Hentai Game Review: ‘Saku Saku: Love Blooms With the Cherry Blossoms’
Written by D.R.Manor, edited by Otaku Apologist
Saku Saku: Love Blooms With the Cherry Blossoms, a visual novel developed by Palette. Published by Denpasoft. Released on June 27, 2014. Download on Nutaku.net for 40.00. Full Japanese voice acting. Censored genitals.
One of the better visual novels published on Nutaku, this game is a high-budget romance romp with well-developed characters. If you can look past the mushy pixelated pussies, you got a satisfying experience ahead.
STORY
The story follows Asaba Yuma, a young man who’s lost all interest in love. He has heard countless stories from heartbroken girls that redpilled him to hell. He now believes love is a shady business. One day, he died.
Yuma was killed in an accident. He was brought back to life by a mysterious Soul Reaper. He’s lived his life to make other people smile ever since. One day, Yuma meets a Soul Reaper girl who claims to be a Love Fairy. She wants to help Yuma fall in love. At first, Yuma refuses her offers. But after people shit on him for being fake happy, he changes his mind.
The story is split up into separate routes that follow Yuma’s relationship with his chosen love interest. There’s also an overarching plot that’s only addressed in two of the routes. Each route has its high and lows. The drama is sometimes very forced and random, like in Mio’s route.
Something I really appreciated is that once you get into a girl’s route, you also see the story from their perspective. The narrative goes into great detail about what they think and feel, and their reasons for falling in love with Yuma.
Tina’s and Ann’s routes delve the deepest into the overarching plot, and the underlying mysteries of the whole Soul Reaper business. While in Ann’s route you get to learn how the Soul Reaper elements work, in Tina’s route you get to see the whole process. The drama in those routes is also very smooth and natural.
The story has its hiccups here and there, but overall it’s well written.
CHARACTERS
The main cast consists of the protagonist, Yuma and five heroines. Yuma is a celebrity at his school. He’s a handsome smooth talker that the girls swoon over. Even though he’s got no interest in love at the beginning, his animal instincts are sharp, and carry him to the finish line in his sexual adventures.
Yuri is the chairwoman of the Public Morals Committee (PMC). She is very strict and studious, but also shy and easily flustered. She suffers from a lot of insecurities.
Mio is Yuma’s childhood friend. She is very air-headed, but far from innocent. She’s a massive closet pervert who masturbates to gay porn. She has a crippling condition that causes her to start crying whenever she makes physical contact with a guy.
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Konami is Yuma’s little sister. She is snarky at home, but in public, acts all polite and proper.
Ann is the Student Council President. She is a huge flirt, but gets easily thrown off. She gets embarrassed when not in control. In contrast with her playful personality, she has a strong sense of duty and work ethic.
Tina is a runaway Soul Reaper who constantly claims to be a Love Fairy. Despite that, she’s completely useless at her self-proclaimed profession. She’s a cute loli who lounges around Yuma’s house.
All the characters in Saku Saku are multidimensional, and interesting. Everyone gets a good deal of character development throughout the experience. These are well-rounded, fleshed out characters.
GRAPHICS
The art is fantastic, and complements the awesome character designs. Everyone is drawn in a vibrant color palette that’s pleasing to the eye. Each character sprite has several poses and expressions that alternate during dialog. Everyone in the main cast (barring Tina) has two outfits, and swimsuits. The sprites even turn their backs at the camera, usually signifying talking to someone other than Yuma. There’s even naked sprites for all the girls.
I enjoyed that the sprites move in different directions. There’s scenes where the characters will sit at a table, for example. It’s a little detail that you don’t often see even in the newest visual novels.
The background art is amazing. Each piece is filled with sexy details that make them a treat for the eyes. Yuma’s room for example has a very personable book shelf, along with posters on bulletin boards with actual writing on them. The artists didn’t leave any empty spaces. In crowded areas, the backgrounds are filled with faceless sprites, which does wonders for the immersion. There also these visual effects that signify emotions beyond just the change of expressions.
I also appreciated how the characters will blink their eyes in the CGs. There’s even details like Tina’s wings flapping up and down. All the elements come together to give the game a unique aesthetic feel.
SOUND EFFECTS AND VOICE ACTING (SFX)
The voice acting is really good, and each voice fits their respective character. Konami’s actress has a standout performance. Throughout the game, Konami is very reserved and hardly puts any emotion in her voice. But should you pursue a romance with her, her voice will change brighter each day as her confidence grows. There was a scene where her voice was especially fantastic. Konami broke down crying. You can practically hear the cracks in her voice as she sobs on Yuma’s chest.
There are numerous sound effects in this title. You hear everything from footsteps to doorbells, the sound of tree leaves, and the wind. The audio clips feel realistic to the point I believe the company went out and recorded them. There was one particularly hilarious effect that sounded like a car passing by that plays whenever a character runs off. Its timing was on point every time, and it never failed to make me laugh.
MUSIC
Each heroine has her own theme, each fitting of their respective characters. I especially liked Konami’s theme “Winter Cherry Blossoms-Like Little Sister”. It uses a combination of string instruments, keyboard, and this cool vocal synth effect. It worked well in Konami’s route due to the immoral, taboo themes.
“City Crowds” is another track I liked. It’s an upbeat, catchy tune. It has a cool pattern with flat notes contrasting with the rest of the song. The music placement is also very well-timed. When a song starts playing, it makes sense in context of the story. Moments of silence are also placed well into scenes.
The game has two opening themes, “A Future Where Love Blooms” and “Distance”, both of them typical romantic j-pop songs. There’s also multiple ending themes, most of which are the same song with different lyrics. Tina’s route has its own exclusive ending theme, “My World With You”. It’s a slow ballad that will make you cry.
GAMEPLAY
This game is a visual novel. The gameplay is limited to clicking the textbox to advance the story. You also make the occasional branching choice in dialog that takes the story in different directions. There are only a few choices throughout the game, and they’re very straightforward. Save your progress into multiple save slots.
HENTAI
Each heroine gets three hentai scenes. Tina gets a whopping four scenes. The anime artwork is exquisite; the bodies and backgrounds are drawn smoothly without noticeable mishaps. The sexual content is vanilla, so don’t expect crazy fetish play, featuring the usual blowjobs and vaginal sex. The voice acting by the girls is passionate, and will smoothly drain your balls of that excess semen.
My only complaint about the sex scenes is that they have no sound effects. The silence is deafening, because the rest of the game was bursting with audio. The scenes are also somewhat poorly paced out. One of the girls gets her final sex scene after the credits already rolled!
CONCLUDING WORDS
Saku Saku: Love Blooms With the Cherry Blossoms is a high quality h-game with great aesthetics, and production values. The story is engaging and romantic with some good drama spicing it up. The sceneries are gorgeous, and the atmospheric music keep you entertained while grinding towards those juicy, juicy hentai scenes.
If you enjoy love stories with a hint of mystery, you’ll love this game. Download on Nutaku.
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