Title: 少女神域∽少女天獄 -The Garden of Fifth Zoa-
Developer: Lass
Release Date: 26th April 2013
Age Rating: 18+
Length: 10+ Hours
Links: VNDB
Having spent most of his childhood wondering just what was beyond the walls surrounding his hometown of Kaijou-shi, Shun jumped at the opportunity to leave for university and had little intention of returning. That is, until he was asked by his adoptive mother to return for the town’s annual Seikousai festival. This years festival was planned to be bigger than ever and Shun was asked to help with the preperations, as well as helping out with the preparations for this year’s four Miko whom, funnily enough, he happens to know. However, since coming home, he starts having weird yet violent dreams – just what does it all mean?
Characters
Takagi Shun
Shun is a pretty average guy who was just happy to leave the confines of his hometown and attend university alongside his childhood friend Yuki. Having enjoyed seeing the outside world so much, he struggles with the idea of coming home.
Takagi Sana (CV Yukito Saori)
Sana is Shun’s younger sister and is very, very fond of her older brother. She’s missed him immensly when he was away at University – those weekly phonecalls just won’t cut it! She still attends the local Seihoukan Academy alongside her best friend Airi.
Okushiro Yuki (CV Momoyama Ion)
Yuki is Shun’s childhood friend who now attends the same university as him in the city. She’s very fond of Shun, with others joking that they’re like a married couple. She’s actually an ojou-sama from one of the oldest and most renowned families in the village.
Tsukamine Midori (CV Natsuno Koori)
Midori was once Shun’s best friend but being a year younger than him, she felt that he abandoned her by running off to university and leaving her alone in the village. Therefore, she now acts cold towards him and avoids him as much as she can.
Michioka Airi (CV Minazuki Kanade)
Airi is Sana’s best friend and is good friends with Shun as well, who she considers almost like an older brother. Airi was sickly a lot when she was younger which led her to spend all day in her room so is very thankful to the Takagi siblings for being her friends. She has a polite and kind personality. Her mother is actually the chairwoman of Seihoukan Academy.
Artwork
This game features four artists: Hayakawa Harui, Ishii Hisao, Moriyama Shijimi & Youta. All have worked on a variety of other titles, including many other Lass games.
Sound
Opening: Kimi∞Tsunagu – Marina
Ending: Towa yori Eien ni – Marina
True Ending: punitive justice ~Chitose no Sakosou~ – Ayane
The game’s BGM was composed by Sakamoto Souichirou, whom has mostly worked on other Lass titles.
System
The game’s overall system was simple but did the job. There’s quite a few choices so would possibly recommend a walkthrough.
My Thoughts
Given that Lass are known for their more action-orientated games, I actually have had this on my radar for a while – particularly as the opening movie makes the game look so interesting. However, after playing, I can certainly understand why the brand ended up going bankrupt a couple of years ago…
Oh dear, where should I even start? I guess I’ll begin with the common route, which did do an ~okay~ job setting up the story (even if they completely overuse perspective changes!) and there were even some great parts, particularly the events with Aoi. That being said, this is pretty much where the actual good parts of the game end.
The game is definitely more of an action/mystery story but much of the actual action scenes were a little boring, which was a shame. The character interactions were also especially poor and made the game quite difficult to read at times.
My biggest problem with the game is just how much of it is copy-pasted between the routes – Airi, Yuki & Midori’s route vary only by a couple of scenes with each heroine. This means that after your first playthrough, most of your time is spent skipping rather than actually reading new content. Even each heroine’s ending is essentially the same scenario but with a different girl. This is just lazy and inexcusable.
As implied above, Sana’s route does take a different path to the other three. However, the ending (which is meant to be the game’s true ending) is pretty vague and doesn’t even really make a whole lot of sense.
It’s a shame that the story sucked so much because the heroines themselves weren’t that bad, with Midori in particular being interesting. I honestly just wish they were given time to develop and weren’t stuck in this half-assed game!
The artwork was one of the highlights of the game, with many of the CGs actually being pleasant to look at. There’s a decent amount of CGs per heroine and I liked the fact that their ending cgs for the 3 copycat routes were reimaginings of previous images.
The sound department was another place where the game actually stands out, with the vocal songs in particular being of very high quality. The BGM was nice but not particularly notable & the voice acting was generally okay, although I did find Sana’s voice a little grating.
Each heroine had between 2-3 H-Scenes. Airi & Yuki’s were fine. Midori’s were just really unenjoyable to read & Sana’s H-Scenes are all bad-ending rape scenes so that sucked.
Final Thoughts
My Score: 3/10
Well, this is one of the worst “scores” that I’ve given out on this site so that should really say all that I feel about this game but I’ll summarise. The plot had potential with the typical “creepy village with their weird customs” horror trope and there were glimpses of what the game could have been. However, the action scenes tended to be boring, 3/4 herione routes were copy-pasta, the endings were all disappointing, many of the H-scenes were just terrible and there was little to no character development.
Definitely give this one a pass!
I actually have some other Lass games to play but I don’t think I’ll be rushing out to try them anytime soon!
Thanks for reading!
Zettai Renai! 