The objective of the player is to increase the score of the protagonist while boosting her stats and getting her an ending with one of the game’s four heroines.
For true yuri enthusiasts, ESCO is a must-play game. However, the general public isn’t really aware of it because it’s practically nonexistent on the market. They didn’t release a digital version.
Thanks to the limited availability of physical copies, the price of the game spiked shortly after its release.
I’m a yuri superfan, but even I neglected to acquire one of the egregiously overpriced copies that scalpers flooded the market with.
It may sound like I’m making excuses, but I had just entered college. I was busy with moving and stuff, so I didn’t have much time or stamina left to devote to my yuri research.
“…Help me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Help me ooooout!”
“Are you a monster with an audio bug?! That was so loud! You nearly shattered my eardrums!”
I’d been using voice chat to beg a fellow yuri enjoyer to lend me their copy, and two years after the initial release, I was finally able to get my hands on the game.
I was proud of my love and admiration for yuri and truly believed it to be life’s greatest gift.
The wait for the shipment to arrive at my home was too agonizing. As soon as it arrived at my local distribution center, I called the delivery people and hopped on my bike.
“Hello? Is this Yama Delivery Service?! My name is Tachibana! You have something for me, right?!”
“Huh? Um, I’m sorry. What?”
“I’m gonna need you to throw it to the address I’m about to give you! Leaving it at the door is fine!”
“Huh? What? No human has arms strong enough to throw it to your address!”
“Don’t wait. I trust you!”
“Huh? No, um, that simply isn’t possible—”
“Doooooooooooooooooooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”
“W-wait a minute. I’m not going to throw it! Please stop screaming like you’re doing a movie trailer!”
In the end, I biked to the distribution center to pick up my package normally. Since I’d calmed down, I got on my hands and knees and bowed to give a sincere apology to the man I’d spoken with on the phone.
And that’s how I finally got my yuri game.
The ESCO package seemed to radiate a brilliant glow, and my vision became blurred by the time I started playing it.
“I…can’t see!”
I shed tears over the beautiful illustrations and devoured the wonderful opening cinematic.
That Sunday was pure bliss.
Even God took Sundays off. As someone recognized by the god of yuri, it was my duty—nay, my God-given right—to take a break and enjoy the game.
I could feel my fatigued body and soul, which were worn out from the troubles of the real world, being rejuvenated.
“All four of the heroines are cute. I can’t wait to watch them get lovey-dovey with the protag.”
My dream is to become a houseplant in an apartment shared by a cute lesbian couple and have them water me and feed me romantic scenes every day.
To be clear, I don’t ship myself with any of the female characters.
I just want to offer them a gentle, guiding hand along their yuri routes from my position as an outsider.
“This game’s more complex than I thought… I’m not sure where to start… And what’s with this system? A magic device…? That’s a little much, isn’t it? At least it looks like I won’t have to worry about the score since it’ll go up no matter what I do.”
Each magical aspect was classified by attribute and ability value. Including the magic device weapon system, the game seemed a lot more flexible than I’d initially expected. To my surprise, this dating sim had a fair amount of RPG elements.
The player needed to plan out the protagonist’s life day by day in order to optimize her stats, get key interactions, and lead her down the path of her happy ending.
The protagonist was free to spend the mornings and afternoons however she pleased, and it was up to the player to plan out her free time as well. The results of the chosen actions were displayed at the end of the day.
Activities such as taking classes at school or practicing magic would increase her parameters, ability values, and overall score.
Events would occur depending on her actions, and the ability values would increase and decrease. But basically, all events were beneficial, so the heroines would start to like you at an accelerated rate.
“This is so easy. It’s about as easy as day-old bathwater is on your skin.”
There was next to no stress at all.
However, depending on the routes you took, the level of challenge could increase dramatically.
There were not only four types of endings for each heroine but also an Adventurer Ending, in which the player becomes known as an adventurer; a Headmaster Ending, in which the player becomes the headmaster of the magic academy; and even a Fall to the Dark Side, in which the player rejects all the heroines and succumbs to malevolence.
No stress, but plenty of substance.
This game probably would have been popular even if it hadn’t been a yuri game. But even then, it also had a unique stress factor.
“Hey, what are you two doing? Let me join you!”
“Argh, there you are, you loser!”
The guy’s name was Hiiro Sanjo, the only male character in the game and the king of all pests.
True to his nature, he said and did things that tore the protagonist and heroines apart.
Most negative occurrences in the game could be traced back to the suspicious blond guy.
“Oh, heading to the dungeon? I’ll go with you!”
“Leave us alooooone! Go to helllll!”
Not only was he incredibly annoying, but he also inserted himself into the characters’ dungeon delves and acted like he belonged there, making it impossible for events with the heroines to occur while he was around. On top of that, he gobbled up a portion of the experience points rewarded for these events.
“What’s going on? Hey, what are you two doing? I smell something fishy. Don’t leave me out!”
“Read the goddamn mood! Die!”
I now knew why this game failed to take off in terms of popularity, only gaining a cult following at best.
Him.
This guy irked the hell out of me.
He annoyed me to the point that I wanted to write him out of the game even if I had to give up half of my remaining lifespan to do so. He was a pest—the natural-born enemy of every person who hated seeing a guy anywhere near a yuri romance.
Naturally, the heroines despised him as if he were some venomous creature seeking only to corrupt and despoil. But he was clearly incredibly resilient because their open hatred of him didn’t seem to trouble him in the slightest.
Since romantic relationships between women are the driving force of any yuri game, there is hardly a need for male characters. Even if one does show up, they’re usually just background characters, like a random enemy or obstacle.
Most male characters that appear in yuri projects are no better than land mines, and this is true for more than games. But if the average male character were a land mine, Hiiro was more of an air strike. He was such an ugly bastard that the back of the game jacket should have given a warning, like, Some of the characters depicted may cause psychological damage.
“N-no, no… I’d be putting my life in danger if I kept playing any longer… I need yuri to cleanse my mind…or I won’t be human anymore…”
This guy was the sole reason I had to tear myself away from the game and play a different yuri title on occasion.
The only saving grace is that in every ending, Hiiro dies a tragic death. There’s a mental palate cleanser where he carries an imaginary coffin on his shoulders and congratulates you from the shadows.
ESCO is so compelling.
The sheer volume of events keeps the game progressing at a healthy clip.
In the blink of an eye, day turned to night and then back to day again. Hiiro aside, I continued to lose myself in the game, cutting back on sleep as much as my body would allow.
A few days later, after getting all the endings, collecting all the event scenes, and devouring every last bit of main-story and side-story text, I finally decided to get a good night’s rest.
“…Maybe I’ll go out and get some dinner before hitting the sack.”
With an appetite that exceeded my desire to sleep, I left the house and strolled over to a nearby convenience store.
As I was walking along the side of a residential street, fighting the drowsiness clawing at my eyelids, a car barreled down the narrow road.
“Whoa! That was too close!”
In my hungry haze, I had barely managed to dodge the car. It was hard to believe that idiots would speed even in a place like this, but it was something I’d grown used to.
I quickened my pace back to the main street, and my eyes caught the silhouettes of two people ahead of me. There were two girls walking shoulder to shoulder—not too close, but not too far from each other. Their bodies were almost touching.
I couldn’t help but stare.
“……”
My yuri sense began to tingle. I quickly held my breath and made myself invisible. The two girls closed the distance between them at a tantalizingly slow pace, gently intertwined their fingers, and eventually took a firm grasp of each other’s hands.
A wide grin wormed its way onto my face as I glued my back to a wall and blended into the background.
What a beautiful, sunny day today was. Life is wonderful. Stop the hands of time. You’re both radiant. No amount of flowery verbiage that came to mind could do the scene before me justice.