Since their first release in 2005, Nitro+chiral have been known to push boundaries in the Boys Love (BL) genre by tackling dark themes and often twisted story elements with a high standard of CG work. Many adults now in their mid-20s or early 30s can probably still remember when most BL games like Togainu no Chi or Silver Chaos were only available in English via free fan translations. Those were only available on old file sharing forums (aarinfantasy being a notorious site for such).
In recent years, with the less conservative attitude Western audiences have towards sexual content, JAST USA began releasing these classic BL visual novels as officially licensed products in English. This is great for many old fans wanting to replay their favorite story, and ushers in a whole new wave of fans. While many may recognize the Nitro+chiral name from their biggest hit, DRAMAtical Murder, the first title of theirs that JAST USA released was its predecessor, sweet pool; a blood-soaked story of love and humanity. Interesting enough, this title happens to be one of the few that never received a fan translation to begin with.
Without further ado, it’s time to dive deep into Nitro+chiral’s 2008 classic boy’s love horror story — sweet pool.
The story starts off with the introduction of the main character, Sakiyama Youji, just coming back to school after the Golden Week vacation. As the school days tick by, he starts to have hallucinations of shapeless clumps of flesh and pools of blood. These events later take a dark turn for the worst and run amock of his school life. As Youji works to uncover the origin of his grotesque visions he later begins to question if he is even truly human.
The main character may be very clear, but between daily events players get a small break to see what the other characters have going on in their own lives. These little insights allow for a decent breather if players find themselves not liking Youji so much, but more so allows us to get a better feel for which character’s route we may want to lean towards. What’s more, while most visual novels are told from a first-person point of view, sweet pool is told completely from the third-person.
Speaking of the decision-making process, sweet pool uses a non-traditional form of storytelling. At times, the game will freeze and the player is presented with a set of bright blue veins framing over one corner, and bright red veins framing over the opposite. This is when you’ll be making choices (and that includes the demo choice at the very start of the game). While all the blue choices represent logic and reason, red choices represent instinct and guts. This is interesting because the standard for visual novels, including Nitro+chiral’s previous works, is for choices to include 2-4 dialogue or action options. With the normal setup, players are sometimes able to accurately predict how a selection can affect the story’s route. However, with sweet pool’s options representing only general behavior, there is no real way to predict how a situation can turn out. The player never gets even so much as a hint. This can at times feel annoying, but allows for a much more raw style of storytelling.
Like with any BL game, you can expect multiple romance options for Youji. First up is Mita Makoto, a light-hearted, cheerful classmate who extends his friendship to Youji right off the bat. Then there is Okinaga Zenya, the childish, often psychotic student who is a grade ahead of Youji, but knows him from being in the same class during previous years, until Youji got held back, that is. Finally, there is Shironuma Tetsuo, a near-robotic classmate with a stoic look on his face and a cold tone in his voice, both of which never falter.
Although there are three romantic options spanning over six possible routes, it is clear the game tries to force the player into a route with Tetsuo from the start, as Tetsuo has four of the six endings. What’s more, if players alternate between logic or instinct reactions even once they will immediately be locked out of Makoto or Zenya’s route, which is hardly anything to be sad about, as both routes lead to early endings, leaving a lot of unanswered questions. The only reason to bother going down either of these routes is because two routes are locked until you’ve uncovered all other endings. In an ironic twist, you actually learn more about the two side romantic options if you diverge from their paths altogether.
The story of the game moves at an almost begrudgingly slow pace, often with repeating events happening every other day with little to no new insight of Youji’s hallucinations until the last 3 hours of one of Tetsuo’s routes. By the time you see him hiding out in a bathroom stall for the 3rd time, you’ll most likely start to wonder just how much of this game’s text you can skip through before something significant occurs. That is not to say that there’s nothing to enjoy until the later part of the game. Besides the daily cutaways mentioned, one thing that Kabura Fuchii always manages to deliver — as the main scenario writer for all of Nitro+chiral’s games — is a certain charm, making even the most domestic acts of daily life (such as lunch with friends, a hospital visit, or a train ride) feel whimsical and imaginative. Seiji Onitsuka’s vibrant artwork illustrates these scenes perfectly.
The real letdown, however, is more so to do with how the story ends right as it feels it’s reaching potential to steamroll forward into a much longer plot. Ultimately, you’ll be left with a lot of what-ifs, no matter which ending you get. Although the game’s CG art is beautiful, there’s less CG compared to other titles (even after you patch in the content removed for the Steam version). You’ll be reading most content while staring at 3D rendered school gates, classrooms, bars, and cloud images the majority of the time with the occasional recycled character portrait. Although none of this is JAST USA’s fault, Nitro+chiral definitely could have done more with it, given that the scenario writer and artist are still presently working together, and sweet pool was released in Japan on the PSVita to commemorate its 10th anniversary in May 2018. All in all, there’s a lot of material in sweet pool that feels like it was a missed opportunity for an expansion.
While long-time fans of Nitro+chiral will be glad for the opportunity to finally play sweet pool in English, the game feels like a disappointment. If nothing else, with sweet pool finished, JAST USA has reported on their site that translations for Togainu no Chi, Lamento -BEYOND THE VOID-, DRAMAtical Murder, and Nitro+chiral’s upcoming title Slow Damage are all in the works. It’ll be a treat to finally get to play (or replay) all upcoming titles with an official English translation at long last.
sweet pool is available now on Steam alongside a free demo, with removed sexual content purchasable to patch in for an additional five dollars from JAST USA’s official store. Or, you can simply buy the full version, no patchwork needed.
