Review: Gokudou no Hanayome

The story of this VN focuses around Gokudouin Yuuichi, the successor to the head of a yakuza family whose power and influence spread to all corners of the world at one time, but is now greatly weakened due to the long period in which its leadership has been left to substitutes. Yuuichi, who had pretty much assumed that he would continue to live a normal life, is one day visited by a young woman, Habutae Asahi, who proclaims that she has come to marry him and help restore the power of his group in order to stabilize the underworld, which has become chaotic due to the void left behind by Gokudouin's growing weakness.



Plot 5/10- I could say a lot of things about this VN's plot... but to be frank it is really unbalanced. While the concept itself is interesting, and the characters are - mostly - decent as heroines go, the game is a drama/action/comedy that leaned a little bit too much toward the comedy portions, even at the parts where it should have been most serious. In particular, Amelia's path is ridiculous (as is her extremely annoying character). Of course, there were redeeming factors to the plot... in particular I was fond of the over-the-top fight scenes with the girls smashing their way through all enemies that dared to stand before them. However, the ridiculous aspects ate away at the parts of the story where it should have gotten down to business, making it difficult to hold a proper sense of tension, even when it really, truly felt like you should.

Visuals 9/10: Have to say I love the character design and artwork in this VN. I would even go so far as to call certain CGs - since I avoid major spoilers by policy, I'll leave it at that - were masterpieces in and of themselves. I really have no complaints at all about the visual aspect of this VN and would even go so far as to praise it without a bit of restraint.

Sound 8/10- The music in this game... made me really want to give this a 10/10. I'll still be recalling certain bgms years from now. However... the places where they use some of the songs are kind of inappropriate, and so I had to take points off for that. In particular, their overuse of my favorite theme - a really solemn one that brings a tear to the eye and seriously touches the heart - got used at a lot of inappropriate points. To be blunt, it didn't get used during the solemn scenes and made appearances in a lot of the h-scenes. When a cheery song flashes during a scene that needs a song meant to draw tears from your eyes, you are definitely going to feel something is wrong.

Overall 6/10: Overall, this game had enormous potential, with the concept of restoring a great yakuza family to power and the encroachments of a mysterious new force in the underworld... but it tried too hard to be funny at all the wrong points, inserting absurd story elements at points where they could only get in the way. From a visual and musical perspective, it is an excellent game. Which just makes it unfortunate that the story lags behind far enough to drag the rest of the game into the dirt.