CAL III

~ CAL III ~

Birdy Soft / NEC Avenue

Super CD-ROM

1994

Unlike its predecessor, CAL III isn't littered with potential Game Over choices. In fact, I suffered only one Game Over, which happened very late in the adventure when I was answering a Sphinx's questions. There may be others (the battle with a goofy Hydra being one potential spot of doom), but I've never encountered them.

It's nice not having to endure the frustration of replaying segments just to reach a decisive question again, but now there's even less reason to pay attention to what's actually going on. But then, there just isn't much going on in this game anyway.

What you experience here is more of an "adventure" than the straightforward sequence of confrontations in CAL II: rather than simply walking a path and meeting up with girls in ridiculous situations, you tour a variety of places and, well, just keep on picking from the available choices. There's seldom any reason for caution when making your selections, since the chances of blundering into a Game Over are so low. You'll run into a variety of characters, from scheming deities to Alice (in Wonderland), but very little happens aside from long stretches of talking, most of which take place as you look at boring, redundant desert backdrops.

Sometimes something funny happens, but usually I find myself struggling just to stay awake. CAL III is incredibly short and quite uneventful, and contrary to what most players would likely expect, it doesn't present much "erotic" stuff at all.