Original Release: JAST Co. / 1995 / PC, FM Towns, PC-98
This fairly straightforward visual novel stars a kid with improbably good luck as he bumbles through his aimless college days.
Runaway City (PC, JAST Co., 1995)
Where to Buy: Play for free at the JAST Co. website
Review by: Master-B
This site doesn’t normally do “visual novels” that don’t really have substantial gameplay, but I was led to believe that Runaway City had both more of that and a better story than the average ’90s hentai outing. Turns out that was inaccurate on both counts.
But let’s start from the beginning. The game actually gets off to a promising start with an unexpectedly artsy introduction, as we see the Mana Tree grow and eventually get a megalopolis dumped on it. This symbolism will probably mean something eventually, but hell if the game does anything to encourage you in getting to it.
After this interest-piquing introduction, the game immediately removes any doubt about what the experience is going to be with the first interaction. It turns out we’re just stepping into the shoes of yet another college slacker, so many of whom managed to acquire harems against all odds in these sorts of games. At least this one has an actual ability, though; he has remarkably good luck.
Unfortunately, we learn all this by immediately being locked in a tedious conversation with Business Suit Dad. I actually had to go and look up a FAQ just to get out of this initial sequence, because it appeared I had tried every possible option multiple times and none of them would advance the story. Turns out you had to senselessly repeat one option twice and two others five times, even though they had started repeating themselves. So standard visual novel procedure.
After you escape from Business Suit Dad, the first game day consists of getting introduced to your future harem in a series of conversation sequences that are similar but not quite as frustrating. Henceforth, each new game day has you basically chasing down and speed-seducing one of these harem members. Which is done simply by brute-forcing conversation options until you’ve untangled the game’s obtuse logic.
I can see where people might mistakenly get the impression that there’s actual gameplay here, if they just played a bit of the game hastily. You can miss conversation options and some optional events, and even skip sex scenes in some cases. But it’s not like there are branching paths, or that anything you might miss matters. The first 95% of the game is effectively just brute-forcing through sometimes nonsensical menu options until the game decides to move on. Every game day is about nookie nookie with one particular girl and you just push through a scripted sequence until you get there.
I didn’t get this far but the final 5% of the game is apparently a long string of choices that have to be made correctly or you get “bad end” if you miss even one. So there’s that for “gameplay” I suppose.
Maybe all that is enough to be technically correct in saying that there’s a tiny bit more gameplay here than the usual hentai visual novel … anyone trying to convince you of that is probably not your friend, though. Runaway City is ultimately a tedious exercise with same ol’ same ol’ still hentai pics and clumsy sex descriptions.
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