Samurai of Hyuga Book 2

Samurai of Hyuga 1 was a game heavily influenced by samurai films and edgier anime, with a main character ronin who has killed countless people as an assassin and is assigned to guard a smart child while hunting demons.

In this game, you play shogi! For most of the time.

It actually works out well. Our character is kind of OP, so it's hard to think of creative obstacles for them. Rather than having more fighting, they are first severely injured and then roped into a shoji tournament where you have to take down a variety of foes while also being an uneducated and kind of dumb ronin.

The game broadens the world of the series by bringing in European influences. There are some opportunities for serious romantic moments. There are also a lot of dramatic deaths and bits of violence, making it one of the goriest IF series (compared to things I've read recently, it's similar to Centuria or maybe Kagurabachi in terms of gore).

This book also continues the trend of being plagued with questionable japanese translation and indecent behavior toward minors. The most egregious japanese example was translating the gold in 'gold general', a shogi piece, as 'gorudo' (the katakana transliteration of the English word gold, which is sometimes used for the color) rather than 金 'kin', which is both the native word and the actual word that is printed on the pieces themselves (including in in-game screenshots). Like the first game, other characters insinuate that our character is sexually attracted to our minor charge, and our character can attempt to flood the minor's mind with sexual images and takes a peek at them while changing. This is while the game frequently reinforces how young our character is, with chubby cheeks and being really small. I was recently on jury duty where we gave a guy 60 years in prison for abusing a dozen or so children, and witness testimony included families where he was starting the grooming process but didn't finish, and we also heard his own testimony. It was strange how many actions in the game were identical to things I heard that man say or heard testimony that he did, with the kids shaking and talking about their lives being ruined and not being able to trust anyone ever again, etc. And the minor grooming parts aren't necessary for the story at all; the 'innocent smart person that you're not allowed to be with' could just as easily be a celibate young adult nun or a monk, which have existed in Buddhism for centuries.

In any case, I'll finish the rest of the series, since I'm doing a survey of all the hosted games, but definitely would drop the series on my own because of the bad memories it brings up (some of the other jurors were vomiting during the trial and I was crying a lot).