Tester’s Corner: Princess Evangile Ed. Vol 1

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Hello, my name is Xarrias, and this is my first Tester’s Corner. When I offered to become a beta tester for MangaGamer, I thought I was prepared for anything. I definitely wasn’t prepared for Princess Evangile, a long, high story VN, to be my first job.

While the idea of a boy attending an all girls school is not unique by any means, and could easily be made into a nukige of some sort, Princess Evangile chooses to instead give us something with political intrigue, dark secrets and a protagonist who simply wants to get his footing in a world that has left him with nothing. Even when he’s done this, Masaya isn’t some kind of womanizer—he’s only got eyes for one woman in his life, and there are four potential candidates.

Board games on a stormy night? They know me too well.

Board games on a stormy night? They know me too well.

Our main heroines are Rise, the granddaughter of the chairwoman of Vincennes, who is very social and energetic. We’ve also got Masaya’s childhood friend, Chiho, an athletic girl who can certainly be a bit aggressive when it comes to romance. Then there are the siblings Ritsuko (reserved and diligent) and Ayaka (irresponsible and carefree), whose mother is the strict headmistress who would love to have you expelled for any reason she can think of. All of them are interesting characters with their own personal issues that you will explore in their routes, although the common route will also touch on some of these and the issues of some of the side characters.

Speaking of the headmistress, I personally found her to be an incredibly compelling antagonist who caused me to feel a wide variety of emotions. A major part of the game’s plot is to help reform the school to become a mixed gender school rather than all girls, and Misako is resolutely against this. I wavered between hating her for her clear prejudice and underhanded, even illegal tactics, and sympathizing with her for just how much she loves her school and wants it to remain true to its roots. The conclusion to her story was very satisfying, and I find it hard to be angry with her for her actions.

And then she does something to make you hate her again...

And then she does something to make you hate her again…

To people who are interested in knowing about what it has in the way of sex scenes, well, I’ve got good news or bad news, depending on what you want. Each of the four heroines have 5 scenes that will start happening from around halfway through their specific route. Each scene is consensual and relatively vanilla in terms of content. All in all, it makes up a small percentage of the game, which is much more about the story and the characters. If you just want sex, you’re going to be disappointed, but if you want a more realistic portrayal of a relationship, drama, and comedy, with a few explicit scenes (that you can elect to fast forward if it isn’t your cup of tea), then Princess Evangile has got you covered.

It even has some action... boring indecisive protagonist Masaya is not.

It even has some action… boring indecisive protagonist Masaya is not.

There are a few things about the game I wasn’t so much a fan of, but don’t detract from the experience. One was the lack of choices, or rather, the meaninglessness of them. Half the choices amount to ‘but thou must’ style RPG choices that railroad you down one path, and the others require you to consistently choose the same girl to obtain her route, but add nothing to the game. The other is possibly a compliment, but I feel like some of the side characters deserve a route of their own. Thankfully the game doesn’t make the other characters disappear when you complete the common route, and the game is plenty long as is, but I feel that not having a route for Tamie, the gluttonous journalist/photographer, and especially Ruriko, the ‘innocent’ rich girl, is just a missed opportunity. Perhaps a fan disc or an expansion of some sort could rectify this. Ultimately, I really enjoyed my time with Princess Evangile, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!

Perhaps she can make a cameo in School Days?

Perhaps she can make a cameo in School Days?

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10 Comments

  1. “a fan disc or an expansion of some sort could rectify this.”
    Actually, it was released a fan disc. I really hope Evangile sells enough to justify localizing it. Those extra routes sound delicious.

    • Likewise! I found out about the fandisc after writing this, and I’d really like to see that get a translation. The way Ruriko is presented in the game, it REALLY feels like she had a route planned initially but they couldn’t fit it in initially.

      • I only had time to read Rise route yet but Ruriko is such a funny girl its really a shame that they didn’t give her a route in the original game…
        She got me with that line: “I just googled a few keywords of how to steal a man” 😀
        But I liked the game so far I hope that the other girls are at least as good as Rise

  2. Nintendo Maniac 64

    Uhhh… are you on Mac or something? For science I re-saved your PNG screenshots with Win7 MSpaint as PNG and the filesize was smaller…

  3. I hope that the fandisc gets localized I want to see Ruriko(story) and Ritsuko epilogue the other girls too of course

  4. Sigh, I hate it when VNs, a medium that can do so many interesting things with player choice, do nothing but shove in ‘fake’ choices to pretend they have interactivity.

    Do girls have multiple endings per route at all or is “which girl should I choose” the limit of player interaction?

    • There’s only one ending per girl, unfortunately. If you don’t choose every option related to one, you’ll get a bad end, but it doesn’t do anything special – it pretty much just ends the game. The game could have been a kinetic novel and just had a single choice near the end of the common route for which girl you like the most and it wouldn’t change anything.

  5. even if it doesnt get localized those who want a fan disk could appeal to fan translators and have it done. just a thought for the worst case scenario.

  6. Hi MG i want to report bug for Evangile 18+ version that i purchase 2 month ago
    the game will crash if you skipping the text and there a annoying pop up(FCFile – open) say like: “PrincessEvangile.system.dat ?????(japanese text) code:1224”
    can U make the fix patch please….

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