Do you know how difficult it is to find twink BL games in general, let alone ones that have been translated into English? This Backloggd page didn't even exist before I intervened. Hell, before I discovered someone made a Ren'Py remake a few years back the only place I could find this game in English was some shady Spanish WordPress site that probably hasn't been updated since Obama was in office.

Let's get this outta the way first, this game was fan-translated in 2014, and as such it makes heavy use of the word "trap", which while at the time was used as a term for femboy/crossdresser, is now more or less universally accepted as being a slur for transgender people. While I'm sure there was no ill-intent on the translator's part, as that was at the time the generally accepted English equivalent to the Japanese "otokonoko", it's definitely jarring seeing it with a modern perspective. Thankfully, there's a patch for the Ren'Py port that fixes this, but you have to do some digging for it.

As for the game itself, it's a bit all over the place. The art is nice enough, but the voice acting and music are kinda insufferable. Outdated terminology aside, the writing is kinda weird, and characters (Aoi in particular) sometime feel completely different from scene-to-scene. Still, the game did occasionally make me feel good with some wholesome moments along the "good routes", and I gotta admit those bad endings do make you feel absolutely terrible, which I guess is a success.

The dialog in H-Scenes is painful, even by eroge standards, and the mosaics are so intense unless you're an appreciator of twink ass and tummy they probably won't do much for you. The game's biggest sin is making the hottest boy the main character's older brother, so you can't even be mad about him not having any scenes.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure I've put more energy into this game's existence than the collective population of Earth has in the last five years. Much like Captain Ahab, I will continue my futile quest to find the White Whale that is a good twink boylove game.

I'm sorry, this game goes so hard and I'm tired of acting like it doesn't. I acknowledge, some of it is a little bit jank, some of it needs work, but I can look past that to see what it was trying to do. If remade by people who truly get it, we would have one of the best games ever made, something that would EASILY rival Sonic Adventure 2.

This game couldn't exist these days. A game where a Sonic character is given a gun, can ride a motorcycle through a burning city while gunning down human military with heavy metal blaring. It really is incredible that it exists at all. You can MURDER THE PRESIDENT in one level.

I will again admit, the gameplay can be jank at times, but once you get the hang of the guns they do genuinely elevate the experience. Vehicles are hit or miss aside from the spinny disc, but they're infrequent and usually optional. Some of the missions do drag on and can be frustrating, but this could be easily solved with a remake, I fully believe this. If the controls were as tight as Adventure 2, everyone woulda loved it, but even coming right from that game I was able to adjust pretty quick.

The story is convoluted, and stuff can just go totally crazy with certain routes, but all and all it really isn't that hard to see what they were going for. And I never understood why having a "true ending" upset so many people. Again, with some polish, you could have something really special here, and honestly I think this might be the last Sonic game to have a real entertaining story before things just got "lol quirky!"

That's what really grabs me; this game, despite everything, has heart. It has SOUL. No matter how ridiculous it is, it's completely genuine. It takes itself 100% seriously, and there's a charm in that that so many modern day "tongue-in-cheek" games just don't understand. It's beautiful.

Had this game as a kid, never in my life have I heard another human being ever mention it tho, and since I never finished it I thought, why not? And you know what, it's a shame nobody knows about it, because this is a really solid 3D platformer.

Gameplay is fun, and has a ton of variation with all the different forms and mechanics. The levels are laid out really well, and even when you go for 100% you really don't have to backtrack much. Difficulty def spikes towards the end, but otherwise, great progression.

Story's simple, but sweet and enjoyable. Soundtrack is, there, probably the weakest part of the game, but eh, put on a podcast and you're good.

The environments are where this game really shines. Closest I could compare its overall vibe to is Xenoblade X, which is INCREDIBLY high praise. Like, man, this world is super cool to just look at, it's insane.

Basically, real hidden gem, def worth looking into if you want a decent 3D platformer to waste an afternoon on.

There is no reason for this game to be as good as it is. Genuinely one of the best 3D platformers I've ever played. It's kinda nuts how unique it is, too: it's a 3D platformer structured like a Metroidvania, I've genuinely never seen anything else like it. Soundtrack, aesthetic, gameplay, everything is so GOOD, and it's a GODDAMN SCOOBY-DOO game.

If this isn't enough to convince you, just look at how active and crazy the speedrunning scene for this game is, it's insane the kinda tech this game has. But yeah, cannot recommend this game enough, it's way too good for what it is.

What does a man do, when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds?

I bought this game under the assumption that it would be a simple puzzle salad with an otokonoko dressing. As you may be aware, otokonoko are largely underrepresented in gaming, so much so that I've spent the last few months developing my own visual novel with an otokonoko lead. So when I saw this, I knew I had to buy it, anything to support the portrayal of crossdressing boytoys in this medium.

What I wasn't expecting, however, was the hardest puzzle game I've ever played in my life.

You see, while this game may lure you in with the promise of undressing breedable little twinks, it makes you WORK for it. The first boy was easy enough, and I was able to clear his levels without much issue. Once you get to boy two, however, the difficulty truly begins setting in.

The time limit you have is tighter than the boyholes you're trying to uncover. I legitimately had to start using my drawing tablet just to have the speed and coordination to keep up. Even then, dozens and dozens of time-outs and self-inflicted lockouts on boys two and three.

I don't know when it was when it stopped being about cock for me. Had it ever been? Only a God that has long-since abandoned me knows for sure. If I really wanted to see cute boys in skirts I coulda just asked my femboy boyfriend for nudes, or gone on Pixiv, the options are endless. Hell, I probably coulda datamined the assets outta the game myself. But it wasn't about that anymore. I couldn't let the game win. This was a fight to prove my worth, my right to exist in this world.

Boy four is where I was nearly broken. I spent, no exaggeration, over two hours on his first of 12 boards. I was driven nearly mad, it took the director himself directly telling me to switch to easy mode before I finally cracked. But I will return to finish the job on normal, I can't let that bratty doctor win.

Even on easy, the game isn't a cakewalk. In fact, calling it "Easy" is a bit of a disservice, as it gives you a whole new style of gameplay, and needs to be approached with a completely different strategy.

When I finally managed to overcome Boy Five, when that foldable otokonoko was stripped down to nothing but pasties and a thong, the rush was second only to losing my virginity. I had won the fight. That was all I needed. Getting to see their cocks at last was merely boy icing on the boy cake.

And, you know, I think it may have been trying to say something. About the world, about the fight otokonoko have to take part in their entire lives. The fight against the insurmountable weight of social pressures. An atypical beauty so pure, yet shunned by the masses. The fight to just exist. It's profound, in its own way.

Soundtrack was a little repetitive, but hey, anything would be after hours. If they make a sequel, my biggest hope is that they have more of a visual novel/story aspect, flesh out the boys a little more. Otherwise, a fine game that does exactly what it sets out to do, and then some.

Those wonderful bastards did it again.

Full disclosure: After my review of the last one, I must have earned myself the status of professional boy-breeding influencer, because I was actually given an early review copy of this entry.

With that out of the way, I can say this is hands-down the title in the soft boy stripping puzzle series so far. Granted, it's a series with two entries, but it shows they know how to improve, and if I add a "so far" it means I can curse God if we don't get a new one.

One major improvement over Otoko Cross: Pretty Boy Mahjong Solitaire is that it uses its different difficulty modes as a ramp, rather than a crutch, providing a far better gameplay experience. I'll admit, it's definitely not as skull crushingly difficult, but the challenge it does provide is still enough to make you really work to see these soft twinks in their plowable state. Hell, this time around I only used the drawing tablet as a controller out of convenience, rather than necessity.

I'd never played solitaire before this, and yet I still managed to clear my first game after 20 minutes of random clicking. That's not to say it doesn't outright explain the rules at the start, but Jules was on screen and I was too busy thinking about bending him over a table, so I didn't read it. What's important is that the game is intuitive. It definitely helps that playing cards are easier to process than mahjong symbols for my dyslexic brain, so I didn't have to come up with shorthand like "high heel" and "dragon".

While this game does share a ton of its presentation and assets with its predecessor, you're here because you want to see the twinks again, don't act like you aren't, you don't get mad at a strip club for not providing a groundbreaking, unique assortment of appetizers you goddamn son of a bitch, you're here for the same reason as me, we like seeing soft, weak men in vulnerable positions with some fun puzzle elements. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That said, it does also mean a couple complaints from the last one carry over, namely, lack of story and a somewhat repetitive soundtrack. It's important to remember we are still in the infancy of otokonoko representation in gaming, brothers, and the normalization of boytoys requires our support. A starving man doesn't leave good food on the table just because it's a small portion, after all.

Overall, very solid entry, if I had my way, I'd say it should be the version of solitaire preinstalled on every computer. Eagerly awaiting the next one already.