Steam Prison -- No Spoiler Review
Steam Prison (+Fin Route)
System: PC, Switch
Price: $34.99 + $9.99 (Fin’s Route is a DLC on PC), $65.49 (includes Fin Route +more)
Voice Acting: Yes (Japanese)
ESRB Rating: M (17+)
Overall Rating: Stole 6.5/10 ♥s
Pre-Game Perception: A well-to-do woman finds herself in the slums of society where she learns to love the poor paupers who become her LIs.
Morning-After Reflection: A good example of how to take a promising story, interesting characters, and a strong MC, and utterly destroy them yet somehow gain a fanbase willing to turn a blind eye to the problematic writing.
Story: “There are two kinds of people: the rulers and the ruled. The Heights are a gorgeous utopia. The Depths, a filthy industrial wasteland. Our heroine, raised in the Heights, has nothing but contempt for those below. Now an observation mission requires her to descend into that world, and the gears of fate have begun to turn.”
Interest Rating: 8/10. I believe I got this on sale back when I was first starting my otome collection, but it did look interesting. They’re talking about power dynamics (rules and the ruled), and a pretentious MC, and it sounds all steampunky, and the art looked soooo good to me, so I was all in to play this game.
MC: Are you guys itching for a strong MC? And by that, I mean one that fights, that stands up for the downtrodden, and kicks ass because justice is on her side? I wish I could tell you that’s what you’d get here, but you really don’t. That’s the illusion of what you get here. Okay, now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s jump into the usual things I cover with the MC. Cyrus Tistella is our heroine for this game. Her first name is able to be changed, but if you don’t change it then all the characters will voice it, so I kept it because I tend to enjoy the sultry murmurs that LIs do when they have a name to say versus silence with one I input. Cyrus is not a voiced character, she has a sprite displayed on screen on rare occasions, and is in most of the CGs. At 18, she stands all of 5’2” with a small build and a noticeable thigh gap that makes her look all the more stick-like. She has long pink hair and blue eyes and looks kind of constipated concerned most of the time. Yes, I’m taking potshots at her.
Honestly, I thought I was going to like Cyrus, and she isn’t the worst that’s out there, the problem is the writing for her. In order to make her appear as a stronk heroine she eschews femininity, even talking about it with disdain, which really puts a sour taste in my mouth because you don’t have to be misogynistic in order to make a female character #NotLikeOtherGirls. So, besides hating being a woman, Cyrus also hates things typically associated with women, such as marriage, child rearing, dresses, sewing, etc.; and just so we don’t think she’s a hate-filled malice machine the writers took away practically all emotion, rendering Cyrus suitable to be an automaton.
Cyrus can easily be described as constantly preaching about JUSTICE and wanting to solve every issue by FITE. If it concerns any other skill besides using a sword, she has convinced herself, everyone else, and us that she is completely incapable of executing said skill for her survival because it doesn’t involve FITE for JUSTICE. So, basically we get this empty-headed, sword-swinging, emotionless MC that talks about JUSTICE, but she never actually… follows through on that despite finding reasons to FITE. Cyrus spends most of every route confused about everything, following every LI around while they drive the story, and getting every boon handed to her in order to overcome the conflict of the route. Making sure to FITE at least once a route. With some sort of indigent yelling about JUSTICE to go along with it, just for flavor.
Likability Rating: Nin. If you want an MC that is all about fighting and nothing else, Cyrus is the girl for you. She has no intelligible thoughts, a severe case of naivety, lacks emotions, and doesn’t even have logical reasoning to make up for it. The poor girl could have been better, but the writers didn’t see it fit to make her believable.
Plot: This game went a way I didn’t expect it to go right from the get-go. You’re introduced to the plot from the first scene, except it isn’t the plot. Hear me out. In the common route you are given a lot of information that I thought was rather interesting, even if I didn’t like how it was presented. Nearly everything given to us is explained in a very unnatural manner. I’ve heard this is called, “Well, as you know, Bob…” And normal people don’t explain normal, everyday experiences, rules, and history to other people who also experience normal, everyday daily life.
It’s a big world that deserved some worldbuilding, and has so many really cool ideas that then get pushed aside to never be important or resolved or explained in anything other than weird conversations that change based on when it’s convenient for the story. Can you tell I didn’t care for it? It was a very amateur way of writing that doesn’t even consider Chekhov’s gun*, giving us a room full of rifles on every wall, and then completely ignoring every. Single. One of them. It also had many MacGuffins**. And was so inconsistent that I had to read every route as its own story, and even some endings in the same route as their own non-linear story or else the overall story would end up too obtuse with pointless conflict and deus ex machina resolutions.
So… there is no solid plot. It’s recycled so often that I’m not even sure what we were supposed to resolve in the end. But at least you get a buffet of conflicts to keep things interesting? I’m trying, guys, I’m trying to find something good about the story. It’s hard.
*Chekhov’s gun is a dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed. Elements should not appear to make "false promises" by never coming into play.
**MacGuffin is a plot motivator that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.
Replayability Rating: ★★★☆☆ I played every route and every ending hoping to find something worthwhile, and I didn’t. Some characters are clearly only there to up the numbers, as they don’t exist in any other route. Each route is different, at least, but I wouldn’t bother with half of them if I had the choice to do it again.
Love Interests: When it comes to Steam Prison, there are really only three things I liked about it, and thank god one of them was the love interests. I really liked all these men despite the writing and story being so horrible. Argle-bargle, I’m letting other portions bleed into this one. :deep breath: Ahem. Take two! Do you want to make out with some hot guys? I do too! Unfortunately, Cyrus doesn’t, so we just get to have wistful thoughts about them, but that doesn’t make them any less awesome! Or does it? Eesh… that’s not going well either. :cough: Okay, okay, we’ll get through this. Take three! :deep breath: Steam Prison gives us some gents that are true gems. With everyone different from all the others offered, you’re bound to find at least one stud that makes you steamy in this steampunk setting. I know I’d be up for cleaning some pipes with some most all of these dudes, even the ones that ended up at the bottom of my list because their story was less than satisfying.
There are a multitude of endings for Steam Prison, making it difficult to actually name good, bad, and best because some bad have after credit stories, and some good have after credit stories, and some also-good-but-maybe-not-as-good-who-the-f*ck-knows have after credit stories. Basically, there are endings. You will get endings. I suggest following a walkthrough if you want to collect them all, I had to. Unfortunately, most of the LIs hardly exist outside of their own route, so if you like one dude you’re just SOL when romancing friending hanging out with the rest.
There is a recommended route order being Eltcreed > Ulrik > Adage > Ines > Yune > Fin, and then the Grand Ending to wrap the game up as a whole. Yune is locked to start out with. I discovered that he was unlocked once I started Ines route, which confused me because he was supposed to unlock after an Ulrik ending according to the walkthrough I was following, but it was after Adage that his route’s choice came up. Either way, I’m going to introduce the men according to the recommended order, because ultimately it is a good order. If you want to switch up Yune and Fin, feel free to do that. Neither spoils the other.
Ah, Eltcreed, what a smooth criminal capitalist. Eltcreed Valentin comes in with some spicy music that embodies his entire personality. He has so much of it. So much. Standing 5’10”, our 25 year old charming gentleman confidently strides into Cyrus’ life and clearly runs things in not only the relationship, but everything in life. He’s the head of the Valentin bank, and the leader of Liberalitas, a district of the Depths. He knows how to talk to people to get them to agree with him, giving most no other choice than to nod along with his logic. Despite his flippant attitude, he is surprisingly genuine and honest, which can come off creepy, but I find it endearing. Oh yeah, he’s also melodramatic. Dude stole my heart from the moment he came onto screen, and every time he briefly showed up in other routes I would have that moment of trying to convince myself that Cyrus was actually on someone else’s route, and no, going back to revisit Eltcreed’s personality was not the best choice for me.
For all the charm that Eltcreed has, Ulrik Ferrie has an inverse proportion. This 5’6” 18-year old has a mouth on him, and I certainly enjoyed it much more than Cyrus did. His banter with Eltcreed made him stand out much more than his banter with Cyrus, because Cyrus tended to just be pretentious and haughty towards Ulrik rather than banter back. But that’s not Ulrik’s problem. That boy can be a grumpy tsundere any day he wants with me. He pretty much works for Eltcreed, and claims to be an information broker, but it’s very clear to me he’s an INT rogue. I don’t mean a roguish man, I mean infiltrationist, informant, secret door finding, all skill points put into knowledge skills rather than charisma skills, stacking his intelligence stat, though perhaps not his wisdom. Mr. Grumpy was low on my husbando ranking, but I still enjoyed him as a character, even if I didn’t enjoy his story.
I don’t think I have a type. I think I like most male characters out there. I know there are things that get me weak in the knees, but being weak isn’t the only thing that can draw my attention. Sometimes it’s blunt honesty. Sometimes it’s deadpan punchlines. Sometimes it’s a prickly guy that doesn’t want to dress up anything he says with poetry, but instead gives it as clear as possible. That’s where Adage comes in. This (nearly) 5’9”, 26-year old is observant and calculating. Smartbois fascinate me with where their intelligence gets focused. Their gap moe makes it hard for me to not squee at their cuteness. Their directness takes my breath away with how forward they are. I really wish I got to see so much more of Adage than we get in Steam Prison. Unfortunately, it seems the writers didn’t care for him, because he’s the most rare of the LIs in this game.
By the time you get to Ines’ route, you should have a good idea of what type of man he is. Ines Heinrich Heine is a member of the HOUNDS, which probably means nothing to you right now, but you’ll learn in the common route what that entails. Ines cuts an intimidating figure at nearly 5’11” and apparently built like a brick wall. They call that good breeding stock. He’s 29, so if age gaps bother you then this might be on the rougher side; however, he’s so focused on his own goal that there is very little romance in his route, which means he doesn’t come off more experienced and lecherous compared to a certain lusty flirt we’ve mentioned earlier. Ines is a great guy. Really. Truly. Just a bro throughout the game. Buuuuuut, that’s kind of the problem. I like him being the wingman. I like him helping out everyone else. I like him just being a good person rather than what we got in his route, which was needlessly repetitive and pointless conflict that made Cyrus seem hollow in her convictions.
And then there was Yune. I know, I know, so many people don’t like shota characters, and there’s really no way for me to say I do without sounding like a pervert. But I am a pervert, have you heard of some of the things I’m into? I don’t really care what others think of my fictional relationships with fictional men, so Yune Sekiei can hang with me and be my bae. He’s hailed as an immortal saint, so I was intrigued from the moment I found out this 16-year old looking guy was revered as a messenger from the heavens. Being only 5’3”, and putting him just an inch taller than Cyrus doesn’t help his boyish appearance, but he commands a powerful presence when wearing the title of Saint Yune. I fell in love the second time I saw him in the story. And every time he popped up I just giggled and snapped a dozen screenshots so I could capture everything he said.
Lastly, we have Fin Euclase, who should have been a LI in the original game with the amount of screen time and focus he got throughout everyone else’s route. But he wasn’t, and unless you bought the Switch port, Fin’s route is DLC that you have to add, but it’s worth it. There were points in the game that I wanted Cyrus to end up with Fin during other character’s routes, even though I liked so many of these fellas. He’s almost the poster boy. So, let me tell you, it was a delight to be able to finally get some closure with this character and see an ending that satisfied me. Fin is a softboi. He may be tall at 5’11.5”, but he’s not very imposing due to his kind and gentle nature. He’s a boy that embraces his femininity more than the heroine does, but not to any degree past house husband, marriage material. It’s a shame that Fin seems more complete and developed than Cyrus does, because though we are supposed to fall in love with some dudes, connecting with the MC should come first.
Boy Crazy Rating: 92%. There so much to like here that I just had my fill of fantasy fellas. Only one was forgettable, and even then it wasn’t any fault of his own because he’s a true bro, just perhaps not husbando material when all the others catch my attention so well.
Romance: Hahahahahahahahah….:inhale: Hahahahahahahaha. Oh, I’m sorry. This was supposed to be a romance game? This is where the game and ratings are going to get weird, because the romance was miniscule, but wait until you see the spice rating. Here’s the deal, Cyrus grew up in the Heights, which we get the rundown on in the very first portion of the common route, so I don’t feel like I’m spoiling anything by explaining things ahead of time. In the Heights, they stick to a population plan. The government issues each individual a spouse. I get the feeling that the number of children is also regulated, but it isn’t exactly covered. Unsanctioned romance is literally against the law and a punishable offence. In order to keep heavy petting from leading into baby making, romance has basically been removed from society. No otome in this place, sorry. No romance novels. No discussions about reproduction or raging hormones. It’s the chastest of chaste societies. Thus, our heroine doesn’t actually know where babies come from. She has apparently never seen anyone kiss mouth to mouth. The thought of having a boyfriend or loving someone is the most foreign and anxiety inducing concept to her because she’s all about that JUSTICE and upholding the law.
So how is the romance? Oh boy… it’s so absent. Cyrus could have been written as asexual and aromantic for as much as she cares about kissing and whatever comes after, let alone whatever love is supposed to mean and if she has ever felt it. This is a major part of her seeming to have little to no emotion at all, but certainly not the biggest reason she comes across that way. However, this is a romance game, so there has to be a tiny, little, itty-bitty light at the end of the tunnel of possible feelings relating to love. Mainly, this comes in as every LI loving Cyrus, and she thinks that maybe, perhaps she could possibly love them, in time, if it suits her.
Heart Palpitation Rating: F. Basically, Cyrus is not moved, and thus I wasn’t either. The romance is a far cry from believable.
Spice: I told you things were going to get weird, did you prepare yourself? Here we go. This game is hot. Yeah, no, I don’t get it either. There’s so little actual romance, but the way the steamy bits are put in was really steamy to me. So, first, there’s kissing noises, and I’ll be the first to say I hate mouth noises. When people swallow too loud I look at them like they murdered a kitten because it makes my skin crawl. So you can bet that nearly 100% of the time I’m against hearing someone make out with their hand so that those listening can get hot and bothered. But for some reason-- for some unexplainable reason that I wish I had some sort of answer to, these kissing noises were. Very. Hot. As much as I complained about the writing for this game, these points in the game where things got sexually tense and made me doki doki were written really, really, reeeeaaallly well. The LI’s script just did things to me, and these things were not bad things. You get absolutely no shirtless sprites, and only one shirtless CG that isn’t meant to be sexy due to the context. You get your average kiss CG allowance. There’s really nothing special about the game besides some very well delivered lines, and a titillating mood that worked for me. I was going to throw in a bunch of hardware and mechanical jokes about nuts and bolts and things, but I think it’d make me look like I was trying too hard; we’ll call it here for now that I’ve ratted myself out.
Cold Shower Rating: Pass. Breathe deeply, you’ll manage to get through this. Drink some water. Fan yourself. Maybe grab a shower before Cyrus reminds you how frigid this game can be.
Angst: Steam Prison promises us it would be an angsty game, but fails to deliver the actual feels. I think the biggest issue is that Cyrus is just so apathetic about everything but JUSTICE that all the terrible things that could make the reader recoil in horror or shock just falls flat. If our MC isn’t concerned, impressed, worried, etc., then why should we be? I did get some feels a few times, and funnily enough those were times that didn’t involve anything relating to Cyrus, because the LIs actually have feelings unlike our robotic FITE machine. For a M-rated game, it’s very light on the M features, imo.
So, what do you get? You get a horrific plot that has very little emotional impact on our MC. You get violence, and some death described in text. There are some CGs with blood displayed. There are some wicked sound effects which bring on the fear far more than the MC can describe things. And every LI seems to have some sort of terrible conflict for plot purposes, so they’re the angstiest part of the story.
Drama Llama Rating: 5/10. The lack of feeling leaves much to be desired. The drama llama is too temperamental to be part of the petting zoo, but it isn’t an aggressive animal. Just a bit moody.
Voice Acting: I believe this is one of the only times that I’m happy the MC wasn’t voiced, despite my preference for it. I really do like hearing the MC express her surprise, anguish, and pride, but Cyrus seems to lack most of those emotions, so I’m glad I didn’t have to hear her be completely bland through the entire game. That’s probably the worst way to start this section, but thank heavens for small miracles, right? The rest of the cast is, in a word… Awesome. I really want to congratulate everyone on their performances, because they gave us everything that Cyrus was missing. I think the best overall has to be Fin, voiced by Shingaki Tarusuke (新垣 樽助), who wasn’t even a LI in the original game. His emotion behind everything made me believe in all the things that I was supposed to believe in. I want to see how he did in other games, but it seems I haven’t run into him before Steam Prison.
It seems today is a day for surprises. At the end of last year I played London Detective Mysteria and raved about how exceptional I thought Watson’s seiyuu was, easily winning top spot in my eyes with his voice acting and emotion. Today I learned that Eltcreed Valentin has the same seiyuu, Shirai Yuusuke (白井 悠介), and I thought he was so goooood in this game as well that he only barely lost out to Shingaki Tarusuke (Fin’s seiyuu) because of screen time. This is a name I’m going to be looking for in the future. To keep this from getting too long I’m going to name only one other seiyuu. Takatsuka Tomohito (高塚 智人) gave us the voice of Ulrik Ferrie, which may not have been the best at expressing several feelings, but certainly was memorable. I will not forget the sarcastic, snotty ways he responded to people of all class standing. I can still hear him now.
Expression Rating: Shu. If I replay voices because I just adore the way they say something, chances are I’m going to rate the game pretty high in expression. And I replayed. Many. Much. There’s some good talent in this game, they did the best with what they had to work with.
Art: I liked the art. I’m begrudgingly admitting it. It’s good stuff. I like clean sprites with dark lines and lots of detail and personality. There may not have been a ton of detail on the sprites themselves, but all the backgrounds had a good amount of detail to the point I certainly wasn’t disappointed. And the sprites were clean, well proportioned, and darkly outlined. Everyone looks different than everyone else, save for extras, of course. Each sprite has a few different poses, and of course different expressions, but only a handful get different costumes to wear.
The only complaint I really have about this style is the fingers are sometimes… weird. How do I put this…? There’s some strangely misplaced knuckles on some of the sprites, which isn’t super noticeable, but I did notice and I couldn’t unsee it once I was looking for it. And the swords were also strangely large when slung on their belts, Cyrus’ as well when it was leaning against the bed; there is no way she walks around with that thing that easily goes up to her armpit.
Still Picture Rating: ★★★★☆ Many practical. Such clean. Very lack wardrobe changes.
CGs: As much as I begrudgingly admitted that I liked the art, I like the CGs just as much, so I’m equally begrudgingly admitting to it as well. To be honest, the art certainly drew me in in the first place when I was looking at purchasing this game. The CGs are just as good. There are an average amount of CGs for a big name game, about 120. They’re well done with a lot of care put into them. And some were rather unexpected for what I thought I was going to get. On that note, the moments they chose to highlight were good moments, there’s nothing I can really complain about when it comes to that, but some were throw-aways that had no impact on the overall story so I’m not sure why they were chosen. All-in-all, I’m happy for what we received, and some of them were really good, so I’ll enjoy them for some time to come.
Look at this Photograph Rating: 88% Gallery is easy to find (once you complete a route), and a decent number of CGs are given to us. I thought it was good art, and the only complaint I have is minor that doesn’t actually relate to the quality, which is wonderful.
UI/Mechanics: The menu is super easy to use and clear. There is a place to individually turn up and down the volume of each character. The gallery is easy to navigate once it shows up, which happens after you complete a route. I don’t like that feature, as I’ve seen it in another game and also didn’t like it there. I get CGs in the common route, why won’t you let me see them before I pour ten hours into a game? There’s a button map, and the keys are not in the usual place, but I enjoyed where they were located (up in the function keys). There are no special mechanics you have to know for the game, it is your standard VN format with choices appearing on screen when the time comes.
We did get some extras that I also enjoyed in this game, such as the game auto-moves your mouse to hover over choices when the banner comes up from wherever your mouse was before. I never got used to it, but it was cool. I tend to hide my mouse on the side of the screen when playing so it doesn’t distract me, so when a choice came up, (even though I could use the arrow keys to choose my choice) the game would grab my pointer from the side of the screen to sit atop the choices, and then throw it back to the corner of my screen when I made a choice. I thought it was neat. We also get a return to previous choice button, which helped me when I was zipping through all the options I didn’t pick previously just so I can read the flavor text for the option. I’m a true completionist in most games and I just have to know all aspects of an answer. You can also replay endings once you’ve completed them. That’s neat. And there is an ending list as well. I like that. They’re all small extras, but I dig it.
The Switch version comes with some extras that the PC version doesn’t have. I cannot speak on those things, such as character songs and (if I recall correctly) extra short stories that weren’t previously released on PC. This is one of the reasons for the price hike between the PC version and the Switch version.
What’s this button do? Rating: A-. Not only does it have the basic UI, but it comes with extras that I thoroughly enjoyed and made use of. Now for a game to have all these features, plus a speaking MC, and the UI and features of Piofiore. That would be my dream game, I’m sure.
Errors: When it comes to actual game errors, there are very few. The translation is done very well. I saw a few issues that I’ve come to expect from translations, but not many at all. All I can recall are five, but I’m betting there were at least a dozen, however, that’s testament to how minute they were, I don’t even remember the hiccups. MangaGamer did the translation for PC, and they constantly churn out incredibly translated games. If you’re ever in the market for other games and it has the MangaGamer tag on it, it’s bound to be practically flawlessly translated.
There was a slight problem with launching the game on PC after I had completed my first route, because I’m assuming that’s when Fin’s DLC becomes available so Steam wasn’t sure which content to launch from my desktop quick launch icon. There was a simple solution to the overlooked, but simple problem, I just went into my Steam Library to launch the game. When I did this I would get a pop-up that asked if I wanted to launch Steam Prison or Fin’s DLC, just click what you want and go. Unfortunately, Fin’s DLC doesn’t contain the full game, so you can’t just use his option to play all the other routes, so it was slightly annoying since I had to open Steam and couldn’t just quick launch through either the icon or quick menu.
Here there be Bugs Rating: Pass. Nothing to see here. Lawn ants are inevitable, same with flies and mosquitoes, but there’s nothing to worry about. It’s as clean as you’d expect a high-production game to be.
Background Music: I mean… it was good, but it wasn’t “I have to have it” good. The BGM really does play well into the story and pacing, which is probably why I found one of the routes so boring, because there was no BGM for most of it. Each character has their own theme song, and I really dig a few of them; even side characters get their own theme, and I seriously loved when Sachsen shows up for the first time with his badass villain music. It rocked. The music does end up being rather loud starting out, and I had to adjust the volume (no surprise) in order to have a good balance between BGM and character voices.
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