The cover is here
https://tdnshumi.blogspot.com/2017/10/new-games-a.html
...Yes, I bought this game in 2017. I just played it.
BTW, due to some images, I'm going to say the article is NSFW.
Summary
In short summary, this game is for fans of the Day series characters ONLY.
I mean, it doesn't try to hide this fact, but I'm just going to stress it. Also, don't buy it for full price. For instance, I bought it at a big discount.
Then again, I think since Overflow is dead, you probably can't even buy a new version of the game, outside of stores that still have stock of it due to no one buying it.
BTW, if you are wondering why not even Days fans bought it, it is because
1. It isn't an eroge
2. Overflow betrayed its fans real bad over and over again before this game and their final game, Shiny Days
...But I won't go into detail on that here.
So again, if you like the Days characters, I think you can enjoy this game. The story is nothing to mention about, but most of the cast (and all of the important ones) are here and in full voice.
However, there is one BIG problem.
The voice for Kokoro and Otome are different. I can't remember why for Kokoro, but Otome's voice actor retired and thus her voice is different for Island Days and Shiny Days.
People that have played the original game or at least seen the anime probably understand when I say half of the reason I like Otome is because of her (original) voice. And it is rather a unique voice, meaning the new voice hardly sounds the same.
Frankly, I see myself sometimes skipping Otome's lines because I don't like listening to her new voice.
Kokoro's is also... forcibly squeaky?
Visuals
As people may know, the original game advertises itself as being fully animated. Now in truth, while there are fully animated scenes, a lot of conversations are done using what you could consider "stock animation".
In a way, you could say this game is a breath of fresh air because it is the only Days game that uses the basic visual novel UI. So you just have character artworks and text dialogue.
Also, as you might be able to tell, the character designs are closer to the anime than the original game.
However, as you can see below, it's like in the middle of the stock animation-style (above) and the fully animated scene-style (below).
To be honest, it's been quite a while since I've played the original School Days or Summer Days, so I can't be exact. Just saying that the designs in Island Days are different from their original appearances.
BTW, the twins (below) don't appear in Island Days. As you may know if you played Summer Days, they're like sexfriends of Makoto's dad and also can have sex with Makoto, but they don't really like him or anything. Let's not go deep into the details here...
There are actually quite a large amount of CGs. Just from my memories while writing this article, it is at least 50 and possibly 100, especially if you count the minor-change versions of the CGs.
And of course, you get plenty of fanservice shots.
BTW, I think Karen's pants... short-shorts? Are waaayy too short. Frankly, I think panties would cover more of her body.
Am I complaining? Nahhhhhhh. *stares*
Story
It's a parallel world type of thing. As far as I can tell, there is no possible timeline the events of the game can fit into the story.
Outside of the goal of getting off the island, it is mostly just spending time with the girls.
Frankly, I feel some of the character killing in this game is exaggerated and not in character of the girls, but as it is a parallel world thing and like a fandisk and there is a stress meter of sorts, I can kinda... say... sure, okay, I guess that is fine.
The characters in general are in-character though. So like I said, if you just want to spend time with the Days girls, this is a fine game to buy cheaply.
It is written by the same person as the actual games, after all.
Battle
I honestly do not play a lot of tower defense games, so while I can tell you that the genre is Tower Defense, I can't really compare it to anything else.
You get a choice of characters to place on the map and they attack whatever gets in their range. You can change weapons and upgrade weapons during battle by using up action points.
Different characters have different possible weapons unlocked during the story parts of the game, and they have a Special Move that can be used when they are fully charged (charges as time passes).
As far as I can see, a pretty normal, solid system?
However, it costs 30HP to set a character and if they have less than that, you cannot use them. If you do not use a character, they heal between days. And you have one fight per most days, and it gets harder as you go along.
Because of this, you cannot just use every character every map, or you will run out of HP. You have to figure out who to use to stop all of the animals from getting to their goal.
The problem is that on the final few maps, the map is so hard, you practically have to (or at least for me) use all characters. I actually had to give up on the final map (on my first run) because none of my characters were usable.
Visual Novel portion of the game
Depending on how much damage a character did in the previous battle map, they will become choices to spend time with in the Visual Novel section of the next day.
For instance, if Otome, Sekai, Kotonoha, Karen, Kokoro is the order, then next day, you will get the choose between the top four. Depending on what happens in your first selection, you may be able to make a second selection for that day, in which case the 5th person (Kokoro) will replace the first person as a choice.
After you spend time with a person and their affection meter or negative meter is at a specific point, additional events occur afterwards.
This is where it gets hard.
You have to explore the island to find a way out. At the same time, you use up 10 Food per day, and need to spend time as well to collect food.
On top of that, depending on who are your choices, you won't always get the options you want.
ON TOP OF THAT
Characters have not only an Affection status, but they have a Stress/Negative status. And depending on your choices (or not choosing the character), one or the other rises and falls.
And events occur depending on both meters.
Doesn't this already sound annoying? Yeah.
Let me be honest. You CANNOT get all of the routes, let alone the non-single-heroine EDs without looking at a walkthrough. Unless you are prepared to spend 10s of hours trying all kinds of combinations.
Once you beat the game once, any map you cleared perfectly can be ended whenever you want and thus makes it much easier to control who are your choices the next day, but even so, the branching of possible events is massive and there aren't really hints.
So if you are to play the game. Beat it once and make sure you Perfect at least all but the last battle maps, and just get one of the good ends.
And then pull out a walkthrough on the web and follow it. You won't be able to get any harem EDs by yourself.
Final Thoughts
All in all, it was nice hearing the VAs of most characters again, since most if not all of them are eroge VAs that don't usually appear in TV anime.
And it is nice to see the cast again, since Overflow is dead and you probably can't expect a new game.
...Not that I trust them to even make a new game of trustworthy quality anymore anyways.
I think it was worth the purchase, since I bought it considerably cheap and actually got the limited edition bonus items (probably because no one actually bought the games from that store and they had the limited edition items all along) that includes sketches and artworks from the character designer Gotou Junji himself.
And I really like Gotou Junji's character designs.
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