Title: D.C.III R ～ダ・カーポIIIアール～X-rated
Developer: Circus
Release Date: 31st March 2013
Age Rating: 18+
Length: 35+ Hours
Links: Official Website, VNDB
Given how much I love Da Capo 2 (and considering the ending of that game) it should be absolutely no surprise that I was very excited to play Da Capo 3 – the final of the original trilogy (I believe DC4 onward is a soft reboot). Did it manage to live up to the expectations set by the series?
The one thing that I think genuinely deserves a LOT of praise about this game is the amount of effort and love that went into it – I counted and there’s 168 CGs (not counting variations), multiple opening and ending vocal tracks/movies & an 80+ track OST (given there are some tracks from the older games but the majority are new). You just don’t see this type of effort put into eroge/visual novels very often so it deserves to mentioned and praised.
Ricca
Moving onto the game itself and something that stands out is that the story is pretty confusing at first, and trying to connect the two settings seems to be difficult. It takes a bit of getting used to but the game does have a pretty decent conclusion once everything is explained and I must say that Circus are marketing geniuses because the way the story is resolved just BEGS for fandiscs. And it worked on me because I ended up buying both FDs lmao.
Like most of the other Da Capo games, one of the main strengths of this title is the heroines themselves – all are likable, adorable and have some development. My personal favourite was Charles but genuinely all five were great.
Himeno
The heroine routes themselves vary in quality a little but are on the whole good. Imo Sara’s route is noticeably the weakest but it could also be that I didn’t find the magic golf sport thing very interesting (those 3D movies that play in her route are so trash that they’re kinda funny). I would say that Ricca and Charles have pretty solid routes, enjoyable but nothing outstanding. Himeno and Aoi though have very good routes, for pretty different reasons.
My one actual complaint would be the London setting is written really weirdly. Like the author writes in all these tropey jokes – “british food bad”, “british people don’t drink coffee, only tea”, “Japanese people are so polite unlike foreigners who will never understand”, etc. It just gets old after a while. I also don’t know why the author seemed to love the Cotswolds – maybe he went there on vacation.
Sara
The game also has at least a few characters that I’m kind of surprised didn’t get some sort of route in the upgraded version of the game – Mikoto & Shiki primarily. But I see they rectified this in the fandiscs (good). As per usual we get a new dumbass male friend – in this case Kousuke who is much less likable than Wataru from DC2 imo but the fact he’s voiced by Shimono Hiro does make this slightly less painful. As well as the ever mysterious Suginami – probably the biggest enigma in the series. Being a sucker for any DC2 pandering I did enjoy the cameos from some of the lesser known side characters coming back – I shed a tear when Yuuhi showed up.
One of the main appeals of the R version in particular is the inclusion of the side episode “Sakurakaze no Ultimate Battle”. This is complete and utter pandering to the DC2 fans but I can’t deny that it was both the perfect ending to this game, and a proper conclusion to the whole DC2 story arc. In my opinion, whether you want to play the all-ages or R18 version is up to personal preference (the “all ages” version still has quite a lot of fanservice) but I would wholeheartedly recommend the R version over the base game.
Charles
With a multitude of artists working on this game it should be no real surprise that the artwork is really inconsistent. That being said, the sheer volume of CGs and the fact that there are some really standout ones makes this acceptable imo.
Aoi
In terms of the sound department I had few complaints. The voice acting was generally good. The BGM was varied and suited the game pretty well – hearing Dream of Cherry Tree as the title track will never get old. The vocal tracks were also very, very good.
Conclusion
My Score: 8/10
If you like the other Da Capo games then this should absolutely be on your backlog already – it’s a great continuation to the series. If you haven’t played Da Capo yet then what are you waiting for? If you enjoy stories about wishes, magic and promises then this should be right up your street. Technically you only need to play DC2 before this to get full enjoyment out of the story but with the Da Capo 1 Remake coming soon you have no excuse for skipping the original. On a side note, they BUTCHERED Moe’s design in the remake – she no longer looks soft and sleepy and is now just generic senpai.
I had initially planned to play DC4 next in the series but ended up getting sidetracked. I might just fully finish off DC3’s fandiscs first before moving on. I swear I’ll catch up to the newer games eventually…
Thanks for reading!
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