Original Release: HSC, 2002, Flash
Fellas, do you like heavily spray-tanned Japanese glittery Hello Kitty/raccoon girls? … no? Well, if you like old-school dating sims like True Love you might like it anyway
Ganguro Girl (Flash, HSC, 2002)
Where to Buy: Freeware (play online at Newgrounds)
How to Emulate: Flash Emulation Guide
Review by: Master-B
“Ganguro girls” were a fashion trend in Japan in the late 90s/early 00s, kinda a Eastern spin on the ultra Jersey Shore stereotype: deep orange spray tans, showing some skin, big hair, later incarnations added kind of a kabuki element with heavy eye makeup and bright hair colors. Anyway, that’s what you’re hunting in this Flash classic, in a light dating sim / grindathon that probably drew some inspiration from True Love.
When this came out in the early 2000s, it had a free version (1.0) that featured just one Ganguro Girl to pursue and a paid upgrade (1.5) that added two more to the mix. You can just play version 1.5 for free on Newgrounds these days (link below), though it has explicit “adult content” so you’ll need to create an account and go through the usual pointless self-reported age gate.
You name your boomer sunglass’d character (I went with KOBE BEEF) and then distribute some bonus points into his three stat areas: Strength, Knowledge and Charm. Strength gives you the HP needed for Doin’ Stuff throughout each game day, Charm lets you progress in conversations with the ganguros … Knowledge I’m still not sure, but I think it might convince them to provide you with the answers to questions they ask during conversations (a bit more on that later).
Basically the game is all about making money via various jobs, and using said money on activities that improve your stats and gifts for the ganguros (taking them on dates also costs a nice chunk of cash). There’s a bit of variety here with multiple jobs types available, with varying tradeoffs of HP for cash and stat multipliers, and one job making shady deliveries for a mob boss that pays very well but gives the random chance of landing in jail for seven game days each time you take it. You get 100 days total to work your magic with the girl.
All of this flows to the gal chat-ups and dates, however, initiated by visiting them at the bar (which they’re often at, but sometimes you have to hunt around at other locations). Progressing in conversation is just a matter of Charm skill checks, peppered by the occasional gift to socially lubricate things. Eventually the gal becomes receptive to a date, and you have to choose a location she likes or she’ll just complain about it until you quit (causing you to lose a game day).
Aside from just being kind of simplistic overall, the one big issue with the game is that the challenge to this process lies in some of the questions that the girl asks you on dates seemingly having random answers that you just have to sort of trial-and-error your way to. The girl DOES sometimes drop tidbits in regular conversation that later answer one of her questions, but this also seems quite random (and I wonder if the Knowledge stat doesn’t come into play here, as mentioned earlier). Her preference in date locations and gifts is also rather random, but there are fewer to choose from so it’s much easier to randomly discover what she likes.
Of course, this game didn’t become a Certified Hood Classic with horny young Newgrounds enthusiasts of the early millenium due to its refined dating sim gameplay … it’s because managing to successfully navigate through several dates eventually leads to full-on hardcore axxxion, with your character enjoying the ganguro girl in several positions while attempting to fill her Orgasm Meter (controlled in the usual simplistic Flash manner of the time). Not the most well-drawn thing in erotic art history, maybe has a little off-putting Killer 7 look to it, but for a free year 2000-ish effort it was about as much as you could ask for.
Probably not worth revisiting now due to a plethora of other options, but back when the only other H dating sim option around in English was True Love ’95 this game did fill a certain niche that there was interest in.
Links
Closest thing I could find to a FAQ
Videos