Slave Witch April Review

Title: Reizoku no Majo April ~Injoku no Mahou Choukyou~
Original title: 隷属の魔女エイプリル～淫辱の魔法調教～
Alias: Slave Witch April ~Sexy Magic Training~
Release date: 2011-04-28
English release date: 2012-12-21
Developer: Aconite
English publisher: MangaGamer

“Slave Witch April” is one of the only three visual novels released by a development circle “Aconite”. The last time they updated their website was the same date SWA was released, thus I can make an educated guess that the company croaked it. In that case, I hope that MangaGamer will get the other two nukiges, as at first look they seem to be better than “April”.

By all accounts I should have enjoyed “Slave Witch April” more than I did. The title had everything for every taste, starting with vanilla oral, anal and vaginal intercourses and finishing with various fetishes, like BDSM (including bondage, wax and needle play), golden showers, futanari, tentacles, gangbangs, impregnation and pregnant sex, nipple insertions and even lolification. Many of those fetishes strike just the right note with me. Hell, there were even weirder things like selfcest and even mushrooms. Seriously, here mushrooms take on a separate fetish of their own, but rule 36 never lies.

Boob Wars all over again?

Moreover, graphics are also very crisp and enjoyable. CGs are a pleasure to look at and quite a few different variations of the same scene are presented to portray the changing expressions of the slave girls and correspond with the actions in that scene. It’s something that cheaper titles often forgo (I’m looking at you, “Softhouse-Seal” nukiges). The sound is… not good, but at least doesn’t kill my eardrums as badly as in SDT or “Boob Wars”. The voice acting is competent, but the girls should have refrained from so much “oohing” and “aahing” during H-scenes. You can convincingly shew sexual satisfaction with less noise. I also personally liked Maise’s seiyuu, as she sounded so deliciously malicious while tormenting April.

So, going by the above account, I should have really liked the game. As it was, I consider it only mediocre. Apparently good sex and good art not a good nukige make. It’s simply missing a soul or a framework, if you want to be less metaphysical. Usually a nukige has a simple plot to accentuate H-content, but even that simple plot might be interesting. For, example my high regard for “Conquering the Queen” or some of the “Black Lilith” VNs comes from their ability to engage us with the framework that joins all the sex scenes into a cohesive bundle. “Slave Witch April” misses that part altogether. Not counting the very beginning of the game, the sex scenes are only connected by about ten seconds of banter in-between. You even choose your route by simply picking the scenes you want to watch. I would have really loved to see a gradual corruption and mindbreak of the characters in-between the scenes, to watch a slow descent into debauchery and sexual addiction. Alas, that doesn’t come to pass. April doesn’t get any character development and so we don’t really care about her corruption either.

Mammals usually do not lay eggs or so I'm told.

All this sort of misses the purpose of the game. If you just have some poorly stringed together dicking, you might just as well scroll through a HCG collection in “IrfanView”. No one asks for your nukige to be the next “Rance” series, but some effort is required. The game just screams: “Unrealised potential”. The lack of engaging framestory is its biggest flaw, but definitely not the only one. The abysmal treatment of Maisie is another one. In the route where you decide to tackle her too, she falls so quickly, that it leaves a stale taste in the mouth. I expected to put a lot of effort into breaking such a haughty and domineering character, but lo and behold, two rapes later she is a devoted slave of my... err... Denis’ cock. A major disappointment.

The “plot” as it is follows our protagonist Denis (a total blank slate), who apprentices to a certain witch April, who abuses him. He is discontent with his unfair treatment and, when the luck allies him with a fairy Maisie that has a grudge on April, he quickly snags the chance. I have just described you the first five minutes of the game. You won’t see any more plot development until, err… never. Starting with the first sex scene and finishing with the last, you will have about five minutes more of sex unrelated dialogue.

Skinship between enemies.

In addition to Denis, there are only two more characters within this game and of course they are the aforementioned Maisie and April. OK, there are some no-name nobodies for gangbang purposes, but they hardly count. Both of the supposed "heroines" have haughty and domineering personalities. Usually it's so satisfying to break such characters, but coupled with the obvious flaws of the game, that doesn't amount to much. At the very least, the fairy and the witch seem to have a real chemistry when they engage in a BDSM play during the sex. As I have already said, Maisie is so malicious, that you just have to admire her.

There are four endings in total. Two of them are very easy to get and require no brain power on the player’s part. The third one is a bit trickier and requires for Maisie to totally use up her magic within a time limit. To that end, you have to pick the most difficult tasks for her. The fourth ending is a bit of an enigma and I still don’t know for sure how to net it, as I stumbled upon it accidentally. I saw a walkthrough somewhere on the net, but it’s a bit weird. You can get all the CGs and endings in four turns and there is no need to go back and collect missing CGs as the walkthrough says.

Choose a scene to watch.

Nonetheless, SWA still beats both of S-S titles by a wide margin. It might not be a good game, but it’s an enjoyable collection of various sex scenes. It’s completely your choice if you want to pick this title or not. I personally would probably skip it in favour in upcoming “Orion Heart”. That nukige at least looks like it might actually be good.

Links of Interest

Visual Novel Database
Official Japanese site
Buy a download version of the game at MangaGamer

Final Verdict: 65%