Greetings Backloggers! Hooray, another Backlog, and it didn’t take me five months this time! That said, I also picked a Christmas game with a theme that made perfect sense when I started it during Christmas break, but significantly less sense finishing it in March. The game in question being Winged Cloud’s Christmas themed visual novel Sakura Santa.
Winged Cloud’s Sakura games all tend to share a certain similar visual aesthetic, and themes. Glossy, impossibly buxom female characters get involved with a mostly clueless male protagonist. Some wacky hijinks happen to put the girls in some inappropriate-looking situations, but in the end, our hero ends up in love with one, or more of the girls. More light-heartedly lewd than outright obscene, the games tend to offer fairly limited choices and to be on the kinetic end of the VN spectrum.
For Sakura Santa, our hero is Koji, a college student spending his first Christmas alone, away from home in a new town. A wish to not be alone on Christmas, made at a shrine after an act of kindness to the shrine’s old keeper comes true in the most unlikely way, with Koji making the acquaintance of three very different girls. There’s the childhood friend, Itsumi, conveniently working at a café in town, whom Koji stumbles into after not seeing her for years. There’s the kitsune deity of the shrine herself, Akira, lonely after centuries at her shrine, who sees something in Koji that she likes.
Kitsunes (fox spirits) aren’t exactly known for their modesty anyway, but this might be pushing it.
Then there’s Santa. Yes, Santa Clause, who, as it turns out, is part of a giant magical family of Santa Clauses who distribute presents and Christmas cheer all around the world by splitting up and taking different territories. The Santa Claus of this particular city just so happens, by wacky coincidence, to be another amazingly attractive girl with the hots for Koji. (Which gets a little weird when you ponder the implications of “Sees you when your sleeping, knows when you’re awake” as it relates to a Santa Claus falling in love. Look, it’s a romance VN, try not to overthink things.)
Who knew Santa was a ditzy blonde with a penchant for insanely short skirts?
After the first day of meeting all three girls, Koji is presented with a choice of whom he is going to seek out that day. There’s no tricks here, the girl Koji chooses most often will be the one he ends up with at the end of the story. Distribute Koji’s time evenly among all three ladies, and arrive at the most improbable happy harem ending.
Itsumi in her casual clothes. She works at a cosplay cafe.
Successfully completing a single path reading everything takes around an hour. I’d consider that the minimum for backlog completion, but with VNs it’s always more fun to read everything and knock out all the branching paths. In Sakura Santa, that will take around three to four hours.
Backlog Verdict: For gamers who enjoy light VNs, and are looking for a holiday romance theme, this is a short, quick playthrough. There’s nothing that particularly stands out about this game as opposed to other Sakura games, but it’s competently executed with very few spelling or grammar errors in the text. There’s no voice acting (not necessarily a bad thing), and the background music manages to be peppy and upbeat, with enough variety to not become annoying and repetitive after an hour. Worth playing, for any gamer who enjoys VNs. Just maybe try playing it around Christmas time, rather than when Sakura St. Patrick’s Day would be more appropriate.
It’s not a conventional harem, but they’re not conventional girls either.
Previous Backlog Count: 1,218
Current Backlog Count: 1,217 – Hey look! A number going in a correct direction!
Next Time: Breaking new (old) ground with 7th Legion, a 1997 RTS with no stats on HowLongToBeat.com. It sits in the backlogs of thirty-two users, and is old enough this year to legally buy itself a beer. Time to put at least one completion in the stats.
Backlog Burndown is a semi-regular feature on Marooners’ Rock. Read previous columns in the archives, and suggest future games to play in the comments!
