Otome Game Review: Storm Lover 2nd

Storm Lover 2nd is as you can see a sequel to Storm Lover/Storm Lover Kai!! This time however it features a new heroine and a new set of guys, with the exception of Nanao Shiina from the previous games. Our heroine Arashiyama Mari, has just moved to town and starts her 2nd year of high school at St. Louis High.

Ipponmatsu Yamato – For some reason I thought Yamato would be this snotty do-S dude but turns out he’s actually a poor bum and a huge baka. Actually he’s only baka when it comes to common sense, but he’s actually pretty skilled and versatile so you’ll often find him helping out in various clubs. On top of this, he’s also the student council president with Makoto as his VP. Due to being a poor bum, he has a bunch of part time jobs (like Shiina) in order to help out his mother support their apartment and life (not to mention school tuition.) He often ends up having salt and water for lunch and starving so he’s constantly begging for food/leftovers from others. (；´∀｀) His apartment is so shabby that he often complains about mice stealing his food orz. One of Yamato’s part time jobs is working at his mom’s bar as a bartender and making cocktails (despite being underage how is this legal lol.) For Christmas he loses his wallet but a good Samaritan finds it and since it’s too late to go to dinner, their dinner ends up being vending machine canned coffee. So throughout his whole route he’s constantly being attacked and followed by some yakuza dude. Turns out Yamato is the 3rd prince of Naizentine (some southeast asian country) and one of the successors to the throne. The yakuza dude is Haine and he’s a royal servant. He tells Yamato to sign a contract that will make him agree to never come to Naizentine and give up his inheritance to the throne. Apparently his mom used to be a model and she screwed the Naizentine king but couldn’t live overseas so she took Yamato and went back to Japan. Mari points out that if Yamato signs the contract he’ll never be able to see his father. Yamato’s like whatever, I’d rather be with you than see some guy I never met anyway. The next month though, during one of their dates they get interrupted by Naizentine dudes again who tell them that they’ve switched sides and now they want Yamato to be king lmao. Apparently the King wanted to see Yamato but the new queen wouldn’t let him cause lol who wants to see the son of the guy’s previous wife! On top of this they want him to marry some chick in that country and he’s like wtf I have a girlfriend already :S.

They don’t give up so they kidnap both of them and bring them to Naizentine using Mari as bait. Yamato then comes to her the next day telling her to return to Japan and he’ll agree to marry the random ho for Mari’s safety. Mari’s like nooo don’t leave me and he’s like shut up woman I’m doing this for you щ(ಥДಥщ). Suddenly Yamato’s friends come to the rescue to save both of them XD. They all run to the alter where Mari’s like NO BEETCH U MARRY ME and he’s like “oh…////” and then grabs her yelling to everyone that she’s the girl he’ll marry. The King is like “oh okay looks like my son will marry dat girl so I give up.” End 1: Mari and Yamato get married on live TV back in Nazentine some time later and he becomes king. Sadly the only CG we get is some pigeons o_O. End 2: Makoto & co. save Mari and Yamato the first time they get kidnapped because you choose for Yamato to not be King. Someone from the country then later speaks with Mari telling her about Yamato’s dad and so she tells Yamato to return to Naizentine and become King. She lies & says she’s tired of constantly getting her life threatened because of him and she’s terrified. Yamato’s like oh okay yea I guess it’s my fault so yea I’m going to Naizentine bye. (´；ω；｀) After he leaves Mari becomes a wreck and can’t focus on anything. But then Yamato comes back and yells out on a megaphone that he was gonna be a king but realized he can’t handle a country and he’s got his hands full with his girlfriend. He then hugs Mari saying he beat up everyone in Naizentine including his dad and came back just for her. He then asks her to marry him and in the epilogue some years later they’re married and living together. Uh I guess I prefer ending 2 but sadly like in most routes in this game, there’s no epilogue CG which was a real bummer. Yamato’s dorkyness ended being one of his charm points though I think a lot of the time I felt sorry for the poor bum seeing how his dad is a RICH king lol. Also, Yamato’s a scorpio but not once did I see him ever act like one! Clearly, whoever assigned zodiac signs to the guys didn’t really think their cunning plan all the way through.

Ninomiya Makoto – Makoto is the vice president and basically the more common sense one in the student council.  He’s very serious and mature but because he’s the son of a rich dude, he’s also a huge stiff. Since he’s the Ninomiya group heir, of course daddy wants him to be the next in line to take over. Makoto has other plans though. The dad rages at Makoto for having fun and not studying 24/7. He then tells Makoto to transfer into a more “elite” school and he calls Yamato telling him to take care of the rest. Yamato’s like wtf bro and decides to riot to Makoto’s dad. It works and Makoto’s able to stay at St. Louis high. Makoto also considers Yuuto from SL1 his rival, though the 2 are somewhat similar when Makoto bursts into Mari’s room from a helicopter on Christmas :lol:.  At his house, Makoto has a telescope on the roof so he and Mari watch the stars together. His asshole dad then shows up and kicks his telescope saying it’s garbage and that because he’s busy “playing with his telescope” he’s not being a proper family heir. A few months later he officially introduces Mari as his girlfriend to his father and says he has plans to make a giant telescope so he can then open a space elevator (I didn’t know you worked for Google Makochin). His dad agrees but with the condition that he goes to study about space research overseas. Mari tells him she’s in no position to speak up about this and tells him to do whatever he wants. Since apparently Makoto never asks anyone’s opinion and he finally asked hers, in a way that was kinda hurting him because it’s like she doesn’t care what he decides. So he decides that he’s gonna study overseas and Yamato shits bricks. He then decides to gather everyone and throw Makoto a farewell party. Afterwards Mari starts to cry saying she can’t see him off because she’ll want to stop him and that’ll just be so MEIWAKU!

End 1: Makoto buys the Ninomiya group so that he can make that giant space telescope.  He then tells Mari “lol like I’d just sit back and take orders from my dad. NO ONE orders me around bwahaha.” He then says he doesn’t need the other group’s power and won’t be forced to marry the girl from it. Instead he would rather marry Mari and asks her to come overseas with him the following day. In the epilogue, the two of them are living together in luxury and he finally finishes his space telescope. They look through it and find a new star which he names after Mari and then he gives her an engagement ring and asks her to marry him. End 2: Mari tells Makoto the hell with his dad and to just look at the stars together without the telescope. His psychopathic dad then says until Makoto agrees to be the Ninomiya heir, he’ll continue breaking his telescope (　´_ゝ`).  Makochin’s like “fuck u dad, I’m going to space” :lol:. The dad’s like HDU and tells him to GTFO of the house. A few days later, Mari comes over Makoto’s place to help him pack his things and then finds a photo of him at his elementary school graduation. She then finds a letter he wrote back then that says his dream was to be an astronaut. The day of graduation, Makoto takes her on the rooftop, skips his ceremony and tells her that even though he’s going overseas, his love will ~always be with her~. They make out on the roof so she won’t forget him and in the epilogue, 7 years later, Makoto’s on TV being interviewed before his trip to the moon. He then gives her a phone call from…the moon somehow and tells her that when he lands back on earth, the first person he wants to see is her. When Mari meets him in his space suit, he gives her a moon rock as a present as well as an engagement ring. Though wtf it’s 7 years later, and she still calls him Makoto-senpai :lol:. I spent a fucking hour redoing the route over to find ONE CG that comes from a RANDOM feeling select and it finally showed up in February (so I literally redid the whole game.) And it turns out to be some shitty chibi CG without the heroine in it. SO WORTH ALL MY ARM PAIN MAN. Also on my way I unlocked a bunch of events that never showed up in my first run. Clearly they want us to play each route more than once. (；ಠ益ಠ；)

Yotsuya Haruto – Haruto looks like some kpop idol and due to this he always has rabid fangirls throwing themselves at him. He’s in the same class as Mari and he lives alone because his parents are living overseas. He really likes basketball and is also on the basketball team. One day he brings Mari to the hospital with him to visit his  younger brother Akira. Akira got hit by a car when he was out jogging back in middle school and so Haruto always talks to Akira about basketball because the two of them were supposed to play together. Due to the accident Akira injured his legs and he can no longer walk – but that’s all because he just refuses to take rehabilitation! So basically it’s drama llama here because Akira freaking hates Haruto. He’s jealous that he sits in a stupid hospital bed all day while Haruto runs around playing basketball and on top of his, now has a girlfriend! What Akira doesn’t know is that it’s really all their parents’ fault. Once Akira got injured, the parents then dumped him off into an acquaintances’ hospital and fled overseas. They wanted to take Haruto with them but since Haruto actually cares about his brother, he decided to stay behind. The parents are complete fuckwads though and said that while Akira’s hospital bills are covered, Haruto’s living expenses are not. Due to this Haruto has been forced to whore out his body and become a host (obviously underaged). This is where I have some massive dissonance cause on one hand, I feel sorry for the guy for having to be a manslut to earn a living. On the other, I feel sorry for Mari because one of the phone calls he made to her he said “no matter what happens, my heart will only be with you.” No matter how I look at it, HE HAS TO SCREW SOME CLIENT BUT ITS OK CAUSE HE ONLY LOVES MARI. ARRHHHghh ew no. T_T I know Haruto’s a truly gentle guy and I know he loves Mari but I don’t care that it’s his job, just ….no. So yea after that phone call my image of Haruto kinda withered down lol.  So anyway since Akira doesn’t know his bro is a manslut, in January he rages that in fact he hates Haruto and that he’s sick of hearing about basketball and they get into a fight.

Mari tries to get the brothers to make up but Akira just goes “I’ll make up if you go out with me.” Mari knows that he has no interest in her romantically and that he just wants to “TAKE” something from Haruto. Haruto tries to make up with Akira but he just continues raging until Mari can’t take it anymore so she slaps Akira and tells him to stfu. She says that Haruto’s busy wooing da ladies just so he can make a living while Akira gets all of his life cared for free at the hospital. She also yells at him for being a brat and refusing to take rehabilitation to be able to at least walk again, even if he’s unable to play basketball anymore.  In February Haruto doesn’t show up for basketball practice so Yamato tells everyone to split up and look for him. They find him and he says he’s gonna quit.  Mari runs after him trying to convince him to come back but he’s like fuck this shiat I can’t do my awesome dunk guurl I’m out.  She convinces him to return before the big game so he can join in. After the game is over, Haruto runs to Akira, takes him outside in a wheel chair and gives him a ball telling him to shoot into the basket. Akira’s like wtf I can’t do that but Haruto then does a shot from far away and says that he practiced a lot to be able to do that.  Haruto tells Akira that if he just tries rehabilitation he might be able to walk  again since Akira just said “no I can’t” and never tried in the first place. So then during one of the games, Haruto seriously injures his leg but he begs Chihiro-sensei to just tape his foot so he can continue playing in the game. Chihiro warns him that this may make it even worse if he doesn’t get it treated at the hospital but Haruto says he’ll accept whatever happens. They end up winning the game and he kisses Mari in the nurse’s office as his victory prize. End 1: Mari and Haruto haven’t seen each other in a while cause he’s been busy being a pro basketball player. Akira’s also been recovering his legs thanks to rehabilitation. He then tosses her an engagement ring instead of a basketball and asks her to marry him xD. End 2:  When Akira find out about Haruto’s part time job, he’s like omfg I feel like an asshole now so he and Haruto make up and he agrees to take rehabilitation. Eventually he’s able to walk a bit and along with Madoka, the 4 of them all go on a double date though Haruto has to threaten Akira not to hit on his girlfriend 😆 Akira was so bratty but in the end I kinda liked him! I really wanted to like Haruto too and he’s really a sweetheart but I just draw the line at manwhores (I have no idea how the hell I managed to make it through 3 last escort games lmao xD.  Maybe it’s because I feel like Mari is so innocent while the Last Escort heroines were all adult women so it didn’t seem as terrible???)

Mikadomairi Koutarou – Koutarou seems like a rough delinquent but he secretly feeds a stray puppy outside the school lmao. A scary guy with a big heart and well in a way he’s kind of a tsundere　（*´▽｀*）. His big thing though is wasabi, so he carries a tube of wasabi on him everywhere and puts it on EVERYTHING…like even cake ew. Koutarou also runs a kendo doujo with his grandpa but his grandpa is currently in the hospital so Koutarou runs all the classes for the little kids. His parents did kendo too and they got married cause they fell in love by the sword, but now they are also kendo rivals too.  Takashi’s (from SL1 and also where Mari works part time) teacher was friends with Koutarou’s grandpa which is how they know each other. Koutarou still can’t beat him in a match. Mari tries to get Koutarou to stop getting into fights but he just gets mad at her and ignores her. She then finds out that it’s not that he gets into fights for no reason, it’s usually he’s just saving people from getting bullied. She then asks Koutarou not to use kendou skills when he fights so not to upset his grandpa. Takashi tells Koutarou not to fight to the death because if you die, it’s over, and your reason to fight is pointless. Thanks to Mari almost getting hit by a car it finally hits him that death is nothing to be messed around with.

End 1: Koutarou still vows to defeat Takashi one day. He says when he does, for Mari to marry him. Erm yea that was pretty anti-climatic lol. End 2: Mari asks Koutarou to stop getting into fights and he agrees. His underlings then come after him asking him to come back to be their gang leader cause their new leader sucks. So then the leader like kidnaps Mari and uses her as bait to bring Koutarou in. Koutarou comes to rescue her and takes her back to his place to calm her down cause she’s shaking from fright. She falls asleep and when she wakes up she finds a note from him that says “sorry I’m breaking our promise” and he’s gone off to beat up Yagami. Koutarou’s pissed about Yagami cutting Mari’s face with a knife so he goes to beat him and all of his gang up. He beats the crap out of everyone until Mari comes running asking him to stop. He stops and then tells Yagami that if he ever touches Mari again, Koutarou will kill him. The two of them go home and Koutarou promises not to fight again. In the epilogue, the 2 are studying to get into the same college with a strong kendo program. Well seems like most of the plot was in ending 2 though due to lack of epilogue CGs the final CG of Koutarou’s route was just Mari hugging him from behind asking him to stop fighting sigh. (；´∀｀) Koutarou’s route was actually really moe but that was basically it to be honest. If he didn’t have the moe-ness there would really not be that much left XD.

Isuzu Kazuhisa – I got charmed by Kazuhisa the moment I started the game and he called me a stalker hentai 😆 however I’m just not do-M enough to put up with his shit! Kazuhisa is also a yandere. I mean he seems like this do-S shota who just bullies Matsuko but then he sends me emails like “let’s die together” and his Love Burst mode is another alternation of “us dying and being together forever” kinda shit and I’m like 🙄 how about no. Kazuhisa is younger than Mari, being a freshman but he’s a famous idol singer in a band called RESTORE STAY.  He was scouted as a model when he was in middle school and he accepted cause it paid well. He then became an idol cause it paid even more lol. Also because his parents “abandoned” him with his grandpa, he figured if he’d become famous enough and his face was everywhere, they’d come back. He treats Mari like his “pet” and often makes jokes about putting her on a leash and even in one of the Love Burst modes he finally does put her on a leash and takes her a walk making her go on all fours…..yea this is pretty much where any like I had for him kinda…flew out the window. The leash though is just another stupid yandere thing with the whole “I must keep you near me at all times don’t leave me grr” and he gets extremely jealous even when she just talks to some guys in her class. I guess because he’s younger, his stupid yandere threats just come off as like being pecked in the head by a pigeon so I didn’t hate him as much as I probably should have to be honest.  He lives with his grandpa in a temple and works as a buddhist monk there. One day while visiting, Mari talks with his grandpa, and he tells her that Kazuhisa’s parents have died already. His parents died in a car accident, but he miraculously survived. He took so much brain damage that he lost all memories of the incident and because he was little, his grandpa just said that his parents have “left”. He feels horrible now because he didn’t want to hurt him, but now he regrets it because he thinks that Kazuhisa should know the truth. щ(ಥДಥщ) Nooo why are you making me feel sorry for this brat noooo!  Mari then doesn’t know what to do, to try to get Kazuhisa to accept his parents’ death or to let things go as they are. End 1: Mari tells Kazuhisa to become the top idol and he tells her to not find a new “master” while he’s busy with work. So then Mari and the other SL dudes come to see Kazuhisa’s live concert. At the concert he admits that he has a girl he loves and then performs his last song dedicating it to Mari. He then takes her backstage to make out. In the epilogue, Kazuhisa’s now a top idol and he asks Mari to marry him (though there’s no choice anyway xD.)

End 2: Mari wants Kazuhisa to face the truth about his parents’ death but every time she tries to bring it up, she gets interrupted by his work calls. One day news comes that Kazuhisa’s grandpa has collapsed and has been taken to the hospital. When Mari rushes over she finds a really upset Kazuhisa. He complains that if his parents were here they’d be taking over the temple work but Mari finally tells him that his parents have died. Kazuhisa just calls Mari a liar and says he hates her and then runs off in a tantrum. A few days later Mari comes over to Kazuhisa’s place and he’s extremely depressed. He’s found a diary of his grandpa which listed all the events after the car accident and how gramps wanted to protect him. After reading it, Kazuhisa remembered what happened and the reason he survived is because he was thrown out of the car window into the grass on the side of the road. He wanted to come back to his parents but they yelled at him not to come near and he basically watched them die in front of him in a burning car. Mari then hugs him telling him he doesn’t have to keep talking about it because he started to cry while telling her everything. (ಥ＿ಥ） He then apologizes to Mari for calling her a liar and says he feels awful for becoming an idol while his grandpa knew everything. When gramps gets better, Kazuhisa asks him where his parents’ grave is so he can visit because he remembered everything. Kazuhisa then decides to quit being an idol and instead focus on taking over his grandpa’s temple. He then asks Mari to marry him and in the epilogue they got 3 kids while they become an ichaicha bakkapple married couple like Kazuhisa’s parents were. ( ≖‿≖) Ending 2 was obviously better but I’m kinda bummed that after all those years (and children) he still acts  like an immature brat lol. Also thanks to d3p being lazy and us having no ending CG or new sprite, they used the same sprite as when Kazuhisa was like…15. Wow man looking like 15 when you’re probably 35 must be awesome isn’t it! Eh I don’t know I probably should have disliked Kazuhisa more than I did, but I think the Shimono bias got in the way of that and he had a pretty good story compared to the others.

Riku Fernando Javier – It’s funny but before the game started I thought Riku would be my least favorite, thinking he’d be one of those stereotypical gaijins like in Arcobaleno. Fortunately D3p proved me wrong and he ended up being one of my favorites (along with the fact that I’m on a massive Ono Yuuki kick lately.) Riku’s mom is Japanese and his father is Spanish so he’s come from Spain to Japan to “study Japanese culture.” This is all of course a coverup for the real reason he came to Japan: to be a race car driver like his dad. His dad died in a race car accident so his mother prohibited Riku from being a race car driver, but Riku just wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. Despite the racing thing though, Riku is a HUGE WEABOO 😆 He fucking loves animay, and manga and garoogamesh. He loves it so much that he drags poor Mari to Akihabara with him and weebs out embarrassing her. He’ll run to her house to watch some anime because his TV breaks down  and he’s always falling trap to Kazuhisa’s lies about Japan. ／(^o^)＼ I think he also loves imoutos and traps 😆 In January, Riku invites Mari to watch his big race in the new car that the race team built just for him. However during the race he notices something wrong with one of the tires and decides that it’s not worth the risk so he ends up coming in 3rd place. After this Riku is really upset at his loss but Mari comforts him in the locker room.  End 1: Mari cheers Riku on and tells him he’ll win next time. During a race in February, the guy who won first place, Yukimura then tells Riku he’s a loser and he’ll never beat him. Riku not only loses but ends up in 4th place because of this. In the race at the end of February that douchebag Yukimura makes a bet with Mari that if he wins, Mari will have to go on a date with him. He ends up winning and tells Mari to go on a date with him, but Riku is pissed. In the park douchebag-kun tells Mari that eventually Riku will break up with her and she’ll go out with him. He then tries to force himself on her but fortunately Riku comes and saves her.

They make a final bet once more and Riku ends up winning of course and asking Mari for a smooch reward. He then says Riku is his rival but everyone says that he’s just ┌(┌ ^o^)┐ﾎﾓｵ lmao. They smooch and in the epilogue, Mari and Riku are married and have a tiny babby girl. Riku wins the grand country race thing and then smooches his waifu and daughter on camera. End 2: Mari tells Riku not to cry as she hugs him while he cries on her shoulder. (´；ω；｀) And as luck would have it, some months later during a rainy day when Riku is racing, he gets into an accident and Mari shits bricks. Riku almost dies but his father’s spirit tells him to get his ass back and live with Mari. Riku then wakes up in the hospital and tells her he wouldn’t die and leave her behind. After he recovers his mom comes to see him and rages at him for being irresponsible, while the team coach apologizes for putting him in danger. Riku then tells Mari that he’s gonna quit racing because he wants to live for her, and not die racing like his dad. In the epilogue Riku studies in order to become a race car mechanic instead. His mother allowed him to stay in Japan if he gets into college there, otherwise it’s back to Spain! They both study together and Riku complains that Mari’s starting to become naggy like his mom –  but gets over it with more smooching XD. Anyway Riku was really a lot of fun and I expected the whole route to be weaboo adventures so the whole racing thing came as a huge surprise for me! Still he was hilarious and I think both of his endings are pretty good vs how other chars had a weak and a strong ending.

Nanao Shiina – Shiina is the same dude as from the original game but since he was originally in middle school, he missed his chance to date Yuna from SL1. Due to this he’s been stuck with his 1 sided love regret for 4 years and the only one who picks up on this is Mari. She tells him that one way to forget a lost love is to start a new one and he’s like alright guurl you’re on board then. He then asks her to go out with him to see if she can help him forget his old summer love~. Shiina is always busy working part time jobs to pay his way through law school cause he wants to be a lawyer. Due to this most of his dates with Mari are basically him dragging her to his part time job to help out, though at least after a while she starts getting decent pay rather than slaving for free. For Xmas, you know that randy as fuck CG from the magazines? It was all a lie! They only got naked cause they were stuck in a cabin during a blizzard and in the end Shiina fell asleep anyway!! (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ 彡┻━┻ In January, they go on a date and run into Yuna from the last game xD Shiina runs to talk to her and Mari gets really jealous. Shiina figures it out but tells her that he only loves Mari otherwise he wouldn’t go out with her. He buys Mari a necklace to make up for it and tells her that as of now they’re dating so she has nothing to worry about.

Turns out one of Shiina’s main jobs is working at a law firm because he wants to become a lawyer. The lawyer dude Kiryuu sensei says that back in middle school Shiina came to one of his trials and asked if he could train under him. Kiryuu sensei then asks Mari to come and work part time as well and Shiina encourages saying that he wants to work with her. So then during one of the cases, Kiryuu takes Shiina and Mari with him to observe but turns out the guy they’re defending is Shiina’s childhood friend Shinya. He’s been accused of beating a woman with a bat but he says he didn’t do it. Shiina tells Mari he wants to do his best to prove his childhood friend’s innocence. Makoto and Yamato offer to help out, and Shiina goes to talk to the woman who was injured. She then admits that the person who beat her up and stole her money is not his friend Shinya, but her own son. They rush her to the courtroom so she can then tell the truth out loud and they prove Shinya to be innocent. Afterwards they smooch in the courtroom and in the epilogue, Shiina has passed his law exam. His new job is at a bigger law firm because he wants experience at a larger firm before going back to work at Kiryuu sensei’s place. He then asks Mari to come with him and finally tells her that he loves her. Meh lol kinda anti climatic…I was hoping we’d see conflict regarding Yuna or something or have her make an actual cameo, oh well. Also bummer, only one ending for Shiina and he gets less CGs than the other guys. (´・ω・｀) Shiina had a lot of hot scenes though so I think I mostly enjoyed it for Noburin’s sexy voice (◉◞౪◟◉　).

Hachinohe Keigo – The same position as Takashi was last game. He’s Madoka’s childhood friend and a pro swimmer at school (claiming he hides his tears in the pool water :lol:). His family runs a sushi restaurant which he also helps out at. He’s really bad at school though, except Japanese history, so he’s often stuck doing supplemental lessons. He loves cats but he can’t have one because his entire house is full of fish for all the sushi 😀 At the end of the year he tells Mari that he’s transferring to a sushi training academy for his senior year but then confesses that he loves her, and asks her to go out with him. Also while playing this route, I noticed that there actually IS a Valentine’s Day event and a graduation event in March….but we never see it in any of the main guys’ routes cause once you get to the 3rd week of February it goes right into the guys’ plots. Meh D3P I think you could have done better.

Jyuumonji Maki – Maki sensei is GREAT TEACHER MAKI aka G.T.M. and basically a parody of GTO. He’s a yakuza man but he’s a nice guy and a responsible teacher. He’s probably more responsible than Chihiro sensei who just wants to hit on high school girls :lol:. Eh there wasn’t really anything interesting in his route and in the ending, the CG is just him standing on the school rooftop smoking a cigarette. Mari almost confesses that she likes him but he tells her to hold her words until she graduates and then he’ll “take her”. Oh well I didn’t expect much but I’m disappointed that he gets an ending CG when I think Chihiro sensei deserved one instead. Chihiro sensei has a non CG ending but I was just too exhausted from all the study/skip of the game to continue. Maybe I’ll get to Chihiro sensei during my commute downtime or something.

Mr. St. Louis High – Just like in SLKai!! there was the first press bonus of where all the guys hit on the heroine in various cosplay. Yamato is a mystery detective and Makoto is some forest elf man :lol:. Koutarou is a fireman and Haruto is a priest. Kazuhisa is a painter while Riku is a treasure hunter. Shiina, Hachi and the senseis all have scenes too but no CGs……wtf really? -_- Evem though Chihiro sensei had no CG either, his bakkapple mode was the best “Hの次に愛があるんだよ～♥” ﾌﾟｯ(※థэథ)∵.*.∵！！！！！！ I ended up picking Chihiro sensei as the winner cause that line pretty much won me over 😆

I am so extremely disappointed it’s not even funny.  Maybe because my hopes were like extremely high or something but in the end D3p came and CRUSHED THEM SO HARD. Starting with the RANDOM EVENT system that gave me Custom Drive flashbacks making me wanna throw my PSP out the window. For whatever reason, some events just wouldn’t trigger even though you had 100% affection, and you had all your grades up to par NOPE. The worst offender was Makoto where his event was hidden inside one of the feeling selects which are COMPLETELY RANDOM and can occur at ANY POINT in the game. I restarted the whole route to find it only to have it show up in the last month of the game. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ Only Haruto, Kazuhisa and Riku’s routes let me fly through them without having to go back to find CG holes so I must have lucked out for whatever reason. I recommend having a save for every month of the game between June and February. The CGs aren’t even worth it so the fact that I wasted like 3 hours of my life redoing that route got me some shitty chibi CG of only the guy. Most of the CGs didn’t even have the heroine in them and there were a lot more crappy chibi CGs which just felt like they were cutting corners. In a guy’s gallery only 6 out of the 16 Cgs contain the heroine. Great for those who just wanna stare at mancandy, bad for those who want to see otome game romance. Also they freaking love reusing CGs. In Yamato’s route they reused a CG of him and  Mari just standing next to each other – about  5 times. Also in Haruto’s gallery there’s a CG of him sitting by a tree and the next CG? The same tree sitting but in a summer outfit. Wow that’s called an INSTANCE D3P it’s not a “separate CG”. I can’t stand it when companies put instances as “separate slots” to make it look like there’s more CGs when its like BLATANT SPACE WASTING. They totally didn’t do this in SLKai which makes me rage even more.  Also the CG choices were stupid like “oh here’s a CG of Kazuhisa just standing there” rather than a CG during some cute fluffy scene BLAH.

The stuff that was fun in SLKai like Bakkapple mode, phone calls, emails were all really DULL. Like the lines in bakapple mode/love burst were rarely even funny. They were mostly terrible puns but not terrible – funny but just terrible to the point that I didn’t even understand what the fuck they were saying.  The game has also been shortened in which SLKai you had like “several days” per month, here you just had your week, your weekend and 4 weeks per month. This means you had to really cram in all your emails/phone calls along with studying/working/buying the guy gifts. Fortunately I managed to get the gist of it but I relaxed too much in Haruto’s route, got the hoshuu for failing my tests and he pretty much dumped me forcing me to start over (so yea don’t forget to study.)

A lot of fun events like Valentine’s Day and White Day were pretty much removed from the game. Like wow a romance stat raiser that takes place over a year span without a Valentine’s Day event? Are you outta your mind?? The game also starts basically in April and ends in  February so for all of you whose birthdays are in March? Well I really don’t know what happens cause I don’t know when in the world they’d ever have a bday event for you. Only time I saw anything in March was when I did the sub characters in which they don’t do anything for your bday anyway so no point! I guess the only up-side is since the system was pretty much the same as the first game (aside the Nikushoku thing), so since there weren’t really any guides out I managed to plow through it on my own (except when I had to go back and figure out what month the missing CGs are in.)I really liked the sub character girls this time around, though after being so exhausted from all the redoing of routes I figured I’d get to doing their bff route sometime later. Anna was my fav cause she’s a Russian girl with an attitude, just like me! ＼( ^o^)／

It was also nice seeing the SL1 guys cameos but there just wasn’t enough of them (or maybe I was going into the wrong places?? I think I saw Mio the most out of everyone.) Anyway with the bad system, the boring events, and the bland CGs, I’m just drowning in a sea of disappointment Σ(ﾟдﾟlll)ｶﾞｰﾝ.  This was the game I was looking forward to in June and with this and the crap that is Koibana Years Days I was pretty much ready to exit my otome gaming, stage left. Fortunately before I  force myself to suffer through Endless Gardening Inc., I have Ozmafia and hopefully that will at least put me in a better mood after this disappointment. If you never played SLKai!! and only played this game, I would highly recommend SLKai over this one. The events and characters there are just so much better handled and the heroine gets a lot more screen time and personality than the one here.  When I started this game I said to myself that I love Storm Lover so much that no matter how many SL games D3P puts out I’d buy all of them. After finishing this game though, I can definitely take my word back.