RPGM - Completed - Sakura Gozen [v1.10] [kaniheadcrab]

Overall - Not gonna lie, I was expecting this to be a quick fap and drop, not a nice story. I was not expecting the turnabout ending of chapter 1, which made me play this for the next 2 days (around 12 hours overall). The art is great but the H, not so much. A lot of generic CG which tries to incorporate a lot of fetishes while leaving me wanting more of certain fetishes and less of others. Gameplay has a slight deviation from standard RPGs with interesting mechanics. They have also made the grind just a bit easier. Just a little bit. Overall a 4 to 3.5 game. On a side note, the overall impression is being compared to other H-games.

Story - Without spoiling it, dumb female samurai wants to revive her clan and/or earn money for food, picks up mysterious loli discipline that was being bullied by a downtrodden samurai and gets involve in schemes, plots and mystery with her """lez""" harem. Now minor spoilers incoming. A few interesting things I found out while playing this game was the MC's relationship with the various characters here, especially the main cast. Aside from the discipline, everyone that was introduced had treated the MC in either disdain, anger or pity. They had all thought she was a loser or implied as such. So I thought the MC was some type of outcast. Its not until the second chapter and onwards that I got to see that their relationship was a bit more interesting than that since aside from the youkai and the discipline, MC is actually friends with everyone(Main cast). They've know each other since childhood which explains why they don't really need to hold back against the MCs. This part actually feels a bit real to me imo. Aside from that, there are interesting lore in the weapon descriptions once you've completed everything and read it top to down. It's overall enjoyable but the H isn't that much shoehorned in the story, its there but not much, whether that's a plus or minus depends on the person I suppose. The exposition is bad but when the story needs to get the other characters on board, its pretty much needed. It could have actually been so much worse imo. On a final note and major spoiler, the bad ending tied with the heartache mechanic hits pretty hard if you did it in chapter 3 like I did imo. Most bad end is mostly defeat porn, that one is where the MC is a husk of her former self and is just depressing to see. You also get a boss fight there where you should have probably lose but... level 99, best equipment AND the strongest buff potion made it... not easy but not that hard as well. Oh and the boss is that depress friend of yours as well. Which MC rips his head off after killing him to carry around. Depressing ending, which is saying something since most of the other endings are downers as well, aside from the true ending of course.

Gameplay - Its... interesting. It has a QTE for increasing your attack damage and a break system where you deal massive damage if you get it to fill up. The MC also gets 5 weapons you can use. Sadly, no combo for different attack patterns and it uses action points which means the larger attacks isn't really viable to use early on. You have the standard skill points to use to upgrade yourself but just pick damage first and your good. But the grind is probably the most irritating out of all of this. Not for the level, that is easy one you unlocked the item for instant kill per area and the "enemy rush" or training room in chapter 3. No, collecting materials is a pain the ass, as well as earning money. Even with prostitution, earning money is slow since most of the good stuff is in the 10000 range. Its better for you to just sell your pee, which earns you 10000. Prostitution only starts being viable once your experience in the certain body part reaches around 200 to start earning big bucks. The heartache mechanic IS interesting but overall worthless since you can just go out and spar the guy outside to reset your heartache to zero and start the process again. Yes this game made grinding fast but fucking tedious by giving you less. And the materials are a pain in the ass. If you want to get 100% on everything, you have turn off the instant kill item and activate the rare one that you can only get in the last area of the game that is inaccessible in the standard areas. Then hunt the needed enemy in the 3 areas. Pain in my behind. Good overall but I think half of my play time was me grinding.

H and Art - For something I wanted for a quick fap this was not it. It was not bad, just not that good. Art is amazing especially the event CGs and special standing art but the H is just lacking. The H tries to get as many fetishes it can and fails due to it just being 1 time things. The prostitution are just 3 levels in one building. H events outside the building aren't even repeatable aside from masturbation in MCs home. The corruption is tied to gameplay rather than story and the heartache debuff is a joke that you only need for an extra scene, bad ending and extra clothing. Overall, good art not so good H or lacking thereof.

tl;dr - Solid game if very grinding due to implementation of easier grind. Interesting QTE gameplay. Great story for an H game if a bit exposition heavy at times due to its twists. Bad prostitution game and too little H imo. And little loli H, if that is important.

they only have two games but my god i love this one as much as their other one, and i LOVED that one. while i do think the monstrous horror show was a much more unique experience, i think this game offers a much broader appeal akin to most other eroge, while keeping the charm alive and strong.

the characters are all so fun (and erotic), but they can also have some really dark moments. it can kinda whiplash like the previous game, but imo i enjoy the contrasting extremities of the gag humor and seriousness. my fave is tamago <3

the art and h scenes are all so good, i really enjoyed the changing h status menu more than i thought i would. there are a ton of costumes which each have their own scene, and on a character like sakura they all looked sexy as heck, especially the ones that change the posing/hairstyle. that combined with the multitude of scenes for the other characters provide a really fun variety. the pixel art too is really fun, it kinda looks amateurish but theres a ton of whacky animations that really show off this game's passion.

if there is one thing i want, i kinda wish there was a stricter way to make the game harder, they give a lot of options to make the game easier and easier, but not much to deliver a satisfying harder difficulty. in the end though i still enjoyed the simple gameplay, i'd rather have the excessive QoL than a grindy mess.

i'm hoping this game gets an official translation, but i'm also worried this one is more dangerous to translate... but uh yea i'm following these devs til the end

Are you looking for a porn game with an engaging story, great writing, and excellent characters? No?

Well, you should still play Sakura Gozen, because the porn's pretty good too.

As for the scenes, there are a few mandatory ones, as well as some tied to losing battles, but most are actually completely optional.
(You also have the option to skip scenes [mandatory or otherwise] that don't interest you. But don't worry, you won't want to.)

Absolute Titema

combat is sort of unique (in that your attack is time based)
good amount of h-scenes and the story is interesting.
sprite work is amazing too. there really isn't much else wrong with it I can think of outside of how sometimes the objectives can get confusing.
genuinely a classic.

what a game i didnt expect to ejoy it this much the combat felt fun doing quests was easy and enjoyable the story was so good especially the true ending was my favorite one i recommend this game for anyone wanting to give a try from it's 10/10

A very amazing game, I did not regret playing it, I hope there'll be some sort of dlc or even some different difficulties, I would love some challenge to make it more strategic-like game, it'll be so much fun if it's added!

A little (quite) late to the party, but here goes...

Oh but before that, check the tags. There are a lot of fetishes, you may want to tread carefully if any of them displease you. Also also, lots of piss. It's legit also a big part of the story, so... Yeah...

Gameplay, 5/5: Excellent, but Quite Easy
I'm giving it bonus points for it's uniqueness (at least, I've never played an RPGM that had combat like this). The only gripe I have is that, as long as you invest your points, and upgrade your weapons regularly, everything is quite easy. I've only ever used healing like, 3x, max?
Just spamming spear attacks to break stance is good enough.

Anyways, to further clarify it's uniqueness, you select your attacks, then time Z with an arrow to do more damage. It's turn-based otherwise, but not bad, honestly.

Visuals, 5/5: Like, 9/10, Really.
Most of the game is quite nice, and the pixelated characters are fine, mostly... But can look a bit weird. For example, the swimming sprite, I had a hard time figuring out what I was looking at exactly. Otherwise, the art is nice. Animations are mostly a couple of PNGs alternating to mimic animation, but is better than most I've seen.

Another gripe is that, during scenes, your costume is ignored and switched to a default. So during the less serious moments, it's a bit sad that you don't see yourself wearing out of place costumes.

Audio, 5/5: Quite Nice
The music gets a bit repetitive, but I never really got sick of it. The music choice is fitting, and the serious songs are kind of catchy to me. Very cool.
Some sound effects and music are generic/stock, but maybe I'm just biased because it was a good game overall.
Edit: I'm like, 75% sure that most of the songs are actually unique to the game. I don't think BGM_tama_hanamatsuri.ogg is in the library of RPGM but maybe I'm wrong.

Story, 5/5: The Main Thing
So, to avoid spoilers, I'm going to explain it very broadly. It's a generic anime plot, where the power of friendship triumphs over all.
But honestly, it really did surprise me how serious it could get. The tonal shifts are a bit extreme because within 10 minutes, you can go from being a sex demon, to something very much serious.

Look, it really is a generic story. But it's done well. The characters are a bit extreme caricatures, but still done well enough I suppose.

Overall, 5/5: Excellent.
Yes, this game has a few issues here and there. It's not perfect by any means, but it honestly does everything well in my opinion. Gameplay is fast enough, different enough but not annoying until maybe the end since it repeats itself a bit, and enemy spawns can be high at certain points. H-Scenes are VERY varied. Music is good, art is good. It may take maybe 5 hours of your time, total?

P.S., Surprisingly, I got all the endings without referring to here.

The story is the best part. Everything else just kinda gets in the way.

This is one of those RPG Maker games that tries something different with the combat system. Is it a good system? I have no idea. The difficulty is so low it doesn't matter. You're given 5 weapons at all times - should I be varying my attacks? I have no idea, because everything dies in 2 turns if I just spam the spear endlessly. Unless there's a superboss after the last epilogue boss I fought, most bosses die in 1 or 2 turns. Or would, except they have a brief invulnerability period. There's no point in trying to strategize or learn tricks or anything, because everything just dies easily.

Despite the combat being so easy, there is a lot of grinding. The bosses are trivial; the generic enemies are even weaker. You can quickly get items that let you skip all random enemies in an area after collecting 20 of their drops. This is handy, but it still means fighting enough of them to get those drops in the first place. There are no random encounters, but due to how the maps are laid out it's basically impossible to avoid walking into enemies. This game would be unbearable without the instakill items. Even after that you need an absurd number of materials to craft all the weapons and costumes. Just use a save editor. Trust me.

The characters are a mixed bag. Sakura is a moron. Dumb characters can be fun, and she's sometimes fun. But a lot of the time she's more obnoxious than fun or endearing, and the other characters are also excessively quirky. This isn't necessarily bad, but none of them really "clicked" with me. Other people may like them more.

There is a lot of urination in this game. I am not fond of urination. Strangely, it's not just used in the porn, it's also done for comedy, gameplay, characterization, and plot contrivance. And there's plenty of it in the porn too. It doesn't go farther than piss at least - one of the characters is referred to as "scatological", but there's no poop involved.

The porn is lacking. There's a lot of scenes, and they're animated. This game doesn't use live2d for smoothing tweening animations, I believe they're hand drawn. I liked the animations well enough, but the scenes they're a part of are always too short. And even the porn needs grinding. There's a fake corruption system where you need to develop her anus to prostitute yourself or wear lewder costumes. Basically nothing changes if you "corrupt" her so it's really just more grinding.

After all those complaints, is the story really good enough to justify 4 stars? Maybe. This is absolutely not an average game, so I'm not going to give it 3. I enjoyed this. I recommend it. But it certainly has a ton of issues, and turns into an obnoxious slog at some points.

The art is great even though it's censored, the writing is good and funny, and the combat system is unique. I really enjoy the battle system and it's not often that you see an RPG Maker game in a side view. Especially one as well made as this one.

After Lumina the Brave 0, this game scratched the itch. Thought it was a typical feudal japan fetish thing, then the whole 'cutting the arm off' at the last part of chapter 1 catches you off guard.

It's a very fleshed out, well-planned out game, though I would expect that the juxtaposition between the goofy, near-endless gags, the incredibly well-drawn h-scenes with the sudden dips into severity may drive anyone who was expecting a simple wankfest to be completely mistaken.

Covers most basic fetishes and has stellar art, both H and non-H, and I enjoyed a story-driven game that isn't just the typical fuckfest slop RPGM tends to be. Also after how Lumina 0 kind of baits you, this is a good segue. Most of the fetishes it goes through isn't my cup of tea, though.

I ended up playing this to the end without even hunting the h-scenes because of the general engagement of the story being just intriguing enough to make me use my few gaming hours to see how it ends. Don't regret it, got the SS ending, it's a fun game.

Also, the combat system is fun. I typically hate combat systems, especially turn-based ones, but I am a huge sucker for QTEs. The whole 'collapse' system makes it so that I don't have to fire up my save editor to give the MC 9999 attack, and I can actually enjoy a very well-balanced combat system.

Solid game, it has a lot of things from lolis to fat tits some people might be turned off by the tits on the protagonist but there is one h-scene where they look incredibly hot, other things are here also like exibitionism, prostitution, ahegao, incest, the public sex was the hottest thing imo, there are some weird fetishes mixed in also and the story is kinda random and weird at times, pretty easy to get h scenes, the difficulty of the game is a joke, easiest bosses ever, I would rate the game 8.5/10 a 5/5 here just for being better than the others.

Bland mediocrity: the game.

All those five star reviews are clearly from desperate dudes who are so starved for any kind of content that they would glaze even a game as mid as this one here. Every system in this title is absolutely pointless and slapped on just because. Corruption system? It doesn't do anything except for gatekeeping some of the scenes. Hell, you can max that shit out almost the moment you finish the prologue. Heartache? Just an excuse for useless grind for useless shit which enables more grind for more shit. You literally get items which let you skip collecting stuff/fighting mobs entirely, so the dev basically tells you it's pointless shit. Costumes? There's nothing to them except for one line of dialogue and one scene. CGs itself are basic and uninspired, their style very reminiscent of those shitty browser/mobile porn games which no sane person would ever play. Pixel art is dogpoop and combat is braindead.

The story, while with a somewhat interesting twist at the end of the first chapter, is bloated with bland text and a lot of walking around just for the sake of it.

Overall, it'll suffice since there were no decent RPGM releases in months, but otherwise it's nowhere near 5* others claim it to be.

Amazing game. The story starts a bit goofy and mostly light-hearted, but it gets a bit heavy at certain parts. Still, the story itself is quite interesting.

Combat is unique, my only issue was that most fights were too easy so it didn't the combat itself didn't have much chance to shine.

The gameplay itself is in a 2d space. Not the usual rpgm style, but still made good with the system. Lot of things to do and explore.

The events are really hot, and the art is amazing.

Overall I feel it is a great and fun game. I rarely complete games, but this had me locked in and hunting for the outfits, scenes and weapons.

Honestly one of the top porn games that I've played.
The art is good, and so is the UI and design.
The story itself is engaging, even if one considers it 'just above average', seeing that most porn games tend to only be good in either porn or plot, this game does well in both.
The story is a bit silly? Also the translation, while good overall (props to the translators for their efforts) do kinda make it so that some of the jokes don't really translate well, but oh well. The main meat of the story is good already so not much to complain there.

A wide range of fetishes, feels nice to collect as a gallery and also nice to fap to.
The scenes themselves are nice, filled with horny.

Gameplay-wise the game is rather nice. Porn games don't have to be hardcore challenging, just engaging. Though personally while I feel like the rhythm qte could be more challenging as the game goes on, it being easy while still being sort of entertaining is already great.
Considering how boring regular brainless rpg gameplay goes, this one has some substance to it.

As a side note, people who play only 15 mins of a porn game and rate it badly kind of ruins the rating system, even if you didn't like a game all that much, to give a one star rating when you haven't even played the game proper is very disappointing when it comes to a review.
Also the porn art itself is great, there's someone complaining that it looks boring just because it moves a bit. Like, most japanese porn games have 1 or 2 still cg and that's it. Having a moving cg, even if slightly, is already a major step up.

Overall great game. Easy 5/5.
Play it if you haven't (unless you don't like the art(?))

Great game with amazing CGs, a lot of costumes and pretty decent story. It did get a bit tedious in the late stages of the game.
Sakura is the main focus of the H scenes, so it could be a turn off for some people (but I like her and her model, so it was a plus for me).

Could be a con for some, but the game is pretty long, it took me over 8 hours to complete the story and unlock all the scenes but I was skipping a lot of text, specially in the later stages.
The combat is a bit of hit and miss for me, while doing the specific timings thing is cool initially, kinda gets boring tedious after a while. Still., I'd take this over the regular RPGM combat any day of the week.
Also, there are some niche kinks that I wasn't a fan of, though I did appreciate the CG quality I guess.

The Loli/petite girl H content was the main turn-off for me. There's not a lot but there is some of the content, but thats just my personal preference.

Definitely recommend for anyone on this forum to try this game out, unless unrealistic Sakura's boobs/proportions are a turn off.

tl;dr: The main story is unique and above average for the genre. The rest of the game is very middling with some pretty uninspiring H content.

Story 4/5
This is the main selling point of the game. They really tried to create something more intriguing than your average H RPG Maker game. While the main story offers numerous surprising developments it is completely separate from the H content outside of bad end scenarios where you lose to some monstrous beast. The side content is far less interesting and almost always boils down to "go talk to this person for 5-10 minutes to get a 2 minute CG H scene". The writing of the characters is above average but everyone just talks soooooooo much that it gets quite tiresome after the first chapter and I found myself skipping 90% of the dialogue because characters would just say the same things over and over when the objective of a given mission was very clear.

H Content 2/5
Static CGs with 2-3 frames to give illusion of movement. Frankly I didn't find the art style of the CGs very appealing nor the writing to be anything special. Most of the scenes were varying degrees of vanilla and they're so all over the place that I doubt someone looking for fetish content is going to be satisfied. H content is completely separate from the gameplay which is the game's biggest failing point. Enemies won't grab you, strip you, intoxicate you, or otherwise give you anything erotic in battles. All of the content is strictly either given upon battle loss or voluntarily engaged with from dialogue choices. This means that the content really doesn't feel integrated into the gameplay at all and is a really big missed opportunity.

During battle you get this huge sprite of the main character on the screen but she doesn't do anything other than just stand there. Nowadays I would highly expect a game like this to utilize a live 2d image of the protagonist taking battle damage or being harassed. At a minimum differing CGs in response to monster attacks. Instead you get *nothing*. This just adds on to the odd feeling from going from the game play to H content with no lead up or build up in between - a very dated design.

Gameplay 3/5
A mildly interesting combat system undercut by the fact that there are so many battles against pointless animals in the wilderness that you become incredibly overpowered without even needed to engage in the games built in upgrade system. If you do utilize the upgrade system you become so godlike that losing (and hence getting the H scene) becomes a binary choice of voluntarily consuming a instant loss item rather than organically coming out of the interactions between protag girl and whatever enemy she's fighting.

Translation 3/5
Understandable but about 1/4 text boxes has some awkwardly translated line that makes you scratch your head a little bit. The dialogue is all extremely casual and somewhat 4th wall breaking which sometimes doesn't translate well.

Awesome story & funny animation!

The H-scense are ok.

But a cool combat system!

A great game from beginning to end.

It took me about 8h to 100% complete it for the EX-Ending.

i really dont get the general positive vibe for this game, but everyone has a different opinion so here is mine:

boring text that you can BARELY fast forward, but you'll still sit here several hours seing text that i myself dont give a shit about. not to mention it reads cringy.

basic rpg combat gameplay.

sex scenes/cg basic. pictures, sometimes 2 different ones to give you the illusion of movement.

even with fast travel the walking back and forth just feels tedious and takes forever.

personally i just dont like it. at all.

Edit: People giving this 1-star after "playing for 15 minutes" are not a good indication of this game's quality. But that should be obvious.

Absolutely brilliant. One of the best H-RPGs I've played. Actually feels like an really good anime with H-elements.

Summary: Great art, entertaining story, sexy/endearing characters, dope outfits, H-stats system, multiple endings in one playthrough, S-tier lesbian scenes, oddly satisfying story etc.

Pros:

(+) Amazing art-style, with hand drawn CG including simple, yet impactful animations, really nice pixel art and animations too. Custom stances for some outfits, custom peeing CG for those outfits, custom scenes for some outfits, and lots of high quality scenes.

Standing models are great and character design is fantastic. Level and art direction is also on point, the general feudal game world setting is really immersive and peaceful.

(+) Great writing. I don't ever expect much from H-RPGs but this one was really good. Story is impactful and entertaining from the start, lacks the usual cringe VN style word-vomit that many of these games are guilty of. This was made with passion, and it's evident in the backstories and details in this games narration/story telling. Some super funny moments too. Really like some of these characters. Felt like an interactive anime sometimes.

Actually, went "wtf" during some of the scenes and actually had some wholesome feels during the true ending. All endings can be done in a single playthrough. Really likeable characters.

(+) H-stats system, progression feels decent. Different CG for corruption levels. It is a bit too simplistic and would've liked more H-levels. But overall quite good.

(+) Some of the best lesbian scenes. And some really hot low-key ones too if you're paying attention.

(+) Tons of outfits and sexy poses.

(+) Lots of QoL items and options to skip the grind.

(+) Turn based battle system with a fun interactive element, that gets easier with stats. Only really ruined by the constant flashing (which isn't a problem for those without photosensitivity)

(+) The UI/UX is actually fine. There's lots of QoL such as fast travel from menu, the option for shopping from menu, H-stats, Suzune notes/glossary etc. The design is thematic and the UX is usable. Nothing spectacular though.

Cons:

(-) Again, the story is entertaining, though there are some really dumb moments. And there are the occasional over explaining/word-vomit moments. Still really good as it doesn't happen too often.

(-) Censorship. Ruins this great art-style. Fortunately it's not too aggressive. Not the fault of the game but rather backwards Japanese laws.

(-) FLASHING! Cum flashing and battle flashing with no way to turn it off.

Conclusion: I really hope this gets released uncensored on Steam. I would insta get it. Really enjoyed this one.

Misleading 5 star reviews. Very mediocore game with basic CGs. Game tries too hard to include a bunch of fetish which ends up being mediocore if you are interrested in a specific one. Overall I couldn't play more than 15 minutes, because of how dull and boring the Game is. I gave it a 2 star only for the somewhat good quality of CG, other than that Very poor.