Desire

Released   1998  
Developer   C's Ware  
Designer   Takeshi Watanabe  
Rating   +3  
Reviewed   2001 Oct 4  
Interactive Fiction
This review is restricted to the consideration of the program as a work of interactive fiction. I'm only considering the story, its flow and presentation. Any gaming worth is not considered.

Adult Content
This is a hentai drama, technically meaning it's for adults, in practice usually meaning it's pornographic. There are scenes of explicit nudity, sex, and/or sexuality, including some of a disturbingly violent and degrading nature.
It is not for children.

A remote island somewhere in the South Pacific is the home of the mysterious research project Desire. Even the people who work there don't know what the project is about, although rumours fly about things like biological weapons. Things come to a head when the Foundation, which runs Desire, invites small-time reporter Albert Macdgul to the island. Coincidently, or perhaps not, Al's girlfriend Makoto is also the technical director of the island facility. A unknown young girl, Tina, mysteriously appears, and people are killed. What's going on here?

You play through the story twice, first as Al then as Makoto. Each character sees only a part of the whole, but together the player can figure out what was actually going on.

Desire is a hentai style game. The world and characters are presented through still images, with a few small cut-scenes. Dialogue, including your own internal thoughts, are presented in text, although a fair bit of it has accompanying Japanese dialogue. The English translation is a bit rough, as you might already have noticed from the name "Macdgul", but it's clear enough. The graphics are pleasant, bright and clean, in the usual anime style.

Desire has a detailed, intricate plot with many interesting characters. The story follows the common science-fantasy, big conspiracy formula so common in manga, but it's a good example of that formula. It was good enough that I found the sex scenes annoying because they interrupted the story. They weren't really gratuitous, either, they just went on too long when I was anxious to get on with the story. An R version, with strategically placed fade-outs and fade-ins, would have worked better.

You first run through the story as Albert, and a lot of what happens seems very strange. The oddities are (mostly) explained when you later run through the story as Makoto. Rather than being a tedious gimmick to brag about increased play-time, this dual presentation worked well. The Makoto story expands greatly on the Albert story, and it's amusing to see Makoto's confusion at some of Al's actions when you already know the underlying reasons.

Desire effectively tells a very good story ... if you can get past the various time-outs for sexcapades.


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