Original title: 目覚めると従姉妹を護る美少女剣士になっていた
Alias: When I Woke Up, I'd Become a Pretty Swordswoman Who Protects My Cousin
Release date: 2013-01-25
English release date: 2021-06-06
Developer: mille-feuille
Publisher: Espeon & Jumi (fan-patch)
When I started playing the visual novel, called "When I Woke Up, I'd Become a Pretty Swordswoman Who Protects My Cousin", I had no idea it's actually a literary adaptation of an existing light novel series, published between 2011 and 2015. Well, I say adaptation, but I have no idea if the game actually follows the story beats of the novels, or if it's an original story set in the same setting. Anyway, after finishing the game, I have to proclaim it a masterpiece... because these days you can throw feces at a blank page of paper and call it a masterpiece.
 |
| Don't expect actual fight scenes from this VN. |
In all seriousness, the creators of this VN must actually be geniuses, because it takes a particular kind of genius to take the concept of a genderbent guy protecting his cousin from lusty oni and getting raped in the process, and turn it into the most boring unimaginative drivel possible. Up until this moment I couldn't imagine that a story involving the sex change of the protagonist can be boring, but life always deigns us to teach a lesson.
The story (as much as there is one) is convoluted as fuck, but I'll try to explain it. And if you fail to understand the explanation, it's not my fault, it's the game. Our protagonist Ryou wakes up one day to quite a shock - he has turned into a girl overnight. Apparently, his family's main branch hides the secrets of oni mastering, and some oni take exception to what they see as slavery. They routinely attack the member of the family with the highest amount or Renki (which is like the spiritual energy of sorts), who is designated as Oni-Pleasing Princess. Oni-Pleasing Princess gets a swordswoman protector named Oni-Cutting Princess, whose job is of course to dispatch all those pesky oni.
 |
| Get away from Yume, you filthy bastard. |
It just so happens that the current Oni-Pleasing Princess is Ryou's cousin Yume, whom he has a crush on. Yume must have unconsciously imagined Ryou as her protector, and as Oni-Cutting Princess is always a girl, Ryou has transformed into one.
Ryou's parents are surprisingly very accepting of his transformation, and his mother is so happy to take him shopping for girl clothes. They even give him a new name Haruka, because Ryou is just not a girl's name. I had hoped to have more interactions with his parents, including them teaching Ryou how to be a girl, but sadly they are shuffled of the story after barely two scenes.
 |
| A friendly competition. |
In order to attend the school, Haruka invents a cover story that wouldn't fool a complete imbecile, but apparently it somehow works. She proclaims to be Ryou's twin sister, who has been separated at birth and stayed with the main branch of the family up until now. Moreover, Ryou is supposedly sick and temporarily moved to the main branch of the family to recuperate. Somehow this is accepted not only by Haruka's cousin Yume, but also by their childhood friend Kimino. Now, let the lewd adventures of Haruka and co begin!
Ryou / Haruka is an incredibly unlikable protagonist, because she has no agency, and her only thoughts revolve about something lewd. The first thing she does upon turning into a girl, is spend the whole night wildly masturbating, and that sets the tone for everything she does from that moment on. Haruka cannot think about anything but sex, and takes every time to grope, squeeze and molest herself. Her whole day is spent thinking how sensitive she is now that she's a girl, how horny, and how she wants to have sex. Those are literally the only thoughts we read from our protagonist inbetween the sex scenes, and they really strive to create a picture that all the girls are secret sex maniacs who only think about sex. This is reinforced on the very first day at school when Haruka goes to change her clothes for a PE class and is promptly raped in the changing room by the other girls, because that's how girls welcome in a new member. What the actual fuck? This is even before any oni attack our characters, so the game simply espouses the author's fantasy that all girls secretly behave like that.
 |
| Girl skinship. |
And nothing changes when the Fire Nation oni attack. The game follows the same pattern throughout its full length. Haruka only thinks how horny and sensitive she is, and how she wants dick. Once the oni attack, she immediately succumbs, because she is just too horny, but upon experiencing an orgasm, she can think clearly for a short while and takes that time to attack and defeat the oni, but after that she becomes horny again, and spends the time thinking about her hornyness until the following sex scene. This already would be a pretty boring scenario, but it could be forgiven if the actual sex scenes were good. Sadly, they are also unforgivably boring.
The sex scenes in the game are incredibly long, to the point they strained the disbelief. I actually decided to time one scene, and it lasted 25 solid minutes, while liberally employing the skip button throughout. And if you have guessed that every sex scene is basically composed of a single CG with small variations, and the only dialogue throughout are the variations of "ahh" and "ohh", you have won yourself a privilege to skip playing this game.
 |
| Such a sentence has never been uttered before. |
For a game like this, I hoped to see at least some interesting fetishes, but sadly the actual H-content is pretty vanilla, well for my definition of vanilla. Most of the scenes are either straight sex or gangbangs, but even if they are technically non-consensual, I have already mentioned our protagonist is constantly so horny, she is not putting up any resistance, and in fact begs for more. There are also a few short, barely there, tentacle scenes, hidden in the bad ends, and a surprising amount of pissing. The latter fetish is totally up my alley, but the scenes are just so boring, they suck all the fun out of golden showers. The main antagonist of the game also happens to be a futanari, however the VN ends up downplaying this particular aspect to the point it's barely mentioned, as if the game is ashamed of indulging in futa fetish.
So, the story is pretty much non-existent and the sex scenes are overlong and boring; what's left in a nukige like this? Please, tell me the graphics and sound are superb! Sadly, not really. The CGs are pretty good, and I cannot say anything too disparaging about them, but the character sprites are pretty bad. There is just something inherently wrong with the proportions. The character heads are balanced on necks so thin, I was afraid that their vertebrae will end up snapping at any moment. The fact it never happened is come kind of miracle. These characters don't have plot armour - they have plot neck braces.
 |
| Girl skinship (redux). |
I have a hard time saying anything positive about the voice acting, as 80 % of the dialogue was composed of the aforementioned "ahhs" and "ohhs". Moreover, with only the main female characters voiced, that still left a large cast unvoiced, as all of the side boys and girls were silent, which resulted in a discrepancy, where the characters seemed to be talking to themselves, especially in gangbangs, where only the central character was voiced.
There is only a single aspect of the game I have anything positive to say about, and it's the structure. There is not a lot of choices, and the game has only one true ending. Every choice results either in a bad ending, or continues the game. It pleased me that the bad ends are actually quite fleshed out and not just quick game overs. The true end is pretty lame and predictable, however I personally liked one of the last "bad endings" (the one that ended in a threesome) much more. There is one negative to this, and that is the fact the choices are super counterintuitive. They absolutely don't tell you which one is the correct one, and I frequently had no idea if I'm on a bad end or the true route until I got kicked to the main menu.
 |
| Fun with tentacles. |
As if that wasn't enough, the last cherry on top of this shitcake is that in order to get the "true ending" you have to continue to lie and deceive your cousin Yume way past the point where that would be considered necessary. Because apparently the girls are too fragile to handle the truth and big strong boys (even if they currently have the shape of lusty girls) should deceive them for their own good. Sugoi life lessons, aniki!
To sum up, "When I Woke Up, I'd Become a Pretty Swordswoman Who Protects My Cousin" is a dull and uninspiring genderbending visual novel. I would suggest not wasting your time and find a better occupation of your time, like watching the grass grow.
Links of Interest
Final Verdict: 33%
0 comments:
Post a Comment