Record of Asturion War Redux Review

Title: Record of Asturion War Redux

Release date: 2023-07-29

Developer & publisher: Harold

"Record of Asturion War" was a surprise release for me. I checked it out of small curiosity, me being a fan of sexual corruption genre, and ended up playing through the whole game in a few days. I can firmly say it was worth my time, as the game is not just another short nukige plaguing this genre.

The history of the title is quite interesting. "Record of Asturion War" appeared in its first incarnation a few years back as an ero tactical RPG being made by a guy named Tjord. The game not only had a well made plot, but also focused heavily on battles between factions. Sadly, the project died sometime back in 2020, with the last released version being v0.23.

The war is not going well for the Western realms.

Eventually, the unfinished game had been picked up by Harold, who made major changes to it. He didn't tamper with the original plot, though as the original storyline had never been finished, he eventually had to continue and finish it. The actual major changes mostly relate to gameplay, as the new developer threw the SRPG battles out and repurposed the title into a visual novel with story based jRPG-style battles without any XP or leveling.

The game's setting is the continent of Asturion, which has been at peace since the last major war happened about sixteen years ago. However, this cannot last, and the peace is shattered, when the Rascian Empire, which is definitely not Russia with the licence plate numbers filed off, attacks its peaceful beer loving neighbour country of Mercia, which is definitely not Germany. With the King of Mercia captured, and Mercia's closest ally the Kingdom of Ostashia also under attack, Prince Marek retreats to the Western neighbour country of Neustria, in order to find allies and muster an army for a major push against the Rascians.

The lovely power couple.

The VN has two major parts, and while you theoretically can start playing Part 2 without finishing the first part, the story would make little sense if you did that. In the first part we see the ensuing war from the perspectives of Marek, his fiancee - the Ostashian princess - Euphemia, and their allies. The game does not have a protagonist as such, because we follow an ensemble cast, and the perspectives shift between a large group of more than twenty characters.

During the initial happenings of the war, Marek is separated from Euphemia, and they separately from each other attempt to overturn the tide of the battle. Both Marek and his fiancee prove to be very capable commanders, and soon the Rascian advance is halted and eventually reversed. But winning the war might be just the first stage in a larger game orchestrated by someone behind the scenes, for that's when the second part of the game begins, and the perspective shifts to Bosun, the fourth son of the Rascian emperor, and his allies, and we continue the game and finish it from the Rascian perspective.

I agree. This is downright sacrilegious.

Part 1 is relatively low on gameplay, with very few battles, and has no H-scenes at all, which might annoy less patient eroge fans who just want to fap, but it takes its sweet time establishing the world and the characters. I found that the military side of the plot was lacking, with no depth given to military strategies employed or the battles fought. It's easy to see why, as Part 1 had been lifted almost verbatim from the unfinished original RPG, and you really don't need to delve into battle strategy when you actually get to play the said battles yourself. This made some of the ensuing military action in Redux a bit silly: "Sir, we are gonna put a siege on this castle!", "Sir, we have taken the castle!"... However, the game makes up for the lack of such details with the character interactions and relationships. Despite having a huge cast, RoAW does manage to flesh them out and make us care about every character in preparation for Part 2 when everything goes to hell.

As I have mentioned, we switch the sides for Part 2, and follow Bosun and his entourage. Bosun is the least loved son of the Rascian emperor, courtesy of being a fat bookworm pervert with no military prowess, unlike his three brothers and a sister. And unlike his siblings who stupidly went of to bash heads in the war, Bosun studies ancient magic, which will allow him to get girls... All the girls! Yes, this is the part where the sexual corruption and sexual content starts appearing. Bosun starts secretly nabbing the girls from the cast we got to know in Part 1, and brainwashing them into his loyal slaves. Some of them he keeps by his side, while others he sends back to their allies and friends to spy for him and undermine the war efforts.

It's good to be the King.

I really enjoyed the story of Part 2, and loved to see how the girls' personalities change and twist after being subjected to Bosun's magic. Even while brainwashed, each of them still has unique personalities with their own quirks, and they are insatiably sexual. The sex content is quite good, and Bosun not only tolerates, but also encourages the members of his harem "playing" with each other, so we not only get scenes with Bosun and some of his slaves, but also plenty of lesbian scenes amongst the slaves.

One thing I would have liked to see more though, is how the girls spy or hinder their former allies. There were a few such events - I absolutely adored how the little healer Marie kept stabbing her allies in the back, but otherwise, we don't see much, which is sad, as betrayal can be such a turn on.

The game is mostly linear until chapter 18 of Part 2, where it splits into two routes, depending on if you got all the available slaves, or not. It's really not difficult to get them all, you just need to uphold the extra conditions for the battles that have them, complete all the Slave Hunt events, send Repanse to deal with the soldier (not the mage), and propose the fitting prices for the merchants (the last one might take some trial and error). If you did it all correctly, you'll be firmly on route A, and if you missed at least one, you'll get route B.

The dynamics of the imperial family.

There are also a few secret events to find. Specifically, you'll get some extra events if you send Repanse to deal with the mage, and in order to get Chapter 18B (which has some different events and new sex scenes) you must not collect Lieri.

The writing is quite compelling, and I admit I haven't noticed when the writing done by Tjord switched to Harold's writing. Admittedly, there are a few minor inconsistencies: Erika's secret was never explained, as Harold simply decided not to bother investing in that storyline (despite me and apparently many other people online thinking that Erika was supposed to be a futanari). Also I thought that the ending lacked a certain umph to really nail the epilogue. It's not that I was dissatisfied with the ending; it's just something a bit more substantial would have pleased me even more.

jRPG battles.

The gameplay in the VN is quite rudimentary and consist of RPG style character battles, who look quite good on the Ren'Py engine. The RNG in the battles can be quite deadly, and some of the later battles were very hard. Luckily one of those battles got an optional patch to reduce the difficulty. Truthfully, I think that after finishing the game, you should be given an option to skip the battles on the subsequent playtroughs. Luckily the game doesn't have that much alternate content that the lack of this option would be a major issue.

The game is quite typo heavy, so additional proofreading would give it more polish, and released with quite a few bugs. However, since the release Harold has been putting out patches for the game almost daily, and majority of the bugs should have been squashed already. I have beaten the game in just over 20 hours, and had great fun along the way, so I definitely recommend it for those that love corruption games.

Links of Interest

Visual Novel Database

Download the game from the developer's Pixiv account

Final Verdict: 82%