Name: Nocturnal Illusions (89.18% in 73 votes) Type: ADV Platform: WINDOWS Company: Excellents Release date: 1997 Reviewed by: Deester
When you decided to take a vacation from your normal city life as a law student you thought going by yourself in the mountains would help you relax...What you did not count on was the shudden storm which came one day earlier than you had thought... Lost inside the rain , whipped by the wind you fall from a cliff and lose your consciousness ... When you open your eyes you are in a strange mansion , owned by a mysterious yet attractive mistress ... While staying there you get to meet the other guests of the house at the same time understanding there is no way out... The beautiful girls you meet hide their own personal drama and it's up to you to help them ... But things in the mansion tend to be out of the ordinary ... What's happening in the locked storehouse ? What are the strange noises you hear at night ? And who is the strange blonde girl you meet in your dreams...? Soon the truth will come through , question is how are you going to deal with it ???
The story of the game has a very good basis but unfortunatelly lacks further development ...Each girl has it's own personallity shaped through her personal experiences ... I think Arisa's story is the most interesting being the centre of the game...What i feel does not respond well to the story is the amount of h-encounters... "Hing" with the girls is the key to helping them which looks kind of silly ... The game is about 6-7 hours long and pretty easy ... Shinitsi , the main hero , is not really detailed and we get little info on him... The mistress character seems interesting but there is almost no info on her...
For a windows game the graphics are really bellow average . Even some dos games have better graphics than nocturnal illusion. The coloring on the other hand is very nice and i have to give credit for that ... The characters are designed fairly nice but backgrounds are unacceptable for windows... H-scenes are a little better but again nothing compared to latest windows games. There are some SM scenes which i personally don't like present in the game...
The gameplay is the typical h-adv gameplay where you get to choose where to go and whether you'll talk to somebody , look at something or think. There are little to no points where you can choose between alternatives since the game pretty much obligates you to do most things in order to get going . The only decision you get to make which change the outcome is right before the end of the game where you can choose which girl you'll take with you...That's a point i don't like at all and which i think is really stupid. Even though you help all the girls they are not free to go at the end of the game...
Music is average with a couple of scores in different occasions , like when you are happy when you are in danger ,etc. Personally i prefered playing with the sound off since at many points the music got iritating .
There are no extras like a music room or cg .
In general terms i think nocturnal illusion is an average game . I cannot understand why companies choose to translate such games when there are way better games availlable in the japanese market . Compared to other english games i'd say it's better than ringout but worse than season of sakura . Even though it's not that good a game i'd say if you can buy it just to help the english hgame market...
