(※This is a repost of a blog I originally posted to Spacehey. Original upload date - April 2026)
after over a year, and many trials and tribulations (both the game itself, and just personally speaking), this game is finally in my hands.
this is Tokyo Clanpool. originally released on the PS Vita in 2017, it'd go 7 years before it finally got an official english release on PC and Switch in 2024, though not without compromise.
"Wait, wait, waaaiiiit! You're going too fast! What even is Tokyo Clanpool, and why should I care?!"
well, i was just going to explain that, so let me finish!
Tokyo Clanpool is a first-person Japanese dungeon RPG (which means it plays kind of like Etrian Odyssey, if you've ever played that), made by the game studio Compile Heart, which should be a familiar name at this point if you've read my other blogs!
The story concerns a Japan in the far future; the year is 2207, and the Prime Minister is a cute girl who goes by the name of Natsume Kannuki. some time ago, a rift opened up over Tokyo, and monsters ravage the city. Japan's Self-Defense Force was ill-equipped for such a threat, and was mostly decimated by the assault, so a new governmental organization is created to repel the threat, called the Cyberbrain Tactics Cabinet, led by the various members of Japan's parliament. Natsume specifically leads a strike team called the Diet Dolls, a group of cute girls who transform and fight the monsters head-on.
...the setup for the game's plot makes me think of Gate ~and thus the JSDF fought there~, though i think that's just because that's the only other piece of media i've consumed that involves the Japanese Self-Defense Force.
...well, that's all i was able to gather about it before playing, at least. information on this game was quite rare! i'm told from friends who also bought the game that, gameplay-wise, it's a bit more complex than Compile's other dungeon RPGs, like Mary Skelter and the Moe Chronicle games; as early as the first dungeon, the dungeon design is far more intricate, being relatively large in size, having more obstacles you need to get around, walls to break down to find shortcuts, and things of that nature.
the battle system is also more complex; each party member can act more than once per turn, but every attack option takes a set amount of EP--essentially, you can use as many attacks as one girl's EP amount will allow you to. using specific attacks in the same turn can also result in a really strong special attack that just completely decimates everything on the screen. you also have Gadgettia, which i'm told are similar to Demons in the Shin Megami Tensei series, as you can fuse them with each other to make them stronger, or fuse them with the girls in battle to have the girls enter a transformation state where they become stronger.
the game and its gameplay in general takes several notes from other games--Gadgettia function similarly to Personas in the Persona Q duology, as the girls get specific skills and stats depending on which ones they equip, and it has a function similar to the Dark Assembly system in Disgaea, where you can suggest different changes to the gameplay, and other political parties can vote for or against you.
you may have noticed the "Uncut Version" text on the box.
when this game was originally rereleased, it had gameplay features removed for censorship reasons.
...some may read that, look at the cover, and assume this game is simply anime porn, some may go even further and say that the game deserved to not be released for this, but the thing is, this was an all-ages console game originally.
the game features the same rubbing minigame mechanic that wasn't uncommon for JRPGs to have on the Vita and 3DS.
Mary Skelter and Moe Chronicle both have similar things, to name two off the top of my head, as well as Conception 2 to pull from a 3DS game--but before the game was able to be rereleased, the entire game got pulled from sale on the American Nintendo e-Shop and rejected for sale on steam, and the minigame was removed entirely from the initial PC release on GoG and the Asian-English Switch release.
among negatively affecting other games, as well
this naturally made a lot of fans, myself included, somewhat upset. this game was a pretty big deal, it was originally Japan-only, and it's always a big deal when a game that was previously unavailable in english is made accessible to more people. imagine if Mother 3 finally got officially translated and released in english, only to play it and you notice the story--the part of it that's most well-known and critically acclaimed--had parts of it totally rewritten and...not going to mince words, censored.
to add insult to injury, this was around the time the Switch 2 was unveiled, so some people found it somewhat obnoxious that violent and sexual content in the normie-approved AAA games somehow gets a pass (as is usual in the United States, being fair, violence is borderline normal here, gore is borderline fetishized even, but 3/4ths of the country is trying to ban porn), Cyberpunk 2077 got onto a Nintendo console, and it let you customize your penis size
but somehow a cartoony game about a group of cute girls fighting fantasy monsters is somehow so sexually charged, it not only has to have content cut, it literally gets banned from sale on both Nintendo consoles and Steam, and the developer gets most of its future releases barred from Nintendo's platform? Steam allows actual porn last time i checked, what was so wrong with this game?
i think the best metaphor i could come up, to make this more understandable to people who aren't as well-versed...
imagine a book, or a movie or an album that's coming out soon that you're incredibly excited for. it's from an author/director/artist whose work you've consistently always enjoyed and held in high regard. maybe you'd even call them your favorite. though their work isn't that popular and struggles to sell well, all of their works have some...indescribable sense of "soul" that really charms you. it's a sense of "soul" that you really don't get from any other book, or movie, or album other people recommend to you, which makes this specific person's work really valuable to you, and a small group of other people. it may not be particularly popular, you can even understand why other people might vehemently dislike these works, but it's something that's still incredibly valuable to you.
then suddenly, this person's next upcoming work is now quite literally banned from sale for no immediately discernable reason. no store in the area will allow this work on their shelves. their work wasn't particularly vulgar or distasteful at all, not in comparison to the other things these stores have on their shelves. this person's previous movies/books/albums were all fine. it's just that suddenly the culture shifted and internal guidelines were changed without warning.
the specific movie or book or whatever you were excited for now had to have parts of it removed--maybe a song on the album had to have its title changed, or maybe a chapter had to be totally rewritten, or maybe even entire scenes from the movie had to be completely cut and/or rearranged. it's something minor--other people will say "i don't care, as long as it comes out". some people will ask you why even care, it's not like that person makes anything good, so nothing of value was lost--but that still doesn't make it right.
i don't know if that makes a ton of sense, but that's what this felt like, which is why i'm happy this physical release exists; it took over a year since the initial rerelease, but the cut content is finally restored, so now it's truly just the original version of the game, but with english text.
...well, with all of that out of the way, now that i've introduced the game, let's open the cellophane and look at the box!
i still find the idea of a physical PC release for a game like this extremely cool and novel...
it's the kind of thing that really makes me feel like a character in an anime or something...like i'm on my way back from Animate or something...
part of me does kind of wish there were maybe different options for which physical media you could get it on, like maybe a version that was on CD/DVD, or a version that was on an SD card, but apparently, eastasiasoft had to do a lot of convincing to even get this approved in the first place, and i'd imagine production costs for this weren't cheap, so it's whatever i suppose.
now, let's open the box and see what's inside!
there are a few things that just fell out, here.
i imagine the first thing everyone's eyes were drawn to was the certificate plate.
she's just taking a bath, guys (¬_¬ )
eastasiasoft handled all of the recent Compile Heart PC/Switch rereleases, and with all of the LEs, they love to give you these certificate plates that tell you which copy you got out of all the ones that they printed.
apparently, mine's was no. 476 out of the 1,000 total that were printed. this release was in extremely limited quantity.
mine's being no. 476 is total nonsense by the way (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ i was refreshing the page until the option showed up and put my order in immediately, what the hell is this!!!
the soundtrack CD is right over there, but i think i opened it a bit later. there're a couple of things underneath the certificate plate, the first being these acrylic standees!
i notice acrylic standees are becoming more and more of a thing when it comes to anime goods as of recent, and i never really understood the point of them, i think i'm more the type that'd prefer special art or something, or figures or pins if i really wanted something to display, but now that i'm holding these in my hand, i actually really like these! i think i thought they'd feel more cheap or something, but they're more substantial than i thought, i think they're neat!
i can't really put them up right now, but i'd love to do so some time in the future.
the next thing underneath the standees were these sticker sheets.
i don't mind sticker sheets, but they're always kind of awkward to me, because i don't want to take off the stickers and ruin them, so i always just leave them in their packaging...
the next thing is...
a poster!
i don't have too much else to say, other than that i'm happy to have another poster to add to my wall.
the next thing is the artbook.
there's actually quite a bit in it, so i'll flip through it a bit later.
now we can look at the soundtrack!
at first, i thought this CD just had an incredibly slim selection of songs, but looking it up on youtube, it really does just seem like there are only 12 songs in the game...
i haven't had too many chances to really sit and listen to the soundtrack, but i've been listening to it while writing this. so far, my favorite songs are Blue Crusaders, A Day of Forest Bathing, and Cosmic World.
and finally we have...
i'm sure a question some of you may have asked is "Wait, how does a physical PC game work? Would it not just be a code in the box?", and others, "Wait, shouldn't there be a disc of some sort?", or maybe even a "How would that work if most PCs these days don't even have a space to insert optical media?"
well...all of your questions will be answered...now!
...getting that USB stick out of the rubber holder thing was actually quite difficult, it almost felt like it was glued in and i was afraid i'd tear it
but anyway, the game's installation files are on the USB! you simply just run the installation script and install the game to your whatever folder on your PC.
i'll put the USB to the side for now, as there's still the artbook to look at.
this artbook also suffers from the curse of "this is incredibly difficult to hold open so my hand is just going to be in all of the shots and i hope that's not too distracting"
it has quite a few character bios, which i was grateful for, because remembering names is not my strong suit, and i had no idea who most of these characters were at first.
just from flipping through the artbook, and initial impressions from playing the first hour or so of the game, my two favorite characters so far are Hotaru and Yomi.
Hotaru's cute as a button, and her tendency to fear for the worst just makes me want to hug her and tell her that everything will be ok.
i didn't even know Yomi existed before opening this artbook, but upon seeing her in the game, she immediately became my favorite character.
already i love her design, i tend to like when characters are dressed for the fall i've noticed, but she's also quite snippy and blunt, which leads to dialogue i really enjoy
there're character bios for just about every character in the protagonist's faction, and then a couple of miscellaneous portraits besides, but no beta designs or rough art, which is disappointing...
there are rough designs for the monsters, though.
as well as miscellaneous things like items, backgrounds, and miscellaneous pieces of art
...and that's everything!
i saw pictures of this LE around, but actually getting it in person, it's a fair bit more substantial than i thought it'd be.
if you read this all the way through, then thank you!
this game is somewhat important to me. not because i have nostalgia or sentimental value for it, i definitely wasn't waiting since 2017 for this game to get released, but it's more that i hope this release sets some kind of precedent.
this game originally released in stores on consoles, and games like it used to be somewhat commonplace. fast forward not even 10 years, and it quite literally could not be released on consoles (or even Steam!) at all and had to have content removed to be available on one storefront.
it's not like this game is particularly objectionable at all. it's not pornographic, and even then you can find porn games on PC storefronts just fine. it's not vulgar or in poor taste. it's not particularly violent, hyperviolence is borderline mainstream in games. even the content that had to be removed in other versions of this game, you can find in other console games, some on the same platforms. even with sexual/suggestive content, more mainstream games are allowed to get away with arguably worse. it's just a japanese game that has a cute artstyle, but i guess because it's more niche, it was just allowed to get bullied into almost not existing.
i just think it's incredibly unfair that guidelines, even on PC storefronts, have become so harsh that games like this almost can't exist anymore.
other comparable games in this niche--Hyperdimension Neptunia, Senran Kagura, probably the two more well-known ones--either have to be borderline neutered to be allowed to exist, much to the dismay of fans, or they have to disappear. since i'm someone who really likes these kinds of games, it's a bit sad to see, so i like to try and support releases like this when i can, even if it's a bit difficult to do so.
that's not to say, you absolutely have to buy Tokyo Clanpool, i'd imagine it doesn't have much to offer if you don't like JRPGs (i assume most people find anything that isn't Persona or Trails unplayable) (though if reading this made you interested, that makes me happy; you can buy it on gog.com, and the decensor patch is on eastasiasoft's website), but...
i guess what i'm trying to say is, be sure to support the things you like! simply being passionate about something and spreading the word when possible is already a great start!
i was hoping maybe there'd be more physical PC releases for games like this, but it seems too early to tell.
and, treasure what you have now, because one day in the future, you might lose it.
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