Written by Flamecaster, edited by Otaku Apologist
“Beach Bounce”, developed by AJ Tilley (Dharker Studio). A hentai visual novel about a beach resort and its proprietor. Available on Available on Nutaku’s storefront for $10.00. Released on November 14th, 2015. The game features uncensored genitalia.
If I were a mean person, I would say that this particular VN defies reviewing and is best left in a deep, dank cave where no-one would ever find it. My issue with it is much more elementary. “Beach Bounce” is simply an unfinished, raw product that just so happens to smell putrid. The game is set to have three episodes down the line, and what I played is just supposed to be a prologue to the whole series. Even as an introductory title, “Beach Bounce” fails on so many spectacular levels it’s baffling.
STORY
The first problem with the game is blatantly obvious within the first minute: our protagonist, Tomoyo Oshiro, doesn’t waste time in dumping his life’s story at the player, leaving almost no important detail out. While I do believe it is important to establish what kind of character the main lead is, the way “Beach Bounce” does it is incredibly forced and rushed. This forcefulness is present in every aspect of the game.
When Tomoyo stops his lengthy, unnecessary exposition, we learn that he’s heading to the titular “Beach Bounce”, a Japanese beach resort owned by his estranged grandmother. As scenes transition at breakneck speed, the player soon learns that his dear grandma has overworked herself. Tomoyo volunteers to help out at the resort. There we meet the title’s small cast of “romanceable” girls. What Tomoyo goes through in one week of game time is far removed from a romance. All of the female cast feel like cardboard cutouts of anime tropes, lacking depth or any kind of endearing traits. Our protagonist isn’t an exception from this rule. I can only assume the story’s writer tried to make him the proverbial “good guy” that follows a vaguely defined set of moral rules. He is a complete wet blanket of a character that doesn’t just ruin any fun the reader could have, but also his own interactions with other characters.
Speaking of character interactions. Besides the grating amount of in-your-face exposition the game throws at you, it also forces you to experience some of the most unnatural and forced dialog that you’d only experience in someone’s 3rd-grade Naruto fanfiction. I didn’t feel engaged at all. If “Beach Bounce” was a book, I would have put it away upon reading the first chapter. Almost every line of text in the game sounds robotic, and as sure as the day is bright, you would never encounter these kinds of conversations in real life. For a game promoting itself as a “slice-of-life adventure story” not being able to emulate that aspect of life is a cardinal sin.
Just when “Beach Bounce” couldn’t get any worse, it threw a curveball at me that cracked my skull and scarred my psyche. Now, you may be wondering just what could have been so bad that forced me to use such an analogy. Two words: Forced drama. AJTilley decided to go so low, he included out of place character drama into every chapter. One character gets a terminal, incurable disease, while one has been living a secretive double life.
GAMEPLAY
“Beach Bounce” has several different routes the player can take, which ultimately end in bedding one of the girl’s at the resort. The events in the routes aren’t very varied, and what mixes things up are just single lines of text that add nothing important to the story. There are even events that are such an obvious attempt at padding, it’s insulting to your intelligence.
Despite the visual novel being only about two hours in length, the creators still managed to dig themselves a plot hole or two. At a point in one of the routes, the protagonist mentions a piece of information about two of the girls he could only learn if he took part in an event from a different route. Unless Tomoyo can transfer his consciousness back in time, he would have no way of knowing that particular detail of the girls’ backstories.
GLITCHES AND ISSUES
Have you ever played a visual novel that had technical issues on top of terrible grammar and spelling mistakes every few sentences? I never had such a displeasure until “Beach Bounce”. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that the game had absolutely no editing done to its script. It feels like it has been written by a non-English native writer that had way too much decision-making power. How else would those issues slip by quality control or any editing staff? One of the aforementioned technical problems that slipped into the final release is an issue with some scenes repeating themselves without music after making choices where to go in the beach resort. This is something that happened at least three times during my first playthrough.
GRAPHICS
While the visuals of “Beach Bounce” are the game’s strongest point, they can still be inconsistent in both quality and anatomical correctness. On one hand, you have CGs that look very pleasing to the eye; on the other hand, you have skewed anatomy and questionable use of perspective. All the event scenes are a mixed bag and it’s luck of the draw if you get something that looks semi-presentable or something you would rather wipe your hind parts with.
MUSIC
Sadly, what little good I had to say about the game’s graphics does not apply to the sound design and soundtrack. A maximum of three—maybe four—short and repetitive tracks play ad nauseam, and you soon learn to ignore them as they don’t really add any tension or anything else to the overall experience. If I were to describe what role those play in the overall package, I would call them a distraction at best and a nuisance at worst.
VOICE ACTING AND SOUND EFFECTS (SFX)
Beach Bounce has no voice acting, not even moans, or grunts during the saucier game segments. The game has no miscellaneous sound effects to speak of, lacking even the most basic effects like doors opening/closing, bells ringing and even something as simple as kissing sounds.
HENTAI
Lastly what should be the crème de la crème of the adult version of the game is lackluster, brief and simply lazy. The few sex scenes you get in the game are incredibly short and surprisingly non-descriptive compared to other eroge titles. In other visual novels with erotic content, the protagonist would usually describe what they are doing with their partner with an inner monologue in great detail. Tomoyo is mute throughout the whole experience, whereas girls spout stock pornographic phrases at you intermixed with “oohs”, “aahs” and “I’m cumming!” The CGs during the acts don’t even show any penetration: The girls usually just lie there, have their clothes removed piece by piece until they are naked, and finally get cum on them to show Tomoyo indeed got his dick out and did the act. I had my hopes up way too high, thinking porn could redeem “Beach Bounce” in some way.
CONCLUDING WORDS
The game ended as it started: not with a bang, but with a whimper and a barely audible “ayy lmao”. Beach Bounce is almost everything that can go wrong with an independent visual novel production. It’s uninspired, badly written, and downright lazy at times. I cannot recommend this title to anyone. You will probably have more fun going outside and playing in a local sandbox.
Feeling like wasting money? Download Beach Bounce>
