Eiyu*Senki Gold: A New Conquest Review – Wholesome Conquering

Erotic visual novels with swarms of uniquely charming girls are a dime-a-dozen and require no lengthy introduction in concept. Eiyu Senki Gold – A New Conquest does not break new ground in the genre by any means, even with its inclusion of strategic combat. Still, it is an undeniably endearing journey that any fan of the genre should put on their radar and give a fair shake.

Eiyu Senki Gold – A New Conquest centers around the initially unnamed protagonist who finds himself awakening in the Eastern country of Zipang with no memories to speak of. However, he quickly finds himself being quite literally dragged away by Date Masamune, a bright young girl with a cheerful disposition.

After making the protagonist her honorary brother, the duo seeks to earn the crown of Zipang. Eventually, it grows to achieve world conquest alongside accumulated allies. While the narrative is initially light, it gradually opens up and features a legitimately engaging story with some directions players might not expect.

Players will find themselves visiting numerous locales and conquering them to achieve the protagonist’s and Date’s desires. It sounds rather dark and ominous from the description alone, but a simple glance at the cheerful and vibrant ambiance will tell you that the subject matter is not intended to be taken solemnly. Above all else, this is a relaxing experience that uses its massive global scope as an excuse to grant a magnificently diverse array of attractive girls, each with their own sets of charms.

While the women tend to fall into expected tropes, it rarely impeded my general enjoyment of the humorously wholesome scenes spread throughout the adventure. This is very much quantity over quality regarding the girls it throws at you, which is not an inherent negative. The number of women was never too overbearing, and they all received at least a modicum of focus to make them stand out, albeit to varying degrees of success.

The real strength of this title, though, above all else, is the immense amounts of exchanges and slice-of-life scenes with the substantially sized cast. I found myself quite transfixed by the day-to-day lives and interactions between these characters. The narrative does a stellar job of gradually making you feel attached to the cast as if you are one of their zany and chaotic compatriots. Some of the characters’ plights are unexpectedly personal, creating a unique dichotomic relationship between their historical statuses and humanity and between the players and characters.

Regarding gameplay, Eiyu Senki Gold is not your standard eroge, as it does, in fact, feature turn-based strategy combat. Fighting takes place on a 6×3 grid, which is a relatively small field of battle. Each unit has its own skills and mechanical characteristics, though, in all honesty, combat is by no means a center point of contemplation.

While players will frequently be commencing battles, they occur rapidly, especially if battle speed and other settings are enabled to be faster than the provided default ones. Players will have to replenish their various troops using funds garnered from events and the like. Troops can also be powered up with the funds at the player’s disposal, providing a lite sense of involved agency with decision making on which areas of combat to focus on and empower.

However, the difficulty is next to non-existent since simply spamming skills quickly lead to victories on Normal mode. There is an Easy difficulty for those who solely yearn for the visual novel segments and have no interest in the combative entanglements this title has to offer. There is also a Hard difficulty, which is an avenue for players wanting more out of the strategic elements this title provides.

The combat itself did not entice or compel me much. Still, it rarely felt like a needless bother due to the brevity of encounters and ease of accessibility with the mechanics. It rarely ever outstayed its welcome, which I can appreciate. I just found myself playing this game more for the visual novel components rather than its combative elements. The latter does spice up the normally mundane nature of eroge progression, but it can just as easily not be a player’s cup of tea, especially for those desiring a wholly text-based adventure.

Narrative events are somewhat unique. Each event has its own prerequisite of either needed characters, needed skills, or both. Given the turn system for progressing throughout the world, these prerequisites are there to create meaningful semblances of strategy for which units should be used to activate which events since said units could not trigger later events in the span of the same turn.

This smartly utilizes more strategic elements into aspects not directly involved in battles. This mechanic is also not too taxing for players desiring a more standard visual novel experience.  At most, this system can come off as an inconvenience to pad the game time. Still, similarly to the battles, everything occurs at a breakneck, rapid pace, so it never came off as exceptionally bothersome.

In regards to the localization, I don’t have any starkly negative impressions. The translation itself came off as more than adept, and it was clear some serious time and manpower were put into making the script as qualitative as possible. Some lines felt awkwardly translated, but those were relatively few in the grand scheme of events.

Eiyu*Senki Gold – A New Conquest is a charming eroge with an abundance of attractive women to keep players entertained for hours on end. The strategic elements of the title may be an initial turn off to those wanting a more traditional visual novel adventure, but its lite and approachable nature rarely made its inclusion feel bothersome; in fact, it allows it to stand out in the sea of eroge thanks to these more notably unique elements of progression, even if they do not require much mechanical introspection or forethought for necessary advancement.