Full video review: https://youtu.be/KPxtWCd0g3k
Dōkyūsei - one of the most important visual novels ever released. It came out all the way back in 1992 and is generally considered to be one of the biggest dating sims of the time and part of the reason why that genre took off. Now here we are thirty years later with a remaster of that very game. Does it hold up? Kinda.
Story and Gameplay
There is practically no real “story” here. You’re just some dude spending the rest of his summer break messing around and trying to pick up some girls. No major drama, no twists, none of that - just constant dates with girls and maybe a little bit of character building for each, especially towards the end.
I found this approach to be both good and bad. It’s good in that this lends to a lot of interactivity. You don’t just sit there and spam enter a bunch, but instead are constantly moving around, interacting with the environment and different CGs, and picking which characters you want to talk to by the in-game minute. As someone that plays a ton of visual novels, it was refreshing to have this sense of control.
That said - it does come with one major downside: a lackluster main story. If you’re not a fan of whatever character’s story? Well, there’s really nothing else to do other than pursue some other character. They are hardly tied together and even the individual characters themselves don’t have that going for them. Some characters only have a few events and, as such, have really poorly developed personalities, backstories, all that. This leads to the relationship coming off as forced, cheap, and there just to fill a specific archetype.
Then you get a few other characters that have a lot of events and even some conflicts to overcome - which in turn develops their character. I found these to be the most satisfying personally. Maybe I just like a well-written character or maybe I’m playing the game wrong by looking for something like that. But again, it is a dating sim, so I would hope that such a game could at least deliver a bit on that front.
Even then though, the character stories themselves are the most surface level thing - those conflicts that come up are resolved just as quickly and often left me disappointed with what could have been. Again, some are better than others, but I have now finished the game multiple times and really only liked maybe two or three characters max out of the fourteen total.
So I guess it all comes down to what you want. For a dating sim? It’s got pretty much all the bases covered. Don’t go in looking for deeper character writing and you are set. There are a ton of choices to make, tons of places to visit, tons of character events to unlock - the game does an absolutely solid job there. Actually caring for said characters and remembering them weeks after beating the game? Maybe not so much.
Writing
The writing is VERY comedy-heavy and VERY 90s. Stupid one-liners, characters acting completely ridiculous, and an overemphasis on perverted jokes. The protagonist definitely fits that last one and pretty much every character has some sort of tripping, falling, or being above the protagonist CG and he happily partakes in the view. I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of that part of the comedy, but the rest at least makes up for it a bit.
Difficulty and Route Structure
Back in the day, you would have wanted a walkthrough for this one. You need to know which characters to meet at which locations at which times to actually advance along their route and score hearts with them. In classic mode, this information is entirely up to you to figure out, but fortunately, with this remake, comes the now default “easy mode”.
This mode just straight up gives you a calendar plotting all of the key dating events and it is super helpful to have as someone that did not want to waste time mapping out this web of character interactions. That and it even tells you what choices earn or lose you hearts - again negating the need for a walkthrough which I usually end up using for most visual novels anyways. A nice addition that makes the game far more playable than it was thirty years ago.
Length
I was not able to get all of the characters in my first playthrough, but for those I did (maybe half of them), it took me around eight or so hours. Future playthroughs were even easier because I could just ignore the characters I already completed and just skip directly to the character events I missed. So it’s not that long a VN, but also not too short.
Art and Music
Although a part of me wishes they had some sort of toggle to enable the old art - I also cannot deny that the new art is completely fine and somehow manages to maintain a newish look while also being somewhat nostalgic. The music, on the other hand, I honestly cannot recall at all now that I’m writing this review. I don’t remember it being terrible though - so let’s just leave it as “okay, but forgettable”.
Overall
Dōkyūsei: Bangin' Summer is a bit of a mixed bag by modern standards. What it lacks in quality writing it makes up for with its solid dating sim mechanics and nostalgic art. That said, I can’t say any of the characters are that memorable and the experience is more so just fun in the moment - the dated humor actually adds to this too. So I wouldn’t say it’s an instabuy, but maybe worth a look if you want to play through a piece of VN and dating sim history. Otherwise, it’s just okay.
Dōkyūsei - one of the most important visual novels ever released. It came out all the way back in 1992 and is generally considered to be one of the biggest dating sims of the time and part of the reason why that genre took off. Now here we are thirty years later with a remaster of that very game. Does it hold up? Kinda.
Story and Gameplay
There is practically no real “story” here. You’re just some dude spending the rest of his summer break messing around and trying to pick up some girls. No major drama, no twists, none of that - just constant dates with girls and maybe a little bit of character building for each, especially towards the end.
I found this approach to be both good and bad. It’s good in that this lends to a lot of interactivity. You don’t just sit there and spam enter a bunch, but instead are constantly moving around, interacting with the environment and different CGs, and picking which characters you want to talk to by the in-game minute. As someone that plays a ton of visual novels, it was refreshing to have this sense of control.
That said - it does come with one major downside: a lackluster main story. If you’re not a fan of whatever character’s story? Well, there’s really nothing else to do other than pursue some other character. They are hardly tied together and even the individual characters themselves don’t have that going for them. Some characters only have a few events and, as such, have really poorly developed personalities, backstories, all that. This leads to the relationship coming off as forced, cheap, and there just to fill a specific archetype.
Then you get a few other characters that have a lot of events and even some conflicts to overcome - which in turn develops their character. I found these to be the most satisfying personally. Maybe I just like a well-written character or maybe I’m playing the game wrong by looking for something like that. But again, it is a dating sim, so I would hope that such a game could at least deliver a bit on that front.
Even then though, the character stories themselves are the most surface level thing - those conflicts that come up are resolved just as quickly and often left me disappointed with what could have been. Again, some are better than others, but I have now finished the game multiple times and really only liked maybe two or three characters max out of the fourteen total.
So I guess it all comes down to what you want. For a dating sim? It’s got pretty much all the bases covered. Don’t go in looking for deeper character writing and you are set. There are a ton of choices to make, tons of places to visit, tons of character events to unlock - the game does an absolutely solid job there. Actually caring for said characters and remembering them weeks after beating the game? Maybe not so much.
Writing
The writing is VERY comedy-heavy and VERY 90s. Stupid one-liners, characters acting completely ridiculous, and an overemphasis on perverted jokes. The protagonist definitely fits that last one and pretty much every character has some sort of tripping, falling, or being above the protagonist CG and he happily partakes in the view. I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of that part of the comedy, but the rest at least makes up for it a bit.
Difficulty and Route Structure
Back in the day, you would have wanted a walkthrough for this one. You need to know which characters to meet at which locations at which times to actually advance along their route and score hearts with them. In classic mode, this information is entirely up to you to figure out, but fortunately, with this remake, comes the now default “easy mode”.
This mode just straight up gives you a calendar plotting all of the key dating events and it is super helpful to have as someone that did not want to waste time mapping out this web of character interactions. That and it even tells you what choices earn or lose you hearts - again negating the need for a walkthrough which I usually end up using for most visual novels anyways. A nice addition that makes the game far more playable than it was thirty years ago.
Length
I was not able to get all of the characters in my first playthrough, but for those I did (maybe half of them), it took me around eight or so hours. Future playthroughs were even easier because I could just ignore the characters I already completed and just skip directly to the character events I missed. So it’s not that long a VN, but also not too short.
Art and Music
Although a part of me wishes they had some sort of toggle to enable the old art - I also cannot deny that the new art is completely fine and somehow manages to maintain a newish look while also being somewhat nostalgic. The music, on the other hand, I honestly cannot recall at all now that I’m writing this review. I don’t remember it being terrible though - so let’s just leave it as “okay, but forgettable”.
Overall
Dōkyūsei: Bangin' Summer is a bit of a mixed bag by modern standards. What it lacks in quality writing it makes up for with its solid dating sim mechanics and nostalgic art. That said, I can’t say any of the characters are that memorable and the experience is more so just fun in the moment - the dated humor actually adds to this too. So I wouldn’t say it’s an instabuy, but maybe worth a look if you want to play through a piece of VN and dating sim history. Otherwise, it’s just okay.