BookwormOtaku

The final game in the Silverio series enters with a whimper and exits with a bang.
First, this game absolutely requires that you have played the previous two to appreciate.  Too much of what is going on requires understanding of concepts that aren't reintroduced but constantly referenced throughout the game.  This game is based only a few years after Trinity in Canterbury, the theocratic state ruled by a Japanophilic religion based on seeing old Japan as a sort of El Dorado.  
I should note that the brief summary of the concept I am about to give WILL spoil parts of Trinity and Vendetta, so I am going to ask that anyone who wants to avoid these skip down past the next paragraph..  I also recommend that anyone who has played the previous two games that wants to start Ragnarok avoid the official website and store pages' descriptions and character profiles at all costs.  While most of the information there is revealed within the first hour or two of play, it does hurt the experience that so much is revealed just by reading up on the game in advance.
Ragnarok starts as a revenge story, wherein the protagonist - Ragna - and his childhood friend - Misaki - set out to take revenge on the four immortal gods who founded and have ruled Canterbury for the past thousand years.  They are accompanied by Cecile, the current head of the Liberati family of Antalya and they are allied with Angelica, an Inquisitor of the Church.  
Now, I should note that a recurring theme throughout the story is that the four immortals are not, as is standard to most stories, full of weak points that can be easily used against them.  They are immortals who have long-since left behind the weaknesses of their youth.  They have such an immensity of experience behind them that they have literally seen (in a general sense) every variation on rebellion, love, hate, betrayal, etc that humans have to offer.  In addition, their brains are still young, so they are constantly learning, and they instantly process everything around them based on preexisting experience.  I feel the need to make the distinction partly because it is constantly emphasized at every point of the story and in part because my own assumptions were sort of left in the dust by this approach to immortality.
 
I'll be blunt, while the first scene is dramatic and awesome, the pacing of the early part of the game is pretty abrupt.  I think this is worth noting because it is out of character for Light, which tends to produce games that start out at a pretty deliberate pace before accelerating rapidly as you approach path splits.  This led to an uncharacteristic disconnect with the characters for me during much of the common route, which is perhaps the most negative part of this game.  In addition, there are a lot of aspects of this game that are more... intimately gut-wrenching and visceral than either of the previous two games.  In particular, any major scene that involves Izana threatens to give me nightmares, because she seems like someone you would normally see in a Clock Up game.  I also felt a constant sense of pity for all the people used by the antagonists.  To be honest, the degree to which the antagonists quite naturally manipulate people without it seeming like manipulation makes Gilbert from Trinity look open and honest.  
Now for the main characters.  One thing I liked about this game is that the main characters had actual reasons for being so deadly beyond mere 'fate' or natural talent.  Ragna and Misaki are mercenaries (with Ragna having been an unwilling comrade of Dainslief at one point), Cecile was raised from birth to her role, and Angelica both has unmatched talent and has worked to polish it.  One problem that constantly hurts many chuunige is the obsessive tendency many games have to give massive power to someone who has no training, no knowledge, and no skills to use it.  It might make newbies find it easier to empathize with them, but for someone a bit more jaded it can be highly irritating.  
The music in this game utilizes a mix of music from previous games in the series, as well as new tracks.  In this case, it works to the game's advantage, because it provides a distinct sense of continuity between the three entries in the series.  This is especially the case for the few SOL scenes and the less climactic battle scenes, where a new track would be unlikely to help.  
Angelica
For people who hate Izana as much as I do, Angelica's path can be seriously depressing at times.  Of the three paths, it pushes the plotting aspects of the four immortals into the forefront the most bluntly and in the most distasteful of ways.  There is no sense of the glorious (a common experience in Trinity and Vendetta) in the battles, save for one midway through, and there is a lot of devastation left in the wake of the story's progression (even by Light standards).  
Angelica is an Inquisitor, as well as being the one in control of the foreign pleasure district, and she has a good brain to match.  This is a girl who has survived by hiding her rebelliousness and utter hatred for the four immortals for the entirety of her young life, always acting the obedient servant of the gods.  As such, she is as twisted up inside as some of the series' antagonists, and she makes Chitose from Vendetta seem simple and straightforward.  That said, she is an Amatsu, so she is predictably extreme in her loves and hates.
This path's most excellent moments mostly concentrate near the end, with there being a lot of plotting and losing battles (which can get frustrating) in the middle.  That said, without the buildup of all those tragic and frustrating moments, this path wouldn't have turned out nearly as good.
Cecile
Cecile is the head of the Liberati, one of the Ten Families of Antalya, an oligarchic nation ruled by laissez-faire capitalism at its worst.  As such, she has a definite dark side... but with Ragna and Misaki she is easygoing and loving.  In fact, with Ragna she aggressively shows her loving side... while showing her bloodlust in private whenever they speak of the antagonists.  Other than Ragna and Misaki, she has the most intense hatred for the game's antagonists, and the impression of her as a blood-hungry avenger is only enhanced, rather than weakened, by her friendship with the other two avengers.
Her path is more straightforward than Angelica's, but it still has a ton of plotting by the path's two primary antagonists.  What would be a perfect plan to the antagonist of a normal chuunige antagonist is only the first of many layers for the antagonists of this game, and this path shows the sheer cold-blooded nature of that plotting without the more grotesque aspects you see in Angelica's path.  I'd say that the battles in this path are slightly improved from that of Angelica's.
Misaki
... it is fairly obvious that this is the true path from the beginning, but even without that, the fact that this path is literally 2.5 times longer than the other two heroine paths would tell you that in any case.  Misaki is Ragna's childhood friend, partner, almost-lover, and best friend all wrapped into one silver-haired package.  Normally, she is a cheerful, easygoing country girl with a slight tendency toward eccentricity.  However, in the worst kind of battles, she can show a cold harshness that is at odds with her normal persona.
This path has so many turn and turn about moments that I won't bother to explain them here.  Just let it be said that this path was a fitting... a more than fitting end to the series that I wished would never end.  There are so many points where you think things are over and suddenly the apparently losing side turns the tables that after a while, I just felt like I was going to drop from sheer emotional exhaustion.  
Conclusion
This is, by far, the most complex of the three games.  As such, it is also the most challenging for the reader to keep everything that is going on straight.  Considering that both Vendetta and Trinity were fairly complex, even as chuunige go, that is definitely saying something.  I will say that, while the pacing can be choppy toward the beginning, once things really get going in the heroine paths, that clears itself up pretty quickly.  This game, like most Light chuunige, has great battles, great characters, great writing, and a great story... and it probably will never get translated, lol.
I'm sad to see this series end, and I am even more sad not to know the future of Light's staff or even the Light name (I'm still hoping that Akabei will keep the team together).  However, if it had to end, it does end on a bang.
 

After ten years playing VNs, you would think I would have completely lost faith in them by now, especially considering just how many I've played (744 not counting most of the nukige, replays and incomplete/dropped ones).  Most VNs that aren't nukige are SOL-fests that exist solely to promote nostalgic fantasies about life in high school and getting into bishoujos' pants... not that that is an entirely horrible goal, but it isn't something I want to see five hundred times over.
The romance is usually puerile and has no relation to reality, the characters have all their hard edges filed away by the needs of the archetype, and drama is used solely to add 'spice' (like one sprinkle of pumpkin spice, not cracked red pepper) to an otherwise endlessly sweet and bland recipe. 
So how is it that someone who has experienced that much essentially boring and pointless repetition of the same scenarios able to continue to enjoy VNs, even if he can't stand meaningless SOL anymore?
At one time, it was a sense of duty, a belief that I was doing the community good by digging gems out of the piles of crap that are the SOL genre.  I also had a sense of pride that I made an effort of objectivity that I have literally seen no one else attempt.  I played games no one else bothered with because they didn't have the time or patience, and I did it because I thought someone looking at the games would want to know what they were getting into.
I paid a price in a growing sense of bitterness, of boredom, and of a sense that I was forgetting the reason why I began to read fiction in the first place.  I paid a price in people continually being trolls and trying to draw me into fights over my opinions on these games.  I had people start reddits and send me pms being sympathetic about the very conversations they'd started (yes that happens). 
I also had people who respected what I was doing, and I knew there were people in the community who benefited from the fact that I was doing it.  I watched VNs I had pushed get localizations and fantls (usually to my surprise), and I saw others that I had labeled as mediocre get hyped to a ridiculous degree.   I tried to get other people to help with what I was doing, only to find that, without a reading speed similar to mine, it was too much of a burden on their lives and ate up the time to read the VNs they wanted to read. 
The bad generally outweighed the good immensely while I was doing VN of the Month, and even after, I found that the after-effects of my years of playing games I wasn't interested in personally had left me with scars I was unable to feel while my sense of duty was keeping me going. 
However, I can say that I still haven't given up on VNs.
Why? 
The reason is ridiculously simple and at the same time profound (at least to me).  I love the medium.  For someone who likes an experience that combines the reading, visual input, and music without the need for a lot of input from the one experiencing it, VNs provide a unique storytelling experience.  Books are great for the imagination and can send our souls exploring across landscapes that exist only in our own minds, but VNs provide a more filled-out framework for those who don't necessarily have the imagination to fill in all the gaps on their own, without rotting the imagination to the degree manga and anime do.  I've been able to get people who had trouble reading books into VNs, then led them straight back to books and opened the world of imagination to them.  I've seen people who had begun to feel the otaku community offered nothing more to them come alive again after playing a chuunige or a charage.  I've picked up a random moe-looking VN and found a deep and compelling story that remains within me dozens of times.
In the end, it is moments, experiences like that that keep me coming back, believing in the possibilities of VNs even now.  It is the desire to find more such experiences that keeps me looking at new releases each month, and it is the belief that those experiences will never entirely vanish that keeps me from condemning the industry as a whole for the way it sabotages itself at times. 

First, I should mention that this post is mostly going to focus on how this VN improves on the original content from Shin Koihime Musou.  The reason is fairly simple... if you like the series, you'll eventually play this, and if you played the original Shin Koihime Musou, then that is probably what you want to know.  I know I would.
Next, I will go ahead and come out with it... I loved what they did with this path.  The degree of added detail in this VN is actually higher than in Souten no Haou (Gi/Wei), and at least part of this is that it adds in a huge portion of time in the prologue, added story in the later areas of the game, and significantly revamped scenes involving the much larger cast of characters available to the somewhat sparsely-populated (comparative to Shoku/Shu and Gi/Wei)  of the original. 
The prelude (the period of the game starting with Kazuto's arrival through the Yellow Turbans and Dong Zhuo eras) is so completely redone as to be unrecognizable.   Son Bundai (Sun Jian) being both alive and present in this part of the game alters how it begins dramatically.  Ienren (her manna) is like Sheren/Hakufu magnified with a foul mouth and a fighting power roughly equivalent to Ryoufu/Lu Bu.  She is harsh with her enemies, domineering but thoughtful with her subordinates, and rules her people with an iron fist in a velvet glove.  Under her tutelage, Kazuto actually ends up pushed into the bloody/dirty parts of war, and as a result, he ends up a bit fiercer/harsher than he is in the other paths at times.  
This path does indeed follow the basic bones of history (if you know what happens with Sun Jian and Sun Ce in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you know what I'm talking about), which matches the original events of the path in the original Shin Koihime Musou.  However, because of the experiences in the prelude with Ienren, the emotional moments were all the more poignant, and I felt myself able to empathize more with the characters as a whole than I did in the original path, where things seemed to move far too fast through that part of the game.
The generalized 'fattening up' of the story is present at all levels, and the story is much more complex in the particulars as a result.  While this has the effect of making playing all the way through this path somewhat exhausting, I felt it was worth it in the end. 
The extra heroines are something of a mixed bag.  I really liked Taishiji and Raika, but I despised Pao and was disinterested in Teifu (yet another drunkard older woman in a game that already has way too many).
I do want to say that I really seriously don't understand why they kept the system where you can't read all the heroine events each chapter.  Sengoku Koihime allows you to read all of them, and it didn't seem to hurt the story... and it was immensely annoying to end up seeing some of the scenes that were slightly out of line with the current progression of the story.  Only the 'ruler' heroines' scenes perfectly matched what was going on in the story as a whole, and that disrupted my enjoyment of them immensely. 
Last of all, as rumored, there is indeed an 'alternate' ending to Go's path, unlike Gi's.  This ending branches off at the most dramatic/sad turning point of the original path and gives you a 'what if' for if
This alters the events that proceed from there and the ending as a whole greatly.  I honestly cried happy tears at this ending, and for those who are displeased with that particular turning point of the original path, it is a treat. 
Anyway, that is my commentary on this game, for those who are interested.

I've been considering this for some time, but it has suddenly become a reality.
To be blunt, I've come to my limit when it comes to playing pure SOL games.  Oh, I can still enjoy many of them, but if you asked me whether I can look at them without my resentment of 'normal' SOL content blinding me, the answer is no.  If I have to read through one more template date scene or see another osananajimi climb through the window from next door, I'm going to start tearing out the last remaining hairs atop my head.
*coughs* Ahem, now that I've got that out, it needs to be said that I've been doing this since September of 2012... a ridiculous amount of time to be playing roughly 80% of all non-nukige VNs that come out (I'm figuring those I dropped or just couldn't play because they were just that bad into the twenty percent). 
Just to be clear, I will still continue to play VNs and comment on/review them in this blog.  However, I will no longer play as many outside my tastes, nor will I go out of my way to seek gems from companies I hate reading from. 
I realized while I was playing Koisaku (Ensemble's latest game), that a few years ago, I would have read this game without any real problems, and I wouldn't even have blinked at the crap that now drives me up the wall.  Oh sure, Ensemble's base quality has fallen massively, but when I took a step back, this is actually one of the better amongst their more recent games, with plenty of indications of real stories for the heroines in the background.  However, I found I just couldn't tolerate it.
It hit me in the date scene that occurs in the common route... I have no tolerance for date scenes at all anymore.  Scenes like that exist for every heroine in every SOL VN, and they all turn out in almost an identical fashion.  Reading it, even though it was basically a 'friend date', was like dragging my brain through mud.  I just couldn't do it.
I promised myself that I wouldn't BS myself on this particular matter years ago... and I knew the limit was coming.  I just didn't realize that it would be this soon.
So, I have to announce that this is the end of my VN of the Month column.  Now, all that remains is my Random VNs and whatever VNs I choose to play each month.
I will continue to play what I'm interested in, and that will probably include slice-of-life at times.  However, I will no longer play SOL out of a sense of duty to my readers. 
My original reasons for starting VN of the Month
When I first started Clephas' VN of the Month, it was because vndb gives nothing to you for info on their games beyond poor tls of the game summary from Getchu, character profiles, and sometimes tags (that might or might not be accurate).  I felt that that didn't do most games justice, and I hated the way I had to go into a game blind on so many occasions.  As such, I started putting up commentaries on just what kind of VN I was playing, with few or no spoilers.  This was a need that, at the time, was not being fulfilled (and as far as I know, still isn't, since most reviewers include major spoilers because they are inconsiderate). 
Over time, my routine each month started with figuring out which games weren't nukige and which I would play first...  and picking out which one was the best after I played them (the latter of course being entirely a matter of my opinion, informed as it might be). 
However, it is time to set down my burden.  I tried handing off my work to others, and that worked for a while (thanks to @Dergonu@fun2novel@BookwormOtaku@Kiriririri for their help over the last year - yes, even you, Kiriririri).  In the end, though, I'm just one man... and one middle-aged man with increasingly bad health isn't going to be able to keep this up any longer.  Heck, I'm amazed i kept going this long.
I do hope someone else takes up the torch of at least informing people of what to expect in newer games (and not just the ones from popular companies), but that isn't my job anymore. 
Thanks for reading,
Clephas
 

Yes, you were waiting for it, all you tentacle-loving freaks... this is the newest game in the Venus Blood series, as full of tentacles and sex-training as any of the others...  I come to you having finished the Law route and after being forced to go back a chapter in order to get to the Chaos route on my second playthrough (apparently you absolutely have to start the 'goddess insanity' chapter, by failing to complete one of the monster-hunting side-quests). 
The gameplay will be familiar to anyone who played Hypno, though there are differences introduced in the unit-creation screen, just as in all the others in the series (every game puts its own twist on this aspect).  It is the sequel to Frontier, occurring some three hundred years later, and it is based off of a partial 'fallen goddess but still on Law Route' path. 
The biggest difference in the gameplay from previous entries is the introduction of a 'research' system where you basically have to open each step in a tree to get access to other units.  You expend medallions to get particular units on each 'block' that you've opened up, and what medallions are available to you determine what units you can access and how much of each tree you can complete (it is impossible to get access to all medallion types and units in the first or even the second playthrough due to difficulty and route issues).  While this might not sound that different in fact, it was a great difference visually, making access to the various monster types more obvious than in previous entries.
The system of 'leveling up resources' is back from Hypno, allowing you to use research to level up your auto-healing, auto-experience gaining, and automatic resource allowance (at the end of each turn) independent from what places you've captured.  I advise anyone planning to do multiple playthroughs to get everything as high as possible (focus on healing over experience and all the other resources before gold, since gold is the most plentiful resource). 
Story-wise... it is standard Venus Blood.  You come, you conquer, and you decide whether to make the goddesses love you normally or just drive them crazy through sex training.  The actual basic plot is inferior to both Frontier and Hypno, though it it is more 'stable' in that it doesn't trip up in the last chapters like in the previous games.  Unfortunately, this game suffers somewhat from being a direct and obvious sequel, as the shadows and persons of characters from the previous game pop up everywhere, distracting you from the protagonist's story.
I need to say something about the Venus Blood games here... it really is a shame that this company doesn't go 'legit' and start making non-ero games.  The complexity of the skill system and the way you can make levels almost irrelevant through simply combining the right units in the same squad is incredibly rewarding.  This is actually only the second game in the series where I actually explored this aspect of the game in-depth, but I was seriously impressed with the degree to which you can customize your army, creating the ultimate force.  In fact, it wouldn't be far from the truth to say the outcome of all battles is entirely determined by the way you design your squads.
Sanah is something of a hard-ass when it comes for this game, always beginning on Hard mode... but I honestly don't recommend that for newcomers to the series.  For one thing, the basic endgame difficulty level is pretty high even on normal difficulty, and playing hard mode on the first playthrough has certain annoyances like running short of resources at key points. 
Anyway, for gameplay, this, like most of the Venus Blood games, is fairly enjoyable.  As a story?  Lots of potential here, some really interesting points, but in retrospect the story pales somewhat in comparison to previous entries in the series as a whole, despite exceeding most previous games when it comes to the endgame story. 

Hello!
 
So I recently finished playing "Tales of Berseria" (JRPG game by Bandai Namco) and I thought I would round up my thoughts about the game here (the review should be mostly spoiler free, otherwise notify me and I'll change it).

The story tells the tale of young Velvet Crowe and her adventurous crew (surmounting to 6 by the end of the game) who set out to put an end to a trauma of Velvet's past by all manner of means, ranging from fishing and cooking to straight up fighting. Well mostly the latter. You see while you might be fooled by an early cutesy introduction the meat of the game is truly in its dark undertones which, for a game with a age rating of 16, is a fair amount of the content.
I found also that the content was fairly philosophical at times (perhaps not in the amount of some VNs though). In the game you namely find yourself fighting between different values, ideas and perspectives, something the game manages in my opinion to do with fluidity and better than most games and VNs. This philosophy comes from the intimite and delicate relation the game places between cutscenes, extra dialogue (dialogue you can choose to straight up never open) and world building in which you get to take a part of not a straight up philosophy lesson but instead a smaller amount of nit picks of philosophy. In this regard I found the game interesting above the brute force gameplay and story (we will get to that later) and found myself able to enjoy not skipping every single dialogue line, something I admittedly find myself doing all too often in games.
The story is very good and interesting throughout the whole game, if somewhat trope-ish (what can one expect from a JRPG game?) and while the story never managed to grab me to the point of tears it certainly has its moments for both the ones liking darker and (somewhat) lighter storylines. Is this good? Well, perhaps. I personally did not really enjoy the sudden shift the game took towards the end to become so light namely and I sort of wished the story had stuck purely to the largely dark undertones it held in the beginning, since this shift sort of opened up the door for it being trope-ish for the (in my opinion good) ending. Did this largely influence my enjoyment? Certainly not, but just something to note for those not able to stand JRPGs love for tropes. 
In terms of voice acting I can not speak for the English side but with Japanese voices the dialogue is very nicely voiced. 

The fighting (which is 50%> of the game in my opinion) is focused on different, so called, artes (attacks basically) which have different effects, elements, level upgrading (..., I was literally still getting new tutorial messages for fights 1 hour before the, ~40-ish hour, game ended). If you are like me however you will notice the little blue bar (so called "souls") next to people's faces and that is, truth be told, the MVP meter, 80% of your time will be spent waiting for this to go up to three bars and then pressing R to do some, so called, break soul ability, which is basically code name for stun lock, invincibility frames and damage central (if you want some NG+ level fighting, I am not your guy, I am the R spammer). If you do not have this bar filled you will be in the living hell mode, where you can get stun locked into the next century and can get absolutely destroyed by different AI unless you run around in circles (blocking does exist but did not work very well in my experience compared to dashing away) and wait for your blue bar (basically working as a stamina bar) to refill by attacking with basic artes and running.
Is the fighting enjoyable? Yes. Is it repetitive? Yes, especially if you need to farm for levels where your life basically becomes turning down the volume to next to nought to not have to use hearing aid in the near future due to the EXTREMELY loud battle sounds (one reason I cannot really speak for the music) and getting perhaps slightly bored of seeing the same cat on a wand for the 30th time. Personally I would have perhaps liked some other battle system (with an lessened focus on stuns and the "souls" (stamina bar) and an increased focus on leveling) but I can also see the enjoyment it brings when you absolutely destroy your enemies with OP and nice animated powers. Beware however, the AOE stun of doom is real in this game so if you screw up your blue bar of destiny you are a bit in the toilet when an enemy does an AOE of half the battleground and you can neither run away, get up your souls (since it takes forever to do so) or attack (due to the extreme damage some bosses do).
In terms of bosses the game too offers a wide arrange, though arguably they are later on narrowed down in terms of difficulty to their AOE attack size and ability to stun lock you and your AI friends (which are actually pretty good in my experience of not needlessly dying), since in my experience that is where the real trouble late game comes up and minor changes in attack patterns become minor. 

The characters are also really enjoyable and funny, making me chuckle more than once and not making one character that one guy which is boring compared to the others. The relations between the different antagonists and characters later on get really interesting too, tying in nicely with good story overall. 
In terms of graphics the game is generally really good, if perhaps somewhat randomly pixely at some points (I laughed when an antagonist got an 144p background randomly smashed up behind himself while he kept the same quality as the rest of the game). Out doors the quality stays pretty good too and most of the views of the game are pretty nice if looked from afar, if somewhat dulled out if you get close up.
Ending thoughts
Though focusing (perhaps too much) on the the battle system, Tales of Berseria is something to truly enjoy for its story and characters, which is something that brought me back to game and made the experience all the more worth it.

Anime, if you limit it to Japanese animation (the actual word in Japanese refers to all animated shows, but I'm limiting the definition to J-animation), has been around since 1917, but anime as we know it, in its earliest distinct form, was born in the 1960's.  My personal experience with anime (where I understood it to be anime, as opposed to my Voltron experience in the mid eighties as a kid) began in 1992, with Record of Lodoss War (the OVA series, not the TV series), drawing me in and making me a fan instantly. 
At the time, certain anime were considered to be 'icons' of the medium... Astro Boy, Dragonball, Ranma, Mobile Suit Gundam, etc.  After becoming a fan of anime, I was introduced to them, and by the time I moved to Austin in 1998, I'd already seen three of my old favorites achieve 'icon' status (The Slayers, Tenchi Muyo, and Yuyu Hakusho).  Now, it is really, really weird to see something you watched almost as it came out being referred to as 'iconic'.  Moreover, seeing something you liked become referred to as genre-defining (Noir, Love Hina, Ai Yori Aoshi) can leave you with complicated feelings... it tends for me to be an odd mix of pride and embarrassment.  
Now, most of the time in the US, TV shows are generally only considered iconic when they've run for many seasons or won a number of academy awards... but most of the time, anime that are considered iconic are made so by fan acclaim, and the line where famous ends and iconic begins tends to be rather murky. 
I doubt many with a strong knowledge of the last forty years of anime would fail to consider Legend of the Galactic Heroes or Tenchi Muyo to be iconic.  However, if you were to ask one who had lived through those times at what point they became so, you would probably just get a helpless shrug  in return.  Legend of the Galactic Heroes is considered by many to be the peak of the now-deceased anime space opera sub-genre (since only a few have been made since and none even came close to it in scale or quality).  The fact that it manages to maintain a massive fanbase amongst sci-fi anime fans despite its dated visuals says everything that needs to be said about the artistic value of the series.  Tenchi Muyo, on the other hand, is considered a genre-definer.  It combined one old and time-honored anime genre - science fantasy - with at home slice-of-life antics with a spice of romance, essentially pioneering the idea that action science-fantasy series could also have a strong basis in daily life comedy and romance (If you can't figure out how that has effected things to this day, then you aren't looking hard enough at the trends in otaku media over the last twenty years). 
These are just two examples... even in the last ten years, I've seen anime that I watched out of boredom suddenly become idolized a few years after their release as genre pioneers or an example of what is best in a genre...
In other words, this whole post is just a ramble about how I'm starting to feel old when I look back at how long my otaku live has been, hahaha.
Edit: To be clear, anime was my first entryway into the otaku life as I knew it.  I love anime to this day, and while I'm sad at how the medium has stagnated (like most otaku media have stagnated in the last ten years or so) I have faith it will eventually recover.  After all, I find at least one new anime worth adoring with each year that passes.
Edit2: A few more things... I've also seen treatment of anime fans by society change dramatically since I was a kid.  I don't remember the last time I heard the question 'Are you watching cartoons?' and if you shake three people in an urban area, at least one of them regularly watches the newest stuff on crunchyroll.  It is odd not to be an extreme minority in an extremely niche community, considered to be childish or strange for watching a gory fantasy anime rather than a sitcom, lol.

This will actually be far too brief to make a blog post around, but alas...
What is "overrated"? Many things, apparently, but so far as I can tell the word itself is used to describe something that too many people like, or that is well liked for little reason.
This is an inherently subjective word. Infuriatingly so. At its most basic, it means "too many people have a different opinion than mine", which if phrased that way means nothing. Yet so many people employ the word. There is no such thing as "other people like X too much". It is precisely because people have different opinions that some thing's are successes and others are not, and if something is a success, then it is, for that very reason, not overrated -- if people like something, that something must've done something to deserve it, whether you understand what that is or not, because thousands of people don't like something "just because". And I suppose that's just where the issue lies. Once again, people have different opinions. It's that simple.
Such a shame it doesn't stop me from hating the word. It has no purpose. It's obvious and always implied whenever anyone has an opinion, and it only serves to bring a bad connotation and disagree with other peoples' opinions. "Underrated" at least has a purpose (in this context. Other contexts, more similar to "underestimate" are a different, unrelated, story); not to say people don't "like something enough" or people "dislike something too much", which is also another way to spell "too many people have a different opinion from mine", but to say that not enough people know of a particular thing. "Not enough people know about X", or "Not enough people gave X a chance".
You can use "overrated" properly. "The importance of X is overrated" can be used to describe situations where misinformation is popularly spread. But therein lies the key. Using it in "subjective" matters, in matters of opinion, means little. It's a way of complaining that other people have different opinions. And I dislike that, so I complain about it on forums online.
 
This post was sponsored by that thread asking if CLANNAD deserves its popularity or if it's overrated. I'd say when something makes you ask if it is "overrated", that's because it is popular to a point where it must have done some things the proletariat likes, and therefore can't be overrated.
Of course, that doesn't remove the merit of discussing what is "well done" or "badly done" according to other people.
 

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've simply reached a point where playing four VNs from every month's releases is now unfeasible.  However, at the same time, I wish to ensure that the role I set this up for in the first place continues to be fulfilled.
The Original Purpose of VN of the Month
The central purpose of VN of the Month is to give people a general idea of what they can expect going into a VN that is untranslated.  Is it enjoyable?  Who would it be enjoyable for?  What kind of genre is it a part of?  Is there something that makes this VN special? 
The current situation
I no longer have the energy to do everything I have been doing. Doing VN of the Month takes up amounts of time I'd rather be spending asleep, being social, or helping with translation projects.  Moreover, I'm currently in the middle of an apparent rush season for my work, so keeping up with it has become burdensome in the extreme.  However, I remember when all opinions of VNs were basically given off-hand in instant messaging and chat platforms, and no one really had any idea if a VN was any good, because of the troll voting that plagues all database sites.  While there are some English language VN bloggers out there, they mostly concentrate on translated entries and titles by companies everybody is already familiar with (such as Favorite, Pulltop, Yuzusoft, Minori, etc). 
My solution
I want to ask some of the people who regularly play new VNs on Fuwa to take some of the burden off my shoulders... in particular, I'd like to at least offload two of the charage from each month on some people so I can concentrate on VNs I have a standing interest in.  Preferably, I would like four or five people to do maybe one of these VNs each every two months (accounting for other people's reading speed and time constraints).  To be blunt, I have no interest in aiding and abetting another person's burnout by forcing them into handling a VN or two every month on schedule, so that is why I want the greater numbers.
The issue
Japanese readers are still a vast minority here, and I don't know if it is even realistic to expect anyone but me to even consider helping with something like this.  I know a few people who read fairly fast, but I honestly don't want to make a request directly that is fundamentally burdensome.
If you are interested, comment on this blog post and we'll work things out in a PM.
Edit:   Keep in mind that what I want are opinions.  To be blunt, I can write up a blog post based on someone else's opinions in under ten minutes if I need to, even if they themselves are terrible at writing or organizing their thoughts.  It is what I do for a living, after all.  In this way, the focus will shift somewhat... because I'll be handing things over to people who have a preference for the genre they are playing.  That's why I'd like to get some charage players on board.  While I personally strive for as little bias as possible, the fact is that charage reviews should be geared to charage lovers, and that is something I can't provide, sadly.  The same goes for mystery, sports-focused, and denpa types.  I have no taste for those genres, so it is best that I leave them to someone else who does like them. 
Current new Members-
fun2novel: Specialties are mindfuck, mystery, and chuunige.  I'll be depending on him primarily for mystery VNs, which I dislike.  For a start, I've asked him to take over Ouka Sabaki, since I can't bring myself to play it.  He's got a decent level of experience, and he is reasonably fast. 
 
 

The Kyonyuu Fantasy series is easily one of the weirdest series I’ve ever encountered.  On one side, you have what is clearly nukige levels of sexual content, with some of the most absurd h-scenes I’ve ever encountered, taking male breast-obsessions to new levels.  On the other side, you have startlingly detailed settings and interesting stories with protagonists who only seem weak on the surface.

Kyonyuu Fantasy 3 is no exception to my experiences with the series.  When I started it, I was returned mentally to my first experience with the series, in the form of the massive omnibus edition of the original and its side and after-stories, the Digitalized Novel version.  I’m going to be blunt, this series’ protagonists are universally the same type of person… loving, wide-hearted, and extreme nymphomaniacs with a breast obsession.  The one in this one is the god of paizuri (if you don’t know what this is, ask one of the h-addicts around here), Yuranis. 

The era is something like twelve to fourteen hundred years before the original, when an alternate Rome (where Caesar was never assassinated) ruled much of the Western world.  The protagonist gets thrust into the human world, and he makes his way with the usual casual competence and lack of tension that is pretty much inbred into the series.

I should say that this Rome shares all of the Empire's many flaws and virtues, from systematic slavery and the difficulty of obtaining the status of citizen, to the formal and orderly lawmaking and engineering that defined the Empire at its best. 
I’ll be honest, I absolutely love the way they put together the settings in these games… there is enough detail to satisfy people like me, and the tons of erotic content makes me rofl, since it is so… random most of the time.  I’m serious and I’m laughing… and I honestly just can sit back and enjoy games in this series without taking them overly seriously.  It is pretty rare for me to just sit back and enjoy something with this much h-content, but the Kyonyuu Fantasy series is a definite rare exception.

The endings other than the true one are actually pretty detailed, and I was mostly satisfied with them… though it is pretty blatant that they intend to put out yet another series of fandiscs for this one later on, lol.

Knonyuu Fantasy 2if is a remake of the original Kyonyuu Fantasy 2, with an apparently expanded narrative.  Having played the Digitalized Novel version of the original Kyonyuu Fantasy, which I loved, I found Kyonyuu Fantasy 2if to be very… familiar.

To be blunt, everything in this VN is exactly like the first few chapters of that estimable game, with the easygoing, unambitious protagonist gaining political power and rising to the top over the course of the game… while having sex constantly with a rather large cast of heroines with massive breasts.

Now, at first glance, this series seems to be a bunch of nukige… and that impression isn’t entirely wrong.  There is a lot of sex in all the VNs in this series.  However, the writing, storytelling, and world-building in these games really is impressive… so impressive that I have been reduced to exasperation each time I played one of these games.

How could I not be exasperated?  Most of the time, a writer of this level of quality would be working on major-name low-ero VNs, not something that verges on being a complete nukige.  Yes, there are exceptions, such as the writer of Erect… but they are just that… exceptions. 

Kyonyuu Fantasy 2if is based a century and a half before the original game, in Hillsland (the country visited as part of one of the Gaidens), where the king is dying of a curse and is looking to choose his successor from amongst the skilled youth of his kingdom.  Predictably for a protagonist of the Kyonyuu Fantasy series, he doesn’t start as one of those candidates… rather, he gets sent away to serve as a captain of the guard of a small castle on the edges of the kingdom. 

Generally speaking, this follows an eerily identical path to Lute’s rise to power in the original, probably because that particular plot was so well-loved by the fans of the original.  That said, the protagonist is an administrator rather than a knight, and that shows in the true path, where he climbs the ranks (after his unusual start) of the bureaucratic hierarchy rather quickly.  This VN is slightly longer than the whole Digitalized Novel version of the original and its gaiden stories, and it also has numerous endings besides the true one.

Overall, this VN will be instantly loved by anyone who loved Kyonyuu Fantasy.  If there is a disadvantage to this VN, it is that it doesn’t have as much of an extended story as the original ended up with. 

Mmm... first of all, this is by Onamatope, a company previously known only for its harem-ge from the Mecha-con series.  The Mecha-con series fell somewhere into that thin area between a nukige and a moege, and it was actually pretty decent for something in that area of the VN universe.  So, keeping that experience in mind, I went into this VN with a more open mind than some people probably would have.  Fortunately, this VN wasn't a disappointment, precisely because I wasn't looking for it to be something out of this world.
Ok, first... this is a chuunige, in the sense that it follows a format I think most people will be familiar with... this young guy is transformed and forced into a world where he has to fight to survive, with many pretty girls around him... sound familiar?  It should.  That right there is the basis for about ninety-percent of the entire 'gakuen battle' type chuunige sub-genre.  In a few ways, this VN definitely borrows from Draculius, which I still think is the best non-superviolent vampire VN.  There are a lot of differences between the two... but they share the commonality of allowing for a coexistence of slice-of-life and comedy with a more serious background story. 
I'll say it straight out though... there should have been an Iris path.  I don't say this because I'm a lolicon (though the protagonist and his ancestors all were, apparently) - as I'm not - but because Iris was, at first, second and third glance, the most interesting female character in the VN.  All the heroines had their moments... in fact, I was really, really surprised at the degree to which they managed to balance all the paths and gave the heroines an equal amount of story.  Due to the fact that the first half of their paths are the same, you might think Aoi and Lycoris got a bit screwed over, but their events after the split are distinct enough - and long enough - that I can't really say either got screwed over by the scenario designer's choices.  In that sense, this VN is something of a triumph of the art of scenario design, which was one of the areas in which Onamatope generally shined in its near-nukige Mecha-con series as well (one of the reasons my impressions of those games were positive). 
In terms of raw writing... the battle writing is actually some of the better non-Light and non-Propeller I've seen.  That isn't to say it is first class, because it isn't.  The protagonist is way too much of a hetare when it comes to dealing with his vampirism, and the fact that they chose to make all the heroines, sub-heroines, and the protagonist a bit 'baka' was a bit of an odd choice that had moments where it fell flat.  The regular narrative writing is better than you generally see in a nakige (which generally get favored with the best moege-variant writers), and I can honestly say that the pacing didn't throw me off very often, though there were some shaky moments midway and early on.
In terms of visuals... this VN definitely needed more combat CGs.  I knew they would cut corners on this, as Onamatope is not a company that can afford the kind of budgets for visuals that monsters like Will and Light can.  There was a bit too much reuse of the same tachie poses to simulate combat, and the best I can say is that they gave the protagonist a face and a tachie for once, which was a huge plus.
... unfortunately they didn't give him a voice.  Perhaps one of the biggest no-nos with a modern chuunige is to fail to give the protagonist a voice.  The simple reason for this?  Because the protagonist in a chuunige is always intended to be an actual person, rather than a simple self-insert.  As such, it is rather ridiculous to give into that particular convention when even using a random staff member would probably satisfy most people. 
Generally speaking, the music in this game is... generic-sounding in the sense that chuunige music can ever be generic-sounding.  That means that the tunes are ones I suspect get sold to every company intending to make this type of VN, with a few twists and changes in the rhythm to make them sound different to the ears of someone who doesn't listen.   On the positive side, there is no point in this VN where I felt like the music was misused, which is a far bigger flaw that simply reusing music tracks from other games.
Overall, what can those of you looking forward to the localization look forward to?  I'd say that if you want some slice-of-life with vampires merged with a low-level chuunige story, this will definitely be something to look forward to.  On the other hand, fans of more serious chuunige will not be satisfied by this, as the game is just to light in the slice-of-life scenes and the protagonist is a bit too much of a near-hetare when it comes to the vampire issues. 

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I wrote previously about a display bug in Dual Tail's strategy eroge Venus Blood -Hypno- that prevented interface text from displaying correctly in non-Japanese Windows. Fan hacker binaryfail generously donated a patch that fixes the issue. I sent this patch to Ninetail (parent company of Dual Tail) via Twitter, requesting that they include the fix on their official support page. Project manager and game designer Keimaru responded to me in broken English. His response, edited by me, is as follows.

Original:




I thanked him and went my way. A commentator on Reddit later informed me that Keimaru had posted a much longer comment in Japanese. This comment showed such sincere and thoughtful consideration of the issue, from a Japanese developer's standpoint, that I decided it needed to be relayed to the English audience.

Japanese eroge developers are well known for their reluctance to get involved with the Western market. Packaging and splash screens prominently declare "For sale in Japan only". Westerners tend to dismiss this policy as apathy for foreign fans, even regarding the practice with contempt as just another manifestation of Japanese isolationism and xenophobia. When eroge companies block foreign IPs, they automatically assume that the company has closed its doors to Western release (despite abundant evidence to the contrary). "The companies are just being xenophobic," they say with bitter contempt. "Might as well just fan translate their titles, since they'll never officially release their games in English. They don't want dirty gaijin playing their games."

It's about time that we get the other side of this story. And who better to deliver it than a prominent and well-loved Japanese developer--one puzzling over how to respond to a bug that prevents foreign fans from playing his games? I provide my translation of Keimaru's Twitter comments below. I regret that my translation skills could not fully convey the honest simplicity of the original message, but I did my best to at least get across the ideas and intent.
I don't know about you, but Ninetail just earned one new (very loud) fan. For an example of one of Ninetail's outstanding games, see my Venus Blood -Gaia- review! (NSFW version, SFW mirror)

Special thanks to those of the Fuwanovel community who provided feedback on the translation, especially Majikoi fan translator dowolf.

I wrote yesterday about the Steam Greenlight campaign for Debonosu's Kagura Douchuuki, a rogue-like H-RPG. Read my article for coverage of the announcement and a first impression. As Steam doesn't allow adult content, this release will be censored, with all adult content removed. Kagura Douchuuki contains dozens of H-scenes, so the content removed will be considerable. By my estimation, more CG will be removed than left behind. The game's art will be thoroughly gutted. Not only will the game itself be butchered beyond recognition, but if left unchecked this sets a dangerous precedent for future English releases that cannot be ignored. If Japanese developers get the impression that Steam is the one and only venue for visual novels, this will be the first of many Steam-only releases of VNs that were originally ero-games.
 
I've contacted both Debonosu and Sekai Project via Twitter, with no response. It's time to escalate this.
 

 

 
For those who are opposed to Steam censorship of this title, here's what you can do.
 
Go to Debonosu's twitter account (@debonosu) and tweet this message:
神楽道中記はエロシーンが取り除けたら、その利点を失くしてしまいます。神楽道中記の１８禁版も英語化してください！
If the ero scenes are removed from Kagura Douchuuki, the game will lose its main selling point. Please give us the 18+ version in English!
 
If enough fans speak up, they might listen and also release the original 18+ version in partnership with an eroge publisher like Sekai Project, Mangagamer, or JAST USA.
 
Edit: On a reader's suggestion, I changed the message to make more sense to a Japanese reader. The old message was:
言論弾圧には反対です。１８歳以上用版（英語訳）下さい！
I am opposed to censorship. Please give us the 18+ version (in English)!

(This is the safe-for-work mirror of my LewdGamer article H-RPG Kagura Douchuuki Gets Greenlight for Censorship [NSFW])

Steam: An opportunity and a threat to ero-gaming

The opening of Steam to visual novels is changing the face of professional eroge localization. Until very recently this was a world where every eroge, no matter its merit or lack thereof, sold more or less the same. Story-focused eroge consume several times the resources in time and manpower as short sex-heavy titles, and lackluster sales meant these titles had trouble simply recouping translation and voice licensing costs. Just recently, Mangagamer warned that the failure of Princess Evangile (NSFW) could spell the end of moe-focused romantic comedies in English. Meanwhile, JAST's Peter Payne similarly declared that gameplay titles are 2-3 times more costly to localize than even story-focused eroge, and added that if Seinarukana does not sell better than their previous RPGs then it would likely be the last ero-RPG they choose to license (JAST’s failure to market Seinarukana as an RPG could doom English H-RPGs).

Enter Steam. Valve opened up Steam Greenlight to developers of all varieties and backpedaled on its stance that visual novels were not welcome on its platform. Visual novels began appearing on Steam and selling in unprecedented numbers. Capitalizing on this lucky break, JAST and Mangagamer rushed to offer censored versions of their eroge on the Steam marketplace. All at once, the calculus of eroge localization was flipped on its heels, as high-quality story-focused titles showed that they could turn a profit along with their budget porn brethren. Sales of Princess Evangile exceeded expectations. JAST reported increased adult version sales of Littlewitch Romanesque after its Steam debut, despite the availability of a fan patch that restored the adult content in the much cheaper Steam version. A successful release of Seinarukana is within reach, assuming JAST can get a version of it on Steam.


But for all its promise, Steam is a censored platform that does NOT welcome lewd games. There was always the risk that Japanese eroge developers would see Steam as a target market rather than as a means to fund eroge localization. And today we are confronted with the first eroge developer to bypass their natural fanbase--erogamers like you and me--and go straight for Steam, setting a dangerous precedent should they stay the path and find success.

Opening + gameplay trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvG1Ez2xJnM

Steam Greenlight page
VNDB
Official Japanese site (NSFW)

Announcing an English release of Kagura Douchuuki

With little fanfare ero-RPG developer Debonosu has unleashed its rogue-like RPG Kagura Douchuuki on Steam Greenlight. Originally released in 2009, Kagura Douchuuki was Debo no Su Seisakusho's first title after rising from the ashes of Studio e.go!. Fans of fan-translated RPGs Castle Fantasia 2 Renewal and Men at Work 2 will recognize the bewitching art of Kazue Yamamoto. Originally released as an eroge, Debonosu also released a non-adult version with erotic content removed, which presumably is the version being offered on Greenlight. It is unclear whether there are plans for a release of the adult version. Contrary to rumor, Sekai Project provided a translation of the description as a gesture of goodwill, but at present are not affiliated with Debonosu's effort to release Kagura Douchuuki in English (source).

Premise



Kagura Douchuuki takes place in a remote village built around a hot springs resort in modern-day Japan. The once prosperous village, now largely abandoned, provides a nostalgic glimpse into a rural past unfettered by modern-day civilization and the din of machines. Residents of this rural village have been disappearing recently, and despite a police investigation bizarre incidents continue to plague the area. Suspecting the involvement of otherworldly creatures known as youkai, a squad of Shinto exorcists is dispatched to investigate the disappearances. This 3-member squad consists of two warrior priestesses, sword-wielding Ibuki from the Youkai Coexistence faction and spear-wielding Nazuna from the Youkai Extermination faction, and the monk Minase tasked with coordinating the investigation and performing purification rites. Can the two priestesses overcome their differences and get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearances?


Ibuki (left), Nazuna (right)

Gameplay overview

I played a few hours into this game several years ago, so I'll try to recap what I remember. As shown in the second half of the video, Kagura Douchuuki features rogue-like gameplay: the player controls Ibuki and Nazuna as they investigate the youkai-infested forest around the village. The maps are essentially randomly-generated dungeon floors, where the objective is to locate the entrance to successive floors while fighting off randomly spawning enemies. Story objectives typically task the mikos with fighting through a specified number of floors to a boss encounter, defeat of which progresses the story.



Items and equipment are littered throughout each floor as well as being dropped by monsters and bosses, and these are the main source of character growth. As I recall, there's 3x2 equipment slots: weapon, armor, accessory. Characters level up by defeating monsters, unlocking new skills, but levels are lost after leaving the dungeon (except in Easy mode). In addition, unequipped items in inventory are lost upon defeat (Normal mode), while in Hard mode equipped items are also lost. Inventory space is very limited, so players will not be able to carry every item they find.

Combat takes places in semi real time with movement and attacks each being counted as one turn. Players and enemies can move in 4 directions; whenever the player moves or attacks, enemies do so as well. Attacks can occur diagonally as well. This game has gamepad support, which is a definite plus. Players can alternate freely between Ibuki and Nazuna. Ibuki is a melee fighter that can attack 1 space in front of her. Nazuna can attack 2 spaces out with her spear, but her defense is weaker so she takes more damage. Some enemies are best dealt with by Nazuna due to her longer reach, while Ibuki's higher defense is useful for others. Health is recovered with food and potions, while MP for skills recovers with time.

Story

While the gameplay dominates time-wise, Kagura Douchuuki still has significant stretches of text between dungeon excursions, and boss fights are preceded by story segments as well. The characters are the main draw rather than the plot, with interactions between Ibuki and Nazuna often forming the crux of the dialogue. Ibuki is a clumsy but good-natured girl (with an Osakan dialect) who seeks coexistence with the youkai, while Nazuna is a stern tsundere-type who believes the youkai should be eradicated without mercy. The plot isn't very deep, but it adequately serves up reasons to go dungeon crawling while providing opportunities for Ibuki and Nazuna to quarrel. There might be a romance arc with Minase, but I didn't play far enough to confirm.



Adult content

The adult version of Kagura Douchuuki is filled to the brim with sexual content. There's a reason that the priestesses do all the fighting: youkai are extremely hostile to and kill any males they encounter, but they use human females to propagate. They subdue and rape females they come across, but otherwise don't harm their captives. With time and sufficient insemination, these females will spawn more youkai or become youkai themselves. However, the sperm of a human male is curative of youkai fertilization due to its spiritual antagonism to youkai negative energies

In short, there's 2 unique defeat rape scenes for every monster type and boss, one per heroine. In addition, there's further scenes involving purification of the youkai fertilizations by Minase, which are required to prevent an eventual game over (i.e., being turned into a youkai) after being defeated. On top of that, there's textual and voice variations of the scenes on subsequent defeats that make the scenes worth re-experiencing, including variations for defloration. The art is one of this game's main assets, and the H-scenes really bring that out. Quite simply, the ero in this game is awesome, and frankly the writing in the H-scenes is more interesting than the main plot as it's very descriptive and filled with emotion. Contrast that with the cliched and somewhat dull vibe I got from the main plot.

Evaluation

EGS median: 70 (109 votes)
VNDB rating: 7.1 (12 votes)
Personal: 6/10

Kagura Douchuuki's strength is its art. And, ironically enough, every CG on both Getchu (NSFW) and the official site (18+ version, NSFW) is from an ero-scene. I can only imagine that Debonosu had to gut most of the art assets to create the non-adult version, and in fact a quick survey of the site for the non-adult version shows 4 CG compared to the 24 CG shown on the adult site. And as explained above, the H-scenes are really quite good. If you're into monster rape, you can't do much better than Debonosu's Kagura series--in English or Japanese.

The rogue-like gameplay is decent. It's simple without being overly tedious. I'm not a fan of level resetting, but you can always play on Easy if that bothers you. I wouldn't call the gameplay engaging, but at least it doesn't feel like a chore like Yumina the Ethereal's dungeon crawling did.

The story is... mediocre. If you've played the translated Studio e.go! titles, you'll know what to expect. If you like moe comedy, then maybe you'll appreciate the story more than I did. I found the dialogue to be pretty standard fare, and the plot was uninspired and mostly an excuse to set up the dungeon excursions and character dialogue. In the few hours I played, the setting didn't get much development and ended up feeling very generic, which is a shame because I feel that with a bit more detail into the mythology and the town's circumstances the story would've been much more engaging. I've played some of the sequel Kagura Gensoutan and I found the setting in that one a bit more developed.

Overall, Kagura Douchuuki compares well against titles like the Raidy series. The art is on par with if not better than the Raidy series (though it lacks animation), and it edges out Raidy in terms of battle system and story development. But as a non-adult title? It doesn't have much going for it other than having gameplay and not being terrible. It's unremarkable. I honestly can't recommend it against the likes of Littlewitch Romanesque, Aselia the Eternal, and Seinarukana, or even Yumina the Ethereal.

Kagura Douchuuki Sou and expansions

Debonosu released an updated version of Kagura Douchuuki in December 2014, Kagura Douchuuki Sou, which added widescreen support (game and CG resolution increased from 800x600 to 1024x576) and added 40 HCG to the defeat scenes. Three append disks were also released which added new dungeons, new monsters, further story content, and a new playable heroine. The Steam Greenlight campaign appears to be for the non-adult slimmed-down version of the original 2009 release, meaning that it won't include all of the bonus content released since.


Koharu, the additional heroine from append disk 3

Debonosu's other titles

Debonosu has a diverse lineup of gameplay titles, and if you include Studio e.go! titles they have a huge selection of games under their belt. The Kagura games are a long-running series including other rogue-likes and an SRPG (Kurenai Kagura). While the Kagura series is focused on monsters raping defeated miko, their other titles are more varied thematically (many featuring no defeat rape at all), though all boast high sexual content. These other titles include a Tales series-like sidescrolling RPG with raising sim elements (Sora o Aogite Kumo Takaku), a loli action RPG with item synthesis and base management (Hanasaku Otome to Koi no Grimoire), a dungeon crawler (Chaos Labyrinth), a real-time strategy game set against a backdrop of military conflict (Senjou no Folklore), and a traditional RPG (Gigai no Alruna).


Sora o Aogite Kumo Takaku (left), Gigai no Alruna (right)

Closing thoughts

Debonosu is what I'd term a third-tier gameplay eroge developer: they produce a wide variety of decent games, none of which are particularly outstanding. Their gameplay systems range from adequate to entertaining, their stories are character-centric with a comedy focus and plots that are simple and uninspired, and their art and especially their ero is excellent and probably the main draw.

Given the limited selection of licensed gameplay eroge in English, Debonosu fills a niche for high sexual content non-nukige gameplay titles. Stripping the ero-content out of these titles removes the very assets that make these titles stand out in the first place. My recommendation to readers is to clamor for release of the adult version of this title and future titles. While it's important for marketing purposes to get this game and others on Steam, without the ero these titles are merely soulless husks. The non-adult versions will never be more than hollow stand-ins for the adult versions. You can't strip the art out from titles that are remarkable only for their art and expect a satisfactory result.

(Also check out the followup post Tell Debonosu you want the uncut version of Kagura Douchuuki)

Article edited 5/29/15 to clarify Sekai Project's role in the Steam Greenlight campaign.
Article edited 5/31/15 to add information about Kagura Douchuuki Sou and append disks.