Cover Description: "My name is Ranmaru Hibikiya. Today is my first day at Asao Private School...
My uncle is the dean of this school. About a month ago, he paid me a visit and offered me enrollment at his school. Seeing I've been out of school for a long time, I accepted his offer. What was the catch? He asked me to keep an eye out for him. Bluntly, I was to be his spy...No problem.
Well actually, there was a problem. Once I arrived, I started noticing some disturbing things. There was violence and misconduct happening on campus, not the usual past times at a private high school. As I got deeper into my investigation, I came across a possible correlation between an underground society and the unusual behavior of my peers. I realized that I could not trust ANYONE.
There's just one last thing...After transferring, sometime between all the sexual escapades happening on campus, and my investigation, something horrifying happened to me. I...
Join me in my quest to uncover the horrible secrets at Asao Private School.... and find out what fate holds for me...
The game is sold on a CD-ROM for Windows 95 and 98. System
requirements are minimal: Windows 95 or 98 OS, Pentium 100 or better,
24 MB RAM, 4x CD-ROM, 640*480*32k colors graphics, Windows-compatible
sound capability. MIDI playback capability optional, Mouse actually
optional too. You play it directly from the CD-ROM, but it
will place a "SYS.DAT" file in a "CSWARE\DIVIDEAD" directory on your
first hard drive (usually C:). That holds the "saw this picture"
markers so you can see the pictures once you've seen them in the game
once. Each saved game used also puts a "DATA#.DAT" file in the
DIVIDEAD directory too.
Text is in English, except for a map used for navigation during most
of the game, and Japanese text shown in a few (mostly "staff") images.
Japanese voice used for all characters except "you" (Ranmaru) -
except for some of when Ranmaru and Nishizaki are underground when you
get nothing.
There is a small manual in the package with the game, but you really
need the "hint paper" (essentially a walkthrough) provided by either
the Himeya Soft website or me (where you should have gotten this text
file). Unlike most other C's ware titles, there is no Help file with
the game. I've done some work on the "hint paper" to reflect what I
can personally verify. It looks to me like you need to get ALL 6
F801 points to get the F801 ending. But can anyone explain the 17 F501
points in the walkthrough?
The two .BMP images provided in the Extras directory on the CD are
rather good, and one is H. Convert these two enormous (in disk space)
1024*768 .BMP files to some other format though, if you want to use
them for anything but Windows wallpaper.
The game has very good controls, and pretty good translation to
English. It starts off excellent, and then makes more mistakes as the
game progresses. Since this game seems deliberately designed to not
tell you the whole story at once, it can get rather frustrating when
you (as the player) have no idea why Ranmaru is doing something, and
it turns out to be based on something left out of the translation.
Example: the way to tell that your Uncle, the Dean, is in or out of
the school is to look for his car in the parking lot at the Library.
Unfortunately, the crucial word "limousine" is never used when you
first learn this during the game. So, it can momentarily baffle you
when Ranmaru starts talking about a limousine when you first check
the parking lot. I'm sure there are lots of other situations like
that, where the Japanese version made things clearer, and the English
translation - probably done by several people - differs enough that
you go "huh?" when you come back to some subject mentioned earlier.
Ranmaru also seems too quick to get nasty while talking to Yuta, and
seems to jump to a conclusion about what Yuta "really" is with no
explanation (and counterattacks him with an extremely unconventional
weapon).
There is some confusion about Sachiko and Mika's surname. It's
supposed to be Itsukino, but some parts of the game use Seino for no
good reason.
The manual also gets Mami's favorite book wrong; it's "The Land
Beyond".
And, contrary to several references in the game to the Yuki sisters,
there is only one - Azusa Yuki.
There's one long scene with Aki where the game consistently calls her
Azusa.
This is the kind of stuff that can really mess up players who are
trying to understand the story instead of just looking at the H
pictures. So, will the game companies PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get fluent
native English speakers to proofread the translations from Japanese!
Click the mouse to skip the introduction movie, once the music starts
playing.
Press "Ctrl" key to speed through dialogue until your next choice.
Use the END option on the left menu to exit the game. Doing a Close
or Quit will leave a blank window behind on my system.
Unfortunately, the map that you can get to see on the first day is
all in Japanese. Although you can figure it out yourself, let's
start from the baseball diamond in the bottom center. You can only
go to the locations written in blue:
Library is to the right.
Main Building is several concentric squares above that.
Ishii Hall is to the right of Main building, the lower half.
Cafeteria is to the right of Main building, the upper half.
Main field is above the baseball diamond.
the boy's dorm (with Ranmaru's room) is to the left of the main field.
W.C above the main field is a bathroom in front of the Boys' Dorm.
Gym is above and left of Main Building.
Wood Field (tennis courts) is above and left of Gym.
Promenade (path to girls' dorm) is left of Wood Field.
Girls' Dorm is at the end of the Promenade, in the upper left corner.
Late in the game, after you're very familiar with how the map
works, it stops working. You then have to navigate in the game by
going from one location to another to another. By then, you should
be familiar enough with where things are that it isn't difficult to
navigate.
The file that controls the display of the photoshop is "SYS.DAT" in
the C:\CSWARE\DIVIDEAD directory. It's automatically created by the
game when it starts, if it doesn't exist already. This file also
holds information about the saved games, such as when you saved them
in real time and game time. The saved games themselves are in
separate DATA#.DAT files, where # can be 0 to 9.
SYS.DAT should be 4294 or $10C6 bytes long. Use your hex/binary file
editor on SYS.DAT and go to address $01EE. If you've played the game
more than a few minutes (long enough to see the picture of a pair of
glasses), there should be a $01 there. This is the beginning of the
picture flags for the game. Change the EVEN (only) addresses starting
here to $01, leave the ODD ones as $00. Stop when you get to address
$031A. This should give you 100.0% on the "CG Hit Display" when you
start the game again.
The last 10 pictures, usually shown as a big "?", are not really from
the game, and most have Japanese text stuck on them. I think they're
messages from the game staff. These normally appear after you've
reached one of the game endings.
It's normal to have 4 blanks between the "special" images and the
"location" ones, and 7 blanks between the "location" images and the
"staff" ones.
I don't know why the Dean's office isn't shown.
Himeya Soft says that to see 100% of the CG without a patch like
the above, you need to see both F701 endings ("Fine" and "No") and
one of the F801 endings. There is only some minor text different
between the "Fine" and "No" F801 endings; all the images and the text
shown with them are the same.
To understand what's going on in the story, you should see the
Haruka and the Sachiko endings first. The Azusa ending adds very
little, and I personally didn't try to get the Dead ending. Even so,
it's a very complicated story, and I'm not entirely sure what
happened in some areas. For instance, why Yuta reacts so strongly to
the Mustard attack - what kind of humanoid monster is he?
Overall review: Rather good translation to English, but it has more
errors towards the end. Makes you wonder if the obvious disconnects
and missing information are due to mistakes in translation or
deliberate design of the game. Decent graphics, but has a few gross
images and a bunch of momentary flashes during Ranmaru's "seizures"
that can be very annoying. Music and voice nothing to complain about.
The possible objectionable aspects of the sex in this game include:
rape and forced sex with bondage, lesbian masturbation. No tentacles
or obviously underage girls. Implied drug use by Ranmaru, probably
marijuana.
"Trust No-one... But Yourself?"
Divi Dead is the first horror hentai game made by Cware. The japanese version has release for around a year and the english version has just release a few month ago (around December). I didn't have a chance to check out the English. However, for me I would rather play the japanese version because the english translation is usually pretty bad.
You control a guy name Ranmaru Hibikiya. The game start off with a movie about the dream he has. You will also learn that he spend most of his childhood in the hospital. In his dream, he saw himself got killed by a man. The story take place in a private school, Asao which is owned by his uncle. The school itself is like a prison, which surround with woods. One month ago, his uncle offered him enrollment at his school. He has been out of school for such a long time, so he accept his offer. His uncle also wants him to keep an eye on the school and report to him about the students' behavior once a week.
Once Ranmaru Hibikiya arrived the school, he notice there was violence and misconduct in the school. He also notice his memory is very confusing and wired things happen to him so often.
As the story go deeper, all the strange things happen in the school will relate back to his dream and he will discover his horror fate.
Story: 8/10
Divi Dead has a very detail story line. It is very attractive and once you start the game, it's hard to stop it.
Graphics: 8/10
The game is using high 16-bit color and the use of color is more dark which make the graphic full with mystery. The only bad thing about the graphic is the character drawing style. I don't like it a bit, they look like ghost more than human.
Music: 7.5/10
The music is more sad and horror. It make the graphic more scarey and mystery. Call me a chicken but I really got scare on these music with the graphc. (well, just imagine the main character walk on a building alone with no light on and the building itself is look like the one on the seven guest in the house)
Gameplay: 5/10
The game is a advantage game, you just click the mouse and choose the place you want to go on a map. There are not many major options you can choose, however these choices will lead to a different ending or outcome.
Overall: 8/10
It is a great game and I think it worth the time to finish it.
Quick Summary: Divi-DEAD, by Cs ware, has been ported over into the States by Himeay Soft. Divi-DEAD is a multi-ending adventure game of the horror-suspence type. The story and characters draw you into their nightmare, and it makes you keep playing so you can see the light of the day again.
Storyline: The background story is you play the part of Ranmaru Hibikiya, a very sickly boy who's only recently be released from a very prolonged stay at a hospitol. Your wealthy uncle has offered you enrolment into his school... if you do a favor for him. He asks you keep an eye on the other students, because there have been problems recently, and in the past.
As the game progessess, you are drawn more and more into the nightmarish history that is hidden, and you get to see which of the other characters were attempting to use you, and which were helping you. You also learn about your past, and who you really are. It does live up to the line on its advertisement, "Trust no one... but yourself?"
Thoughts: The game is very well done. It has a well thought out story line and gameplay, an interesting setting, and characters who all have there own hidden adjendas.
I belive the game was released in Japan in 1997, and brought over into the States in 1998. So I used the English version of the game for the dating.
The graphics are top notch. All of them. From the backgrounds (where you can see them in daytime, evening, and nightime), to the events, to the extras that you unlock when you complete the game. They are all very detailed in terms of shading, coloring, and lines. I believe they are in 16-bit true color. Many of the images have a dark tone to them, which adds to the mood of the game.
There are four endings to the game, which is disappointing. Many of the choices you make are simply to progress the plot along, and don't have any direct affect on which ending you receive. It does have the neat affect that the ending though complete, doesn't necessarily answer all the questions possed by the game. You have to get each ending to get the full story. Himeya does offer a walkthrough so you can get all the endings, including the very difficult to get Sachiko ending.
The sounds and music are midi files, and very well done. They augment the current mood of the game; from the happy-go-lucky sounding music for when you're walking around during the school day, to the lulliby music during intamate scenes, to the dramatic music when the ending is about to come. The music is well done. And, Himeya offers the midi files as extras as well (so you can play the music off the CD while working on your desktop). The voice acting is well done.
The translation is... okay. There are times when it seemed very loose about what was going on in the event. Especially when it was an intamate scene between Ranmaru and one of the female characters. So, at times, it seems forced and poorly scripted. Overall, the translation was well done.
The extras are excellent. Divi-Dead comes with 2 wallpaper images, and any image you unlock you can save as a bitmap for personal use. It contains a gallery of the events and backgrounds; and if you click on the background you get to see it during the various times of day. As stated before, you can also play the midi music from the game as well.
I do have some complaints about the game. There are some spots where the voice acting just cuts out, or just isn't there; I still haven't been able to figure out if this was intentional or not. (This is one of the reasons I gave it Voice Acting a lower score). Also, though it was neat to have all the events and backgrounds, it would have been cool if they had included stills of the characters as well, such as the image you get when you are talking to Mami. Lastly, since there are only 4 endings, the replayability of the game isn't as much as other games, like Glo-r-ia or Maid's Story; however, it is a long game, and this partially makes up for it.
All-in-all, a recommendable game.
Story: 9.5
Graphics: 9.5
Translation: 7.5
Sound/Music: 9.0
Voice Acting: 8.0
Extras: 9.0
Replayability: 6.5
