Release date: 2022-06-19
Developer & publisher: ShinyDevon
"Bernd und das Rätsel um Unteralterbach" was a classic of its time - a social satire mixed with an actual high quality lolicon game, wrapped in a well-written package. Sadly, there were no serious attempts to replicate the winning formula for a long time, until "One Summer in Loliwood". The dev openly admits this game was inspired by "Unteralterbach", and it contains several references to it. There is just one question: Does it manage to deliver on the lofty promise?
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| Molly is a riot. |
As if the title doesn't clue you in, the game is set in Hollywood, and stars our hapless protagonist Bernd (the name can be changed, and just be clear, it's not the same Bernd as in the previous game) arriving to Los Angeles from the East Coast to visit his uncle who was recently in a car accident. The accident was nothing too serious, but Uncle Richard is an owner of Luxury Transportation Services - a posh chauffeur business known for its discretion while ferrying around movie stars an other rich snobs. He sadly won't be able to sit behind the wheel of a limo for some time while recuperating from the injury, and ropes in his dear nephew Bernd to substitute.
It doesn't take long for Bernd to stay in the chauffeur business, before he sniffs out that Little Angels Productions, a major child porn company, is operating in the City of LA, and he decides to help shutting those bastards down. If you remember "Unteralterbach" well, you will experience a feeling of deja vu, when the script takes a very familiar turn. It won't came as a surprise either, when it is finally revealed that the porn company is entirely owned by a bunch of horny kids who just want to have fun away from those evil ageist adults, who are constantly telling them that sex is dirty and kids shouldn't have sex, let alone think of it.
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| Just like any other woman then... |
Here the similarities with the aforementioned German game mostly end. Where it continued to indulge in entirely insane plot twists and turns with crazy over the top characters, OSIL mostly delivers its premise in a straight manner. By befriending the Little Angels, Bernd eventually accepts that there do exist kids that are horny and sexually precocious, and that there is nothing wrong for them to indulge in their carnal desires. In fact, it's a great evil to deny those urges, because as the game states: "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people that sex is dirty".
The whole three fourths of the game is a deliciously sexy nukige, chock full of loli sex and comedic slice-of-life situations. In addition to that Bernd even manages to fall in love with a certain older woman, but their relationship is an open one, and both of them indulge in some very entertaining shenanigans. It's when the game starts nearing its conclusion where it becomes somewhat darker, as Bernd teams up with some other characters to take down a human trafficking ring run by a Ghislaine Maxwell expy. It is somewhat of a mood shift not entirely consistent with the rest of the game, but I can understand why it was done, as it is very hard to properly finalize games that are almost entirely focused on SOL comedy. Still, the ending of the game is left somewhat open for further adventures, which resulted in a side story/epilogue released half a year later.
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| This looks familiar. |
OSIL writing is on a subdued side in comparison to "Unteralterbach". While there is plenty of comedy, sharp wit and snarky one-liners, there is nothing super crazy going on, and the whole story is mostly about seeing people for what they are rather than what we imagine them to be. Bernd is finally free from his societal shackles after he finally allows himself to see Little Angels and some other kids as horny dirty sluts they are, and not as innocent children that need protecting from nonexistant evils of sex. It is basically the same lesson as the one in "Unteralterbach", but where the larger than life overexaggerated writing of that game made it instantly memorable, I'm not sure the same holds true for OSIL.
For a nukige, "One Summer in Loliwood" has a pretty good characterization of at least some of the game's characters. Bernd himself is not super deep, but he is fundamentally a good person, and wants to do the right thing, even as he eventually realizes that "right" does not always coincide with "lawful".
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| Cheerleaders are gonna cheer your cock and balls. |
The cast of the game is very extensive, but there are a few characters I consider to be the most important ones. For example, Tasha is the main heroine of the game, and Bernd's love interest. In contrast to the other girls, she is an older woman working as a nurse in a pediatrics ward and also a closeted pedophile. She and Bernd basically learn from each other to embrace their feelings regarding children, and strive to realize those feelings in a way that betters the world.
Molly is a terminally ill girl and Tasha's charge in the pediatrics ward, whose dearest wish is to feel loved before her death. She does not have a great home life, and is sad that no one will miss her when she is gone. You might just show her that is not true and that there are people who care about her.
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| That's some strenuous underwater exercise. |
Luna is a wild child who was raised by wolves, and behaves more like an animal than a human. Bernd with the help from Tasha can bring her out of her shell and integrate her back into the human society.
Mackenzie is a spitfire member of the Little Angels with a punk look, a dirty mouth and computer skills that make the government agencies cry. Bernd can persistently melt her abrasive exterior and find a sweet (but still very horny) girl inside. There are many more important characters, and some of them even form relationships of their own during the course of the game, but it would be too much to mention them all.
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| Everything's a remake these days. |
Considering the game is a nukige, I feel I should say a few words about the sex scenes... Well, they are very fun to watch. There are a lot of variations with couples sex, group sex, straight sex, lesbian sex, and even gay sex if you decide to play Bernd as a bisexual. All the participants are wholly enthusiastic in their performance, and the graphics are well made 3D renders. Unusually, a large number of the scenes are porn movies, which Bernd watches, sometimes alone, sometimes with his male or female friends. I kinda liked this decision, as it gave us a peek into the work of the fictional Little Angels company, while simultaneously upping the quota of the sex scenes without a need for the dev to pull out some hookups for Bernd out of their ass.
OSIL is mostly a linear game and took me just shy of 8 hours to finish while selecting the most optimal choices. Selecting optimal choices early in the game is very important, as you can lock yourself out of entire character storylines by making stupid selections, and thus shorten the game and miss many sexy scenes. Unfortunately, later on the VN stops allowing you to make sub-optimal choices, and resets them at the start of each new chapter. A developer's note states that the full game will allow the player to continue with those sub-par choices, but it appears the dev never went and changed that. There is only a single ending to the VN, but there also exist three game overs. The first of those can be obtained within the very first chapter, while the other two - in the last one.
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| Apology accepted. |
Moreover, there is a shitload of achievements you can find by trying various choice combinations. Playing in the optimal way will gain you the vast majority of the prizes, while others will require some hunting to find. At the time of writing I'm still missing three achievements, and I have no idea how to get them.
Anyway, I personally quite liked OSIL, and would recommend it for those who loved "Unteralterbach" or like loli games in general, but at the same time I feel there is plenty of room for improvement.
Just as I have mentioned above, there is a very short continuation to this game called "Adventures in Loliworld". It is another linear experience that lasts less than an hour, and sees Bernd with his lover Tasha trying to grant her dearest wish to a dying Polish girl.
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| That's one horny snowman. |
Of course, her wish is to have sex like the adults do, and this does result in plenty of sexy action, plus the two perverts help yet another person to reconcile with their pedophilic desires in the process.
The tone of this short VN is more somber than that of OSIL, without much of the comedy, but that is understandable, considering the subject matter. It is a nice little title to cap of Bernd's adventures, though it is not much of an epilogue, and the dev could create many other games in this setting if they so desire.
Links of Interest
Final Verdict: 72% (62% for Loliworld)
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