Demo Impressions Part 35

Featuring: Band Camp Boyfriend, How to Take Off Your Mask, Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club TOKIMEKI Roadmap to Future, Replay Boys, and Sloppy Fields

These are actually demos I purposefully wrote demo impressions despite already being out! Sometimes I just get the urge to and for these I did. If any of these still have demos when I post this, they’ll have a (*) as always.

Band Camp Boyfriend*

Out Now

To be honest, I didn’t give this game a fair shake when the demo first came out (before the game was released). I think I just wasn’t in the mood and the text box was just bad. Well, I decided to try out the demo again, as Steam has been sending it to me as a recommendation every so often, and I did end up liking it.

You can probably guess what this otome’s theme and setting is. In Band Camp Boyfriend, you play as a high school girl who you can name, but I’ll call her by her canon name Cadence. This takes place over the last two weeks of summer vacation and everyone in the cast is in their high school marching band attending a band camp! While in previous years their high school marching band has been suffering both from lack of support from the school and students dropping out cause lack of morale and a director that actually cares, it seems that everything seems to be turning around. Mr. Wiley, the new band director this year, makes it clear that he’s passionate about his position and he already committed to staying on permanently. Not to mention that the place they’re at, Camp Bearpaw, is really nice. So everything is up to a great start with high morale.

Naturally, this means that the story does put a focus on the marching band aspect as everyone learns the new routine to hopefully win a competition for once and Cadence getting used to her new role and responsibility. You actually learn everyone’s roles and what they play/do (but actually remembering it…ha). Cadence, in particular, is a drum major. Which is a huge deal. In between practices, you’ll get the chance to hang out with various characters and get to know them. Like Cadence’s friend Susie and the seven love interests. There are definite off time events you’ll be at while there are moments where you get to choose where/what you’ll do. I’m also going to guess there’s a relationship meter as you’ll occasionally get choices for what you what Cadence to say or do and some of them definitely feel like they’re going to raise or lower affection.

The demo is quite long, but I stopped after finishing Chapter 1. It’s pretty good so far, though I’m side eyeing Peter since he starts out already in a relationship. The art is nice, though Thomas’ shirt really messes with me, and the writing style is nice as well. I was a bit lost on all the terminology and marching band stuff, but it does seem like the full game does have a glossary based on gameplay footage.

I also did try to find a performance of the song this fictional marching band is practicing and I’m pretty sure I found it. It’s so long, but I have to admit it does sound and look good.

Also, I still think it was a bad idea to have thin, light blue text on a slightly transparent white background.

How to Take Off Your Mask Remastered*

Out Now

This one turned out to be such a surprise. I downloaded this demo mostly because it seemed interesting enough and I noticed that two other visual novels had the “How to ____” naming convention as well that I just wrote down on my “Demos to Play” list and learned they were a part of a series when I downloaded this demo. Anyway, How to Take Off Your Mask is an interesting one as it takes place in a fantasy world that is almost like our own.

In How to Take Off Your Mask, you play as Lilia (you can change her name). Ever since her parents went missing a couple years ago she’s been living with her Grandma and helping out in her bakery. At first, it just seemed like a regular ‘ole day as the regular handsome moocher, Juli, is hanging around and her childhood best friend Ronin is bringing in their daily stock. Oh, and they all live in a city known as Leezera in Eroolia. This world is the type where there is another race and no technology, but there are fantasy substitutes like there being what looks like elementals that they use for an AC/Heaters. It does get a bit confusing as you’re thrown terms at the very start, but its easy to get used to. Going back on track, the only thing that seems out of place is that Ronin is hiding something from Lilia as he has been late lately and leaving early where he usually stayed to help out. Lilia and Ronan seems to have a big sis/little bro dynamic, with Lilia being a tsundere and Ronan being goofy and clumsy. You soon also learn about Luccretias, which are basically Nekos and how there’s even a movement in her town that have been making a fuss lately wanting to drive out all the Luccretias out.

As the bakery closes and Ronan comes back around to see how Lilia is doing, something that is going to change Lilia’s life happens. She…hears a cat actually speaking. Not meowing, but actually speaking. Under the guise of Lilia being sick, Lilia’s Grandma has her stay in her room. The next day, Lilia wakes up in a totally new body…a Luccretia body! Lilia ends up sneaking out fearful of what her Grandma would think only to….fall right onto Ronan. From then on, Lilia learns some interesting things. Like being taken to the stock shop and meeting the people that work there, finding out that Ronin has secretly been working as a town guard and pretty much transforms into a different person, and that she’s actually half-human half-Luccretia. You also do learn some facts about Luccretias, like how Lilia can thankfully change between the two forms. Though, Lilia does keep her Luccretia form a secret, calling herself Leea (you can change this name too) while in her Luccretia form. Interesting enough, Lilia also acts differently as Leea and she gets to see another side of Ronan. A serious and protective side that is lowkey attractive. It seems that Lilia will switch between being Lilia and Leea and experience the rocky relationship between humans and Luccretias.

I ended up liking this one quite a bit and I couldn’t help but to play the whole demo. I was originally going to stop after finishing the prologue, but I finished the first chapter as well (which is the end of the demo). I found the art style to be really cute, the writing style was cute too (weird to say, but it was), and I did really like the switch up of the two different identities, or “masks”, that Ronan and Lilia/Leea had. I’ll definitely be picking this one up after I knock out some VN games off of my backlog.

Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club TOKIMEKI Roadmap to Future*

Out Now

I’m coming into this game as a total newbie as I haven’t played any other Love Live games, which seem to be mainly rhythm games on mobile. This also specifically is set after Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS (which I was reminded was shut down in 2023 when I was looking it up). I have actually heard about the Live Love series before, but I don’t play mobile games. I think I heard about this title, but I don’t remember if it was ALL STARS end of service announcement or this visual novel that I may have assumed was going to be another mobile rhythm game. Well, I did come across this game while I was checking out the demos on the Switch eshop and spotted it. I mostly thought the art was cute as I admittedly didn’t look at the game description. So, let’s get into my thoughts on the demo.

Roadmap to Future has you play, well, you as the game starts with you reminiscing on what has happened. It talks about sparkles and how it resonated with you and you got obsessed, but you’ll learn that this means idols. Then how much you enjoyed watching those idols shine, helping out in the background, and having experiences you never thought you had. Until it seems you slowly lose your memory and you wake up with some mild amnesia. It seemed that you suddenly collapsed and the only person you recognize is your childhood friend Ayumu. You soon learn that the last thing you remember is school starting. Well, you don’t have to worry as you have 12 other girls to help you out in recovering your memory. They not only introduce themselves to you (and Ayumu reintroduces herself), but after falling in love with idols after a show, you joined an idol club that you ended up becoming the president of. You also did help these girls a lot during that time, but you don’t remember. Well, amnesia you no your life still goes on. After this intro, you’re introduced to how I assume the rest of the game is structured. Every day you’ll get a map of the school and there are two time slots where you can go to a location and hang out with the character there. The hangouts are pretty short, but they do give you an insight on that character (and otheir relationship with others if they’re not alone). There are also some locations that will just have an exclamation mark, which basically tells you if one of the side characters are there. Once you use up the two time slots, you’ll then go home, maybe get a text from someone, and then progress to the next day where you’ll also maybe run into a character before you arrive at school. There also seems to be a hidden relationship meter as I could swear I saw a pop up saying I increased my relationship at the end of the first hangout and when I was going back to reconfirm something I got different text messages after one of the days (and I think I ran into a different character that next day too before school)..

This is just 15 minutes of the game and so far I enjoyed it. I did notice a few mistakes in the script, I wished I could set my pronoun, I wish the hangout scenes were longer, there are events mentioned that feel like should have been a scene in the game that you (the player) experience, and its weird how touch screen controls only work for the UI but not to advance text ; but overall I liked the story, the writing was nice, and I do like all of the characters and learning their quirks, personality, and relationship to one another in those short scenes. I did definitely feel like I was coming in on a sequel, but the game does try to help those that this would be their first game. The amnesia angle also works to this game’s advantage in that aspect too.

So yeah, I think I’ll definitely pick this one up once I make more of a dent in my backlog (and more specifically, complete other visual novels in my backlog). This game is really cute and I would love to get to know the characters and learn why my character suddenly got amnesia even if the game having 12 character routes is a bit intimidating.

Replay Boys*

Out Now

This would be categorized as another demo I tried out back when it first released (before the full game was out), but it turns out that I never did play it. I think I was planning to, but never really did. Probably because I’m not into boy bands.

Anyway, Replay Boys follows Hannah who is a work from home video editor for an up-and-coming boy band called Replay Boys who are under Sovereign Records. The game starts as Hannah is editing one of the promotional videos for the Replay Boys at midnight, wanting to get everything done before her day off tomorrow. After all, it won’t be a proper day off if you have that unfinished video creeping up in the back of your head. With plans for her day off, she goes to sleep after finally finishing up editing. That is, until she gets a text at 5am from her friend in the management team with a crisis. Everyone, literally everyone, came down with food poisoning over the company dinner (which Hannah didn’t go to since she wanted to finish the video editing) and she asks you to fill in for everyone since the Replay Boys have a concert. Hannah ends up agreeing to fill in for everyone so the Replay Boys can make it to their concert, despite it being her day off and seemingly not having any additional compensation for doing it. This is the first time Hannah is seeing and interacting with them outside of their videos and, well, let’s just say that it was not what she was expecting. Some of the members are not what you were expecting (like Jax who is an antagonizing womanizer jerk) and the group dynamic is very tense. Hopefully you can get through this day without too many headaches, especially with Jax in the mix (and then the sneaky cult and timeloop stuff).

Overall, Replay Boys was good so far. The writing style does teter on my personal likeability line as it has elements that I don’t like but also elements that I do like. I did like the artwork though, the characters themselves, and how this went into how different the reality is between their public image and how they really are (both by themselves and as a group). I did also like Hannah, her personality, and some of the things you can have her do; but it is a bit annoying that some choices aren’t real choices (like I wanted Jax to change his shirt). The only iffy thing is when you remember this is an otome game and Caleb in particular has a concerning age gap. Though, I did see others saying that only Jax and Tyler have romances, with Caleb and Niko being platonic, so that’s good at least. I think I’ll pick this up someday, once my backlog is down a bit more and I have the money.

Sloppy Fields*

Out Now

Ok, warning, this is an 18+ farming sim.

Sloppy Fields has you play as Nico as him and his brother, Leo, inherit their father’s old farm. It seems that their father suddenly disappeared and if he’s not dead, it’s probably because of the massive debt that he was in. Nico and Leo used to visit the farm when they were kids so they wanted to try and save the farm. Leo is more of a bookworm as he focuses on the money side while Nico, aka you, focuses on the farming which includes harvesting crops and feeding animals so they can be sold. Nico isn’t doing it all on his own, though. Each spot of the map is basically manned by a woman. For all the crops, you have Charlie (Nico and Leo’s childhood friend) who will help by growing the crops and all you have to do is harvest them. This is an idle game, though it’s a quick one, so the crops will automatically start growing again right after you harvest that spot. You will then use these crops to feed animals, which is manned by an anthropomorphic woman that represents that animal. So for rabbits, there’s a rabbit woman. You put these crops in the food bowls, which the animals will eat and then be sold once they grow old enough and then be replaced with a new one so it’s a whole cycle. You get money by selling the animals.

While you do need enough money to pay off the debt at the end of the week, you can use it instead to buy upgrades for your helpers. Which, in turn, will increase your income. Charlie’s upgrades increase how much you harvest from one spot as well as increasing the chance of a golden crop. While the furry women are focused on increasing the sell price of…their young (?), how quickly animals are sold, the max amount of animals they can have at a time, and one upgrade that I don’t understand what it does but I’m guessing lets you put more food in the food bowls. As you progress and buy upgrades (which increase their affection), you’ll also unlock sex scenes. These don’t have any affect as far as I know, but I will say they do look good and are well animated. Nico also has a horny meter, which lets you do those sex scenes more than once, and a stamina meter so you can’t do too much in one day (as you’re not beholden by a ticking clock). I’m not sure what happens if the horny meter fills up. It also seems that you can do some after care-esque actions to the furries (and probably Charlie idk) if you have available stamina. Oh I forgot to mention this, but since Sloppy Fields is an idle game, you earn money as long as you have food in the food bowls and you can even sleep so you can skip the wait and get a bunch of money as it’s based on the in-game time (thank goodness).

I was more neutral on this title. Part of me did like it, as I did like the art, the writing, and it was pretty satisfying, but a part of me can also see how it can get pretty repetitive and the dings for when an animal gets sold can get annoying when it’s too fast (luckily you only hear it while on that screen). Also, Nico’s harvesting animation lowkey annoyed me after the initial humor that came from it looking like Nico was half assing it waned. It was surprising that you earn money so quickly, but it seems intentional with how expensive certain upgrades are and how expensive the other inexpensive upgrades will get. Leo also doesn’t have much of a role here other than reminding you how much money you need by the end of the week (and also how he’s maidenless lol yeah Nico doesn’t tell Leo the…perks he’s getting from the women helping them). So yeah, pretty neutral on it. Just don’t play it when you’re at the risk of someone you don’t want seeing the sex scenes (there is a button so you can quickly hide it, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure you don’t have that risk in the first place).