Eroge Review

Christmas might be doomed! As chance would have it, only an unassuming Japanese student can save the winter holiday - but in order to do so he must first discover true love and receive it in turn. Yet such a task might prove impossible, for how can Koutaro find romance, when he’s always been oblivious to it?
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Kissing!! under the mistletoe is a comedy eroge published by defunct Valhalla in 2003. It has no sequel, side story, or noteworthy doujinshi.
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For a title with such outstanding production values, it is disappointing to discover so many faults exist within Kissing. In terms of general presentation, Kissing is nothing short of a masterpiece, and the more these traits excel the more painful the not-so-obvious shortcomings become. The vocal intro and outro theme songs are addictive catchy; practically selling the game better than the game could ever sell itself on merit. The central characters, while predominantly cookie cutter concepts, remain strongly appealing due to their unique quirks. Exceptional background music fully captures the mood and spirit of the setting, a feat only matched by the ideal selection of actors and actresses (that’s right: full voice acting) that perfectly matches every aspect of the characters they bring to life. Yet these accomplishments take backseat to the rarest of features found in the paper dolls: blinking eyes and synchronized mouth movement to the spoken dialog. Unfortunately this first class treatment for the audio and visual, appears to be the only thing Valhalla bothered to give attention to…
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The main plot of Kissing is woefully pathetic: due to a series of unfortunate circumstances that take place before the game’s events (which are inadequately elaborated on), you are tasked with saving Christmas by restoring a magic rocket sled that’s powered by love. I’m not being sarcastic - that’s the actual story. Naturally each of the winnable girls has a unique personal problem that interferes with this plan, but the overall goal remains the same. To make matters worst, the story arc of each romance is utterly cliché, and given that you literally pick which girl is winnable during the prologue (via menu option no less), predictability is an understatement. Essentially the plot is boring only minutes after it begins.
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Another failing of Kissing is the hit or miss comedy. The script has its moments - like the spoken monologue the twincest do between each other - however an equal amount of it is annoying, patience testing, or repetitious (sometimes all three). The humor also draws heavily on Japanese slapstick, which is difficult for most non-natives of the culture to enjoy. This is further compounded by the tendency of a dramatic moment suddenly being destroyed by the insertion of half-hearted jokes.
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Yet an additional fault is the horrible implementation of the gallery collection. Unlike the tried and true tradition, where each time the player sees an event illustration it’s unlocked in the gallery, Kissing requires the player to manually screen capture them. You can store up to 999 images - a ridiculous amount since the game nowhere nears that - but if I wanted to go through the trouble of using print screen, why wouldn’t I just install a third party program that makes BMP and PNG archive copies for universal viewing?
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However the greatest disappointment I found with Kissing is the substandard quantity and quality of the ero scenes. The game has a grand total of nine messily sex scenes, each consisting of three or four event illustrations, of which some characters are dispensed a single scene in their entire story arc. Naturally I wasn’t expecting a hardcore festival with sex every ten minutes: but having such a low count is clearly unacceptable. Unless you like twincest, in which case there’s some redemption, since five out of nine involves them… but considering that twincest was not the “official gimmick” for advertising, this was probably unintentional.
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When all is said and done, despite the perfection of art and sound (not to mention twincest), Kissing!! under the mistletoe is more of a failure than a success: which accounts for why Valhalla quickly went out of business after the title was released and sales proved abysmal for it. It’s pure presentational bling-bling, but the developers forgot that ero is what makes an eroge; and as a comedy it tries too hard to be funny, forcing humor rather than letting it flow easily.
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— Central Characters —
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	Ayaka Izumi . Height: 162 cm . Weight: 45 kg . Measurements: 92 - 58 - 85 . Kind, gentle and patient, Ayaka has known Koutaro since childhood; ever at his side for as long as the two can remember. Despite (or perhaps because) of their close friendship, the two remain entirely platonic… although Koutaro has developed an odd fetish for squeezing Ayaka’s ever enlarging bust. Submissive to a fault, Ayaka will wholeheartedly support whatever endeavor Koutaro proposes, putting aside her personal feelings if needed.
	Iruma Amaiya . Height: 160 cm . Weight: 42 kg . Measurements: 83 - 55 - 80 . Withdrawn and unemotional, Iruma is a foreign exchange student whose nationality seems to be something of a mystery. She is completely oblivious to Japanese culture, and surprising gullible to the smallest tricks, yet her academic intellect and innate wisdom is immeasurable. Oddly enough, Iruma does not have a foster family, and appears to be homeless…
	Rion & Shion Takase . Height: 157 cm . Weight: 39 kg . Measurements: 84 - 54 - 82 . Rion and Shion are devious identical twins who enjoy manipulating individuals into doing what they want. While born to an incredibly wealthy family, they prefer to be treated as equals, rather than royalty. Always together, Rion and Shion have a habit of exclaiming the same words simultaneously or finishing each other’s sentences: especially when the two are scheming.
	Chiwa Tsukamori . Height: 148.5 cm . Weight: 36 kg . Measurements: 80 - 57 - 78 . Nicknamed the “Iron Woman” due to her no nonsense and humorless personality, Chiwa is the class president of Koutaro’s graduating class. Due to her unwaveringly serious outlook on life, she has little time for fun and games, ever always planning or scheduling important school events. Overall this makes Chiwa a very dull girl… but this harden layer is nothing more than a façade that hides a more vulnerable personality inside.

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— Scored Summary —
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Scenario: 25 out of 50. The characters are lovable and there’s heavy interaction between them, but the plot is rather substandard. However it’s the humor - or rather the attempt to be humorous all the time - that truly kills everything.
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Visual: 17 out of 20. Blinking eyes, moving mouths synced to voice acting, a huge variety of paper dolls, and changing wardrobes are the foremost positives. Bright colorful artwork is another. The main negative is the twins being inverted “cut and pastes” of each other – which is painfully obvious since their always together - and the slightly unusual drawing style of the artist, who draws his characters with elongated torsos. This later issue is not really apparent until someone is naked, but since the goal is to see the girls naked, it’s going to be inevitably noticed.
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Audio: 20 out of 20. The background music is perfect, theme songs are catchy, and everyone except the protagonist is voice acted. There are also little things that are easily overlooked - like crowd noise in the classroom - that makes everything feel polished.
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Erotica: 3 out of 30. There’s sex in the game, so it gets minimal points for that, but the sex is so brief and poorly presented, that it makes you wish they didn’t even bother. They might have sold the game better without the adult content, since a larger audience would have bought it and the lack of it wouldn’t have changed a thing.
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Mechanics: -5 penalty. The typical “choose your response” menu system that most eroge share. Due to the simplistic plot, you rarely are given an opportunity to make a choice, although to be honest your decisions are limited to a good response, bad response, and humorous response. However in of itself, this wouldn’t be penalized (common as night and day)… the real “hate factor” is from how the game handles the gallery collection: you manually screen capture them. It’s stupid and time consuming.
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Final Score: 60 out of 100. What it does right, Kissing!! under the mistletoe does outstanding; what it doesn’t, is a failure or less than average. There’s a reason why this title sunk Valhalla: don’t let it sink your wallet too. Definitely not recommended for purchase.

1. Sekai Says:
   December 26th, 2007 at 1:32 am

   Good to see erogereview finally up, how long has it been? Anyway I look forward to your reviews, good luck.

   Merry Christmas!



2. Avisch Says:
   December 26th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

   Great to have this up. I’ve anticipating this.

   Good luck Nargrakhan & Ayyo!



3. backup1723 Says:
   December 26th, 2007 at 6:27 pm

   Great to see erogereview finally up and running!

   As for Kissing: パスだ - even if I weren’t busy with Dies Irae and finally getting around to playing muvluv.



4. meganeshounen Says:
   December 26th, 2007 at 7:40 pm

   Welcome back, Narg. Hope that you and ayyo will be writing more informative reviews in the future.