Doki Doki Literature Club! Purist Mod Review (Visual Novel Fan Modification)

Warning: Major spoilers for the original Doki Doki Literature Club! ahead!

The viral success of Doki Doki Literature Club in late 2017 sent shockwaves throughout the visual novel world, sparking some highly polarized reactions. While many hardcore VN fans dismissed the game as shallow and expressed irritation towards the over-the-top praise it received, Team Salvato’s project had a lot going for it and quickly gathered an enormous fanbase. Excellent use of visual and sound gimmicks and brilliant subversion of the basic visual novel/dating sim gameplay conventions made it an extremely effective, creepy horror game. While in no way an in-depth critique of the genre and having very little replayability because of its reliance on gimmicky plot twists, I still see it as a masterfully-crafted and enjoyable experience, having relatively few contenders on the EVN scene when it goes to memorability and attention to detail. While it might be hard to see past the overwhelming meme culture and misconceptions around it, on its own, DDLC defends itself perfectly well and I consider it a solid 4/5 title – not a masterpiece, but something I would be willing to recommend to pretty much anyone with interest in VNs as a genre.

            A part of DDLC that many people casually ignore is the moege-like first act, which is, in my opinion, a great piece of lighthearted, SoL-focused storytelling. While it was on purpose fluffy and generic, Salvato’s writing, designs of the heroines, the ingenious “poem writing” route selection mechanic and the romance progression were actually very enjoyable and engaging – after all, the first twist would never be even close as effective if the game wasn’t able to immerse you in its faux dating sim climate. I’ve myself many times expressed the thought that I’d be very interested in playing a “normal”, lighthearted version of DDLC, especially because how gratifying it would be to see happy endings for the heroines, with whom I've developed a bit of emotional connection, after how harsh the main game treated them. And it was after sharing this thought that someone pointed me towards DDLC Purist Mod, an ambitious fan project based on exactly that premise – transforming Salvato’s game into a proper romance story and giving a chance for happiness for all the girls of the Literature Club, including its tragic villainess, Monika.

The mod’s authors definitely struggled with pacing their story, inserting some wholly unnecessary dialogue and filler scenes

 

To be fair, saying that the Purist Mod exactly matches the idea I’ve expressed above is an exaggeration, as “lighthearted” is probably not the right word to describe it. Released nearly exactly a year after DDLC’s premiere, the mod picks up where the base game ended, but with the player taking control back from Monika and promising to “make things right”. Because of this, the new story segments (there are around 10 hours of new content in total) focuses not on the fluffy romance, but rather on resolving the heavy drama that was hidden beneath cute facades of all the heroines: Sayori’s depression, Natsuki’s domestic problems, Yuri’s low self-esteem and self-harm, and, as the conclusion, Monika’s conscious entrapment within a fictional world. Instead of transforming DDLC into another game entirely, modders played within the ruleset already established by Dan Salvato and created a positive conclusion without breaking it, which was both smart and ultimately satisfying to experience.

            The execution of this concept, however, is not entirely smooth. To the fair to the authors, the deck was in many ways stacked against them – using only slightly modified Act 1 as their basis, they worked on a story which has been built towards the genre shift and maximum shock value, rather than compelling slice-of-life drama. Sayori’s depression especially was an element introduced to disrupt the flow of the romantic story, and had to be dealt with in some way to even make other routes possible. The modders managed to resolve this problem somewhat effectively, but still couldn’t avoid the tone shift being painfully obvious – the cute, lighthearted charm of DDLC’s first hour inevitably disperses as soon as the drama is introduced and it becomes the player’s explicit goal to overcome the personal problems of the heroines. And while all of this is rather justifiable, a bitter gripe of mine might be connected to the inclusion of additional choices and bad endings – while the mod is very careful to not go overboard with depressive plot elements and stay away from the original’s horror themes, I’m not sure whether there’s any point in adding new layers of misery to DDLC’s story. The new content being purely kinetic (or having “meaningless” choices serving only immersion purposes), but more focused and polished would probably leave me with a much stronger impression, although I know that’s in large part up to personal preference.

The choices added in the mod are very much on the “obvious” side of things, but undoubtedly matter more than the ones from the original

 

The bigger and more “objective” problem than the tone and structure of the new content is the quality of writing, which in my opinion never rises to the levels of Dan Salvato’s. Pretty much the moment the new lines kick in you can feel the pacing of the game and the quality of prose going down significantly. I’m a bit torn on whether criticizing this is fair in a fan project, but it’s obvious to me that a professional-level editor could do wonders when it goes to how the mod reads, with obvious mistakes such as word repetition and overuse of characters’ names in dialogue showing up consistently. There’s also undeniable excess in the first three routes, with too much internal monologue and filler scenes that are neither necessary nor very amusing. While I’m generally a huge fan of SoL, here the authors quite often missed the point on what makes it meaningful or amusing, with way too many moments feeling just mundane and empty.

     The thing I’m absolutely comfortable criticizing, however, is the numerous inconsistencies when it goes to character development and continuity. The original DDLC characters were inherently exaggerated, so it was hard to keep them completely “intact” when transferring to genuine drama, but their quirks and mannerisms were far too often completely lost in the added parts of the game – and those were among the main factors that made the original SoL moments endearing. While the “intimate” moments between the protagonist and the heroines still work more often than not, many of the extra scenes in the Literature Club during Yuri's, Sayori's and Natsuki's routes are surprisingly bland and off-character. There are also some very disappointing plot holes and instances of hardly-justifiable “anime logic”. The protagonist’s bond with Sayori seems completely reinterpreted from what he expresses at the beginning of the game (suddenly he always cared for her deeply), undermining the significance of her confession at the end of Act 1. Parents do not exist for any of the characters, except for the one instance when the plot demands it (that is, obviously, Natsuki’s route) and the new content introduces scenarios that make this absolutely absurd (like the protagonist living with one of the heroines for literal months without anyone intervening). These things are painful to observe mostly because they were easy to fix without much technical or conceptual effort, and the fact the game’s world is explicitly fictional does not really justify it – it would only work if the mod played really hard on the meta aspect of DDLC and it really doesn’t, at least outside of Monika’s route.

The additional art is a bit hit and miss, but does its job decently enough and underlines the crucial moments of the new storylines

 

Speaking about Monika’s route, for me it was definitely the most enjoyable part of the experience and the real pay-off of the Purist Mod. Admittedly, with her being so much of a wildcard character, it was way harder to get her “objectively” wrong. Still, this part of the mod did many other things right, focusing a lot more on the Literature Club and (non-comedic) fourth-wall-breaking aspect of the game, keeping a climate quite similar to the official first act. It also didn’t have to invent drama, because the problem was clearly laid out by the original – we have Monika struggling with her unnatural situation and guilt from what she originally did, which is developed and resolved in a way much less contrived and overdramatized than what the other girls go through. Also, as other heroines stay in their support roles, their behaviour is more consistent with what we already knew, while Monika herself is a truly tragic heroine, who despite some writing slip-ups and cheesy dialogue gets many of the most touching and interesting scenes in the mod. The contrast between my enjoyment of her arc and the ones before it makes me quite comfortable with saying that you should feel free to just scan through Sayori’s, Yuri’s and Natsuki’s routes, to get a feel of how their problems were resolved and focus on reading through Monika’s route carefully – it only unlocks after finishing all other arcs, for narrative reasons, but it’s where the Purist Mod’s true strength lies.

            A bit also has to be said about mod's visual and sound assets. Those were also visibly not on par with the original, but for the most part, mimicked its style quite effectively and you should easily forget about the slight inconsistencies when you immerse yourself in the story. As the game uses most of the non-horror-related assets the original offers, only a few extra CG’s and backgrounds were enough to make it feel like a proper VN and the new tunes complement the sombre moments much more prevalent in the added portions of the story. In the end, I think that the Purist Mod is very much worth checking out for all those that enjoyed DDLC not just for its gimmicky horror, but also the interesting story elements and characters it created. It was meant to give the player closure that the original by design didn’t even try to offer and in this respect, it works fine. With all its flaws and inconsistencies, it’s a very impressive fan project and one I in many ways enjoyed – and the possibility to play through a proper, intelligently-crafted Monika’s route might by itself makes it worth experiencing.

Final Score: 2,5/5

Pros:
+ Decently-sized and ultimately satisfying routes
+ Well-embedded into DDLC lore
+ Well thought-out and compelling Monika’s arc
 
Cons:
- Mediocre prose
- Inconsistent characters
- Irritating plot holes


VNDB Page
Download Doki Doki Literature Club and the DDLC Purist Mod for free

Perseverance Part 1 Review (English Original Visual Novel)

 

While Japanese VNs are the prime source of inspiration for most EVN developers, some Western games, such as Telltale’s The Walking Dead series, also have a significant influence on the Western VN scene. This inspiration is pretty obvious when we look at the stylistic choices and main themes of Perseverance: Part 1, a debut title by the Polish studio Tap It Games, released on Steam in late July 2018. As you can imagine, this episodic release involves surviving an outbreak of a mysterious disease which turns people into cannibalistic monsters, with personal drama and conflict between the major characters a least as important as the apocalyptic events happening in the background. And while the short first act, which I’ll be writing about today, leaves us at the precipice of disaster,  focusing mostly on presenting the backstory of the protagonist and establishing the setting, it does so in a promising manner which will most likely left you wanting for more – even though, just as the adventure games by the now-defunct Telltale, it has its distinct share of problems.

The first episode ends rather abruptly and leaves us with very little knowledge about the outbreak and the conspiracy behind it – it feels like the first, tiny bit of a rather grand story

Perseverance follows the story of Jack – a painfully average and unfulfilled guy, living in a secluded, small town somewhere in the US interior (a place pretty much only kept alive by being in close proximity of a large military base), struggling with lack of purpose and trying to cope with his failing marriage. After leaving college to take care of his severely-ill father, he ends up without education and stable job, while his attractive wife, who also shortened her medical studies to join him in his hometown, works as a nurse at the local hospital. Together, they raise a young teenage daughter and the game opens with a rather vicious argument between Jack and his wife, centred around his ambition to teach their child how to hunt. After saying a few words too many, he leaves for his late father’s forest cabin to think things through, while, in his absence, the intrigue that might lead to humanity’s downfall unfolds in the usually-sleepy town.

            One lesson that Tap It Games definitely took from The Walking Dead is that compelling characters can, or maybe even should be deeply flawed and a survival story benefits from showing their shortcoming and exploring how they can overcome those in the moment of truth. Jack and his family are at times borderline unlikeable, but above all else feel like ordinary people, struggling with the challenges of everyday life and in no way prepared for the disaster coming for them. Most of Part 1 is dedicated to establishing them as characters and making the player invested in their story. From my perspective it worked pretty well, as both the main cast and the supporting characters (very few at this point) were interesting enough for me to want to learn more about them and, at least to some extent, care about what might happen to them. My only complaint in that respect is that devs overdid it with foreshadowing and minor “spoilers” in Jack’s narration – I would very much prefer to be left in the dark about some future developments within the story, like fate of certain crucial characters or the scale of the outbreak, but you can easily deduce much of it from the opening monologue and Part 1’s ending.

Many of the game’s choices feel “off”, making little sense unless you enjoy playing your VNs as an over-the-top asshole

One other problem I had with the game at this point is connected to the choices – most of them only seemed to serve a purpose of choosing whether Jack is a somewhat decent human being, or a complete asshole, with options in the latter category often feeling forced and insulting to common sense. Should you apologize to your wife after hurting her feelings in a horrible way, or is it a better idea to persist with emotional abuse? Is it better to calm her down while she’s hurt and most likely in shock, or to shout at her with anger? What makes these choices really bad is that they’re not about choosing between selfishness and altruism, or between the others and your personal safety, like it would be the case in The Walking Dead – it’s just about being a horrible human being for the sake of it and unless that’s your personal kink in regards to choice-based games, there’s no added value in that. The choices, also, don’t seem to have any real impact on the story at this point. While they might, in rare cases, lead you to an abrupt game over scene, they generally don’t affect anything beyond the immediate dialogue lines and it’s unclear at this point to what extent they might influence the storyline further down the line. If I was to guess, I’d say not that much, considering how near-impossible it is to create a genuine branching story in an episodic game, especially with the, most likely, very limited resources the devs of Perseverance have available. I personally don’t mind an illusion of choice, if it helps your immersion in the story, but it’s still something to keep in mind and downscale your expectations appropriately.

A riddle – what do you use to cut a rope? Thankfully, it’s not one that you can fail – the choices, apart from one or two dead ends, don’t seem to matter at this point

The visuals are definitely one of the strongest aspects of the game, with a distinct artstyle that feels inspired by Western comic books more than anime (and by that virtue once again resembling Telltale adventure games more than the typical, Japanese-style VNs). While it’s not super-heavy on details, the sprites are distinct in their designs and expressive, while the backgrounds and CGs are simply nice to look at and feel very consistent with the overall aesthetic. The sound and music are minimalistic and support the general, eerie vibe of the story without standing out much. What stands out, unfortunately, is the technical aspect of the game. Perseverance was made in unity rather than a dedicated VN engine and lacks some typical quality-of-life features, like the skip option, possibility to roll back the text, easily switch auto-mode on and off, or even convenient access to the backlog. For someone like me, used to EVNs made in Ren’Py, these omissions were quite painful at times and made replaying the game to check out alternative choices a chore.

            In the end though, what mattered the most – the story and production quality of the game – did deliver and from this point of view, I’d consider reading Perseverance: Part 1 a positive experience. It’s a really solid first act, which might develop into something truly exceptional if Tap It Games directs it well. I just hope that the future episodes will be at least a little bit longer – reading a story in hour-long bits every few months is never a great formula and if the Part 2 doesn’t offer a more substantial piece of storytelling, it might damn the whole project into obscurity. That is, if the future episodes ever happen – the radio silence from the studio is worrying and I would not recommend buying this as long as we don’t know whether it will receive at least some continuation. Without that, Part 1 is only an extensive demo – a good one, but not really something worth investing your time in, if we’re never getting a full story. Time will tell.

Final Score: 3/5

Pros:

+ Solid, well-stylized visuals

+ Interesting, realistically flawed characters

Cons:

- Unconvincing and inconsequential choices

- Clunky interface

- Very short

VNDB Page

Buy Perseverance, Part 1 on Steam

Free Yuri EVNs – non-Yuri Game Jam edition

Welcome back to EVN Chronicles, your prime source of romantic fluff reviews and recommendations! Today, I present you a post that will either capitalize on the post-Valentine's Day atmosphere by providing you even more positive feels, or help mend your lonely heart with quality love stories! Romance, as we all know, is one of the driving elements of visual novels in general, and maybe especially within the niche that is particularly close to my heart – and that is, of course, yuri. Recently, I've spent quite a lot of time going through and writing about Yuri Game Jam VNs and with that coverage finished, for the time being, it's an excellent day to look beyond this particular event to satisfy our freeware yuri needs.
          The Western visual novel scene is, if you take a closer look, surprisingly full of f/f romantic stories and freeware titles containing such themes show up pretty regularly, both thanks to other game jams, such as NaNoRen0 and various “random” releases, mostly by hobbyist developers. Today, I’ll go through some of the most notable, free EVNs with yuri elements – both those purely focused on girls’ love and those that include it as a significant part of the experience, but not its primary theme. As usual with this kind of lists, I’ll focus on short, casual VNs most fitting the mini-review format – some games that would fit the theme, like Christine Love’s Don’t Take it Personally, Babe, it Just ain’t Your Story, deserve a more detailed review and they will receive just that… Soon^TM.

Butterfly Soup

Brianna Lei's story about a group of lesbian teenagers has gathered a significant amount of mainstream attention thank to its unique subject matter (focusing on minority queer women and their experience), but it’s definitely more than just a piece of social commentary. It offers a well-written, charming story that tackles its main themes with a lot of subtlety and attention to detail. It also doesn't overstate the sexuality of its characters, saying more about the universal challenges of growing up than just minority issues. And while it definitely attempts to create a more realistic representation of homosexual relationships, straying away from the typical, idealized yuri romance, it's a fun and light-hearted read that should be appropriate for anyone not allergic to close-to-reality LGBT stories.

Final Score: Highly Recommended

Her Tears Were My Light

Nami's allegoric love story about Space and Time, threatened by the never-ending spiral into nothingness, is a simple, short game, that nonetheless managed to gather an impressive amount of praise from the readers (apparent, among other things, through its unusually high VNDB rating: 7.48 average, 6.92 Bayesian). With beautiful (although distinctly cute) visuals and high-quality writing, this NaNoRen0 2016 entry is a really touching and surprisingly unpretentious read, appropriate not just for yuri fans, but rather everyone not afraid to shed a few tears.

Final Score: Highly Recommended

Seduce Me the Otome

The notorious otomege by Michaela Laws might focus mostly on the male love interests, but also offers three enjoyable yuri routes – two short, “side” ones, featuring protagonist’s high school friends Naomi and Suzu, and one revolving around Diana – a succubus and one of the central characters of the whole Seduce Me series. While cheesy writing and voice-acting, along with inconsistent art sometimes makes it hard to take this game seriously, it truly works the best when you don’t – the amateurish feel gives it some peculiar charm with can make it highly enjoyable if you’re looking for a few laughs, along with the genuinely cute, romantic moments it provides. And Diana's route, at least, is definitely among the most interesting elements of the whole experience.

Final Score: Recommended

Mira’s Magical Mishap

Mira’s Magical Mishap by SilverHyena is another one of those extremely cute and relaxing yuri visual novels which work best when you don’t want to worry about receiving a really bad ending or the drama going out of control. Following Mira, a magic school dropout trying to prove herself as an owner of a potions store, and creates a faulty mixture that takes away the magic of her old rival, Odette. Having to work together to fix the problem, they realize that their old conflicts were misunderstandings more than anything more. Depending on your path, they might forgive each other and become friends, or even more than that – and as standard as this scenario is, pleasant art and good writing make it just fun enough to read to be ultimately worth your time.

Final Score: Recommended

Romance Detective 1 & 2

Quintessential work by NomnomNami, the Romance Detective duology does a great job of showcasing both her characteristic artstyle and the casual, mostly-comedic storytelling typical for her VNs. While the second game was never truly finished, missing some art assets, the whole series is complete story-wise and offers a lot of fun for those looking for a light, cheerful read – although the sequel has its share of more sober, touching moments and should be compelling also for those looking for some actual romance and drama.

Final Score: Highly Recommended

Taarradhin

Taarradhin is a fairly well-known NaNoRenO 2014 entry, that only partially relies on yuri themes, but manages to stand out thanks to an appealing aesthetic, Orient-inspired stylization and a simple, but well-executed plot. It follows the story of Netqia, a young and naive daughter of a powerful noble in a country struck by a catastrophic drought, who's unexpectedly presented with a gift of two beautiful slaves. While, just like other games on this list, Taarradhin is fairly short, it manages to create an interesting setting with many elements unusual for visual novels, a pretty well-fleshed-out cast of characters and an interesting intrigue, that lets you connect to the main cast through multiple playthroughs and rewards you with a compelling "true" conclusion at the end of the road.

Final Score: Recommended

Sugar’s Delight

Before Winged Cloud became the company we all know and love (?), they’ve created a cute, SonoHana-style nukige titled Sugar’s Delight, under the Neko☆Soft label. And surprisingly enough, it’s quite a competent one, if you exclude the headache-inducing, stock background music. The already mentioned Kiss for the Petals inspirations are rather clear even in the character designs and the emotional dynamic between the heroines, and while the writing is definitely not on par with the Japanese productions, it’s serviceable most of the time. The erotic scenes are also surprisingly well-done, making this game quite adequate for what it tries to be – and that, considering what came later from its creators, is already a positive surprise.

Final Score: Recommended

I’ve said it so many times that it is probably getting boring by now, but the unique place that yuri and f/f romantic themes play in the EVN scene is one of the reasons I appreciate it so much. For the fans of girls’ love, Western VN devs, both hobbyists and professional ones, provide a constant stream of meaningful content (admittedly, with lesbian porn being just as prevalent and seemingly way more popular than it is on the Japanese eroge market). While I expect free games to become less prevalent in the future, as the most talented devs transition to commercial titles and the market for those grows steadily, yuri fans will always have something to look forward to in the EVN niche – and hopefully, I’ll be able to fill many more lists like this with enjoyable f/f stories. 
          And for now, I hope you've enjoyed this little post and I wish you all a lot of love in your lives, both in 2D and 3D formats! ;)

My Magical Demon Lover Review (Yaoi Visual Novel)

Yaoi VNs, and yaoi media in general, are something I know quite a bit about “in theory” – even beyond the discussions in the VN community, you can’t get far into fan studies academic literature without seeing substantial mentions of both Western slash fan-fiction and Japanese yaoi doujin in every other article. Still, in practice, BL VNs were something I was always hesitant to pick up, not really because of being “scared” of male gay romance, but simply because of it having lower appeal to me than both traditional het romance, and, especially, yuri. When I can choose between similarly high-quality games from various genres (and my backlog is full of those), yaoi simply doesn’t have many appeal-points to climb at the top of my to-read list.

            Thankfully, where my straight male sensibilities didn’t lead me, Steam Curator Connect came into action, in the form of Y Press Games sending me their debut visual novel My Magical Demon Lover. Released in May 2018, this little BL game promises a pretty interesting formula – a highly-comedic erotic VN, borderline nukige when it goes to the amount of sexual content, but kept in a strictly softcore formula (with no genitals visible in any of the scenes). Being a much bigger fan of softcore porn than I am of normal hentai, this already made me much less reluctant to explore this game, but still left me definitely outside of its target audience. Thankfully, porn wasn’t the only thing it had on offer...

Softcore eroticism sets MMDL on the cuter/gentler side of the Yaoi formula, even if there is an abundance of sexual content in it

 

The game establishes its porny and slightly parodistic climate from the very beginning and maintains it in a highly unapologetic manner. It starts with the protagonist, Tristan, masturbating in his bed and being interrupted by a magical letter crashing through his window. The message is from his great-grandfather, Percival – an immortal mage and protector of Tristan's village for the past century. After making his way to Percival’s tower on the back of a magical beast, the protagonist learns of his ancestor's request – as Percival wants to escape his duties and make an extended trip to the Pleasure Realm, he wants to make Tristan into a mage who would be able to relieve him. The process involves finding a demon patron – one that will share both his knowledge and his magical power, in exchange for sexual services. Tristan can select from three incubuses interested in teaching him, all with different expectations and perks, but he can choose only one and the deeper the bond he creates with his mentor, the more powerful of a mage he’ll become.

            The premise is simple, but actually pretty appealing and well-presented. The humour in opening segments is genuinely funny, while the options offered to the protagonist quite interesting. He’s not gay (although the demons' seducing aura makes that fact fairly insignificant), so he’s reluctant to fully accept the price of becoming a mage, but the demon that would be most demanding in respect of sexual services, Karn, would also grant him the most power. Another one, Soren, might not want sex at all, but require other, unspecified favours, while the last one, Harse, is dominant and will force Tristan into the position of an uke, but is also kind and (relatively) gentle. All option create very different dynamics in the relationships and effect in very distinct sets of sex scenes (and those are, admittedly, both very diverse and rather cute, thanks to the protagonist’s boyish design and bashful attitude). The game is full of choices, including many placed during the sex scenes, which will decide whether protagonist will get in-tune with his mentor and fulfil his ambitions, or fail in various degrees (including the possibility of making the demon leave him, with some genuinely tragic consequences).

The themes of all three demons and their personalities are quite fun, but the repetitiveness of the routes makes every new approach significantly less fun
 

Where the game’s problems start, however, is its repetitiveness between the routes – while the sex scenes, as mentioned above, are vastly different in each scenario, the general outline of the story stays the same between all of them, making each subsequent playthrough more predictable and samey, and by extension less fun. Also, considering the amount of sexual content in the game, it’s actual plot is mostly relayed in relatively short segments between the porn, making it inevitably rushed and shallow. Both the protagonist and the demons receive some backstories (in the case of the incubi heavily interconnected ones, which is a nice detail that adds a bit of believability to the setting), which briefly explain their dominant features and attitudes, but those 5-minute portions expository dialogue are the most involved pieces of storytelling you’re going to get – in this respect, it definitely feels like a nukige, even if it’s a decently-written one.

            MMDL’s visuals are solid, with good character designs and art that is generally nice to look at, even if not especially detailed (a few backgrounds could be even considered overly simplified). Like every self-respecting nukige (heh…), it offers tons of erotic CGs, including a few really creative and amusing ones. Thanks to the softcore formulas, none of it is overly vulgar and if BL was my thing, I would probably be really satisfied with that content. The music was rather basic, but overall, the game had a sort of low-budget charm that I personally enjoy – it’s undeniably well-crafted and serves it’s purpose well, even if when it goes to production values, it can’t compare with the professional-quality, Japanese games. And with its $5 price tag, it should be a worthwhile pick for any BL fan, especially how few games in this formula we have available in English – it’s far from being perfect, but definitely worth giving a try.

Final Score: 2,5/5

Pros:
+ Decent art
+ A lot of variety in (softcore) sex scenes
+ Reasonably appealing heroes
 
Cons:
- Highly formulaic/repetitive routes
- Shallow, rushed story

VNDB Page
Buy My Magical Demon Lover on Steam

Plk_Lesiak’s Shovelware Adventures: fanservice Sakura games, part 2

Wondering what this series is about? What's with the "crappy" rating system? Find out all about it here​​​​​​​!

While two weeks ago we’ve mostly covered the beginnings of Winged Cloud’s presence on the EVN market (well, ignoring the "otome period", but Pyrite Heart might be worth a separate look, along with The Guardian’s Spell crowdfunding debacle), this time we’re taking look at a transitional period – one in which Inma still didn’t make explicit art, acting as the sole “all-ages” artist for the company, while Wanaca was already focusing exclusively on hentai titles, including the 100+ CG behemoth that is Sakura Dungeon. It’s also a time that brought something we could describe as a pretty obvious drop in quality – the new non-porn titles definitely looked like low-effort cash-ins, with mostly linear storytelling, no voice-acting and underwhelming CG counts. Sakura Beach 2, put together in only a few months and obviously reusing a lot of visual assets from the first game, was especially emblematic, foreshadowing the switch to mass-production of cheaper, shorter titles, that fully dominated the studios output a year later, after the release of Sakura Nova, the last arguably ambitious Sakura game. But, ignoring for a moment our knowledge of what the future held for the franchise, how these late Sakura ecchi VNs hold out today?

 

Sakura Beach 1 & Sakura Beach 2

It might be just my personal taste, but I can somewhat accept a harem scenario if the protagonist earns it in some way – by being a really good person that helps the heroines in a substantial manner, or even being a shitty one but defying expectations and doing something exceptional when it truly mattered. Starting with a harem, however, feels like the laziest setup imaginable and I pretty much abhorred every instance when it showed up its ugly head in the Sakura series (of course, in short nukige such as Sakura Christmas Party the only thing that mattered was giving a justification for inserting a variety of porn scenes, so complaining about dumb plot is a bit of superficial – thankfully, I’m also making a series all about pointless nit-picking :3). Inma’s debut as a Winged Cloud’s character artist, Sakura Beach and its sequel, Sakura Beach 2 already had a pretty rough start with me because of this "storytelling technique", while the apparently short development cycle for both games also did little to encourage any kind of optimist from me when U decided to approach them.

            The reality, at least in the first game, was pretty close to what you’d expect from the generic premise – we follow the story of two over-the-top trope heroines trying to earn the affection of our infinitely dense protagonist during a summer trip to a beach resort. Semi-random, dumb writing and minimal character development do little to make the whole scenario actually enjoyable, even if the rather mild fanservice is as always nice to watch. The sequel, however, includes some slight adjustments that make the whole formula much more fun – after the confessions at the end of Sakura Beach and protagonist’s clunky attempts to adapt to being an owner of a harem, the third girl is introduced, threatening to destabilize the already delicate setup even further and giving fuel for some amusing bickering between the heroines. The now less-clueless protagonist, toned-down tsundere persona of one of the original girls and the quirky new addition to the cast makes for a much better read – while still trashy to no end, it at least catches the basic appeal of the slice-of-life harem stories. Also, to my genuine surprise, it broke the harem scenario's typical inconclusiveness at the very end, featuring the possibility to give up on polygamy and chose to romance only one of the girls, with a pretty satisfying romantic epilogue after that. Despite my low expectations, Sakura Beach 2 proved to be a reasonably enjoyable VN, although its still debatable whether experiencing it is worth getting through its snoozefest of a prequel.

 

Final rating: Rabbit Poo 

Sakura Shrine Girls

The second game in the Shovelware Adventures, after A Wild Catgirl Appears, that somehow managed to make nekomimi dull, Sakura Shrine Girls is not the worst or most offensive among Winged Cloud’s VNs, but might still be the least memorable of them all. With no real stakes or any twist to the story, this tale of a sceptic discovering the world of spirits and his calling as a priest simply does not deliver on the fun slice-of-life moments or even the little bits of compelling romance you would hope for in a fanservice VN. The few actually intriguing moments, such as interactions between the protagonist and his retired-Shinto-priest grandfather and or somewhat colourful descriptions of his confrontations with the supernatural, can’t make up for paper-thin drama between the two heroines and their poor characterization (describing one of them as strict and formal and the second as relaxed and rebellious pretty much covers all their discernable traits). 
            As much as I wanted to like this game (among other reasons, because of a few quite gorgeous illustrations by Inma, even if her sprite art has seen better iterations), I can describe it properly only with one word: empty. And while its inability to create any kind of compelling narrative could probably be forgiven, the fact it couldn't even make the heroines appealing and the fanservice connected to them interesting is a total failure, basically making the game's whole existence utterly pointless. Although, I guess it did make becoming a Shinto priest look like an attractive career choice. Truly full of possibilities…

 

Final rating: Smelly Poo

Unlike all the other variants of Sakura shovelware that I've covered in this series, the non-explicit fanservice games seem to be a thing of the past – one of those strange products of Steam censorship that was doomed as soon as developers found a stable way of smuggling actual porn onto the platform (and especially now, when most varieties of porn are openly welcomed on Valve's platform). But as strange as it might sounds, I will miss them at least a little bit – as I find most hentai extremely dull, and Winged Cloud’s version of it especially so, to me those ecchi VNs had a kind of trashy charm that is quite often lost in "real" nukige. On the other hand, when this formula didn’t work, like it was the case in Shrine Girls, it must have made for an especially bad investment on the WC’s part, qualifying neither as a serviceable VN nor as a proper source of fapping material – something that really no one would be interested in buying, if they knew what they were getting. For all these reasons, the non-eroge Sakura games are nearly for sure not coming back.

            And this way, we've reached the end of this long (and sometimes painful) journey through the world of Sakura games – or to be more specific, through the retrospective part of it. While Winged Cloud definitely lost much of its creative energy and fan support over the last two years, it didn't give up on putting out new games completely, as evident through the two Sakura MMO releases. And honestly, the appearance of a brand new yuri Sakura series is not something I can easily ignore... We'll get there Soon™.

 

PS Once more, my special thanks go to Noble, whose videos brought a lot of joy into the process of making this post (without them, it could've been quite painful indeed).