©NCSX+ Warp held a press conference earlier this year where they announced the release of Real Sound. In the conference, Kenji Eno, outspoken president of the company posited the goal of creating a game that would rely on the human imagination to provide the visuals. In essence, Real Sound could probably be played with the eyes closed, if it weren't for the on-screen prompts and arrows.

Real Sound is a love story and since Kenji Eno considers relationships to be a personal matter, the use of graphics would have changed the whole tone of a personal love story.

Real Sound features a multitude of background sounds and set-up music to convey the mood. If the situation is melancholy, there might be a slow dirge that plays in the background. If the position in the story is one that calls for cheer, you might hear laughter or some uplifting music.

Real Sound is one of a kind. Warp has taken a major risk with a release of this type in a market that is populated with tons of graphically intense action games. Many reviews of video games describe the impressive visuals or the extensive modeling of the characters in the game. Sound always plays second fiddle to the graphics. Warp turns the tables with Real Sound and eliminates the graphics entirely. I suppose this game goes back to the days when radio was the only form of mass entertainment. Radio dramas and shows used sound to set the moods and tones of their scenes and left it to the listener to imagine the people, places and situations. I am sure that the set-up guys and stage hands who worked in radio would have been perfect consultants to Kenji Eno's pet project. Real Sound is not a game that is easily rated. The voice acting is very good but your level of interaction only occurs after you've listened to the drama being played out ; your turn to choose an action comes up on cue. In this manner, this pioneering game is very much like a sound novel where you are a participant in a personal love story. I am enjoying the game thus far but I am more impressed by the level of technical achievement than I am with the story. The sound quality is pristine and crisp which should easily conjure up images from the depths of peoples minds. One final note, all of the dialogue is in Japanese so you should have a fairly decent command of spoken Japanese in order to play the game and get involved.