It hasn’t been a terribly long time since Winged Cloud released their Kinetic and fan service-laden visual novel Sakura Spirit. Thankfully its new follow-up Sakura Angels is an improvement; although the improvements are only slight.

The game actually has nothing to do with Sakura Spirit, other than the Sakura namesake, which seems like a brand. The artwork is also similar. Too similar in fact, as the girls all nearly have the same bust sizes and general body types. While Sakura Spirit had the protagonist being sucked into another world, Angels takes place in the modern world. And instead of being surrounded by a small harem of girls, the game narrows its focus to just two heroines. They are magical girls tasked with protecting the protagonist from machinations of an evil mage. Much like before, the story is told in a linear fashion, but now the decisions you make actually affect the ending slightly. So at least the developer is branching out somewhat.

The level of fan service is still pretty high, but it’s toned down somewhat. And they almost always are accidental, unlike the last game, where the girls were targeting the protagonist. The dialog is a little bit better as well. But all of these tiny improvements barely move the game past the score I gave the last title. The author is getting better, but maybe the next entry concentrate less on fan service and more on plot. And maybe there should be more variety in character design. At least the music has gotten a nice boost this time around. But something tells me that you can expect more of the same in the next game. If you haven’t played Sakura Spirit yet, this would be a better suggestion to start with. It’s the same price, but there’s less ridiculous fan service and writing.

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