The password thing at the end. That's what's sticking with me. Not the tits, not the weirdly stiff 3D models that look like they were posed in a program from 2006, but the fact that this whole visual novel is basically a demo. A prologue, they call it. You play as Mai Saotome, this private police officer with a partner named Takayama, and you're supposed to protect some rich kid. The whole setup is very anime detective, lots of standing around in offices talking about the Dibero company. I kept waiting for the hentai to kick in, you know? Like, you see the tags and you think, okay, police lady, corrupt corporation, there's a pipeline here. But it's mostly just... talking. And then more talking. The translation is rough, feels like it went through a blender, sentences that just sort of end in the middle of a thought. I actually laughed at one line, something about "the research about his father's giant company" delivered with all the emotion of a GPS voice.

Visually, it's a mixed bag. The 3D is that specific flavor of early 2000s hentai game where skin looks like plastic and eyes don't quite focus on anything. But there's a charm to it? Like finding an old DVD in a bargain bin. The character designs are trying, I'll give them that. Mai's got that severe bob cut and a suit that's painted on, standard issue. There's one scene where she's just sitting at a desk, and the way the light hits her stockings, I don't know, it did something for me. Then the next shot her hand is clipping through the table and the moment's gone. The detective stuff is whatever, you click through dialogue trees that don't seem to branch, just funnel you to that password screen. A password. For part two. Which I now have to go hunt down like it's some ARG. The game doesn't even try to hide it's a teaser. At least the music loop was short enough to become hypnotic after a while. I think I hummed it in the shower. Don't remember any actual lewd scenes though, which for a hentai game is a bold choice. Maybe they're saving it all for the sequel. Maybe that's the real mystery Mai should be investigating.