Introduction
Sakura MMO is a visual novel that was developed by Winged Cloud and released on Steam in October 2018. Gamuzumi then published it to Switch and PlayStation in August 2022.
Review
When Viola has had enough fun terrorizing the players of Asaph Online, she logs out for the night, ready to go to bed. But instead of being excited, she wishes she didn’t have to go to her real life job, or deal with everything in real life, and wishes she could live in Asaph Online, the true world that she loves. Suddenly she grows extremely tired, and finds herself falling asleep fast, only to wake up in her castle, in the world of Asaph Online.
The story in the game was surprisingly fleshed out. Introducing you to the world and immediately giving you a love interest to romance if you really want, as you follow Viola’s journey of her experiencing Asaph Online in a different way for the first time again. This led to some really funny and tense situations considering she is a character that is very feared in this world, so she finds herself trying to disguise herself to be able to enjoy everything. It’s interesting to see her try and stick to her own actual morals all while trying to still kick to her character’s personality as well.
The game unfortunately doesn’t give you many romance options, one being incredibly late in the game, and even if you decide to romance literally everyone, the game decides to give you a default romance instead. Though I found this to be alright, I wish I could’ve had the chance to choose between all the romances at the end of the game, so I didn’t have to skip all the dialogue and make the specific choices all over again.
For a lewd adventure, this actually has some very suggestive images as well. Between a girl being sat on while covered in mud, to someone being dressed in bondage. Nevermind the dialogue. It gets very sexual, very fast sometimes, with Viola wishing she could have her way with all the ladies sometimes, and of course, building a harem. What’s the sense of being beautiful and not building a harem, am I right!?
The ending kind of comes really out of the blue in all honesty. Nothing is resolved, nothing is answered, the only thing you find out is that Viola is not one hundred percent sure if she even wants to leave Asaph Online. Then only one of the possible three endings even really alludes to the continuation of the story. The other ones are mostly just about Viola getting herself a new playmate for the bedroom.
By the time the credits rolled, there was an ending that set up the sequel, and I’m actually very interested. I really truly hope we see more of the series on console so I can read it, as it is really enjoyable. It’s just a shame it’s not about doing things in an MMO that you would normally do. There’s no scenes about killing monsters, or spelunking, or building your wealth to get better gear. Honestly, considering the game takes place in an MMO, I was left wondering if the characters were ever actually people, or just NPCs with a weird questline, which if they were, kind of makes the basis of the entire storyline kind of lame. But at least everyone is pretty!
Rating
Pros:
- Great Setting
- Enjoyable Story
- Dirty Jokes
Cons:
- Ending Isn’t Great
- A Romance Option Appears Too Late
Summary
I really enjoyed the first entry to Sakura MMO. Though there were some grammatical and spelling errors, and a love interest arrives too late. It’s enjoyable to see Violas’ adventure start and I can’t wait for more in this series to arrive on console!
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Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: Winged Cloud
Developer Socials: Twitter
Publisher Website: Gamuzumi
Publisher Socials: Twitter
PSN Store Links: £6.49/€7.99 Europe / $7.99 North America
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