Island SAGA is a lewd RPG about a man’s quest for fabled treasure, and four princesses’ quest for his hand in marriage. A love pentagon, if you will.
At-a-glance
(Adult) Content?
(FxM) Sexual content.
Censorship?
No. Woot! Woot!
Hours of Game-play?
Five or more hours.
Modding Support?
No.
Patch Available?
Download from official site.
Gameplay
. . . in a nutshell
Another lewd RPG, but with a nontraditional leveling system. You go from point “A” to point “B”, collecting quests and grinding your way to victory. Every so often a dialogue or quest will lead to a lewd scene — lewd scenes are few and far between, a consequence of the length of the game. Instead of gaining “experience” and using “level-ups” to bolster your party’s stats, your individual skills and stats get better through use. For example, if a character uses their bare hands to fight, they’re bound to pick up a few tricks after they throw enough punches. Enemies scale to the player’s stats, but if you find combat too tough you can always set the difficulty level.
out the shell. . .
Before the game starts, you must a difficulty setting, which will nerf (or buff) the base stats of enemies. Your choice can be changed later on. Enemies stats scale to the main protagonist’s stats, so you may find it necessary to alter the difficulty in response to the protagonist’s stats. I played the game on “Normal” difficulty, and I found the first area to be mildly challenging. I recommending spending an hour or two grinding before fighting the first boss enemy. Bosses tend to be significantly stronger than basic enemies.
Also, be sure to gear up before heading out on your first quest.
There are a total of five playable characters, and they are far from silent. Well, the main protagonist doesn’t say much, but his (four) female companions do a lot of talkin’. They will makes comments as you explore, admiring the scenery or advising the protagonist. It will often result in running into an enemy, but if you can’t deal with an offhand baddie I think you got bigger problems than a few chatty ladies. When pursuing quests, your choice of dialogue will influence not only dialogue, but what lewd scenes (if any) ensue.
I suggest saving often, in the name of boobies.
Combat
Island SAGA does not use a traditional leveling system, where the player collects experience to gain “levels”. Rather, each character’s stats individually improve through use. To improve your party, you will need to engage in gobs of engagements — not unlike a standard leveling system, but it feels like a more “natural” means for characters to improve. Any RPG worth its salt has grind. You can dramatically speed-up (or outright skip) combat animations using the “Battle Speed” option. Once your party can take care of itself, combat is as easy as holding the “Enter” key and winning.
When fighting bosses, I recommend not skipping combat interactions.
There are six weapon types, each with a corresponding skill. Characters can learn new abilities and attacks just by exercising (and leveling up) their skills. Though anyone can equip anything, I recommend maintaining a diverse team — that way, there’s always something for someone when you find a sweet piece of loot. Some weapons impose restrictions on equipment. For example, you cannot equip a bow and arrow and a shield. All equipment is assigned a rarity, which dramatically effects combat effectiveness and bonus perks.
Speaking of combat effectiveness. . .
Chosen before battle, Formations are used to change the way battle flows. New Formations can be acquired by reading “Formation Books”, which must be translated by a special NPC before you can use them. For example, the first Formation you will learn is the “Prince’s Cross”. It focuses enemy aggression on a single member of party, and it reduces the likelihood of another member from being targeted. Formations encourage different play styles, and they are excellent in preparation for specific foes.
Exploration
You have the option to “fast travel” at any time when inside a friendly area, such as a town or the world map. By using the fast travel system, you can instantly teleport outside of buildings, or between key areas within a town. Considering the size of some peoples’ homes, being able to leave with a press of a button comes in handy. Many RPGs encourage players to raid NPC homes and ransack their valuables — there is none of that here, and non-essential NPCs seldom have anything useful to give or say. At best, they provide a silly dialogue or pixelated eye-candy.
I recall one citizen having nothing better to say than “hahhh”.
Dungeons are littered with visible monsters. Touching any of them will result in entering combat. It’s generally easy to avoid hostilities, but I wouldn’t recommend doing so. Treasure chests lay hidden throughout dungeons, and their contents are replenished (and improved) by slaying baddies. Be sure to hug the walls — each dungeon has one or more secret areas.
Story
Before your journey begins, you must choose a name for the main protagonist. By default, his name is set to “Protag”, so I think it’s safe to say that’s his canon name.
Welcome Protag!
Protag, the son of King Gultul, is to be married to one of King Bal’s daughters. None of his daughters are privy to his hand in marriage. Unfortunately, King Bal has no male heirs for his kingdom. He needs at least one of his daughters to drop some babies — or risk the total annihilation of their home. Princess Iris agrees to marry Protag, but King Bal won’t permit it — not until Protag proves he has the makings of a king. King Bal decrees that he must sail to Valentine Island, and seek the artifact “of true love”, or the Love Rheid. King Gultul eagerly arranges for a transportation, as he hopes this artifact will help him and his wife fix their marriage. At least, that’s what he tells Protag.
Iris and Protag set sail for Valentine Island.
On their way to the island, King Gultul is visited by Princess Nadia. She too was informed about Protag’s open hand in marriage, and is shocked to learn that he left with another woman. With a drop of a hat, she’s off to intercept Protag. King Gultul’s wife encourages him to notify a few more kingdoms of Protag’s. . . availability. As it turns out, all but the Gultuls’ Kingdom is in need of male heirs. Mister and Missus Gultul plan on having the kingdoms duke it out for Protag’s love, and by extension, heirs for their respective kingdoms. They promptly send a message to the King of Seagulls and the King Wakoku.
The King Bal isn’t the only one in need of some royal seed in his lady-ovens.
Iris and Protag touch-down at Eldia, where King Gultul has arranged for a brand new house to be erected for them. They learn that they must register as “adventurers” in the local guild. While they don’t technically have to, doing so grants two key advantages; The Adventurer Party Dispatch System provides automated, on-call medics for wiped-out parties; and the Guild Card keeps keeps track of quests and rewards. Before Protag can sign the appropriate documents, Nadia arrives just in time to join his party.
What great timing!
Protag’s party is instructed to retrieve the Perle Gem (or Transport Stone) from the Beginner’s Cave, to complete their registration with the Guild. A Perle Gem is needed to charge Guild Cards, much like a battery. On their way to Beginner’s Cave, Sophie (of the Seagulls Kingdom) and Sakura (of the Wakoku Kingdom) arrive at the Guild. They sign up as adventurers, and follow Protag and friends to Beginner’s Cave. They rendezvous at the end of the expedition, with the Perle Gem in sight and (coincidentally) just in the time for the first boss battle.
What great timing . . . again.
The party returns the Perle Gem to the guild. With a newly charged Guild Card, Protag is free to accept additional quests and explore the world on his own. He is directed to Beginner’s Cave once again, to seek coordinates for new dungeons to explore. The party spends the night inside. Once Protag falls asleep, his party discusses the terms of their journey together. Sophie explains that they have no right to refuse the Protag — in other words, if he wants their body, they must accept his sexual advances period. As the Love Rhied reveals true love, their quest will reveal who’s hand Protag will take for marriage.
Knowing that, you’d think there’d more sex scenes in the game.
The next morning, they venture deep inside of Beginner’s Cave. Protag discovers a strange artifact, which they take to a nearby lorewalker (a fancy name for “historian”) named Granma. Before she explains what the artifact is, she reads the party a story about the Five Crystals —
Long ago, humanity was protected from monsters by five magical crystals. The monsters sought to rule over humanity, and so they destroyed the crystals. Four heroes rose up, and they created a new crystal using pieces from the broken crystals. They defeated the monsters, and preserved humanity’s freedom. However, the crystal the heroes built shattered, plummeting much of the human world under the sea. Overtime, the land which sunk began to rise again, giving rise to the phenomenon called Apiacum — a term that describes the origin of Valentine Island.
The artifact Protag found is one of many artifacts intended to lead the way to a “great treasure”. The artifact Protag found is in fact a key to the Holy Fountains, which Granma advises Protag’s party to “purify” themselves within, before continuing their quest.
Visuals
The titlescreen says “lewd” all over — the first thing you’ll see is a pack of busty waifus, provided the adult-patch is installed. If not, you’ll be stuck watching clouds. Lame. From “Options” you can adjust a wide variety of audio, control and visual preferences. It’s a bit unsorted, but certainly fleshed. For an RPGMaker title, I’m impressed.
The Goods
There’s at least twenty CGs to unlock, each with a few variations and some with light animation. There are quite good — not quite top-notch, but top tier that’s for sure. Each set of CGs comes with a brief sex scene, and in some cases, mild interactivity in the form of dialogues.
. . . expect female nudity and male-on-female sexual intercourse.
Verdict
I recommend this game, if you like grossly-oversized boobies and want to try a different lewd RPG. Considering the amount of content, I think it would be reasonable to pay full price for this title. However, this is an RPG with lewd content — not so much a lewd RPG. Between three or four hours of playtime, I saw one lewd scene. Keep that in mind before purchasing this title.
