We're doing something slightly different today. While the Dorei Cafe is focused first and foremost on Japanese media, I did say in the past that sometimes I may cover something of Western make. This is the case today with Valdana - The Fall, Western Erotic Game that draws heavy inspiration from Kangoku Senkan.
In part, that inspiration is why I chose it to be the first Western game talked about here. It mixes those roots with some aspects of mind control and body modification that I really enjoy so in a way it feels really tailored to my tastes. Another factor is that it uses Honey Select 2 for its graphics - which means that visually, the game is still closer to what we're used to in Japanese works (at least for those of us who play 3D erogames). I know what you want to say. "Using Illusion games for graphics is about the cheapest way to go about making a game". While I don't disagree, this game is completely free and has never been part of any crowdfunded "drip feed for 10 years" project that this kind of game is associated with. Rather, developer Tjord made a habit of releasing feature-complete games and only having optional payment on Itch as a means of monetization. Honestly, if I were to ever try making an erogame and provided I couldn't pay an artist, I'd go with Illusion assets too, so I won't be throwing stones at this particular glass ceiling. And I have played stuff made by Japanese people using 3D Custom Girl back in the day, it's not like this is a Western-only phenomenon, so if anyone happens to be on a high horse, please get down so we can talk porn games. Who knows, you may be positively surprised.
Basic Premise
Valdana takes place in the far future where making developed faster than light travel and colonized the galaxy, though Earth itself was lost. Mankind has since broken down into two major factions, the Alliance of Free Planets, which champions democracy and the progressive values of old Earth under a centralized government, and the Confederacy of Nova Terra (whose citizens are called Neo-Terrans, just like in KS), which is aristocratic in nature and a firm believer in concepts like racial superiority and social Darwinism, as well as being strongly patriarchal, with females being seen as having more of a role as breeders than as active members in politics or military - though that does vary depending on the faction in question. That's one of the cool things about this game, the inner workings of the Alliance and Confederacy are explored enough the player can get a sense of depth for the geopolitics of the world, something that the New Solars and Neo Terrans of KS lacked, in my opinion.
Amidst this war, there are several neutral planets and systems not allied to either faction. One of them, Valdana, is led by Queen Victorica, also known by the monicker of The Blaze Queen, who is known for her military prowess (having deposed her tyrannical brother 10 years ago) and enjoys overwhelming popularity among the masses and military, with only some members of the aristocracy being nominal opposition to her. Scheming against the queen is our protagonist, Fritz Villers, Archbishop of the Loptr Church, a corrupt institution that serves as a front for a slaver ring and enjoyed power and prestige during previous Kings' rules, but now languishes with its business reduced to smuggling goods between Nova Terra and local nobles while pretending to support the Queen (an act she doesn't buy). Ever since Victorica rose to the throne, Valdana has been showing more and more support to the Alliance, much to the dismay of Villers and the aristocracy, and has also provoked the Neo-Terrans into mounting an attack on Valdana, with the archbishop serving as a contact/spy, as he'd rather see Valdana under Confederate rule than under the banner of the Alliance that goes against his own values.
Villers isn't just a passive pawn in the political game though, his true goal is using equipment he smuggled to the Cathedral basement to brainwash Victorica into his sex slave and seize power over Valdana.
What's the Appeal?
To me, the biggest appeal of this game is how satisfying it feels to corrupt the heroines. There are 6 of them: the aforementioned Queen Victorica de Valdana, her daughter, the strong-willed princess and ace pilot Yuria, the loyal and stoic aide to the queen Yoon-ah Moon, the no-nonsense and capable battleship commander Audrey Denvers, the envoy from the Alliance Fleet Cassandra Picard (yes, that is her surname), also known as the Slaver Hunter for her implacable pursuit and dismantling of slaver rings across the galaxy, and the enemy admiral, the cocky and prideful Neo-Terran noblewoman Samira Latef Hammoudi. They all have distinct, strong personalities that made me look forward to seeing each of them get degraded into lowly slaves, the same sentiment KS heroines often inspired in me. They're capable, fierce, and written in a way that they represent a credible threat and challenge for the protagonist to overcome, especially since the protagonist has to rely on his wits most of the time. I think many nukige make things too easy for the villainous protagonist, and while some girls fall easier than others, in general, that is not the feeling here. They're worthy targets.
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| Left to right: Victorica, Yuria, Yoona, Audrey, Cassandra, Samira. |
Another thing I really like about this game is that it has a setting that feels lived-in. It's not original, by any means - in fact, it wears its references on its sleeve -, but besides the world's background being well explored, character motivations, backstories and interactions all feel real and like these characters do have shared histories and relationships. Moreover, not everything revolves around sex. It might sound weird to praise this in an erotic game, but what I mean is that it feels like the sexual and non-sexual elements of the story feel symbiotic, one builds off the other, instead of the plot feeling like an excuse or something that is tacked on for the sake of sex. Feels like a political power struggle that would happen regardless of the whole sex slave angle. Conversely, things go in the direction they go because a slaver ring is involved and because the protagonist has the interests and proclivities he has. One side props up the other which is something you rarely see in other Western Erotic Games of the same ilk or even in most Nukige really. I appreciate that.
Another thing that appeals to me is that, unlike Kangoku Senkan where the brainwashing process lasts the whole game and has no outside visual cues, here the women are turned one by one and used as agents against their former allies, and subtle but effective changes in their wardrobe and style reflect their changed allegiance. I live for this kind of thing.
That's what I meant by saying this game mixes its KS roots with corruption and body modification elements that I like. I'll talk more about it in the spoiler section, but the game has two routes and each features its own type of brainwashing and body modification. And it doesn't stop at subtle changes either, some girls get a more extreme makeover depending on their role in the story and the protagonist's intentions with her. For a taste of that, take a look at how the same character turns out in each route.
I do have to bring up a negative though: there are grammar and spelling mistakes aplenty. They're minor errors, nothing that gets in the way of reading comprehension, but they happen often. And that's bound to bother people. English is a second language to me so I'm not really upset by these mistakes, but the fact I caught them as often as I did speaks to their frequency. It's a sad blemish on a game that still, despite that, has the writing as its strongest suit.
Another issue I should mention, Honey Select 2 is rather outdated, and the output of whatever machine developer Tjord is running doesn't give the best results for things like hair, so some textures may look a bit weird. There are fan-made upscaling modes that mitigate the issue, and at the game's native resolution (which is smaller than the full pictures pulled from the game's files) even the base game looks fine, in my opinion. Clipping is a more noticeable issue to which there is no solution, and again, something that will vary from person to person how willing to overlook they are. For me, both graphical issues are minor enough that they don't bother me. I've seen my share of monstrosities both in 2D and 3D to know how much effort went into the making of this game and I don't want to diss it because of the limitations Honey Select has. You're welcome to be the judge of the game's visuals by the images I'm using to illustrate this article, some which are game screenshots and some that are from the game files because my dumbass forgot to take enough screenshots - should be obvious which is which by the presence or lack of a UI. As a side note, I'm not using visual improvement mods for the purposes of this review.
Also, there is a prequel
As you may have noticed, the setting with a neutral planet leaning towards the good faction while a plot to brainwash royalty into siding with the evil one goes on is similar to Kangoku Senkan 2, though in this case, only superficially - the church, the motives of the archbishop, Valdana's own history, all help further distance the game from KS. The game has a predecessor in a similar situation: Isis - The Fall, which also has an elevator pitch that sounds like KS1 and takes it in its own direction.
Valdana doesn't require any knowledge from Isis to be played. However, knowledge of its events and characters does enhance the experience as it is referenced a couple of times (and a few characters show up in one of its endings). While I do like Isis as well, I find it rougher around the edges - the HS2 models are less detailed, the characters are simpler and less engaging, and generally speaking, there's little Isis does that Valdana doesn't do better. I feel some scenarios also feel more forced due to the nature of the game - Isis takes place entirely inside a battleship. The protagonist is a Neo-Terran spy masquerading as a Communications Officer on the Isis, a battleship on an important and secret mission under legendary captain Serena Kirke, a war hero who turned the tides in the battle of Legnitza years ago - the battle that dismantled one of the hubs of Confederate Slave Trade on Planet Idun, an event that is brought up frequently in both games. The spy, Dario, is to discover what the mission is, sabotage it, and also carry on his own personal vendetta against Serena and her female crew by turning them into his sex slaves using the brainwashing technology Idun was once so proud of, which he improved over the years and smuggled into the ship. But Serena is an extremely cunning woman and the Isis is almost an extension of herself, meaning even as he compromises her crewmembers and creates confusion and intrigue, she's always one step ahead of him.
Now that I've given out my general opinion about the good, the bad, and even contrasted the game with the previous entry in its series, it's time to go a bit more in-depth into what each route entails and the strong and weak points of each part of the narrative. As usual, if you want to avoid spoilers, skip to the Conclusion section.
Spoiler Talk
Valdana - The Fall is broken into two routes: The original Loptr route, which follows Archbishop Villers' schemes, and the Inquisitor Route, which is a shorter scenario added in a later update that spins out of an early decision that gets Villers killed and changes the focus of the story completely. It's generally recommended to play the original route first (as you start the game from Villers' perspective and will have already have brainwashed Audrey by the time you reach the fork, which plainly states which is the original story and which is the new alternate route).
In the common route, after pushing back against an attack by Neo-Terran Admiral Samira Latef Hammoudi, Victorica requests from the Loptr Church preparations for a Ceremonial Mass - an event that traditionally precedes a big announcement by a Valdanian monarch. However the Queen has displayed complete disregard for tradition and downright disgust for the church, and her only Ceremonial Mass was for her Coronation. Doesn't take long for Villers to figure out that she is planning to announce Valdana's integration into the Alliance of Free Planets, and that the Mass is merely a way to show that the Crown values tradition to sway more conservatives sects of society that value Valdana's independence and neutrality. So, the plans to slowly brainwash the Queen's inner circle over the course of years have to be put into motion in a matter of weeks, however long he can bullshit the preparations for the Mass take - because he's pretty sure the Loptr Church will just be disbanded after the Queen has Alliance support.
Luckily, the Queen appointed Commodore Audrey Denvers, a space commander known as "the Shield of Valdana" and one of his prime targets, to supervise matters, and he takes full advantage of her staying in the guest quarters of the church to brainwash her.
All the while, he's under constant pressure by Alliance envoy Cassandra, the infamous Slaver Hunter, who is acting with free reign from the Queen to sniff out suspicious activity in the church, and Letho Uhura, who is for all effects and purposes the secondary antagonist of the game, being a major opponent in both routes, a Minister who once served under Victorica's brother before turning coat and is now one of her fiercest supporters. Villers can never tell what the man is thinking and the reach of his intelligence agency is a constant source of problems for him.
It is at this point that the routes diverge. As Letho and Cassandra seize the Loptr Cathedral and demand full surveillance of all their activities, Villers has the option of cooperating, trusting that he will be able to fly by the seat of his pants and deducing his assailants would see through a half-hearted attempt of deceiving them, or pretending to cooperate while trying to weasel his way out.
Loptr Route
Choosing to cooperate leads into the game's original route, and the more content-heavy one. Villers manages to scrape by and continue Yoona's brainwashing, soon adding a second pawn to his arsenal.
Villers' brainwashing is gradual: usually taking 3 sessions to complete. He uses a new technology called Ultrawaves which rewrites the neural connections in the brain and unlike nanomachines and the like, is not only nigh-impossible to detect, but also irreversible. But going too fast would break the subject and turn them into a mere sex slave who can't function as anything but a plaything, and Villers is going for this avant-garde brainwashing technique precisely because he wants to preserve his targets skills and memories to further his goals. So he must take things slowly... Which is still a couple of days for each girl because the clock is ticking, anyway. The process centers around rewriting the pleasure centers of the brain to be favorable to the Master (like being sexually inclined towards him, which leads to subconsciously wanting to trust and help him) and then in further sessions progresses to a full rewriting of loyalties, desires and core personality. Nothing too dissimilar to how most tech-based brainwashing work in porn, with the game going into more detail than my top-of-the-head explanation here. The effects of the first stages of brainwashing can be quite amusing, like making Audrey believe undressing in the presence of clergy is natural for Loptr faithful, or later on when Yoona, partially brainwashed, sees a fully enslaved Audrey having sex with Villers, her trail of logic to report suspicious activity is shut down by the doctrine implanted in her head it's normal ritualistic behavior of church members (as well as the uncontrollable lust and desire she feels towards the archbishop clouding her mind).
But my favorite part is seeing the finished product - the fully brainwashed women get tattoos on their asses with a barcode and the symbol of the church, a serial number on their tits, and do a degrading slave oath as they present themselves to Villers. It's always satisfying to see, especially with characters who evade Villers for most of the game like Yuria.
The slaves love degrading themselves, begging for Villers' attention, and have a deep-seated hatred for everything Queen Victorica and the Alliance represent. Seeing the Slaver Hunter Cassandra reduced to a hypersexualized cow slave or the once loyal Yoona offering to kill Victorica just feeds that feeling of complete conquest and reversal of values.
I won't give a play-by-play of the plot, the game is long and like I said before, a lot of it revolves around the back and forth between the several characters and factions as the protagonist tries to find a way to get his targets into his grasp. If you're interested, I recommend just playing.
The most relevant parts to mention pertaining to the erotic side of things is that the protagonist has Audrey capture Samira, whom he despises (and the feeling is mutual), keep it a secret, and bring her in to be brainwashed. But since he has to be faster than usual - Samira can't really be seen walking around the premises after all -, he breaks her spirit with some good old BDSM and rape until she's apologizing to him. Then after her brainwashing, she's stationed in the church with a new identity as a nun.
And said nun proves essential for Princess Yuria's corruption. As the girl is rattled with self-doubt, Samira exploits that, seduces the girl and, drives a wedge between her and her fiancée Luke de Fabre and, with successive doses of brainwashing making her trust the fake nun more and more, makes the princess docile and submissive, turning the girl who once scorned at the Loptr Church into a true believer in its perverted teachings before Villers gives the finishing touches and makes her into a slave.
From there, Victorica is done. Letho catches on to what the archbishop is doing, but it's too late - as Victorica has already undergone the first stages of brainwashing, her judgment is clouded, and with the cleansing bath used in preparation for the ceremonial mass coated with aphrodisiacs and blasting brainwashing waves, she's easy pickings for Yuria and Samira. With her mind turned to mush from the brainwashing and constant teasing, the ritual goes on: every enslaved girl kisses the Archbishop's cock while declaring their loyalty and cums instantly. Victorica wants to cum, and is about to do the same of her own free will - or what is left of it, when Letho bursts in and interrupts. But the Queen is too far gone and just has him arrested, and now completely blinded by the promises of pleasure, willingly steps into the Slave Maker, finishing her enslavement process.
After the Queen's enslavement, Villers has a couple choices:
- Having Valdana the join Confederacy, which leads Villers to leave the planet with Samira to take over her brother's planet (I mentioned she's a noblewoman, during the game it's mentioned several times she's the sister of a Duke and that their relationship is terrible), becomes Samira's husband, and then has Samira renounce her title and human rights to become Villers' slave before the leader of the Confederacy. Of course, he knew she was brainwashed from the start but he finds the whole thing amusing, and as long as Villers cuts him a profitable deal in his slaver business, he doesn't care.
- Join the Alliance anyway, with Cassandra by his side, which leads him to meet Dario and his slave Serena, from the previous game (following the end where Dario chooses to remain undercover even after turning the Isis crew into slaves), and the two rogue agents discuss plans for getting even further into the Alliance's command chain while trying out the other's slave.
- Keep Valdana's independence and marry Victorica, which shocks the population, but she suppresses it with her authority. Valdana also becomes more favorable towards the Confederacy in this case, just isn't absorbed into it. This leads to one of my favorite final scenes where an Alliance battleship that was sent to assess the situation in Valdana gets shot down and this is the last thing the poor sods see:
- Keep Valdana's independence and marry Yuria, which leads Fritz to become King as Victorica abdicates for her daughter, and Villers' second-in-command Vaart assumes the post of Archbishop. I neglected to mention him up until now but Vaart is a dim-witted but loyal man who was implied to not be interested in women the whole game and who in this ending is confirmed gay as he turns Luke into his slave. Yuria mocks her former fiancée and gloats about the Fabre lineage will die while her Master's will prosper (Yuria is already pregnant), and Luke just takes it all with a smile. Seeing Yuria at the same time so cruel to him and so submissive to Villers is great.
Completing all endings also unlocks a bonus scene that has an oyakodon scene with pregnant Yuria and Victorica at the beach, before ending with this shot:
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| It's good to be the King |
I had decided to review Valdana since around the time I started this blog. I like this game that much. And at the time, this was the only route available. It alone made the experience worthwhile. But since then, a whole new route (around 70% the size of the original game according to the developer) was released, and I just played it. Let's see what it adds and how it measures up to the original.
Inquisition Route
By choosing to just pretend to cooperate with the Alliance's forces, Fritz ends up being careless and gets caught red-handed, the cathedral is raided and he is killed by Victorica. Audrey's brainwashing is discovered and she's sent to treatment and rehab. Ultrawave contamination can't be cured, but a nanomachine unit can be used to bypass it and return her to her senses.
With Villers out, our new protagonist is Guilhermo Adama, a Federal Inquisitor of Nova Terra, who just arrived at the planet on the Confederacy's frontier where Samira is restocking after her first loss against Victorica. The Inquisition is an independent group established to oversee various aspects of Neo-Terran governance and reel in problematic elements - as Nova Terra is comprised of basically a bunch of scattered nobles and warlords, it became necessary. They have a terrible reputation and are also constantly under pressure from the other factions in government. Samira is distrustful of Adama, as she in this route reveals a terribly insecure side to her, but Adama couldn't be less interested in her, he's there for something called Operation Waterfall - he wants to go to Valdana and collect "resources" of interest to the Inquisition. And by that I mean people with outstanding skills to be "converted" into Inquisition members. Adama has had half his brain replaced by nanomachines and has several implants all over, including titanium skin, making him more machine than man, logical to a T, a sharp turn from Villers scheming, self-interested and lustful ways. He can be kind of boring at times, but his calm demeanor even when all hell is breaking loose can work pretty well to make him seem creepy, which I think was the intention.
Upon hearing that Villers hasn't contacted them in days and is most likely compromised, he decides that he needs to go to the battlefield himself and attaches his craft to the Yasant, much to Samira's dismay. Presumably in the original route he stays at this planetary system and turns tail when he realizes the situation on Valdana was unsalvageable.
After Samira fucks up and loses again, he hatches a daring plan to board Victorica's flagship stealthily and abduct her, which surprisingly goes mostly as planned. This is the big twist here, Victorica is the first to fall victim to the brainwashing, not the last.
As I alluded to before, Adama's style of brainwashing is also a completely different beast from Villers'. He isn't interested in making slaves, but in using nano-machines and implants to re-educate and convert the subjects into fellow cyborgs with bodies worthy of the Neo-Terran ideals of female perfection and minds that are cold, analytical, and unwaveringly loyal to Nova Terra and the Inquisition, internalizing every bit of their doctrine and laws in their nanomachine-filled brains. They are not devoid of free will, but respect the inner hierarchy of the organization, which places Adama as their commanding officer. Instead of slave oaths, the Inquisitor asks them questions about the Inquisitor's code or what Nova Terra official policy on things like Slavery is (this last one being asked to Cassandra to test whether she held any of her former convictions, the answer being no), or what the duty of a Neo-Terran woman is.
At first I was a bit disappointed they don't become completely submissive slaves, but after giving it some thought I realized that it is necessary to have the brainwashing yield different results in the alternate route, else it would feel more of the same with a different coat of paint. The converted heroines aren't degrading themselves and being openly spiteful, they are, like Adama, evil cogs in the Inquisition's well-oiled machine.
Anyway, thanks to Adama's daring plot, Commissar Valdana is born, and swiftly leads the counterattack on her former allies, defeating Valdana's space force and capturing their flagship, as well as Yoona, who soon joins the ranks of the Inquisition, becoming Adama's main attack dog (while Victorica is the strategist leading the conquest of her former kingdom).
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| Victorica's early brainwashing in this route provides ample opportunity for scenes with women she didn't interact sexually with in the Loptr route, such as Yoona. |
As for how the erotic part works, since sexual conditioning is the lynchpin of the brainwashing process, and Neo-Terran creed says that one of the main roles of a woman is being a breeder of superior children, success in their missions makes the cyborgs horny, and need either medication or, well, sexual release to alleviate that. And medication isn't exactly available. It's admittedly just an excuse to work in sex scenes into a plot that uses cyborgs (the developer said as much when talking about the creative process behind this route), doesn't work as well as the original game's just having the protagonist's interests and involvement with sex trafficking be the motivator for the sex side of things. I still find it hot because I really like Commissar uniform the brainwashed heroines wear in this route.
A point of contention to many here is how uninterested Adama is in sexual matters. He is driven by his goals and as such suppresses his unneeded emotional and hormonal impulses with his nanomachines, and that includes his sexual desire. This honestly makes him a bit boring during sex, except later in the game when he's interacting with Cassandra - or rather, Commissar Picard, who is very forward and playful, making her a perfect foil to him. The reason she is like that is because, while the conditioning pushes the subject towards a more stoic demeanor, and people like Victorica and Yoona had personalities that lent themselves to that, while Samira had stronger re-education to curb her rebellious and snarky streak at the cost of some of her mental faculties (which wasn't a problem since she wasn't being scouted as a valuable Comissar, but converted into a lowly Auxilia/Secretary as punishment for her successive blunders and attempted coup against Adama), Cassandra was much more cheerful and outgoing, making her converted self playful and teasing. It's all pretty well explained and tied together by the narrative, which is a strong point of the game as always. You get a good sense for what the Inquisitors are and how conversion into a cyborg affects their personalities in this universe.
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| From left to right: Victorica, Yoona, Samira and Cassandra |
The plot itself is very straightforward - it mostly concerns itself with the battle for Valdana, with Yuria stepping up to the plate and becoming her mother's successor as commander, and Audrey reinstated to service after her treatment serving as her second-in-command. During the campaign, all the women I mentioned in the previous paragraph get converted by the Inquisitor, and while there are some twists and turns, the Inquisitor is never in as much danger as the protagonist of the main route. The closest he gets is getting captured by Letho and partially brainwashed into cooperating using Villers' old machinery, but in time his neural network reverses the process by burning away some old memories and reorganizing itself inside his brain.
The heroines' downfall comes from the fact that Audrey's treatment wasn't foolproof - if the nanomachines in her brain were somehow disabled, her brainwashed personality would reemerge instantly. And once Cassandra, who was aware of the process' intricacies, becomes Commissar Picard, she fries the implant keeping the brainwashing in check and Audrey turns into a double agent sabotaging Valdanian defenses from within.
By the end, Yuria is captured, and while the Inquisitor wanted to turn her into an Auxilia like Samira, the Neo-Terran nobles have decided to hand Valdana over to Lucifer Idun, a surviving member of the noble family who ruled the planet lost in the battle of Legnitza, and he wanted queen and princess as his slaves. Since the Inquisition refused to hand over Commissar Valdana, they didn't really have a say with Yuria.
Lucifer has some particular tastes and Yuria is subjected to what is called Project Widow - an old project that used to brainwash women into assassins to kill their husbands. To that end, Luke (who was cooperating with Letho in a last-ditch resistance effort while waiting for an Alliance fleet to arrive) is captured and Yuria is brainwashed and subjected to a ton of body modifications while fucking him, becoming almost recognizable, with purple skin, heart-shaped pupils and gigantic breasts. Her love juices are toxic and, since Luke didn't take the antidote before having intercourse, he dies.
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| Yuria's brainwashing by the Widow program is a psychedelic light show where her body morphs every time the strobe lights turn on |
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| The result is a Succubus in all but name |
Afterward, Commissar Valdana and Yuria announce Valdana's surrender and incorporation into Nova Terra, which in turn renders the Alliance Fleet that was the last hope of the resistance unable to act - the two are the sovereigns of the planet after all.
Months later, Adama is debriefed by his superior and the personnel he acquired gets redistributed to other sectors (except Auxilia Latef who is to serve as his personal secretary), in a pretty anti-climatic end, but his emotionless ass is fine with the results (in fact, he considered the whole ordeal a mess due to imperfections in the conversions of Yoona and Cassandra).
We do get an excellent final scene in Planet Valdana, or rather, New Idun. As Commissar Valdana tries to discuss important matters with Baron Lucifer, he amuses himself by fucking Yuria and Audrey, who also has been turned into a Widow-type slave. Yuria makes a point to act extremely debauched in front of her mother, who acts in the robotic way you'd expect, though the narration describes that she feels a mix of disgust at their lack of decorum, pride that her daughter is fulfilling the duty of a Neo-Terran woman, arousal at the scent of semen, and so on. Still, nothing shows on Victorica's stone face as Yuria gets railed and Audrey masturbates. Great scene to cap the route off.
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| The antidote to the Widow's poison is applied by Audrey via fellatio, by the way. |
All in all this route is a good add-on and during its course, we get to see a side of Yoona, Yuria and Audrey we don't see in the Loptr route (as Audrey and Yoona get taken out very early on and Yuria didn't need to step up to the role of commander-in-chief), and that enhances the experience of the game as a whole - even going back to the main route those characters' newly unveiled personality traits and connections stay at the back of my mind, like a good multi-route story should. I also appreciate the extra world-building as I grew to like the setting over the course of the two games I played. But in general, I vastly prefer the original route. Not only I find the corruption there more satisfying, as pervert Archbishop Fritz Villers' taste aligns with mine more, I prefer its political intrigue to this route's battle logistics. Still, it's not without its merits and I've seen people voice the opinion that they liked this side of the game better.
Conclusion
Despite its shortcomings, Valdana is a very engaging mind control game and I think it is worth checking out for fans of the genre and orphans of the Kangoku Senkan series. With two routes that feel distinct from each other and heroines that are always satisfying to take down, it's one of those cases where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the fun I had with it weighs in more than just measuring up its pros and cons in my final score (and I hope my reasoning for such was made clear in the main body of the review), as none of the criticisms I leveled at it impacted how much enjoyment playing it gave me - a feeling that is reinforced now that I played the original route twice.
Pros
- Well told narrative
- Heroines that stand out from one another
- Very satisfying corruption
- Multiple routes and endings with a distinct feeling to them
Mixed
- Uses Honey Select 2 for graphics
- Can feel meandering or overwritten for people who just want to get to the sex fast
- The references (mostly in names of places and people) to other works (chiefly Kangoku Senkan, Gundam and Star Trek) can be hit or miss depending on your tolerance to this kind of thing.
- Inquisition Route can sometimes feel more like a lore expansion than a full-fledged erogame route
Cons
- Poor grammar and spelling mistakes are a sad blemish on what is otherwise pretty good writing
- Some models could use more work in the HS2 Studio to avoid clipping or some weird poses, hair textures can look a bit weird.
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