Welcome to a very early famitsu Wednesday! This week it’s all about the hostess clubs and the way they’ve completely redone conversations. I’m not sure how I feel about the new card system and the random element but I guess at least it makes it more of a game instead of a grind. Thanks as usual for Chelsea for getting these over so quickly!

Basics of the game’s hostess clubs

Types of card used at hostess clubs

Conversation card: Cards displaying topics of conversation that Kiryu can bring up. Selecting cards that match the girl’s personality will make her excited mroe easily. Continuing to select the same icon (genre) will create combos. During combos, she will become excited even more easily than usual.

Drink card: Order a drink. Her excitement changes depending on the selected beverage.

Food card: Order food. Ordering something she likes will increase her excitement.

If you finish the conversation with them excited, your relationship gauge with the hostesses will shoot up!

The hostesses’ excitement when you’re done talking to them is directly linked to your score at the hostess club game. If you can achieve the top rating of “perfect”, your relationship level will shoot up. If you visit them over and over and increase your relationship, their view of you as a customer will rank up and ultimately you can obtain the status of number one.

Hostess club impressions

If the hostess clubs are romance simulation games, then the game system this time around seems a better match than ever before. Before, all you would do was choose the option the girl wanted to hear, and there was nothing tactical about it. Simply giving the response the girl liked, guidebook in one hand, was enough to get her for sure. In this game, however, hostess clubs aren’t so simple. Even if you know the kinds of things the girls like to talk about, it’s entirely dependent on luck which conversation cards show up and when. If your luck is bad, then, you can end up trapped in a helpless situation where none of the conversations are things she likes to talk about.

If you reflect this sort of situation on real life, you would be a bit stuck for what to say. You can’t sit in silence, so you have to make a choice. You have to say something – and everything you can come up with in a pinch is either obscure or dirty. It’s an incredibly restrictive situation, one which I’m sure people don’t have much experience in, but having experienced a moment like this myself, the way conversation cards work felt realistic to me. By the way, you can exchange one card only during conversation. Using this system carefully is sure to be key in winning the hostesses over.

I also get the feeling that the system that causes hits (sort of like combos) to occur depending on the details of the conversation does a good job of recreating the flow of a conversation. Sometimes, the most random of things can make for a highly exciting conversation (hit triggered). Or, in the other direction, failing in topic selection during a previously enjoyable chat can suddenly cause things to cool off (hit cancelled). This, too, is extraordinarily realistic. There are also times when, in an attempt to continue the hit, you bring up a topic that the girl doesn’t like. This is a common situation, but it’s a trap that previous hostess clubs in the Ryu ga Gotoku series haven’t been able to replicate, and also one of the main things that simply increases the sense of realism.

It’s also incredibly realistic that you can buy time by ordering drinks or food when you aren’t able to keep the hits going properly. It’s comparatively difficult to make money in this game, so you might be need to be a little tighter with the purse strings when going out on the town. Even still, if you’re having trouble exciting the girl and you’re going to have to come back and spend money anyway, you might decide to just pay up. This sort of bargaining with your financial status, too, is very natural.

So, at the same time as being more like a game, the hostess clubs are even more realistic than ever before. It won’t be straightforward, but that’s what will make it even more joyous when you finally do get the girl!

Once your relationship increases to a certain level, a substory occurs!

Once you befriend the hostesses and you achieve a relationship level of “number one”, a substory with the hostesses will occur. These scenes, all reflecting their individual personalities, are must-sees. As is the norm, there are times when you will end up in fights as the story progresses.

This game’s climax! Detailing the reward scenes!

If you clear the hostess’ substories, their reward scene will finally begin. This game’s reward scenes are more romantic than sexy in nature. Specifically speaking, you can hear their confessions of love for Kiryu which have been recorded using a special method (binaural recording). If you listen to these scenes using headphones that support surround sound they sound incredibly realistic, almost like the girls are actually there with you. Listening to their voices while you look at their forms in high-quality CG will be incredible… guaranteed!

Hostess club impressions

I’ll confess that when the details of the rewards were first explained, I honestly thought, “So they just made the sounds more realistic, right?” But once I actually experienced it for myself, the sense that there were actually there was amazing, particularly if I closed my eyes for a moment. It felt like their faces were right next to mine. I’m guessing you’ll all probably experience the same thing I did. At the end, you’ll think, “I’m sorry for not taking you seriously.” That’s how impactful I think it is!

Hostess club impressions

What I got an acute sense of after playing the game’s hostess clubs for a while was that I wanted to know the girls’ likes and dislikes as soon as possible. This is because you’re definitely not getting the kind of money to toss wildly at hostess clubs!

When I heard that it was comparatively difficult to earn money, I tried doing some fights around town. Just as the developers had said, you really won’t get much money at all! I took down about ten groups of street punks, and all I got were two iron plates (100 yen). Recovering health by eating will put you in the red! Not only this, but the game has no gambling den, so you also can’t earn more money easily. It’s tough.

As a result, quite a high percentage of people will probably want to excite the girls as much as possible via conversation alone when they visit hostess clubs. If this is the case, then, despite it being incredibly basic, you will need to know your companion well. This is where I generally go back to basics and review the hostess’s profile. I think you’ll end up doing the same soon enough, so I’ve listed the hostess’ profiles here to keep. You should read them and get a solid grip on their personalities! Seriously!

So, now that you’re well informed about your companion, you press ahead desperately, trying not to disappoint her with thoughtless topics… Strangely enough, you end up feeling a sense of attachment – or maybe affection – for the hostess unlike what you’ve felt for previous hostesses in the series. This is just my own personal impression, but I felt the same kind of attachment to each and every hostess as I felt for Yuki from Ryu ga Gotoku 0’s Sotenbori Nightlife Island (sort of like the main character in that mode). I’m sure this will vary from person to person, though.

So, the girls’ reactions will cause an old guy’s mood to switch between joy and despair. You could explain it away by me being stingy, but I’m sure there will be many others in the same situation. If you play this way, you end up developing a fairly strong attachment to the girls. I think that playing this way will actually let you enjoy the hostess clubs most of all.

A close look at each girl’s conversational preferences! Hostess profiles

Saki Akai

Has a candid personality. She currently works as a hostess and professional wrestler. Due to her profession she is sometimes treated like a man, but is actually very familial and girlish. She likes older men who can understand this.

Erina

She plays helpless and cute, making her popular with men, but doesn’t have many female friends. She loves to eat, and loves greasy foods. In the future, she dreams of having a job in the film industry. Cultured men are her type, but she doesn’t like so-called “herbivore men”.

Riona Ichijo

A hard-working hostess who has held the title of number one for a decade. The other hostesses look up to her, and she herself doesn’t like to show her weak side. Her ideal man, however, is one who can accept her true self.

Hikaru

A strange girl, but also a fast learner and calculating at times. Alongside being a hostess, she also works as an idol. She is interested in volunteer work, and is troubled over whether she should get a job or continue as an idol in the future. Kind men are her type.

Sora

Usually serious and hard-working. She’s shy, too, but isn’t afraid to assert herself. As someone who’s serious herself, she prefers older men who won’t cheat. The kind who is clingy when she has a boyfriend.

RGG6 producer Yokoyama appears on Famitsu Channel!
Broadcasting gameplay of the very newest demo version!