This is eighth of fifteen essays contained within the fourth issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology, a collection of longform writing that seeks to expand the breadth of critical discourse around adult games and adult game culture. If you’d like to support the creation of more high-quality writing about adult games the full anthology is available for purchase on Itch! Anthology logo by Pillow!
Written By: Bigg
WARNING: This review contains discussions of eroticized sexual violence, bestiality, and sexualized characters with childlike appearances. Please read at your own discretion.
What if there was an all-babes Suikoden where everyone kept falling ass-over-teakettle into extremely sexual tentacles? The answer to this question is provided by Tsukinomizu Project in the form of their 2023 RPG, Eclipse Knight Saga ~Captive Princess Knight Mary~. This reveals to us the dangers of asking hypothetical questions willy-nilly. In all honesty, Eclipse Knight Saga is not, for the most part, a bad game. In the roughly 20 hours I played, which I’m told only brings me about a third of the way through this game’s total average playtime, I encountered some things I was modestly impressed by and more than a few things I disliked, but most of the time what I encountered was slumped-over, jaw-resting-against-my-fist, capital-B Boredom.
Everything about Eclipse Knight Saga is perfectly competent and serviceable. Its combat functions, and even possesses an identifiable difficulty curve that does demands a certain level of attention and mastery (though only up to a point – more on this later). There exists a mostly-cogent narrative (I say “mostly” because the English translation often leaves something to be desired) and the cast does include a very large number of characters (this is frequently not as much of an asset as the game seems to think it is – more on this later). If you’re in the market for a certain strain of tentacle porn, this game does contain a generous helping thereof. On the other hand, if you find tentacle porn crass and weightless as I do, that huge helping quickly starts to look less like a treat and more like a chore. Yes, you guessed it: more on this later.
All the pieces are there, everything works, and even I’m not so curmudgeonly as to deny the game its flowers for the little flourishes it adds, such as its charming combat sprites and upgradeable home base. By the standards of pornographic video games, this places it in rarefied company. And yet, as you might have gleaned from my many caveats, I would struggle to recommend it to any save a very specific few.
Continue reading “An Unenthusiastic Eclipse Knight Saga Review”