So after happily seeing that Saimin Yuugi was getting a translation I wondered...what other hypno VNs deserve a translation? Which then led me to think about all the hypno VNs I've played over the years and one kept appearing at the forefront of them all in my mind: "M.C -trois-". Yep you heard right, an 18 year old game.

link: vndb.org/v8028

Now before I basically write a whole essay on why I think this game is awesome, I'd like to extend the question to you.

If you have a favorite Hypno VN what is it and what makes it your favorite? Simply the art and the crazy scenarios? Or is it the story and how hypnosis is integrated? I'd love to hear from you guys and don't be afraid to dump an essay!

Anyways back to why M.C trois is my favorite VN so far....

****WORD WALL WARNING****

Alright so to set the stage on what I enjoy in a hypno VN, it's mostly about making the introduction of hypnosis at least somewhat believable in the story. This basically makes games that utilize hypno apps or anything else that provides instant complete control of the subject rather boring and meaningless. And yes I realize that ultimately these are just eroge games, and most people are looking for the instant gratification which is totally fair and understandable. But sometimes a game comes along thats a nice change of pace.

So whats M.C trois about?
You're a highschool senior who is the last remaining member of a dying club dedicated to the study of strange tech and occult books. At this point you spend your time collecting all the knowledge stored in the clubroom before the stuff is thrown out. The protag doesnt have any crushes or anything and is just coasting through his senior year. The hypnosis gets introduced in the plot after he discovers a notebook from his senior detailing hypnosis experiments done while at the school. This event would normally be inconsequential, but he finds the record of someones trigger word. The word was erased but since it was written on the paper with too much force, the protag manages to find what it used to say by lightly coloring the affected area with graphite. Now the trigger was only tied to a persons initials, but long story short he finds out the trigger belongs to his homeroom teacher Karin. According to the story, its been about half a year since her last session so it kiiiinda makes it believable that the trigger *might* still have some effect.

Thats the premise, which is pretty neat but nothing overly unique. There are countless VNs where the protag hypnotizes a teacher (i.e saimin yuugi), so what sets this game apart? It comes down to the execution. What this game does is make the player feel empowered. How? Well for one ***meaningful choices***.
Lets take Saimin Yuugi as an example. Great VN with amazing art and hypnosis that is applied gradually...but the choices suck and are often provide selections that are obviously "right" to keep the game going. This lack of quality in the choices is reflected in the endings too for those that care about the story....let me show you the different endings for hypnotizing the teacher in Saimin Yuugi in contrast to M.C Trois.

Saimin Yuugi:
Ending 1: You go too far too fast during early hypnosis and go to jail (bad ending).
Ending 2: You delude yourself into thinking your obsession with the teacher is love, so you brainwash her with hypnosis to love you back ("good" ending).
Ending 3: You brainwash your teacher as part of your harem (true ending).

Whats the common theme with all these endings? The sole objective is to brainwash the subject, and the "choices" only serve to steer wether you want a harem or a single brainwashed person.

M.C Trois: (assuming blind playthrough)
Ending 1: You play it too safe and NEVER get to hypnotize the teacher (bad end bc you chicken lol)
Ending 2: You take a risk and try to hypnotize the teacher, but cant keep your cool when the trigger word doesnt work immediately...so you never get to hypnotize the teacher (bad end)
Ending 3: At some point during the middle of the story where the games lets you decide how far you should take the hypnosis, you take it too far but its not at all obvious that you did because you can make the teacher forget what happens during every session. It only blows up in your face at the end of the game where she remembers and your ass is in jail (bad end: can trigger this multiple ways throughout the branching storylines btw)
Ending 4: You successfully hypnotize the teacher, but you play it safe and never try to take it too far and actually get to know her. After some time the teacher falls in love with the protag at the same time as the main chars falls for her, but you confess about the hypnosis and struggle to understand if what she feels is "real". After some drama you discover that what you have is indeed real and start dating the teacher, who now also shares your hypnosis fetish. (Good end...like an actual one haha)
Ending 5: The TRUE ending which is the last piece of the puzzle that makes this games stand out. Not because of what the outcome is, but HOW it conveys it to the player. Basically, the true ending has the protag successfully brainwash the teacher into his hypnotic puppet.

What makes ending 5 special?
Its the way you get there. So for me, I got all the other endings first through trial and error. When I started the game I had the impression of navigating these VNs just like saimin yuugi: make the obvious right choice and just enjoy the ride. M.C trois provides a completely different experience. It actually feels like your choices matter and have consequences from the very beginning! So I play it too safe and get ending 1 on my first try. At this point im thinking "hold up, I actually have to take risks?", so now the whole dynamic has changed and im on my toes the entire playthrough. So I get ending 4 and start to make my way towards ending 5 bc I KNOW there has to be an ending where you brainwash the teacher...its an eroge after all. I get ending 3 like 3 times and then finally....sweet ending 5...but the tone shift totally catches me off guard. Unlike ending 1 from saimin yuugi where the protag "loves" the teacher, in M.C trois the protag has no such feelings...he just likes the rush of being in COMPLETE control of a persons body and soul.
So heres how ending 5 gets presented to the player. After the climax of the story, it cuts to the next day of school where the protag is attending homeroom and his teacher is conducting class just like at the beginning of the game...fuuuuull circle. Complete tone shift from the crazyness that was happening the day before. Other VNs just cut to a cg where the protag has his subject in some crazy lewd scenario or something to show how much their subject has fallen. But here it almost makes it seem like...maybe it was just a dream? Then the end of the day comes and the protag goes to the clubroom as he usually does to chill and read books....but this time he just SITS there, waiting. Finally the teacher comes and looks totally normal, but starts to question why she even came to clubroom in the first place. Thats when the cheerful school music suddenly stops and shows the teacher fall into a trance, completely expressionless. The game then simply prompts you with a question that has three choices:
"how do you wish to enjoy the teacher today?" with each choice detailing a personality the teacher will be brainwashed to act out for the day. So now...for the FIRST time, the game presents you with a "meaningless" choice since they all end the same: the teacher passing out due to pleasure, proving how deeply you have her subconscious hooked to the ecstasy you provide through hypnosis. But thats what makes this ending so great! The fact that it doesnt matter what you choose at this point makes you understand the gravity of the situation and what youve done to the teacher. Is it still kinda hot? sure...but mostly unnerving. I actually felt kinda bad for the first time in these types of games...but it only works because of how much you work to get to this ending and (ideally) because you get to see the human side of the protag and the teacher in the good ending beforehand. It also helps that, in contrast to other hypn VN's, you get to choose what the final scene of the game is(from those three choices). Normally its just a predetermined scenario that makes you feel like an observer rather than a PLAYER...but here you feel just as much in control as the protagonist! Pretty great power trip.


Anyways thats my essay lol Hope some of you guys find the read interesting and if you got this far....thanks!!!
****END OF WALL****

Unfortunate that you didn't enjoy Yuugi (and likely Enbu). How do you feel about the first two M.C. games? All of the M.C. games are pretty deep cuts nowadays...

Oh dont get me wrong I definitely enjoyed yuugi. I just found M.C trois the more memorable experience. (enough to write an essay LOL) I actually just started the first M.C game. Not sure what to think about it just yet so I'm just gonna keep playing. The M.C games are deep cuts? what do you mean by that?

M.C. games stories are a bit of a double-edged sword.

I wanted to replay the first game after improving my live translation tools to understand all properly, BUT I didn't have an exact walkthrough (and maybe not even a partial one, I didn't check for a while), and one of the bad endings was especially painful to me, so it would keep me from trying.

In comparison, in Saimin Yuugi, basically the girl just get a bit angry/shocked, then title screen.
Though in Enbu they went back to crazy stuff in some bad endings.

Ok now that I've played through the first one for a bit...OOOf that first bad ending where the heroine just loses the ability to act like a human is rough. So yeah I kinda agree. I can post a walkthrough of the first M.C. once im done if you'd like.

What kinda "crazy" stuff? Can you give an example.

The definition of "deep cut" according to Google is "something that is recognizable or familiar only to passionate enthusiasts of a specified area." I basically mean that they're not very well known and difficult to access. I'm surprised that translation tools even work with them, given their age. Not to mention how difficult it is to obtain them; they're hard to find and no legal means to buy them exist anymore (as far as I know).

Would you happen to have a link to where you found the games since they are difficult to obtain?

Oh I see. Yeah agreed, these games are a niche inside a niche lol In terms of translation tools...I just use Textractor. It provides pretty readable MTL and can attach itself to almost anything.



I found some links for the first two games a few months ago. Let me try to find them again. Honestly a miracle they were still working. GL with the third one tho. I happened to buy it on Dlsite when it was still available but havent found a link for it with the other 2.

I tend to really enjoy VNs that don't have darker bad endings and are more light hearted.

Now with that said, I'm about to say something 100% counter to this, but I love Penlight.

The thing is that Penlight is very obviously a labor of love for the maker and you can tell, and there are a stupid amount of routes with more being added. That said, the bad endings are genuinely brutal. There's one where you make a girl literally think she's a zombie, can't snap her out of it, she starts trying to eat people, you get arrested and she gets sectioned. It's ridiculously, insanely dark and it genuinely made me walk away from the game for a long time.

Buuuuut the other content away from the bad ends are really good. My personal favorite is one of the girls slowly learn she has a hypnosis fetish - partly due to your own meddling - and ends with the two of you putting on a fun little hypnosis show for your class, then she and you being in a sort of pseudo-relationship where like... you're definitely together but not fully established that way. It's fun and cute.

I don't really use MTL tools since I'm a translator myself and I don't really need them. Cool to see that they work on a variety of things though; I figured that older and custom-engine games would be more difficult to hook in to.