You wake up in darkness. You’re in a dark mansion, and a maid is standing in front of you. She calls you “the master of this mansion” and gives you a warm welcome back. You can’t remember who you are. The maid understands this, but as your servant she decides to help you recover your memories. She’ll tell you a few stories — stories about this mansion’s past. Once you’ve heard them all, you’ll naturally remember who you really are. The maid leads you to one of the mansion’s doors, opens it, and tells you what happened behind it.

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.

Hitotsu Tobashi Renai is an old game, one of Asa Project’s earlier works. Actually, calling it “early” is a stretch—more like early-ish. Hitotsu Tobashi Renai is built around “love one person removed,” and the Chinese patch apparently translated the title as “indirect love,” which honestly fits pretty well. That’s exactly what the game is about. My opinion of Hitotsu Tobashi Renai wasn’t exactly high at first, because I overplayed it. It’s chaotic the whole way through—the “skipped-over characters” are either insufferably nasty or unbearably saintly, and the art style itself doesn’t look remotely serious. Compared to Renai 0 Kilometer, it feels like it goes too far. If you say it’s going the comedy route, then it insists on throwing in some “romance” on the individual routes. If you say it’s going the pure-love route, those enormous exaggerated facial expressions alone make it look like anything but pure love… Awkward, isn’t it…

Majo Koi Nikki (魔女こいにっき) left a hell of an impression on me last year, for two reasons: the story itself, and the way it’s told. The structure is pretty intricate. First, there’s a timeline spanning hundreds of years inside the game. Then there’s a story-within-a-story setup—and the kicker is that the whole centuries-long timeline is itself a story inside a story. In reality, all those tales are just phantoms. The ending made me want to curse someone out. The protagonist goes through hell to achieve a genuinely moving HAPPY END, and then the TRUE END drops a few lines telling you it was all fake, all just a story, and the real protagonist is trapped forever in the witch’s curse with no escape. A lot of people promptly turned on the scenario writer Shinima Yuu, calling him a bastard who’s out to screw players over again, blah blah blah… Then, not long after the game’s release, a PSV port was announced: Majo Koi Nikki Dragon×Caravan. Along with the port came news of two new scenarios—one upgrading a heroine to a romanceable route, and a new chapter called “The Passionate Prince and the Little Dragon” (灼熱の王子と小さな竜). I didn’t pay much attention at first, because for most PSV ports the extra content is irrelevant cash-grab filler. Upgrading a heroine? Seen it a million times—they just cobble together some story to force a route. So I ignored it. Until I saw a Japanese player’s review on ErogameScape that changed my mind. This person said the new PSV chapter wasn’t just random fluff—it was a completion of the original story. The Passionate Prince and the Black Dragon chapter apparently depicts what happens after the original ending, reaching the true conclusion. That was both expected and surprising. Expected, because Majo Koi Nikki’s story clearly wasn’t finished—the protagonist was still trapped in the diary, so of course there had to be more. Surprising, because they actually finished the story in the PSV version. So I started figuring out how to get my hands on it. First I waited for a crack, but unlike the PSV version of Shepherd’s Library, nobody dumped it. So I had to camp out on Surugaya for a used copy. Eventually I snagged one in good condition for a relatively cheap price. Not bad. Back home, I dug out my long-neglected PSV, inserted the game card, hit the power button, and the game started again.

First off, thanks to the people who cracked the PSV. Yeah, it’s not exactly ethical, but I’m genuinely broke. I’ve bought a pile of PSV games by now, so let’s call it even on the guilt front. Next, thanks to the person who dumped this game. Without that legend sharing it, a cracked PSV would mean basically nothing. And last, thanks to the driver who posted the link: Eric Sitounel. Without his tip I would’ve assumed nobody had dumped this thing at all… The game I’d been wanting to play was this one, because it has an additional route and a new character voiced by Ari Ozawa: Ichinoe Kingyo. I got it downloaded and the PSV cracked in a hurry, and since I’d already played the original Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai and the FD too, I went straight for the new heroine. How do I put it — way better than I expected. Quick impressions.