8/4/2023 0 Comments Sakura nova fan service![]() And probably most importantly, a journey of creating an ultimate harem of cute, gay girls for her to dominate – after all, if life gives you ultimate power and wealth, it’d be a shame to not indulge yourself at least a little bit? Thus starts Kotone’s, or rather Viola’s adventure in search of meaning behind her summoning to Asaph and, possibly, a way back to her world. She’s also immediately greeted by Neve, a darkling NPC who she placed in the castle as mere decoration, but now became a real person, dead-bent on serving her as a maid and bodyguard (with impressive magic skills to aid her in both tasks). While having relatively little fondness for her real-life routine and few meaningful bonds with other people, she is still deeply in shock when she one day wakes up in her avatar’s body, in one of the bedrooms of Nightmare Citadel – the massive castle acting as her player-owned residence and holding her immense in-game wealth (no, you won’t see much of the castle, only a few generic-looking rooms). There, with her mage avatar named Viola, she became something of a dominating figure, styling herself as a “dark witch” and casually humiliating other players – the act she enjoys so much that she considers herself a sadist. Sakura MMO follows the story of Kotone, a bored Japanese salarywoman who blows off steam from her stressful job by playing an MMORPG called Asaph Online. But aside from it being a shameless cash-grab, is there something worthwhile within this trashy sub-franchise? ![]() For the amount of content you’d usually find in one 10-15 dollars VN, you’re asked to pay 30, while also having to deal with issues that wouldn’t be there if it was all released as a single product or a well-constructed episodic game, like your choices not transferring between parts and somewhat shoddy continuity. This, at first glance, makes it look like one of most ambitious projects Winged Cloud ever attempted, but one thing should be said in advance: all three Sakura MMO games are very short (3-4 hours) and heavily overpriced, with each costing $10. Particularly, it was the first time since Sakura Beach that a game in the series received a direct sequel, and the only instance one received two. And few things symbolise this sorry state of affairs quite like the Sakura MMO trilogy, the latest three entries in the mainline Sakura franchise, this time tackling the grossly overused theme of gameworld isekai.Ĭoming out between October 2018 and June 2019, with little fanfare (the second and third game pretty much appeared out of nowhere, with no communication from Winged Cloud’s social media accounts before the releases) and to a rather lukewarm reception from players, Sakura MMO games still stand out in some ways from Winged Clouds usual output. At the same time, the company seems heavily disinterested in actively promoting their work or opening new niches, even nearly dropping the production of straight eroge for the sake of pushing out more yuri games, feeding of this niche's popularity with Western audience. For two and a half year now their VNs are only becoming shorter, simpler and more iterative, making the already not-particularly-impressive projects from the peak of studio’s popularity, such as Sakura Nova or Sakura Fantasy, look like absolute heights of quality and ambition. ![]() Winged Cloud, creators of the infamous Sakura series, are visibly past their prime, which shows not only in their diminishing Patreon support and smaller interest in their games in general, but also the lack of marketing effort and innovation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |