RPGM - Completed - Kunoichi Karin [v1.2] [CHERIS SOFT]

At first I wasn't sure what to expect from this game, considering this is only the third game from this circle and their other games aren't translated. But after completing it, I can confidently say that this is a fantastic game.

Story

The story is well written and executed. While fairly lengthy at 13 chapters, most are short and engaging enough to make you want to keep playing. The plot is centered around Karin, a seemingly normal girl who works at a sweets shop but has a double life as a famous thief. The game eases you in, making you think the plot is just robbing the rich repeatedly but by chapter 5 the real story begins.

Regarding the main cast, the MC and party members are all very likable. Karin herself is the star of the show. You always want to root for her and hope she'll pull through whatever ordeal she's facing. This is further reinforced when combined with the many bad ends she might encounter. There are numerous side characters but a few manage to rise above the sea of NPCs and stand on their own.

Gameplay

The devs made a smart decision to allow the player total freedom. There are no time limits, no penalties for waiting or anything of that sort. If you want to delay the main story to grind money and xp endlessly then you can do that.

For the combat, you can fight in traditional RPG fashion through turn based battles or sneak up behind enemies to insta kill them. Unfortunately the only way to gain XP is to do the latter. Fighting enemies the normal way doesn't earn you any XP which is a very odd design choice that I heavily dislike. If it couldn't get any worse, some enemies are programmed to seek you out relentlessly so stealth is useless against them.

Provided you didn't neglect your team, most bosses will be easy to take down. But if you did, then there are a bunch of healing items and permanent stat buffs that can patch up any deficiencies. I spread out my upgrades evenly across the team but looking back now, the best strategy would be to use eveything on Karin.

Dungeons are straightfoward and easy to navigate with lots of items to find so you're encouraged to explore. Rushing the boss is fine too, since most dungeons can be explored again after you've beaten them.

Now for the most important part, all the H content. The majority of it is accessed through events as regular Karin. The exceptions to this are the boss defeat scenes and some enemies that have sexual attacks. There's a huge amount of events and the variety is just as big too. Some events are divided into 4 stages, with each stage progressively corrupting the heroine. Stages don't repeat, instead they keep on going until their own ending, which results in a game over. I don't like this system, I'd rather have the stages repeat themselves depending on the level of Karin's corruption. Sadly, other events that only consist of one stage also don't vary from corruption level. A nice quality of life feature is that you have the option to avoid H events. It's great because it shows that the MC isn't a gullible idiot and can sense danger.

Corruption is easy to gain and easy to lose. So if you've whored her out too much and want to see pre-slut Karin, just pray to the shrine a few times. I say corruption, but the only major difference is only when the stat reaches 100. Unfortunately it's not a gradual decline and you can only see the difference during prostitution scenes; where it's either normal or lewd and no in between.

I greatly enjoy games where prostitution is a focus rather than an afterthought. Here it's very much a focus, to the point of being integrated into the main story. At night, normal Karin can approach men on the street to do various lewd things or she can become a formal prostitute in the town's red light district. Sometimes after one round, a customer can request another go, which is a simple idea but very effective.

Art

The art is superb. Characters have realistic proportions and aren't exaggerated. It's also clean and not cluttered, to which you can clearly identify what's happening on screen immediately. Their designs aren't totally outlandish but are accurate to the time period the game's set in.

Summary

Kunoichi Karin is an outstanding game and one that totally deserves a playthough. The devs spent over two years making this game and the high quality matches the time spent making it. From the in depth story, to the simple gameplay, the vast amount of unique CGs, this is a top tier game.

Edit: Apparently, gaining XP through battles was broken due to the MTL and not by design from the devs. So if you find yourself underleveled or think the game is unnecessarily grindy then it's because the MTL broke the game. For example, by the end of the game my party was all lvl 40, a whole 10 levels down from the final boss.

How a substantial bug can pass by unnoticed is beyond me. So don't let that negatively affect your perception of the game since this current version isn't indicative of it's true performance.

This is a Cheris soft game, the developer makes longer games with deeper stories than most h games, but decided to build this one on RPG maker (probably because people like me secretly pushed to have it made this way to be auto translated when the developer asked)

The combat isn't too deep, and there is a cheap assassination mechanic. This game is surprisingly grindy, which would usually turns me off, but fortunately there is a crazy amount of quality artwork to balance it out. Lots of mini games and stuff to explore in the town.

Anyways, if you like games like Magical Girl Celesphonia, I'd recommend this one.

Typical RPG from Japan. Good art but bad game.

I do like the quality of the art but I can't for the life of me understand why you make corruption games where you must seek to be corrupted. If you lose in combat it usually ends in a game over screen without any scene, and even in the case of bosses it is a game over after a scene. You'll never play after the consequences. Most enemies in combat try to kill you, and those few enemies that sexually assault you in combat ask for permission first. Well, I suppose nobody gets offended this way... but kind of kills the fetish for me at least.

The sneaking part is not the worst I've seen, at least it's quick when successful and fairly punishing if you fail. It's a real shame losing all the HP just ends the game, a missed opportunity. Few design changes would have made this a much more interesting game for me.

Gets very tedious towards the end, the battles are, honestly, terrible. There's very little skill variation and bosses have way too much HP. The world is fairly large but there's not much in it. The maps are decent looking for RPG maker game but hardly something to marvel at, so it all just feels like a bit of a waste.

The story is long, too long I would say. Kind of reminded me of those anime series they make for kids where it just drags on for 500 episodes and barely anything happens. Those series have their fans and it seems this one has fans also. I think flashbacks are most often a bad way to tell a story, this one has plenty of that.

I'm not sure what to think of the scale of the game. On one hand it's quite a large package, but at the same time while it is long and rather wide it is also very shallow. Lots of empty locations. This game lacked the sense of wonder of exploring what I've come to expect from similar titles. There are, as far as I can tell, not much choices along the way. You will pretty much experience everything there is when the game wants you to. The only option to choose seems to be getting fucked or not, the progress of individual corruption seems very disconnected from the general progression. And I don't even dare to imagine how dull the virgin path is. Choosing not to see sex in an adult game? In most games that's the challenge path but in this one it's just choosing "no".

Overall a bland experience. Pretty, but not exciting.

Just finished playing this game exactly a week ago since its launch in JP. Definitely one of the best RPG Maker Eroge I have played in a while. The story is well planned and well executed (Although, the first few chapters (1-3) may seem to be tedious at first but it is understandable as it tries to get the player to understand and familiar with the environment and the NPC surrounding the areas, mainly within Edo), various events and options you can choose and do, and a lot of alternative endings you can end up with (Not counting the Main 3 Ending)

This game is better than I imagined. Over 100 CG with erotic sexual harassment in the city, sexual harassment attacks from enemies, defeating bosses, and stage events in the city. The hint of scenes will be taught in the recollection room so you won't be stuck.

Bit grinding because the boss was really hard. Personally, I was grateful to be able to go to the END as soon as after 20 hours of playtime, and tips here when you are fighting a boss is ALL BUFF AND BUILD just for Karin.

H content is focused on the mid-game (around chapters 5-10). And not only erotic but also the main story is made with a key point in mind, the story is also very voluminous, but there are plenty of sub-stories other than the main story so you can enjoy it.

I recommended it to have a good time for the new year!!!

Pros: Artwork and length of game are both really good. Variety of routes and sexual scenes is good.

Cons: The RPG elements are very grindy and tedious. The enemies are not that tough, but the bosses are VERY hard. You have to grind levels to get increased stats (there are like 12 stats in the game too), but that is not enough you also need to apply these permanent stat buff cherries. There are hundreds of these stat buff fruits hidden in containers in towns and dungeons, so you have to look in every container to find them (and you need them because the bosses are hard). Actually applying the fruits is a pain as well, because you have to eat them one at a time, so the whole stat increase system is very tedious and grindy). The actual dungeon layouts are also hit or miss, they become very maze like with dead ends everywhere, but there are some puzzles to solve that differ from dungeon, so they aren't awful to go through, just tiresome. While there are a large variety of routes, I did find them all to be very short and somewhat repetetive. Most of the sex routes, that lead to an ending, only involve 4 one-time scenes (1=intro touch, 2=kiss plus blowjob, 3=sex, 4=pregnancy ending scene). I wish these routes were longer with more scenes, so we could see our heroine fall over time. Also, like 90% of the sex scenes can be unlocked by the halfway point of the game, meaning to finish the other half of the game, is really just grindy RPG fights and dungeons with not much reward.

Conclusion: The game is good for the first half, but becomes tedious and unrewarding in the second half. 3/5