Missed Classic - Gram Cats (グラムキャッツ) - Won and Summary

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Despite this joke, I did not get plastered during the playing or writing of this review, though I probably should have.

Right, let's get this over with. Apologies for the delays, half of that is down to an awful Japanese game I played on my own blog, which, funnily enough uses more complex language than this adult game, and half is...well, you'll see.

I actually had no idea where to go after last time. I seemed to have exhausted the dormatory, while I still couldn't do anything at the Academy. Eagle HQ, meanwhile, seemed to be in a state of not quite repeating what was earlier but repeating it enough that I was so completely lost I had no idea what to do. Sayaka can drink the psychic juice again, and do the cards again, but yeah, hahaha, still have to use save states. 

So I have to explore the dorms again. Miri says the same things over again; Rui says the same things over again. I'm going around in circles. Oh, there is one new thing...I can't enter pale pink hair chick's room. Still nothing anywhere else.

Save me, oh wise and noble walkthrough. Let's see, go to the commandant's room, then enter...at which point Sayaka is apparently teleported back to her room and can magically enter the academy. Crap. Am I sure I hit everything in the dorms? Yep. Oh, god, I didn't really want to do this, but there is ONE thing I can still do, I can redo Sayaka drinking the juice and doing the card training. This time the cards were nearly always identical to the starting card. Am I just supposed to win the card game as Sayaka gets better with her abilities or is this just luck?

I don't know, but what I do know is that no matter how many times I win the game nothing seems to change elsewhere. So basically nothing is happening, I have no idea how to proceed and the game is over. I should end it here, but I had to check the other versions. Er...that meant the MSX version, I'm pretty sure the PC-98 version's disks are borked in an unfixable way. I'm sure someone is saying "But Morpheus, even though you found out the borked music was because you were playing with what amounted to a stock MSX, you still can't save." True, but since then I've made a blank floppy, so I can save to that. (IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2023)

Oh, yeah, I kinda need to get save states working for that card mini-game. Well, what I was doing was using a Windows emulator. I'm not really sure why the only issue with that emulator is that it can't save the save states, but whatever. After a few rousing sessions of "where the hell do you want these stupid files" (in which the answer was my home folder, despite the emulator having it's own folders that are perfectly fine) I have a perfectly working MSX emulator. Why now? Better now then later when there's a game I'm not about to tear into like a Mortal Kombat fatality.

The face of absolute rage

Now, I was going to gloss over everything that happened in the MSX version, except that like in the maze at the start, this game has to add some absolute trash to the controls because having movement in a dungeon that works smoothly is for sharks. The control scheme here, unlike in the other versions, has the control scheme of when you're in a room. Fine, whatever. That isn't the worst part. No, the worst part is that this movement is like in King's Quest, where once you press the movement button you keep moving until you press another button. Only because moving around is another menu and you can't press the same button twice to stop it's worse. Actually, the whole movement by menu thing makes me ask WHY WOULD YOU DESIGN A SYSTEM LIKE THIS!!?!?!?!?!?

The cherry on the toilet is that whenever you look at a door, it just says it's a door. I KNOW THAT YOU IDIOT! WHAT DOOR NUMBER IS IT!?! OH, BUT WE CAN TELL YOU THAT IT'S AN ELEVATOR! PRESS THE CALL BUTTON quietly AND WAIT FOR THE ELEVATOR! I SURE AM GLAD TO BE PLAYING THE FIRST VIDEO GAME EVER, BECAUSE WHAT KIND OF IDIOT WOULD DESIGN A SYSTEM LIKE THIS IF IT WASN'T THE FIRST. YARGH!

Oh, wait, last time I thought Miri had two giant speakers, she just has three monitors. Surprisingly modern. I still haven't bothered working on making gifs of this crap, but whenever Miri here talks, her lips move weird, like her upper lips goes up, then her lower lip goes down. I'm sorry, I thought the people making this cared about how the game looked? This isn't just Miri, everyone talks like that. It's creeping me out.

Frankly, this game is such a bizarre nest of contradictions. Everyone loves it (EVEN THIS VERSION) yet it plays poorly (ESPECIALLY THIS VERSION). Things look so off at times I question how this was sold in a real store, yet sometimes I'm stunned by how nice certain parts look. Like there are easily a half dozen images I could put here, in-between Miri and getting back to the point I left off. Oh, yeah, miss purple hair mysteriously has the music that played when the dead body was on-screen in the intro. Suspicious.

Then I enter the training room. Or the athletics room, since the so-called development (in Japanese) room is the training (in English) room, according to the nameplate, while the training room is the athletics room. I hope that makes sense, because apparently these guys English is worse than my Japanese. The woman instead of just being there, tells me about another mini-game, which I play with the SD and ZXC keys.

IT'S ****ING WHACK-A-MOLE. Even discounting this terrible offense, it's a pretty crappy implimentation, because you basically just hammer keys and there are no real animations. God, I hope this isn't going to be something important. Still, I can ignore it for now, even if I probably shouldn't.

As I have my conversation with the purple hair chick again, I notice she's bringing up things that she really shouldn't be bringing up. Like Miri...so...is she a member of Eagle? This character is getting weirder and weirder. Judging by the next conversation with Miri, I'm getting the impression that purple hair chick is an alien and Sayaka thinks she's connected to the disappearances. Miri then says that she's still too weak to detect that, and she should speak to the commander. Wait, did I just screw something up in the PC-88 version or did it break? Because I'm pretty sure I don't remember this from the PC-88 version.

Miri continues by saying we should investigate this further, people from another planet, make war and investigate, if we are able to. HEY, WE'VE FINALLY FOUND THE PLOT! HUZZAH! Back to Rui...and Sayaka just asks her if she has ESP. Then she replies with a bunch of words I'm going to assume mean yes. I'll only find out if she actually can hours later whenever it's relevant to the plot. Then they say their goodbyes and I go to leave. Sayaka can't leave, Rui won't let her. So they say their goodbyes again and nothing changes. I get out by pressing strike. Okay...Enter again and the exact same sequence happens.

Now I'm back where I was...so do you think I can actually do anything I couldn't do before now? No. Purple hair lady's room can't be entered, Miri says the same old, and the school is still unenterable. Oh, but this version has the hangout location, and it doesn't hang the game this time. Right, well, we know the PC-88 version isn't technically borked. Probably.

Since this has shifted from "playing this because no one cares" to "playing this thoroughly so no one else makes the same mistake" I'm going to restart, follow the walkthrough precisely, and see if that changes anything. Despite the fact that I spent all that time getting the MSX version working, that Whack-a-Mole mini-game complicates things. I don't know what exactly I'm aiming for there. So I replayed the PC-88 version.

Spoilers, I guess

And it works. I meet Jobu again, and he says Sayaka's training is complete. Now she can transform into a cat. How he knows this is beyond my understanding. Like an actual cat, not a catgirl or anything like that. Hang on, for two reasons. One, is this game really so obtuse as to require a precise series of actions in a system where going forward to begin seems to be spamming dialog options hoping the game advances? I fail to see why I was stuck in an unwinnable state for pressing talk, hear, talk, hear, as opposed to talk, talk, hear, hear. Because that, as far as I can tell, is the only difference between following the walkthrough and playing normally. I'd like to see someone who complains about adventure game logic try this game.

But reading what Jobu has to say has me curious, he mentions training and development, meaning both rooms. So I go back to that whack-a-mole game. To advance, it seems I should only hit certain animals, I.E., not the cats. After a few times, restarting whenever I hit more than a couple of cats, I win with a score of 33 hits and 2 cats. That is a win, it's a different reaction than whenever I just try to bruteforce it. This, and doing the same conversation with Miri again solves everything. For some reason.

Now the only two places I can go to are the Academy and the hallway. Five and a half hours in I've gotten to the point the game actually advertises as being the game. The Academy is just as big as Eagle HQ. We've got two classrooms, a pool, a nurse's office, a toilet and a hallway. All the rooms a good school needs. I can't do anything in one classroom yet, and the nurse's office doesn't have anything. So the hallway.

Doors don't usually shimmer like that, I guess

Oh, good, it's not another dungeon. Curious, I have a change form option here, but not elsewhere. Anyway, if I look twice I see a mysterious room. It seems like there's nothing I can do here yet, as its locked and if I strike it, Sayaka says the glass isn't softening or something.

The toilet is in front of me -Sayaka, master of observation

...There are a boy's toilet and a girl's toilet, huh? I guess that makes sense, it's just a little bit weird seeing one in an all-girl's school. Interestingly, there's some text to the left, like I can read it, it's smaller than the font, which is hardly sufficient anyway. I can't do anything but enter.

BUAHAHAHAHAHAHA. In the future, we will all poop in the fridge. If you listen or speak here, you get funny noises. Imagine how tasteless this game would be if it had sounds. There is nothing else I can do here now. Nor is there anything I can do at the pool. So, classroom 2.

Wow, people! Who are actually...no wait, nevermind, they look awful.

This is someplace that looks like something is about to happen. Maybe Sayaka is finally introduced properly to purple hair chick? Maybe someone else? No, everyone is talking and nobody can hear Sayaka. I can't even strike someone to get any attention. And that's the last room. Wow, somehow this game has disappointed me again. I go around again, making sure I do everything twice and examining all options after any chances. Nothing.

So I go back to Sayaka's room, and I figure out that Sayaka got a telephone call. Not because the game really told me as much as I spammed options and got it. It's Miri, I think she's coming to get something. Or I have to go to her and give her something. Down through the dormatory again.

Miri called Sayaka down to discuss a rumor about a forbidden and secret room. The dialog loops. THE DIALOG LOOPS FOR NO GOOD REASON. OH, BUT IF I PRESS TAKE MIRI STARTS BABBLING ABOUT HOW SAYAKA IS STEALING HER CLOTHES. I'M GLAD WE HAD THIS CONVERSATION. She even admonishes Sayaka for doing this if you hit listen again? This isn't even the way it's supposed to go. Somewhere along the line I apparently got myself into an unwinnable situation again. At this point I'd be better off if I just translated the walkthrough into English, give it a -1/100 and called it a review.

Well, that doesn't fix it, which is a great sign, but the dialog changes if Sayaka decides to look twice like a rational adult. It turns out that Rui is here somehow. Apparently a female pupil is here on the first floor. Why are they concerned with this? Uh...people are going in and out and strange sounds are happening. Sayaka is going to be the one to investigate.

There is no one else on the floor. Figuring that this game is basically lying to me at this point, I guess I should just try purple hair chick again. I walk up to what I think is her room, knock and enter.

I can't show you what was there, but let me just say that there's a dude and a woman who most definitely does not have purple hair, she has green hair. So the game did lie to me. Or looking twice, hang on, that looks like the same woman as before....hang on, did they manage to make a character look the same twice? Obviously the implication here is that, in a SHOCKING TWIST, the purple haired chick is an alien.

Sayaka talks, then listens, and the scene changes away from the duo, with purple hair/green hair chick staring at me. It's actually creepy, but that might be partially because I was listening to something other than the soundtrack. It's some generic danger theme when I switch back to the game's soundtrack. I get the feeling something bad might happen for once if I fail to do this right, so I attack. Nothing happens.

The lady is annoyed that Sayaka entered the room. Sayaka replies with "What to do...?" This would be hilarious or badass if she didn't say that before. Nevermind, we're stuck in an endless loop again. If I look, for some reason, Sayaka apologies, says the door lock is the reason why she entered and the nameless lady seems to be relatively okay with that. Sayaka then can only leave. Nevermind people, the game's boring again.

The game doesn't automatically take me out, possibly because some dumbass couldn't even be bothered to put the talking option in talk and not look, and then return. Not knock, because, I dunno. Once I return there's a shot I guess I could show but probably shouldn't, the dude is just there on the bed. Right, let's see what Tokyo Sayaka Keishi has to say. (5 CAPs for guessing the reference)

She's reasonably sure it's a man in bad shape. Okay...then I speak and Sayaka determines it's a dead body without blood. Okay, good, we have determined that purple hair chick is a killer and we should keep a close eye on her...which we were already doing. Back to Miri...who has nothing new to say. Wow, Eagle makes the ATF look positively competent. I'm just supposed to ignore that someone got killed? This story is becoming non-sense, like trying to listen to someone tell a long and complicated story after a bottle of baijiu.

This mysteriously causes classroom A back at the school to become inhabited, and if I press strike twice a different pink haired chick pops up. This conversation is just so annoying to proceed, because it looks like the same conversation you'd have if you just start talking randomly. It doesn't help that the first response you get is her saying "I don't care!". I'd appreciate this game's desire to throw acting like an idiot back in Sayaka's face if the game didn't railroad you for it.

 I'd elaborate on this, but I don't care to for this game

So Sayaka asks her about gossip...and she disappears. This is, in fact, what I'm supposed to do. I am then supposed to strike twice in classroom B.

Laugh it up now, this might be the only time you ever seen an image of this chick.

This spawns a yellow-haired...er...blonde woman. She already knows Sayaka's name, somehow. Apparently we're looking for Miri now. This is actually all I can do at the school for now. Back to wandering around the dorm again. Miri says something about rumors of a secret room, but I think I already saw that. It is, it's the same as the last time. The corpse is even still there. This is like a bad JRPG.

After some seemingly non-sensical greeting, I find another room, by randomly walking through the entire building, again. This time, it's a new woman, in the same room as the one the dead body was in. (there is no dead body here) I would show you, but she's wearing what could be described as a sexy mummy outfit.

This is Moorii, or Marley. Marley, really? Once again, another character seems to remark on Sayaka's weird "hobby". She's busy right now and we leave. I checked the walkthrough at this point, because I didn't want to wander around only to find out I had to reenter here. No, but my next room is one I already went through.

This one has a creepy Egyptian-looking lady with the social mores to match, so no screenshot of her either. (she even has ears) Wait, is this all of a sudden developing some kind of theme? Well, it doesn't really matter because gameplay-wise this is pretty much the objectively worst adventure game of all time.

Now you'd think this would be a creepy event, especially since they're reusing the corpse room for the third time, but nope, happy music plays in the background, at least before I mute the game again and go back to metal for a semblance of sanity.

This is Jean, and the second time I press listen the screen shifts away from the usual first person view to a view of the two of them. I see where this is going. Which is a good thing because the actual dialog isn't getting to whatever point it's trying to get to. Jean compliments Sayaka and Sayaka brings up that Marley has a secret. (Marley did not mention Jean)

After a long and confusing conversation that didn't say anything, Sayaka is unceremoniously kicked to the curb. Back to Marley. Why? I don't know. Another long and confusing conversation happens, at the end of which, Marley turns into an alien. Which actually works against the central concept of the game, because alien Marley is pretty creepy, some kind of fanged mouth instead of cheeks. If this were a straight sci-fi/horror game it would work though. Anyway, time to go back to school.

Here I have a conversation I didn't actually pay attention to with some dude who looks quite a lot like that kid from the Eagle dungeon, but probably isn't because he speaks in katakana. Apparently I'm stealing a keycard from him, but how you're supposed to figure this out considering the subject has never been brought up before is a guess for someone who actually cares.

the cat slowly walks across several screens

You're supposed to perform a series of seemingly random actions in the hallway, culminating with Sayaka finally turning into a cat. Which then causes a slow, boring animation of a cat walking across the screen.

Now we're in a nice office, the principal's office I guess. You just look until Sayaka gets another key card in a desk. Then if you want you can witness a conversation in another room because you spend 6000 or so yen on this and you better get your money's worth. Not really sure it's worth it if you see it through a keyhole. Then there's another pointless exercise I really don't want to get into.

I was going to say this room is drawn well, but there are no lines seperating the walls.

This leads me into the last time I have to explore the dormatory, I have to enter Rui's room to discover...that she's missing. She was missing hours ago you stupid donkey of a game. This should have been done hours earlier. Back to school, transform into a cat again, then enter the principal's office.

Here, we find Rui having her Geneva convention rights violated through that same keyhole. We have to rescue her! Anyway, back to class. The walkthrough tells me to talk to the lady in class B again, the blonde, yet her conversation is just a repeat from earlier. So I try the other classroom, that loops.

This turns out to be a bad sign. Because now nothing happens when I try the commands the walkthrough tells me should be done now. Well, that's actually a pretty big problem, because I'm just a hair's wideth away from the end of the game. Right, well, I haven't been keeping a ton of saves here, and I tried reloading to before seeing Rui twice, but nothing changed. Back to the PC-88 version, making sure to follow that walkthrough to a fault. (I note, in case it isn't clear, that there are considerable differences between versions, so there's probably some minor bit of detail I missed because it's not like the game ever specifies how to actually find any information short of just spamming commands)

There are a lot of graphical differences between these versions, and not just the shading. Characters return to what they normally look like in this version, I.E., always off-model between graphics.

I think I figured out where the MSX version went wrong though. Remember that kid who looked like Doron I mentioned? Well, it turns out that it isn't look like, it is, I just handled it poorly. Or the version changed in a way I couldn't adapt to with the walkthrough.

I realize something as I return to the point I left off. The principal, the guy violating Rui's Geneva Convention rights, is a dude. I thought the aliens in this game were some kind of psycho asari-esque creatures? I guess he could always be a Quisling, but...eh...the game didn't think about it either.

What in the actual heck is this image?

This is what should have happened a hour ago. This is Miri, you might be confused because Miri has brown hair. They discuss what they should do to save Rui, with Miri suggesting they talk to the woman in the nurse's office. Holy crap, someone is actually mentioning what I should do next!

Sayaka converses with the woman who was in the nurse's office the entire game. I'm not really sure how this conversation is supposed to flow the way it does in the finished game, but whatever. Now Sayaka has the key to the forbidden room.

The final confrontation. Shame I can't show you any image, because for once the artists aren't being lazy. For some reason, the artist here does a better job on the dude than on the woman. Curious. Oh, wait, the principal is Jobu! I wasn't expecting that. This doesn't really make any sense. (I also don't care) He seems to be brainwashed, judging by Sayaka's statements. Or not, because he turns into a weird monster with bubbly skin.

Rui tells Sayaka to transform, and now Sayaka turns into a catgirl...for a reason I don't understand. (I also don't care) Sayaka tries to fight the monster, only for her to get within it's grasp. Eventually for all her psychic might, Sayaka ends the fight by biting the monster's tail. This is the final blow that brings Jobu back or kills it or whatever. Sayaka and Rei laugh at something while some dude pervs on Rei. The end.

Who are these people?

This Session: 6 hours 30 minutes
Final time: 14 hours 00 minutes

Do we really need a summary? I can sum up my opinion in one gif.

Puzzles and Solvability

Let's look at this from the point of the one constant mini-game, the card game. You play as a supposed psychic who has great hidden power. You do not have psychic abilities. You have to figure out what card you're supposed to get. This might very well have a logic to it, but even after trying to figure it out, I just cheated past it. The game basically expects you to have real psychic powers.

Let's talk about cruelty in adventure games for a moment. In western adventure games, there are two reasons why a game would put the player in an unwinnable situation, the developers are cruel, see Horrorsoft and Sierra, the developers are incompetent or missed some bizarre sequence of events. This even has a scale, thought up by Andrew Plotkin*. This, I suspect, is the latter. It is by far the cruelest example by far, something that could be described by the unofficial Hell rating.

This game is honestly about as unplayable as an adventure game as possible. You have to pick out seemingly random sequences of dialog to advance and getting them in the wrong order puts you in an unwinnable state.

0 only because I can't give a -1. I can't, right? I feel like we should be bumping some games up a point. Yeah, sure, whatever, some game's mediocre, but it is really so bad that without the use of a walkthrough, the only way to win is to measure out how many times you're selecting somewhat arbitrary dialog choices?

Interface and Inventory

I don't know how you mess up a menu system like this, but they did it. Every version has too many commands for the menu at some point, which is the least objectionable thing. Why do we need speak and listen? Why? Why? Why? Why? What's worse is the dungeon parts, in which the game slows to a crawl so you can walk around some area the authors put far too much effort into making without questioning why they needed it.

The PC-88 version specifically has an issue with advancing dialog, the game just stops until you press space for some reason. Not unique is the weird keyhole part where you have to look through a keyhole which makes getting whatever arbitrary number of looks in annoying to count.

For some reason, despite having no real inventory, we still get items occasionally. It's far more confusing than it should be, because now I have to wonder if I had the item or not.

2 (Subtract one point if you're playing the MSX version)

Story and Setting

The story starts off fine enough, but quickly turns into a series of vaguely connected events that barely made any sense to me. Why was Jobu an alien at the end? What was any of this?

I for one am glad we get all the excruciating detail of Eagle HQ and the dormitory, but only a handful of rooms at the school...because there's some relief from the endless walking around in a circle. Literally, the dorm is a giant pillar for some reason.

1

Sound and Graphics

The only sound is music, and it's fine. Nothing special but nothing bad. It has that characteristic of Japanese game music to be extremely repetitive though.

Graphically, it's only good on a superficial basis. Characters don't look the same from one image to the next, with only a few unimportant side characters being consistent. Weird blinking and talking animations make it look worse, rather than better. There's also this weird habit for the "conversation" screens to have hilariously bad images. I'm not really sure the artists have that good a grasp on anatomy either. 

Backgrounds are mostly solid, I liked the outline and solid color design, but there are parts I have issues with. Lines missing here and there, which make the rooms look weird. Well, when you notice.

4 (Add 1 point if you're playing the MSX version)

Environment and Atmosphere

  Command? Look

  It's a school.

That's basically what you get whenever you look. Then you get something that seems completely unrelated when you look twice. I got used to it, but it's complete non-sense.

As cryptic as everything else, as informative as everything else, as non-sensical as everything else.

The atmosphere is that of an unpleasant fever dream you can't quite wake up from.

1

Dialogue and Acting

Uhm, don't you know, though that may be, the thing is, isn't it? That's basically a lot of the dialog here. Meandering and unable to get to the point. It seems like none of these dialogs ever reach the point they were supposed to reach. Perhaps the points were hidden in such a way that I was unable to understand them. Even if that's true, I think that's a very valid complaint, your dialog sucks so much people are unable to actually play the game anyway.

1

2+1+4+1+1=0/0.6=15-3 is 12. Congratulations, LeftHandedMatt, you got the closest to the correct score with 10. You're a winner...unlike the rest of us.

I do not recommend this game. I do not like this game. Even as an exercise in practicing Japanese, this wasn't great. Objectively, this is probably the worst adventure game ever made, and I'm not saying that lightly. Even if you take into account criteria that for something to truly be bad it has to be produced by someone of note, hence how Blood 2 and Fallout 3 end up with the worst label, this fits. While these guys lack the true popularity of those game's developers, it seems a pretty safe bet that these guys had some kind of popularity in ye olde days.

Japanese reviews are nearly all positive, with even ones noting out the flaws still praising it. What are "fish-eyed women" and a girl peeing enough to overwhelm any of the awful gameplay? Do Japanese nerds have such low standards that even if a game is so badly designed that the simple act of walking down a hallway turns into an action sequence it doesn't matter because boobs? Frankly, I wouldn't recommend this if Boris Vallejo did the art and the story was written by the resurrected H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe.

Dott Kikaku may or may not be back eventually. They have at least 5 other adventure games, plus some weird games released five years later which seem to just have them as a publisher for some reason. There's a Gram Cats 2, in case you didn't already know that, and that's some kind of weird adventure/RPG hybrid which I'm sure I don't want to touch with a ten foot pole. Why release diarrhea on the carpet in one room when you can release it in two rooms? But witnessing Dott Kikaku doing that all randomly and ruining my best dress shoes, I'm going to stay away from their house for as long as I can.

Going away from the game and moving onto the grand picture, I'm going to be playing these Japanese games chronologically rather than randomly. The method for my madness with this was that I presumed this would be more normal in terms of Japanese writing, with all the lovely Kanji that every Japanese learner hates with the force of a thousand suns. It didn't really have them in either version I could actually play. I could, of course, just pull out more recent games from 1992, but at that point we're kind of getting away from the chronological aspect of the blog and just playing random trash when I should be playing random trash in order. I kid, every game I know of from 1982 is better than this game. Every other game I've played on this blog is better than this game.

This is pretty much the last entry I'm going to write until Halloween. I would start another game but I doubt I can finish it in time and I don't want to cut off in the middle. Especially since one of the games next month is going to be Japanese.