~ Artificial Academy ~
~ Illusion ~
~ Release Date ~ 2011-06-10 ~
~ Age Rating ~ 18+ ~(M)
~ Genre ~ 3D Eroge ~
Warning: The screen shots contained within spoilers contain strong graphical
content and should not be viewed in a not work safe environment. And well if you are
a minor what are you doing reading an Illusion game review in the first place.
Authors Note: Well this is my first attempt on a game review in this forum for the article section, i never done an eroge tittle before either so any constructive criticism, comments and ect are very welcome.
The newest gem from Illusion, one of the most known 3D eroge makers, with a
number of quality titles in their games list. What will this game have to offer us, lets take an in depth look at
the game.
~ First Glance ~
Graphics: This game follows the cell shaded anime style similar to some previous Illusion tittles (Home mate, School mate). However the quality is at a very pleasant level, with good character physics.
Music: This isn't the strong point of the game, the
tracks aren't bad, but they aren't tracks that you can listen for a long time, they get old very quick, and you will be listening to them a
whole lot if you are playing this game.
Sound: The voice acting is of decent quality, other sounds fit in well into the game, though there aren't many of them in the first place.
Controls: At first glance they are horrendous and confusing, but once you get the hang of them, they actually work really well. I will cover the controls wider later on.
~ The Character Editor ~
This is undoubtedly the strongest point of the game. Though needing an
install of a separate program, it allows you to customize your characters as much as you please. The amount of customization is truly impressive. So lets take a closer look at the options available.
Body and face: The options here is pretty much all you would need, the face customization could use some more options, but in general it works very well. Body types available are fully flexible too, ranging from total loli to big opai style, so whichever drives you, the options are available for you. Colors selections are available too, though the color selection could be more impressive.
Hair: This is the most excelling part of the editor, the amount of combinations possible are ranging above half a million possible hair styles, that's right, half a million. You can adjust everything, front of the hair, back of the hair, sides, top, extra things like antennae commonly found on anime characters, so the possibilities are endless and with some work it should be possible to replicate nearly any character you want. However there is a downside to this too, the selection of male and female styles are the same, which some what limits the hair styles for male characters as the styles are designed to be girly.
Personality: Another option set of options that affects your characters looks, this time changing their posture and voice (also ingame dialog lines) depending on your personality choices, adding an extra layer of what your character will look. The postures are nicely done and do provide a nice touch to your character. The other options in that menu aren't that important and do not affect game play much, the only real difference is that it will affect the characters popularity between the other characters depending on their tastes.
Thought: Affects characters behavior in game under certain circumstances, the options there are pretty self explanatory, and dont really change all that much (apart from orientation obviously), they mainly change whether your character will remain clothed during H scenes in public places or not, and their popularity among other characters. Also certain settings can make your character into a nympho. The notable important option here is the evil setting, but i will cover that later.
Taste: Well this last one is pretty self explanatory.
Another notable thing about the editor is the openly sharable files, you can use others creations and give them yours, in fact Illusion has a character sharing website with thousands of available characters, so if you are lazy or lack the creative flare you can check the site out and still never run out of models to use.
~ The Game ~
The Begining: But lets try the game out finally, we didnt come here to just review the editor.
As you start the game you will be presented with a ability to create your own
class, this is where all of your hard work in the editor will pay off. You can arange every person your self, or do a randomised option and the editor will create one for you, note that the first character you will import will become your game character, however you can change that at the end of the day. You are able to directly take control of any character in your classroom.
The uniform colors are also customisable, the style collection isnt very impressive, especially compared to the character editor, but it has some basic color swaps.
After we are done there, the game play kicks in.
~ Game Play ~
Graphics: This is where the game goes down hill, first of all the graphical cuts become apoarent, since there are cases where are 25 characters on screen at one time, they had to create special reduced graphics models for characters, which look like something from a pretty bad ps1 game. Secondly the maps are just drawn picture screens, and while there is some variaty in teh locations, they dont really change anything in game, there are certain areas (Rooftop, classroom, library and club areas) that will let you perform certain actions during certain times of day, but in general there is no interaction with the environment at all.
Story: There is no story in this game at all, its just pretty much pick a girl (or guy) you want and go all out. But i suppose since this is a H game that is forgivable.
Character Interaction: The character interaction is pretty bad too, first of all the icons in the action screen are just plain stupid, without clicking esc and reading help for each icon it's impossible to tell what some of them are. Oh a cup of green tea icon, well that must be something like have a drink with the person or have a chat, wrong, it tries to calm the person. And could anyone tell me in what language does a duck icon mean follow me, seriously...
The dialog is also painfully bad, ignore the machine
translated text, just listen to what the characters actually say, the main person depending on their character will have ONE line for each option, which they will sprout over and over no matter what circumstances, the replies are also 4-5 options of
one liners from the person you are interacting with, and those are like one sentence long if that. Most of the time its gonna be "Oh really..." "Oh wow..." "Aha..." "I think so too.", it gets incredibly old very very fast. The voice acting is on a good level, but the variety is tragic.
Interactivity: The actual stuff to do in the game is horribly limited too, the actions pretty much sum up in have lunch with person or group, study with person or group, train with person or group and go home with person or group, that's it, the dialog options don't matter at all, the only ones you will really need is come with me, meet me
there and talk about love, the time of day interact and the ecchi stuff, that's all, everything else you can more or less ignore. And the game is incredibly easy, with a right combination of invites, actions and love talking after each action you can make the character be head over heels in love with you in 5 time ticks, as in start in morning and the next morning you can do whatever you want already.
Take note though, that if you have a character with an "Evil" trait, and if you cheat on them, there is a good chance that they will kill your character, it seems a bit of a stretch for cheating, but that option is there.
The characters tend to lack consistency too, sometimes if you invite them to do something they will say no like 3 times, each time reducing your percentage of the action succeeding, but then suddenly she agrees to do so. Also sometimes it is hard to say what the person thinks about you, cos they can have horrid mood swings in their dialog lines. But well that is fixed with THE ONLY intractable object in the maps, the statue, which happily tells you what each character thinks about you.
The amount of actions you can do per time tick (time of day) are limited too, you have a certain number of points and each action you do costs a certain amount of points, but how much what costs the game doesn't have the decency to inform, in fact the points aren't even visible, i didn't know about them at all till i checked the wiki page.
A nice touch they did add is that the other characters do interact between them selves, and possibly in the long run they bare some interesting fruit, but you will be bored of the game after 2-3 weeks game time and just come back occasionally for a random ecchi scene.
~ The Juicy Bits ~
The Positions: Well this is where the game gets back up from its downfall in the game, the H scenes have quite a variaty of positions, 64 for Straight, 16 for yuri and i havent tried the yaoi, not sure if they have the H scene option. Although some pretty obvious positions were excluded, they have no cunnilingus, 69, and a position that would have been an obvious thing in a game with so many characters, a threesome. But the existing positions are well done and have a good variation from hardcore to passionate loving. The controls are automatic more or less, you can adjust the speed and the position, but that's all. The orgasms are also just a click of the button, and there is no simultaneous orgasm.
Locations: The locations available to do H in are literally any, though some characters will react differently when caught, also the publicness of the location and the characters personality will determine how much the character will undress (You cannot control that your self.).
Sounds: The voice acting is of decent quality, though a little repetative, there does not seem to be any definition between the persons character and their moans, i mean you dont quite expect a shy character to scream on the top of their lungs. But either way as much as those things go, the quality is good.
Graphics: The graphics are at a good quality, the physics are good, though the breast jiggling is a bit overboard. The shadows match nicely, the characters dont blend into each other, and after the uncensor (i guess it applies to the censored version too) The certain parts go into the certain parts very acurately. All in all its a pleasant to watch.
The screenshots in this are with nearly maximum graphics (only antialiasing was at 2x instead of 4x).
~ The End Word ~
All in all a decent title, even with its downfalls, but you aren't going to spend much time on it as it gets boring pretty fast. So if you like that style of games it's worth a check out, just the character customization is worth a shot.
I don't believe in a accurate numerical representation of a score for a game, so read the review and judge the score your self.
