Words Worth | |
ワーズ・ワース | |
---|---|
Genre | Hentai,[1] sword and sorcery[2] |
Game | |
Developer | ELF Corporation |
Publisher | ELF Corporation DMM Games (Digital) |
Genre | Eroge, role-playing video game |
Platform | Microsoft Windows |
Released | 1993-07-22 (PC98) 1993-08-27 (X68000) 1993-09-30 (TOWNS) 1999-03-25 (Win95) 2004-10-29 (XP) 2017-06-16 (Digital) |
Original video animation | |
Directed by | Kan Fukumoto |
Produced by | Masatarō Osamu Koshinaka |
Written by | Yōsei Morino |
Music by | Tōru Shura |
Studio | Green Bunny Arms Corporation |
Licensed by |
|
Released | August 25, 1999 – November 25, 2000[3] |
Episodes | 5 |
Original video animation | |
Words Worth Gaiden | |
Directed by | Hisashi Tomii |
Produced by | Masatarō Osamu Koshinaka Show Kumabe |
Written by | Yōsei Morino |
Music by | Tōru Shura |
Studio | Arms Corporation Studio Kuma (Cooperation) |
Licensed by |
|
Released | July 25, 2002[4] – September 25, 2002[5] |
Episodes | 2 |
Words Worth (ワーズ・ワース, Wāzu Wāsu) is a Japanese adult role-playing video game originally released for NEC PC-98 computer systems, and remade for Microsoft Windows. The game's story is linear, with only one story decision near the end, leading to one of five different endings.
A five-part animated erotic direct-to-video series was adapted from the game's story. It also has a side story series, Words Worth Gaiden (ワーズ・ワース外伝) (known as Words Worth Outer Stories in the English release). The anime has the same general story, but the anime cuts out several characters and changes the plot mostly to create more sex scenes. The English dub is notable for featuring real life porn actresses Jenna Jameson and Nikki Dial.[6][7] The rest of the English cast remained uncredited.
The gameplay of Words Worth is similar to other fantasy games of the era such as The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall but with a tongue and cheek sexual undertone. It is a remake of the 1993 game of the same name and while the plot is near identical, the graphics, gameplay, and visuals have been greatly improved.
Words Worth is primarily a first-person dungeon crawler. Even though there are a few "friendly" areas, such as the hero Astro's bedroom and a town where the hero can rest and buy supplies, most of the game is spent in dungeon-like, maze-like areas (with an auto-map feature). There is no party in the game: Astro has to face the enemies alone. The enemies appear randomly. The 1999 remake has the players to click on the enemies to slash them and the combat is turn-based. The game has scenes with nudity and sexual situations.
Like most fantasy role playing games Words Worth has lots of focus on story and narrative plot points but unlike many contemporaries in the fantasy genre Words Worth is entirely voice acted. As the players play as a young hero trying to prove himself worthy while surrounded by vixens, the game falls into the style of many Japanese anime plots where a young awkward protagonist is surrounded by sexpot girls.
The skill of sword-fighting is known to two tribes, the Tribes of Light (which consists of humans living on the world's surface) and Shadow (largely part-human-part-animal creatures and monsters living in an underground city, who enjoy a lifespan five times as long as the Tribe of Light and age one-fifth as quickly). The two tribes lived in peace and harmony, their domains separated by the "Words Worth" tablet—a huge monolith slab erected by an almighty creator. Although the tablet has writing on it, neither Tribe can read the text. One day, Words Worth was mysteriously destroyed by an unknown entity; its fragments were scattered among the domain of the Tribes of Shadow. The two Tribes blamed each other for the tablet's destruction, and started a war that has continued for 150 years (100 in the anime). Astral, prince of the Tribe of Shadow, desires to become a Swordsman of Shadow, but his father, King Wortoshika, forbids him to do so. He is engaged to Sharon, a beautiful swordswoman and Astral's childhood friend, who has feelings for Astral but wishes he were stronger.
Words Worth no Hitobito (ワーズ・ワースの人々) is a cross-over between Words Worth and The Mystery of Nonomura Hospital. In the first half of the game, Umihara, the main protagonist of The Mystery of Nonomura Hospital, enters the world of Words Worth as summoned by Wortoshika. The game takes place in the intervening 20 years between Astral's disappearance and reappearance. In the second half, Sharon from Words Worth comes into the world of Nonomura Hospital and has a sexual affair with Umihara.
The original video game was made by ELF Corporation in 1993. The game was remade for Windows 95 in 1999, with some changed character designs, full-voice added to the supporting characters, 3D polygon graphics, and an opening animation sequence. That same year, the anime adaptation was also released. The series was originally released in English by NuTech Digital in 1999, but the license was lost due to NuTech being sued for failure to pay royalties. According to AnimeNation, that license was awarded in 2007 to Media Blasters, which released the series under Kitty Media.
The Canada Border Services Agency ruled in 2007 that Words Worth is obscene under subsection 163(8) of the Criminal Code and is prohibited from being brought into the country.[1][8]
In 2003, Words Worth was released in German by Trimax as Am Ende des Lichtes (At the End of the Light). Trimax also released Words Worth Gaiden in 2009 as Die Kriegerinnen des Lichts (The She-Warriors of Light).
No. | Title | Originally released | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "The Legend of Light and Shadow" (光と影の伝説) | August 25, 1999 | |
In their perpetual war against the Shadow People, the Light Tribe under their king Fabris launches yet another assault against the underground realm. Eager to prove his prowess as a warrior and his worth to his fiancé Sharon, Astral asks his father, King Wortoshika, for a swordsman's license, but is refused since Wortoshika secretly has other plans for him. With the aid of Nina, who has been harboring a crush on him, Astral obtains a license illegally. On his way out of the palace, he stumbles into the dungeon of Light Tribe prisoner Maria, whom he naïvely rapes. | |||
2 | "Pantheon of Play" (神々の戯れ) | November 25, 1999 | |
After recovering from her ordeal, Maria frees the other Light Tribe prisoners. Astral proceeds to the battlefield, but is diverted when he has to rescue Nina from a monster and has sex with her after she confesses her feelings for him. Arriving at the battlefield, he sees Fabris killing his friend Hyde and preparing to rape Sharon, so he rushes in and cuts off Fabris's arm. Maria then arrives, and in retaliation she blasts Astral with an unpredictable power spell, which inexplicably casts him to the surface and 20 years into the future. | |||
3 | "The Legendary Swordsman" (伝説の剣士) | May 25, 2000 | |
Amnesic, Astral wanders the Light Tribe's realm, where he is mistaken for Pollux, a long-lost legendary warrior. After saving Fabris' granddaughter Mew from a rabid bear, he is introduced to the king, who decides to exploit his lack of memory to initiate a decisive last strike against the Shadow Tribe, which has sealed off its borders. However, Menza and Tessio, the chief advisors to the Shadow and Light Kings, are secretly two parts of a sinister creature which has destroyed the Word Worth Tablet in the first place and now grows worried that Wortoshika has been collecting its pieces in order to learn its secret. | |||
4 | "Light, Shadow and Darkness" (光、影そして闇) | August 25, 2000 | |
After unwittingly opening the borders of the Shadow Realm for Fabris, Astral descends into the underground in the company of the Light swordswoman Rita. The two become separated, and Astral encounters Sharon in battle, while Rita ends up in the Words Worth chamber and is claimed by Wortoshika, who wishes to sire a child who unites the blood of Light and Shadow and would be the only one who can decipher the tablet. Tessio and Menza make their move and assault Wortoshika and Rita to prevent this from happening. | |||
5 | "Glimmer's End" (煌めきの果て) | November 25, 2000 | |
While battling Sharon, Astral finally recovers his memories and makes love with Sharon, who has been harboring feelings for him since her rescue from Fabris. Things get only a little complicated when Mew makes her way into the Shadow Realm in order to be at Astral's/Pollux's side and Astral discovers that he has sired a daughter with Nina. After learning of the dark creature and its intentions, Light and Shadow join forces and defeat it, and Astral is revealed to be a Light Tribe child once kidnapped and raised by Wortoshika to facilitate the deciphering of the Words Worth Tablet. With these conditions, Astral and Nina's daughter, Ariadne, manages to reveal the tablet's secret, uniting the two tribes again. |
The series spawned two additional Gaiden OVA episodes and one comedic Omake episode. The Gaiden episodes take place in the final third of the episode "Pantheon of Play", the Omake following the conclusion of the original series.
No. | Title | Originally released | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "Outer Story: Within The Furious Waters" "Honryū no naka de…" (外伝 前編 - 奔流の中で…) | July 25, 2002 | |
2 | "Outer Story: Towards the Fierce Waves" "Dotō no naka de…" (外伝 外編 - 怒涛の中へ…) | September 25, 2002 | |
Omake | "Sharon's Home Cooking vs. Mew's Cosplay vs. Nina's Established Fact—Three-Cornered Battle" (特典映像 - シャロンの手料理 vs ミューのコスプレ vs ニーナの既成事実 三つ巴の決戦) | December 18, 2009 | |
While the Tribes of Light and Shadow have peacefully reunited and are living together on the surface, life in Astral's household has not gotten any easier as Sharon, Nina and Mew still fiercely vie for his attention, only to have Delta beat them to it. Notes: Released as part of a Premium Collectors DVD box in Japan. No U.S. release. |