In my last review I mentioned that there was already a new game Kagura Games released and this time I will talk about it – Sister Travel. Which is also being sold by our friends over at JAST USA.
(In the meantime Kagura Games released the sequel to the popular Slave’s Sword, not to mention that Leanna’s Slice of Life is scheduled for March 8th. Will I ever be able to keep up?!)
You can probably guess one half of the game from the title, but the other half not so much, so let’s start talking about what you can expect in this game.
You are the “Brother” (you can change the name for self-insert purposes, but all the characters will still call you “big bro”) and you’re traveling through the land in search of adventures and treasures … with your sisters.
Let’s make this clear, so there are no misunderstandings. Brother is a perverted wannabe harem leader who also happens to have a little sister fetish. That means he sees all the girls around him as his sisters and he wants to be addressed as “big bro” by them.
So yeah, there is no actual incest in this game! It’s all just light-hearted roleplaying.
Personally, I didn’t find the sister-fetish too obtrusive. If it’s not your thing, it’s possible to see the Brother and the “sisters” he cares for as a normal harem relationship. If you however like being called a big brother, you will have an even better time with these girls.
Speaking of girls, let’s talk about the other half of Sister Travel that might not have been so obvious from the title alone – Monster Girls!
Yes, this is a monster girl RPG! And guess what – they all call you big brother, too!
Sister Travel doesn’t look like other HRPGs you might have played. Most other games are either made with the help of the RPG Maker or other WYSIWYG engines and use the standard features that come with them.
Sister Travel is a bit different. Even though it uses the Wolf RPG Editor, other games by Kagura Games like Fallen – Makina and the City of Ruins or Treasure Hunter Claire are also using it. It doesn’t rely on it too much and therefore looks and feels unique.
The first thing you’ll notice when starting Sister Travel is how immersive the game is.
One reason for this is the excellent writing which is very descriptive, and the narration also addresses you as the player directly. The other reasons are the superb visuals and sound design.
Just look at the screenshots. The colors are gentle and soft, like an untainted world ready to explore.
Exploring is done by using a cursor on a map-like background (which can be an aerial shot or a side-view which actual characters in it). Depending on where the cursor is you might hear a river flowing or grass rustling or even a blacksmith smiting on an anvil.
Even though this might sound a bit cheap and I’m sure many of you think now “I’d rather move my character through the map than a cursor,” it isn’t bad at all. It works perfectly with the second-person narration describing where you are and what you see.
This style of storytelling reminded me more of something you read in an old school WRPG than a JRPG which is also something you don’t see very often anymore nowadays.
Comparing this beautifully presented world with the actual characters who live in it might even come off as a bit jarring at times when you remember that this is still a harem hentai game after all. And because the brother character has an actual personality and is not a blank slate, it can be pretty hard to self-insert into this world at times. In the end, it isn’t as bad as it sounds.
Yes, the brother is the typical harem lead who is always looking for innocent virgins he can bed. However, his lecherousness seems so pure-hearted that it’s quite fun to see him act like this around the girls.
His synergy with his sisters is also very nice. Even though we can be sure he’s going to get in their panties at some point, the banter before and after and in-between is always entertaining and amusing. As I previously mentioned, not only human girls are accompanying him.
Brother and his sisters will often find monsters (the in-game term for a monster girl) when they explore the wilderness, and because Brother doesn’t like to kill cute things, he will instead adopt them into his sister harem after he beat them in a fight.
After they became his sisters, Brother can equip the monster girls’ essence to be able to use their specific monster girl skills in combat.
Brother and his human and monster sisters will stay at an inn which also gives him repeatable quests he must accomplish to earn money. Staying at the in costs money every day for everyone in his harem, so he needs to make some progress every day, or he might not be able to afford it anymore. Quests can only be accepted in exchange for a Quest Ticket which is of limited availability. He also has to spend money on equipment for himself and his party members to keep up with the enemies.
At the beginning of every new day, every party member gets action points they can spend during the day. Exploring particular locations on the map or fighting a battle will cost an action point. If all points are spent the character becomes fatigued and will be extremely debuffed in every ensuing battle until the party calls it a day and rests at the inn.
All the map screens have multiple points of interest you can explore by moving your cursor on them. There are gathering points where you can find items, places where enemies can often be encountered, or the location point might even be the entrance to a bigger dungeon. And if you’re lucky, it could also be the hideout of another monster girl.
Sadly, you often don’t know which location point will cost you an action point, and some battles will surprise you, so managing your action points for the day isn’t so easy.
Battles are pretty straight-forward. All your party members have regular attacks and can use personal skills and skills they equipped by spending skill points. Party members can be very different: For example, some are for fighting, others work better as dedicated healers.
The gameplay is simple but cleverly implemented. Doing quests and exploring the surroundings won’t get boring or become a grinder. There is always something new to discover.
Which brings me to the next point which surprised me pleasantly; the game is full with character dialogue, story events or other things to find.
You’d think a game based around doing quests and earning money would try to go the lazy route, but not Sister Travel. There is always something happening – be it a new character, a new location to explore or a story event that might even change your daily routine for a bit.
I won’t talk about the story here because, in a game that focusses on exploration, it’s something you should discover for yourself.
What you should know before you’re going on your Sister Travel is that you definitely want to install the uncut patch, if you happened to buy the game on Steam. Not only does the all-ages version of the game cut even innocent slice of life scenes that happen to show a CG of a cute sister, but you will also lose quite a bit EXP which you will normally get for completing an H-Scene.
Speaking of, let’s talk about the H-Scenes now. The hentai in this game is pretty vanilla but thanks to the funny characters and the light-hearted but pretty perverted mood of the game it’s very entertaining and pleasant to read nonetheless. (Assuming vanilla hentai is something you don’t like… if you are an innocent soul, then even better!)
The only slight disappointment for me was the monster girl sex. They just act too much like human girls for my taste. In my opinion, mating with monster girls should be more … animalistic. But hey, this is, after all, a pretty light-hearted game. And lewd are all the little sisters anyway, so I’m happy and satisfied. And I think you’ll probably be too.
Sister Travel is unlike most other games we’ve seen localized in English so far which is probably its biggest strength. It’s full of story content, exploration, monster girls and other sisters. And hentai. And sisters.
If you’ve played many doujin games already and feel slightly bored because of they all kind of resemble each other in some way, try Sister Travel for a change of pace. If not, buy Sister Travel anyway because it’s one of the best H-RPGs we got so far.
