Ayaka Route Cleared:

Ren'ai Karigurashi is by Asa Project, the same people behind Ren'ai 0 Km and Ren'ai Karichaimashita (who would have guessed?).  So I knew with high probability this would be a good game, and it was a good game.  I've already cleared the route of the best girl, Ayaka, and promoted her to my fictional character hall of fame.  She received 'It's a Beautiful Day' as her theme song, and Ren'ai Karigurashi made my silver rankings.

Ayaka is a beautiful girl with pink hair and yellow eyes, who styles some of her long hair into a braid around her head like a circlet.  At Takuma's insistence, she calls him 'Onii-chan', despite them being childhood friends and not relatives.  She's a good cook and nice to those around her.  She's a little crafty and manipulative, getting people to do whatever she wants because they all like her, but that's the reward for being nice.  For instance, she gives baked snacks to her friend, and cooks a cake for her father.  Then asks them for favors.  ^_^.   Cute girls who call people Onii-chan can have all the favors they want, if you ask me.

The other girls in the visual novel aren't bad -- Rito, Hiyori and Kyou.  I can probably play all their routes to completion like one is supposed to play a visual novel.  But I'm already looking beyond their routes to my next Asa Project game -- Futamata Ren'ai.  Nekonyan has been translating Asa Project games and bringing them to America one after the next, and I've liked all their other entries, so I suspect Futamata will be great too.

It's like last year's explosion of Yuzusoft games all over again.  Though Yuzusoft is superior to Asa Project, Asa Project is reliably good and that's good enough.

Meanwhile, Heaven's new main story expansion has been released.  So many ancillary events have been unleashed at the same time that I haven't even touched the main story yet.  I've already gotten four new SS Memoria -- kimono Akari, photographer Irene, sports car Maria and wedding dress Charlotta.  I also got red riding hood Karen and thundercat Byakko to limit break level 4 (max).  Swimsuit Megumi reached limit break level 1.  I also gave Byakko an eternal daphne, and upgraded the mementos of waitress Kozue and yukata Isuzu to max.  My first two characters have reached title badge rank 10, which gives them a new skill slot, Hisame and Megumi.