This is a hint file for the "Metal & Lace 2" (ML2, METLACE2, DM2WIN, Ningyou 2) adult Windows Japanese anime game from Forest. The "DM2WIN" may refer to alternate title "Doll Maker 2", but I found only one reference to that. The game is distributed as 12 ZIP or RAR files, each equivalent to one 1.44 floppy. This should contain only the DM2WIN1.EXE file; anything else is stuff included by the couriers. Run DM2WIN1.EXE to install the game on your hard drive. One problem I noticed is that it wants to use non-English characters for the program group name, and it doesn't know how to go in a specified sub-folder within Programs. You should be able to type in "Games/Adult/Metal + Lace 2", but instead you get a folder named "Games_Adult_Metal + Lace 2". sigh. The default location on your hard drive is C:\DM2WIN. You have to run the provided "Unstall" to uninstall the game; it doesn't show up in the Add/Remove Programs control panel of Windows. You can delete the DM2WIN1.EXE file after you install the game. ML2 is a fighting game, supposedly the sequel to "Metal & Lace" released in English by Megatech several years ago. But unlike ML, there is practically no story or special dialogue to this game, just pure fighting. May need a DINPUT.DLL file in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory - one comes with DirectX. A copy of DINPUT.DLL for DirectX 5 came with one copy of the game that I found, but I already had DirectX 7 installed and apparently didn't need this one. I checked, but Li Sun had nothing about this game. All of the menus are in English, which is almost all you need for a fighting game like this. You don't need NJWIN or anything else like that for seeing Japanese text, because it only appears during the closing credits. Well, there may also be some Japanese during the H screens and after you win (just before the credits), but it goes by too fast to read on my computer. Sound and music support is automatic, but the only music that I heard was in the photoshop. Graphics are 640*480 (everything but the fighting) and 320*240 (the fighting), but I can't get screen captures to work properly with this game! Keyboard and joystick supported, NO MOUSE! I had a lot of trouble getting things to work properly until I set the Config options the way I wanted. With the arrow keys for movement, and the ASZX keys for fighting, I found that "A" was a Cancel and "S" was a Select function in the rest of the game. Under Config, you can also play any of 128 sounds, but I couldn't get the Music to work. There is an existing FAQ for fighting moves and getting secret characters by Kheng Ang. It's available on my site as ML2FAQ.TXT, but I'm going to avoid duplicating anything in that file. (The original filename was M&L2FAQ.TXT, but my web space provider can't handle a "&" in a filename.) I tried sending an email asking for permission to modify and/or post the FAQ, but the address in the FAQ doesn't work anymore. Oh well, at least I tried. In case the author reads this, you should know that I fixed a few minor typos in the FAQ, and changed "Jump" to "U" in one case. Other than that, it's all correct as far as I can tell, and I didn't touch anything else. The "super meter" is the small bar underneath the HP bar. The SUPER moves are only available if your meter is full. Being hit by your opponent, or Charging, fills your meter. If you have an unmodified version of ML2FAQ.TXT from somewhere else, in Mimi's move "Thunder Crush" Jump is just U. Pause the game by pressing the key. Exit back to the main menu by pressing and Cancel together while the game is paused. Or just press key to resume. Story Mode just has a bunch of fights in a row with you stuck as the character you choose at the beginning. Maybe because I didn't use the supplied DINPUT.DLL, or maybe because I was pressing so many keys during the fights, but the H pictures were shown between fights for only a moment before going on to the next fight. And when you beat all the others, there are a few screens with some Japanese (I think) that also go by really fast, before the credits crawl. If you get beaten, you can do a Continue, but as the FAQ says that can prevent you from seeing or doing some things. Free Play just lets you choose among the "unlocked" fighters for a meaningless fight. Note that in both Story Mode and Free Play, use the directions (I can't say arrow keys because you could Config something else) to move around so you can choose from all of the robots! In Story Mode you just see the silhouettes all squashed together except for the one you've selected, but in Free Play you can see all the unlocked fighters before you choose. Press Cancel ("A" in my case) to skip the Replay after a fight. If you win by using a Super move, you get a gold star marker. Otherwise you get a red happy face when you win. It's possible that you need to get 1 or 2 gold stars to unlock extra H pictures in Story Mode, but I haven't confirmed that. Graphic is the photoshop. Beat the game once to get 2 or 3 pictures each up to 5 girls besides the one that you were using. Do it again with a different fighter to see the one you were missing. I think if you win a match (i.e. win 2 out of 3) a special way, you get an extra picture here, but I'm not sure that winning with a super move does it. Eventually, you will have 3 or 4 pictures for each of the 7 girls. I think you have to win once without using any Continues to see any "Caviar?" pictures at all. The photoshop flags are in the Registry entries for this game. However, there is some kind of encryption going on there with several other values, so I can't give you a photoshop patch yet - possibly never. I tried two saved games that I got from Densetsu, but they came out on my computer as no H pictures unlocked (Graphic was grayed out). That may be because I installed the game in a different location from the default C:\DM2WIN, or because my user name was different. But even after fixing those in the Registry, they still didn't work. Like I said, there's some tricky encryption stuff going on in there... 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/