AnimeSuki Forums

Arwyn · 2004-08-31, 16:35

Having tried of couple of the Hirameki DVD games before, I can say I wasnt overly impressed with them.

Hourglass of Summer has changed my opinion.

First the technical stuff;
The game runs on DVD players, or DVD ROM drives. If your playing on some DVD ROM drives, you may notice that the sceen cuts are somewhat slow, it seems to be related to the amount of buffering that the drive does.

Secondly, there are no save points. Instead you get a password once you get to certain points in the game. While a little annoying, the passwords do save you some time.

The bad;
There were a couple of lines of dropped text in the subtitles. Not just a line or two, but complete pieces of dialog. Not a real killer, but annoying.

Dialog and text speed: If you can read fast, your fine, but if you read slowly, be ready to hit pause occasionally. For the most part, the text and dialog is well synched, but in some cases, particularly where the dialog is fast paced, the subtitle text is pretty fast.

Hourglass also definately falls into the video novel catagory, so if your looking for a lot of interaction, this isnt for you. In fact, Hourglass has very few selection points compared to some of the other games of its type, but it does make up for it in the quality of the story.

None of these were killers, just more annoying than anything else.

The Good;
The game was MUCH better than what I expected.

The storylines are well developed, even for the "minor" characters. The characters are well drawn and appealing, and the voice talent does a very good job of matching to the characters personalities.

The four female characters all have pretty well developed stories and pretty distinct storylines. There are actually a couple of different plotlines in the game, and not all follow the main plot (the Kaho story), some diverge pretty signifigantly.

Despite having a fairly fast pace, due to the speed of the text/dialog and being a DVD game, there is a fair amount of gameplay availible. Most of it is tied up to the different endings, and there are quite a few things going on.

There are basically two endings per character, good and bad. BUT getting the "good" ending can be rather tough (read: frustrating). In a couple of cases, you have to interact with more than one charcter, and resolve certain plots before you can get to the good ending with the main character.

You can expect to spend between 3 or so hours for shorter story (Tomomi) to a pretty good chunk of a day for Kaho's story. In short, the pacing is decent, the stories are pretty good, and the playtime is acceptable.

I found Hourglass to be a very decent game, despite the inherent limitations of the DVD game title.

If your looking for something non-H, with a good story, then this title is well worth the $30 US.

zalas · 2004-08-31, 17:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arwyn

Dialog and text speed: If you can read fast, your fine, but if you read slowly, be ready to hit pause occasionally. For the most part, the text and dialog is well synched, but in some cases, particularly where the dialog is fast paced, the subtitle text is pretty fast.

Hrm... I'm finding that odd. When I imagined a DVDPG, I thought they would use a variation on menus, and have each set of dialog lines be a menu animation. Thus it will pause at the end of that section and you'll have to press forward to advance, etc.

Arwyn · 2004-08-31, 17:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by zalas

Hrm... I'm finding that odd. When I imagined a DVDPG, I thought they would use a variation on menus, and have each set of dialog lines be a menu animation. Thus it will pause at the end of that section and you'll have to press forward to advance, etc.

Yep, that seems to be the standard format for these games. When I dropped this title in, it just ran, with no stop. It surprised me, but after a while I got used to it. I read fast, so after a while I got pretty comforatble with the system, and it did keep me from hitting my mouse button continously, so it wasnt that bad once I got used to it.

TronDD · 2004-08-31, 18:29

I saw the game mentioned in the Favorite ero game thread which I wasn't really reading. I just happened to stop in to see what was going on. I had watched the first OVA and loved the story idea.

I ordered the game as soon as I saw it was available in English.

I've put in about 8 hours or so. I'm maybe at a point where the first OVA ended. (Haven't watched ep2, I want to finish the game first) It's tough to tell because I assume I wont see some stuff they showed in the OVA unless I "choose" that girl.

So far, I'm loving the game. It's taking a lot more time for things to happen as compaired to the OVA (of course.

) and the story is even more complex than I expected.

I noticed a couple lines not subbed and a couple too fast to read but it's not a big deal. Another thing some might not like is that, because it's a DVD, no CG gallary. Occationally I see a scene that makes great wallpaper and grab it. I guess screen cap it on the PC but you'll have to find it first.

Another thing that is a problem. I don't like to save my first time through a game (unless I have to quit). I just play through like I'm watching an anime or like I'm really there. Problem with that is, there is no way to skip text when I replay it. I suggest you save (get the password in this case) at every (I mean every) question. So you can skip stuff.

It is a long time just to even meet Rin (Or whatever her names are. It's not consistant).

Anyway, good stuff so far. I'll report back when I finish it the first time.

TronDD · 2004-11-07, 11:15

Finally got through the game. Glad to see there is a small CG gallary once you finish

I ended up with a good Kaho ending, I guess. I was originally shooting for Mana. Not even sure if you can end up with her. Looks like it's either Ai or Kaho.

Given Kaho's story, I don't think I'd want to see a bad ending.

blah · 2004-11-07, 20:02

Was it just me or did the dozens of misspelled words annoy anyone else...

TronDD · 2004-11-07, 21:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by blah

Was it just me or did the dozens of misspelled words annoy anyone else...

I noticed them too. Basically I just have tell myself it could be worse...there could be no English version at all. Sucks to have to settle for what you can get.

Misspellings don't bother me as much as an entire line left untranslated. It had a number of those, too.

At least they displayed a dot to indicate they didn't just miss the line by mistake.

Arwyn · 2004-11-08, 14:31

I saw the same thing, misspellings and dropped lines. Annoying, but not game ending. Hirameki definately needs a better editor for these games!

All in all, I have been pretty pleased with Hourglass, still need to finish some of the other endings, just have to get the time.

Arwyn · 2004-11-08, 14:54

Hmm, weird, double post.

Ecchifan · 2004-11-22, 10:23

The save point passwords generator didn't work on any of my dvd players. What product did you use, and was the generator 100% functional?

p.s. My Hourglass of Summer complete walkthrough is available at gamefaqs.com.

Hakuoro917 · 2009-01-06, 21:13

Has Anyone Ever played this game? It's a really unique Visual novel. It was even translated into English for Distribution in America.

Here's a summary: The story revolves around a Japanese sophomore named Kotaro Makimura. As the school year ends and summer vacation approaches, he decides to admit his feelings to his crush, the beautiful Kaho Serizawa. As hopeless as the situation looks to his best friends Ai and Takeshi, he is determined to make Kaho his girlfriend by the end of summer vacation. However, on his way home, he has a collision with a mysterious stranger, and ends up getting covered in a strange multi-colored powder. When he wakes up the next day, he finds himself waking up on September 1st - the first day of the next school year. He also learns that Kaho, who had been his girlfriend, had died in a car accident. Eventually, Kotaro discovers that he has begun day-dropping, in which he skips days, and goes back and forth in time through different days of the summer vacation. With the help of Ligene the Time Patroller (also translated as Lee Jane), Kotaro must win Kaho's heart and prevent her tragic death before he runs out of time.

More Details can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hourglass_of_summer

From What I heard the company Hirameki International Group stop licensing Visual Novels. So if you find it, get it, I must say your money will not be wasted.

DragoonKain3 · 2009-01-06, 21:28

Absolutely love Ai. Very VERY satsifying, considering I watched the OVA before I got a chance to play the game. Take THAT Kaho!

And yes, this is one of those games I really didn't get my money's worth, since I can't find in my heart to have the protagonist NOT hook up with his/her childhood friend, so I only played that route.

Hakuoro917 · 2009-01-06, 21:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by DragoonKain3

Absolutely love Ai. Very VERY satsifying, considering I watched the OVA before I got a chance to play the game. Take THAT Kaho!

And yes, this is one of those games I really didn't get my money's worth, since I can't find in my heart to have the protagonist NOT hook up with his/her childhood friend, so I only played that route.

Really? I have Made it throughout all the routes. I Especially love Kaho's route

SquirrelFarm · 2009-01-06, 22:02

Ahhh Thanks for reminding me about this one. I actually bought Hourglass of Summer at a Hirameki booth at AnimeExpo quite a while ago with Phantom of Inferno and Ever17. T'was a good purchase, I'd say~

I remember going through the Kaho and Tomomi route. I was about to go through the Ligene route but my friend wouldn't stop bugging me about Ever17 and I went to go play that instead.

Tomo-chan was very very cute in regular clothes~

The whole Interactive DVD thing got a bit annoying though...

serenade_beta · 2009-01-06, 22:02

Have it (Phew... Before Hirameki went bye-bye)... but haven't really played it. Played a bit of it, but I gave up after resting a bit and losing the password...

OVA...... (-_-) Well, it was about as I expected for only 2 episodes.

DragoonKain3 · 2009-01-06, 23:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hakuoro917

Really? I have Made it throughout all the routes. I Especially love Kaho's route

Nothing really against Kaho. It's just I'm highly biased if my title didn't gave it away already. ^_^

Kresnik · 2009-01-07, 20:24

Yeah, Tomo-chan is very cute. Can we consider her to be the true story, with her real 'background' and all?

frubam · 2009-01-08, 02:40

The hell!? No mentions of Mana? Blasphemy!! I really liked that stoic type of char back then. But it's actually been so long since I played the game, I kinda forgot all the small details. And I could never figure out how to get to Ligene's route(this is before I really had the internet) for the life of me. Though I haven't played it since then, I know it was pretty good. PoI was awesome too, I pop that in from time to time and run through chap 3. And title 11 is quick access to the soundtrack.

And there IS no OVA

!!!

Hakuoro917 · 2009-01-08, 06:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by frubam

The hell!? No mentions of Mana? Blasphemy!! I really liked that stoic type of char back then. But it's actually been so long since I played the game, I kinda forgot all the small details. And I could never figure out how to get to Ligene's route(this is before I really had the internet) for the life of me. Though I haven't played it since then, I know it was pretty good. PoI was awesome too, I pop that in from time to time and run through chap 3. And title 11 is quick access to the soundtrack.

And there IS no OVA

!!!

Really? Cause This is what I Found: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ency...me.php?id=3976

DragoonKain3 · 2009-01-08, 09:19

^
<plugs fingers in his ears>
LALALALALA! We can't hear you! LALALALA!

2004-08-31, 16:35	Link #1
Arwyn Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: God forsaken middle of nowhere, Texas	Hourglass of Summer DVD game Having tried of couple of the Hirameki DVD games before, I can say I wasnt overly impressed with them. Hourglass of Summer has changed my opinion. First the technical stuff; The game runs on DVD players, or DVD ROM drives. If your playing on some DVD ROM drives, you may notice that the sceen cuts are somewhat slow, it seems to be related to the amount of buffering that the drive does. Secondly, there are no save points. Instead you get a password once you get to certain points in the game. While a little annoying, the passwords do save you some time. The bad; There were a couple of lines of dropped text in the subtitles. Not just a line or two, but complete pieces of dialog. Not a real killer, but annoying. Dialog and text speed: If you can read fast, your fine, but if you read slowly, be ready to hit pause occasionally. For the most part, the text and dialog is well synched, but in some cases, particularly where the dialog is fast paced, the subtitle text is pretty fast. Hourglass also definately falls into the video novel catagory, so if your looking for a lot of interaction, this isnt for you. In fact, Hourglass has very few selection points compared to some of the other games of its type, but it does make up for it in the quality of the story. None of these were killers, just more annoying than anything else. The Good; The game was MUCH better than what I expected. The storylines are well developed, even for the "minor" characters. The characters are well drawn and appealing, and the voice talent does a very good job of matching to the characters personalities. The four female characters all have pretty well developed stories and pretty distinct storylines. There are actually a couple of different plotlines in the game, and not all follow the main plot (the Kaho story), some diverge pretty signifigantly. Despite having a fairly fast pace, due to the speed of the text/dialog and being a DVD game, there is a fair amount of gameplay availible. Most of it is tied up to the different endings, and there are quite a few things going on. There are basically two endings per character, good and bad. BUT getting the "good" ending can be rather tough (read: frustrating). In a couple of cases, you have to interact with more than one charcter, and resolve certain plots before you can get to the good ending with the main character. You can expect to spend between 3 or so hours for shorter story (Tomomi) to a pretty good chunk of a day for Kaho's story. In short, the pacing is decent, the stories are pretty good, and the playtime is acceptable. I found Hourglass to be a very decent game, despite the inherent limitations of the DVD game title. If your looking for something non-H, with a good story, then this title is well worth the $30 US.

2004-08-31, 18:29	Link #4
TronDD Team the box! Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Badside	I saw the game mentioned in the Favorite ero game thread which I wasn't really reading. I just happened to stop in to see what was going on. I had watched the first OVA and loved the story idea. I ordered the game as soon as I saw it was available in English. I've put in about 8 hours or so. I'm maybe at a point where the first OVA ended. (Haven't watched ep2, I want to finish the game first) It's tough to tell because I assume I wont see some stuff they showed in the OVA unless I "choose" that girl. So far, I'm loving the game. It's taking a lot more time for things to happen as compaired to the OVA (of course. ) and the story is even more complex than I expected. I noticed a couple lines not subbed and a couple too fast to read but it's not a big deal. Another thing some might not like is that, because it's a DVD, no CG gallary. Occationally I see a scene that makes great wallpaper and grab it. I guess screen cap it on the PC but you'll have to find it first. Another thing that is a problem. I don't like to save my first time through a game (unless I have to quit). I just play through like I'm watching an anime or like I'm really there. Problem with that is, there is no way to skip text when I replay it. I suggest you save (get the password in this case) at every (I mean every) question. So you can skip stuff. It is a long time just to even meet Rin (Or whatever her names are. It's not consistant). Anyway, good stuff so far. I'll report back when I finish it the first time. Last edited by TronDD; 2004-08-31 at 19:06.

2009-01-06, 21:13	Link #11
Hakuoro917 Obsessed Anime Syndrome IT Support Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Fruitland Park, FL Age: 30	Hourglass of Summer Has Anyone Ever played this game? It's a really unique Visual novel. It was even translated into English for Distribution in America. Here's a summary: The story revolves around a Japanese sophomore named Kotaro Makimura. As the school year ends and summer vacation approaches, he decides to admit his feelings to his crush, the beautiful Kaho Serizawa. As hopeless as the situation looks to his best friends Ai and Takeshi, he is determined to make Kaho his girlfriend by the end of summer vacation. However, on his way home, he has a collision with a mysterious stranger, and ends up getting covered in a strange multi-colored powder. When he wakes up the next day, he finds himself waking up on September 1st - the first day of the next school year. He also learns that Kaho, who had been his girlfriend, had died in a car accident. Eventually, Kotaro discovers that he has begun day-dropping, in which he skips days, and goes back and forth in time through different days of the summer vacation. With the help of Ligene the Time Patroller (also translated as Lee Jane), Kotaro must win Kaho's heart and prevent her tragic death before he runs out of time. More Details can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hourglass_of_summer From What I heard the company Hirameki International Group stop licensing Visual Novels. So if you find it, get it, I must say your money will not be wasted.

2009-01-06, 22:02	Link #15
serenade_beta そのおっぱいで13才 Join Date: Dec 2006	Have it (Phew... Before Hirameki went bye-bye)... but haven't really played it. Played a bit of it, but I gave up after resting a bit and losing the password... OVA...... (-_-) Well, it was about as I expected for only 2 episodes. __________________ -Blog --> http://tdnshumi.blogspot.com/ (Mainly about video games) -R.I.P. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Gaming wouldn't have been the same without you (9/19/13)

2009-01-07, 20:24	Link #17
Kresnik Anti-Hero Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: -3 Dimension Age: 38	Yeah, Tomo-chan is very cute. Can we consider her to be the true story, with her real 'background' and all? __________________ Blog: Hodo-Hodo ni, ne.. -We always keep moderation spirit-

2004-11-07, 11:15	Link #5
TronDD Team the box! Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Badside	Finally got through the game. Glad to see there is a small CG gallary once you finish I ended up with a good Kaho ending, I guess. I was originally shooting for Mana. Not even sure if you can end up with her. Looks like it's either Ai or Kaho. Given Kaho's story, I don't think I'd want to see a bad ending.

2004-11-07, 20:02	Link #6
blah Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2004	Was it just me or did the dozens of misspelled words annoy anyone else...

2004-11-08, 14:31	Link #8
Arwyn Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: God forsaken middle of nowhere, Texas	I saw the same thing, misspellings and dropped lines. Annoying, but not game ending. Hirameki definately needs a better editor for these games! All in all, I have been pretty pleased with Hourglass, still need to finish some of the other endings, just have to get the time.

2004-11-08, 14:54	Link #9
Arwyn Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: God forsaken middle of nowhere, Texas	Hmm, weird, double post.

2004-11-22, 10:23	Link #10
Ecchifan Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: USA	The save point passwords generator didn't work on any of my dvd players. What product did you use, and was the generator 100% functional? p.s. My Hourglass of Summer complete walkthrough is available at gamefaqs.com.

2009-01-06, 21:28	Link #12
DragoonKain3 Osana-Najimi Shipper Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Mt. Ordeals	Absolutely love Ai. Very VERY satsifying, considering I watched the OVA before I got a chance to play the game. Take THAT Kaho! And yes, this is one of those games I really didn't get my money's worth, since I can't find in my heart to have the protagonist NOT hook up with his/her childhood friend, so I only played that route.

2009-01-06, 22:02	Link #14
SquirrelFarm Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2008	Ahhh Thanks for reminding me about this one. I actually bought Hourglass of Summer at a Hirameki booth at AnimeExpo quite a while ago with Phantom of Inferno and Ever17. T'was a good purchase, I'd say~ I remember going through the Kaho and Tomomi route. I was about to go through the Ligene route but my friend wouldn't stop bugging me about Ever17 and I went to go play that instead. Tomo-chan was very very cute in regular clothes~ The whole Interactive DVD thing got a bit annoying though...

2009-01-08, 02:40	Link #18
frubam simp for Lyria Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: on the Grandcypher Age: 40	The hell!? No mentions of Mana? Blasphemy!! I really liked that stoic type of char back then. But it's actually been so long since I played the game, I kinda forgot all the small details. And I could never figure out how to get to Ligene's route(this is before I really had the internet) for the life of me. Though I haven't played it since then, I know it was pretty good. PoI was awesome too, I pop that in from time to time and run through chap 3. And title 11 is quick access to the soundtrack. And there IS no OVA !!!

2009-01-08, 09:19	Link #20
DragoonKain3 Osana-Najimi Shipper Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Mt. Ordeals	^ <plugs fingers in his ears> LALALALALA! We can't hear you! LALALALA!