"You may open the twelve doors to "sweet loneliness""

The Saturn has tons of dating sims, and this, Sentimental Graffiti, is, by far, one of the best (rows up with Pia Carrot). It was very popular in Japan (for a Saturn game) and was redistributed in 1998 as a special edition, together with a calendar with all 12 girls of the game in it and a bonus-CD, featuring interviews with the girls' voice actors and a quick look at some shows for the game, also Tokyo Game Show 1997. There are also hi-res picture galleries with original artwork for each girl.
This game doesn't have any reviews yet, and as I purchased the special edition recently, I see it as my duty to be the first (^-^).

Story: 9 out of 10
It's a dialog-only game, so plot is most what the game's about. Well, you're a boy living in Tokyo, busy with your part-time shop that earns you 5000 Yen per day, and all of sudden, in the early march, a letter or, to be exact, a ''note'' arrives you: ''I want to see you... quickly!''. There's no clue who sent it, so you suppose it was sent by one of the 12 girls you met while going to different schools throughout Japan - you moved often when you were younger. You decide to find out which of her sent it to you, and start investigation by traveling to the different places and meeting your childhood (or more) friends.
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Gameplay: 8 out of 10
Sentimental Graffiti is a dating sim, and that's what you're doing throughout the game. You call the girls mentioned above or meet them in their hometown, and make up time and place for your date. The dates are nothing but dialogs, giving you possibility to choose between two or three different answers from time to time, and listening to old stories or the feeling of the girls. The game is completely synchronized, and the voice actors, one for each girl, made a great job and the quality is very good as well. What you say (or think) isn't synchronized.
Now you're sure wondering where the challenge/goal lies... well, there are two different goals: two find out who sent you the letter AND to conquer the heart of your love. Maybe she'll conquer your heart, too ;)
The challenge is to come soon enough to your dates and to don't run out of money. There are several ways to travel from place to place, and they are all of different cost and differently time consuming. You can travel by ''hitch hiker'', bus, train, air plain and boat. First is the cheapest, last the most expensive. However, there are four different train lines you can choose from, two ''normal'' train lines and two ''hai-spiido'' train lines (in Japan, there are several companies running train lines). Both lines of a category are at the same cost, but at different departure times. It's up to you to choose a vehicle that has the right adjustment between time and cost.
Also, you're working 5 days per week, and need to be home Sunday evening, except in the holidays. You earn money with your short time job automatically, but of course only if you're there. You can also work in the holidays or weekends, if you want, but it's very time consuming.
Also, you can sleep in a tent, a ryokan (traditional hotel) or 1st class hotel. Again, different costs and different health regain.
What makes gameplay so great about this game, is, that you can really fit yourself into the main char in the game. He's also a pretty cool guy, and you can ''read'' what he's thinking as well. Well, it's basically up to you to make him a cool guy ;)
Also, traveling to the different cities, a complete of twelve of course (excluding Tokyo, your hometown), is fun. Each city somewhat has it's own characteristika and it's almost like a bit sight seeing (yet, I miss the option to date someone at the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima ;) )

Graphics: 8 out of 10
There's not one single piece of 3D in the game, all graphics are puzzles consisting artwork and photos. The characters, the girls, are all beautiful handdrawn art. The backgrounds however, are blurred photographs of the real locations. Although this mix has it's style on it's own, graphical highlight are the girls' animations. The lips aren't moving when their talkin', but there emotions are declared clearly by their gesticulation ;).
If you want examples, you may want to google for one of the girls' names: Akira Endou, Asuka Hoshino, Chie Matsuoka, Emiru Nagakura, Honoko Sawatari, Kaho Morii, Manami Sugihara, Miyuki Hosaka, Rurika Yamamoto, Taeko Adachi, Wakana Ayasaki and Yuu Nanase.
The CG intro is True Motion-video (referring to the info on the box), but the picture quality... well, at least the japanimation is good.

Sound: 9 out of 10
It's simply awesome. Not that every girl has it's own theme, there are a complete of 65 tracks, all of good quality. Not Red Book, but they sound like it. There are also two J-Pop tracks included, but it's mostly personal taste that decides about that (I like it).
Else, the voice acting is simply fantastic. The voice actors did a great job, bringing the game's girls to life.
The worse thing about the sound I can think of is that the volume of the music is too low. Hopefully you have a good sound setup, so you can pull up volume on your stereo ;)

Language requirement: 10 out of 10
Sorry, this game is unplayable without knowing Japanese, due it's a dialog-only game. There are no action sequences or anything.
The manual's Kanji have their reading with them, but else, in game, there are lots of Kanji and the size of the font is a bit uncomfortable.

Replay Value: 8 out of 10
You can play the game dozens of times, but you never get the same game/result. Although I haven't played it through that often, I guess after you played it 12 times it gets boring ;)

Overall: 9 out of 10
It's pretty much as good as a dating sim can be. The twelve girls all are beauties, in heart as well... you know.
Boyz game or not? Well, it's not a boyz-only game I guess. Of course, only males can fit their self into the protagonists part, but I don't see any reason why a female couldn't enjoy the same qualities of the game.
Rent or buy? If you're dating sim fan definitely buy. If not... well, maybe you can find a friend who has the game... I really would suggest you to make sure you can play a game like this and don't fall asleep if there are no bullets flying around on the screen.
The value of the game is between 10 and 15 bucks I suppose. It's not a rarity or something, as the game was released ''two times''.

(Thursday, 29. April 2004)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/29/04