After playing the first part of Beach Bounce I found myself wanting a lot more. At the time I had high hopes that it would be good, or at least playable. My review on it proved neither was true. However, despite fearing what I would see in the second installment of the game I decided to take the plunge and trudge through the murky waters of what was recently released. And I’m sad to say that it’s just as bad, if not worse.
For those that missed out, Beach Bounce tells the tale of a guy named Tomoyo as he goes to visit his grandmother at her beach resort. Word spreads that she’d gone ill and has been hospitalized. He goes to see her and offers to help out during his vacation. And, for the most part, that’s all you hear about her sickness until the very end of part two. Seriously, something as important as a loved one possibly dieing should be center stage. Not so much here.
Beach Bounce is all about eye candy, though. All of the girls that Tomo hooks up with…well, shags would be a more appropriate term…are good looking and busty. Perhaps the only saving grace of the entire game released so far. The problem is that their personalities are far from realistic. And part two has all of them hornier than teenage boys at prom night. It’s especially jarring when Rei, the ice queen of the resort, keeps wanting to jump his bones. Or when the resident lesbian, Sakura, wants him all to herself.
In fact, nothing makes sense throughout Beach Bounce. Everything seems tacked on and you never get to know any of the characters, even this late in the game. The story continues to jump around, with almost no plot to speak of. While I do enjoy a good “adult” game from time to time this is purely fetish bait at its worst. I’ve played hardcore hentai games with more depth. And at least there you get to see the sex scenes. I had no clue that Aiko and Tomoyo even went further than kissing in the Steam version until Sakura brings it up later in the game. It feels like they were cut entirely for the sake of “cleaning it up”.
The other major problem that I had with the second part was the lost opportunities. The first section had Tomoyo and Aiko spending all of one day doing sports related things. Each game could have easily included a mini game or at least a couple shots of them playing. Unfortunately, none of this happens and you are only told the aftermath of each. Honestly, why even have this at all if you’re not going to show anything? It’s like half of the game was left on the cutting room floor.
The only thing that I was thankful for was the length of the new content. Just like the first part I managed to finish it all in about an hour. While normally way too short, even for a visual novel, at least it spared me extra torture from the experience. In all, unless Beach Bounce part three steps up its game considerably this is a title not worth playing at all.
Well thats disappointing 🙁
Thank you for taking the time to spare us from misery of such a horrible game. I especially love your concluding paragraph.
The question still remains, “why the heck did they cut in 3 parts?”
Sorry for having you make through the rest of the game. I actually was really curious to know “how bad” it was..like a morbid obsession. I, myself aren’t again a good hentai game sometimes.
I mean, i played Rance it’s quite a good strategy game and i actually played a game called crescendo and still now love every part of it (the art style is magnificent and the drama..well it’s a hentai for sure but it’s meaningful..) Anyway it’s not like you can’t make a scenario out of an hentai or a good game. If you want to.
Here though it seems, they basically throw it at you on the face with no meaning. I guess for horny teenage boys it can pass..(and there is a lot of that..) but for someone that wants to increase his involvement in the “game dev” part of his company.
He’ll first need to define the concept of a game for him. This is garbage, this is no game.
The only reason that I could possibly come up with as to why they went with the episodic structure is money. Pure and simple. Look at the price they’re asking for an unfinished game that has no depth or structure.
And I agree that even a hentai game can have depth and a moving plot. I myself am partial towards the “gender bender”, yaoi, and yuri style games (as you know). I’m particularly fond of the X-Change series. Even Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme (not really hentai but close enough) has a better story despite the insane shenanigans going on.