Yukkuri Panic: Escalation Review

Title: Yukkuri Panic: Escalation (エスカレーション～狂愛のフーガ～ & ゆーくりパニック エスカレーション)
Release date: 2007-08-31 & 2008-06-07 (2011-06-30 in English)
Developer: Rolling Star
English publisher: Peach Princess

If years of watching porn movies have taught me anything it's that a visit to the hospital will include a mandatory blowjob from a big breasted blond nurse, police precincts are actually pleasure dens for the sadomasochistic clientele and all-girl Catholic schools are obviously places for the purest lesbian love to blossom.

The body is randy, the mind is all set,
The girls are all ready and in your seat you'll get wet.
Curvaceous bodies in degrees of undress,
And we'll all be drooling to maidens in distress.

The welcome committee.

My lame attempts at poetry notwithstanding, Yukkuri Panic: Escalation is a game (or rather a collection of two games) published in English by Peach Princess. The first of the games is Escalation: Wild Love Fugue. The main protagonist is Rie whose heart has been broken when her teacher whom she had a crush on showed more interest in MILFs than in lolis. So of and goes she to escape to Emerald City a remote Catholic all-girl school. We all know how this is gonna end. Rie will mend her heart while discovering the first budding blossoms of a pure romance with her school friends... not. Holy Cow! Let me banish your illusions - this isn't a pure love yuri game, but a hardcore S&M bondage femmeslash snuff... Or something like that. But let me not get ahead of myself.

So, Rie. She is an innocent and naive girl with no yuri experience, that falls into the hands of two nefarious delinquents Midori and Naomi upon the arrival at school. Her first experience seeing a girl on girl action is obviously disgust, which converted into the Rule of Hentai means that "it's so wrong, but I'm flooding like a broken Iowa Dam". There is not much to say about her. This being a nukige, Rie (despite having a "paper doll") is more of a blank slate for us to fill than an actual fleshed-out character, but we don't mind. Her disposition changes wildly depending on which route we are on.

Everything will be OK, pet. Doctor Dolittle is here.

Midori has a shorter of the two routes and it's not a True one, but it's still very interesting. You can consider this an evil route and Midori is definitely more menacing than Naomi. Instead of subjugating Rie, she trains her into the arts of dominatrix and soon we can enjoy seeing our newly sadistically inclined Rie take on the world. Well... OK, only the school, but after that who knows. Midori will do anything to achieve her objectives and she has many a nasty trick up her sleeve if need arises.

I'll give you a full body massage, but you have to be naked for that, Rie.

Naomi is a sophisticated ojou-sama dominatrix with her own dungeon where both Rie and Midori will experience many wonderful lessons in humility. She really brings out Rie's submissive side and gives as two possible endings. One of them is Naomi ending and the other one is what I consider a True ending with a harem scenario.

There is a forth ending (a bad end) in the game and you can reach it from both Naomi or Midori routes. Just refuse their advances and you will get to know how Jesus Christ felt at the end.

The only good theesome is a same sex threesome.  -Robert A. Heinlein (or maybe not :-P)

The plot of Escalation is nothing to write dithyrambs about, but it's not bad either for a nukige. We have one naive and confused girl, two dominatrixes, one nun with a dark secret, a dungeon and some plot twists that a writer pulled out of his hiney after smoking his shoe laces. Seriously, the game punches you with a ridiculous after ridiculous plot twist of the "No, I'm your father!" proportions without any foreshadowing. And you know what, I didn't mind, as I was too busy reading about the deep and profound relations between the lifelike characters of this game... just go with me here. And I know for certain, that those tissues Peach Princess added to my package were for the purpose of dabbing tears that sprung while reading this heart wrenching tale of epic proportions...

For a doujin game Escalation has a really nice art that is pleasing to the eyes and the sex scenes were really hot with quite a few CGs for every scene. They were neither too long, nor too short and done just right to keep my attention to the screen without the desire to fast forward. I have only one other game to compare Escalation with and that is the first Sono Hanabira (I haven't got around to playing others yet). For all intents and purposes Escalation is a vastly superior game: better graphics, better sex scenes, better plot, but the biggest difference is I have a dislike for pure love stories and this game is anything but.

Kissu.

The second game in the package is obviously Yuukuri Panic (how Peach Princess got Yukkuri from Yuukuri is anybody's guess). It's also a visual novel like Escalation, but it doesn't have any choices and upon reaching a sex scene you have to play a quick minigame in order to continue and the minigames get harder and harder very fast.

Yuukuri Panic has the same characters Rie, Midori, Naomi and Sister in the same setting but with a different plotline. Actually there isn't much of a plotline - instead of a dark BDSM tale you have some lighthearted sex scenes stringed together. However the quality of H-scenes is as good as in Escalation and I honestly enjoyed the minigames.

Didn't you know, Rie, that modern witches use vibrators.

Packaged version of Yukkuri Panic: Escalation comes on one CD with a one page manual. The games on the disc can be installed separately and into different directories. Together with the game I got a 2011 JAST USA catalogue with a "School Days HQ" poster on the other side that is now hanging on my wall and a package of tissues (for the teary eyes and runny nose as I have already mentioned).

In summary, Yukkuri Panic: Escalation is a nice yuri doujin game (games) that while short will provide you with some fun moments and remember that you get two games for the price of one. Why not to take the offer?

Links of Interest

Visual Novel Database link for Escalation, for Yuukuri Panic.
Official site for Escalation
Official site for Yuukuri Panic
Buy download version of Yukkuri Panic: Escalation at: J-list, JAST USA, Peach Princess.
Buy package version of Yukkuri Panic: Escalation at: J-list, JAST USA, Peach Princess, Archonia, Rightstuf, AnimeNation, Anime Corner Store, Xonair.

Final verdict: Escalation - 74%
                       Yuukuri Panic - 72%.