C's Ware | 1998 (Original), 2000 (Millenium Box) | Windows 95+ | 1 CD, +Extra CD (Millenium Box)
Divi-Dead is an interesting little game that I have a soft spot for. It was one of the first* Japanese visual novels I ever played, it taught me that not all translations are actually very good, and it helped develop my interest in old Japanese computers.
I say that this was "one of the first" visual novel (really more adv?) titles I played as I don't actually remember which was the first! I had a modded PSP 1001, I actually still have it sitting right next to me, and I just remember browsing some old site with homebrew titles where I found this alongside two VNs, Yume Miru Kusuri and Saya no Uta, that I all played around the same time. Ain't that a spread for a kid who was like twelve or thirteen years old?
I want to get the negative out of the way first:
Holy heck this game shows its age. This was a pretty not amazing intro to adventure-style games as it falls into ye olde "click every text option until something hopefully moves" hell.
What this meant is that little me would be reading along and hit a brick wall, the game wasn't advancing. I'd scroll all the options again thinking I pressed every single text option, joke's on me because I didn't, so I would get frustrated. Like ten to twenty minutes of furiously running in a circle on the school campus later, pressing every stupid little thing I could, the game would finally move along until like five minutes later when the process would repeat.
I want to say the VNDB "Playtime" stat is like 25 hours? If you didn't have to circle around so damn much it would probably be ten hours tops.
With that said, I'd like to give out some compliments:
Divi-Dead is a charming little game. The art might look a little silly at times but hey, I enjoyed it. Characters might not always be that deep but I don't remember any of them feeling so shallow that they were truly meaningless. The story works more than well enough, it seems simple at the start then opens up into something interesting, and I quite enjoyed the little plot twist towards the end. When I wasn't running in a circle, I was enjoying my time playing this. I got enough into the game that little me was sneaking my PSP in bed so I could keep playing it after everyone else was asleep, I think that's pretty good!
At some point in early 2023 I decided I'd like to own a physical copy of this game. A bit of browsing Suruga-ya led me to the C's Ware Millenium Box series of which Divi-Dead has an entry!
Check out some of these photos of the box contents! Click on them if you'd like to see a higher quality version.
| Front | Back | Inner Box | Info Panel |
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| Jewel Case | Opened Case | Extra CD | Mousepad |
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| Case Badges | CD Clock Kit | Keychain | Collector's Cards |
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| Cards 1-4 | Backs 1-4 | Cards 5-8 | Backs 5-8 |
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| Cards 9+10 | Backs 9+10 | Forms | |
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The "Extra CD", meant for you to put the CD Clock Kit on as a silly little wall hanger, actually has some data on it! Check out these posters for other C's Ware titles:
These .jpgs lead to 20MB .bmp files, sorry for the long load times if your internet is slow!
| ADAM: The Double Factor | Desire | DIVI-DEAD | EVE Burst Error |
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| EVE The Lost One | luv wave | Re-leaf | VIST |
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