Ne no Kami: The Two Princess Knights of Kyoto Review

Platform: Steam
Players: 1

Yuri visual novels are a bit rarer than some other types. Ne no Kami - The Two Princess Knights of Kyoto is a new game from Kyoto-based developer Kuro Irodoru Yomiji and published by Sekai Project available now on Steam. This game takes the genre and places it in a story that is both equal parts slice-of-life romance story and fast-paced action game. Is it worth your purchase though? Well, let's take a look and see if it is for you...

I was hoping for more from this character.

I wonder if this was in the Japanese version...

Let's run through the story real fast. An organization cloaked in secrecy (named "Kunai") recruits our protagonist, Len, to help defend the world against an army of traditional Japanese demons (onis, crows, foxes, etc.) who were last defeated in the Taisho Era (think the 1920s). When she arrives at the organization's secret village it is discovered that she is able to wield one of the divine swords housed within and for reasons of her own she decides to join them on a trial basis. Joining them means potentially fighting and defending both the region, and Japan itself, from the aforementioned demons. Though the village is largely populated by much older characters, most of whom we never see, there are several characters Len's age that she interacts with. Namely there is Shinonome, her childhood friend usually referred to as "Shino", and Shino's sister, Uzume. The cast is further filled out by Mitsurugi, a powerful divine sword wielder, Tsuchimikado, a descendant of Abe no Seimei (a mythical figure said to have fought against similar demons during the Heian Era), and Ruka, Tsuchimikado's niece and one of the few young people living in the village. There are others, but these make up much of the cast. For the sake of spoilers I'll refrain from talking about the villain characters in too much detail.

I don't know if "cute" is the word I'd use...

The best thing ever, Uzume! That's what!

Now let's talk about the art for a second. The character designs are mostly good here, I especially like Ruka and Uzume. Some of the character designs seem a little off though. It almost feels as if different people designed certain characters or that more thought and care were put into some over others. Also there is a lack of diversity in the cast's look as most of them wear the same shrine attendant garb. Shino, Tsuchimikado, Mitsurugi, and just about every other character I didn't mention by name earlier wear this type of outfit for most of the game. Also regarding character designs, I was very confused when I realized that Mitsurugi was female. Given the game's focus on female characters this shouldn't have come as much of a surprise, but the character herself, and name for that matter, seemed largely masculine and it took me a couple of hours of playing to realize that she was in fact female. This might have been me not paying attention to clues or references, but it is still worth noting. The designs for the villains are pretty good though all around and the backgrounds are stunning for the most part. Speaking of the backgrounds, I can only assume that some of them are either taken from real life locations or heavily inspired by them as many look like altered photos. Pictures or not, they're beautiful and show off some locations that it real I would like to see myself one day. If not for the backgrounds and villain designs I probably would have thought much of the art rather bland and generic. The cut scene drawings were awesome too, but I felt that there were far too few of these for a game of this length.

Apparently an important point!

We cover THAT in other parts of the site!

Let's talk about sound next. The music here is really good. The battle theme stands out as an amazing track that would probably be an instant classic if placed into a popular JRPG. Elsewhere the music isn't as standout as that track, but it suits is purpose well and never becomes annoying or overly repetitive, which is important in this genre. There is also a really good theme song used in the trailer/opening movie which really ups the production values. The voice acting is well-executed and I felt that each character received a voice that complimented their personality well. My one complaint about this is something that I've pointed out in other games: I have no idea why some characters are voiced and others aren't. I understand not voicing EVERY character in a game like this, but I have no idea why characters like Tsuchimikado and Mitsurugi aren't as they're very central to the plot. At first I thought that the main four cast (Len, Shino, Ruka, and Uzume) were the only ones voiced, which would make sense, but then I found that the villains were voiced as well. There are reasons for this I know, but it was something that bothered me most of the time I played. Also, on a technical note, I usually read faster than the voices and sometimes I skip the text before it's finished being read by the voice cast. In most games moving onto the next text box means that the voiced lines stop, but in Ne no Kami the voices keep going until either they are done or a new voice clip starts from a text window from a character who is voiced. A weird complaint, but it was a little jarring and an odd programming glitch that I can't recall ever running into before in any other game.

This scene could have been played in an exploitative way, but it wasn't.

Okay let's talk about story a bit. I mentioned the plot and I have to admit that I was pretty drawn in by it. I loved the layers they gave both the heroes and villains regarding their motives which kept the plot from ever becoming cliché. I'd go into this a bit more, but won't for fear of spoilers, just realize that even though this game is pushed by its inclusion of yuri elements, there is indeed a deep story that could easily be transferred into other popular media (such as anime) with great results. My only real minor gripe with the story is that at times it seems a little too serious for the rest of the character interactions. Like it was a little weird some dramatic foreshadowing that was fairly dark interspliced with comedic banter. Now I mentioned several times that this is a yuri game and I was actually a little surprised how few elements of that really came into play. Maybe I was expecting it to be shoved down my throat a bit more, but it came off as pleasantly subtle. I fear spoilers but considering that pics are in the promotional materials shown on Steam I think it's safe to mention (reveal?) that one of the most obvious couples in the game is Ruka and Shino. I didn't look into the game much before I started playing, but I actually first thought that a romance was going to develop between Len and Shino given the childhood friend thing going on. It was nice that they didn't follow this course and the romance between Ruka and Shino actually plays out genuinely and gives us some touching moments within the story itself. There is one more relationship though that is central to the plot and it is here that I find small fault with the game's core elements.

A touching moment between the Uzume and Len.

"Packy" though?

Wonder who the two girls on the title screen are? Well that is no other than Len, our protagonist with Uzume, a character who is both oddly central, and slightly removed, from the main story. Much of the game seems to want to focus on their blossoming relationship even though I think it fumbled a bit at times. Let's back up a bit. From the second we meet Uzume it is clear that she is infatuated with Len, to the point of mild creepiness. Don't get me wrong, the scenes of the two together are pretty cute and funny, but there are some lines that come off a little overblown. We are also given very little reason as to why Uzume is so deeply in love with Len, I mean it's explored a bit more towards the end, but it should have been addressed earlier to keep these scenes relevant. Without giving away too much about the plot the relationship between them develops at a decent pace, but for some reason I don't think that it flowed as naturally as Shino and Ruka. It felt more like we were supposed to simply believe in their love with the same kind of pleasant blindness displayed by Uzume. Also, there are the scenes themselves. Uzume lives in a special complex within the village and for plot reasons cannot leave, this means that the other characters, namely Len, must come to see her. This means that the game almost pauses so we can change to a location whose sole purpose in the first half of the game is to house Uzume. Remember how I said this game was about a secret organization fighting demons? Well, these scenes are pretty much as far removed from that as possible. There were times when I was glad we weren't seeing many Uzume scenes because her scenes were a huge distraction at times. Don't get me wrong now, these aren't bad characters, but I feel that some changes in writing and story could have integrated Uzume into the story better and perhaps that would have made this particular relationship seem a little more real.

Still an awesome game, criticism aside!

I have a few more points before I wrap up this review. I should mention that this game has relatively lengthy. It's not the longest visual novel out there by far, but depending on your style of reading/listening, this can be in the range of maybe ten hours and had far more content than I was expecting. The story never feels like it drags either, if anything there were times when I wished that things slowed down a little and we were given more background information on certain things. I should also mention that this story has several Japanese cultural and historical elements within it and these are well-explained both within the game and in the included glossary, a nice touch. I should mention though that there are some weird grammar moments here and there that took me out of the game. There is also one character specifically speaks in a way that looks like a string of typos, but this is intentional. What isn't intentional are the many typos scattered throughout the text. I'm usually forgiving of these, but there felt to be more than in other games I've played recently and many of them were things that I felt a simple spell check or re-reading would have fixed.

In closing this game is a great buy for anyone looking for a good visual novel and are trying to steer away from the glut of eroge titles that seem to be getting all the attention these days. The yuri elements might turn off some, but I felt that they were executed well for the most part and flow rather naturally with the story. Even with all the faults I mentioned, this is a game I recommend and hope to see more from this developer in the future!

You can check out Ne no Kami now on Steam at the link below:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/490890/

-Manuel (alavic_222)

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Graphics: GREAT
Sound: GREAT+
Gameplay: GREAT+
Value: AMAZING
 
OVERALL: GREAT+

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FULL DISCLOSURE: This game was provided to A-To-J Connections free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of review.

Ne no Kami Trailer