CYBERNETIC HI-SCHOOL

---

● Title: 電脳学園 ● Genre: QUIZ ● Release Date: 1989/09 ● Developer: GAINAX ● Publisher: GENERAL PRODUCTS ● Media: 5" 2D Floppy Disk x4 ● System Specific: PC-8801

---

■INTRODUCTION

Studio GAINAX rose to worldwide fame during the mid 90's thanks to their hit TV animation series 「NEON GENESIS EVANGELION」. Back in the late 80's however, GAINAX was struggling to remain afloat, so they decided to venture into the video game market as a way to generate some extra income.

Eventually GAINAX would achieve critical and commercial success in the video game scene as well with their excellent「PRINCESS MAKER」series.

Their debut game series 「CYBERNETIC HI-SCHOOL」 didn't fared that bad neither, at least commercially speaking. In fact many Japanese PC game fans consider it a cult series, though personally I can't say I'm of the same opinion.

■GAME INFORMATION



In CYBERNETIC HI-SCHOOL you assume the role of a very lucky prospect student who's been chosen from within millions of other candidates to enroll in the uber prestigious 「CYBERNETIC HI-SCHOOL」 (a sort of super elite high school of the future according to the game story).

Before you can get formally accepted however, three of your future senpai classmates will be putting your knowledge to the test to see if you got what it takes to be a real elite.



The game is divided in to parts : 「ADVENTURE」 and 「QUIZ」.

In the ADVENTURE part you can move around the campus and interact with other characters. Basically your objective here is to find your rivals so you can get on with the quiz challenges.

■FOR QUIZ OTAKUS CUSTOM !



The QUIZ part is (obviously) the core mode of the game. Here you will challenge your female evaluators in heated quiz rounds of 25 questions each.

To win a round you must answer correctly to 20 questions whilst mantaining a correct answer success ratio of 80%. Your goal is to win 4 rounds and force the girls to undress completely.

The questions themselves are perhaps the best part of the game since they're completely otaku-oriented.

It goes without saying that you won't be finding questions about geography, history, or politics here, but only about the most popular video games of the time, computers, anime, TV dramas and science fiction.

Believe it or not, someone actually took the time to compile and type down all of the questions in the game. They can be found on this page.

■CHARACTER INFORMATION

【 HIROKO SERIZAWA 】 ■Age : 16 (Virgo) ■Ocuppation : Class representative. ■Hobbies : Reading and collecting handkerchiefs.

  

  

HIROKO is by much the most popular character in the CYBER HI-SCHOOL series. In fact she was such a popular character amongst fans that GAINAX would reuse her model for the the heroine of PRINCESS MAKER.

【 YURI MANJOME 】 ■Age : 17 (Capricorn) ■Ocuppation : Rhythm gymnastics team captain. ■Hobbies : Shopping and sports in general.

 

  

I really don't like YURI. Compared to HIROKO and SHIZUKA, she looks like she was drawn by an amateur. Maybe that's how she's supposed to look like, but I found her eyes to be way too big and her jaw too narrow.

She looks so freaky...

【 SHIZUKA JINGUJI 】 ■Age : 18 (Taurus) ■Ocuppation : Student council president. ■Hobbies : Folk dancing and tea ceremonies.

 

  

I think SHIZUKA's undressing scenes were toned down a bit in the improved 「ver2.0」 release that came out for the PC-98 and MSX-2. Somehow GAINAX managed to get ver2.0 approved for sale to anyone above 12 years old.

■CLOSING COMMENT

I'm actually a big fan of quiz games. And one of the reasons I enjoy the genre so much is because there's usually more to quiz games than just questions. In fact most games use their quiz part sort of like the battle system in an RPG.

CYBERNETIC HI-SCHOOL however is a plain quiz game with an extremely short and underdeveloped adventure segment tacked into it. So there's really nothing much to it beyond the quiz challenges.

To tell you the truth, I still don't know could this game have become that much popular at the time. I know it's not because of the undressing scenes because even back then there were a whole lot more compelling erotic games around.

Maybe it was because of how the questions were aimed at the hardcore otaku. But even so I don't see how answering 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 questions in a row for one lousy undressing scene could ever be considered a worthy or satisfying gameplay experience.

S E E  Y O U  N E X T  G A M E !

(C) GAINAX 1989