Japanese bishojo game developer Yuzusoft announced that their visual novel Senren*Banka had sold over a million units worldwide as of February 25. The game, originally released in 2016 for the PC, and rated Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam, managed to reach this big milestone a whopping 10 years after its launch.
Senren*Banka is a Japanese-styled romance visual novel, originally released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Yuzusoft. Set in the remote mountain village of Hoori, the story follows protagonist Masaomi Arichi, who accidentally breaks the village’s “unbreakable” sacred sword-in-the-stone and is forced into marriage with Yoshino Tomotake, a shrine maiden, in order to atone for his mistake. As he adjusts to his new life at Hoori, Masaomi meets three other girls with whom he gets rather close. Exploring romantic entanglements with the four heroines, each with their own distinct routes, the protagonist also gradually learns about the mysterious “curse of the village.”
Interestingly, the original version of Senren*Banka was initially launched as an 18+ title in July 2016, and got an adjusted Steam version in February 2020 (the NSFW patch is available as a separate DLC), with a Nintendo Switch version released in May 2022. Around the time of the game’s Switch release, Senren*Banka had already sold over 200,000 units worldwide. In October 2023, a bit more than a year later, it was reported that the game surpassed 400,000 units sold. Snowballing from there, February 2024 saw the title surpass 500,000 units sold, with the game already reaching around 700,000 units sold by September 2024. Approximately one and a half year later, the game finally reached the 1-million-unit milestone, selling a whopping 300,000 units between September 2024 and February 2026.
According to data from Steam Scout, most of the game’s popularity on the platform can be attributed to Chinese gamers – with 92.7% of all reviews being in Simplified Chinese, followed by Traditional Chinese at 3.7%, English at 2.5% and Japanese at 0.5%. While we know that Steam review habits vary depending on the country, and that the game is being sold on other platforms, it is likely that Chinese fans played a big part in helping the game reach such a big milestone.
Related articles:
