Game:

Innocent Tears (2002)

Duration: 2:59:15

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"Innocent Tears" is an interesting Visual Novel / Strategy hybrid that's a "partial" victim of circumstances. Originally planned for Sega's Dreamcast in 1999 and cancelled sometime in 2000 as a beta (the game was shown off at TGS and even had the "Dreamcast Press CD" dumped online) by Global A Entertainment (GAE) and Kobi Group (who mostly specialize in PC Eroges), the game resurfaced almost three years later in late 2002 for Microsoft's Xbox which was STARVED for Japanese content. Regrettably, I can see why it was cancelled... not every game gets pulled due to finances or irreconcilable differences. Innocent Tears FEELS like a beta that was shoved out the door in a barely finished state with no significant playtesting whatsoever. The artwork is good, as it should be, as it was handled by a semi-popular manga artist (Hiroyuki Utatane), but the interface and other assets (sans music) would have been poor even by 1999 Dreamcast standards. This isn't the real crime though... the problem is it's missing so many basic quality of life features for both genres that it's offensive.

The basic plot is that people live on a ruined Earth in the 22nd century. Tokyo was destroyed in an instant by a mysterious force and those who survived live in fear. Angels, once believed to be holy beings, attack every day to eat humans while "Fallen Angels" are angels who have retained their humanity. As Haruaki Kagura, a fallen angel, you battle with angels, friends who are injured and / or unstable, a mysterious organization that continues to monitor your actions, and discover the final stage of human extinction while looking for your former lover, Kagari Himura... while the setup is interesting, the characters are super cliched and the delivery is flat.

Let's start with the VN segments. You can do auto text... that's it. You can't skip scenes, rapidly skip through texts, review conversations, hide windows (for screenshots), adjust windows or sound mixing or nothing (as the game is almost fully voiced, sound mixing options are crucial for this). The game has undisclosed "flags" (no choice selection) which can slightly alter the plot at certain points, but they don't have a large impact on the overall plot. The game has NO system options to help here. Next, there's a world map between scenes. You can pick available locations and trigger battles or scenes. They turn yellow when "complete", but you have almost NO CLUE which ones will progress the plot or how many times you'll have to trigger the same ones. You just click around blindly as the narrative barely hints at anything. You can only save after an event or battle which is also inconvenient.

Then there's pre-battle prep. You can check your status, items, skills, weapons, party members to bring, etc. (Different battles have different character limits). The problem? Items and weapons are ENTIRELY undescriptive. You can't buy anything at all, so you randomly get stuff after battle. But instead of items telling you what they do such as what stats or properties they have, they have useless descriptions instead. For example, you can get a lucky driving charm. It'll boost various stats. Instead of saying what stats, it'll have a vague description like "An old charm. I don't drive anymore anyway." Weapons have to manually be equipped while Items offer properties automatically. The menus are clumsy and not very helpful.

Continuing, we have actual combat... boy howdy. The game tried to be unique, but it is hugely flawed. IT is a standard tile-based, chess-based strategy game: the players have a phase and then other parties have theirs. What separates this from most strategy games are Action Points (a precursor to games like "Adventures to Go!") and flying. Characters can execute as many things as they have Action Points for with the caveat that any attack skill automatically ends their turn. As such, it's in your interest to move, support, and fly prior to attacking (which breaks 99% of all fights). Flying helps you reach higher ground or execute a more powerful melee attack. It's as broken as it sounds and the computer "can" do the same thing, but the A.I. is braindead. It gets worse though... you have no idea what anything does. I mean, I can read and UNDERSTAND what it does, but the game has NO number indicators for basically anything on the battlefield. You don't know how much damage you do outright, you don't know how much support abilities heal or buff you, you can't even scope the field like in a respectable strategy game (the analogs slightly shift the view). You can't even save mid-fight, but most battles are quick. The camera and interface as a whole is intrusive and awkward.

As a whole, the game is playable but all its issues are borderline intolerable, and combined with bland visuals and a dull plot without much backstory (though many scenes are done with flashbacks), the game can be cleared in about six hours or less. Some additional notes will be in the comments.