"Exodus Guilty Vol.2 Past" is an "AnimePlay" DVD from Hirameki. As 
they advise, this can be played on a PC, but you may be better off 
with a DVD player (including game console like PS2 or Xbox) instead. 
This second volume mentions "Past" in the title, and it is almost 
entirely set in one of the 3 time periods for the story. Volume 1 was 
"Present", and volume 3 will be "Future." These will be all released 
in English, and I wonder how well they will both tie together and 
also stand alone (for people that didn't buy them all). I'll be 
abbreviating this game's name, "Exodus Guilty Vol.2 Past" to EG2 for 
the rest of this file. The previous volume is abbreviated as EG1.
The original Japanese property seems to be from Abel. Their website 
is at:
http://www.abel-jp.com/
The GameFAQs site has an entry for Exodux Guilty Neos, which was 
a Japanese release for Dreamcast in 2001. The Abel website shows what 
appears to be a lot more choices and steps necessary for a 
walkthrough of that product. There seems to have also been an "Exodus 
Guilty" for Playstation in Japan in 1998, but very little is shown for 
that, although the graphics look the same. That appears to be the 
original game, and either that or Exodus Guilty Neos was reworked into 
3 products for this re-release on DVD. So we English-speakers are 
again getting a dumbed-down version of a property that's 4 to 8 
years old from Japan. Why is this not surprising?

The large double box that EG2 is packaged in seems to be how 
Hirameki is handling all their recent products, e.g. Dragonia, 
Ever 17, Ai Yori Aoshi, etc. It makes them stand out as more 
professional and solid than a single DVD case. I didn't comment on 
it for Dragonia, as the second disc "Lovely Anime Girls" seemed to 
be a nice bonus even though the two discs had nothing to do with 
each other. With EG1, the second disc was an "AnimePlay Digital 
Catalog", pretty much the non-BBS portions of the Hirameki website 
from sometime in 2005. Now for EG2 the second disc is "Hirameki 
Music Videos". This is a compilation of 11 introductory videos for 
Hirameki products. Except for "Piece of Wonder" and "Yo-Jin-Bo", 
all of these have already been released, so there's not much new 
here. There's nothing extra on this DVD, although only 797 MB are 
used.


Walkthrough:
Unlike Dragonia, you can easily jump to any portion of the story so 
you can see things in any order. However, the game will default to 
showing things in a linear order. Use the "Continue" option at 
the New Game / Continue screen, and you can choose (with the Next 
Page or Back Page) from any of 10 chapters. There are thumbnails 
for each chapter, so you have some idea of which portion of the 
story each is, especially if you've played through it before. 
There's no "save game" in EG.
  The entire DVD, except for one "clue" sequence, is set in the 
"Past" era. There is only one portion of interaction, during Title 
7.
  Practically all of the DVD's Title 1 was seen in EG1, actually. 
It starts with Ales and Masa, and Ales must leave his home town. Ales 
gets the "Moon's Light" and "Abrahm's Picture Journal" from Masa. 
When the new material starts, with Title 2, Ales leaves Ul Arc, and 
wanders aimlessly for a while, eventually meeting a few new 
characters and getting an "Oak Jar". Aqua will tell you to remember 
"numbers 1 and 5". You'll get a quick image of the "Move the Piece" 
puzzle from EG1, which apparently explains what that was all about. 
You should probably also remember "All life must be thankful to the 
Goddess of Earth". Di will tell you that 4 items are needed to get 
to see God, each has the nature of one of the 4 elements within 
them. The holy mark on Masa was the God's Cane, and the one on Will 
is the Devil's Cane. Notice that the Flame Tan looks like the 
temple that was excavated in the present, but not in the same 
location. The Oak Jar turns into the "Oak Jar (Flame)" and the 
"Heraldic Truth". Ales crosses the river, meets Tradian (who looks a 
lot like the tourist lady in the present), and pays for the Oak Jar 
with something not shown, then finds the "Torch". During Ales' next 
talk with Aqua, you learn that the subtitle dialogue with Tradian 
wasn't an exact translation, as it's the Wind Oracle offering a 
reward. Aqua also gives Ales the Blue Diamond. Later, Quake gives 
the "Sun's Flame", needed to get in to see Zizi. And after a while, 
Quake also gives Ales the "Giant's Hammer" and "Cockatrice 
Medallion" too. You get another quick image of the "Move the Piece" 
puzzle in the present time, to explain where the medallion is used.
Ales gives the "Moon's Light" and "Sun's Flame" to Zizi, and the 
"present" location of the "Sun's Flame" is explained. It turns out 
that the excavated temple is the Sand one, even though the pillars 
will be gone and the sand turned to dirt or rock over time. Will is 
found there during EG1, and eventually during Title 7 or so you'll 
see how she gets there. There's a squandered opportunity for some 
interactivity to figure out how and where to use the Medallion, but 
you'll have to wait a while longer before you do anything more than 
read subtitles in EG2. Anyway, Ales and Flare meet Di, and get the 
"Shield of Light", with another quick glimpse of a location and the 
"Move the Piece" puzzle that must be in the future if the location 
and puzzle go together. So expect this shield to be important in 
EG3. However, it's used now as the only truly interactive portion of 
EG2, during Title 7.
  You are shown four choices at the 12, 3, 6 and 9-o'clock positions 
on the shield, at the outermost ring of buttons. After you choose a 
button, the choice move in one ring, and you choose again. After a 
total of four choices, the correctness of your choices is evaluated 
and you've either got it right or wrong. If you get it wrong, then 
a quick switch is made to the Future (13,800 AD), with a character 
"Titi" that you didn't see in EG1, and the correct answer is given 
to you, in terms of four numbers. However, you still have to figure 
out where to start counting from. The "time switching" clip puts 
this "past" era at 12,000 BC, while the package says only 1,200 BC.
Anyway, if you want the answer, start with 12 o'clock as "1" and 
go around clockwise for the other numbers as if they were numbered 
1, 2, 3, 4. The symbols actually shown on the shield don't appear 
to be Hebrew, Aramaic, or Phoenician numerals, so there's no 
telling how you're supposed to do this without resorting to the 
clue and taking the easy way out for where to start counting.
  After solving that interactive puzzle, there are two of the rare 
video segments on this DVD. Both of them are during the fight with 
Windy, and the first seems to be repeated at the beginning of the 
second. As the video resolution is much lower during these segments, 
but they can have their own subtitles, you have to wonder how much 
video is actually available from the original Japanese product.
  One interesting glitch is right after the battle with Windy. The 
map shows movement to Ul Arc, but Ales really goes to Flame Tan. 
Oh well... Anyway, Flare gives Ales the "Salamander Ring". You've got 
to wonder what the use is of some of these things, as he still hasn't 
done anything with the "Abrahm's Picture Journal" - unless of course 
this is what's supposed to be the world map. Eventually, Zizi gives 
Ales the Gate Key, although it isn't shown. There's a minor graphics 
glitch where Windy moves away from the wall, but leaves her feet 
behind when talking to Ales in the lava-lit room. That's just before 
Windy gives Ales the "Sky Amulet". With one item from each Oracle, 
Ales now goes into the final Title on this DVD.
  Another opportunity for interaction was wasted, as you see an 
open area with a pool, and then Ales starts putting things on 
statues that you never saw before, with no movement shown between 
them. Sigh... This portion was definitely rushed, compared to what 
you've seen so far as to how most events are belabored.
  At nearly the last moment, there's a cut away to conceal some 
information about God. Ales gets a new sword. If you remember 
one of the characters in the future era portion of EG1, you'll 
figure out what becomes of Ales, although he's certain he'll be 
coming back.
  After a mislabeled credits crawl (it says "Present" instead of 
"Past"), there's a quick trailer of practically incoherent action 
that will occur "in the next episode". EG3 will be "Future", and 
should cover what happens to Ales, Kasumi, Will, Sui, and the 
others there.
  No omake such as bonus CG when you've completed this entire 
episode. Nothing extra on the DVD itself as far as I could tell.
About 3.8 GB of the DVD was used, so there was a little bit of room 
left that could have been used to increase the interaction.


Review:
There's more animation and a lot more varied graphics in this title 
than in Dragonia. But if you've seen EG1 its more of the same.

The editing of the subtitles is pretty good, but there are some 
continuity and grammar glitches and a few typos. The worst involve 
Masa/Martha, and Plen/Plane Arc. There are a few points where there 
is no Japanese voice, just English subtitles. 

I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of Exodus Guilty. We could 
certainly use an epic story in this type of work, although I'm sure 
people who strictly follow the literal text of the Bible will find 
lots to object to in here. Ales, and the other characters in EG2, 
usually impress me more than those I complained about for EG1. I 
can't say that I enjoyed the music though.

Only adult content is Masa's tatooed cleavage, Aqua's topless back, 
and Aqua and Will bathing with carefully placed tree branches. 
Followed by Flare mostly undressed, and Windy taking a shower with too 
much water to see anything, then in a towel in front of Quake, and 
other angles of barely dressed Flare both in the forest and Flame Tan, 
plus Windy's cleavage during battle and whenever she's one of the 
graphics overlays on top of the scenery. There's implied sexual 
intercourse for Flare and Ales, but no graphics of it besides a kiss. 
Oh, and Death has bare breasts (of a size surely measured in meters) 
but no nipples. So there's practically nothing hentai in this product, 
and even less violence than EG1.

Certainly worth some hours of your time to get through it once, but 
with replay value only if you want to check details against the 
other episodes. An interactive novel only in the sense that 
you can pause and back up; no choices of any consequence.
There are very complete reviews of EG1 and EG2 at www.rpgfan.com.


If you have anything to add to this file, let me know.

Peter Karsanow - bishoujo.helper[AT}sbcglobal{DOT)net
http://www.geocities.com/hentaihelper/p_hgames.htm