Ayakashi Ninden Kunoichiban (“Mysterious Ninja Legend: Kunoichi Edition”) is a yuri ninja dating simulation, putting you in the role of Kaede Hagakure as she enrolls in a special ninja high school, protecting and potentially romancing three of her classmates. Tsukiha Hisano is her shy childhood friend, Kasumi Fujiki is a tomboy, and Miyuki Tono is the traditionally feminine one.
Rather than picking your actions day-by-day as in Tokimeki Memorial, you schedule your entire week of classes in advance, even allowing you to match your schedule with any of the three girls for extra bonding. Along with typical school studies like language and arithmetic, you also can study jujutsu and assorted other ninja skills. After each day, you can also choose to stay at home, go out to the mall, or visit any of three girls’ homes. After each week, you can also choose to call one of them and even pick one to dream about. Every once in a while you’ll also have written tests to pass based on your stats.
You’ll also occasionally have to play a minigame where you team up with another girl and attempt to secure some location using your ninja abilities. You’re given a map of the area and can choose to move around, choose different methods of attack, and support your partner. If you manage to pass, then your stats go up and you can get a special scene with your partner. The girls have their own affection meters, allowing you to be anything from best friends to romantic lovers.
There were plenty of dating sims during the 32-bit console era, but most of them involved guys chasing after girls, and none others with girls chasing other girls. The ninja school setting is novel too, especially since all of the characters have both their usual school uniforms and alternate ninja outfits. There are more students in the school than just the chosen three, but they’re only non-romanceable side characters.
Ayakashi Ninden Kunoichiban was first released for Windows but is more widely known for its 32-bit console ports. While the later Saturn version appends the “Plus” to the title and includes some added events, it’s a buggy mess that’s far inferior to the PlayStation version. There were also a few drama CDs by the game’s voice actors, which include big names like Ai Orikasa (Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo) as Kasumi, Kikuko Inoue (Bellydandy from Oh My Goddess!) as Miyuki, and Akio Otsuka (Snake from Metal Gear Solid) as Kaede’s dad, the commander of the ninja army.
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