Tokyo School Life

In the realm of visual novels that are available to play, there are several that come to mind like the Nekopara series or Carpe Diem. From the more obscure parts of the visual novel scene comes Tokyo School Life, an ultimately cute visual novel that is a bit different than others games of the genre that’s all about putting you into the shoes of a manga/anime’s main protagonist. Given all the discussion about this game, there are a lot of aspects concerning the art, design, and progression to like, but the writing can leave a lot to be desired by the time you finish playing. Although I enjoyed playing through this game myself, I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I loved it, especially compared to other giants of the visual novel genre.

A Delightful Story

As this game is a visual novel, there really are no gameplay elements to speak of other than having different dialogue options here and there.

The most enjoyable aspect of this particular title is that the art and design are done well, which is a pretty important piece for visual novels. The art was anything spectacular, but it was consistent throughout every scene and all of the girls you can interact with meshed well with the surrounding sets/environments. Additionally, I was impressed that each of the characters (the female characters, at least) had their lines fully voiced. On top of that, the actual recording was adequate, at least sounding like it was done in a professional studio (which is saying something given the smaller size of the developers, M2 Co.).

Despite these positives, I couldn’t help but feel like the game was incredibly short for the price, especially considering the motivation of your character is to win a contest at your school specifically to go to Japan and meet girls. I’ll get into the actual story shortly, but Tokyo School Life only lets you interact with four characters fully (there are side characters, but they’re ignorable for the most part). It could have used a greater amount of content for what its worth, but it was still somewhat fun even without it.

Make Your Choice

By far the most disappointing feature of this game is the lack of impact your decisions have. Without spoiling anything, there’s only one dialogue option that actually has any pull on the outcome of the game. This leads me to my next point that the narrative overall is weak; the developer definitely knows that you’re playing just to meet some cute anime girls, which is fine, really, but it doesn’t help that it makes every character seem shallow. Each girl’s ending is incredibly abrupt, leaving you with a lot of questions and virtually no answers.

It just shows that the story doesn’t hold up well at all – if you took away the dedication clearly visible in the sound design, music, and voice acting, Tokyo School Life would have little to offer.

Pros

• Art direction is great
• Sound design/voice acting a welcome surprise and shows polish
• Overall premise is fun/cute

Cons

• Writing nonexistent, dialogue options lead nowhere
• Characters mean next to nothing ultimately
• Pricey for the amount of content available