Fairy Nights

Reviewed by Thomas Ehrhardt (tom3@dec-international.com)

Publisher: JAST USA Japanese Publisher: Excellents Cost: $9.95 Platform: Windows or Macintosh 7.5-X Languages: English, Italian Voice/music: Music only, no original voice Graphics: Very Good. Story: Intriguing CG: Awesome

In episode 2 of the Fairy Gods series Fairy Nights, we find Jango Abe and his Shikagami (sisters Kumi & Koukaku, *absent minded Rakushi, *the always philosophical Rinka, *the white tiger beastling Hyoko down on their bucks. It's a year after episode one and work in Dark Tokyo has been hard to find for our Tobajan Master. Poor Rumi has her hands full with cooking the mostly cabbage diet and green tea to make everyone happy.

The story really begins when the Shikagami take it upon themselves to bring in some work by gluing fliers to poles advertising Jango as a "private eye". The 1st customer is a balding-fat scardy cat. He winds up running off because of his fear of the Shikagami eating him! This is quite funny to me because the man looks just like my boss! And acts like him too.

\*One thing about this series: Why do all the males look like mannequins and why are they just as stupid! (Except for Jango of course). It seems the artists have a better grasp of the female form than the male one. The guys look wooden and overly HAPPY! Which isn't a bad thing come to think of it. Who's looking at them anyway?

The story centers on the return to the Oku-Hida Yama Village for the 300-year festival of the Shukuna for the Shikagami sisters Rumi & Koukaku. To keep it short their parents Shumon & Akasha arrive from the village to bring them back. As Japanese stories usually go, all the characters wind-up deciding to go "It'll be FUN!" Even though they have no car or money to make the 400+ kilometer trip. Go figure!

Ooh wait! I know why this was put in the story...how else can they have sex with perfect strangers they meet on the way. Silly me. Sounds like I'm complaining actually I'm not. Some of the sex scenes in this "CG novel" type game are very inventive and as always the artwork rivals any you will see even on the most intense "Japanese only" Hentai Web-sites you'll encounter.

Favorite scenes include: Mizuki Yamagi, the sophmore college student who is traveling by bike around Japan *she's really quite cute & funny. The lesbian scene between Kasha & Akasha (Rumi & Koukaku's mom) is not to be missed. For qi-pao fans the scene with Sayuri the "villain" of the Organization is stunning. Mayura a shadow spirit that changes in to other forms like Pop Star Rimi Watanabe is an interesting twist on the sex scene formula.

There are s/m scenes with two vendors at the Festival. Beasting to human sexual transformations occur tigers (Kuri) and lions to beautiful woman. Hyoko's scene with Tenka the beast trainer is awesome for you "Furry" fans. As is the flashback scene with Kourou (fox spirit) Jango's 1st Shikagami that died before episode one. True to form these scenes never detract from the story are plausible and help to move the plot line forward. A rare site in most cg novels available.

The dialog is still kind of wooden, my favorite line: "as we approach the entrance to the Village, it seems like all the Village People come out to greet us" no doubt singing YMCA! Don't you just love the Indian? Overall complaints are few with Fairy Nights, the artwork is very impressive, the village scenes, festival tents, temples, underground caves are all well done. The story is more involved than episode one and seems to have much more visual content. There are more sex scenes and you get a lot for your money with this cg novel.

Extra's of note: If the scenes in the novel aren't enough you can play "Let's Bingo!" for more great characters: school uniform, pop star, Equestrian, waitress, and office lady. All are worth a look. The soundtrack is adequate. The cg novel Fairy Nights gets 4+ stars for the artwork and 4 stars for the overall story. Which I admit at times can be daunting to keep up with. There is a lot to enjoy here and I highly recommend this title.

Note: now runs in OS X as well as Mac OS 7.6-9.x and all Windows systems!

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