AND(X)AS(Y)

Takaaki Fujimura is an average Japanese high school boy, going to an all-boys' school. Everything is the same routine, day after day, until he finds Valentine's chocolates in his shoe locker two days after Valentine's Day with a note that simply says "AND(X)AS(Y)". He continues through his normal routine, but wonders... who sent him that chocolate? Is it the girl from the neighboring school he rides the subway with, or perhaps even one of his own classmates from his all-boys' school?

Fujimura Takaaki - Takaaki is the character you play as through-out the game, and his appearance is never shown (a common thing in ren'ai games). He is a very average high-school boy when it comes to studies and athletics. He has a somewhat rough and violent nature, but overall is much more gentle on the surface. He doesn't like to fret over things and enjoys talking with others.

Sanjyou Kawana - It's rare to find a female character in a boys' love game that is more than just a supporting role, but Kawana is indeed female, and is indeed a winnable character. She is an active person who has interests in a wide variety of things, so she can always chime in on any conversation. She laughs often and is a bright person with a cheerful smile.

Yuuki Fushimi - Fushimi is Takaaki's best friend. He is a very polite and considerate person, that a lot of people take to be very serious. He is somewhat naive in what is going on around him, so most topics of conversation are things new to him. He enjoys many "feminine" hobbies such as housekeeping and interior design, and dislikes being picked on about it.

Kurosaki Shinobu - Shinobu is another friend of Takaaki's, but the nature of their friendship is that they enjoy quarreling with each other, and Shinobu is quite good when it comes to arguing, so he actually enjoys talking about subjects he has an opposite opinion about. He is a sporty guy who is on the high school basketball team.

Akasaka Hirofumi - Hirofumi is Takaaki's senpai (upperclassman). He seems to want to take Takaaki under his wing and make him more like himself, the cool senior that he is. Hirofumi is one of those kids from the other neighborhood that presents a cool and tough image. He enjoys riding his motorcycle.

Oosawa Keisuke - Keisuke is the quiet, extremely studious boy who usually sits in the corner of a classroom and goes unnoticed. Despite his closed-off appearance, he knows more about what is going on around him then he often lets on. The few people that do associate with him hold a lot of respect for him whether they realize it or not, but those that don't associate with him forget he exists.

Minase Kyoutarou - Kyoutarou is Takaaki's kohai (underclassman). He is intersted in Takaaki and looks up to him. He is a calm character who is talented at many things, and often attracts attention within the school. But he takes things as they come and doesn't get easily perturbed by things.

Kuba Kirihito - Kirihito is also Takaaki's kohai (underclassman). He is somewhat stubborn and not liked by many of the teachers in the school. He practices kendou, and if he sees something he thinks is wrong, he is likely to do something about it in a rather violent and forceful manner.

The play style in AND(X)AS(Y) is a little unusual compared to most boys' love games of this nature, which typically are "choose your own adventure" style games where throughout the story you will get 2-3 different options to choose from, and depending on what choices you make, the story will take different turns that lead to different endings. This game /does/ do that, but in a different manner... Instead of stopping and giving different options, different words/topics in the dialogue will be highlighted in red, and names will be highlighted in green. Showing an interest in different topics will lead to different outcomes.

This layout makes the game a bit difficult for someone who can't read Japanese (such as me!). There are /so many/ different message links, it's impossible to remember what you chose in one game to "backtrack" and chose other options the next time through. Green name links are a bit easier to follow, as you can match them up to the character's shown name when they speak, but it seems just following a specific person's name in the dialogue will not be enough to win them. Therefore, the play seems to be even more "random guessing" than your typical boys' love game.

If you manage to follow the correct topics, then you will get more occurances of the character related to them, and essentially, like most boys' love games, gain CGs of that character and "win" them in the end, finding out that they were the mysterious person who sent the chocolates. There are apparently seven different character endings. After finishing the game, there will be a "Memory" section on the front page that will show you which characters you have won thus far, information on the character, and a few thumbnails of their CGs. They do not list all the CGs you've won full size, which is a bit of a disappointment.

As far as technical issues, I was able to play this game fine on Windows XP with the language set to Japanese. I did get one error box pop-up that would come up seemingly randomly, but after hitting "Okay" the game would play fine. I determined the problem to be with the sound effects: it couldn't play them for some reason, so whenever a sound effect went off, the box would pop up. The simple solution to this? Turn off the sound-effects, as shown below. I will note, however, that when I reinstalled the game later I didn't get any errors, so it may have been a bad install for me the first time.

AGTH Compatibility - AND(X)AS(Y) is completely compatible with Anime Games Text Hooker.

AND(X)AS(Y) Patch [3.57 kb] - A correction patch for Oosawa's scenerio.

AND(X)AS(Y) Diary Save File - A save file that unlocks the Diary in the game. Note that even in the Diary the game does not display all the CGs or at full size.

AND(X)AS(Y) is not a game for everyone... namely, players that can't read Japanese and have little patience. This is definitely a game that is very difficult for the non-Japanese reader just because of the shear amount of different topic options you can chose: backtracking is impossible. You truly have to just "randomly click" your way through the entire game, and often times can run into frustrations like, "How did I meet that guy?" or "Why do I /always/ get the girl at the end?" These are just a few of the frustrations I personally encountered with the game.

I don't want to make it out to be a bad game, but it certainly isn't the best out of ones I have seen, mainly just because the language barrier is literally so crippling it isn't very enjoyable. It also doesn't have a lot of the options one would come to expect from a game of this sort, such as being able to view all previously gained CGs.

The game is also very short: this can be both a good and a bad thing. The nice part is it doesn't take long to just sit down and click your way through a game if you are bored: the game only goes from February 16 - March 22, and it seems to skip some days in the middle. It's a nice quick time-waster (and face it, we all need one of those from time to time). The bad part about this is that with a cast of only seven characters, if one can manage to click their way through to getting all seven, it wouldn't take very long to completely beat the game. However, due to the language barrier, winning all the characters seems almost impossible to me: I've played the game through about 5-10 times and have only managed to win Kawana (who seems to be the "default" if you don't win anyone else) and Fushimi, two rather easy characters.

This game is probably worth a play, as it does have some cute character designs and it's such a smooth and quick play, but without a decent understanding of Japanese, it probably won't hold your interest for long. If you have a better understanding of Japanese, then by all means check out this game, as I'm sure all those text options are much more entertaining when you know what they are and aren't randomly clicking through.

Zepher's Official AND(X)AS(Y) Site (from Archive.org) (Japanese) - The company's site with information on the game.

Disclaimer: All written text and capture guides © Boys' Love Games Headquarters. All pictures and downloads are copyright of their respective companies and artists and are for promotional use only. I am in no way claiming the art as my own, nor am I trying to infringe upon the company's rights. I am trying to promote these games by allowing a foreign audience to see some artwork from the game.