LET'S STREAM SAKURA SPIRIT - This might actually get me banned.

Hello ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Let's Stream Sakura Spirit!
& also Sakura Clicker I guess whatever.

Sakura Spirit is a visual novel that was first released on Steam in July of 2014. It's a visual novel that that was made far outside of Japan for people who spoke English, which is one of those distinctions that becomes a little less unique with every passing Indiegala Monday bundle. It's the first game in what has become a full fledged franchise, with four games already released and two more on the way.

So how did they do it? How did the developers take such a distinctly Japanese Genre and merge it with western sensibilities to such great success? The answer is surprisingly simple: WEEABOOS ARE HUMAN GARBAGE. This game has exactly two things on it's mind and both of them are boobs. I had wanted to believe that it would be awhile before I found a game more horrifyingly desperate than Sword of Asumi but I guess that dream had to die so that this one could live.

Join us as we stand at the edge of the abyss and chant "There are no good visual novels" into the void.

Oh also I played the bad cookie clicker clone at the same time because lol.

YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

I'M WATCHING!

Also running Sakura Clicker in the background because why the Moe not?!

That was a great stream, let's totally do this again sometime/literally never again your pick

because moe tits

5/5 would watch naked BEAT again

IT WAS IN THE INTEREST OF EQUALITY MAN.

Anyways youtube is upping as we speak. Not sure how I'm gonna edit this one yet.

SAKURA SPIRIT/CLICKER 01

PHOENIX WRONG
AKA: ORDINARY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT WHO'S LIFE IS TOTALLY MUNDANE WHEN SUDDENLY
GUEST COMMENTARY
FanboyMaster - Smiler - Patito - MuteKi

In which we join our protagonist, who's name I'm not even gonna bother to remember. He's just an ordinary high school student, who's life is completely devoid of sexy monster girls and sexy ninja girls shoving their impossibly shiny boobs in his face. Yep! That never happens and never will happen to him, because he's just so ordinary! Just like you, sad nerd loser that bought this game!

After a completely uneventful day he visits a shrine/dojo/wtfever and meets a DEMON GIRL that wears impractical clothing, but sadly makes no effort to shove her boobs in his face. No instead she sends him to the DISTANT PAST or something where he accidentally interrupts two FOX GIRLS who are apparently stealing panties from two NINJA GIRLS for some reason. But none of them shove their boobs in his face either! Frustrated with the lack of boobs being shoved in his face The protagonist forces a horrible vague reference to Phoenix Wright, killing all joy forever.

Well hey, we managed to make it 10 minutes into this thing with no boobs in our face! Wonder how long we can keep that up?

BEAT: Fanboy, you love Phoenix Wright, right?
FanboyMaster: Yep.
BEAT: Then you are going to vomit blood.

Assuming this is the Steam version, I'm going to predict a distinct lack of breasts in face.

you'd be surprised (actually from what I could tell there was only one version of Sakura Spirit, and so there's no content cut from the Steam version; that said this does not seem to be true of the later games)

so, who deserves more BEATRAGE: me for the cyclops game, or muteKi for this

That outfit does not look comfortable or practical.

me, certainly

cyclops game wears its paternalism on its sleeve, but to its credit does go out of its way to point it out. its grotesque art style is at least unusual, and is (intentionally) unpleasant enough to, IMO, elevate the game beyond crass, immediate pandering

this is just boobs with a sheen (heh) of anime coated across it with appeals to an undeserved claim of cultural authenticity (there's totally a shrine, dudes, did you see the shrine? it's all shriney!)

SAKURA SPIRIT/CLICKER 02

DON'T EVEN WANT TO KNOW
AKA: OH NO I AM STUCK IN THE ALTERNATE PAST BECAUSE OTHERWISE THERE WOULD NOT BE A GAME
GUEST COMMENTARY
FanboyMaster - Smiler - Patito - MuteKi

Welcome back! We return to the stream right after I bought a bunch of useless upgrades for fake cookie clicker.

MuteKi: More like Nookie Clicker amirite?
Smiler: No.
FanboyMaster: Please never use those words together again.
BEAT: MuteKi, I'm only going to say this once, because I care about you. I'm going to break into your house and murder you.

Yeah that. Anyways by carefully examining the text at the bottom of my video, I was able to discern that the story here picks up with the Blue fox lady… uh… drowning to death.

Wow. Dam.

So Protagonist administers CPR, which in this world apparently means leering at Blue's body and then somehow waking up next to her and also Blue's naked. I'm under the vague impression that no banging actually occurred but your guess is as good as mine on this one.

Then Protag just sorta bums around foxgirl house doing absolutely nothing of consequence. Eventually Red Foxgirl climbs a tree, and then falls out of it, thus allowing Protag to stare at her boobs. For those keeping Score at home, both the "events" so far conform to a simple formula in which [GIRL] suffers some sort of indignity/near death experience, thus allowing Protag to stare at her tits. Quality storytelling.

Then they go back inside and do absolutely nothing for awhile. For some reason this gives us an event where Protag stare at Blue's boobs, presumably as a way to reward the "player" for putting up with this boring bullshit. Then we go out and sort of stumble into the Demon girl that sent us to the past or an alternate dimension or wtfever. She tells Protag he's stuck here because reasons. Let's just assume he died and this is hell.

MEANWHILE IN THE VILLAGE.

The Green Ninja Schoolgirl from the end of the last video gets attacked by a slime monster.

And by attacked I mean molested.

BEAT: I don't even wanna fuckin know. ARGH JESUS! GOD DAMMIT! WE'RE MOVING PAST THIS. WE ARE- WE ARE OVER THIS. I AM OVER THIS, I DON'T EVEN WANNA KNOW!
MuteKi: Did her clothes fucking dissolve or something?
BEAT: Yes! Because she's acidic! Presumably.

Cyclops girl, while not being what I would call "good" had enough genuine effort put into it to make me admit that it wasn't the worst thing ever.

SAKURA SPIRIT/CLICKER 03

NOTHING ANYONE DOES MAKES ANY SENSE.
AKA: GOOD THING I KNEW SOMEONE WHO DID JUDO OR OTHERWISE I WOULD HAVE TOTALLY LOST AGAINST THAT TRAINED MURDERER.
GUEST COMMENTARY
FanboyMaster - Smiler - Patito - MuteKi - Trynant

The two fox girls and the two ninja girls and the protagonist all meet with the village elder, who actually has a sprite even though he's an old man with no impossibly shiny boobs. As everyone on the call ponders this oddity, the fox Girls and the Ninja girls decide to stop hating on eachother all the time or something. Probably because they realized that their pointless rivalry was getting in the way of their shared goal of giving Protag opportunities to leer at them.

Protag then goes outside and judo throws the Pink Ninja Schoolgirl. The two "Fight" and somehow the worthless nerd who went to a few karate classes wins against a seasoned warrior armed with a giant goddamn spear. As a way of acknowledging Protag's victory, she changes in his living room.

BEAT: THERE ARE DOORS RIGHT BEHIND YOU, YOU STUPID BITCH!
FanboyMaster: Wow.
BEAT: You go behind one of them! Oh my god!

Then Protag and Pink run back over to the elder's place for a battle… that never happens. Somehow that leads to us taking a bath with Green for no good goddamn reason. A bath that somehow leads to Pink showing up "wearing" a bottle of body chocolate. The kind you can find only at your local adult superstore.

I doubt that even If I did read all the text I'd get a reason as to why.

Anyways then the fox girls do a "magic" thing. Probably to send Protag back to the future or his home dimension or something. Must not have worked because all that happens is that Red acts like a cat for awhile.

Then she changes in front of you. Because reasons.

MuteKi: Yeah no, it's one of those, uh… According to this drawing… You know what? I'm done.

God fucking dammit that yt preview.
This fucking thing.

On my end, Video #1 is the worst. My little "disable flash blocker" button looks like it's censoring something.

This thing is so horrible, it kinda flips back around to amazing.

I am in awe. Holy shit.

SAKURA SPIRIT/CLICKER FINAL

LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD
AKA: EVERYONE IS SHOWING UP FOR THE BIG SHOWDOWN WHOOPS HAHA JK LOL
GUEST COMMENTARY
FanboyMaster - Patito - MuteKi - Trynant

Protag's day starts off with the upsetting discovery that Red has no idea what the purpose of an apron is. Disgusted by her ignorance, he leaves the house and runs into Demon and is presented with a choice! No you did not read that wrong, this game has actual interactivity! What a novel concept!

Taking destiny into his own hands, Protag seizes the opportunity to become the master of his own fate, and goes into town. And by "goes into town" I mean he watches Green change. Meanwhile in conventional reality, I hit the point where I no longer give a shit, and respond to all the fan service with a little bit of MANservice.

Patito: You're not nearly shiny enough.
BEAT: I'll go apply some oil next time I get a drink.
FanboyMaster: Just douse yourself in Crisco.

Then Protag and Green go to some kinda festival and meet up with Pink just in time for her to suggestively eat a corndog. Fortunately us, the sexy eating is interrupted when the slime monster from video 2 rolls in all unannounced with her identical quadruplet sisters as backup. They're mad at the fox girls for hanging out with Protag, which causes the fox girls to appear out of nowhere and side with the ninja girls, daring SLIME POSSE to make a move.

This is it! An epic four-on-four battle in a unique location! A perfect chance to use the visual novel format to it's maximum potential with an awesome comic-book style throwdown! Ninjas and spellcasters vs the things God left unfinished! There's no way that the devs could possibly let this opportunity go to waste, right?

Right???

WRONG

The game gives us a few clumsy descriptions of "the action" while occasionally shaking the screen a bit. Then Demon and Old Dude show up and are like "break it up" and everybody's like "okay". Then Demon takes Protag back to the shrine and tells him "GTFO my reality" and he's like "k".

Then two months later the Blue and Red show up in Protag's reality for no reason. Demon shows up, flashes a smile that just screams "HAHAH THEY'RE YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM NOW" and the game just ends. After the credits a little line of text informs us that while Protag's story is over, it was just a the prologue to what comes next. I violently reject that notion.

The remainder of the video is Sakura Clicker's time to shine! And by shine I mean "Be even worse than cookie clicker, only with loads of awful paid DLC. The I draw the final curtain on the session by harshly denouncing MuteKi, while Patito gives us the speedrun pro strats.


FanboyMaster: I'm sure that's way more hilarious if you haven't been exposed to BEAT shirtless like 800 times.
MuteKi: Hey, what you guys do on your own time is none of my business.

that's a preview image

yup, definitely a preview image

Of the three video thumbnails youtube generated, that one was the second on the list, and the most indicative of what kinda video you were getting. The third one was just of Sakura Clicker, and the first is too terrifying for me to describe.

Know that what you see here, you can never, ever unsee.
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Did that seriously only have you make one single choice over the entire game?

That's impressive.

I paid two dollars to gift this game to beat over the summer sale and I genuinely feel overcharged

It cost you (and everyone else) far more than just 2 dollars.

Another glorious victory.

But did you leave a review of this game on Steam?

It's one thing to insult a mans appreciation for heaving busoms, but this game goes one step further by insulting the language it's written in.
I can't bring myself to actually watch these videos because the thought of its atrocious dialog causes my brain to seize up in a desperate attempt to protect itself.
I have no doubt that naked BEAT is the most appealing part of this LP. Of a game about boobs.

BEAT you are a hero and all drinks consumed during this endeavor served their highest possible calling.

*"bad" presumably

so where's the epilogue bonus post

Give the man some time to recover! Chocolate-covered anime boob is the kind of thing that takes a while to detox out of your system.

EPILOGUE BONUS POST!
GOG FUKIGN DAMIIT.
It figures that the week I said "okay time to get focused and write a big old chunk of words on bad sexy game" would be the one where bad sexy games became topical as hell. Now instead of just going like "lol fake animu", I have to try to write something halfway intelligent about this sort of thing or I'll lose face in front of all the thinkpieces on how much anime titty is too much anime titty.

Did I say anime titty? I'm sorry, I meant anime-influenced titty, because as stated in the first post, this is an American game made in America for Americans. Yeah that's right, the "It's Japanese culture you just don't understand" argument is totally invalid in this scenario. This game is as Japanese as the white kid printing the TVtropes page for Code Geass in the college library in order to figure out the page number of the "incest subtext" line in a shocking misunderstanding of proper MLA citation.

So without further ado or hating on MuteKi, here's my very own hot take on SEXXXY vijdagames. God help us all.

THERE ARE SEVERAL WAYS TO USE SEXXXY CONTENT TO MAKE YOUR GAME SUCK
As of this writing I have streamed four visual novels. Of those four only one of them managed to avoid pushing the SEXXXY angle, presumably because it's focus was on more, er, let's go with abstract fixations. The other three all relied heavily on SEXXXY, but they all took different approaches to applying it, and thus they all sucked in different ways. No really, check this out.

Our first specimen would have to be Sword Of Asumi. It had a story it wanted to tell, but couldn't get over it's own need to weave SEXXXY into everything, regardless of how poorly it fit. A plague of the author's fetishes spilled out of every image and festered at the edge of every text box. Whatever little merit the story might have had was eventually lost entirely, victims of the writer's desperate belief that the best part of his creation was the prominence of titties. Sword of Asumi sucks for a lot of reasons, but the big one is the HIDDEN SEXXXY OBSESSION.

Go! Go! Nippon! is a longform tourism brochure. The bulk of the game consists of looking at pictures of Japanese Landmarks and reading about Japan's history and culture. Personally, I think using the visual novel format as an educational tool is a pretty novel concept! Unfortunately the devs didn't share my optimism. In what I can only call a crippling lack of confidence in the strength of their subject matter, they crowbarred in a pair of animus to act as your tour guides and occasionally change in front of you. Thus the original purpose for the game's existence is obscured and ultimately lost in a haze of awful wish-fulfillment fantasies and terrible slice of life anime tropes. Cause of death, an overabundance of SEXXXY WHERE IT DON'T BELONG.

And finally there's Sakura Spirit. Unlike Sword or Go Go, Sakura doesn't have any delusions about having an actual story to tell or wanting to teach you something. It's almost refreshingly honest about the reason it exists. "You wanna look at boobs?" it asks? "I got some boobs you can look at right here. Boobs rule everything around me. All boob everything."

I won't lie, if you asked me if I wanted to look at some boobs at any given moment, 90% of the time my response would be "sure thing!" I love looking at boobs. Boobs are just great. I am not here to tell you that you should never use your computer to look at boobs! By all means, feel free to use whatever device you are reading this horrendously lengthy post on to look at as many boobs or other human body parts as you desire!

So does that statement to mean that Sakura Spirit is somehow doing SEXXXY right?

Nope.

THE SEXXXY IN SAKURA SPIRIT MAKES YOU WONDER WHY THE GAME EXISTS AT ALL.
I'm not gonna Google image search "All Sakura Spirit CGs" at work (or at all), but I'm betting there are plenty of imgur galleries out there that would let me see all of them immediately, including the ones on the other "path" through the game that I didn't choose. I didn't count the CGs but I'd guess that there's about 25 of them or so, so you'd probably be able to get the entire game experience in probably less than 60 seconds of scrolling.

And I do mean the ENTIRE game experience, as that handful of SEXXXY CGs is seriously the only thing Sakura Spirit has. There are no memorable characters, no good dialogue, no exciting set pieces, no cool music, no thought-provoking drama, no challenging gameplay, NOTHING. The game is completely hollow. The other visual novels were bad, sure, but none of them were this appallingly empty.

So if you shove SEXXXY into your game it distracts from the actual content, and if it is the content, the end result becomes 300 MB of hard drive space dedicated to nothingness. And that's not even touching on the incredibly blatant sexisim that comes with treating all the women in a game as things to be ogled instead of actual characters, and all the negative ways of thinking such depictions reinforce.

So yeah. Sexy games.

I'm not a fan.

CREDITS:
THE FOUNDER OF THE FEAST:
MuteKi: Paid 2 bucks cash dollars to buy me this! And despite the 500 pages I just wrote denouncing it as all that is wrong with the world, I still had fun streaming it, so thanks dude!

SKYPE BROS:
FanboyMaster: Sticks through it all through thick and thin!
Patito: Routed the Speedrun for this game! (The speedrun is look up the pictures online okay you're done).
Smiler: Ducked out! That makes him the only person in this entire ordeal with any common sense!
Trynant: Actually didn't try to send me into a rage with puns this time!

NON-SKYPE BROS:
Everyone in the Hitbox Chat: Man I have GOT to figure out a way preserve the chat in a way that's not "Just window capture the browser" or "Hope SKYPE Crew reads it all aloud". To all who showed up, thank you so much for tuning in!
Everyone that Posted: It always does make me smile to see that people actually have stuff to say about my stupid projects. Thanks for caring enough to speak up!

AND FINALLY...
YOU: Thanks for watching my videos and reading my stupid (And then enormous(But still stupid) writeups! I also just broke 60 Youtube Subscribers this week, so thanks for that too! I'm overjoyed that my dumb hobby is entertaining enough for some of you to follow, and I hope to continue to entertain you all to the best of my abilities. You guys are awesome!

I can confirm that this is the case. I did this for, ah, research. Yes, research.