Last Modified: February 16th, 2006
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Crescendo is a bishoujo h-game produced by Digital Objet (well known for their popular game Kana Imoto). It is available for Windows 98/Me/2000/XP and the translated copy (by the company G-Collections) usually costs around $35 - $40 to purchase. To run the game you will need at least a Pentium 166 mhz or faster (233 mhz recommended) and a CD drive unless you have opted to buy it and then download it. To install, insert the "install disc" into your CD drive. A pop-up window should appear. If it does not, open the game from your CD drive and execute CRESTUST.EXE to install. You play by interacting with the game characters and making choices that will change the story, allowing for many different potential endings and a good amount of replay value. The translated version of the game has English text with the original Japanese voices and is 100% uncensored, which means all hentai scenes in the game come in their original form without pixelation.
You are in the role of Ryo Sasaki, approaching graduation from your high school in only five days. Ryo is making up time with all of the members of his class that you he has not seen enough and reflecting on his memories of the school and his time there. For Ryo, some of the fondest memories are those of his friends... Kaho, who was always there for him and got him involved in clubs that he never wanted to be in. Kaho's best friend named Kyoko, who was always bit strange but has been secretly in love with Ryo for years. The antisocial girl Yuka, she is always cheerful but very ashamed of her secret, that she sells her body for money to boys in the school. Ryo's stepsister Ayame who has been looking after him ever since his parents left and cares a great deal about him and the sexy mature school nurse named Kaori, who has always had kind words to say about him and makes him feel very special. The days that he thought would last forever are now slipping away and he is going to have to make decisions about his future, and his memories. As graduation day approaches, he knows that the choice will have to be made.
Kaho - A very popular brunette eighteen year old girl who is in the same class as Ryo, she is the president of the arts club at his school and is friendly to everyone she meets. Although usually not saying much and appearing shy, she was forceful when she convinced Ryo to join her club back when they were new to the school. She sees Ryo as a good friend and is dating his best friend.
Kyoko - This shy but beautiful girl joined the arts club as soon as she entered the school, she met Ryo the first time she joined and fell in love with him straight away. She is very shy and rarely shows anybody how she really feels, this is made somewhat worse by her being higher than most girls, with longer legs. She is the same age as her best friend Kaho.
Yuka - She is the same age as both Kaho and Ryo and is in the same class with them. She is very bright and happy around Ryo and presents herself as completely care free. She has a reputation that Ryo doesn't know about, as she has sex with other boys in the class for money, and hides this from Ryo as she likes him and does not want him to know about her sordid past, unfortunately it is only a matter of time until it catches up with her.
Ayame - The stepsister of Ryo is twenty years of age, and ever since their parents were killed in a horrific car accident, she has been taking care of him as a mother. She loves to see Ryo grow up into a well rounded young man and has set any plans for her own life to the side while she takes care of him, she is not interested in things that women her age are and only cares about her dear brother.
Kaori - She worked hard to become a nurse at the young age of twenty and now has the job of making sure that students at Ryo's school are in good health, she has become friendly with Ryo because he used to skip class and go to her office to sleep. She has known Ayame previously and is very imposing on the male students of the school, who are both attracted to her and scared of her.
Each of the storylines that you can follow in Crescendo are well though out and beautifully illustrated, from the moment that you begin until you make your final choice on which path to take, the artwork never fades in quality. This goes for the great character design as well, although it could be said that the stereotype of anime 'plate eyes' is present here. One thing we would say that brings the game down is the fact that if you play through each of the many available storylines you can finish the game in less than 12 hours, which is shorter than some of the previous games from D.O and there are many other H-Games out there than can last more than 3 times that when playing through each of the storylines in the game. On the other hand, none of the storylines that you can take last too long and you never find yourself getting bored with slow progession like some other games have.
It is quite easy to see the path of each storyline early in the game, which is good if you have a favourite character that you want to follow first. There are some tricks and events that unexpected which may well put you off course and change your opinions on some of the events that go on during the time period of the game. Some of the best storylines in the game come from selecting choices and following girls that you would not usually expect. It also has to be said that the endings available in this game are a lot more upbeat than others, which can sometimes be extremely depressing. The most you will ever get is a girl missing from your graduation photograph or leaving town, you will never have deaths or anything morbid that sometimes puts a bad feeling on the rest of the game as you play through it, this game is really what youth and school days should be about, having a lot of fun and also making decisions for your future and what to do with it, which is why it is one of the more popular translated titles in recent years.
In Japan a DVD version of the game was launched, with extra CG scenes and voices for each of the characters. G-Collections took the voices from the DVD version in Japan and placed them on the translated version for CD. The extra CG scenes never made it to the translated version and can only be found on the DVD edition, along with storyline scenarios that were not previously included. The decision to add the voice files was made by G-Collections mid way through working on the project of translation, it delayed the English version for a considerable length of time. Perhaps a reason for the inclusion of audio and not the extra scenes is the fact that the English CD version uses some of the DVD resource files, which would have been relatively easy to implement, whereas adding new scenes would have been next to impossible without the original developers and source code.
Many fans have complained about G-Collections simplifying many of the conversations that take place in the game and, in some cases, removing or completely changing them. The removal of honorifics from the Japanese language versions during translation also was noted by many of those who understood the voice track playing as the translated text appears. An example of this in Crescendo is the voice track playing 'Sasaki-San' whereas the text reading Ryo, showing a lack of honorifics when other characters are referring to the protagonist.
Unlike many other eroge (h-games), this one is told from the third person perspective. Instead of "You are feeling sad" you are told "Ryo is feeling sad" or that "Kyoko is nervous". Some have said that this is a mistake in the translation, although it is clear as the game progresses that it was done on purpose in order for the game to explore the emotions of each character at a certain time and intensify the feelings of the person playing the game towards certain characters in certain points of the story. This creates a unique gaming experience as it had not previously been explored in Digital Objet games, or many h-games in general.
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