[PSP]ティンクル☆くるせいだーす Starlit Brave!!

It's a common behavioral trait among us gamers to loathe intrusive advertisements within the games we play. We tend to think that the developers are total sellouts and that they taint the gameplay with ubiquitously annoying marketing gimmicks from their money-hungry sponsors, coming in the form of either a poorly conceptualized corporate avatar or direct injection of the product in question as a key item.

However loathsome it comes off as, the fact remains that it is oftentimes a necessary evil. Also, you have to admit that some gimmicks actually work and enhances the experience instead of taking away from it. For instance, if you take a battle-oriented galge like Twinkle Crusaders and crowd their existing female populace with the femme fatales of Dengeki Bunko and other greats from Ascii Media Works, what do you get? Twinkle Crusaders Starlit Brave!!, a mish-mash of moe madness packed in a bonus UMD from the limited edition pack of Twinkle Crusaders GoGo!!

[PSP]ティンクル☆くるせいだーす GoGo！

While we're on the subject of exceptions, allow me to point out a second reason that I would even consider shelling out dough for a console galge: The mini-game/s within it is enough to keep me hooked to it long after I've finished the story proper. Given the fact that very few galges have halfway decent mini-games, this particular aspect hardly comes to mind. ToraDora Portable! was the last game that had that kind of thrill, since the Taiga beat-em up provided me with countless hours of total stress relief.

Lillian's Twinkle Crusaders (more commonly known as Kuru☆Kuru) was an eroge that set itself apart from the rest because of it's plainly presented but insanely strategic battle system (similar to the static bash-em ups in older Megami Tensei games). It underwent a couple of revisions and was later picked up (and overhyped) by Ascii Media Works along with Kadokawa games, released once more as Twinkle Crusaders GoGo!, a CERO-compliant incarnation. (I'd say family-friendly, but the dizzying array of panchira CG in this game might raise a few eyebrows towards that wording choice) Anyhoo, on with the review.