Disclaimer:
The copyrights to the game in this review and anything associated with it belongs to their respective copyright holders. In short, I claim no rights to anything related to this game - expect this review itself of course. Further, everything that I have written in here expresses only my own opinion and nobody else’s. In particular, I am not liable for financial losses because of purchases that have been done, based on my own biased descriptions in here.
First and foremost, you who’d want to read this review should know beforehand that the game in this review is of the kichiku kind of b-games. This kind of games often contains things such as rape, non-consensual sex, torture, bondage, slavery, etc… So if these things bothers you, then you probably aren’t interested in this review of mine in particular. In short: Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here!
Being hearing impaired I won’t say too much about the sound nor the voices - especially not the later, as I’d not dare to consider myself a good judge of whenever a voice suitable or not - but I may say a word or two on those subjects, nonetheless¬Åc
This is an amateur review, so don’t take it all too seriously. My views here are mine and mine only, so if you have any problems with them or just want to comment on them, feel free to do so. This review is also mine and mine only and not to be put out on someone’s homepage or such without my permission (but feel free to tell others about this review and direct them to it by linking).
Game: Meishoku no Reiki - Yuruyaka ni shi suru aosango no mori
Made by: Eushully
Company page for the game: Meishoku1
Getchu page for the game: Meishoku2
Synopsis:
On another world, in another reality, or whatever. This world is a world of fantasy, where various fantasy-creatures live, such as for example elves, orcs, giants and dragons. Now switch focus to the peninsula Riganal in this world. This is a rather big peninsula, which is subdivided into 11 kingdoms of various sizes, who occasionally are in conflict with each other, but no kingdom being really strong enough to defeat the other ones. This is about to change through! One day, out of nowhere, an army of orcs and other beings of darkness attacks a city belonging to Rua-Greismer, the kingdom of the forest elves. The one leading them is… Ignat, a infamous human wizard, known for having found something called “hitonarazarumono” which changed him into something… not quite human. Nowadays, he’s a “Majin”, commanding some quite mighty powers indeed and he’s out with quite a big ambition - which starts with conquering this city in particular! The elves are completely taken aback and in the battle that follows, they’re completely defeated! Thus Ignat and his army settles into the city, thus laying the foundation of a kingdom of their own, “Zarf-Greis”. Furthermore, Ignat demands a high tribute from the forest-elves of Rua-Greismer: become vassals under his rule and furthermore, they are to give him Silvietta, the eldest princess of the royal family of Rua-Greismer.
The elves of Rua-Greismer do, with Silvietta’s consent, send her away to Zarf-Greis together with a servant, where she stands before Ignat, sitting on his throne. They have a brief talk, during which Ignat in the main just makes fun of, as Silvietta thought that the tribute-pact between Ignat and the elves meant that she would marry him, but Ignat explains that’s not the case; he only needs her as his “source of power”. Ignat can draw power from other beings and Silvietta, being both an elf and of royal status, is apparently one of the best possible sources of power for someone like Ignat. “You’re my tool for magic. Neither more nor less”, as Ignat himself puts it. Needless to say, Silvietta’s not very happy with the arrangement, but seeing no other way to protect her people, she accepts and settles in the castle. Meanwhile, now that Rua-Greismer is no longer a threat, Ignat prepares to turn his attention elsewhere as there’s still 10 other kingdoms which might become enemies of his - or possibly valuable allies…
Thus a time of great change has started on the peninsula. Will Ignat manage to realize his ambition of becoming the sole ruler of the peninsula? What will become of Silvietta? And what of the other kingdoms of Riganal…?
Gameplay:
Mainly, Meishoku no Reiki is a bishoujo strategy game, and as for how it works… Well, if you ever have played strategy games such as the “Warlords”-series, the “Heroes of Might and magic”-series and/or the “Disciples”-series, then you already have pretty much an idea of how the game works. For those who haven’t - read on below.
The game’s turn-based… sort of, at least - each player, you and other kingdoms included have a certain “time-frame” which consist of 100 points and any action you take, from moving troops to a certain place, to building things or cast a spell cost certain amounts of point which is taken from this time-frame. And during your turn there’s a whole lot of things you can choose to do, such as: Move your troops to other places and make them fight other kingdoms (assuming you’re at war with them; you cannot attack a kingdom you’re not officially at war with, meaning no surprise attacks in order to gain an early advantage in a war with a certain kingdom), build your cities to a higher level (will improve defence of that city and give you more money from that city, among other things), use spells (assuming your have enough magic power for casting them), both offensive, defensive and other types to gain certain advantages, send your men out to hunt for lairs with hidden treasures, train Silvietta to gain more magic power, use diplomacy to change your status with the other kingdoms (which can be useful, for if you for example, ally with the kingdom of giants, you can hire giants for your own armies), hire more units (assuming you have enough money for it), buy magic items from a certain wandering salesman and much more… As you can see, there’s clearly a lot of things you can do in MnR.
Mostly, however, what you will do will be to go to war. You do that by moving your armies to various places to fight. Each army - of which you can have up to ten - contains, depending on the “leadership ability” of the first unit used to create this army, a maximum of four units each. These units can be of two kinds: first the “normal” troops, which can number a few hundred or thousand regular troops of various races or suchlike, who occasionally has a special ability or two that can be used in battle. Next we have hero-units, units which consist of 1-10 troops - it may sound like few, but hero-units are not to be underestimated! A single hero-unit can sometimes wipe out a whole army by him/her/itself and ususally has more than one special ability to use against the enemy. Furthermore, hero-units are the best kind of troops to use against any hero-units your enemy might possess, as these take little damage from regular troops…
Then there’s of course Silvietta’s training; as already mentioned, to cast spells you need magic power. But spells often require s a great deal of magic power and to recover that power might take longer than you have time to wait. This is why Ignat has Silvietta; by having sexual intercourse (though not necessarily so; Ignat can drain power from her merely by touching her) with her in various ways, he can draw power from her to use for his spells - that can be quite useful indeed; let’s say that you’re attacked from two directions at the same time and are not really strong enough to defeat both attacks? This is where spells can be useful; you cast one spell with great destructive power - and one of the attacking armies are thus completely annihilated! But then you discover you haven’t got enough power to cast that spell again! Then it hits you that there’s Silvietta! You choose to train her, thus recover some magic power (there’s a limit to how much training - and other stuff - that can be done during each turn - which lasts a whole week - though), thus you’re again able to cast the spell and “BOOM!”, the last enemy army is no more! Choosing to “train” her will also effect various meters she has, so you can think of her training as the SIM-part of the game.
When you have finished your turn, you’ll be able to get some insight in what’s happening in the other kingdoms. It’s also during this particular phase that most story-related events will take place.
This game also has some ADV-elements - you’ll still get to read and click past some text as story-related events take place. At times there’ll even be a choice or two (that mostly takes place after your turn, as mentioned above) you’ll have to make, which may affect the outcome of the story…
Summary, Own opinions, etc:
I have to say, Ignat’s probably the second most evil character I’ve ever played as in a bishoujo game. When I first heard of this game, I was a bit confused as to whom would be the main character that we’re playing in this game - and when I found out that it was Ignat, I was again surprised, for as far as I know, Eushully so far hasn’t made a game where the main character was evil - certainly not to the degree Ignat is (through I think he may be more cynic and bitter than evil). One might wonder why they did so… well, perhaps they thought a sort of change of style was in order and I have no (or few, at least) complaints about it.
Furthermore, regarding Ignat, I wish the game had gone deeper into how he gained his powers as a Majin. We’re only told a few things in the game and the OP of the game contains a few hints too, but it’s IMHO far from satisfactory - there should have been more events - flashbacks, even - related to those events in this game, but there isn’t and that’s a minus point of this game in my opinion.
Meishoku no Reiki is a very unusual game in one particular regard: There’s plenty enough of b-games where pregnancy is a possibility, but in those, you’ll at best see that - or the baby - in an ending, but Meishoku no Reiki is different; Silvietta CAN get pregnant here and you’ll get to watch the child grow into full maturity (assuming that the child survives that long) in the game itself, not just in some ending! This is truly rare, for while pregnancy is not an all THAT unusual thing in b-games, being able to watch the child grow up from being more than just a baby is truly unusual!
The art of Meishoku no Reiki is excellent! It leaves nothing to complain about in that regard, indeed .
Bonus point to Eushully for their cute and playful succubuse! But it’s truly a pity that they don’t come in all THAT much use overall.
Most of the sex scenes (with Silvietta only, that’s it) have many variations, depending on how much clothes Silvietta has on her for the time being. Impressive and certainly nice, even if I feel that all THAT many variations may be a bit of a waste of work, time and space…
If Meishoku no Reiki has a minus point, then it is that there’s to some extent some unnecessarily cruelty in this game, meaning certain events and suchlike would IMHO not strictly speaking have had to happen. Well, these events could still have been included, but then they should have let the played decide (as Ignat) whenther to go through with these events or not…
Overall, though the game has some flaws, I’d still rate it an excellent game! If you want a bishoujo with strategy& fantasy elements, lots of cute elf-girls, succubuses, princesses, female warriors, etc - or just want a bishoujo game with more broad gameplay (and more western-like, so to speak), then this is a game for you!
Misc stuff:
I swear, I’m 99% sure that they got inspiration to the backgrounds in the various cities of the elves from the LOTR movies! One of these backgrounds, for example, looks exactly like Rivendell in LOTR… And furthermore, one minor character looks very much like Gandalf .
Eushully has a habit of using their mascots, Eushully-chan & Black Eushully-chan in their games and this game is no exception! The Eushully-chans appears in this game too (not in your first playthrough, of course); in the tutorial plus also at some point in the game itself, where they have a goal of their own. The quest for the Cup Ramen!
I have to admit, Eushully does some pretty nice OP’s for their games!
Normally, in terms of system requirements, bishoujo games generally don’t ask for too much, but the games of Eushully are a bit different, recommending (for example) 512 MB Ram for their games, at minimum 256 MB RAM. Well, I’ve played with both the minimum and recommended RAM (just recently got a 512 MB RAM card), and I don’t see any difference, so I wonder whenever Eushully may only be trying to brag.
There are some nice special effects in here too - similar to those used in Yatohime, meaning there are flashes/animations of fire or lightning across the scene when Ignat uses his magic, for example .
Both scene and ending-replay is offered. That’s a good thing, in my opinion…
I myself hope for a sequel to this game to appear sometime in the future - Eushully has released sequels to games they’ve made before, so there’s a possibility for that - and strictly speaking, things don’t really end in Meishoku no Reiki - even if the peninsula is conquered, it’s only one peninsula in a large world - and ambitious as Ignat is, it wouldn’t surprise me if he also aspires to go beyond the borders of the peninsula too, so that may be where the story’ll be resuming/continued one day…