Tester's Corner: Edelweiss Ed. Vol 1.

Today’s Tester’s Corner comes from duo!

Hey guys, duo here with my second Tester’s Corner for Mangagamers. My first contact with Edelweiss was when I tested the trial version (available for download). I came to like it a lot so I was expecting quite a bit from the full version… and I must say my expectations were well met! Edelweiss was a really enjoyable game, with an interesting setting, good music, pretty character designs, and a varied cast of characters. The story setting is a remote island where a once all-girls boarding school turns co-ed and invites a number of males to, oh, join them. Kazushi – the protagonist – and his friends somehow land themselves a ticket to this paradise… The reality doesn’t quite match up to what they expected (mostly due to their own idiocy). Hilarity ensues. The game focuses mostly on the interactions between the slightly (well, more than slightly) sex-crazed guys and the resident gals, and the troubles the guys’ tendencies lead them to. A pretty fun ride overall. The story does get a bit more depressing once you enter the individual routes, though. I won’t write much about the support characters, since I think Kouryuu did a pretty good job introducing them in The Guys and The Girls posts. Edelweiss has a really strong side-cast, with Kazushi’s friends being pretty bro when they’re not too occupied by thinking about sex and the girls adding a lot of dynamics to the events. As for the heroines… they’re pretty varied (in size, age and character traits) and, well, likeable. I actually found it pretty hard to find my favorite – if I had to choose, Mei would win (by a small margin) in the MEIn game and Sakura (by a slightly larger margin) in the expansion. OVERDRIVE is totally justified in my eyes for making an expansion just for Rin and Sakura. I found Edelweiss very pleasing visually – the backgrounds were pretty and the vibrant colors were definitely the right choice for this setting. Somewhat ironic though, since real edelweiss are tiny greyish-white flowers blooming in fairly barren places high in the mountains (that is, in areas that are also pretty grey). Also, I confirmed yet again that I really like the character designs by Katakura Shinji – they’re cute, and, well, fitting for this type of story. Shame he didn’t do Edelweiss shikishis at this year’s AX… The BGM was overall pretty average – the only track that I really liked was Natsume’s theme. The vocal songs, however, were just awesome! The instrumental version of Ashberry (OP, by NANA) on the start menu kind of left me confused whether to start the game or hang around to listen to it some more. And the vocal version is even better. I swear I spent too much time in the vocal songs part of the Extra menu. Also lost track of how many times I listened to Hareta Hi no Gogo ni (ED, by UR@N, who now goes by AiRi). yozuka*’s song (I forget the title) was pretty good too, but not as great as the tracks she sang forDa Capo. To sum up, go buy it and play it if you’re in for quite a bit of comedy, summer theme, and some great vocals. Oh, and some ero, but no one here would mind, right?

Bookmark the permalink.

21 Comments

  1. Just wondering was the first pic from edelweiss? Just wanted to ask as it looks soooo cute XD.

  2. I’ve been playing the new translation and really like it, it’s been a while since I just plain ‘enjoyed’ playing a novel game like this. I held off playing until the patch, and it’s been really enjoyable. The translation is incredibly solid now. I hope it’s been a worthwhile undertaking for Mangagamer to do, the title is definitely worth it, but I’m worried that many of the fans you’re appealing to here already have it!

  3. A bit irrelevant, but… I’ve noticed that quite some people call MangaGamer “mangagamers”, with an added s. Even Bamboo does it. And I can’t help but wonder where people got this idea to call it “mangagamers”, since it doesn’t seem to be a single mistake from an individual but a widespread conception. Was the company called “mangagamers” back in the ‘olden’ days when the company first started or something?

    • I think it’s just simple logic and the structure of the English language that causes people to make that mistake.

      It makes -no- sense for a company comprised of many individuals to be referred to a singular noun that’s not a mass noun. For instance, it wouldn’t make sense to have a team called the San Francisco Giant. Thus many people just naturally add the s on to the name so it sounds correct.

      • If MangaGamer were a team (as in sports), then I might agree. Since when you say “San Francisco Giants”, you are actually more referring to the people playing in the team than the organization of the team.

        However, when one talks of MangaGamer, they’re not talking about the people working for MangaGamer, but rather the company itself and the services/products it provides.
        For example, I don’t see people referring to the oil company Shell as “shells”.

        • Well there’s also the apostrophe being dropped in “MangaGamer’s” as a reason too. (be it the possessive ‘s or a contraction of is)

        • I might buy that if the word gamer didn’t refer to a singular person.

          • I don’t get it. Because the noun typically refers to a person means that it ALWAYS refers to a person, even if it’s just a brand, a name for a company? Nonsense.

            Game Informer
            GameSpy
            PC Gamer

            All singular nouns that typically refer to a singular person. Even though the company/organization consists of multiple people, the noun is still singular because it refers to the company/organization itself and not its people. MangaGamer fits right in that list.

    • We’re all mangagamers, after all.. ~_~

      • Indeed we are. But that’s not the name of the company. So, when referring to the company, it’s wrong to say “mangagamers”.

        • You could’ve ended this discussion if you just used a good example; Sony is never called Sonys baka.

          • That’s not a good example at all. First of all, SONY is not a proper noun that even has a plural. All the other examples (like Shell) are proper nouns that have a plural.
            Furthermore, the latter examples were supposed to be nouns that typically describe a person, like “gamer”, “spy” or “informer”.

            SONY doesn’t fit in any of those categories, so I’d argue it’s the worst example yet.

  4. This was a nice Tester’s Corner… But I of course didn’t need any convincing. It’s an incredibly great game!

  5. In my opinion the soundtrack is above average. I enjoyed the tunes much more as in Da Capo. Unfortunately on the soundtrack CD the pieces are rather short (seldom over 2 minutes). Guess I have to try to record longer ones from ingame for my MP3 player.

  6. I think playing the demo or watching Green Green gives you enough reason to get this game. Still nice to read other opinions.

    • Someday, the Green Green trilogy of games will come to the West. And of course, by someday, I mean never. =(

      Such a great series, and Edelweiss, while awesome, will always make me want to go back and replay that series. Though I will concede that there are some throwaway heroines in GG (especially GG3 Hello, Goodbye… if you’re on the Futaba train, its painful to 100% clear that one) , while there aren’t any in Edelweiss.

Leave a Reply to SlashZeroCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.