Soukou Akki Muramasa, an utter mess
What carries this visual novel on it's shoulders and paints the broader strokes for the themes it explores is definitely the Law of Balance, this is singlehandedly the most interesting thing in the visual novel, giving the main character a handicap that robs him of the ability to become an actual "hero",
Someone called it the "anti-hero's journey" and I think that's pretty much the summary of it, extremely simple and yet effective concept,
To make a long story short, this VN is exhausting to read, sometimes you're starting to have some sort of fun only to have that moment be cutshort by an infodump, I tried my best to read as much of these infodumps as I could but this shit just drags on, "self-indulgent" doesn't even begin to describe the content of this game, I've never read a Visual Novel that was able to make such little use of it's existence AS a Visual Novel,
The premise is interesting, but the writer's active job is to find a way to bore you,
The banter sucks ass, Otori and Ichijou have the worst dynamic despite how they're written to compliment each other, the comedy is offputting for the most part, occasionally they're able to squeeze in some funny moments like a 4th wall break with chachamaru in chapter 3 or a meta Nitro+ universe cameo dream sequence, but I can count all of these on one hand
Most of the comedy is absolutely forced, Otori's entire persona is held back because they've written her as this indifferent cool chick who makes wisecracks but everytime "Ara....." or "Darling" escapes her lips I wanted to strangle her, every serious conversation has to STOP for Otori and Sayo to make some sort of funny remark before resuming,
Similarly they almost executed Chachamaru well with a similar personality but without all the utter obnoxiousness of Otori, but then proceeded to make her a cocksucking bootlicker clingy needy person in the main route, utterly baffling how easy it was to not fuck it up
The main reason characters like Otori are also held back is because their routes are riddled with absolute garbage level interactive segments,
The entire airship segment, the choices between fights, literally doing MATH for the final fight, going to 50 different people and asking your purpose
These segments do NO favors to the VN,
Extras:
-The very end where the MC is trying to save Muramasa and no one is helping him while flashbacks of all his kills play in the back of his head was cool, Sorimachi entirely saved that ending segment because right after fighting the final boss you're subjected to le epic bridge building truce arc FT. maid outfit fellatio which made me want to burn my eyes
-Ichijou's route is probably the most consistently enjoyable for me, it has it's downsides ofcourse, Ichijou almost represents the idealistic POV when it comes to Justice, almost shounen protag tier view of it, even the way she sacrifices her body for the Justice she wants to dish out is very reminiscent of shounen protags,
Although you can easily tell the author uses her viewpoint as a punching bag and inserts this horrible random ass part where the monk's "apprentice" materializes out of nowhere and feeds ichijou her nephew's fingers, the grand point being that no matter what Ichijou does the result will never be black and white,
Which I think is an utterly stupid way of communicating that, I got what the author intended, but it was delivered in the most unimpressive way possible, but I respect the fact that she stills sticks to her ways till the end and her post credit scene is the strongest (minus the true route I guess)
-The true route is good, until the MC is infused with Ginseigo's egg that is, the entire part where Ginseigo is Hikaru's dream was amazing (although the part where he couldn't kill her sister was irritating to read, it made sense context wise but it was still frustrating to watch him contemplate it after the pile of corpses he was shouldering throughout the VN, which is something the VN acknowledges ofcourse)
I say the Ginseigo egg thing was bad is because they truly do nothing with it, there's a standoff where Chachamaru, MC and Raichou go to kill the prince but then midway they are interrupted when GHQ starts waging war on Yamato,
You get to see Muramasa act like an utter bumbling fool only to make her way back to the castle for a teary-eyed reunion with her master, this segment for me held so little purpose it was baffling, I enjoy the Rokuhara big 4 reacting to the MC but the entire stupid schpiel about Shishuku seeing the MC as his brother and the stupid castle robbery segment was just tasteless buffoonery, and instead of making the MC a slave to Chachamaru's will (which frankly speaking would have been far more interesting and would make Muramasa saving him far more important) they decide to flip the script and turn Chachamaru into this............needy cockslave?
The only good thing that comes out of the Ginseigo egg arc is when Muramasa comes face to face with Yuhi's friend who had his eyes cut off, this was the only highlight, the rest can fucking go
-The entire god thing was stupid, it wasn't pulled out of thin air and from the entire forged bomb segment to the Prefect dying and meeting god or whatever, the god bit was already set up, but by the end of the VN it felt like an added unnecessary mess, the God segment is only saved by the part where you oscillate between the Past and the Future and you get to see stuff like Ichijou in the future with the Moon shattered,
The big golden tree shooting a laser then turning into the Prefect, as in god turning into giant man with giant sword just so the author can once again have an excuse to write a sword segment was painful to sit through
The god thing was also stupid because you have to tolerate Captain Wolf who EMBODIES the problem with Muramasa's "comedy"
-The vertical text didn't bother me, the denseness of the writing did, I was completely indifferent to it,
It's a different change of pace I guess
-I didn't like the MC being Hikaru's dad, again it's not like this was an asspull, they have a literal choice in Chapter 4 that reads "She is my daughter", but I felt like this was just a stupid thing to put in this VN
-The VN acknowledges this, but the Shogun's assassination is setup way too conveniently, not that I mind that bit anyway since Ginseigo just does her stupid mass genocide thing,
-Rape was annoying, not well written and put where it had no business of being put, the monk would have been my favorite character had they not squeezed the rape in, was the cup and mask made out of the remains of the child's family not sinister enough?
-Muramasa's past was......a thing.........? I guess I'm glad they touched on it but if I'm being perfectly honest it was a precursor to her bumbling idiot big tit black woman running across war ridden country arc, also I guess it brought MC and her closer so I can't really complain
-Finally the one thing that truly held this VN back was the OSTs, after hearing the same battle theme for 543903498504 hours I can easily say this aspect truly held it back, a lot of the scenes felt like they lacked flavor just because they kept reused the same 4 themes, they really shot themselves in the foot there
All in all? Miserable, tiring read, a lot of missed potential, self indulgent writing, painful execution of some parts,
There's something in this VN that makes you feel like you're reading something that has the potential to be the best thing you've ever read, only to miss the mark completely and taffypull the potential of things that don't even intrigue the reader,
This VN upset me to my core, it didn't feel like a waste of time but at the same time it didn't feel like it justified it's own length at all, I have never felt like a read could possibly fall directly in the middle of being "good" or "bad", and yet here we are,
Quite ironic, it's balanced just like it's core themes, neither impressively good nor gut wrenchingly bad,
Mid as hell
What carries this visual novel on it's shoulders and paints the broader strokes for the themes it explores is definitely the Law of Balance, this is singlehandedly the most interesting thing in the visual novel, giving the main character a handicap that robs him of the ability to become an actual "hero",
Someone called it the "anti-hero's journey" and I think that's pretty much the summary of it, extremely simple and yet effective concept,
To make a long story short, this VN is exhausting to read, sometimes you're starting to have some sort of fun only to have that moment be cutshort by an infodump, I tried my best to read as much of these infodumps as I could but this shit just drags on, "self-indulgent" doesn't even begin to describe the content of this game, I've never read a Visual Novel that was able to make such little use of it's existence AS a Visual Novel,
The premise is interesting, but the writer's active job is to find a way to bore you,
The banter sucks ass, Otori and Ichijou have the worst dynamic despite how they're written to compliment each other, the comedy is offputting for the most part, occasionally they're able to squeeze in some funny moments like a 4th wall break with chachamaru in chapter 3 or a meta Nitro+ universe cameo dream sequence, but I can count all of these on one hand
Most of the comedy is absolutely forced, Otori's entire persona is held back because they've written her as this indifferent cool chick who makes wisecracks but everytime "Ara....." or "Darling" escapes her lips I wanted to strangle her, every serious conversation has to STOP for Otori and Sayo to make some sort of funny remark before resuming,
Similarly they almost executed Chachamaru well with a similar personality but without all the utter obnoxiousness of Otori, but then proceeded to make her a cocksucking bootlicker clingy needy person in the main route, utterly baffling how easy it was to not fuck it up
The main reason characters like Otori are also held back is because their routes are riddled with absolute garbage level interactive segments,
The entire airship segment, the choices between fights, literally doing MATH for the final fight, going to 50 different people and asking your purpose
These segments do NO favors to the VN,
Extras:
-The very end where the MC is trying to save Muramasa and no one is helping him while flashbacks of all his kills play in the back of his head was cool, Sorimachi entirely saved that ending segment because right after fighting the final boss you're subjected to le epic bridge building truce arc FT. maid outfit fellatio which made me want to burn my eyes
-Ichijou's route is probably the most consistently enjoyable for me, it has it's downsides ofcourse, Ichijou almost represents the idealistic POV when it comes to Justice, almost shounen protag tier view of it, even the way she sacrifices her body for the Justice she wants to dish out is very reminiscent of shounen protags,
Although you can easily tell the author uses her viewpoint as a punching bag and inserts this horrible random ass part where the monk's "apprentice" materializes out of nowhere and feeds ichijou her nephew's fingers, the grand point being that no matter what Ichijou does the result will never be black and white,
Which I think is an utterly stupid way of communicating that, I got what the author intended, but it was delivered in the most unimpressive way possible, but I respect the fact that she stills sticks to her ways till the end and her post credit scene is the strongest (minus the true route I guess)
-The true route is good, until the MC is infused with Ginseigo's egg that is, the entire part where Ginseigo is Hikaru's dream was amazing (although the part where he couldn't kill her sister was irritating to read, it made sense context wise but it was still frustrating to watch him contemplate it after the pile of corpses he was shouldering throughout the VN, which is something the VN acknowledges ofcourse)
I say the Ginseigo egg thing was bad is because they truly do nothing with it, there's a standoff where Chachamaru, MC and Raichou go to kill the prince but then midway they are interrupted when GHQ starts waging war on Yamato,
You get to see Muramasa act like an utter bumbling fool only to make her way back to the castle for a teary-eyed reunion with her master, this segment for me held so little purpose it was baffling, I enjoy the Rokuhara big 4 reacting to the MC but the entire stupid schpiel about Shishuku seeing the MC as his brother and the stupid castle robbery segment was just tasteless buffoonery, and instead of making the MC a slave to Chachamaru's will (which frankly speaking would have been far more interesting and would make Muramasa saving him far more important) they decide to flip the script and turn Chachamaru into this............needy cockslave?
The only good thing that comes out of the Ginseigo egg arc is when Muramasa comes face to face with Yuhi's friend who had his eyes cut off, this was the only highlight, the rest can fucking go
-The entire god thing was stupid, it wasn't pulled out of thin air and from the entire forged bomb segment to the Prefect dying and meeting god or whatever, the god bit was already set up, but by the end of the VN it felt like an added unnecessary mess, the God segment is only saved by the part where you oscillate between the Past and the Future and you get to see stuff like Ichijou in the future with the Moon shattered,
The big golden tree shooting a laser then turning into the Prefect, as in god turning into giant man with giant sword just so the author can once again have an excuse to write a sword segment was painful to sit through
The god thing was also stupid because you have to tolerate Captain Wolf who EMBODIES the problem with Muramasa's "comedy"
-The vertical text didn't bother me, the denseness of the writing did, I was completely indifferent to it,
It's a different change of pace I guess
-I didn't like the MC being Hikaru's dad, again it's not like this was an asspull, they have a literal choice in Chapter 4 that reads "She is my daughter", but I felt like this was just a stupid thing to put in this VN
-The VN acknowledges this, but the Shogun's assassination is setup way too conveniently, not that I mind that bit anyway since Ginseigo just does her stupid mass genocide thing,
-Rape was annoying, not well written and put where it had no business of being put, the monk would have been my favorite character had they not squeezed the rape in, was the cup and mask made out of the remains of the child's family not sinister enough?
-Muramasa's past was......a thing.........? I guess I'm glad they touched on it but if I'm being perfectly honest it was a precursor to her bumbling idiot big tit black woman running across war ridden country arc, also I guess it brought MC and her closer so I can't really complain
-Finally the one thing that truly held this VN back was the OSTs, after hearing the same battle theme for 543903498504 hours I can easily say this aspect truly held it back, a lot of the scenes felt like they lacked flavor just because they kept reused the same 4 themes, they really shot themselves in the foot there
All in all? Miserable, tiring read, a lot of missed potential, self indulgent writing, painful execution of some parts,
There's something in this VN that makes you feel like you're reading something that has the potential to be the best thing you've ever read, only to miss the mark completely and taffypull the potential of things that don't even intrigue the reader,
This VN upset me to my core, it didn't feel like a waste of time but at the same time it didn't feel like it justified it's own length at all, I have never felt like a read could possibly fall directly in the middle of being "good" or "bad", and yet here we are,
Quite ironic, it's balanced just like it's core themes, neither impressively good nor gut wrenchingly bad,
Mid as hell
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