Hey, /hgg/. Some of you might be aware of this, but the first officially English-language localized Alicesoft game came out this week. Most of you will probably be familiar of Alicesoft through their work on the Rance series, but they've also done Daibanchou: Big Bang Age, Mamatoto, and many other hentai games of solid quality.
The game that got localized is Beat Blades Haruka. Beat Blades Haruka is a VN-style game where you play as the male leader of a group ninjas who battle in the name of Justice against the evil Noroi clan. The game features numerous H-scenes with more tender, romantic scenes to build the stats of your characters (who are all female, by the way) and more hardcore non-consensual scenes upon defeat in battle. So regardless of if your tastes are more vanilla or extreme, there is probably something for you in Beat Blades Haruka.
The gameplay itself isn't particularly exceptional, but it still serves to elevate it above the hordes of gameplay-free VNs on the market. Basically it's got very basic RPG gameplay at its core backed up by decision-making as far as recovering energy (SP) and boosting states, recovering health, and finding enemies are concerned. You get 2 actions a day and numerous free events to prepare your girls for their night time battles which function as JRPG-style battles where it's simplified to choosing between four attacks (per character) with varying SP costs, efficacy, and effects. Additionally, progression requires clearing castles, which involves having one of your ninjas run through one of three routes while having chances for encounters with enemies or traps (draining them of SP or health) or treasure (boosting stats), which always conclude with a battle against the boss of the floor (you can switch out which of your ninjas you're using prior to the fight, or retreat). Anyway, the long and the short of it is that the gameplay is simple, but there is some variety as to how you can approach it, which can make it slightly compelling though unremarkable.
As far as the quality of the localization is concerned, I'm of the opinion that it is impeccable. There are no memes thrown in or anything like that. Everything appears to be faithful to what I'd imagine the original release is like tonally and is typical of Alicesoft's quality of writing. Voice acting is strictly in the original Japanese. Honorifics are in tact. Basically, I can't imagine the weebiest of weebs taking issue with it.
So, if any of this pitch intrigues you, I fully encourage you to give Mangagamer your money. With any luck, they'll localize more Alicesoft games in the future, but it will obviously take financial success to make that happen. So please buy it. Do your part, vote with your wallet, and make hentai games great again.
store link for those who are interested: http://www.mangagamer.com/detail.php?goods_type=1&product_code=163