Title: FLIP＊FLOP 〜INNOCENCE OVERCLOCK〜
Developer: DiGination
Release Date: 28th October 2022
Age Rating: 18+
Length: ~5 Hours
Links: Official Website, VNDB
In the near future exist advanced AI technologies used to assist human users in their daily lives known as “Tinks” – who aim to bridge the gap between the real and digital worlds.
Following the death of his parents, Rokugou Shinobu was brought up in the countryside by his grandfather. He had a peaceful childhood but lacked exposure to technology so is hopeless when it comes to electronics and Tinks compared to most people his age. Sadly his grandfather recently passed away and left him with a strange smart phone and contact details for a Tink research company in the city.
So Shinobu decides to pack up and move to the city, where he reunites with his childhood friend and deals with the culture shock of living in one of the more technologically advanced areas in the country. It eventually transpires that his grandfather was one of the original developers of Tink technology and the smartphone he carries contains the self-proclaimed “Queen of Tinks” called Io. With this chance meeting, just how will Io and Shinobu manage to navigate their new life?
My Thoughts
Innocence Overclock is the first game in the Flip*Flop series which is being released as part of DiGination’s fifth anniversary. To be fair, I wasn’t entirely sure it was going to be a series when I pre-ordered it but the side character designs do look a little too good to be wasted on girls without routes. This is a single heroine game featuring the AI Tink Io and is pretty much linear. Being a fan of single heroine games I was excited to pick this up so was it worth pre-ordering?
DiGination is actually one of the PC Game brands owned by DMM/Fanza which I wasn’t aware of initially. This was quite nice in the fact that there was clearly a decent chunk of money spent on this game and the production values were extremely high. However, there is also a little bit of cringey product placement lol. The game also suffers a bit from perhaps being a bit more style over substance.
What I mean by that is the production values of this game are clearly very good – there’s a good amount of artwork and even some story scenes with live 2D type animation which looks really nice actually. The music was also enjoyable with a higher number of tracks than one might expect from a low-price single herione title and has seperate opening/ending songs which was also a bonus.
However, when you begin to actually look at the story the game sadly begins to fall a bit short. The setup and world-building was fine but I was really disappointed with the romantic development between the protagonist and Io. There’s a lack of romance really and their relationship is mainly progressed by the H Scenes, of which there are a large amount for the overall length of this title. I could maybe forgive this if the overall story made up for it but it unfortunately doesn’t, with there being a lot of “convenient” solutions to problems encountered.
I’m sad that I didn’t enjoy the story that much because Io as a heroine was very cute & her character design was super unique. The side characters (future heroines??) were also fairly likable, especially Ran so I’m not surprised that she is getting her own game next. The protagonist was honestly very forgettable.
Aside from the fact there was too many H scenes, I was really disapointed with one specific scene that was from Io’s perspective. I thought this could actually be worth reading but she just felt really out of character the entire scene it was mildly uncomfortable. I’m not sure if there was a seperate writer doing the H scenes in this game but it really felt like it here.
Final Thoughts
My Score: 5.5/10
Flip*Flop ~Innocence Overclock~ was sadly a bit of a mixed bag where it is clear the developers spent more money on making the game look and sound good rather than have a compelling story. This is especially disappointing considering that this is meant to be a celebration of the brand’s 5th Anniversary. I can’t really bring myself to recommend this game unless it’s on sale and you really like Io’s design.
I’m in two minds about buying the second game in the series – Rambling Overrun – featuring Ran as a heroine. On one hand, she was definitely the most interesting of the side heroines but I don’t know if I trust the staff of this game to actually deliver on an enjoyable plot. Maybe I will wait for reviews…
Thanks for reading~
Zettai Renai! 