Rogue-like ero-RPG Kagura Douchuuki has been Greenlit on Steam for a censored English release, but minus its art it'll only be a shadow of its former self.
Steam: An opportunity and a threat to ero-gaming
The opening of Steam to visual novels is changing the face of professional eroge localization. Until very recently this was a world where every eroge, no matter its merit or lack thereof, sold more or less the same. Story-focused eroge consume several times the resources in time and manpower as short sex-heavy titles, and lackluster sales meant these titles had trouble simply recouping translation and voice licensing costs. Just recently, Mangagamer warned that the failure of Princess Evangile (NSFW) could spell the end of moe-focused romantic comedies in English. Meanwhile, JAST’s Peter Payne similarly declared that gameplay titles are 2-3 times more costly to localize than even story-focused eroge, and added that if Seinarukana does not sell better than their previous RPGs then it would likely be the last ero-RPG they choose to license (JAST’s failure to market Seinarukana as an RPG could doom English H-RPGs).
Enter Steam. Valve opened up Steam Greenlight to developers of all varieties and backpedaled on its stance that visual novels were not welcome on its platform. Visual novels began appearing on Steam and selling in unprecedented numbers. Capitalizing on this lucky break, JAST and Mangagamer rushed to offer censored versions of their eroge on the Steam marketplace. All at once, the calculus of eroge localization was flipped on its heels, as high-quality story-focused titles showed that they could turn a profit along with their budget porn brethren. Sales of Princess Evangile exceeded expectations. JAST reported increased adult version sales of Littlewitch Romanesque after its Steam debut, despite the availability of a fan patch that restored the adult content in the much cheaper Steam version. A successful release of Seinarukana is within reach, assuming JAST can get a version of it on Steam.
But for all its promise, Steam is a censored platform that
does NOT welcome adult games. There was always the risk that Japanese eroge
developers would see Steam as a target market rather than as a means to fund
eroge localization. And today we are confronted with the first eroge
developer to bypass their natural fanbase–erogamers like you and me–and go
straight for Steam, setting a dangerous precedent should they stay the path and
find success.
Announcing an English release of Debonosu’s Kagura Douchuuki
With little fanfare ero-RPG developer Debonosu has unleashed
its rogue-like RPG Kagura Douchuuki on Steam Greenlight. Originally
released in 2009, Kagura Douchuuki was Debo no Su Seisakusho’s first
title after rising from the ashes of Studio e.go!. Fans of fan-translated RPGs Castle Fantasia 2 Renewal and Men at Work 2 will
recognize the bewitching art of Kazue Yamamoto. Originally released as an eroge, Debonosu
also released a non-adult version with erotic content removed, which is the
version that has been Greenlit. It is unclear whether there are plans for a
release of the adult version, as Debonosu has remained troublingly silent on
the matter. Contrary to rumor, Sekai Project provided a translation of the
description as a gesture of goodwill, but at present are not affiliated with
Debonosu’s effort to release Kagura Douchuuki in English (source). The Greenlight campaign was successfully funded
6/3/2015, nine days after its announcement.
Opening + gameplay trailer
Premise
Kagura Douchuuki takes place in a remote village built around a hot springs resort in modern-day Japan. The once prosperous village, now largely abandoned, provides a nostalgic glimpse into a rural past unfettered by modern-day civilization and the din of machines. Residents of this rural village have been disappearing recently, and despite a police investigation bizarre incidents continue to plague the area. Suspecting the involvement of otherworldly creatures known as youkai, a squad of Shinto exorcists is dispatched to investigate the disappearances. This 3-member squad consists of two warrior priestesses, sword-wielding Ibuki from the Youkai Coexistence faction and spear-wielding Nazuna from the Youkai Extermination faction, and the monk Minase tasked with coordinating the investigation and performing purification rites. Can the two priestesses overcome their differences and get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearances?
Ibuki (left), Nazuna (right)
Gameplay overview
I played a few hours into this game several years ago, so
I’ll try to recap what I remember. As shown in the second half of the video, Kagura
Douchuuki features rogue-like gameplay: the player controls Ibuki and
Nazuna as they investigate the youkai-infested forest around the village. The
maps are essentially randomly-generated dungeon floors, where the objective is
to locate the entrance to successive floors while fighting off randomly
spawning enemies. Story objectives typically task the miko with fighting
through a specified number of floors to a boss encounter, defeat of which
progresses the story.
Items and equipment are littered throughout each floor as
well as being dropped by monsters and bosses, and these are the main source of
character growth. As I recall, there’s 3×2 equipment slots: weapon, armor,
accessory. Characters level up by defeating monsters, unlocking new skills, but
levels are lost after leaving the dungeon (except in Easy mode). In addition,
unequipped items in inventory are lost upon defeat (Normal mode), while in Hard
mode equipped items are also lost. Inventory space is very limited, so players
will not be able to carry every item they find. The game can only be saved in
town and in the screen before boss encounters, so defeat can be a significant
setback in Normal mode and harder.
Combat takes places in semi real time with movement and
attacks each being counted as one turn. Players and enemies can move in all 4
directions plus diagonals; whenever the player moves or attacks, enemies do so
as well. This game has gamepad support, which is a definite plus. Players can
alternate freely between Ibuki and Nazuna. Ibuki is a melee fighter that can
attack 1 space in front of her. Nazuna can attack 2 spaces out with her spear,
but her defense is weaker so she takes more damage. Some enemies are best dealt
with by Nazuna due to her longer reach, while Ibuki’s higher defense is useful
for others. Health is recovered with food and potions, while MP for skills can
only be recovered with items and by stepping on MP restoration points (usually
only found before boss encounters).
Story
While the gameplay dominates time-wise, Kagura
Douchuuki still has significant stretches of text between dungeon
excursions, and boss fights are preceded by story segments as well. The
characters are the main draw rather than the plot, with interactions between
Ibuki and Nazuna often forming the crux of the dialogue. Ibuki is a clumsy but
good-natured girl (with an Osakan dialect) who seeks coexistence with the
youkai, while Nazuna is a stern tsundere-type who believes the youkai should be
eradicated without mercy. The plot isn’t very deep, but it adequately serves up
reasons to go dungeon crawling while providing opportunities for Ibuki and
Nazuna to quarrel. There might be a romance arc with Minase, but I didn’t play
far enough to confirm.
Adult content
The adult version of Kagura Douchuuki is filled to
the brim with sexual content. There’s a reason that the priestesses do all the
fighting: youkai are extremely hostile to and kill any males they encounter,
but they use human females to propagate. They subdue and rape females they come
across, but otherwise don’t harm their captives. With time and sufficient
insemination, these females will spawn more youkai or become youkai themselves.
However, the sperm of a human male is curative of youkai fertilization due to
its spiritual antagonism to youkai negative energies.
In short, there’s 2 unique defeat rape scenes for every
monster type and boss, one per heroine. In addition, there’s further scenes
involving purification of the youkai fertilizations by Minase, which are
required to prevent an eventual game over (i.e., being turned into a youkai)
after being defeated. On top of that, there’s textual and voice variations of
the scenes on subsequent defeats that make the scenes worth re-experiencing,
including variations for defloration. The art is one of this game’s main
assets, and the H-scenes really bring that out. Quite simply, the ero in this
game is awesome, and frankly the writing in the H-scenes is more interesting
than the main plot as it’s very descriptive and filled with emotion. Contrast
that with the cliched and somewhat dull vibe I got from the main plot.
Evaluation
EGS median: 70 (109 votes)
VNDB rating: 7.1 (12 votes)
Personal: 6/10
VNDB rating: 7.1 (12 votes)
Personal: 6/10
Kagura Douchuuki’s strength is its art. And, ironically
enough, every CG on both Getchu (NSFW) and
the official site (18+ version) is from an ero-scene. I
can only imagine that Debonosu had to gut most of the art assets to create the
non-adult version, and in fact a quick survey of the site for the non-adult version shows 4 CG compared to the 24 CG shown on
the adult site. And as explained above, the H-scenes are really quite good. If
you’re into monster rape, you can’t do much better than Debonosu’s Kagura
series–in English or Japanese.
The rogue-like gameplay is decent. It’s simple without being
overly tedious. I’m not a fan of level resetting, but you can always play on
Easy if that bothers you. I wouldn’t call the gameplay engaging, but at least
it doesn’t feel like a chore like Yumina the Ethereal’s dungeon
crawling did.
The story is… mediocre. If you’ve played the translated
Studio e.go! titles, you’ll know what to expect. If you like moe comedy, then
maybe you’ll appreciate the story more than I did. I found the dialogue to be
pretty standard fare, and the plot was uninspired and mostly an excuse to set
up the dungeon excursions and character dialogue. In the few hours I played,
the setting didn’t get much development and ended up feeling very generic,
which is a shame because I feel that with a bit more detail into the mythology
and the town’s circumstances the story would’ve been much more engaging. I’ve
played some of the sequel Kagura Gensoutan and I found the setting in that one a bit more developed.
Overall, Kagura Douchuuki compares well against
titles like the Raidy series. The art is on par
with if not better than the Raidy series (though it lacks ero-scene
animation), and it edges out Raidy in terms of battle system and
story development. But as a non-adult title? It doesn’t have much going for it
other than having gameplay and not being terrible. It’s unremarkable. I
honestly can’t recommend it against the likes of Littlewitch Romanesque, Aselia the Eternal, and Seinarukana, or even Yumina the Ethereal.
Kagura Douchuuki Sou and expansions
Debonosu released an updated version of Kagura
Douchuuki in December 2014, Kagura Douchuuki Sou, which added widescreen support (game
and CG resolution increased from 800×600 to 1024×576) and added 40 HCG to the
defeat scenes. Three append disks were also released which added new
dungeons, new monsters, further story content, and a new playable heroine. The
Steam Greenlight campaign appears to be for the non-adult slimmed-down version
of the original 2009 release, meaning that it won’t include all of the bonus
content released since.
Koharu, the additional heroine from append disk 3
Debonosu’s other titles
Debonosu has a diverse lineup of gameplay titles, and if you
include Studio e.go! titles they have a huge selection of games under their
belt. The Kagura games are a long-running series including other
rogue-likes and an SRPG (Kurenai Kagura). While the Kagura series is focused on monsters raping defeated
miko, their other titles are more varied thematically (many featuring no defeat
rape at all), though all boast high sexual content. These other titles include
a Tales series-like sidescrolling RPG with raising sim elements (Sora o Aogite Kumo Takaku), a
loli action RPG with item synthesis and base management (Hanasaku Otome to Koi no Grimoire),
a dungeon crawler (Chaos Labyrinth), a real-time strategy game set against a backdrop of military
conflict (Senjou no Folklore),
and a traditional RPG (Gigai no Alruna).
Closing thoughts and my appeal to eroge fans
Debonosu is what I’d term a third-tier gameplay eroge
developer: they produce a wide variety of decent games, none of which are
particularly outstanding. Their gameplay systems range from adequate to
entertaining, their stories are character-centric with a comedy focus and plots
that are simple and uninspired, and their art and especially their ero is
excellent and probably the main draw.
Given the limited selection of licensed gameplay eroge in
English, Debonosu fills a niche for high sexual content non-nukige gameplay
titles. Stripping the ero-content out of these titles removes the very assets
that make these titles stand out in the first place. My recommendation to
readers is to clamor for release of the adult version of this title and future
titles. While it’s important for marketing purposes to get this game and others
on Steam, without the ero these titles are merely soulless husks. The non-adult
versions will never be more than hollow stand-ins for the adult versions. You
can’t strip the art out from titles that are remarkable only for their art and
expect a satisfactory result.
For eroge fans who want Debonosu and other developers to
faithfully release eroge with all their original content, Tell Debonosu you want the uncut version of Kagura Douchuuki.
Let them know that there’s demand for these games, and that a censored
platform should never be the sole marketplace for eroge in the West.
LewdGamer’s Rillania posted a first impression of Natsu Kagura, and plans to cover other Debonosu titles as well.
[A NSFW mirror of this article can be found on LewdGamer]
Special thanks to Rillania for
helping make this article possible, as well as for information on Kagura
Douchuuki Sou.
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