Cherry Tree High Comedy Club (Steam)
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Cherry Tree High Comedy Club comes in two flavours. The original and the westernized versions. Both are in English, but the Westernized version changes the names to English names, as well as some Japanese references. You can play the game both ways and use the same save files, so feel free to try out both versions and see what you think.


Our hero, Mairu/Miley (Japanese and Westernized names respectively), wants to start a Comedy Club at her High School. She is quite the comedy lover! She has herself and her best friend Hoemi/Harriet all signed up to go, and she's pumped. But her old friend/current rival brings her some bad news. Official clubs need AT LEAST 5 members to receive funding and be recognized. And this all needs to be complete by May 1st. And it's the end of March!


The goal of the game is to get at least 3 people to join your comedy group of the 6 potential recruits. How do you do that? By spending time with them and discussing different topics! The days in this game are broken up in to 3 sections: morning, afternoon, and evening. After a little while you'll be returning to school and your days will be lunch hour, after school, and evenings. Certain actions will move the day to the next section. During spring break, mornings and afternoons can be spent talking to potential recruits, shopping, exploring, doing homework, and improving skills. Afternoons can also be spent cleaning the shrine for some extra pocket money. Once school starts you can spend your lunches improving certain skills or chit chatting with some recruits. Evenings are the only time you can save, and you do so by speaking to Hoemi/Harriet in your dorm room. You can also make jewelry for extra money, read magazines you've purchased for a skill boost, resting to refresh yourself, do homework, or call recruits to chat for extra points once you've reached level 2 friendship and they've given you their number. A recruit must be at level 5 to join your club!


Skills are what you talk to recruits about for big friendship boosts. Each character will have things they like (or even love) discussing and things that make for awkward conversation. Make sure to pay attention so you don't end up wasting time! Skills can be improved a number of ways. One is by buying a magazine and reading it in the evening. You can also read magazines in the school library. You can watch a movie, find random magazines on the ground, go to an art exhibit, among other things to increase your skills. The higher the skill the more points will go towards the friendship when discussed.


Another aspect to the game is managing your energy and homework. Energy is pretty easy to manage if you don't push yourself and can be replenished by going to bed early, using items, or by giving it time as long as you don't keep pushing yourself. You'll also have several homework assignments to do, represented by little pencils on your status screen. By opening the menu (press X on your keyboard) you can see more info about your recruits and check your skill levels and items. Certain days will also have special scenes to them and when a friendship level increases you'll get a scene with that particular character.


Skills carry over to a new game, so if you want you can spend one playthrough improving skills and the next working to recruit the characters. Remember, you need at least 3, but the bold player can try and get all 6!

Characters:
Ordered from favourite to least favourite:
TAOCa6S.pngHoemi/Harriet: Mairu/Miley's best friend and roommate at the dorm. She's very sweet and kind, she's good at cooking, she's selfless and attractive, and everyone seems to notice what a stand up lady she is except for Mairu/Miley!
nBDuXkl.pngAmane/May: A sweet young girl who is a lot on the naive side. But she's a hard worker and helps work at the candy store her grandparents own to help out with some family financial troubles. A childhood friend of Mairu/Miley.
GUGipHY.pngYoriko/Sara: A transfer student who stays at the same dorm as Mairu/Miley and Hoemi/Harriet. She's very shy and soft spoken. She's not sure what she wants to do yet and is trying to figure it out. She has a pet dog whom she loves.
Jpl36Q4.pngMiley/Mairu: Heroine to the story and comedy lover. She's very outgoing and jokes around with everyone about everything. This can make her seem immature, but she has some hidden layers to her.
1sFlkQI.pngRavian/Vivian: In the original she is a transfer student from Canada. In the Westernized version she is from Sweden. Very bubbly and enthusiastic.
3FsdK7Q.pngShinnosuke/Curtis: Son of a famous comedian and popular with the ladies. He acts aloof and like he doesn't care about comedy, but his words and actions say otherwise!
R0vKPe4.pngHaru/Cindy: Childhood friend of Mairu/Miley. She turned punk and is now in a band and has a very aggressive attitude which scares some. She's having some hard times at home.
C668tsv.pngYoshiki/Tyler: Obsessed with celebrities, he keeps files and records on every girl in town in case she becomes famous one day!

There are a few other characters, but I wanted to focus on the main two and our recruits!

Overall I was really excited about this game when I first got it. It has a few elements I like such as a more laid back environment, a large cast of female characters, and a fun sense of humour. And while I can say those things are big points for the game, overall I found myself disappointed. It's rather short, which is actually a positive thing because it's not that fun. It gets boring and repetitive very quickly and it just isn't all that engaging. I did like the protagonist and a lot of the characters, but there wasn't enough done with them to keep me excited about the game. Still, it's worth it if you're looking for something along the lines of a dating sim and you want something short and sweet.

Verdict:
MEH