What a disappointment – Twilight Cherry Review

Interactive graphic novels have been big in Japan almost since computers got color screens, but for some reason the genre has never caught on in the U.S. So when I saw this game for the iPad, and saw that it was in English, I was very excited to say the least. Boy, was I ever in for a disappointment. First, the story – a totally unoriginal, young male fantasy fulfillment dramedy. Two hot girls fight over a clueless boy (you). One acts like she hates him while really having a secret crush (and waiting on him hand and foot), the other a childhood friend who has suddenly returned to town all grown up and beautiful – and immediately declares her love for him. Sound familiar? Yeah, like 99% of all the worst harem anime in Japan. Second, the graphics – they are not, I repeat *not*, HD. You can see the pixel doubling pretty easily, despite the publisher's efforts to use Gaussian blur to cover up the fact that the graphics were not originally hi res. Third, the translation – terrible doesn't begin to cover it. Much of it is so bad, it's almost indecipherable. It reads like they ran the script through Google Translate and left it at that. Honestly, an anime fansub club would have done a vastly better job (not that they would have bothered for such recycled dreck). Finally, the programming – I won't be so harsh as to say it's bug-ridden. But the first bug I hit halted me in my tracks. The first time the story stops to allow you to "touch" one of the girls (no, really, I'm not kidding), you can touch her all day long but the story never moves forward. Well, maybe that's a feature then? Yeah, I know, it's only $.99. And if it weren't for that bug stopping me only a dozen pages in, I might be tempted to give it a slightly higher rating. But even for $.99 I think the customer has a right to have a program that works. Anyway, your call if you want to try it. Beyond the pixel doubling, the graphics are okay, if hackneyed and totally lacking in originality. Maybe if they fixed the bugs, properly up-res'd the graphics and got a descent translation of the script, this would be a light, fun distraction. As it is, it's pretty worthless.
Review by Darth Tigger on Twilight Cherry.