Animal Trail * Girlish Square (PC) Review

Taiga is an idol fanatic. He stopped following the group I/DOLLY55 because his main idol, Shiratori Rena, left without a trace. Eventually he came upon a new idol group called Animal Trail * Girlish Square (those Japanese and their weird names!), falls in love with them, and decides to do his best to support them, while also acting as their manager. After a while, though, he'll discover that the girly outfits that barely cover the girls' assets are actually magic in nature and were given to them by a bunch of talking animals, which use the group's performances in order to gather a resource that the need to save their world - or something along these lines.

You can safely forget all about that right now, as the main dish is fanservice, and low-key comedy. This is about spending time with the four girls, enjoying their shenanigans, and trying to get to know them a bit better. Yes, in the biblical sense. Those looking for interesting, well-written characters can leave now. This isn't one of those visual novels. All four girls are walking stereotypes, and one of the most forgettable, to be honest, which to seems to be a common problem with many similar titles.

The whole thing revolves around Taiga's attempts to increase the group's popularity, which in turn leads to many scenes where things happen. Simple things, mind you. Drama isn't its strong point. Sadly, neither is comedy. Is it bad? No, it's just ok. It's comedy of the simplistic comic relief variety. Idol fans going crazy; girls acting silly; animals being sarcastic - that kind of deal. Animal Trail * Girlish Square's problems stem from the fact that this is an eroge/nukige visual novel minus the sex (unless you search for a specific patch). In other words, there isn't much of a story, for the same reason why porn movies don't have a story. Is that a decent excuse? No, it's not! This will take most people about three-to-four hours to read through it, so it needs to have more than titillation. Even the titillation isn't something to talk about.

Okay, tastes are subjective, some might like what's in store a bit more than the one writing this. Even those, however, should note that this makes the very weird decision of "excluding" two of the girls, as the player will only… "get to know" two out of the four. It is a weird decision, because one of the appeals of harem-style novels is the ability to choose which character's heart you want to win. Okay, the art is nice and all - colourful and cute/sexy, but other than that there's nothing worth spending money on if you have played two or three visual novels on your life. Unless really into the central theme of the game.