VN - Others - Completed - Harem Kingdom [Final] [SMEE]

so for the record I think this VN is excellent except for a few... honestly minor issues which are not dealbreakers but do bug me, and are basically the only reasons I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5.

I'm going to go over the positives here, there's a few spoilers that I'm going to mention, most of them are not earthshattering but I'll give them spoiler tags anyways, fair warning. The girls are very cute and likeable and seem like characters with their own drives and interests beyond just wanting to ride the MC's dick. The story/worldbuilding is damn well-crafted for a game like this. It's an interesting twist on the isekai genre in that the MC is originally from the world he's transported away to, and begins to slowly regain some of his memories of the time before he was poofed away to Japan. The writing does a good deal to make it clear that they're not just living in a fantasy utopia but in a real nation with social, economic and political issues which goes a good way to sell the story as more than just a power fantasy about being a king and banging hot girls.

I'll mention a few other things here as 'neutral' issues, meaning that I don't find them to be negatives but other people might, so I'm pointing them out. This game has an incest tag and it is accurate. At the very first it might seem that it's just a thing of one of the characters playacting and calling the MC 'oniisama' but later on it is revealed that Marrou is the main character's (close) blood relative and basically everyone seems fine with them having sex. I don't mind it but it's a heavy nope for some people so worth a mention I s'pose. Also once the story gets started it just becomes de facto accepted (for story reasons) that the MC will have a harem and every single girl is perfectly thrilled with the idea. There are some people who thrive on inter-harem drama and bickering in these stories so this might seem boring as fuck to those people, personally I kind of enjoy the laid-back atmosphere of the harem.

I have two issues with the game. As stated neither of them is a dealbreaker, but they are a little obnoxious. The first (and biggest, to me) is that the story seems to want to be a comedy first and foremost, smut second, and romance taking a distant bronze medal. I do like the lighthearted feel of the story but it does feel a little bit like a cheat when the game decides to, in the words of Seinfeld, 'yadda yadda yadda' things like a coronation ceremony and the fucking WEDDING. In addition, after the turning point of the wedding, in each of the routes there seems to be an interest of the writing to turn each route into prolonged comedy segments that honestly run far too long for my tastes. Probably the most egregious to me is Kiki's route which honestly is a shame because she's one of the most interesting girls from a character depth perspective, but it's mostly sidelined for shenanigans like 'the king pretends he is sick and gets subjected to gross/harmful cures by the girls' or 'the king spends a whole day playacting he is a puppy on the whim of Kiki and Sophia'. Mostly these comedy scenarios seemed to drag on too long for me, wearing out their welcome long before they ended. I'd say this is much more of an issue in the different post-wedding routes than in the first half of the game where comedy is mostly based around the main character being unfamiliar with the fantasy world he's living in, which feels much more natural. After the wedding, he's more or less settled into a daily routine, so it seems that in order for them to make comedy they make the girls all go off the deep end for silly. It feels very... filler-y, which probably sounds a lot worse than I mean it.
The other obnoxious problem for me is that the game has pregnancy but it basically just shows up as a final cg for each girl's route with a bit of flavor text. It doesn't have preg sex scenes or even just explore it as a romantic scenario much, which is a bit of a missed opportunity to me. It sort of feels like the story just sort of ends in most routes with a girl getting pregnant, and it feels like a good number of the routes just sort of... end. Like they couldn't think of a way to give the story a proper finale, so they just went with 'and then they got preggo the end'.

I still enjoyed this VN a lot, it just feels like there could have been more done with it.

Quite unique unlike other Visual Novel, instead of just picking girls for Route choice you are also need to pick group of girls and element, it affect the final story of MC and the Kingdom, so there are 3 combination need to be done to enter a route and not just picking girl to enter route.

Just finished my first Route (Water/Sophia)
After completing a runthrough a lot of the criticism about the initial night visits feeling tacked on I think is a completely fair criticism but I'm still willing to give at a glowing 5 Stars. To put it simply the Character writing is absolutely charming by the end of the story I properly had a crush on every one of the Girls in the story even my initial least favorite character Char came to be a lovable and welcome member of the Harem to me. The Art is wonderful with really great designs for all the Girls and moments that really made me laugh the experience overall was fun and worthwhile.
It's one of those games where you finish and still fantasize what life with some of these girls would be like. I was immediately drawn to Hikari and Sophie who are in my opinion the best girls in the game (not to detract from the others whom I loved just not as much). The game is so good i'm willing to go back and try every route which for me almost never happens.
TL;DR
Charming, Funny, and Beautiful Girls can't go wrong with that

Usually I do my reviews the way I wrote my (only) other 2, my general opinion, and the pros and cons. But I'm feeling feisty, so I think I'll do those first.

Pros
- Girls are cute. One of the most important things these games always need, which is why I'm doing it first. Girls look good, with their own unique charm. One even tries the incest loli route with her cute face and smaller frame, until you realize she has decent honkers and is a pervert.
- Harems are always nice. I know harems are just for those people who don't like picking just one girl. Kinda like how parents that don't want to admit that only one of their kids came out right, and the rest are disappointments. You give the bog standard "I love you all" approach and avoid making a more mature choice.
- You're the king, so you can get away with the statement above. Begone peasants.
- Incest and inbreeding has no taboo. If Imouto Paradise wasn't enough incest for you, then damn. This game only has one incest girl, so I don't know what to tell you. At least it means there's no laws against banging your relatives. I wonder if you can bang your daughters too.
- Art is really nice and colorful. It seems there was an artistic choice to make it seem like there were weird colors in some of the girl's hair, with the most obvious being Charlone's hair. It is a choice, and one I don't mind. Makes them stand out a bit more.
- A funny moment at the start has all the girls talking about killing themselves without the MC's love. Some can be taken into funny territory, what with all the memes of someone flying out a window. Hikari however, mentioned slashing her wrists, something that is pretty much entirely dark, with no realistic way to sound any less real. But it is the only one that has no way to make it sound funny, so its absurdity is why it's funny to me.
- These hoes get that weird yandere stare sometimes, and that's hot.
Cons
- Another god damn Isekai, and you don't even get run over in this one. What a bummer man. I was hoping to see Optimus Prime murder me in this game.
- Most of the political landscape is mentioned, but ignored for more tits or other angst that is more important to the character than about the world itself. Your kingly duties do actually affect the world economy and its lands, but you only get a passing glance at any of it. A major plot point for the Fire route (I should probably mention that was the one I did) is the most you even hear of another country having any sort of major event, and is also the only one that matters.
- Translation I noticed feels a bit weird at times, like I'm missing some more dialogue. Also, bit of a spoiler, but the fact he just keeps calling his sister... Sister, instead of something a bit more informal like sis or something. It just feels awkward. Just call her sis, or even nee-san. I know what it means, I'm a fucking weeb god dammit. English translations don't have to be devoid of every Japanese phrase just for the few normies that play this.
- Oh yeah, there's typos and stuff.
- I know this is just another vanilla game, but even those had some weirder stuff thrown in. This is just all vanilla kissy sex, with Char being the one pervert who barely does anything that perverted beyond maybe sucking him off with no one knowing she took him for herself. Not even any teases like, banging them against a window for anyone to see her. The biggest it gets is group sex, but that is expected for harems.
- Char doesn't pilot a Gelgoog in this game. Not even a red Zaku. I guess Red Comet doesn't mean much when your colors are closer to silver. Her eyes are even pink, like she's mocking me.
- If it isn't your thing, a lot of the girls get really obsessive over the MC, to the point of yandere-like stares and even comments. Some will drop whatever old habits they usually have to be a stalker for him.

Harem Kingdom feels like a harem game that is supposed to be fun, and a little goofy, but there are some aspects of it that might turn some people away, especially with how odd the translations appear to be. They get their point across, but it almost feels like there's missing pieces to the puzzle. I still enjoyed my time with it, but I couldn't help noticing things like typos, moments where it will show character names when no one is actually speaking, and even one point where a window had a single period with no dialogue. It just feels a bit rushed. I'm also somewhat doubtful of it being in the original dialogue, but you can tell it was made for English speakers with the much more vulgar language, such as all the cursing. Even when it is present in other games, that is usually the loud mouth who actually does have a foul personality, not the entire cast. I don't know if it actually is true to her, but Hikari swears like a sailor.

If you can get over the odd translation choices, or maybe even the Isekai with a harem plot (psst, there's a little surprise for that one), I think the humor and characters do carry the game along, even if some might be hoping the landscape was looked at a bit more. Hikari even mentions early on that the world is very peaceful, with a lot of nothing happening. Indeed, besides one specific aspect, there's barely even any magic in the game. It is a Fantasy setting, with the only "fantasy" being, well, as a king who gets to fuck 5 girls with no one even caring about pesky commitment laws. No adultery here, just marry someone you think is sexy, and plow away.

It is a sort of by the numbers harem, but I think it is amusing enough to give it a shot. Just watch out for slimes that have some junk in the trunk, I hear they have an infestation going on.

Since there is already a lot said about the game in other reviews, I will focus on the translation.
It's mostly correct but made in a really "corporate" way - fast, simple and heartless. A lot of sentences are cut short, and summarized - often completely destroying jokes or some rather non important details, that nonetheless build the character "character" like speaking quirks (example: character says: If so, why don't we visit the market? There is a shop I would love to check. / translation: Why don't we go to the town and visit the markets?). In other cases, translator completely changes the meaning, making the translation seem more like a fanfic than actual recreation of original text. I'm in no way against translation freedom - in many cases liberal translations are one of the best, but when I see changes made here, I simply wonder... why? Why husband was changed into dearest in one h-scene? They were getting married soon, so it had sense why she would call him like that. Why any mentions of Kiki doing work in the castle in one dialogue were omitted, making it seem like she's just lazing there? So, just like I said at the beginning, it is mostly correct, yet I keep thinking, that slightly better translation would make my time reading it much more enjoyable and fun.
(about mostly correct: from what I saw, pronouns are omitted sometimes in places that should have them.)

I didn't expect this to be so entertaining. Completely sucks you into the fantasy world, and then surrounds you with waifu's on all sides till you can barely breathe from all the glorious boobage squeezing you in.

And it's funny, laugh out loud funny at times! Cute game well worth playing.

I like how the world is built, it's an Isekai and you end up becoming king of an empire, you have a bit of power fantasy, the mc is constantly referred to as "majesty", "lord", "your grace". The girls are all cute, have different personalities, the submissive, the demure, the daring, there's a little sister and a childhood friend who piss you off but actually loves you and wants to be fucked a lot, there's something for everyone, and it's a harem so keep them all. The jealousy scenes are funny, by the way the writing has a good sense of humor.

If you're a fan of Smee's previous titles, i.e. Making Lovers, Sugar Style, etc; you'll likely enjoy this one, but I can't help but see it as a massive step down from those titles.

Everything about the game's design screams that the developers wanted to make the usual individual girl route-based dating game, but felt compelled by financial reasons to chase trends and make a harem game instead. Thus you end up with a strange route system where you choose the style of harem you want, leading to awkward sex scenes that serve little narrative purpose, often feeling rushed and out of place with the game's easygoing plot.

Speaking of, the world we're presented with has interesting political and social implications, but all of that is tossed aside for the usual slice-of-life hijinks common to Smee games. The excellent Funbag Fantasy games demonstrate how a developer can marry political intrigue and high stakes drama with lighthearted comedy, but HaremKingdom falls flat on its face in this regard, instead going to the trouble of building a fantasy world in which nothing particularly interesting occurs.

The game's music is humdrum at best, and in fact feels out of place in many scenes, including sex scenes. An occasionally glitchy engine doesn't help matters. Of course, it's not all bad. Smee's characteristic charm still shines through, the voice acting is top notch, and the art is as good as any of their prior games.

In conclusion, HaremKingdom is poorly planned, poorly written, and consequently poorly executed. If you've played through Smee's previous games and want more of the same, there's no reason not to play HK, but if this is your first Smee title or are simply looking for a good eroge, there are far better choices available.

Smee's writing has been dodgy in their other VNs but not enough to overshadow everything else. So I was baffled when they decided that the best way to start the game was to show all of the heroines being textbook abusive girlfriends. What were they thinking?

Maybe you can push through this sort of idiocy, but it's a complete deal breaker for me.

Typical excellence from Smee - only downside is the censorship that they usually don't have. If we'd ever get Kanojo Step translated, they'd be the unbeatable "feel good" VN company. No drama, just hot waifus and feels