So my first ever hentai game was Utawarerumono. It was one of the first three anime I had ever seen that wasn’t on TV, and so it has something of a special place in my heart. So when the anime for the sequel was coming up, I was excited. Then it became straight hot springs and character introductions for 6 episodes and I never came back. Ignored the games when they came west.

Later on I would learn why the anime was like that, but at that point I was pretty invested in actual porn. But now that Uta 2 has come to Steam, I thought it was about time I corrected myself and played these, though I would have thought they would have more fanservice. The anime was like 75% hot spring time, but this? Less then 5.

Also, only Mask of Deception for now. Because of save game bonus I decided to get them out separately.

I’m going to start with the combat, since between the two titles it stays basically the same. In fact, it’s mostly just a revamped version of the original Utaware’s mechanics, with way more bells and whistles. The elemental system is back, where every character has an element and are just strong or weak to other people. Now there’s a bunch of passive skills that make fights more dynamic, while also keeping the multi hit action command mechanics, but now you can end the combo whenever and each characters gets multiple combo’s. This is important because of the zeal mechanic. Every character gains zeal based on hits and attacks done, and hitting 100 gives them another turn instantly in which they can now do their ultimates or just go about a normal turn. The thing is, some parts of a characters combo cost them zeal to use in exchange for higher damage or status effects so it’s a good idea to pay attention to your options and choose appropriately. For the main story battles, you can just get away with doing full combos and not paying much attention to zeal, even on hard, but in the post game fights you will want to pay attention to your resources as everyone starts 1 or 2 shotting each other.

Thankfully the game gives some good information options. You see the base damage you give or receive before any attack without action command bonuses. You have the forecast screen that lets you see what each part of the combo will do and cost(with good action commanding doing more damage then forecasted). You can replay turns after attacks, even going back multiple turns to fine tune your strategy. If you fail the fight you can go back to any turn to try again or restart and keep the xp you gained, just like the original game. You also have the BP buy system where you can up stats on top of stats gained from leveling, though unlike the original there’s no way to increase gained BP. You just get the amount that fight rewards. New to Utaware is equipment, letting you give people passives they don’t usually learn, such as dodging or not dying once. In the gameplay department, this is a straight up improvement over the original game in every way.

The only downside is the lack of actual combat to actually play with. In the main story of Mask of Deception there are only 17 battles, and then you have the 16 post game extras that exist solely for achievements and setting things up for save transfer. You can replay fights whenever, but since xp is mainly gained from first time map clears and enemy xp is based on level difference, there’s little reason outside of BP or item grinding to replay maps. And for Deception at least, only the characters you bring get the map clear bonus, meaning once you have more people then you can field you have to leave people out and they are not catching up without grinding.

The one big change between Truth and Deception that’s apparent right from the start is that support skills now give xp. Meaning your healer can actually heal and not fall behind the rest of the group. Also, everyone gains amp clear xp after a win and not just the active party, meaning there’s basically a base level the entire party will be. So no one’s left behind/useless.

I don’t want to talk about the story to much, as that’s really the main reason to play this. I will say that having basically a Neet as a protagonist is different, though it doesn’t work well with protagonist charisma. There’s at least a plot reason as to why so many men and women just like Haku, despite him pissing off a decent chunk of those people almost daily. So Mask of Deception is a setup game to the actual main story in Mask of Truth, which means a lot of Deception is almost exposition and character stores. The real plot doesn’t get going until 75% or so through the game, and a decent chunk of that is slice of life stuff. That’s where the comedy and fanservice mostly exists, as the writers filled the first half of the game with a bunch of throwaway bonding stuff for the main team in what can feel like straight filler, which I honestly can’t get mad at as it helps make Deception feel slightly less empty. After all, if this game was just straight the setup for Mask of Truth, about 10 hours of the game would be cut and the stinger at the end wouldn’t hurt as much.

As for the actual plot, our protagonist wakes up in a patient’s gown on a snowy mountain, about to freeze to death. Then a giant preying mantis almost kill him. He falls off a cliff to escape only for the mantis to show back up. Then a slime eats the mantis and right before the slime eats our protagonist, a girl flash bombs the slime and saves him. They escape and the girl introduces herself as Kuon, and after learning the man has no memories names him Haku and eventually gives him the metal fan everyone who knows Utaware 1 knows of. It’s really obvious who Kuon is, and she basically sets the time span from Uta 1 to this game as around 15-20 years.

So after learning that Haku is horribly weak compared to the tailed people of this world, Kuon learns that he’s actually pretty smart but really lazy. Having become his guardian, Kuon decides to take him to the capital of this land, Yamato, to help Haku find an actual job or way to support himself. After deciding this, a man named Ukon enters the inn with his men. Ukon ends up hiring the two as extra guards after some stuff happens and after finally making it to the capital, Ukon makes them his agents to help the common people. Basically, for a majority of the game your team is something of a shadow squad for a member of the big military names in town. As Haku and Kuon do this, people join up because of Kuon getting them in. Despite the game acting like Haku is why the team has come together, he’s really just the tactician. Kuon does most of the recruiting.

Eventually big things happen, but really you should read/watch those yourself. It takes a long while to get good and really it only becomes truly interesting in the last 2-3 hours. A lot of the rest is slice of life, some fanservice(7 cgs out of 48 are what I would consider sexual at all, most focused on hot spring or bathing stuff), and harem shenanigans because of course Haku gets an unwanted harem. Honestly there’s a lot of moments where the game feels like it was suppose to be a porn game at some point, where it’s one step away from sex of some sort. Like near the beginning, Kuon gets really interested in seeing Haku naked, so she peaks on him in the bath. She never does anything like this again, and never reacts or shows interest in men again for the most part. Like they intended for that stuff to go somewhere but just dropped it for the nagging wife style character Kuon becomes for a majority of the game. Not that other characters don’t pick up the slack, like the twins whose whole character is wanting sex with Haku. They do plot important things, but their personalities can be summed up as subservient and want sex. They get old really quick.

Also, this game does the thing the original Utaware does when it comes to plot progression. instead of having a seamless plot, you are given choices of where to go at several points. None of these choices matter, because you have to do them all. It just makes the events disjointed.

Nothing much else to say. Don’t play this for fanservice. It really doesn’t deliver. Watch the anime instead if you want this plot with max nudity. This was the first game for the blog where playing with the dlc broke saves, so I didn’t bother. Really would have liked to play with Tama-Nee in my party, but eh. Doesn’t really change anything.

PC Save for Utawarerumono 2: Mask of Deception

Save is ready for all import bonuses into Mask of Truth(1 of every equipment, one character to 50 for double xp item and one character BP bonus max for double BP item). Has everything else unlocked as well. Only save is to the end of the game, so if you want to do any fights or see the ultimates, you can.

Do note, if you are going for every piece of equipment yourself, that stages decide their item drops on the stage select screen. So if you hit replay after doing a map, it will drop the same items. The enemy stats and weaknesses also don’t get shuffled if you hit replay if you want to grind anything.

Gameplay: 7/10 Eroticness: 3/10 Story: 6/10

Completion: What it took-

Just beat the game and the post game. No gimmicks.