Kaeru Batake de Tsukamaete is an otome game about a girl and a bunch of her schoolmates (all bishies) who defile a shrine on their school grounds and are cursed so they turn into frogs. A mysterious three-tailed cat turns them back to normal, but under one condition: that they all work together to purify the land. To help them bond and work together more effectively, the cat also pulls a few strings so girl + 5 bishies end up living together in one hostel.
Purifying the city involves physical cleaning through a rather tricky trash-sorting mini-game.
It also involves psychological cleaning, which you achieve by hosting a radio program that solves people’s problems on-air. This also takes the form of a mini-game where the MC Sugano adds a laugh track and other sound effects while the hosts of the show talk. It helps to have watched a lot of Japanese variety shows so you know where interjections like “Eeeeh!” usually go.
There may be other mini-games as well as you get further into the game, but gameplay is basically mini-games and then roaming the map looking for characters to have events with. By “events” I mean characters talking a lot and trying to be funny and failing hard. I kind of didn’t bother after one or two.
And actually I didn’t bother much with the game itself. On the face of it Kaeru Batake should have been something I liked since it’s dialogue-driven with a story that doesn’t take itself too seriously despite the cheesy environmental message. The main heroine is also a calm, easygoing, deadpan sort of character who even looks and acts like a (slightly) livelier Ayanami Rei, which is unusual for an otome game heroine. Add some actual gameplay and bright colors on top of that and I should have been really happy. Unfortunately the game had three fatal flaws I couldn’t overcome.
1. I didn’t like any of the guys. Especially the four main ones you share a hostel with. Your sempai who acts like a 5-year old is just gross. I don’t mind younger guys (as long as they’re legal) or older ones, but older that acts like younger is bleurrrghhh, get out. Then there’s some cranky kid who is of course going to turn out to be not so bad. Blah. Then the weird stammering guy who’s afraid of girls or something like that. Too annoying. The last guy seemed kind of normal, but then he started muttering gloomily about his family and how they forced him to study etc etc. *sigh* Teens. Also they were all kind of ugly.
They look a lot better as frogs.
2. Too much talking with too many weird characters. Every scene lasts far longer than it and the writing isn’t very interesting either. That makes the game a visual novel with just the occasional mini-game to liven things up. Me no like visual novels. What’s worse is that the text is all written in thin white letters on a light blue background so you’re straining to read long boring arguments and “comical” skits when you could be doing better things with your life.
3. I didn’t feel the passion. The aloof, head-in-the-clouds main character Sugano was a nice change, as I said, but at the same time since she doesn’t get as involved emotionally with other characters the way most otome girls do. She doesn’t seem particular happy or angry or sad no matter what happens, so I don’t feel any compulsion to try to pair her up with anybody. Or to do anything at all with her, in fact. Seems like she would be better off just being left alone to get on with her life. Especially if the alternative is dating the bunch of losers I just described in point 1.
In the end you have a visual novel that isn’t fun to read, infrequent mini-games to break up the monotony and a bunch of ugly guys that the main heroine isn’t particularly interested in locking lips with. It’s an unusual game, but not in a good way. My game backlog is in the triple digits right now so I really don’t have the time to spare on sub-optimal experiences like Kaeru Batake de Tsukamaete. Only recommended for the seriously bored.
