💎 PREMIUM: Id/rainbowchiffon/recommended/ - Collection

“Return to Shironagasu Island” is a visual novel, a debut game from this game developer and believe me when I say I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. I want to like it because I can appreciate this B-movie horror that mixes genre, all the while trying to make a point with these different ideas and even enjoy something scholocky. I’m not immune to this type of genre; there’s a lot of fun to have with this type of genre and it’d be remiss of me to deny that part of it. Also, the voices are a lot of fun and each actor did a fantastic job with their respective roles in the plot.

The game mechanics are your standard visual novel flair. However, there are additional mechanics where you can essentially do point and click and there’s times where there’s a timer. Generally, they’re fine and it does add some kind of change for the usual visual novel. It even feels like there’s tension going on! There’s even a sequence where the timer and the point-and-click aspect is put to the test and it is rightfully full of tension.

This game even introduced me to one of my favorite sidekicks ever — Neneko. I was more surprised at that because I did find her a little annoying at first, and I was worried that I would have to deal with her all game long. However, when she’s done well, she’s extremely effective and I wish she was the main protagonist this entire time. Although, the plot is already schlocky enough; having Neneko go to the island by herself (and with her personality at the beginning) would have probably made the schlockiness of it all even worse. Ikeda could have been better in a lot of ways, especially in the main game proper, but I also acknowledge he could have also been a lot worse.

The other characters are likeable and the ones who clearly matter more will resonate more with their proper audience. Although, I do wish the villains were fleshed out more. Like, the point of it all is to have a B-movie type villain and motives (that make equally scholocky sense) but I didn’t really feel it in the way the game wanted me to. There were times that it wanted to be taken seriously and some of those moments shined for me. It didn’t change the fact that, in the end, it’s a mixed bag of different genres and it’s going to be dismissed by another one of Ikeda’s jokes (unless it’s that dire). Also, I would have liked some more insight between Ikeda and Neneko’s history together but this is a debut game so I’m not gonna hold that against them.

Unfortunately, here’s where my praise ends for the game because everything after this would address my more major concerns with it.

As neat as it was to have timed events, and I realize the reason why it’s done, it’s frustrating to have the timer go down and the characters would not shut up. Unfortunately, it’s dialogue that you still need to read but I didn’t care because I wanted to beat the timer and avoid a game over. It was also another thing entirely when there were moments where you had to drag the characters back and forth and this room and that room in order to eventually progress to the next scenario. Same thing with the point and click; at times, I’d have a general idea of what to look for but it wouldn’t progress until it felt all the flavor text was exhaustive (except for one scene that you actually had to guess correctly to “win”) and even then it made me wonder if anything was happen or if the game froze on me. There would be times when “choices” appear and you’d essentially have to click it until either the character runs out of information or they tell you to knock it off and choose another topic. Mercifully, though, when they do run out, the choices disappear at least. There are also some choices that can and do end up the same no matter what so have fun making different choices.

And then, the fanservice. You see, I expected something like this especially in a game about this in regards with the singular adult woman — and not the underage characters. Considering what they wanted to explore in the themes of the story (and what a time for me to read this visual novel with a batch of files being released), I honestly thought it was way inappropriate. I think there could have been a better way to have a hee-hee moment like that and I wish it didn’t linger for as long as it did, especially when getting vital information about what’s going on in the context of the story. Once again, I had to click faster to get out of those scenes quicker because it was more uncomfortable for me than titillating. Clearly, it’s meant to be silly and informative but God, I wish it didn’t linger as long as it did.

I feel extremely mixed about this. While it is meant to be a simple mystery about what happened to some millionaire that turned into something much bigger than anything else, there’s a lot of plot points (especially the fanservice scenes) that I simply didn’t like. It bogged down the game for me in ways that it shouldn’t have. I wanted to like this game because of how mixed it is. I would only feel good about recommending this game if you can look past it and don’t mind the criticisms I’ve mentioned. I didn’t like it but I also cared about Neneko and the others enough to be invested. I am curious about the upcoming sequel this dev team is working on. With all respect to them, I do hope the next game has a lot of improvements and I actually am looking forward to more of Ikeda and Neneko’s adventures.

“Return to Shironagasu Island” is a visual novel, a debut game from this game developer and believe me when I say I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. I want to like it because I can appreciate this B-movie horror that mixes genre, all the while trying to make a point with these different ideas and even enjoy something scholocky. I’m not immune to this type of genre; there’s a lot of fun to have with this type of genre and it’d be remiss of me to deny that part of it. Also, the voices are a lot of fun and each actor did a fantastic job with their respective roles in the plot. The game mechanics are your standard visual novel flair. However, there are additional mechanics where you can essentially do point and click and there’s times where there’s a timer. Generally, they’re fine and it does add some kind of change for the usual visual novel. It even feels like there’s tension going on! There’s even a sequence where the timer and the point-and-click aspect is put to the test and it is rightfully full of tension. This game even introduced me to one of my favorite sidekicks ever — Neneko. I was more surprised at that because I did find her a little annoying at first, and I was worried that I would have to deal with her all game long. However, when she’s done well, she’s extremely effective and I wish she was the main protagonist this entire time. Although, the plot is already schlocky enough; having Neneko go to the island by herself (and with her personality at the beginning) would have probably made the schlockiness of it all even worse. Ikeda could have been better in a lot of ways, especially in the main game proper, but I also acknowledge he could have also been a lot worse. The other characters are likeable and the ones who clearly matter more will resonate more with their proper audience. Although, I do wish the villains were fleshed out more. Like, the point of it all is to have a B-movie type villain and motives (that make equally scholocky sense) but I didn’t really feel it in the way the game wanted me to. There were times that it wanted to be taken seriously and some of those moments shined for me. It didn’t change the fact that, in the end, it’s a mixed bag of different genres and it’s going to be dismissed by another one of Ikeda’s jokes (unless it’s that dire). Also, I would have liked some more insight between Ikeda and Neneko’s history together but this is a debut game so I’m not gonna hold that against them. Unfortunately, here’s where my praise ends for the game because everything after this would address my more major concerns with it. As neat as it was to have timed events, and I realize the reason why it’s done, it’s frustrating to have the timer go down and the characters would not shut up. Unfortunately, it’s dialogue that you still need to read but I didn’t care because I wanted to beat the timer and avoid a game over. It was also another thing entirely when there were moments where you had to drag the characters back and forth and this room and that room in order to eventually progress to the next scenario. Same thing with the point and click; at times, I’d have a general idea of what to look for but it wouldn’t progress until it felt all the flavor text was exhaustive (except for one scene that you actually had to guess correctly to “win”) and even then it made me wonder if anything was happen or if the game froze on me. There would be times when “choices” appear and you’d essentially have to click it until either the character runs out of information or they tell you to knock it off and choose another topic. Mercifully, though, when they do run out, the choices disappear at least. There are also some choices that can and do end up the same no matter what so have fun making different choices. And then, the fanservice. You see, I expected something like this especially in a game about this in regards with the singular adult woman — and not the underage characters. Considering what they wanted to explore in the themes of the story (and what a time for me to read this visual novel with a batch of files being released), I honestly thought it was way inappropriate. I think there could have been a better way to have a hee-hee moment like that and I wish it didn’t linger for as long as it did, especially when getting vital information about what’s going on in the context of the story. Once again, I had to click faster to get out of those scenes quicker because it was more uncomfortable for me than titillating. Clearly, it’s meant to be silly and informative but God, I wish it didn’t linger as long as it did. I feel extremely mixed about this. While it is meant to be a simple mystery about what happened to some millionaire that turned into something much bigger than anything else, there’s a lot of plot points (especially the fanservice scenes) that I simply didn’t like. It bogged down the game for me in ways that it shouldn’t have. I wanted to like this game because of how mixed it is. I would only feel good about recommending this game if you can look past it and don’t mind the criticisms I’ve mentioned. I didn’t like it but I also cared about Neneko and the others enough to be invested. I am curious about the upcoming sequel this dev team is working on. With all respect to them, I do hope the next game has a lot of improvements and I actually am looking forward to more of Ikeda and Neneko’s adventures.