The latest visual novel in the Sakura series to come to consoles is Sakura Magical Girls, a brief but entertaining romp. The game, while not shy to lean into the lewd nature of the genre, is not too over the top and is actually quite mild.
Taichi’s in a rough spot in his life. In debt and without any other options, he ended up with a low paying cleaning job at a resort with a manager who won’t get off his back. He thought that it would be boring and uneventful… But then, two wand wielding girls appear before him. In the few moments that follow, he learns that evil is a real, tangible force and that magic is also real.
Although he tries his best to avoid getting involved, the two girls drag him into their battle with the forces of evil. A third girl later appears, tempting him with work that is a bit darker than what he is used to. Will he be able to resist temptation and defeat the evil that is accumulating in the resort?
While Sakura Magical Girls sits firmly planted as a lewd visual novel, the console versions have all of the NSFW components stripped away making them only mildly lewd. As is the case with other similar Winged Cloud visual novel brought over from Steam, all of the art that would push the ESRB rating too high have been removed from the game. As is usually the case the story suffers some disjointedness with these removed. Not only is the art gone from the game, but it seems like the entire section of the story with this art has been deleted completely.
It’s too bad that there isn’t a way for the game to have substitute or modified art for these sections so that the story beat could remain even though the explicit art isn’t included. The affected scenes feel like they end abruptly when this happens.
It’s something I’ve complained about previously, although Sakura Magical Girls doesn’t feel as disjointed as other previous Sakura games. While the scenes seem to end prematurely, the narrative does a decent job of giving the reader an idea of what is about to happen or has just happened.
Taichi has three love interests in Sakura Magical Girls, though they really aren’t fully called out as such. For the majority of the story, Yuki, the blonde magical girl who wears pink and Hikari, the red-haired magical girl with a darker fashion sense, are portrayed as friends. Taichi does make multiple mentions to himself about how attractive they are, but he doesn’t seem to be lusting after them as protagonists in some other lewd visual novels. The magical pair also don’t feel like they’re fawning over Taichi either.
The same can’t be said about Ayane though. She’s a third magical girl who flunked out of the academy for manipulating bad karma. She’s on the outs with the other two magical girls and isn’t a part of their evil fighting duo. Ayane however is very direct with her interest in Taichi, though in more of a owner – pet dynamic. Taichi doesn’t seem interested in her advances though.
The story has some good pacing and is relatively interesting. Taichi gets recruited by Yuki and Hikari to help them beat back the evil that is bubbling up at the seaside resort. The story builds to a somewhat satisfying climax (pun not intended) and there is actually a set up for a possible sequel to the story, though that didn’t end up happening.
Even still, the story was enjoyable to read and the art is well done. I definitely enjoyed myself.
