Samurai Maiden is exactly what you expect. It’s a raunchy, shameless, action-packed anime adventure with a miniscule budget and all the predictable tropes you’d want from a game like this. The marketing revolved around all of its main female characters being super gay for one another should have been a fairly obvious sign, but here I am still shocked by its boldness. Within moments, I was fighting demons and being a giant lesbian, and sometimes that sort of thing is just what you need. It isn’t good nor groundbreaking, but it’s weirdly fun.

Because I am a raging homosexual, the folks over at D3Publisher offered me an exclusive preview to mark the game’s Japanese release, so I’ve spent the last week isekai-ing my ass into oblivion to hang out with cool samurai homies as we team up to save the universe from demonic destruction. I’ll be blunt - it isn’t the best thing I’ve ever played, but there remains a nostalgic charm to my shameful teenage weeaboo days that was a joy to revisit, even if I’m slightly taken aback that games like this are still being made. Those after a musou-lite with plenty of cutesy social elements will find a lot to love here, even if part of me was wishing for a more authentic queer romance that wasn’t underpinned by heteronormative fan service.

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You play as Tsumugi Tamaori, an average zoomer high schooler who also happens to be trained in the art of sword fighting. She even carries a katana with her at all times, which is some serious commitment to the craft. One day she - alongside several other cute girls - is transported to Sengoku Era Japan where they meet up with legendary figure Nobunaga Oda as he’s doing battle with an ominous demon lord. I’m fairly sure history doesn’t recall him hanging out with a bunch of teenage lesbians, but I can allow such liberties for the sake of storytelling. After bashing through a bunch of tutorials and meeting all four of the main girls, Samurai Maiden takes on a relatively formulaic mission structure you’d see in most musou.

Missions often involve running through a linear sequence of environments, killing everyone in your path, and stepping through whatever door opens. Different characters will join you on each mission, offering optional attacks and items often used to create space or deal crucial damage to hordes of foes. Iyo can throw out lethal bombs that explode across the map, even if she often doesn’t get out of the way in time and ends up taking damage. Hagane is dommy mommy with a robotic hand that can stretch forward and unleash a flurry of lightning, while Komini is a grumpy fox girl wielding a colossal hammer that can dole out ice attacks. There is a decent amount of variety here, and the controls are slick enough that switching between supporting characters and having them back you up in the right ways is a breeze.

However, at least after a few hours of play, I haven’t come across many situations where stun-locking larger enemies and spamming items at smaller ones isn’t the easiest route to victory. Perhaps as I meet more characters and expand my repertoire things will improve, since that’s a key part of the game’s sapphic social system. Each character comes with a gauge that represents their relationship with you, and each mission will see it increase as you unlock small little visual-novel-esque events that might have you train together, go on dates, or share silly little memories about their own worlds.

It’s cute, but like so many games of this ilk, the queerness is represented through shy blushes and comments instead of anything definitive. There’s even an “it’s okay since we’re both girls!” line which had me rolling my eyes, hoping that maybe we’d move past this. We haven’t, with Samurai Maiden being firmly stuck in the past. It’s still cute and charming, but ultimately quite hollow.

Completing these events also expands the combat system, offering Tsumugi new combo strings and abilities that meant I wasn’t spamming the same three moves over and over. Each character seems to come with their own speciality, so in theory you could pick which one to prioritise while progressing through the campaign. It isn’t especially deep, but there’s a hook that so far has kept me invested, even if the core narrative is rote and merely a way for all this fanservice to have an outlet. Then again, this is precisely what I expected from a game like this, and given what it aims to achieve, I’m having a gay ol’ time regardless.

I’m not convinced the experience is going to get any more nuanced or surprising as I move forward, but all the cute character moments and chaotic combat encounters are helping Samurai Maiden feel like a passable little musou title with a neat queer twist. It doesn’t seem interested in fleshing many of its characters out beyond tired archetypes, and the fanservice here is the last thing I want to see from a game in 2022 when sapphic storytelling has made leaps and bounds elsewhere, but this is a switch your brain off kinda deal, and sure knows it.

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