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

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.

High recommended for NTR lovers. Amazing Art work and sound effects.
It could have been better in terms of length of the game as it feels completed too quickly. Highly needed more characters and if there is a sequel, a thumbs up on it.

Graphic
5/5 -> Nothing to say, I love the drawings, the rest is typical RPGM graphic.

Story
4/5 -> Pretty simple story but it misses that last step to have the perfect story. Still good tho, can't complain.

Gameplay
4.5/5 -> No grinding, which is good, but pretty easy. Once you understand the mechanism you can finish a full route and still have lot of time left, which is not optimal. But again, nothing bad to note. Good note, you can play the game more than once due to different routes to explore.

Girls
5/5 -> Just two girls, but the main one is just gorgeous and well drawn, amazing boobs. Sometimes I just play the game again to see her scenes.

Total
18.5/20 -> Good game, one of my favourite of the NTR genre, very advised to everyone.

This game fucking rules. The slow progression from her loving you to loving the men that are having their way with her is incredible. Even the UI elements help further drive home the NTR state of mind, with an interface showing you surrounded by hearts representing all her love and affection, only to have those hearts slowly migrate out to the various men she's fucking behind your back, until she's no longer even interested in you.

Each of the potential suiters represent a different NTR trope, so you can kinda pick your favorite on your first playthrough, of which I'd personally recommend Masaru, (the onsen worker) as he was the MC & girl's childhood friend and perpetual 3rd wheel. That route feels the most immersive imo since it has a somewhat natura; development and makes the most sense in the context of the world (a girl developing feelings for her other childhood friend when the MC is a bit more plausible than her being mind fucked by blackmail or village rituals etc). However all the routes are really enjoyable so you can't go wrong.

If you like NTR, I cannot recommend this game enough. And yeah, the NTR is skippable, but like... why tho?

I was expecting quite a bit from this game seeing as how it is a highly rated NTR game (4.5 stars with 40 votes and 31 pages of comments at the time of me writing this). With that said, I do believe it let me down.

Hentai: The main girl and her sister not only have excellent designs but they both have H-scenes, a massive tick in the game's favor. The hentai itself ranges from very well made to not very good, no real standard of quality. I'm a bit disappointed that there is only one threesome scene with the two sisters, especially with how involved the sister is in the story. There are also quite a bit of recycled scenes and, on top of that, there's not really too many to begin with as it relates to the amount of time you'll need to put in to unlock them. One major detractor is that there are no sex scenes for the vanilla routes, but I'll touch on that later.

Story: The non-NTR endings are rather decent, honestly they're better written than the NTR endings. The NTR endings are incredibly generic and quite bland as all six NTR routes are not only heavily trope heavy for the genre, but relies far too much on forceful NTR in order to drive the story forward. Another major issue is that Ryouka goes from love-struck pure maiden to giga whore in the span of a week and is incredibly quick to give up her own values and desires, which in turn destroys her entire character. It's incoherent and anti-immersive. I've played many NTR games and this one is by-far one of the worst cases of the main-girl doing a complete and quick 180 for no reason other than to drive the NTR plot. It's like the reverse of The Curse of Kubel.

Other: In order to unlock all scenes and all endings you must play this game at least seven times (and it's not a short game if you're reading the story) or pray that RNG is in your favor. That's absurd, especially since the NTR stories are rather poorly written and the hentai isn't really worth the effort. It leaves this game feeling incredibly grindy and drawn out. On top of that, the RNG aspect makes you want to have to follow only one route at a time in case RNG is not in your favor, thus causing you to have wasted your time by the end. If you want her to sleep with every man in town in one run, you're likely not getting a true ending. I also feel this game leans a bit too much into the genuine romance aspect for the girl, which is a bit much. There's also no h-scene for either of the two vanilla routes. At that point I ask, why bother including those routes? Yeah its an NTR game, but you included heavy non-NTR story and aspects. The MC is completely empty headed, I do not care that he is getting NTR'd nor do I care if he wins the girl. He is the worst character in a game of badly written characters. Also, are you telling me that every single male in this universe is a dark-skinned ugly bastard? Because that's what this game is entirely about. If you're into that, fair enough. But for me, it's way too much. I was expecting one or two of the guys to be ugly bastards, not every single one.

Gameplay: A nice phone feature and tracking feature to see what the girl's up to, though it becomes incredibly repetitive. The trials to unlock her memories are quite easy, you just have to grind in order to get the materials needed to get through them. Gameplay is nothing special, but not horrible. Minor point though, it was fun finding and "playing" the games that are references to other well known hentai games.

The game is by far not perfect, but if you're willing to slog through the story and are fine with every h-scene being an ugly bastard one, go for it. If you just plan on skipping the story for the H-scenes, then I'd suggest maybe spending your time on a different game. A solid 3/5, anything higher is too much.