Sekaiproject has been doing a lot of work to get visual novels on steam, but this might be the first time they’ve ever tried their hand at a ‘not-quite an eroge’ Visual Novel. The result is something that ultimately fails to satisfy while being a gigantic tease for a possible follow up.

The plot of the visual novel is about a boy named Takahiro who is training for an upcoming Judo tournament. To combat his unease, he takes his classmate’s advice to visit a shrine that claims you can have your mind put to ease. Upon arriving, Takahiro hears a voice and is then whisked away to another world. Shortly after arriving, he sees two women running through a forest being chased. Wanting to play the hero, he tries stopping the robbers, and they release their loot and offload it on him. This of course makes the overzealous police throw him in jail. After clearing up the misunderstanding, Taka needs agrees to try to make nice with the two women thieves to try to get them to not disturb the peace of the village, and possibly become friends. These women are spirit creatures that got trapped in another world. Since this Visual Novel is a harem-fanservice story, you can expect a number of risque situations and sexual innuendo. The level of nakedness goes to the fully naked route, but since it’s supposed to not be a full blown adult game, the bits are of course censored with appropriately placed hair drapes or other instruments. There also is no sex of course. Even romance doesn’t really happen, as the game is all to brief for anything like that to happen.

The brevity of this visual novel is its biggest problem. It feels like a tease of what’s to come later, almost as if this release was in introductory chapter of a larger episodic release sequence. But the game doesn’t have an episode number designation. So a sequel perhaps is in the works. I certainly hope so, as this first chapter was lacking in character development or depth. Lots of corny jokes, tropes, and no real world building for the land that Taka finds himself in. it’s almost as if the game wanted to cut the fat of a visual novel but in so doing, took away what gives them strength. While the game gives you the option of making choices, it only happens once, and it only affects which CG events you will see, completely unaltering the ending in any meaningful way. Visual novels like this usually have multiples routes where decisions affect which girl you will end up with, but not here. So as an eroge game, it fails to satisfy, and as a visual novel in general is lacking, only being about 3 hours long. A pretty mediocre game all around, let’s just hope there’s a much better follow up in the future. One saving grace is that it’s only 10 bucks, but I can think of other ways to spend even that much on. Pass.

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