Written by Rastafoo69, edited by Otaku Apologist
Sword Princess Cistina, a hentai RPG developed by Doujin Circle Gyu. Released March 30, 2014. Download on DLsite for $18.00. For PC Windows. No voice acting. Censored genitals. Available in English and Japanese.
After accidentally freeing the demon king from his prison, Sword Princess Cistina embarks on a grand adventure to somehow stop his rise to power. Little does she realize that life outside the royal castle is depraved.
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STORY
A thousand years ago, the demon God named Loft attacked the human race. Thankfully, he was stopped by Saint Orianne, and sealed away in the dark Roubaix Ruins. In the present day, Princess Cistina accidentally frees Loft.
Cistina is the princess of Lorelle castle, and has an arranged marriage to a local rich boy named Luis. The netorare route of the game involves cheating on Luis and getting impregnated by another man.
The game has five endings, including a virgin route! The game will easily take you four hours at a minimum to complete, but finding all sex scenes could easily take you eight hours or more.
The plot is mediocre and uninspired. You must defeat the four minions of the Demon Lord, find some artifacts, and then battle Loft and kill him. The game world may be large with multiple continents, but it never feels that way. Each town has only a handful of boring NPCs who spout uninspired dialogue.
The developer breaks the fourth wall numerous times, and employs NPCs to give guidance to the player. Problem is, there are too many fake NPCs, and not enough real characters. It feels like Cistina is the only sentient person in the world.
This developer, Doujin Circle Gyu, has produced many RPGs for many years now. The protagonist of this game appears again in Treasure Hunter Mai, and previous protagonists appear as cameos in Sword Princess Cistina.
This game doesn’t have quick and dirty sex. It is story-focused, and character-driven. Expect numerous typos in the script.
GAMEPLAY
Sword Princess Cistina was created with RPG Maker. Use the arrow keys to move. Press CTRL to skip dialogue. Press A to display your mini-map in dungeons. Press F5 for fullscreen. Press S to activate the standing picture display.
The game cycle is very simple. Enter a dungeon, defeat some enemies, fight a boss to cap things off. All this will earn you new items and gold that can be traded in town for healing items and new equipment.
I recommend you check out the in-game manual in the red book near the game start point. The manual will mostly explain your lewd stats and public reputation system. Combat doesn’t need explanation, because it is very easy to do.
Fighting at low health, or in otherwise pressing circumstances, will increase your chance of being “inspired”. Inspiration means that you will spontaneously unlock new abilities that will save you in battle. If your character is horny or nude during battle, you’ll have a chance of learning new erotic abilities. The gameplay is painfully generic.
GRAPHICS
The art is a simplistic variation of anime style. I tried to pick the best looking art pieces for this review, and even these aren’t top quality. Almost all images look ugly and unprofessional, with body proportions changing dramatically between scenes.
There are 47 base CGs and 700 total visual assets. Cistina can wear 18 different outfits. If you lose in battle, you get a groping scene, or a hardcore sex scene. Players can customize character names from the options menu. Clothing can take damage and leave you nude. A CG and scene recollection room is available from the player home, the castle of Lorelle.
Breast size changes depending on the scene. Sometimes Cistina is a C-cup, other times she’s an F-cup.
The frame rate will drop at random even if there are no enemies on screen. Some NPC sprites will change color if you speak to them. A blue-haired girl can suddenly have brown hair, then go back to blue.
Invisible walls stop you from moving even in town and shopping areas. There is no reason for these invisible walls to exist, they just do. And even if you can avoid those invisible walls, you may accidentally walk through a wall and outside the game world. Sometimes NPCs are solid, while other times you can walk right through them. The inconsistency is a downer.
Can you look past all the glitches and bugs to enjoy these features? It depends on your patience.
VOICE ACTING AND SOUND EFFECTS (SFX)
Sword Princess Cistina has no voice acting.
The sound effects in the game are mostly standard RPG Maker Assets. They fit the game world well, but will not catch your attention. If you’ve made a hobby out of hentai games, these sound effects will annoy you, especially during sex scenes. When Cistina’s panties are removed, you hear a crowd applause. It takes you out of the moment.
MUSIC
There are over 200 songs in this game, the vast majority of which go unused. In truth, around 20 tracks are actually ever used, and a select few are painfully over-used.
EDM music plays during sex scenes and it’s horrible. The music fails to be suspenseful, it does not get your heart racing, all it does is pull you out of the moment. This soundtrack breaks your immersion. You can’t have electronic dance music in a medieval fantasy role playing game.
Even the battle music qualifies as EDM. It’s got a gay night club vibe. The pulsating, repeating techno beat is mixed with cymbals and tones of varying pitches. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like music at all.
HENTAI
There are 47 base CGs, 18 different outfits, and 700 visual assets overall. In the recollection room, there are 35 lewd scenes. If you do not count gropings and other outercourse, there are less than 30 lewd scenes.
The developer states clearly on his DLsite page that he wanted the focus to be on the story and gameplay, rather than on the erotic content. After playing through this game, I will conclude the erotic content is mediocre.
Fetishes include netorare, and monster sex. The product page advertises the game to include “pregnancy and stripping”, but those are very small and forgettable parts to this experience. The pregnancy content is very hard to find, to the point that it might as well not exist. Even players who have gotten pregnant have no idea what they did to activate it.
There are no animations. The erotic text always has the girl saying “no no no, I’m a bad girl”.
Most times Cistina has normal nipples, but when it suits the story, she’ll suddenly have big puffy mile long nipples. Most times Cistina is petite, but when it suits the story, she’ll have giant man hands and a very muscular body. And any image with a side-view of Cistina is a “cursed image”. It will leave you with a stomach ache from how inhuman it looks.
Terrible visuals and terrible writing kill these hentai scenes. Yes, she’s cheating on her fiance, but they were never very close to begin with! When she has unprotected sex, there’s no chance of pregnancy, so why is she asking him to pull out? It constantly feels like there is no tension or meaning behind any action. If I wanted to watch meaningless porn, I would open Pornhub in my browser tab. Hentai games are supposed to have good setup and tension, but this game has neither.
CONCLUDING WORDS
Sword Princess Cistina is a bad hentai RPG. The gameplay is tedious, the story is predictable, the soundtrack doesn’t fit at all, and the lewd scenes are generic as hell. If you want a better experience, you need to try Treasure Hunter Mai.
If you can look past all the bugs, then download Sword Princess Cistina. Otherwise, find something better to enjoy.
Overall
- Graphics
- Gameplay
- Story
- Music
- SFX
- Hentai
