RPGM - Completed - Scars of Summer [v1.03] [Shinachiku-Castella/Kagura Games]

100% honest, i think its overrated. Its quite confusing when you start playing, you dont know if just wait for things to happen, look for fmc to find hscenes or farm butterflies all day to raise stats. Tried a little bit of everything four a couple hours til got bored. and just downloaded a 100% save, watch some scenes and bye bye.

FMC is hot tho, thats a pro (and if you're into ugly bastard shit i guess this is your game, i pass)

Not a big fan of progression, you have to play the game multiple times to see every scene. It seems like a good replayability, but after the first playthrough, it starts to feel like a chore.

Apart from this, the game is great. Good scenes and fine dialogue.

This is a very cozy game, and if the tags interest you, you'll likely enjoy booting up the game once for—not a quick fap—but a 3–4 hour game session where you might eventually get one fap at the first penetration scene you unlock, then you'll close the game. The game felt really good for a while. I like the art and scenes, and the amount of effort put into this game puts it far ahead of its peers that I've previously rated. This game deserves a 4/5.

However, it's unlikely you'll actually reload the game after that.

Like most NTR games, these games typically peak at one of the heroine's first penetration scenes. That's why there's a long period of tension and buildup before the first scene, but I have to admit that four hours is far too long to wait. And once you finally get the first big sex scene, it's like pulling the wrong jenga block; the tower collapses, and suddenly you'll get scene after scene non-stop, each feeling a little less special than the last. I don't envy any developer that has to balance this pacing, especially in a free roaming game like this, but I would like to point out some of the pitfalls and best qualities this game has for others to potentially learn from:

1. The player character has absolutely no agency or character. At several points, I felt more like I was playing a female-protagonist corruption game from an omniscient perspective. You could very easily swap the protagonist, and you wouldn't think this was an NTR game at all.

2. I've said this about several similar games, but no matter how cozy and easy to play your game is, four hours for a decent scene is just far too long. This is the main reason I won't be launching this game again.

3. Following up on the previous two points, there's no route for the main character. There is no buildup of sex scenes or romance whatsoever. I feel like this is a huge missed opportunity to really let you bond with the main character. Just because this is an NTR game doesn't mean absolutely every scene needs to be NTR. There could easily have been several scenes where you bond with the main girl, and that'll make it sting more when she inevitably gets whisked away by another man.

4. Speaking of the other men, they kind of all sucked. Every single one is introduced in almost the exact same way, with them blatantly harassing Ryoka in front of you and the protagonist not reacting at all—as if you're not even really there, with no agency at all. Ryoka will then smack them about and tell them off, but they always inevitably fall into their clutches. And is anyone else bored of ugly bastards, or is it just me? Can't we have a suave character that genuinely contends for the girl in a romantic sense? The absolute worst character was the gambling game one, where you have to win or lose an RNG game. The best was the blackmail character; it was the most interesting usage of blackmail I've seen in a game like this, as you get framed for molesting another student, and Ryoka is blackmailed by proxy into the scandal being covered up. This allowed Ryoka to both be disgusted with the protagonist, doubting whether you did or not, while still having to follow the blackmailer's orders. However, there was a big problem, which was...

5. RNG. All events are purely RNG, which means I once got the same character's NTR events 4 days in a row, and then not a single time within the next 14, completely killing the momentum of that particular route just as it was reaching its peak. Unfortunately, the more routes you enable, the more diluted the pool becomes and the slower the pace of the game gets. Furthermore, it seems that once Ryoka finishes an NTR route with 100% affection, they seem to lock into that character's ending and can't complete the events of anyone else. Now that's just dumb.

6. The way you actually activate all the NTR routes isn't that much smarter either. Essentially, if you don't do anything, you will never get cucked. You can just focus on the good ending, sleep to skip almost every day, and congratulations. This game makes the big mistake of forcing you to press the giant shiny 'get cucked over here' button to activate any events. This seriously deflates the tension. Why would I go up to the gross, ugly bastard and manually choose to activate him? Instead, the game should have made him active and given me an alternative way to disable him through gameplay.

7. And the gameplay... this is one of many games where you're presented with a world map where your heroines have active schedules and you can stumble into them getting up to mischief, but this is by far the most empty map of its type I've ever seen. There's almost absolutely nothing for you to do, and the "gameplay" of collecting stats is incredibly quick and easy to do. So often, you're just wandering around, realizing there's nothing to do, so you end up skipping most of your time. While I really enjoy the anonymous forum posts that give you image hints of what Ryoka has been up to, it really does feel like you have to 'play along' with the game to get the most out of it. The most effective way to play this game is to activate all routes, skip every single day by sleeping, and then rewatch all the events manually. That's kind of boring, yeah, but... the alternative is walking around an empty map until Ryoka occasionally gets into an event, and then maybe you can activate a door to hear some wet sounds behind it, or call her phone to hear her saying she's hanging out with a friend while moaning. It's basic stuff designed to fluff you up before you go use your powers of omniscience to replay the scene from her bedroom the next morning.

I don't think I've ever complained this much about a game I rated 4/5 stars; it's seriously flawed, and I might even be overrating it slightly. I can understand the mixed ratings here and on Steam, but I can also recognize that this is still one of the highest-effort games in the genre, and relatively to them, a 4 honestly seems quite fitting. It does so much more than those other games, and it lands more often than it misses in the long run.

Overall, I might reload this game and continue playing, but... I'm equally likely to try a new game instead. It was alright for one good fap, but it failed to invest me any more than that.

fantastic fap, great art, great main girl, great scenes fantastic fap, great art, great main girl, great scenes fantastic fap, great art, great main girl, great scenes fantastic fap, great art, great main girl, great scenes

The game is good, but has some downfalls. Really loved the plot and the models, but really annoyed with randomness of events and progression. Player has not a lot of control what events will happen and with whom, hence sometimes it becomes grind fest. Other than that, the different characters and story arks makes the game really good.

Es un juego en el que necesitas maso menos una guía si sos muy despistado
y lo recomendaría solamente a los que les gusta el voyerismo y ser cucks/cornudos sino vas a sufrir el juego desde la perspectiva del protagonista

It has a 4.5/5 rating because the guys who're into being cucked (no judgement) don't have enough games to play.
Unfortunately, it's not a very good "avoid the cuck" game, because it manipulates "random" results to generate player failure. Wait - doesn't knowing the gambling is fixed in your favor kill the rush of success for the cuck-lovers?
Anyway -crap game but I'm glad there's a outlet for the deviants that like cucking.

Art/Graphics: 3/5

It uses the usual RPGM stuff and some of the sex scenes are illustrated, however the characters are all kinda ugly? Except Ryoa herself. I'm pretty sure that's intentional because some of them look silly on purpose but I just don't think it's a good idea for a NTR game

Music/Sounds: 4/5

Music is solid, there's a few sounds but I've definitely seen other NTR games make much better use of sounds, here they are underused and kinda low quality.

Story/Writing: 3/5

The writing quality is pretty meh, I get that it's a translation but I'm just telling it like it is, this is substantially worse compared to a project that's initially created in english.

The NTR setup is kinda weak, there's a reason why most games use a mother, wife (or at least fiance), because that strong preexisting relationship is what makes the NTR so intense and taboo. Here the female character is simply your friend, you never even dated so it just feels like what happens is not a big deal anyway.

The storytelling itself is ok, it does get the job done. Not tried the "vanilla" ending because that's not what I'm playing NTR games for, but the NTR stuff itself is split into 6 paths ( 6 characters that the girl can cheat with, I'm calling them paths because I think playing multiple at the same time while technically possible is highly retarded).

I don't think that's a good idea actually, I would've preferred one great highly-detailed story rather than 6 small ones that are pretty similar anyway so not very interesting. And all 6 characters are kinda weak tbh, half of them are gross dirty hobos, the other half are just awkward and cringe. That in turn then reflects on the female's character: if she's attracted to such weird people what does that say about her?

Gameplay/UI: 5/5

NTR games are usually VNs but here it's an open world (not really because you still have a limited number of events happening in chronological order) but it definitely feels more "free" and refreshing compared to the usual stuff.

Also the fact that you can trigger phone calls whenever you want as opposed to them being scripted is a brilliant idea, although this feature didn't get nearly the amount of attention it deserved to make it truly great, each phone call is a few sentences long at most. Such a shame because that is actually very clever and exciting gameplay.

Conclusion:

Pretty decent, definitely will provide you with a few hours of entertainment if you're into NTR, but it's nothing extraordinary either. There's much better out there.

I can see why this is so highly regarded as a pioneer(?) of the NTR genre.

Firstly, this game's translation is the best I've ever played by Kagura. Usually the translations are somewhat half-baked and they always take me out of the experience. Not for Scars of Summer.

Not only is the translation solid, the game itself is beautifully written. You do grow an attachment to the main love interest in Ryoka, you do grow very disgusted with all the other suitors (Except Daisuke, who I was kind of rooting for), and you do feel like a spineless chump.

And this is all complimented by the great pacing, how Ryoka (and ) are slowly corrupted and/or cajouled into hooking up with these cretins, how their disgusted by it at first, but eventually go on to feel either numb to it or even enjoy it. All while nailing this feeling of powerlessness and inevitability on the MC's part. Such an excellent bitter-sweet story.

This is all topped off by WONDERFUL art with great SFX and moans to really complete the experience! It also has some excellent new game plus features making repeat playthroughs more efficient and clueing you into how to progress and achieve the other endings!

Only complaints I have is that the game is a bit buggy. It feels like certain scenes didn't trigger when they should've and some scenes triggered too early. Also, I still have no idea what the point of the stats are. They don't seem to have a purpose.

But those are small gripes. If you're a fan of NTR or open to the genre, or just enjoy a somewhat gut-wrenching, bitter-sweet story, I cannot recommend this game more!

I really love this game. The story is amazing. The art is really good. There is many roots and I have played all of its. Without any doubt this one of my favorite adult games. I am waiting for new game of this developer.

i played through the prologue and a bit after (around an hour total) and ended up just downloading a save. the tutorial stuff was a little confusing to me and it seemed like a lot of work to get all the scenes

so i just looked at the recollection room and watched all of the scenes. the scenes were verrrrry solid and actually made me wish i played through the game lol

Your male MC has no agency or thoughts in any scene. An NPC will come up and grope Ryoka in front of you, and the MC doesn't even have internal thoughts. When you are alone and a scene triggers, you as the MC can walk up to the event and hear some sounds, but you can't actually look at the scene. The way to view scenes is by looking at Ryoka's calendar the day after? I understand wanting a blank slate MC for role-playing, but it's hard to role-play when I have no idea what the MC is actually seeing. The game also gives you the occasional dialogue option, but it's almost always fake choices. This game would make a lot more sense if Ryoka was the MC.

The recollection unlocking is a bit finicky and grindy, you need an ending. So you won't unlock scenes, even ones that you've witnessed, unless you do a play through for that suitor.

Time management in this game is also a bit goofy, with time passing every time you open a door or accidentally touch a butterfly. But this doesn't hurt the game too much because it's not a very difficult game, so accidentally wasting time won't screw over a good ending run.

The idea of unlocking childhood memories through a crystal maze is inventive and works really well. There are a lot of potential partners for Ryoka and most of them are written quite well. The game has a good amount of scenes, and does a good job building tension. The charm praying system makes it easy to control who Ryoka ends up with, which sorta undermines the story.

Review of [v1.03]

In my opinion it is a good game, but with its flaws.

G_ I like that it focuses on voyeurism and erotic writing like henteria chronicles.

B_ There are not many things to do to spend time with or without Ryoka.

B_ There is no separate goal to balance with taking care of Ryoka, there is no point in doing anything other than passing the time to watch the next scene.

This game was supposed to be played as the female protagonist, Not the male one. Playing it as a male protagonist ruined it for me. Otherwise this could have been easily a 4 star game for me. Also I didn't like how events occurred. Ryoka has a strong personality, but in h-scenes she kinda breaks the character for me. If you like ntr from the boy's perspective then give this game a try. The good ending was the only one that I liked which means I enjoyed the ending with barely any h-scenes :')

This game of course has the NTR fetish. But it is completely optional, since the game is divided into routes and you can just choose the normal ending or the good ending if you don't want Ryoka to end up with some other dude. And if you go for the good ending...the game sure feels slow. In fact, after you unlock the 4 memories you can skip day after day, and it still takes a while to get the ending. In other words, the good ending where you romance Ryoka...it pretty boring. I do like the final scene where she confesses, but otherwise it is mediocre.

Now, as a porn game I think the art is pretty important. And Ryoka is hot. But sadly there aren't that many unique CGs of her. Not even if you go for NTR routes do you get that many CGs. A lot of scenes are just sprites on the maps and some text and sound. That's not that hot. In fact, I'm pretty sure Saki's scenes almost rival Ryoka's in terms of unique CGs. And Saki is a side character.
So after having played through two routes of this game I just can't get myself to spend any more time on it. There isn't enough porn content compared to the time you have to spend to go through the routes. And the content you get is mostly sprites on the map and not much in terms of detailed art. So it's a let-down.

The bulk of my praise goes towards two things here, the art and the routes. As of this review, I've probably finished three of them and will continue until finished. Artwork is very appealing. Onto the bad, I don't like the gameplay. You play purely from the boyfriend perspective and it's a hassle to go back and forth to read her diary to see scenes, or rather even wait until the end to view it. This is just one of those times I feel like the RPGM engine was unnecessary, but it isn't the worst compared to other H games out there.

it has the kind of ntr which i like. the gameplay makes you feel much more like a worried boyfriend seeing what his girlfriend is up to which feels like a much more realistic scenario than the typical ntr game.

Great art, the game is simple and pretty straightforward. If you're a NTR fan this is a must-play, there are different characters with different storylines and it's satisfying seeing the corruption of Ryoka. Each antagonist has his own ending which is cool. Cannot wait to see the sequel !

I really don't know how you play that game, it is just horrible from gameplay side, random events, you can play from mf side ONLY, guys, sorry I'm not masochist, I want to see all events.

What I did, I just started a day and went to the shop - worked- sleep and see a diary, why do I need it? Because another way it is impossible to see scenes, it is crazy how it is boring.

I like how it is implemented in other NTR games - want happy end - play from MF side, wants real NTR - play from MF side.

Ah, terrible feelings after the game.

One of the best hrpg games I've ever played, hands down. I'm a big shinachiku castella fan and his games only improved over time - this was damn near perfect in almost every front. No need to go into detail because most people have played this already but yeah. Slow burn, well written, great art, good scenes, lots of content. Super hyped for After Story.