Story good if you have no interest in the s*x and fanservice stuff?

[Shinji]

I was always interested in this series and only recently found out they're very heavy on fanservice and have patches to unlock s*x scenes. Which turned me off buying it. So is the story good without caring about those aspects or are those aspects the reason why people love these games so much?

[toughnails]

Only the very first version of the first Utawarerumono game, released 20 years ago, had actual sex scenes. The series moved to consoles later on, and all the other games (and ports) are SFW (relatively speaking, because some scenes are so spicy it's pretty much just genitals and nipples blocked out with the rest of a girl's body being completely bare).

Anyhow, these are the quintessential light novel stories, with a self-insert protagonist and a harem of women fawning over him. At least half of the scenes are various harem skits and fanservice scenes. The pacing of the actual plot is incredibly slow for this very reason. If you're not into harem games, then it's a hard skip IMO, because the war drama takes a backset to all the harem shenanigans.

[Minneyar]

Originally posted by Moggie:

I was always interested in this series and only recently found out they're very heavy on fanservice and have patches to unlock s*x scenes.

For what it's worth, that's not even true; only the original 2002 release had any sex scenes, the 2018 remake of it (Prelude to the Fallen) is SFW and there is no patch to add them. The sequels have some pretty fanservicey scenes, but no actual sex, and IMO the stories are absolutely fantastic even if you have no interest in the fanservice.

[Arion]

There is no real harem here. Sure the protagonist is surrounded by girls, but out of those girls only one is shown to be into him, and she is too shy to make any kind of move. There's 3 more girls that are later shown to be into him, but saying anything about them is a spoiler.
Still, nothing ever happens with any of the girls. Not even kissing. So if that's what you're looking for, you won't find it here.

This game is heavily story focused. The first half of the game is essentially a slice of life where you get to know the characters, with occasional battles against monsters or bandits.

[Shinji]

Originally posted by Arion:

There is no real harem here. Sure the protagonist is surrounded by girls, but out of those girls only one is shown to be into him, and she is too shy to make any kind of move. There's 3 more girls that are later shown to be into him, but saying anything about them is a spoiler.
Still, nothing ever happens with any of the girls. Not even kissing. So if that's what you're looking for, you won't find it here.

This game is heavily story focused. The first half of the game is essentially a slice of life where you get to know the characters, with occasional battles against monsters or bandits.

That actually sounds really good. My favorite part of Persona 4 was the slice of life stuff so I think I'll give this a go next time its on sale.

[James Buchanan]

Originally posted by neocity:

Originally posted by Arion:

There is no real harem here. Sure the protagonist is surrounded by girls, but out of those girls only one is shown to be into him, and she is too shy to make any kind of move. There's 3 more girls that are later shown to be into him, but saying anything about them is a spoiler.
Still, nothing ever happens with any of the girls. Not even kissing. So if that's what you're looking for, you won't find it here.

This game is heavily story focused. The first half of the game is essentially a slice of life where you get to know the characters, with occasional battles against monsters or bandits.

That actually sounds really good. My favorite part of Persona 4 was the slice of life stuff so I think I'll give this a go next time its on sale.

I liked that in persona 4 as well, but here just be warned that most SoL is focused just on the female cast doing harem things. Not as in banging the MC, but what the harem genre normally does, which is turn all the female characters into clumsy ditzy people and it's 'funny' now.

Usually there's an interesting world / character tidbit too in them, but that takes a backseat.

It sucks because the actual story here is really good.