Strategy H-RPG Venus Blood Frontier Kickstarter: Why you should care

With your support, Venus Blood Frontier could drive a desperately-needed renaissance for English gameplay eroge.

Now available at JAST USA

What is Venus Blood Frontier?

Venus Blood Frontier is a strategy RPG where you play as Loki, an ostracized half-Demon Prince who overcomes much stronger foes with clever trickery and ruthless efficiency.  Loki must build an army, successfully invade the human nations of Yggdrasil guarded by the 5 warrior goddesses, convert them to his cause by befriending or corrupting them, and then confront the other Demon heirs and his grandfather the Emperor.  Along the way, you'll make decisions that determine whether Loki becomes an unlikely champion of the people or a ruthless and lecherous tyrant.

Frontier is the 6th entry in a long-running series of tentacle corruption games by Japanese developer Ninetail.  Until now, these titles remained a tightly-guarded national secret--deemed too depraved for a Western audience.  But with the opening of Steam to eroge, the time is now ripe for an invasion.  Japan's nefarious tentacles now erupt to violate the minds and bodies of unsuspecting English gamers all around the world.  Ragnarok is upon us.

What makes Venus Blood Frontier special?

The Venus Blood series blends choice-driven story, deep gameplay, and a variety of erotic scenes.  The story, gameplay, and H-content are all strong enough to stand on their own merit.  Widely acclaimed on Erogamescape (8.3/10, 332 votes), Venus Blood Frontier has something for nearly everyone.

Do the ends justify the means?  Choose wisely, as each choice influences route divergence, heroine affection, and even the types of units you'll be able to recruit.

Visual novel fans can look forward to:

• An action-packed story.  Loki keeps you guessing how he'll manage to squirm out of THIS impossible situation.
• Compelling and well-developed characters, not just sidekicks and foils for the protagonist.
• Writing with a thematic complexity and maturity not typically seen in JRPGs aimed at a teen audience.
• 2 distinct routes (Law and Chaos) that branch at the 2/3 point
• Easy difficulty provides an auto-win button to get back to the story as quickly as possible.  

Gameplay fans get a fully-developed strategy RPG:

• Build armies of demons, undead, angels, golems and many more to overwhelm your enemies. Stack units of the same race together for powerful synergistic bonuses, but beware of terrain and day/night effects. Sending an Undead army into a shrine during the day could result in catastrophe!
• Choose from 188 units, each with their own unique traits, and 13 hero characters with powerful special attacks that can change the tide of battle.
• Customize newly-created units with special passives using medallions won from battles. Give your damage dealers multiple attacks per turn, add party-wide passive healing to your support units, and much more!
• Equip your units with 198 different weapons, armors, and accessories. Different units can equip different types, adding an extra level of customization.
• Use Defenders to draw enemy fire and cover weaker units; Crushers to whittle down enemy Defenders; Lancers, Swordsman, and Archers to decimate the enemy ranks with area, flank, and ranged attacks; and Casters to heal your army and deal magic damage that ignores defense.
• Command, not micromanage. Units will automatically try to attack the focus target in combat, leaving you to focus on the big picture. Fend off multiple enemy armies each turn in a matter of seconds. Success depends on effective use of the armies at your disposal, not grind.
• Challenge yourself on Hard difficulties with improved drop rates and access to stronger units to sweeten the deal.
• Enjoy multiple playthroughs with New game+ (with new and more powerful enemies), two major routes with their own objectives and enemies, and multiple endings.
• Text and H-scene skip allow players to quickly get back to the gameplay if desired.

Each heroine can be befriended or corrupted, leading to different scenes and endings.  Corruption scenes form their own story arcs and eventually lead to a transformation, which is also reflected in the main story.

Ero fans get an H-game with erotic scenes so well-developed they form their own storyline.  Though the focus is on tentacles and corruption, what content you see is up to you.

• Corrupt the heroines for a truly massive number of H-scenes as Loki inexorably reprograms their minds and bodies to be utterly devoted to him.  'Training' scenes include lovely flat-chested heroines, yuri, monster girls, monsters, anal, futanari, lactation, and more.
• Corrupt heroines past their breaking point and watch their minds snap as they become slaves to their carnal desires.
• Don't corrupt them at all and enjoy a more traditional romance.

Why you should support the developers

Ninetail is committed to making quality erotic games for a mature audience.  Even on Kickstarter, they proudly advertise their game's adult content.  They've listened to feedback from fans like yourself and turned a timid initial proposal into an ambitious project I can be proud of.

In response to fan feedback, Ninetail has:

• Partnered with JAST to release the game fully uncensored without mosaics.
• Hired the well-known translator Arunaru (Rance VI) and experienced editor Ryechu (Lilitales) to guarantee the professional localization quality you expect.
• Agreed to release a completely FREE patch for the non-adult version that restores all cut content.  No gouging eroge fans for adult content!

Ninetail has a large catalog of excellent gameplay eroge, all of which could be candidates for translation if the Kickstarter goes well.  Many of their games feature multiple routes that allow players to be more 'good/lawful' or 'evil/chaotic'.

Some examples of Ninetail titles you might look forward to if the Kickstarter succeeds:

• Venus Blood Hypno: A riveting tragedy about an enslaved army commander who fights to save his dying sister, no matter the cost.  Features an enhanced version of the SRPG system in Frontier.  The relationship between the hero and his sister is among the most compelling I've seen in an eroge.

• Gears of Dragoon: Lead a mercenary band braving the newly-discovered continent of Elysium to uncover new riches.  An elaborate dungeon-crawler with a good-natured hero who can eventually succumb to temptation.

• Amatsukaze: Two clans of ninja duel in the shadows to decide the fate of a small fiefdom threatened by its aggressive neighbor.  Uses a card-battling system that is elegantly simplistic and merges seamlessly into the story.

Most of all, Ninetail needs your help.

The Japanese eroge market is tightening, and companies that don't churn out cheap shovelware or appeal to a wide audience are struggling.  Several major eroge companies have already gone out of business or ceased game development.  With this campaign, Ninetail has cast the dice and bet on English fans like you to support them.  If that bet fails, if all the effort spent on this campaign comes to nothing, the future of Ninetail as a developer could be in jeopardy.

Why the Venus Blood Frontier campaign is a huge opportunity for gameplay eroge enthusiasts

Together we can make a difference.

Venus Blood Frontier has the potential to tap into the growing enthusiasm for adult games on Steam and elsewhere.  It has the outrageous content to grab people's attention, gameplay to satisfy RPG veterans, and the quality to impress people and set a new standard.  For once, you have a truly interesting protagonist.  Far from being a passive observer, you actively determine Loki's progress through the story by deciding whether to corrupt the heroines and whether Loki will rule through law and order or chaos and tyranny.

If Frontier succeeds, we'll have access to the rest of Ninetail's lineup, samples of which I described above.  They're all excellent games that successfully combine story, gameplay, and ero.  They have varied gameplay systems that will surely interest fans of the Rance series, other Alicesoft titles like Beat Blades Haruka, and XUSE titles such as Aselia the Eternal and Seinarukana.

Frontier will also be the first big gameplay eroge on Kickstarter, and you can be sure the other gameplay developers will be watching.  Eushully makes games that are not unlike Ninetail's.  Softhouse Chara does as well.  A high-profile, quantifiable success with sales figures publicized for all to see could very well convince the devs currently sitting on the sidelines that English releases of gameplay eroge would be worthwhile.  The opening of Steam to eroge makes the barrier to entry lower than ever.

Who am I?

I'm author of the eroge blog Sanahtlig's Corner.  I'm a huge fan of gameplay eroge and the Venus Blood series (I've played most of the games released since 2010) and also an advocate against censorship in eroge.  I wrote the first English review of Venus Blood Gaia, which drew the interest of over 10k fans when the series was still unknown outside Japan, and more recently previewed Frontier-sequel Venus Blood Ragnarok.  I was an early proponent/critic when the Frontier campaign was initially announced, and I volunteered as a consultant with Ninetail to ensure a successful campaign and release, ultimately culminating in their partnership with JAST.