(NSFW) Tales of the perverted swordwoman - Random Review - Sakura Fantasy Chapter 1
Entry posted by Satsuki
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Winged Cloud. Guess I don't really need to make any introduction, since they are already well-known in visual novel community for their boobs-first-story-later "Sakura" series. Of course, after getting a mountain of money poured into their pocket with their previous titles, there is no way that they don't want more. May 29th, they released the 3rd one in the series - Sakura Fantasy Chapter 1. Yes, this is only the chapter 1, because they want to milk as much money as possible from this game (that said, the price is still the same as other "Sakura" games, which is 12$). And here I am, with my B-52 Bomb Squadron, ready to engage them.
WARNING: 18+ 15+ MATERIAL BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
SYNOPSIS
The new visual novel from the makers of Sakura Spirit and Sakura Angels.
Sakura Fantasy Chapter 1 is an exciting visual novel fantasy adventure where you decide the development of the story by the choices you make.
It is the tale of an aspiring female protagonist who wishes to aim to become a knight.
CHARACTER
1. Raelin
Protagonist. A novice knight with the special ability a.k.a "gift" of "farseeing" (basically, let her "spirit" leaves her body and goes looking around). A perverted girl with the hobby of peeking at other people's nude private moment and getting nude herself.
2. Gwynne
Raelin's best friend. She handles paperwork in the barrack, and rarely participates in actual combat practice. She has the gift of lighting (summoning lighting and such).
3. Keira
Raelin's instructor. A serious and harsh girl, especially toward Raelin. She has the gift of stone skin.
4. Ardena
The Empress. An emotionless girl, or should I say, thousand years old grandma 
Her gift is currently unknown.
STORY
To summary, Sakura Fantasy is about Raelin, a novice knight that is currently training in some random barrack in some random empire. For some reason, she got the gift of farseeing from someone called "the creator". For some reason, she wanted to become an excellent knight in the army to fight again some kind of monster. One day, in her sleep, she found herself getting stucked in a swamp with a huge monster, but decided that it's just simply a dream after she woke up.
Yup, dark.
Sometime later, she was assigned to be the castle's guard. There, she met a strange girl who told her about "a star may soon falls from the heaven". She did not understand it well, until later of the day, when it really happened: A star fell from the sky, crashed down to somewhere outside the "wall" (which protect the city from monster).
Despite the opposition of the Council, the strange girl - who now revealed as the Empress - decided to assemble a group of brave soldiers to seek for the fallen star. Of course, everyone can guess who would be in that group: Raelin - the protagonist, Gwynne - best friend, and Keira - the tsundere instructor.
After crawling through the swamp filled with all kind of perverted monsters that you can expect (slime, tenta-tree) and fought a super anti-climax battle with a "slime girl" (which she soon retreated after throwing out some random attacks), Keira suddenly got shot down by a strange girl. Turned out that that girl - Ethy - mistook Keira with a monster - or something like that. The group then took a break at the small village where Ethy lived.
Before departing, suddenly, a huge monster came to attack the village. The group fought back, and won after a deus-ex-machina battle. They had a big feast, and Ethy ended up joining them after the Empress's spirit emerged from Raelin and talked to the villagers - who had a lot of respect toward the Empress. Anddddd that's the end of chapter 1.
Man, there are so many things to talk about that I don't even know where to start anymore.
First off, language. When Winged Cloud first released Sakura Spirit, they got a full container of rocks for the omfg English in the game. This time, there are improvements, but STILL NOT ENOUGH. I mean...
Yes, I'm not a native English-speaker, but I'm damn sure this is NOT how you use "wake" in a sentence! Btw, this is just the 4th sentence into the game! Other parts of the game are also trashed with random weird sentences all over the place.
In the synopsis also: "female protagonist who wishes to aim to become a knight". No no no, you either "wish" or "aim". You don't "wish to aim". That's retarded.
Secondly, detail. You wonder why I used so many "someone", "something", "somewhere" in the summary? That's because the game simply explained ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about those. They just throw the players into the game environment and leave them there dying with no information whatsoever. What is this empire called? Why did Raelin join the army? What are they fighting against? Where did those monsters come from? What's the current situation? What exactly is "gift"? There are simply no answer for those very basic questions. All there for players to know, is that they are soldiers with "gift" in an empire fighting against monsters. Done.
Let's take a look at the 2nd choice, about 2 minutes into the game:
Before this choice, they did not mentioned a damn single word about what the hell is this "gift" thing, and suddenly, they tell players to make a choice related to that "gift" thing. Are you trolling me here!?
Next, the consistency. In a sword practice scene:
Excuse me, girl, but those things are called "dummy", not "doll".
Realizing their mistake, in the later scene, not far from this scene, they changed it back to "dummy", but decided to keep the "doll" in this scene as it, just to remind the players "Oh, we actually wanted to use doll but it sounded too dumb so we changed it to dummy instead".
In another scene, when Gwynne told Raelin "You should not sleep in late." ("sleep in late", meh...), Raelin replied: "I was making strange faces? Like what?". Errr.....what? Raelin, are you still sleepy? She did not mention a damn single thing about your face you know!?
Fourthly, "the creator". In this game, "the creator" is pretty much "God" in this empire. "He" (nah, don't know the gender) granted people with gift, for some reason. And also for some reason, only granted it for some people, not all. And because he is the "God", some sentences in the game became weirdly funny:
Who were you thanking there, Raelin? The "creator" who granted you the gift, or did you just break the forth wall and thank Winged Cloud? 
And finally, the choice. According to Wingled Cloud, players can "decide the development of the story by the choices you make". Nooooope. Most of the choices are absolutely pointless, they affect nothing toward the story development. In like half of them, Raelin will just go ahead and do whatever she wants to do, regardless of your choice. There are only 2, or maybe 3 choices that really make a different, that will result in different CGs, but even then, nothing is actually changed in the flow of story. There is no route, no bad end, so you are free to make whatever choice you want. You want to stay loyal to one girl? Go for it. You want to make a harem (in your imagination)? Go for it. You want to be a coward and always stay in the back line? Go for it. You want to be a crazy girl who charge headfirst into the monster without a single care in the world? Go for it.
You want to go commando? Go for it.
GRAPHIC
Well, it's Winged Cloud, so you know what is coming. Nice art as ever, with a heck amount of boobs, ass and fan-service. 80% (or more, I'm suck at math) of the CGs are fan-service. How did this thing even get through Steam again? No wonder why they can attract a bunch of perverts on Steam buying their games. Eeeeveryone fell for the honey trap. Not me, I pirated.
MUSIC
Just your normal everyday BGM, nothing to talk about. Actually, did they reuse some BGMs from their previous games...?
CONCLUSION
I will just say one thing: Please, stay away from this trash. Don't pour more money into Winged Cloud's pocket, giving them motivation to create more disasters. If you want something to spend your money on, then go for Grisaia (or wait for the 18+ ver if you want), Neptunia, or even Akiba's Trip. Much better.
Pros:
- Nice art.
Cons:
- Still have Engrish.
- Unexplained story, detail.
- Pointless choices.
- No route (this game is not designed to be a kinetic novel).
- Lack of consistency in wording and sentencing.
- Overused fan-service CGs.
- Overkill price.
Score
Story: 2/10
Character: 5/10
Graphic: 7/10
Music: 4/10
Overkill price: -2
Total: 2,5/10
My previous review:
Love Rec. (Trial Edition)
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