Shira Oka: Second Chances is an anime themed dating sim game being developed by Okashi Studios. Shira Oka is the team’s first major project, and will be one of the first dating sim or “ren’ai” game written natively in English. Okashi studios are a team of anime/manga enthusiasts who wanted to create a high quality d-sim in homage of ren’ai games they’ve enjoyed since the 1980′s. Second Chances opens with your character, who’s down on his luck and spends every night after a dull day at work drinking in a local bar. But what if he had a chance? A chance to go back in time and change things from when he began high school, and change his life for the better in the present.

Before you venture back into your past however, there are some choices you must make about your character first. The game allows you to customize your your name, blood type, birthday and statistics like intelligence, fitness, creativity, and charm. You also get a choice of character quirks as well, such as laziness, jinxed, scatterbrained and amnesic. School based statistics are literature, art/music, sports, science/math, fashion, and popularity. Your journey into the past begins with an angel named Satsuko who guides you through the tutorial and will help your character during his high school tenure of the past.

Like most standard dating sims, you move through the plot like you would in an RPG with anime style sprites popping up and fading out as you play from the first person. These sprites are rather nicely animated though, and you’re treated to little chibi anime style cutscenes as you take actions and progress through the story. You select your calender and play from day to day, meeting new students in your school, the first of which is your friend, Aya. Several characters you meet will open up new options to progress with, like groom, practice arts and crafts, and socialize. But with all of this still, you need to pay attention to your physical and mental stamina meters, and rest accordingly when you need too.

The plot is very typical, and you’ll be faced with standard choices and scenarios you would see in most other d-sims, like joining clubs or teams at school, or getting shy students to open up to you. Some decisions you make will be timed, so you have to choose quickly or you’ll wind up being forced into options you may not have wanted to make. The game is complete with voice overs as well, and considering it’s budget, they did decently well for themselves in that regard. If you’re a fan of D-Sims, I think you’ll definitely enjoy this one.

Be sure to keep up with http://www.okashistudios.com or http://www.shira-oka.com/ for more information on Shira Oka!