Title: Runaway City
Genre: Adventure
Platform: Windows 95/98/ME
Credits: JAST
Shop: Runaway City CD, Hentai Game Shop, Hentai Item Shop

Everett Lo’s Description:
You are Hiroaki Hanyu. Since your mother died, your father, the owner of a successful game company, has been raising you on his own. You’re about to graduate and are a little unsure as to where to go from here. And you seem to have, well, the power of “good luck”. Good things just seem to naturally happen to you, but it’s almost as if that power has been increasing lately. Can you find out the secret of your power before it consumes you?

Runaway City is an older JastUSA title. The story is mainly about you and your “good luck” which seems to get you into all sorts of “situations” with various females you know. And given the type of game, you can very well guess what types of “situations”.

The gameplay is pretty much click based as you mainly choose various locations to travel to. For the most part, you really can’t go wrong with whatever choice you make except at the very ending, (I’ll touch upon that in a few seconds.) making the game more of a digital novel than a role playing game.

Because it is an older game, the art is a bit dated but enjoyable (and uncensored). There’s a lot of humor in the beginning as you and your “good luck” get into all sorts of situations but the tone does turn serious as your power begins to increase. The different girls you interact with are more stereotypical characters than individuals but there’s enough variety to keep them from being copycats of each other.

The biggest complaint about the game that I have, along with numerous others, is the rather complex end game. One mistaken choice sends you off to a bad ending and it takes a lot of trial and error to get the “best ending”. Normally, I wouldn’t have a problem with this except that I still don’t understand a lot of the logic of why some of the choices are “good” and some are “bad.”

Except for the very confusing ending, I found Runaway City to be very enjoyable and it does show some very interesting situations. (One includes you, a girl, and a video game that redefines the term “playing”). Although not much of a replay value, it’s still a good addition for your game collection.

Individual Rating: Art/Animation: 5 Story/Plot: 4 Characters: 5 Sounds: 5 Gameplay: 4 Ecchi Level: 6