[h1]I promise I played this for the gameplay[/h1]
[h2][u]Overview[/u][/h2]
[i]Eiyu*Senki Gold[/i] is most definitely a harem porn game. If, unlike me, you actually have people that may pass by and glance at your screen, you will 100% not want them to see your screen (especially with the optional patch installed). However, believe it or not, I actually did buy this game for the gameplay. It looked like my kind of game – a mix of grand strategy, tactical combat, character collectathon, RPG character builds, etc. And you know what? It delivered. Ended up being more fun than I thought it would.
[h2][u]Story[/u][/h2]
Apparently, this is an alternative story line to the first Eiyu Senki game which I never played, so I cannot compare. But the story is definitely pretty weak. Classic hero with amnesia, and somehow everybody wants him and he gets a large harem. However, it really comes off as parody and can be pretty funny at times.
Anyways, everyone in this world is a gender-bent version of famous historical figures and legends. Neat. Kind of like Fate Stay Night, except all women. Here, you start in Japan and help Date Masamune (the first girl you encounter) take over the country. From there, the mission becomes world conquest in the name of peace. It’s actually kinda comical. There’s this looming threat with some mysterious orbs, a knight templar shadowy organization, and your fleeting memories coming back to you. I was intrigued at points but the large number of random side scenes that have nothing to do with the plot fatigued me in the end and I eventually started skipping a lot. There was way too much talking when I just wanted to get to the next fight. However, I will say early on when I was paying attention it did get me to laugh. Billy the Kid is a pretty funny character.
[h2][u]Presentation[/u][/h2]
The music has no business being as good as it is. Why the hell does a random porn game have some really jamming music that goes hard? I don’t know. But I still pull up the OST sometimes weeks later because it’s just really good and I find myself craving to listen to it again.
Graphics wise – the character arts and sprites are pretty good! It is obvious Fan Service though where a lot of outfits make zero sense and can even be distractingly nonsensical. But some characters end up looking really cool despite the obvious fan service designs.
The main character (the only guy character in the whole game) looks pretty meh in comparison to all the ladies. He’s pretty uninspiring.
[h2][u]Gameplay[/u][/h2]
Now this is where the game shines! I do mean the actual gameplay too. There is an overall world map (quite literally our own familiar world) for a grand strategy layer. At this phase you can pause to equip your characters, heal up, train new troops, etc. Otherwise, you can allocate characters to perform various tasks/events, or start a battle. It reminds me of Brigandine or Romance of the Three Kingdoms with the officer/knight allocation.
You advance the story by conquering, so you will definitely be battling. This is also how you get more characters! There are some hidden characters with unique conditions that have nothing to do with the story. Then there’s a large batch of characters that tend to join after each nation gets conquered. A fun motivator to keep playing, honestly.
So, the actual battles, how do they play out? You can deploy a squad of your characters on a board. On the opposite side of the board, your enemies are also deployed. Then there is a speed-based system to determine turn order and it’s pretty much a turn based RPG battle where position matters. You can potentially dodge attacks by moving out of the way or knocking an enemy out of their charge up (or just killing them). There is a balancing act of do you use faster weaker attacks to have an instant attack? Do you use a charge attack that’s more powerful, etc.
Then there is the matter that anything other than the basic attack will cost some energy. Said energy can come from taking hits or even delivering hits. But it generates more when attacking an enemy who is NOT weak to your attack. So there is another decision to be made if you purposely attack the wrong types to build energy or attack the weakness to eliminate the enemy faster. There is generally not a one-answer-fits-all solution either (until the end game with some OP characters). Some story and boss encounters had me stumped where I had to try out new strategies to find a method that worked.
So, the battle system becomes surprisingly complex the more you learn it. At first its very simple while it’s still introducing the game to you. But by the end game, you’ll be pulling off ridiculous numbers and using equipment and skills to generate a ton of energy or even higher damage numbers. The build crafting can be pretty fun.
There are some problems though. First, the most fun characters are the ones that join near the end of the game so you don’t get much time with them. Secondly, there is technically no time limit so you can stall forever if you really get stuck and need to just grind or train for higher levels. And lastly, the game does become repetitive. Near the European Union bit of the storyline, I really started to fall off the game and just wanted to end it already. I still enjoyed it, even after it, but it was starting to drag.
That said – on the difficulty – it can really be as hard or easy as you make it. I didn’t stall intentionally and ran into some challenging scenarios of having to use under leveled characters to win battles. The challenge was pretty fun although frustrating at times, as without any extra grinding/training, I really felt under-leveled for some boss battles. But the normal encounters seemed OK. But again, working out a new strategy also helped a lot.
The Ancient Heroes are especially neat. They all have their own strengths and can provide a unique challenge for you to overcome. The best part is when they join you, they are still very strong in a similar way as when they were your enemy. Achilles for example is a speed powerhouse. Sigurd a defensive wall. Against Achilles, you really needed to find a way to burst her down before she wipes your entire team with her quick turns of powerful attacks. When you get her? Well, you can wipe out tons of enemy units in the same way with successive turns. Sigurd provided a unique challenge because she was hard to even damage. But you learn a weakness she has is critical attacks. The same is true when she is on your side, so you can try to build her to take less critical damage to make her even more of a tank, for example.
Again, all the build crafting was fun. Just, by the end when I got all these fun characters that are actually super powerful, I was exhausted. I didn’t do all the side content even because there was just too much to do. I did unlock all characters though. And if I ever replay the game, which I might, there is a new game plus option that allows you to carry over said OP units – so that may nullify that complaint!
[h2][u]Summary[/u][/h2]
If you don’t mind the side-eye stares you might get for having this game in your library, it makes for a fun time, and I recommend it if the army battles and character collectathon seems appealing at all. And if you like boobs, well there is plenty of that as a bonus. Yeah, it’s a harem porn game, but it doesn’t have to be. You can just play it as a weird fan servicey visual novel with a really fun and cool strategic layer with turn based battles. And that music! Seriously why is the music so good on this random ass title?
