As the stepson of Azai Gonzou, your life isn’t easy. You’re a slave to money, bound by your original father’s debt to Azai Gonzou. When a new transfer student arrives, a series of strange events begin to unfold, all pointing to one man – Maou.
G-senjou no Maou – The Devil on G-String is a mystery/crime Visual Novel that follows the story of 20-year-old Azai Kyousuke. As Azai Gonzou’s foster son, Kyousuke works behind the scenes to help the underground. The story starts with a new transfer student – Usami Haru – arrives at his school, a mysterious figure known only as ‘Maou’ also shows up in the city. What follows is a tale of kidnapping, murder, and relationships.
The Devil on G-String has quite a few choices available to you, though only a few of them actually matter to the plot. The ones that do end up mattering make a huge impact on the story, leading you off the main track and into one of the side stories. It is a bit disappointing that the majority of choices don’t have a bigger impact on the story as a whole.
Don’t come into this VN expecting a short experience – The Devil on G-String clocks in at over 30 hours. It’s always a nice surprise when VN’s come out to be on the longer side, especially when they manage to hook you in really well.
Speaking of hooking you in really well, the writing in The Devil on G-String is fantastic. The start is admittedly a bit slow, but once you start getting into it, you won’t want to put it down. With that said, I was a bit disappointed with the endings. I never felt a proper sense of conclusion with them. This even includes the ending in the Epilogue – the “True” ending. The rest of the storytelling is absolutely fantastic, but I do wish the endings had played out slightly better. The original, Japanese version of The Devil on G-String featured some hentai scenes, and these have been removed from the English version. You can still tell where they were though, and there are even some cases where they’ll still reference sex related things – including cases where they left in some of the lead up to the hentai scene.
In the story, Kyousuke is a big fan of classical music. It’s only fitting that the soundtrack to the game is composed almost entirely of remixes of classical songs from people such as Bach, Chopin, and Beethoven. While some of the songs did start to feel a bit overplayed, they almost always matched the mood of the scene. Even the few original tracks were quite good, though when one of the vocalized tracks started playing during a voiced scene, it became a bit of a distraction.
When you buy G-Senjou no Maou you have the choice of either purchasing the cheaper, voiceless version, or going for the more expensive voiced version. Having played through the voiced version, I felt the voices all matched the characters they were portraying. Azai Gonzou’s voice would make you scared for your life and Usami Haru’s voice gave the sense of a girl who can be serious when she wants to. One gripe I did have with the voices was when they were on and off about voicing Maou. It can really throw you off the trail of the mystery, especially with certain revelations they have in the later chapters, and with the fact Kyousuke is unvoiced.
When The Devil on G-String was brought to English, the game was converted from a 4:3 format to a 16:9 format. All of the artwork in the game looks absolutely amazing despite this, though those who had previously read the translation patch version may be sad that parts of the art were cut off on the top and bottom. The style of the game is great though, with the CG images being absolutely fantastic at helping show the scene.
While I don’t want to spoil too much about the story, I will say that character’s often started feeling ignored, especially when you were past that girl’s “chapter”. They seemed to just fall out of the story, only have a mention here and there every few hours. There are also some characters who just seem to come out of nowhere without any lead up to them. These characters often end up playing a huge role in the story, with them forcing their way in to establish their spot in the story. It is a bit off putting, but as previously stated, the writing is overall quite good.
If you’re in the mood for a long visual novel that has a heavy emphasis on crime and mystery, then you should definitely check out G-senjou no Maou – The Devil on G-String. The voiced version may be a bit pricy for some, but the unvoiced version is definitely worth the asking price. Be warned that this version doesn’t play all the nicely with the Steam overlay, so if you’re looking to take some of your own screenshots, you may find a bit of a hassle there. There was also an occasional spelling or grammatical error present (including a situation of misspelling Gonzou as “Gonzo”). This VN is still more than worth the asking price however, so I highly recommend checking it out.
G-senjou no Maou – The Devil on G-String Review Score
4/5
The “G-String” in the title is not a reference to the piece of clothing, but is rather a reference to the G-String on a violin and is highly relevant to the story.
G-senjou no Maou – The Devil on G-String is available now on Steam.
I would like to thank Sekai Project for providing me with a code for review.
