PuraMai Wars V (プラマイウォーズV) Review

Purumai Wars (プラマイウォーズ) is an Asa Project game from 2015. Its position in the Asa Project catalog is honestly kind of awkward — it landed right in the middle of a transition period, where they hadn’t fully given up on the gag humor and the crazy facial expressions yet, but were also trying to lean a bit more into pure romance.

That said, the older sister’s route in the base game is still decent, and as far as I remember, Asa Project is one of those rare “conscientious porting houses” — when their games get ported to all-ages handheld platforms, they generally not only promote existing side characters to heroines but also add entirely new character routes, and the new characters’ VAs tend to be “whatever anime voice actor is hot right now.” That’s a fair amount of effort.

Some examples:

Renai 0 Kilometer PSP version: promotes two heroines, adds two more, voiced by Kana Asumi and Yukari Tamura respectively.

Hitotsu Tobashi Renai PSV version: adds two heroines, voiced by Ayane Sakura and Sakura Tange.

Which brings us to the game we’re talking about here:

Puramai Wars V: promotes one heroine, adds one more, voiced by Aya Suzaki.

Looking at how much effort went into these ports, you can see the official releases getting lazier and lazier — and this game is lazier still.

The original Purumai Wars doesn’t really have that much going on — it’s basically the story of two families with completely different upbringings sharing a house. The one genuine highlight of the original, I think, is the protagonist’s older sister’s route; meanwhile “Big Sis Tomoe,” who looks like the original’s anointed main heroine, is completely ruined by Kiira Tamaki’s garbage voice acting.

So the two new heroines added in Puramai Wars V are the protagonist’s classmate from the original, Tokino Minazuki (Ryōko Ono), and her little sister who came back from overseas, Mina Minazuki.

The plot, such as it is: Tokino casually mentions to the protagonist that her little sister Mina, who’d been abroad, has transferred back and wants to make a fresh splash at school (the Japanese usually translates this as “debut,” which I think is pretty dumb), and asks him to look after her.

Then the protagonist discovers that this so-called “returnee sister” is a total dumbass — yes, a complete dumbass. She loves BL, loves talking shit, has a huge ego, and is terrified of getting flamed, and despite coming back from overseas she can’t even speak English…

She’s a total waste of a human being. And this is who wants to make a splash?

Of course, the problem isn’t just the little sister — the older sister isn’t much better either. Tokino did appear in the original, but she had basically no presence, like a background character who says two lines and disappears. But in the PSV-added route, the older sister finally achieves her complete form: turns out she’s a “two-faced schemer.”

Yes, the kind of schemer that everyone can tell is a schemer — even the protagonist calls her a schemer to her face. I’m just confused. Just as an idiot who realizes he’s an idiot is no longer an idiot, surely once everyone around a person has realized she’s a schemer, she can’t really be a schemer anymore.

So what the hell is this character’s deal? I’m genuinely confused.

So we’ve got an older sister with no clear character identity, and a little sister with no clear character identity, and I’m not the only one confused — even Aya Suzaki had no idea what the hell the character she was voicing was supposed to be.

Anyway, the routes added for the sisters are just the original family’s bullshit-filled daily banter with two sisters’ worth of story bolted on. Then out of nowhere, both sisters fall for the protagonist.

And to play up the older sister being a schemer, they deliberately wrote in a clichéd bit: “the older sister comes over to hang out with the protagonist and accidentally leaves the notebook where she records everyone’s embarrassing secrets on his bed.” In the end, the game explains the older sister’s character as: she just likes sticking her nose into other people’s business and worrying about them, and isn’t really a schemer at all. Basically a nosy neighborhood auntie.

And the little sister’s characterization is just fleshed out to say she’s simply kind-hearted and vain.

As for how the individual routes for the two sisters are? Sorry, I can’t tell you.

Because one day both sisters come to stay overnight at the protagonist’s house, and that’s when you choose whether to pursue the older or the younger sister. That night, each sister uses her own tactics to pressure the other heroines into declaring their feelings for the protagonist, and uses that as an opening to confess to him herself — then the protagonist picks one, they kiss, and…

And that’s it! ED rolls!

You’d think there’d be an After Story after the ED?

Dream on! After the ED it goes right back to the title screen!

So the routes added in this game are nothing but a bunch of messy bullshit content, with practically no individual route at all, and barely any new CGs — three for the older sister, one for the little sister. That’s not even as many as the bonus side character H-scenes in Asa Project’s new game this year. I’m just done.

Simply put, the added routes in this game are completely half-assed and basically not worth reading. Even Aya Suzaki’s performance isn’t great. Ryōko Ono’s performance is okay, but it hardly matters, since the character writing collapses anyway.

And the game basically has no individual routes at all — compared to the full individual routes in previous Asa Project ports, this game…

Thanks a fucking lot! And thanks to the guy I bought it from for 200 yuan on Xianyu!

Also, I saw this swimming pool background again — man, it’s been around forever! I just saw it a few days ago in Asa’s new game.

I stopped to think about it: this game might already be Asa Project’s swan song when it comes to ports. Because although they kept doing ports after this, they never added new characters again — they don’t even strip the character’s disguise anymore. Maybe they lost confidence in the sales and couldn’t be bothered to invest much.

Yesterday I saw Inugami Kira’s face revealed, and it reminded me that games in the past seemed to have a tradition of adding new characters after being ported — whether it was Yuzusoft’s Tenjin Ranman or Makura’s Himawari no Kyoukai. I miss the days when PSP games could add characters.

Man. Sigh.