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RPG ADV Localization [Karin Project, SofthouseChara, English Translation by Johren] Suzukuri Dungeon: Karin in the Mountain


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stashar

Jungle Girl
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Plot: Demon Queen "Karin" (yes, from Koihime Musou but not really) wants to get resurrected after 1000 years of slumber. The H-Protagonist is drafted into her Dungeon-building team and loves dungeons so much he accepts the job on the spot. By expanding the dungeon, Karin's "orbs" are found, allowing her to resurrect. IMO, the plot is leaning too heavily upon "slice of life" tropes that feels like filler rather than character development.

Fetishes: Yuri, Loli, almost entirely wholesome vanilla setups but in various positions (cowgirl, 69, threesome, doggy style etc. etc.). The most hardcore this gets is maybe 2 or 3 scenes of light bondage/BDSM/spanking, but everything sex-related was consensual. A lot of endings are wholesome / non-fap material.

Description of Gameplay:

The visual novel aspect that plays out as you'd expect: Allies of the Demon Queen come as the story progresses. If you increase their "Talk" value enough, and you'll receive H-scenes, eventually culminating in their specific heroine ending. There are also 4 heroine adventurers (who will never work with you: and instead serve as powerful "bosses"), as well as 2x side characters from the first two nearby towns. All in all, you have the 5-Heroines in the dungeon, +4 Adventurer Heroines, and finally Demon Lord Karin herself.

For the gameplay loop itself: I'd describe this game as 80% RPG-based New Game+ looped "Tower Defense". The dungeon is 3-rooms wide, and enemies start at the entrance, and randomly walk towards the "hoard" (a collection of gold you put at the end to entice adventurers into coming in). Adventurers take a random path between the rooms. The interesting thing is that you're not necessarily trying to kill all enemies... but you instead want to maximize the "strength" and "fun" values of every single adventurer.

For example: defeating an adventurer with a "Boss Monster" is +45 strength rating, but defeating them with a named character (Kazuko or one of your squads) is only a +30 strength rating. Furthermore: there's all sorts of "suboptimal" rooms such as healing rooms and other "fun" rooms (a Casino) that serve very little purpose... but the reliable +Fun value can make them more than worthwhile if you're confident you can stop these adventurers anyway. Traps are a bit unusual in that they offer both +Strength and +Fun simultaneously. All enemies have a %Dodge for "Boss", "Trap", and "Rooms", so a mix of all room types is needed if you really want to optimize your score. In any case, +10 Fun is just as worthwhile as +10 strength, and its often much more reliable to increase 'Fun'.

You invite adventurers to your dungeon by "advertising" at a local city. As such, you have as much time as you'd like to prepare the dungeon. Wasting time by "resting" lowers the level of cities, meaning your next attack will be weaker.

Its impossible to get far in this game in your first playthrough. Its just simply numerically impossible. The only way to make progress is to repeatedly New Game+ your data. Fortunately, the "Scene Skip" button is extremely fast, making repeat playthroughs pretty quick.

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I'll post a strategy guide in a later post.
 
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Tips for playing:

You start with only 14 turns before game over. To continue the game, you MUST raise dungeon level to level 5, 10, 15, 20... etc. etc.

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As you can see, you get +5 turns at level 5, and another +5 turns at level 10. You get "Dungeon Experience Points" based off of the "Strength", "Fun", and "Rating" (E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, and SSS) of the enemies who come to the dungeon.

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You start the game with 2-leaders: Kazuko and Houkei. As you progress through the game, Karon, Keifa, Shunran, and Shuuran join. You can place a Leader+Squad combo in any "Combat Room" in your dungeon. You will find that these combat rooms will serve as the biggest source of "DPS" available.

Kazuko -- +Squad size bonuses.
Houkei -- Heals all adjacent leaders every 5 turns.
Karon -- +Critical damage randomly. Every 5 combat turns grant a cumulative +3% Defense boost. (+6% after 10 combat turns. +9% after 15 combat turns, etc. etc.)
Keifa -- Debuffs Attack + Ranged attacker.
Shunran -- +Attack randomly. "First Strike", if she defeats an opponent, they get no chance to deal damage to her.
Shuuran -- Debuffs Defense + Ranged Attacker

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I've collected many, many items and leveled up significantly. Every character has:

1. Level -- You can only increase level with experience points. Experience points seem to come from attacks, number of enemies defeated, and possibly damage dealt? Hard to see exactly, lots of things are going on.

2. "Upgrade Stats" -- By spending rare gems + gold, you can straight up increase a unit's HP by 200ish and Attack by 50-ish damage.

3. "Limit Break" -- You can't break through level 30 until you limit break. Additional limit breaks at 50, 70, 80, and 90. Level 99 is max. Limit break 1, 2, and 3 will result in buffing the #1 skill of any leader, while Limit break 1, 2 will buff the #1 skill of any squad-member.

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The Compass is extremely expensive and requires the rare "Silver Bead" item. Due to the rarity of this item, you'll need maybe 5 or 6 playthroughs before you can complete the Compass. Your Leader's secondary skill is locked behind here, as well as the "Boss" rooms (some of the best damage-dealing rooms available).

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Rooms:

1. Rooms -- Yes, poorly named. "Rooms" focus primarily on +Fun value. Casinos, Fishing Holes, Workout Rooms, Medical Centers. These provide +Fun to adventurers, but have almost no damage options available. There are also "Maintenance Rooms" (+Healing to traps / rooms), and other such "utility" functions.

2. Traps -- Mostly +Strength, but a touch of +Fun as well. Traps will deal damage and almost always have a secondary effect. The Log-trap sends enemies back to the entrance for example.

3. Bosses -- Only available from the Compass menu. These rooms provide some of the best +Strength and +Fun values, while dealing significant amounts of damage (and sometimes debuffs!!) to large groups of enemies.

4. Combat -- A Combat room is an even 1000 gold for a location where one of your 6 leaders + squads defends.

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Squad members come as you play through the game, and are retained in New Game+. They have 2 personal skills +1 leader skill. The "leader skill" is granted to the leader (!!!), making the combinations of units quite important.

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Squad members have a unit count: stronger squads tend to be smaller (maybe 1 or 2 total units). So if an enemy defeats just 1 or 2 of them, they're out. Weaker squads come in more plentiful (3, 4, 5 unit counts).

Trya here is one of the best DPS squad mates you can get, but has low defense / damage cut%. The 12-units is because of Kazuko's endgame level buff (+7 units to anyone Kazuko equips).

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* Tail -- Available from Dark Woods level 20, Tail's stats are about middle-of-the-road for squads. However, her "Full Power I" bonus of +30% attack and +30% defense on leaders with max HP is outstanding. Combos great with "backline" leaders, either your archers (Keifa or Shuuran), or your "final leader" (Karin serves as a good final leader due to her +3% defense every /5 turn self-buff)

* Midari -- Available from Countryside level 20, Midari's "Blaze Kick" skill is perhaps your earliest source of AoE damage.

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Golem is an endgame beast. It takes a while to reach high level, but 76% damage cut is quite good. Endgame enemies have "penetrating strike" so they ignore defense, but this thing serves as a great "wall" in front of your archer units for all other enemies.

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Visual Novel notes:

* Bad Endings A, B, C, C', and D happen at various stages of the game where your hoard is broken into and is destroyed. Don't let that happen (unless you're collecting events).

* Endings A, B, C, C', and D are as follows: Turn over (early game), Turn over (middle game), Lose to the True End final boss, Karin's normal ending, and Win vs True End Final Boss.

* Most Heroine Endings are pretty straightforward-- Keep talking and follow the directions listed on their Talk pages.

* Fuu's got a "True End" -- Fully resurrect Karin while Fuu is at Conversation level 15, then read Conversation 16, 17, and ending.

* Karin's got a "True End" -- I don't understand how I unlocked it however. :-(

* Adventurers -- Visiting the "Highway" will get you +scenes for Minmei and Shishun. Visiting the "Capital" repeatedly will get you +scenes for Shaoren.

* Renfa -- This particular adventurer is difficult to advance: you must have Shaoren at a high talk level AND Karin at EXACTLY Conversation 5 (no more, no less), and then visit the Capital repeatedly.

* 5 scenes come from "Rest" near the end of the game (but must occur before Karin Conversation 6). They're not H-scenes: just a few cute chibi scenes + hot spring scenes, but probably worthwhile for any completionist.

* Karin Conversation 6 locks you out of most heroine endings (except for Karin-ending C', C, and D, and Fuu True End). Only click Conversation 6 if you wish to go for those particular endings.

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Skills -- Shuuran's +3000 HP barrier for all squads/leaders for 70-SP is by far the most reliable and best ability in the game. However, there are some enemies with very high evasion (110% evasion) in some rare circumstances. Use Karon's +Critical Hit buff vs high evasion enemies. Kazuko's +room/trap/boss HP ability is great for slightly improving +Fun (an empty room takes a Fun-penalty on top of losing the room's Fun bonus: keeping rooms alive ). There are a few very troublesome +Healing enemies. Use Keifa's "Silence" to negate their healing.

Karin's "Send everyone back to the beginning" ability at 90SP is pretty costly, and not really worth it in my experience... aside from the early game before you have better abilities. Even then, Fuu/Houkei's +Healing ability got more use in the hard early game fights in my experience.
 
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