Daiteikoku

File:Daiteikoku.jpg

The 2011 offering from AliceSoft, Daiteikoku is a hybrid world conquest/RPG/H-Game and the third in the Dai series along with its spiritual prequels Daiakuji and Daibanchou. In the future, humanity is a scattered and divided people, having long since colonised the known universe but unable to reach each other or establish contact due to the difficulties of interstellar travel. All this changed when the Aeris Empire discovered the secrets of wormhole travel and triggered an explosion of imperialistic conquest and, naturally, brutal space warfare.

The Star Field Network Diagram is divided among numerous factions. The first and most powerful of these is, of course, the Aeris Empire with its vast armadas and capable admirals. However new powers are rising and the most dangerous of these is the Doukutsu Third Reich under the leadership of the charismatic genius idol Letia Adolf. Joining the fray are the Republic of Gamerica and the Union of Soviet Human Organizations with their own objectives and policies.

Caught in the middle of this multilateral power struggle is the oldest of the major power blocs, the Empire of Japan. Exhausted from a recent war against the Chinese Empire, it is ripe pickings for any of its enemies and the task of rebuilding the shattered Japanese navy falls to its newly-promoted Fleet Admiral Tsuyoshi Togo.

Or, to put it simply, this is World War II IN SPACE. From the Japanese point of view. Also, it has space monsters. And Hitler is a teenaged idol.

Tropes used in Daiteikoku include:

• After the End: Certain epilogues.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The space monsters are at least as big as the planets they attack.
• Animal Stereotypes: El Rommel, the Desert Fox, has fox eyes. Combines with Eyes of Gold for a little east/west stereotype blending.
• Ascended Fanboy: Nontsich Himmler, one of Letia's greatest fans, which includes El Rommel and Eisen Manstein. He gets laid with Letia Adolf, his very idol yearned by everyone in the nation. Happens on the Ultimate Idol route.
• Awesome McCoolname: Victory Nelson, with his flagship, the HMS Victory.
  • Eagle Douglas isn't that bad either
• Badass Grandpa: Yamamoto Mugen in the Empire of Japan and Claude Montgomery in the Empire of Aeris
• Banned in China: Invoked by Alicesoft themselves, blocking their website to all IPs outside Japan and restricting the sales of the game outside Japan due to its political(ly incorrect) nature.
• Barrier Maiden: Empress Mikado, the only person who can perform the banishing rituals to keep away the big scary space monsters.
• Blackmail: A specialty of the Chinese Empire's spymaster Hanitora. She uses her body to get close to the target and takes compromising photos to toast their reputations. Unfortunately, when going after Togo she literally Did Not Do the Research.
• The Cameo: Rance appears as the leader of the Mongols. His motivations remain the same.
• Canada, Eh?: Canada is Gamerican territory along with Manila 2000.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Gamerica's president is manipulated from behind the scenes by the four daughters of the Republic's richest, most powerful corporations.
• Crutch Character: Shibagami. Starts off at Level 10 and it's possible to get him as early as Turn 5. Quite frankly, you will need all the help you can get.
• Cute Mute: Hiraga Tsunami, the researcher in the Empire of Japan who has a Taking Cat to speak for her.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Averted with CORE, who are mainly composed of criminals anyway and were probably pretty inhuman to begin with, given some of the things they do.
• Despair Event Horizon: Basically the second event of any character in the CORE chapter.
• Downer Ending: CORE chapter
• Eagle Land: Gamerica is ruled by capitalism. Their generic admirals swear and speak a lot of Gratuitous English (although this could be because they're, you know, dying) and one of their admirals is a violent woman whose main passions appear to be sex and war. They also have a reserve force composed entirely of rape cyborgs with the brains of ex-convicts. On the other hand, their supreme commander is a decent guy, honestly believes in the ideals that Gamerica stands for and wants to run for political office in order to rid his country of corruption. Also, he's a former movie star.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Oh, Letia.
• Expy: Wait a second is the leader of the CORE look like...
• Fake Difficulty: The most common criticism of the game among bloggers and that imageboard of which we do not speak.
  • Invasions are all or nothing, there is no retreat. Particularly jarring when you can retreat during defensive battles.
  • Failure to conquer a planet is an instant game over, because if the planetary assault fails the ground commander is killed in battle (the Imperial Japanese Navy only has one battalion of marines, apparently).
  • Virtually every faction in the game declares war on you at the same time and most of them have easy invasion corridors into your territory.
• Fake Longevity: An attempted aversion, according to Word of God - originally the battle system was going to be in complete Real Time Strategy style but the game would apparently have taken over 100 hours to complete.
  • Played straight by the numerous, numerous cutscenes.
• Funny Animal: Shibagami, also the god of the Empire of Japan.
• Geo Effects: Apparently, Generals Famine and Winter are very much alive in the Russian area of space. There are a bunch of these types of effects scattered around, both to the player's benefit and detriment.
• Glass Cannon: Admirals that only get bonuses to their cannon attacks, like Raizo. They hit absurdly hard but will probably die in one hit due to the fact that only frigates have cannons.
  • Unless you've got submarines.
• Guide Dang It: Typical Alicesoft. How else is one to get every character clear and unlock every single CG?
• Historical Hero Upgrade
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Let us count the ways...
• Hot Dad: The main character himself. Single dad, very close to his daughter, brilliant tactician and visionary leader whose ultimate goal is to create a universe that is safe for his daughter to live in. Maintains relationships with several dozen women and they are all apparently okay with this.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Aircraft and laser weapons have priority over cannons and missiles, but the latter are more damaging by far.
• Mascot Mook: Haniho!
• Nintendo Hard: Due to bad design decisions and Fake Difficulty as detailed above. It is hard (though probably not impossible) to be in a strong position by the middle of the game without having played before or having a good, comprehensive guide.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Based in the Manila 2000 region is Gamerica's supreme commander, Eagle Douglas. When he is forced to retreat following the Japanese victory there, he is interviewed by a reporter. No points for guessing what he said.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: He's not Abao Akuu at all. His name is Quattro.
• Politically-Correct History: Bataan Death March? Holocaust? Japanese Internment Camps? What are those?
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Despite inheriting the throne and responsibilities of the greatest empire in the known universe, Sarah Britain chooses to remain a frontline commander and is notorious for her reckless charges and frequent injuries. (Apparently, her command skills are so bad that she only knows how to block incoming attacks.
  • Also, Empress Mikado, once she joins the battle.
• Space Fighter: The primary weapon of space aircraft carriers and one of the more irritating enemies in the game thanks to their high priority.
• Space Is an Ocean: There are submarines, and they submerge themselves between dimensions. There is also space weather that can have some really weird effects.
• Spiritual Successor: This is to Daibanchou and Daiakuji
• Split Personality: Hitomi
• Take That: Fanscism, a political philosophy based solely on (literal) Idol worship. Great if your idol's a super genius, otherwise, not so much.
• Up to Eleven: How does one top liberating a portion of Japan from ultra-feminist Americans and conquering all of Japan to save it from rampaging demons? We think you know.
  • The script in this game tops any other that Alicesoft has written before, clocking in at over 1,700,000 individual characters and using up 3 games' worth of resources and time.
• Wall of Text: Y'know those 1,700,000 characters? Unfortunately a lot of them are devoted to mandatory faction-specific cutscenes, even if they aren't particularly relevant to whatever route the player finds themselves on.
• Weaponized Landmark: The New York system features a battle against a giant weaponized Statue of Liberty. It shoots laser beams. Quite honestly, there's not much more to say about that.