This 3rd title of the Sakura series from Winged Cloud features Raelin, a young aspiring novice knight with a special gift in farseeing who is training together with her best friend Gwynne, a fellow novice knight and scribe under their instructor Keira. One night, a falling star landed in the Mires. Afterwards, the empress Ardena came to seek out Raelin to find the fallen star together with Gwynne and Keira. Over the course of the story, Raelin with interact with Gwynne, Keira, Ardena, a young native Ethy, an unnamed guardsman, a slime and tentacle monster and a siege monster in a heart-warming tale of friendship, love, courage, resourcefulness, and heroism.
The story and plot is written like a romantic comedy with a share of humour and fan service. As one of the earlier visual novels in Steam back in 2015, Sakura Fantasy is one of those few visual novels to bring adult yuri content (an uncensored patch is available for download at the developer's Patreon page for the Steam version) and voice acting back when there were very few such visual novels in Steam during that time period. In addition, the game has great artwork by Wanaca in the game and soundtrack cover, CGs, Steam badges and profile backgrounds making it attractive to showcase on profile. The background music by Zack Parrish are also great by containing a mix of pleasant and stirring piano, wind, and string instruments which are appropriate for the medieval fantasy themes in the story.
I chose the protagonist of this visual novel to be my waifu (favorite female character) and avatar at Sinical Network because she is a plucky heroine who is also beautiful, cute, funny, resourceful, and loyal to her friends and lovers.
Sadly, this game ended on an unfinished ending with very little hope for a sequel where the expedition did not reach the fallen star and there was also an undeveloped plot hook involving Keira's missing sister. To make matters worse, the voice actresses featured in this game has been reported to have parted ways with Winged Cloud making this game the last visual novel to ever feature voice acting among all of Winged Cloud's games. Sakura Angels and free to play clicker game Sakura Clicker are the other two titles that include voice acting.
Despite its premise as a short visual novel with fanservice and adult yuri content that will only take a few hours to read and listen through, Sakura Fantasy is one of Winged Cloud's best visual novels to date with an endearing female protagonist where every main female character genuinely cares about her and is protective of her in the entire visual novel. It also has great voice acting, artwork, and background music to make this visual novel stand out and remain an unforgettable classic among many of Winged Cloud's other titles. For those who don't mind the unfinished ending, controversies, and short length of this visual novel, this game is highly recommended when at a very attractive discount or bundle offer of a few dollars in price at most.
Initial gameplay video on YouTube by Ross Senpai
Nutaku game page (Contain NSFW content)