Do I know how to pronounce the above? Absolutely not. Do I even know what it means? Not a chance in hell. But I always wanted to play one of these Japanese games on Xbox Live Indie Games. I’m lucky enough as it is that the developer kohei offers English in-game, but even then I don’t know what the hell the name of this game is. All I know is that it’s a puzzle game involving cute anime/manga girls.

Apart from flipping panels over to reveal a picture of each girl and add it to your gallery while listening to J-pop, there’s really not much else to 萌めくり. It has pretty colors and a very catchy pop song — exactly what I had imagined I would come across in-game. But the fact that I don’t understand jackshit past the menu really annoys the hell out of me. I don’t mean to sound like an ignorant American (as so many of us do to other countries) but I don’t even know how to fiddle around with the settings or…or know the title of the game I’m playing.

So what’s the deal with Microsoft allowing these Japanese companies to release games that we essentially have no idea how to understand, let alone play? For all we know, kohei could be a Japanese corporation out to make a few dollars simply by selling hentai-like pictures on a platform that won’t ban them. But maybe I’m taking it overboard. After all, 萌めくり isn’t exactly porn. Likewise, I don’t see it sending any bad messages to gamers (but that may be because I can’t understand them).

As a puzzle game, there’s very little to 萌めくり. As I mentioned before, you flip over panels until revealing the entire picture. For the trial version, I was only able to play on the easy difficulty level…and even if I couldn’t, I’m generally not good with these types of games in the first place. The set time for the trial demo is annoying as well, as it kept cutting into my gameplay. But at the same time, I can’t fault Microsoft for doing what they do best.

In conclusion, 萌めくり is unlike most other games I’ve come across on the XBLIG, but it’s really not much of a game at all. It seems more like a cash-in than anything else. But it’s not exactly as if kohei claimed the effort was some sort of elaborate gameplay experience. It’s very straightforward: open up these pictures of cartoon girls and then look at them. Some people might enjoy that for the 80 MSP ($1), but I’ll move on to actual games, please.

[Try/Buy on XBLIG.]

[This is not a review. This is a first impressions piece based on less than an hour of gameplay.]

Screenshots: