Sakura Dungeon release imminent

[Darklord Rooke]

Sanah's written an insightful review of the game. For those who just read conclusions, here are his:

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Winged Cloud has defied all expectations and released a superior indie gameplay eroge with professional production values.  Sakura Dungeon manages to competently manage most of the aspects of a dungeon crawler: combat, level design, character and monster variety, characterization, optional challenge content.  The game's most glaring weakness is that the setting is underdeveloped and we don't feel a sense of progress through an overarching narrative, which is a common weakness in dungeon crawlers.  I also didn't find the erotic content very erotic, but that could be a matter of taste.

...

Sakura Dungeon is a competent dungeon crawler that is more polished than I expected from indie developer Winged Cloud.  I'd recommend it to fans of erotic dungeon crawlers, especially those who like girls-love.  Sakura Dungeon compares favorably to titles like Demon Master Chris, Brave Soul, and the Lightning Warrior Raidy series, which are its main competition.  There's certainly better titles out there, but not so much in English.

Full review can be found on his blog - http://sanahtlig.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/in-depth-review-sakura-dungeon.html

Anybody on the fence about this game should read the review. It's comprehensive. 

EDIT: Fuwa blog link for discussion - 

 

 

[Nosebleed]

I liked the review, but it basically confirmed my fear: this game's ero content is just as stale and uninspired as all other Sakura games.

All heroines have same-body syndrome and the actual ero CGs have little to no variation.

It's such a shame Winged Cloud can't fully explore the one thing they're decent at.

It's not that hard to make different character types!

[Suzu Fanatic]

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character and monster variety

uh huh, sure.

That aside, his review does open my mind to the idea of playing it - I might give it a shot after Stranger of sword city.

[Dergonu]

Decided to get this based on sanahtlig's review.

 

It's actually not bad. I'm enjoying it so far.

4 hours ago, Nosebleed said:

I liked the review, but it basically confirmed my fear: this game's ero content is just as stale and uninspired as all other Sakura games.

All heroines have same-body syndrome and the actual ero CGs have little to no variation.

It's such a shame Winged Cloud can't fully explore the one thing they're decent at.

It's not that hard to make different character types!

That is true, and it is a concern I have as well.

More variety in the character designs would benefit them greatly. It does seem like the characters have a bit more unique personalities, instead of the same one repeated over and over, which is a decent step forward. (I do still recognize a few similarities in certain characters and lines from Sakura Fantasy though, so it's not quite there yet.)

It baffles me that they didn't get voice actresses for this one, considering they have been adding voices to their previous games. I guess it could have been outside their budget, considering this game is actually quite long. Hopefully they make a patch for it like they have done with games in the past.

 

I'd say give it a go if you like dungeon crawlers. The game is definitely on a different level from the previous Sakura games. It's obviously by no means a masterpiece, but it is nice to see Winged Cloud improve.

[sanahtlig]

I'd recommend playing on Hard difficulty.  It's referred to as "Normal" in the manual, so that's likely the setting the game was balanced around, and it makes encounters challenging without the need for additional grind.  Testers might've complained, which is why "Easy" was changed to "Normal" and made the default.