Info about this Saturn dating sim

[petran79]

It starts at page 65
Title seems to be A lot of friends - Furenzu ga ippai

Yet there is no info online about that game. Was it going to be released and cancelled?

https://retrocdn.net/images/a/aa/SSM_JP_19981030_1998-31.pdf

 

[takafumisakagami]

That's Dousoukai. 'Friends' is the name used for the console ports.

Dousoukai ~Yesterday Once More~

One day an invitation arrives from a friend who was with you in the tennis club when you were in middle school. It is an invitation to the reunion of the tennis club members. You have one week. You can either go for your first love, or find another love, or become a cupid for others... [From...

vndb.org

 

[Deleted member 660650]

I Googled it. It did release on Sega Saturn as "Friends: Seishun no Kagayaki". But its console version has a different name than the PC visual novel series (Dōsōkai), probably to differentiate the series by "PC pervert version" and "console censored life sim version". It's just the Saturn version doesn't exist in the repo but you may find it in your other favourite pirate rom websites. However on repo only its PS2 port exist:

Friends: Seishun no Kagayaki (Japan) PS2 ISO – RGT Repository

Friends: Seishun no Kagayaki (Japan) PS2 ISO Game ID: SLPS-25385. Languages: Japanese. For Sony PlayStation 2.

retrogametalk.com

Check this shit out: https://segaretro.org/Friends:_Seishun_no_Kagayaki

 

[takafumisakagami]

probably to differentiate the series by "PC pervert version" and "console censored life sim version".

Early on, Sony had a strict mandate against direct ports of these games. Almost every Playstation port in the genre had to go through a name change during that time period to meet Sony's submission criteria. Takahashi Tatsuya of ToHeart fame spoke about this on Twitter some years ago.

I'd assume Dousoukai was changed to Friends as a side effect of so many adjacent Playstation ports going through this sort of name change. It became standard practice.
I've never heard anything about Sega being like Sony in this regard, at least.

 

[werewolfx]

quick google search brought up an anime and a bunch of listings on H sites. But Tsukihime also does sometimes due to the hscenes in it that can be safely ignored. so may be the same thing.