Sakura Angels

Developer: Winged Cloud | Publisher: Sekai Project | Release Date: 2015 | Genre: Indie / Visual Novel / Casual | Website: Official Website | Format: Digital Download

Life is pretty uneventful for the protagonist of Sakura Angels, Kenta. He is a bit of a loner though, as his parents are rarely at home due to work and at high school he keeps mostly to himself. However, all of this changes when Kenta begins to experience terrifying nightmares and frequent headaches. One day while on his way to school Kenta is attacked by one of the creatures that have been stalking him in his nightmares, but is saved through the intervention of two beautiful girls. The girls claim to be his guardians and inform Kenta that he has become the target of an ancient evil, but that they will protect him. With his life on the line Kenta has no choice but to accept the noisy duo turning his normally peaceful existence upside down.

Sakura Angels is another visual novel courtesy of Winged Cloud, but despite the naming similarities has nothing to do with their previous effort, Sakura Spirit. Since Sakura Spirit showed a lot of promise, but never really lived up to its full potential I was eager to see if Sakura Angels did a better job. The game is billed as an angelic love comedy and focusses on the interaction of Kenta with the two magical girls, Sayaka and Hikari. Sayaka is the cheerful and energetic type, but has a bit of a mischievous streak while Hikari is a bit more serious and reserved. Due to how different their personalities are the two frequently clash, but both share a fondness for Kenta. Despite the small cast of characters I found the story to be more interesting and engaging than Sakura Spirit, but anyone familiar with the genre or anime in general will experience a sense of déjà vu.

Sakura Spirit has a bit of a reputation for its risqué content and Sakura Angels pushes these boundaries even further. The game is packed with tons of fan service and manages to squeeze some ecchi scenes into almost every situation. Kenta continuously stumbles in on the girls in various stages of undress while the girls also lose their clothes at an alarming rate during their clashes with the forces of evil. In fact, there is even a tentacle monster that pops up, but like Sakura Spirit, you won’t find any scenes with outright nudity apart from a rather tame shower one.

Overall the visuals are very good and a definite step up from Sakura Spirit. The game uses the same detailed art style, but the girls have a few more poses and outfits which make a big difference. The outfits are all quite skimpy of course and there is even a brief visit to the beach at one point. Despite the limited amount of scenes the backgrounds are quite nice and the beach one even includes some lapping waves, which is a nice touch. The way that the lighting in Kenta’s room changes depending on the time of day is also cool, but there are a few jarring instances where the text doesn’t quite match up with the visuals. For example, a rooftop confrontation is described as happening in the pouring rain, but the background is shown with the sun shining brightly. The CGs are once again very good and the artist is quite adept at portraying the girls in various provocative poses.

Unlike Sakura Spirit, which was pretty much a kinetic novel. Sakura Angels surprised me by actually featuring choices at regular intervals. The choices typically involve choosing which girl you want to side with, which in turn determines who you end up with as the story concludes. Although the story doesn’t appear to deviate much depending on your choices it is a step up from Sakura Angels. The writing is also a lot better this time round and despite all the clichés I still enjoyed the story. The characters are all likeable and despite a few gloomy scenes the atmosphere is pretty upbeat. The game is rather short however, and depending on how fast you can read can be completed in about two hours.

Sakura Angels doesn’t have any voice acting, but the audio is quite nice for the most part. There’s not much in the way of sound effects and once again there is no music player available after you complete the game. The interface appears to be identical to that of Sakura Angels, which is fine as it worked well the first time round. The only difference I noticed is that the interface buttons have been shifted a bit lower, so the text now appears above it instead of below. Once again, you can save or load at any time or set the text to advance automatically if you don’t want to click through everything.

Although it still falls short compared to some of the longer, more involved visual novels available, Sakura Angels is definitely a step in the right direction. It is a pretty decent introduction to the genre, but the excessive fan service might not be to everyone’s taste. The length of the game is also a bit on the short side, but thankfully the price tag isn’t too high.