You know how people love to put on action movies and just stop thinking for a little while? We would never have gotten four Transporter movies if people were heavily invested in plot and logic. Sometimes, for games, I like to do the same and just exist. But, as much as I love my roguelikes and twinstick shooters, my real deadspace enjoyment comes from otome games. I will never be a beautiful but oblivious girl who is surrounded by pretty boys vying for my affection, and I’m pretty certain I don’t want to be. But when Idea Factory and Otomate brings me a title where I get to be a ninja from the Tokugawa Shogunate, who’s also a single and proud woman who happens to be surrounded by hotties, I wrap up in a blanket, grab a 7% acerola chu-hi, and lose myself in Homura: The Crimson Warriors.

I cannot wait till one of these hotties decides I’m worth their attention!

Nobushige Sanada, a real historical figure, is preparing to stage a final, defiant stand against the Tokugawa clan and participate in a very real battle that shaped the final stages of the Edo period. Before he and his loyal followers can depart on this incredible period of history, a lone ninja suddenly arrives, bearing a scroll that informs Sanada that she is now part of his command and will serve him faithfully. You, that ninja (named Mutsumi), is no kunoichi – a female ninja who seduces targets. You’re strong and skilled and you have a level of loyalty that comes only from knowing the importance of your clan and the future of Japan. It doesn’t matter that Sanada sama is a hottie with four equally attractive dudes around him, and they all have different levels of indifference to you. No matter, you’re here to defend Japan, there’s no time for romance…right?

Homura: The Crimson Warriors is a beefy visual novel feast with an awkward balance of choices, “action” and results. As per most otome titles, you’ve got a common route that will remain mostly unchanged regardless of your answers and does a good job of laying the groundwork for what’s to come. Once you pass chapter 4, you’re now bound to run alongside one of the five main male leads with hopes to discover romance and a happy ending that may or may not signal the end of the Edo era and the beginning of the Meiji’s long stamp on Japanese history. Or you end up getting killed because this is a story based around an actual battle. If you’re hoping to get exceptionally granular with your romance and development, though, you’ll be in for a bit of a disappointment, as Homura takes both the realistic and unrealistic aspects of the tale very seriously.

“Sometimes I have to drink a lot of pineapple juice first.”

For one, most of the conversations, arguments and monologues focus on the empire of Japan itself and the final push against the Toyotomi. When I dipped into the fantastically fun but historically broken Samurai Maiden, the developers wasted no time in taking you off the beaten path of history and quickly devolving into an alt world full of demons, yuri and yuri demons. By comparison, Otomate does an incredible job of weaving together aspects and details of the world and the environment that keep the factual, authentic pieces of the story firmly in place. All of the characters and such are lifted almost directly from Brave 10, which is, itself, a rather marvelous piece of historical fiction. With so much dedication to keeping things congruent with the world of the time, it’s shocking that we bring in necromancy so early.

Homura can’t seem to keep itself straight in what it’s doing for storytelling tone and direction. With Idea Factory’s Birushana, there was always a constant throughline of hidden femininity and a Mulan adjacent tale. You could appreciate moments of brevity as it felt organic with the story beats. With Homura, nothing ever gets goofy or silly, but you are clearly experiencing an in-depth tale of honor, loyalty and duty alongside an analysis of what it means to break the laws of nature and decorum to win. Early sparring matches and patrols become bereft with chaos once you realize your opponents, the Ura Yagyu and their horrifying Onibi warriors, not only can raise the dead, but actually animate supersoldiers to do their dirty work, and may even be led by a sort of lich. It’s wild and frankly compelling storytelling with so much happening that I frankly forgot that I’m trying to discover the love of my life on the battlefield.

This is where the wheels start to come off, sadly, is the actual romantic engagement. Don’t get me wrong, all the pieces are there to make this a romantic and engrossing tale. You’ve got all the archetypes you could ask for: the pink haired himbo, the blond who actually treats you like a human but wields a gun, the borderline sadist who sort of makes you tingle, a dude who pretends he couldn’t care less but also loves his pet monkey, and Sanada himself, who is busy trying to run everything and also figure out WHY his former clan sent him a capable but sort of useless ninja girl. You’ve got plenty of stills and cutscenes where innocuous moments of training and engagement suddenly become near-sensual embraces with lots of eye contact and blushing. You’ve got some super obvious choices to make to woo a dude. And you’ve got…ninja actions.

Despite the graphic, the question is “which to protect,” not “which to stab.”

The ninja actions of Homura were my first complaint. You need to essentially “pass” some ninja training at the beginning and this influences how you do further “ninja” activities later on throughout the game. But it’s not clear what is or isn’t the right choice, and you don’t realize until literal hours later that maybe rushing forward WAS correct based on how combat is going now. Since you’re still doing a visual novel interface (choose an option, watch it play out) all of the thrill of ninja action is nonexistent no matter how much we want to use kunai as indicator objects. Plus, though it’s a mandatory aside, it doesn’t seem to actually affect the endings in terms of romance.

Additionally, you have so much downtime between engagements with your boys that you start to lose interest and also often forget what you need to say to help warm up their heart blossoms and rings more. I did appreciate that Homura broke the 4th wall and made it so the MC can see the rings of emotion around people as part of her very special ninja abilities, which justifies engaging with characters in a more “I’m trying to figure out how you feel about me” way. Combined with the flash of animation when you say the right thing, the actual moments of connection are obvious and satisfying, but I was doing a lot of quick save/load because I couldn’t remember what might be the right thing to say or do.

That’s my man, acting like Beavis while this demon bitch slaps the crap out of me.

This, of course, comes against some top notch vocal performances and artwork. Did you like Crow from Persona 5 Royal? Good news, he’s here being smarmy and infuriatingly hot as the pink haired boy. Kikuko Inoue, who is one of the GOATs for voice acting, is playing one of the most uncomfortably toned antagonists that I’ve come across in an otome game. Everyone’s pitch perfect from the inappropriate monk to the actual pet monkey I mentioned (of course the monkey is voiced!) and it builds a phenomenal soundscape. While the music is more atmospheric and simple (though the opening song is a damn banger), I was able to enjoy the literal storytelling enough that I didn’t mind the lack of animation for the mouths and body when they were speaking. I’ve gone back and forth enough to decide that I need to hear the speaking, I don’t need lips moving.

While all of the routes have their advantages and disadvantages, I really enjoyed Juzo’s exploration, and not just because he was the easiest to unlock. There’s just something wonderful about a man who didn’t automatically assume I was the worst at my job because I had boobs that kept me locked in from the very beginning. Plus, we’re essentially fighting zombies for a good majority of the story. Oneechanbara might be a fun concept, but I’ll take a gun over a sword any day of the week to deal with the dead. You’ll need to play through everything to 100% the artwork and fill the gallery, but Juzo’s the best path to get the story and a bit of something on the side.

Though Kamanosuke is a very, very close second.

While it’s not my favorite of all time, Homura: The Crimson Warriors was a fun bit of escapism from everything else that surprised me with plenty of action and excitement that I wasn’t ready for. We have a good female lead, a compelling story, and a solid addition that reminds me why I really enjoy Idea Factory 90% of the time. The carnage, the historical information and, of course, the lovely bits of affection that get your pulse racing. If you’re interested in your quest for romance to get a bit bloody, I’d say Homura is a fantastic “slice” of life. 

Homura: The Crimson Warriors is available now on Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Homura: The Crimson Warriors was provided by the publisher.