At its best, turning history into a cast of collectible anime women produces a tactics game with real teeth hiding under the fan service. At its worst, it’s a shallow excuse to march a roster of pin-ups across a map while a paper thin plot fills the gaps between battles. Eiyu*Senki – The World Conquest spends its early hours firmly in the second camp, and it takes real patience before the game reveals which version of itself it actually wants to be.
Zipang begins the story in the middle of a civil war, one nation among several vying for control of an alternate, ahistorical Earth: Britannia pushing to unite the world through peace, the European Union taking the opposite, aggressive approach, and the seafaring nation of Vinland thriving on raiding and plunder. Himiko, the young ruler trying to hold Zipang together, is losing badly until a mysterious, amnesiac hero falls out of the sky mid-battle and joins her cause. Referred to throughout only as the Servant of Heaven, that hero, played by me, sets out first to unify Zipang, then to conquer the rest of the world, recruiting a growing cast of historical and mythological women along the way, Himiko included, though every major figure in this world, from Arthur to Napoleon, has been reimagined the same way.
That absurdity gets embraced immediately rather than explained away. Himiko’s introduction plays her as a klutz stumbling into a losing fight against a female version of Nobunaga, and the banter between the two sets the tone for how the whole cast interacts, playful antagonism first, sincerity earned later rather than assumed from the start.
The tactical layer is where Eiyu*Senki earns its surprise. Grid based battles ask for real thought about unit ranges, elemental affinities, and special abilities rather than just throwing bodies at the enemy, and the broader strategic layer, managing income, recruiting and upgrading troops, choosing which of the world’s roughly 120 cities to conquer and in what order, gives the whole thing weight beyond clicking through story scenes to unlock the next character. Characters level up two separate ways, their troop strength in battle and their personal relationship with the Servant of Heaven, and battle parties top out at six members drawn from a roster of more than 70 recruitable heroines, which turns squad building into an actual decision rather than a formality.
Side quest storylines tied to individual characters unlock new abilities and deepen specific relationships, and with a roster this large, that structure does most of the work of making seventy plus heroines feel like more than a menu of portraits. A single playthrough runs past 30 hours, and chasing down every character’s side content pushes that closer to 40 or 50, a real commitment for a game built on a premise this openly ridiculous, and one I was glad to keep pushing through.
The main plot is the clear weak point. Long stretches separate its more serious beats from the comedic slice of life material filling most of the runtime, and the story’s central twist about the Servant of Heaven’s true origin, handled with more care than the rest of the plot, still can’t fully compensate for how thin the connective tissue around it feels. What holds the writing together instead is the cast, particularly the vitriolic but affectionate back and forth between Himiko and her rival, which carries scenes the main plot alone couldn’t.
Arthur gets the strongest individual material in the back half, building toward a late game scene that puts her in real, immediate danger without the game spelling out what that danger actually costs her. It’s the clearest example of the story committing fully to a character rather than to its overarching conquest plot, and by the time the endgame conflict arrives, it’s the accumulated bond with this cast, not the plot mechanics driving it, that makes those final battles feel like they matter.
Character art from series artist Ashito Oyari gives a roster this large enough visual distinction to stay memorable, adult content aside, paired with a soundtrack that shifts by nation, a title screen theme mixing bagpipes with orchestration, and a relaxing, almost vacation like map theme that stays out of the way while managing the empire between fights. Tenco developed the game, and JAST USA localized and published this Steam release, bringing over a fully voiced Japanese cast of more than fifty actors, Imai Asami among the more recognizable names, and that scale of voice work carries a lot of the character banter the writing alone leans on.
The English localization stumbles in places, some translated honorifics and phrases read awkwardly rather than adapted naturally, and typos crop up often enough to notice across a lengthy playthrough, though neither issue seriously undercuts the experience. Worth a brief, neutral mention on the content side: this began as an 18+ PC release in Japan back in 2012 before a separately censored PS3 version followed, and the 2017 Steam release ships with reduced content by default, with a free adult patch available through JAST USA for anyone who wants the fuller, uncensored version. The core strategy game and story play the same either way.
Verdict
Eiyu*Senki – The World Conquest hides a legitimately engaging tactics game under a premise that spends its early hours looking like pure fan service, and once the strategic layer opens up, across more than 70 recruitable heroines and a map worth actually planning around, that gameplay earns the time the setup asks for. Its main plot stays the weakest link, thin and unevenly paced against the stronger character driven comedy filling most of the runtime, but Arthur’s late game moment and the bond built with this cast carry the weight the plot alone can’t. Rough localization edges and a story that never quite grows into its more serious ambitions keep it from greatness, but as a mechanically substantial tactics game wearing an unapologetically goofy premise, it delivers more than that premise alone would suggest.
