Vanilla Syndrome

~ VANILLA SYNDROME ~

Nichibutsu

CD-ROM / Super CD-ROM

1991

When I think of Nichibutsu, I think of those F1 Circus games that a few folks adore and most of us despise. Having mastered the art of crafting polarizing racing games, Nichibutsu decided to try their hand at the very similar genre of anime-girl mahjong. You play a goober who struts around in a pink vest. He's on his way to meet his girlfriend at an amusement park when he opens up a random door and gets sucked into another dimension where strange women want to play mahjong with him. Let's see what we've got here...

Well, we've got shops run by bunny girls. You pay with carrots, of course. I've never purchased anything.

I won. "Cherry" seems angry about that.

These map parts suck. Basically, you can move the cursor around and click on every single spot hoping to set off an event, or you can make life easy on yourself by using a walkthrough that tells you exactly where to click and use items. This one is good: http://whss.biz/~mrx/game/pce-cd/vanillas/vanichart.html

That's about all there is to the game. Mahjong is mahjong, and the map parts are painless if you use the guide. VS hopes to hook you with its weird girls; if you're looking forward to the next bizarre encounter, you'll keep playing. Some of the artwork is sub-par, and some of the character designs are unimpressive/goofy, but here are a few of the finer moments:

Ah, a rare moment of peace amidst the mahjong wars...