PLEASE NOTE: There are no screenshots in this review because for some reason my PS Vita is having difficulties with connecting to my PC through WiFi. Sorry!
This game started off good, then turned into a bit of a slog, but in the final two routes it became a lot more interesting. Hidaka's route, like Tsukasa's before it, goes a bit more into the story behind the Engage Ceremony and isn't just all boring high school nonsense.
In this route, Hikari decides to get a part time job at the cafe where Hidaka works. They do know each other at the beginning, but they aren't really that close. Hikari just wants to get a bit closer to him and help him out, because I think he assisted her and the other princes with cleaning or something in the first or second chapter.
When she hangs out with Hidaka, sometimes Hikari gets these weird flashbacks that aren't hers. (The music they use in these sequences is really pretty!) In these flashbacks, she keeps seeing Hidaka, but doesn't recognise him for some reason at first. It turns out that these are Kaguya-hime's flashbacks, and that her and Hidaka had a relationship in the past. I think Hikari's supposed to be Kaguya-hime's reincarnation, but I'm not really sure. But anyway, she starts to fall in love with Hidaka, but thinks that her feelings might be Kaguya's and not hers.
This route also turned out to be very similar to Tsukasa's sometimes. One day, Tsukasa tries it on with Hikari and it's revealed that he's not who he says he is. Like he was in his own route, Tsukasa acts really horribly here. He again says that he wants Hikari to fall in love with him for the Engage Ceremony and all of that. Hidaka also finds out the truth behind Tsukasa, and rushes off to save our heroine. I think Tsukasa ends up stabbing him or something, I can't remember.
Kirara and Hidaka explain everything to Hikari, and they tell her to not go out alone, in case Tsukasa comes out to get her. After all of this, they still let him stay in Etoile even though they should probably just get the princes to use their magic powers to kick him out. I am still not sure if Hidaka and Kirara are really siblings. I think Kirara was sent from the moon to watch over Hikari, whereas Hidaka's just this human who's immortal or something, I don't know.
Hikari goes home and is absolutely terrified. I think anyone would be if they had to share a home with Tsukasa. She decides to give Hidaka a call, because his voice comforts her. They had this romantic phone call and the CG it came with was quite pretty.
Eventually, Tsukasa barges into Hikari's room and tells her that if she wants to protect Hidaka, she has to fall in love with him and do the Engage Ceremony. I think that he said he'd kill Hidaka if she didn't comply. Hikari of course accepts this offer in order to protect the one she loves. She goes around pretending to be Tsukasa's girlfriend, and it started to feel a bit like I was playing his route again. I think he even kisses Hikari at one point.
Hikari just decides to avoid Hidaka, and this obviously concerns him, so one night he just climbs into her bedroom and confronts her. Our heroine lies, stating that she is in love with Tsukasa, who then barges in and pushes Hidaka out.
Hidaka believes all of his, but Kirara eventually just confesses that Hikari's doing all of this to protect him.
Valentines Day begins to get close, which is interesting because none of the other routes go very far past New Year's Day. Valentines Day is the day when Hikari has to choose which prince she wants to marry. She ends up shocking them all by choosing Tsukasa, who is soon planning to take her to the moon so that she can die in the Engage Ceremony.
That evening, Hikari finds Hidaka and gives him a Valentines Day gift, but then Tsukasa snatches her away and takes her to the moon. They almost complete the Engage Ceremony, but then Kirara, Hidaka and all the other princes arrive and stop him. This scene felt like the grand finale of the entire game, where everybody comes together and has one final battle. I'm pretty sure Tsukasa just ends up being nice to them and decides not to kill Hikari for some reason. It's weird because it took him forever to be reformed in his own route, and here it just takes him a minute to become a good guy.
The day is saved eventually, and Hidaka and Hikari have a wedding, but unlike every other marriage in this game, it's on Earth instead of the moon. Tsukasa's invited for some reason, and he just turns up in his villain clothes like he did in his own wedding in the last route. Everybody lives happily ever after, and the route ends. I was going to do the other, slightly less happy ending, but I really wanted to start playing Hakuoki so I just skipped it. I will go back to do it at a later date, however.
This route was really good. Not as great as Tsukasa's route, but probably my second favourite one in the entire game. The only problems I had with it were that I felt that we didn't really spend that much time with Hidaka (compared to the other LIs in their routes), sometimes it was a bit similar to Tsukasa's route, and that I had to read about the prince cafe and Christmas play again! Oh yeah, it was also annoying that whenever the game would discuss Hikari's romance with Hidaka, they'd always end up mentioning Kaguya-hime. I know Hikari is her reincarnation or whatever, but it felt like someone who always brings up their ex in front of their current lover. Also, I forgot that Hidaka's an adult in college dating a girl in high school.
My ranking of every single route is this: Tsukasa > Hidaka > Shina > Kazuteru > Aoi > Subaru > Mizuki
My character ranking is this: Tsukasa > Hidaka > Kirara > Aoi > Shina > Kazuteru > Subaru > Mizuki
I did have fun with PsychicEmotion6, but the first five routes were a bit meh in comparison to the last two, which were both great. Sometimes it was a bit of a slog to get through all of the repetitiveness in the routes. I think sometimes the high school fluff was also a bit boring, I just wanted to read about the fantasy stuff and the romance instead. Originally, I thought that I would prefer slice of life otoge to the intense, plot based stuff, but I'm starting to think that that's not the case. I think that my favourite type of game is one with lots of good romance as well as an interesting plot.
I'm glad that this game was easy to read, though. It's a good beginner otome game, I suppose. Eventually I just wanted to get it over with, because I was super excited to start playing the Hakuoki remakes. That's the problem when you have a big backlog, you just want to get started with the next game as soon as possible.
This concludes my PsychicEmotion6 review series. I might take a look at one of the drama CDs in the future, so I won't be saying goodbye to this franchise yet. Now, prepare for the massive onslaught of Hakuoki posts! There are something like twelve routes to cover, which will all probably take me a very long time to finish.
See you all in the next post!
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