(18+) REVIEW: Yamizome Revenger


Title	Yamizome Revenger
Developer	Escu:de
Publisher	JAST USA
Release Date	November 4th, 2021
Genre	Visual Novel, RPG
Platform	PC
Age Rating	18+
Official Website

Yamizome Revenger has been on my radar since JAST USA announced they were releasing it on their site. This title is made by Escu:de, you may know them from their Re;Lord titles that Sekai Project has been releasing. Those games have decent gameplay and a great story, so I expected the same here. Let’s see if my expectations were met, or if this title fell flat.

The story begins as a young man, Kazunori, is having a lucid dream about a Goddess named Fein, and her warriors. He thought all of these girls were very sexy, and wanted to do things to them like he had seen in the latest Ero game he played. He doesn’t realize that he will be living out this fantasy in real life, thanks to being possessed by the Demon King Clive. He wants to battle the Goddess and her warriors in order to corrupt them. In order for this to work he must find their weaknesses, and it just so happened all five of her warriors had joined with Kazunori’s closest female friends. Kazunori is very reluctant to work with Clive at first, but he is convinced he needs to do this to save them, and he wants a harem of hot girls as well. He will spend as much time as he can with them during the day to learn their secrets, and do battle with them at night. Can the two of them defeat the Goddess and her warriors? Will Kazunori get his harem? Time will tell!

I loved the cast of heroines in Yamizome Revenger. Each one of these girls has a very unique personality that is closely mirrored by the Goddess warrior they are bonded with. Ayaka Asahina is your typical childhood friend character. She is very close with Kazunori and tries her best to take care of him. She knows about his obsession with eroge, and while she doesn’t approve of it, she supports him anyways. She is nurturing to everyone around her, and total wife material. Nao Ayase is a very shy girl that is in the literature club with Kazunori. She is quite the otaku, taking in lots of manga, and staying up late at night watching anime. Her timid nature hides some secrets, and these are the very areas Clive looks to exploit. Natsuki Murosaka is the well endowed, rich girl of the group. She is treated very well at school, and everyone is really formal with her because of who her parents are. She would rather be treated like an ordinary girl. Jokes often fly over her head, and she lacks self awareness, which leads to some really comical interactions. Next up we have my personal favorite, Leon Kirishima. She is the ex-student council president, but she still enjoys helping them out when she can. She is pretty tsundere, but you can tell she has special feelings for Kazunori. The thing is, sometimes, as much as you help others, you really need something yourself. This is where the Demon King will look to gain an edge. Last, but not least, we have our resident chuunibyou, Kokoro Kukizawa. She is another member of the literature club, and she does her best to hide her true nature around others. You can tell right off the bat that she is really into Kazunori, even wanting to experience some of his extreme eroge titles. She claims to be consumed by the darkness, but even in darkness there are hidden secrets.

Overall, the writing in Yamizome Revenger is great. Each of these characters has a very unique personality, and it really comes through thanks to the great work by the localization team. Clive is a horrible pervert that takes whatever he wants. He does some extreme things to the girls, but he would never really hurt them. He just sees corrupting them as freeing them from their doubts and fears. Kazunori on the other hand has a much more gentle touch when it comes to girls. Oh, he is a total pervert at heart, but he cares a lot about each of them. He struggles with himself as he knows getting close to the girls helps Clive corrupt the Goddess’ warriors, but he trusts that Clive is telling the truth, and this will help them in the end. The dynamic here is really interesting because these two are completely different, but they share the same views on certain things. Each of the girls is well developed as well, and you will grow closer to them as the story progresses.

Gameplay in Yamizome Revenger is a bit different than your traditional visual novel. During the daytime, you will pick one of the heroines you wish to spend time with. This will trigger different types of events. Some of these will move that girl’s story forward, while others may build up affection with them, or give you the final clue to corrupt their heart. At night you will do battle with the warriors in their zone. A zone is basically their home turf where they have the advantage. These places exist outside our reality, because they can’t really be wrecking the city every night. During your first playthrough, you have time limits to reach certain goals. These are not very strict, and most players will have no issues achieving them. During your next run, you will have a standard 60 day limit, and you will carry over various stats and such from the previous run.

When night begins, you will see each girl you can do combat with on the map, along with a number underneath them. This is the amount of zone control Clive will begin with when battle starts. You want this number to be high so you can start with an advantage. From here you can also choose some potions that will give you various buffs, and if you have fully corrupted any of the other girls, they can be chosen to assist you in battle.

Before you jump into combat, you need to set yourself up for battle. You will do this via battle decks. You have three different decks that you can equip skills to. Equipping these skills will cost you deck points, but these can be expanded by spending growth points you earn from combat. As with any RPG, there are attack skills and support skills. There is a detailed readout of each skill’s attack power, element, and how much zone control you will gain when each skill is performed. New skills will be learned as you fight with the Goddess’ warriors, and analyze their skills. You start off with only three skills per deck, so you will have to choose wisely.

Combat here is turn-based, and your skill will be performed as their wait time fills ups. You can switch between your three different decks at will to fire off a variety of attacks. These attacks will do damage to your foe’s HP. When their HP reaches zero, they will be placed in a bind. You can now spend the zone control you have gained to taunt the girls and corrupt their hearts. There will be a variety of things you can say to them through dialogue choices, and each of these will do various amounts of corruption. If you have reached around 80% corruption and have progressed the story far enough, you will completely corrupt their heart and an H-scene will play out. However, if your zone control reaches zero or you don’t have enough left for a new taunt, you will have to release the bind, or you can flee from combat if things are getting too rough. Keep in mind you can only flee if the girls are in a bind, so if you don’t think you have enough HP to hold out, it’s always a good option. You will have to do combat with the girls several times to completely corrupt them, and they will not appear for so many days after you do combat with them, so plan accordingly. You will regain lost HP, improve skills, and gain potions during the rest period after combat.

Yamizome Revenger is a game that combines a great story and combat with some fantastic art, making it one great package. I really loved all of the girls’ character designs, and although some the H-scenes are very forceful, there is quite a bit of vanilla loving here as well. That was something I didn’t expect from a game about corrupting heroines, but it works very well in the context of this story. You will have to do several runs of the game to get the endings for each of the girls, but this a bit more streamlined after your first completion. Skipping all the read text and just enjoying the combat and scenes you didn’t see in previous runs, works out pretty well, but some will find this a bit repetitive. It took me right around 25 hours to complete the game 100%, and I feel it is worth every penny of the $34.99 price tag. I really hope JAST considers bringing over the other game in this series. I’d really love to play it after having this much fun with this one.