All spoilers for Ideology in Friction will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Samurai Vandalism is an H-Game RPG made by ONEONE1 and serves as a sequel to Ideology in Friction, first released in May 25, 2021 and later released for western territories by Kagura Games on August 25, 2023.
Taking place in the island of Yamato, Mukuro Kamiyashiro was separated from her sister Mei Kamiyashiro by a raid by Byakuya, an organization formed by dissents against the Hitotsubashi Shogunate due to the increasing corruption. Years later, as a member of Hozuki, an group of elite samurai formed as the nation's peacekeepers, Mukuro is assigned on a mission alongside "Thunder God" Leo Goldstein, Mukuro's lover who she can optionally pursue, Momo Himetsubaki, an expert magician often seen together with her retainer, "Wind God" Gin Fuma, and Kikako Arisugawa, a cute samurai who hides a good reason why she doesn't kill humans and accompanied with a familiar named Bebi. Leading the squadron is Ryu Nitobe, the stern training instructor of the group, and Azami Takachiho, the commander of Hozuki.
However, at some point, a certain encounter has her find the whereabouts of Mei, and with it, her belief in Yamato is tested - Will she stay in Hozuki to defend the nation's ideals, leave them for Byakuya to reform Yamato through any means possible while risking falling to evil, or go completely alone and risk everything?
To prevent wiki violations, only trope the Bowdlerised version released on Steam unless necessary.
Samurai Vandalism provides examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features: Unlike Ideology In Friction, you don't need to fail a certain amount of missions to access the other routes, as instead you have a simple choice to branch out to different paths.
- Army of Thieves and Whores: The Shogun's paranoia causes him to form the City Watch, an organization composed of thugs and criminals.
- Artifact of Doom: The Arrow of Apollo, which was created by an ancient elf kingdom as a WMD, capable of destroying an entire nation, and even worse, it resides within Sayo, who can potentially unleash it through Power Incontinence if it's not extracted from her when the red moon rises.
- Bittersweet Ending: All of the game's Multiple Endings have some sort of sweetness, yet have some sort of bitterness on the best endings of their routes:
- Hozuki: Numerous lives were lost in the attempt to prevent the Arrow of Apollo from annihilating Yamato, and thanks to the death of the Shogun, while he is prevented from doing further damage to the nation, the anarchy created by his death persists for a while. But Sayo eventually decides to enforce her position as the new Shogun, Tamano, having been freed of her fate, can now live a natural life, and Mukuro and Leo can potentially have a happy marriage together.
- Byakuya: With the help of Hozuki, Byakuya brings an end to the corrupt Shogun and successfully Mercy Kills Tamano, preventing Yamato's destruction. Daruma replaces the shogunate system with an parliamentary system, with Hozuki reformed as a police organization, Azami reveals herself to the members of Hozuki that she was the infamous Hannya, and resigns to atone for her actions, leaving Hozuki for Ryu to command, Hiraga and Aguri are still finding ways to make themselves immortal so that they could be together forever, Manji becomes a Loan Shark, a renewed Mikage vows to protect her shrine, Midori is still a serial killer, Mei wanders the world, and what happens to Mukuro depends on her actions.
- Ronin: A lot of terrible things have happened, and depending on certain conditions, only Ranmaru makes it out alive from the trio's actions, and it's clear that Sayo's marriage to her husband is hapless and the Arrow of Apollo is still within her, with Mukuro, Momo and Kikako rejecting Hiraga's offers to become nobles. However, Hiraga has become the Shadow Dictator of Yamato, allowing him to rule behind the scenes while still maintaining his love life with Aguri, and the three Ronin are now free to do whatever they want... Unless if it's the evil route.
- Cutting Off the Branches: The game seems to take place after the Ideology in Friction's "Pure Love Knights Route" ending, since it's mentioned that Clacier is married to Falke, and in the Hozuki route, Clacier gives Falke Annette's prosthetic as a replacement for one of his arms after it gets cut off.
- Downer Ending: While most Bad Ends count as this, the Evil Ronin ending has this trope in full effect. Not only have Mukuro, Momo and Kikako completely conquer Hozuki and kill almost everyone, with Aguri and Hiraga implied to be killed as well, and Ranmaru only surviving, they also completely rule it with an iron fist. To make matters worse, this catches the attention to the Kingdom of ViktorBerg, and anyone who has played Ideology in Friction will recognize that it's extremely bad news, especially considering how strong Clacier is, this is likely to not end well.
- Earn Your Bad Ending: The Evil Ronin route is by far the hardest ending to get, since you have to defeat everyone in that route, and have high enough corruption so that you can kill Daruma, since his death is also a requirement for the ending. Successfully doing so plunges Yamato in a state far worse than complete destruction.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The best Byakuya route is the second-hardest ending to get, since you essentially have one reduced party member until the very final battle, but succeeding results in the best possible outcome for Yamato in the entire game.
- Final Boss: The routes determine the boss fought in the final battle in their respective routes:
- Hozuki: Hiraga, consumed by grief over Aguri's death, becomes an Asura determined to end Yamato by putting it out of his misery.
- Byakuya: Tamano, who returned to her original form as the Nine-Tailed Fox to destroy the Arrow of Apollo from within.
- Ronin: Shogun Takahatsu Hitotsubashi, transformed into a Daidarabocchi due to a botched experiment by Hiraga to obtain eternal youth.
- Game-Favored Gender: This is the first ONEONE1 game to feature playable male characters, and it shows:
- With the exception of Mei Kamiyashiro and Azami Takachiho, none of the male characters have an "extremely powerful yet costly attack". While this is downplayed, it does rarely give them anything to stand out compared to others.
- All of them are Guest Star Party Members, meaning that buying equipment for them is a waste of time, and even worse, they cannot equip passives, which would have benefited them.
- They cannot use Specials such as Area Heal and Yamata-No-Orochi. This tends to make the early game more tedious since usually, the males are faster than the females.
- They also don't have any voice actors, in contrast to all the females having voices.
- Glass Cannon: The "Offense is the best defense" passive, shortened as "Best Defense", provides a 20% attack boost, at the expense of defense.
- Inconsistent Dub:
- The English translation mostly orders character names in Western order (first name first, last name last), but on the status screen, it lists them in Eastern order (last name first, first name last).
- For some reason, Mei's ultimate skill is called "Moonlit Dusk" when it's first obtained, but the skill menu calls it "Moonlit Night".
- Matricide: The aply-titled Side Episode involves this. Ouran Arisugawa would often put Byakuya trainees through hellish training, and the final exam involved dueling her, and failing meant death. Not even her daughter Kinako was safe from her, but she managed to eventually bisect her with Ageha, and she still has nightmares about it, which is why she starts out the with a passive that has her deal less damage to humanoids, but more damage against monsters.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: Clacier Berg makes a brief appearance in the Hozuki route, where it's revealed that she has been crowned as the queen of Viktor between the events of Ideology in Friction and Samurai Vandalism.
- Recurring Element: There are few notable elements that reappearing from Ideology in Friction:
- The main protagonist initially starts as an member of a group dedicated to protecting the peace, but certain events cause them to question their ideals, resulting in the story branching (Clacier Berg, Mukuro Kamiyashiro).
- A group who initially seems to be antagonistic, but ultimately is revealed to be an Well-Intentioned Extremist organization willing to reform their nation at all costs (El Dorado, Byakuya).
- The seemingly benevolent leader who is later revealed to be absolutely corrupt (The King of ViktorBerg, Hitotsubashi Shogun).
- One of the members of the group is actually a member of the terrorist organization (Zara Afail, Azami Takachiho).
- Having three paths the protagonist can take, with the epilogue slightly altering depending on their actions (Knights, Resistance and Drifter for Ideology in Friction, Hozuki, Byakuya and Ronin for Samurai Vandalism).
- Superboss: The giant Evilroid is fought at an optional location at the Mountain of Immortality, and stat-wise, it's mostly the same as the mutated Shogun from the Ronin route, albeit much stronger. The one fought at the Hozuki route is by far the hardest variant, since you don't have access to Dark Elf forms until the Final Boss battle. Successfully defeating it unlocks some bonus scenes.
- Super Mode: Dark Elf forms are treated as this in-story and gameplay, which can be reached by having elf blood and performing a Magical Incantation.
- Virgin-Shaming: Leo Goldstein gets egged on by Gin Fuma for being a virgin even though he's one himself. This can potentially go away if Mukuro agrees to have sex with Leo.
