Release date: 2020-01-16
Developer & publisher: SbargiSoft
After a successful Kickstarter campaign for his first visual novel "Oppaidius: Summer Trouble!", its creator Vittorio Giorgi has released a follow-up, subtitled "Tropical Cruise!". What is surprising, is that this follow-up wasn't founded through a KS campaign, and is actually available for free. With the third game in the series about to be released, it's probably fair to consider the series a success.
As a matter of fact, "Tropical Cruise!" is not a direct continuation of the previous game, even if it follows the same group of main characters and their exploits. It is heavily implied that the protagonist of TC is the same one as in ST, despite some discrepancies. For one, the protagonist is nameable, just like in the first game, however, where the prequel had Alesanco as his default name, this time the developer has given him his own name - Vittorio. However, despite renaming the character in between the games, he remains the same lovable pervert as before. Alesanco/Vittorio is a big breast aficionado, who has trouble talking to beautiful women, especially if they have prominent mammaries. On the other hand, Vittorio does not discriminate based on the breast size, and easily strikes a friendship with small-breasted Rika, even breaking the fourth wall to disclaim that the game is named "Oppaidius" and not "Giantoppaidius". Hence all breast sizes are appreciated!
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| ...an ice cream. |
Another returning character from the previous game is Jimmy, Vittorio's best friend. Unlike the protagonist, who is an introspective pervert, aware of his own actions, who doesn't want to come across as a creep, Jimmy is a loud and brash pervert, who always embarrasses Vittorio with his deeds. I was somewhat surprised, that this time around Jimmy got quite a boost in characterization. In the previous game his role was that of a side character to occasionally appear and incite the protagonist to do dumb things. This time we find out more about him, like that barely-worth-mentioning fact that he is a superhero.... Wait, what!?
"Summer Trouble!" for all of its humour, was mostly grounded. It was a tale of a boy meeting girl. The girl eventually left, though if you played your cards right you got to touch her boobies. "Tropical Cruise!" decided to take the balls-to-the-wall approach, while completely discarding the reality and substituting its own.
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| You might be on to something, Protag-kun. |
The protagonist and his companion Jimmy decide to take a well deserved vacation by going on a tropical cruise. Of course, the fact that a famous singer Angela, known for her enormous gazongas, will also go on that cruise has a lot to do with their decision. However, before the friends even manage to get properly settled in their cabin, mysterious things start happening all over the ship. Angela's breasts are reveled to be sentient, and try to mind control the male populace of the ship. Jimmy is revealed to be an actual superhero dedicated to fighting censorship, though we never learn what his actual powers are, or if he has any. He just has a knack for suddenly appearing in order to save beautiful women from sticky situations, like getting a drink spilled onto their cleavage.
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| I think I'm missing the reference. |
As you can see from the description of the game, its "plot", if we can call it that, doesn't make a lot of sense, but it somehow manages to pull you into the absolute insanity that is the world of "Oppaidius". If you enjoy the game or not, in a large part depends on you appreciation of the "Oppaidius" brand of humour, which leans toward absurd. I admit, that the humor tended to be kinda miss for me, but I do still enjoy it, mostly because of the horrified "what's gonna happen next" fascination. I should also mention some other plot threads that are started but left completely unresolved in this VN, like the fact that a cute bartender also seems to engage in mind control experiments involving the power of coffee. Though I assume the follow-up game will make more sense and try to tie-up all the loose ends.
Just like the prequel, TC is an ecchi game without any explicit sexual content. You will occasionally see naked boobs or asses, but there is no intercourse and the whole fare is completely softcore. That's not to say that the developer hasn't teased us with the revelation that the third game will be an actual adult game. I'd say it's quite a tease to create a trilogy where the first two parts edge you for the grand release in the last one. :-P
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| Sadly, it's only a dream. |
Surprisingly, TC is somewhat longer than its predecessor. While the previous game could be finished in under an hour, a single playthrough of "Tropical Cruise!" took me 1:40h plus additional 40 minutes to collect all the secrets and achievements. Achievements play a large part of SbargiSoft's games, as the developer crams in a lot of secret events that can only be seen by doing completely unintuitive things. Despite the game being linear and having only one ending, 100% completion will almost certainly require the players to use a guide.
I felt that the game's graphics got a bit of an improvement over the ST. "Summer Trouble!" for some reason windowboxed the backgrounds in order to emulate a lower resolution. This has been rightfully discarded in the sequel, and we can finally see the background graphics in all their glory. I personally loved the mixture of low-def and high-def graphics, which create what I would call a neo-retro look for the game.
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| Jimmy, pull the foot out of your mouth! |
SbargiSoft aim for a nostalgia feel with their games, and retro graphics and music is what they used to entice the players to the series. In fact, the retro sound is exactly what was emphasized on their KS project pages for "Summer Trouble!" and "Desert Island!". Vittorio Giorgi even enticed some well known Japanese composers from the 90's era to join his project. While the number of Japanese performers is lower on TC, the follow-up game is shaping to be the gathering of the stars. It seems Vittorio seriously intends to finish the trilogy with a bang.
"Summer Trouble!' had a side poker minigame included with the game, and true to the form, TC includes some minigames of its own. This time it's Tic-Tac-Toe and the memorization game. Neither of them are as challenging as the poker was in ST, but they are still a great way to keep the players on their toes. Get it? Toes?... Tough crowd... Anyway, the scoring system keeps track of how well you do in the game, and makes the memorization game at the end easier or harder based on that. Additionally, if you have already played ST, and have the save files present on you machine, the game will read them and give you a boost in difficulty reduction. I suppose that's an incentive to play the games in order... :-)
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| A mystery yet unsolved. |
Just as I mentioned when reviewing the first game, the developer has removed or locked some ease of life attributes of the Ren'Py engine. "Skip to unread" function is disabled until the second playthrough, and the common functions like Rollback, screenshot taking and entering the menu with the right mouse button are all disabled. I'm not sure why, and I don't particularly like such gatekeeping, as these attributes have become the staple of the engine for a reason - people like them and use them.
All in all, "Oppaidius" is a short crazy adventure that might not have a great plot or particularly deep characters, but it does bring enjoyment for a few hours you will spend with the game. Moreover, the huge amount of secrets the dev has crammed into the game will really tickle the more OCD-minded gamers. Finally, the original language of the game is Italian, and the translation, while relatively well made, does have its quirks. There are some phrases that I found wonky, and I feel the game could have done with a few more editing passes.
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| Let's discuss childhood traumas. |
I will also mention, that shortly after the release of the "Tropical Cruise!", SbargiSoft has published a very short (a single playthrough took me 13 minutes) game named "(P)lunge All the Way, Super J!". If it's not clear from the title, it centers around our idiot friend Jimmy, who, in his guise of a superhero Super J, has to save a camgirl from some vile censorship. This super short VN goes full across the fourth wall, and delivers some commentary about the censorship of video games. However, the most interesting thing about this game is that it is the first of the "Oppaidius" series that actually features a sex scene. There are two possible endings to the game, and if you pick up all the right choices, the aforementioned camgirl will be very grateful to you... I mean to Jimmy. I didn't find this game to be particularly engaging, but it's so short, that it doesn't overstay its welcome.
Links of Interest
Download "(P)lunge All the Way, Super J!" from Itch.io.
Final Verdict: 60%
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