/Music, Sports, etc. that raise corresponding stats. Raising the school related ones helps you keep good grades, which is important. In Shira Oka, you can be sent back to the beginning if you get a certain number of bad grades. That's why it's also important to  raise the non-school stats like popularity and fashion, because you can also be sent back for not getting close to anyone. Those things are unimportant to a couple of characters, but most do care. Unfortunately, it's a long process. You go through almost 4 years in the game. The first cycle you will always die. It's unavoidable. But even in subsequent cycles it's pretty common to fail at getting an ending. Luckily, you get to keep some of the knowledge you've learned from previous cycles. that's why I personally recommend getting the memory quirk early on: you can more easily remember things that have happened and make a good impression on characters with the things you know.

However, getting more endings also makes the game a bit harder. The more endings you get, the higher grades Satsuko expects you to get. So Instead of sending you back for a certain number of F's, it can get to the point where she sends you back for a certain number of Cs. Maybe even Bs, if I've heard correctly. I'm not that far into the game yet myself.

For an Indie game, Shira Oka is of a fairly High quality and features voice acting from some pretty well-known voices (Laura Bailey and Stephanie Sheh to name a couple). The on-screen character animation is also fairly good. the BGmusic is ok, but it tends to get on my nerves after a while. However, the Opening, Intermission, and ending themes are pretty cute and have vocals and subtitles.

For some numerical scores:
gameplay: 6/10 While some of the things in this game are interesting, after a while, doing the activities for stat boosting become a chore, and I personally see the same random events a bit too often.

music: 8/10. Well done

voice acting: 8/10 also.

Art: 9/10 For an indie game, it's really good

replayability: 9/10 At least until you get to the True End, then unless you're a true 100% completionist, it's not worth it.


Overall, I highly recommend this game. There's a bit of something for everyone: Endings that are complete tearjerkers to upbeat and somewhat silly endings. Some girls may feel a  bit awkward having to play as a guy and get girl's endings, opposite for guys who have to get the 2 guys' endings. But it's ok. In the end, it's not really about romance, but about helping the character with a problem. Yes, there is a slight bit of romance, but it's mostly hinted at. There is no kissing or anything beyond that in this game, other than the quick kiss Satsuko gives the player every near year's, which is only mentioned in-text.

So, what to do with this blog??

I decided to start this blog as a place I can just say whatever I want. I may review anime I've watched, manga or novels I've read, games I've played. I'll likely just say whatever happened each day and thing about myself that I don't share with the people who know me IRL. I'll start this blog off with an introduction. My online name is さくら花火(sakurahanabi). I'm a 20-something year old living in the USA. I prefer women to men though I've only dated guys. And it's a fact I don't openly advertise. I don't go out of my way to hide it, but I definitely don't shout it from the rooftops either. I do outspokenly support equality for all people regardless or sexual orientation or identity, religion, race, ethnicity, etc. Another ting that's always obvious about me is my love of anime, manga, and games. I also just like Japan in general. I was a Japanese language major in college. I continue my language studies every day, though I'm not currently in school. I have an obsession with yaoi. Which may be odd considering I personally like girls more than guys, but eh, oh well. I don't mind yuri. I just got done reading the most adorable manga called Husky and Medley, based on the true story of a girl who posted for advice on 2ch about finding the weak-point of a girl in her class that she had a crush on.  One of my favorite series is Strawberry Panic, with my favorite character being Kagome. かわいい！！！籠女がさきだ。Yes, I really like that character.

Moving on to something totally different. For some reason today I've had the song Vanilla Salt, an ending theme of Toradora!, stuck in my head. I was constantly singing and humming it.

Going back to the yaoi tangent: I've been playing the game Gakuen Heaven for a while now, but have only gone through all of Takuto's endings. I really like his endings, but I feel the outcome of his relationship with Keita feels  bit ambiguous. Even to the VERY end Keita referred to him by "Iwai-san" which really bugs me. After they've gotten that close and even had sex, you'd think Keita could start calling him by his given name. He continues to call Kazuki by first name, no honorific, along with some other characters too if I remember right, but he can't refer to his (boyfriend?) by first name. At least Takuto called Keita by his first name. I really loved that scene too, when he asks if it's ok. I was like "kyaaaa!!! ADORABLE!!!!" the entire time. The next route I was planning to follow was Hide's. But I might switch to Umino-sensei to get him out of the way. Though my LEAST favorite is Mr. Tennis dude. He's too in my face. And overly familiar. Anyway, I had gone through this game as a young teen for the CG art collection, but I couldn't read Japanese back then, so I didn't understand everything going on. I had watched the anime prior though, so I knew the general idea even then. I've seen the anime at least 4 or 5 times already. Same with Sukisyo. I have the first 2 games for sukisyo, but they're a bit more difficult than gakuen heaven because of all the complicated ideas and psychology. Used to have all 4 until first: I deleted the iso for the 3rd game on accident. Then my laptop with the 4th game iso was stolen. OOPS. Hard to find those games anymore. Glad I kept the first two on discs.

Well, Time to wrap this up for now. I've rambled a bit much. じゃまた、みんあさん！楽しかった