Counter-clockwise from upper left: Tsumugi Shiiba, Meguru Inaba, Nene Ayachi, and Touko Togakushi
Shuuji Hoshina has a secret: he has the ability to sense and smell emotions of others. He was born with this ability as much as he can remember. However, this ability made him very jaded as he has disgust towards negative emotions. Why he even has this ability was a mystery he had in his life.
One day, a girl asks him to substitute for her work, and he reluctantly obliges. However, he sees Nene Ayachi, a girl in his class, and one of the popular girls in school and runs the Occult Club, and unexpectedly sees her doing he'd never expect.
Nene has a secret on her own, but Shuuji finds a bottle of hers until it emits a powerful flash of light, covering the clubroom with intangible feathers. The feathers are drawn to him until he sees visions of people and their problems. Shuuji then finds out Nene is a witch who gathers feathers known as fragments in order to make a wish they desire, but they must trade something in return. Shuuji, now brimmed with new life inside him, decides to help Nene gather her fragments to help her.
Sabbat of the Witch (or Sanoba Witch) is a 2015 Visual Novel H-Game by Yuzusoft. The official English version was released on Oct 26, 2018.
This work contains the following examples
- Abnormal Ammo: Nene uses a handgun as her weapon of choice to extract fragments. However, the ammo she uses doesn't kill people, but rather knocks a person unconscious for a moment to obtain said fragments.
- Accidental Pervert: Shuuji can't seem to figure out how to knock a door before going in a room while the girls are changing or doing something in the club room.
- All for Nothing: By the end of her route, Nene's life has become so fulfilling that the wish she'd made years ago to revert it back to her childhood for a do-over with her family, a contract she'd spent years working to fulfill, causes only despair when it has to come true. And once the do-over begins, she finds that while her family is together as she wanted and her home life is calm enough, her parents clearly do not love each other and would be happier if they separated. Nene asks them to do just that, and their divorce happens only a month after it did in her original timeline. However, Nene then makes sure to carry out the one selfless intention in her wish, using her second chance to give her loving stepmother the support she deserves. Then, crushed by guilt over erasing everything she'd accomplished as part of the Occult Club, Nene becomes even more proactive with her work then before, helping almost everyone she had in her original timeline and many more on top of that. Retaining her memories and being more prepared allows her to create even better outcomes than she did the first time.
- Art Shift: Like many Yuzusoft visual novels, many of the comical scenes are depicted in Super-Deformed style.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Tsumugi is one of the nicest girls in the story, but you better pray that she does not get angry with you as Akagi learns the hard way.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Shuuji can actually sense someone being this. Because he can taste emotions, he knows when someone isn't sincere.
- Bland-Name Product: The handheld video game console mentioned and used by Meguru and Shuuji is a 3DW. Definitely not a Nintendo 3DS.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: In contrast to her more accepting stepmother, Nene's father disapproves that she's dating Shuuji. When he about to let it go, his wife discovers Nene's witch outfit which caused his overprotectiveness to return.
- Brought Down to Normal: In Touko and Meguru's routes, Shuuji comes to terms with his powers. However, he discovers that they went away. He keeps his emotion-based senses in other routes.
- The Cameo: This visual novel has the most cameos from other Yuzusoft games, such as Rio from Dracu-Riot!; Akari Kanemoto, Hinata Kunihito, Maya Nagamitsu, and Shizuru Masamune from Noble Works.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Nene, in Shuuji's first private encounter with her. She's not very happy about it.
- Did You Just Have Sex?: Meguru's After Story involves Meguru wearing her Halloween costume during club activity, and Shuuji and Meguru decides to have sex in the clubroom. Unfortunately, they accidentally let it slip that it happened, prompting the other girls to declare it a "no sex zone".
- Didn't Think This Through: Akagi, Tsumugi's alp, puts a hole in Shuuji's heart, which causes him to revert to his old self. Nanao tells her to use Tsumugi's fragment bottle on him and proceeds to do so. Shuuji ends up reverting to normal, and Akagi gets surrounded by two angry witches and a very pissed off Shuuji..
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: More or less literally on Tsumugi's route. The one responsible for attacking people to steal heart fragments is a puppy encountered earlier in the story that is becoming an alp.
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole: Akagi is a raven but for some reason (despite correctly identifying her species in narration and dialogue) the English translation keeps having her dialogue boxes marked "Crow" while she's in animal form.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness:
- Nene gets these when she's embarrassed enough to fantasize about death for herself and anyone around her.
- Touko, when the seal holding her old alp personality takes in her human personality as well.
- Fission Mailed: During Nene's route after she is sent back in time we are left with Shuuji who forgets her as time attempts to correct itself to the new scenario, though he continues to miss her terribly without realise what he's feeling. Kaidou offers to set him up with someone a chooses Nene (who Shuuji has never met yet in this tmeline) and the game cuts to credits followed by the main menu, seemingly ending on this ambiguous note...only for the main menu to suddenly have a "Restart" option that picks up the story with the time travelled Nene leading to the rest of the story.
- Good Stepmother: Nene's, which is why Nene feels so guilty about rejecting her and uses her second life to do right by her.
- Irony: In a 4-Koma short video, Meguru gave herself a makeover because of her supposed plain looks, and being the only girl in the Otaku Club, unaware that she's became popular with the boys who often gave her presents. Tsumugi even lampshades that she was treated like a princess.
- Intrigued by Humanity: Alps are animals that somehow become sapient and acquire magical abilities due to wishing to become human and gather emotional energy via witch contracts in order to do so.
- Lighter and Softer: Than Dracu-Riot!, being a standard high school comedy/drama affair which doesn't involve anyone dying (at least during the thing) and has only one route with any kind of antagonist. Senren * Banka goes back in the other direction.
- Love Interests: Nene, Meguru, Tsumugi, and Touko. Wakana also gets a short route, bringing the total to 5.
- Missing Mom: Shuuji's mother died over a decade before the prologue. Shuuji barely knows anything about her, but his father always talks about her.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Meguru and Tsumugi can't help but feel this way in their respective routes after learning how negative emotions they felt or inspired in others caused Shuuji physical pain.
- Oblivious to Love: Shuuji gets the Lifetime Achievement Award for this.
- Reluctant Fanservice Girl: Nene has to put up wearing her Stripperific witch outfit. In another 4-Koma short video, she dislikes Meguru's options for her character whose choices are even more revealing than her witch outfit.
- Self-Censored Release: The "censored" version still contains nudity. However, the sexual content is removed. Then again, it's kinda hard to remove most of it, considering the context behind Nene's Witch powers.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Touko dons an extremely revealing costume for Halloween in the common route, and is happy to tease Shuuji for the face he makes when looking at her. In her route, the sexual teasing only continues, and she's very casual about wanting to watch porn with Shuuji or bringing him to a store for women's underwear. After the seal containing her alp memories is no more, and her emotions no longer need to be diverted to sustain it, she becomes extremely embarrassed about everything she's said and done without batting an eye.
- Shout-Out: Yet another 4-Koma short video makes a reference to Nico Yazawa and her "Nico Nico nii!" catchphrase from the Love Live! series when Touko suggested that Wakana bought a guitar in order to sing her ending song and claim a spot as a main heroine, to which the latter denies.
- Shrinking Violet:
- At first glance, Nene looks like a dignified and composed girl who helps people with their problems, and boys take a liking to her. However, she is revealed to be shy, panicky, gets easily embarrassed, and has a tendency to ramble about things Shuuji never said.
- Tsumugi is a surprisingly reserved version of this when she meets everyone.
- Stepford Smiler:
- Shuuji's father Taichi. After his wife's death, he felt he had nothing to live for except his son, and much of his grief continues to plague him.
- Touko appears so confident and composed because the emotions she feels are weak, and if an experience manages to mean enough to her that she cares deeply about it anyway, she forgets it.
- Stripperific: Nene's Witch "uniform" is entirely compost of ribbons, a hat, and a skirt. She really hates the outfit, but she has no choice in the matter since neither her or Nanao can choose her outfit. Her contract does. However, her After Story has her trying to get the costume club members to make a replica since Shuuji admits he misses the outfit, and she tried to convince them despite odd looks.
- Super-Senses: Shuuji can smell the emotions people give off. Some are pleasant, some are sickening. He states that lies in particular taste like bitter medicine.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Tsumugi, but not by her own choice. Her contract takes away her femininity, and if she tries to be girly for one second, she will actually vomit. However, in her Afterstory, she chooses to wear a male uniform by choice in order to stop having boys looking at her in a normal uniform.
- Third-Person Person: Meguru usually refers to herself by her own name, apart from using the pronoun jibun in some instances.
- Together in Death: One of Nene's go-to mutterings when she gets too embarrassed.
- Tsundere: Meguru has shades of this in her route.
- Unlockable Content: Wakana's route is unavailable until you complete at least one main heroine's route. Upon completion, the CG image gallery, the music gallery, and the sprite gallery are also unlocked. The same is true for each of the heroine's After Story.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Alps can shift between human and their original animal forms.
