Release: 2005 (Eushully)
Writers:  Souda Takahiro
Japanese difficulty: V. Hard
English: None
Ratings: VNDB (7.13); EGS (7.46)

There is really not much to say about Meishoku no Reiki (Slave Princess of Darkness), one of the lesser known titles from Eushully.

Story-wise it tries to follow a similar path to Genrin no Kishogun 2, with many interludes of charismatic leaders of various factions ruling their countries and living their lives interspersing the game-play segments at set amount of turns. And while both the settings, and most of those characters are actually quite interesting, you kind of end up conquering them and ruining their good thing before they have the chance to reach catharsis in their side-stories. Indeed, I have yet to see a game that makes you not want to win to this extent, as all your victory results in is a severed plot-line. Then again, I guess it is kind of interesting to observe a hero traveling on a journey with his trusty companions for a few years, and then killing and raping them before they have a chance to finish their adventure. Either way, regardless of some actually surprisingly well-written medieval prose, the story of Meishoku no Reiki is underwhelming at best, and while its characters had potential, it never reaches the levels of what I’d actually care interesting narrative like Genrin no Kishogun.

Game-play wise Meishoku no Reiki comes off as extremely daunting and complicated at first, a simple tutorial taking hours to conclude, but once you get the hang of it (which is probably the time you’ve already finished over half of the game) the system turns out to be surprisingly monotonic and easy to break. You can level up your troops to a slight extent, but in essence, you end up fighting most of your battles with most of the same units and same strategies from the start of the game to its very end. The part of the game where you finally somewhat grasp its mechanics, but still have trouble figuring out all the details is quite addicting and fun, but once you realize you can beat everything with the same strategy the experience turns into a snorefest. Kind of a mixed bag frankly, but I still had some fun with it. Might be interesting to check for turn based strategy enthusiasts, I have never seen a system of this kind, and I’ve played hundreds of games (so at least it’s novel).

All in all, with underwhelming story and game-play, that while fun initially, grows duller and duller the more you play, there is little reason to pick Meishoku no Reiki up unless you are a die-hard fan of Eushully. It’s not really bad, but there are very few parts where it actually even begins to transcend the limits of “meh”. Could’ve easily been a more memorable game if characters were given a chance to actually do something interesting plot-wise.