Original Release: Foster, 1996, PC-98/FM Towns
Other Releases: PC (1997)
A short visual novel, but one that boasts a number of paths and hidden scenes
Time Stripper Mako-Chan (PC, Foster, 1997)
Where to Buy: Abandonware – play online at the Asenheim Project
How to Emulate: DOS Emulation Guide
This 1997 visual novel is distinctive in that it’s one of a relative handful that anyone bothered to translate to English and unleash upon the West back in its day (Otaku Publishing was responsible for this one along with several others in 1997 and 1998, they and JAST USA were the two “big names” even bothering with this at the time).
It’s basically a harem anime in the vein of Urusei Yatsura, just with a lot of “too hot for TV” scenes thrown in. Some that get surprisingly wild even for a hentai visual novel, but we’ll get back to that in a bit.
We step into the shoes of the usual Japanese college slacker, trying to juggle his studies and part-time job with a girlfriend (who unceremoniously dumps him for his infidelity to start the game) and a number of side pieces. Coming home from a tough day at school, our hero is surprised by a naked Time Stripper Mako teleporting into his room. She’s come from 200 years in the future to stop her rival from eliminating one of her ancestors in Terminator style, thus I guess winning by default a boy the two are squabbling over.
There isn’t any real time management like True Love and such, the story just rattles along a fairly linear path and you get A-B choices once every few minutes or so. It does have a good amount of branching paths and hidden scenes to uncover, however, and culminates in six possible endings (mostly with our hero settling down with one particular of his harem girls).
Otaku Publishing did competent English translations, but they were London-based and also infamous for getting Norfman FC to do the text for them. So you’ll get the Japanese boy fancying having a go at this slag down behind the dustbin at the chippy or whatever, unless you’re British it kinda throws you off. It’s kinda like watching the BBC’s translation of Urusei Yatsura, but less funny and more vulgar.
The art is also a bit contentious. It really goes back and forth. At times it’s nice, at times it’s just kinda randomly grotesque out of nowhere. The interjection of random kinks you aren’t really warned about kinda contributes here, at one point you get unexpected futa out of nowhere, at another a girl suddenly reveals she’s into dog play (though credit to this game for getting into that 25 years before that chick with the big booty made millions of dollars with it during lockdowns).
The game is on the short-ish side and kinda rushes through its scenarios, so it doesn’t really have super strong characters, you kinda get a trope of the girls and then you’re banging them in most cases. I think enjoyment of this will hinge on how much you like the Urusei Yatsura-esque harem setting, that and I guess if the unpredictable fetish stuff happens to tickle your fancy.
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