Title: Sanmai no Ofuda/三枚のおふだ
English: The Three Charms and Mountain Witch
First of all, this game is actually freaking AMAZING. You get this classic tale of came for the story, stayed for the plot. At first I was ominous(?) about the slow pace of the game and the difficult battles, but once you get over that, the STORY and even gameplay gets so great.
And by all means, at least try the game. Look at this. I mean LOOK AT IT!
Dirt cheap for the best dirt
So, this is based on a real folk story. I guess. I haven’t actually heard of it. The story goes over this trainee monk/shinto priest who goes into the mountains to look for a great priest called Dai (Great) Akemi. He wants to learn to be strong and save people from the evil yoma. So our shota priest tries and finds her, but gets lost and ends up getting into all kinds of business with bad bad yoma.
Being a little shota priest, he can’t really fight the powerful yoma. Instead he uses these seals to seal of certain parts of the yoma and tries he’s best to escape. This gets pretty complex and if you’re having a hard time (like I did), read the Strategy section I’ll be writing down below.
Seal the 50 yen deal
Gameplay is a series of dodging and battles. Basically 2 parts per character arc: dodging generic mobs maze and survival boss fight. Our protag can’t actually fight so he uses these seals.
Seals are split into three parts, Mouth, Hand and Legs. So if you think an enemy has a scary Hand, seal that shit up so they can’t move it. If they talk too much, seal that shit up!
Choppiest image quality for some reason
Moves from top to bottom: Run, Seal, Rest and Item.
Basic goal, Run far far away. But your enemy will try and stop you, so you seal them. Doing any action takes Energy, so you need to Rest or use Items. Items are hella expensive early on so learn to Rest.
IMPORTANT: Resting at 40 or below will heal very little Energy. So always try to heal at around 100 Energy to get the most out of it.
Battles are further split into two parts, the Running phase and the Grappling phase. Coming into contact with the enemy doesn’t mean you instantly lose. But now you have to struggle and escape the grapple before you can run away.
Later on, enemies also use powerful dangerous moves, but they will hint on it a turn beforehand. Also some moves break seal effects. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Characters
Shiro Nen
Resident shota protag. Baddies are attracted to him and wants his babies. The usual affair. He’s fragile and weak, but he gets major character development. You end up feeling proud of this lil guy.
Mangatsu
Best waifu in the game and I don’t care what the polls say. Devillishly hawt and smexy mmhh. Geez you should see her H-scenes – HNNGGGHHHH!!!
If you ever played MGQ, she’s basically Alice. The all-powerful boss that helps you out in your journey. She doesn’t necessarily follow you throughout the whole journey but she pops in after every arc to remind you of how hot she is.
We meet her early on and she gives our shota the seals so he doesn’t outright lose to everybody.
Kitsune
Furry in heat. There’s lots of them. And by lots I mean LOTS. But there’s only 1 Kitsune that matters and that’s Kistune Bride. Wants to marry our shota and conceive his children after he saves him from a bear trap. They all look alike but the protag somehow knows which is his bride.
She’ll be the first boss encounter you find, but before you get to her, you have to go through a gauntlet of Kitsunes. I think she mainly uses Hand moves, but I can’t remember for certain.
Kitsune is relatively tame and is fine for starting out the game. The boss fkin killed me though and I literally ragequit the game for 2 weeks before coming back to finish the game in like 1 sitting. Maybe I’m just dumb, but the game has a difficulty explaining its own mechanics.
Yamachihi
Don’t know what she is but she’s great. Her character is moe as fuck just like her design, whatever it is. She’s a flying bat that uses tentacles to fly around. Big boobies and gets big points from me.
Uses Hand moves to fly around. Her wings are on her hands. Also has really dangerous legs. And can suck you in with her breath but that’s generally not as annoying.
She starts off as a pesky ninja but through the story, falls in love with our protag in the most adorable way. Ends up wanting him to be his master, following the Shinobi code and all that jazz. Really love her as a character. She’s just so cute and ends all her sentences with “degozaru”.
Akaname
Our protag saves her from being stuck in a river and she tries to “repay” him to the best of her ability. There’s a bunch of other akaname but this one is special and ends up becoming our protag’s friend with benefits.
She has pesky tongue moves but as one of the later bosses, she’s pretty predictable at that point.
There’s also one other character, but I’m not spoiling this great game for you. Go play it and find out.
Strategy
So the game’s not easy. And the slow pace makes it feel worse. Pro strategy guide, hold Ctrl to skip through text (and H-scenes. They take awhile). F12 resets the game in case you mess up. Which you will mess up. Just be careful not to Ctrl skip during Battles as you might miss important cues.
So, before we get into battle strats, maze strats. Try to always come out of an encounter with more than 100 Energy. Otherwise life will be shit.
Resting is important. Rest at 100 or more to heal to max Energy. 70ish should be as low as you go unless you really need to Seal something off. If you Rest at yellow Energy (40 and below), you basically heal around 10 Energy when you usually heal 70+. So try and avoid that.
Seals, seals, seals. For the most part, most enemies only require 1 seal. Unless they go into grapple mode, and these include bosses. Later on, enemies give cues for special attacks so watch out for that and seal the part accordingly. They’ll get stunned and you get some time to Rest up.
If you Seal too many parts, they get mad and break out of it. Boss fights break out of seals frequently and watch/read the cue for that. It’s usually an extra line before an attack that does quite a bit of Energy damage.
That’s why you should always try and stay above 100 Energy. Because you need to immediately reseal, but you need enough energy to keep fighting.
Early on Items are expensive. Buy a few big ones to save you out of a tight boss fight and some small ones for use if you get a bad encounter fight.
Nice jugs… I mean hugs!
The way boss fights work, are that you have to escape the Grapple position 3 times. Be careful that certain bosses have more dangerous body parts if they’re in Grapple mode.
As far as I remember:
Kitsune: Hand/Mouth
Yamachichi: Hand, Mouth in grapple, Legs (super)
Akaname: Mouth, Legs or Mouth (super)
Just watch out for the cues. Use your machine translator and read properly. Dont skip.
Be careful of moves that break them out of their seals. These generally do more damage and have extra text. Always stay healthy and reapply seals.
Summary
Game’s great. The story is amazing. It’s cheap as fck. Go play it.
The only qualm I have with it is the frustrations with battle and maybe how slow battle/H-scenes move. But once you get the hang of it, it gets so much easier.
And again, the story is amazing. Art fits perfectly and should honestly cost way more than it is. To be fair, the devs wanted to put alot of other stuff in the game, but they didn’t have the opportunity to. You can check it out here along with the new game their making: http://b.dlsite.net/RG37422/
Characters are so lovable and oh so much character development. It’s a great 5 hourish game. Go buy it and support this masterpiece.
Reno-kun 