Instead of reviewing every single route individually like I normally do and attempting to summarise each one, I decided to make one massive rambling review of the game instead. There's not really much point in me talking much about the plot, because at this point, every man and his dog has played Hakuoki. Also, I'll probably be making a lot of comparisons to the PSP game, so be warned. Beware of spoilers too.
(I was going to put a photo of my Vita playing the game here but I thought it would be too stupid)
I'm excited to finally properly talk about this game. When I played the Demon of the Fleeting Blossom for the first time on my PSP, I wrote about it a bit on this blog, but I was a bit ashamed to be talking about a female dating game. Those reviews are a bit embarrassing to look at because I spelt "Shinsengumi" wrong, even though they use the word billions of times throughout the game.
I know Hakuoki's been going for years, but I only actually played it last year. The PSP version I paid more for than both the remakes together. My PSP copy of the first game and Zuisouroku have been pretty much made redundant by these new games, but at least they're physical copies. The PSN Store was having a massive sale and the two remakes were going for so cheap, I just had to get them even if they were digital. For some reason buying them psychically online seems to be so pricy right now.
It's quite nice to see the original CGs and sprites on a nicer screen this time. Graphically, Kyoto Winds is so pretty. The UI looks a bit more modern than the older games, and the menu backgrounds are so nice. There are a lot more effects during the action scenes than I remember, like sword slashing animations. They may have been in the PSP version, but I don't think they had different colour sword strokes for each character. There was also this moving snow effect that I loved, but I only remember seeing it once, which was a bit of a waste.
The opening movie showed off some of the game's CGs and sprites with swaying hair effects. When I saw it I was super excited, because I expected them to be in the main game. Unfortunately, to my disappointment, the CGs and sprites stay static, they just used those effects in the opening theme only.
I liked the new CGs quite a bit though, even if they apparently aren't done by the artist who did the older games. The only problem I had was that some characters had way more CGs than others. I suppose it is sort of hard when you insert some new people in, but just look at how many Yamazaki has compared to Okita!
For Kyoto Winds, Otomate also composed new background music. I can't really remember much of the old music except for that one song that played all the time whenever the more slice-of-life scenes happened, but the new music is good, I suppose. The opening and ending themes are also awesome, so awesome that I hardly ever skipped them. I remember when I played Demon of the Fleeting Blossom, I didn't even know that there was a theme tune, and when I found it, I just heard it once then skipped it every time.
These new games have not actually been released by Aksys, like most of Otomate's games are in the West. It's been translated and sold by Idea Factory themselves, just like Amnesia had been. This means that the whole translation is different. I heard somewhere that they did put a bit of Aksys' original translation of the PSP game in here, but I'm not sure how true that is.
(I was going to compare the writing between the new and old games, but then I realised that some parts of the new games might have been written differently in Japanese, so the translation would be different anyway.)
A lot of people online have complained about the new translation, and I can understand why they dislike it. Instead of just simply trying their best to preserve the original meanings of the Japanese text, the translators tried to make their translation a bit more flowery. There were a lot of times where the Japanese audio didn't match the English at all. I know that some things cannot be translated directly, but a lot of these sentences could've been.
To be honest though, I didn't really have that much of a problem with it. I just wish that the characters were made to speak less modern and a bit more fitting with the period, and that they had actually proofread some of it. There were a lot of random grammar errors, as well as times when the game would say someone was speaking when it was actually someone else, a bit like what happened with the English version of Collar X Malice.
One thing that the translator people did really well one was the trophy names. I'll admit that they did made me chuckle a few times, especially after finishing some of the more dramatic routes. Most otome games just have boring trophy names like "All Character Routes Cleared", so these were nice to see. I really hope that Edo Blossoms has trophies like these too!
For some reason I haven't gotten the trophy for getting all of the ending movies. I clicked on them all to try and see if that would work, but it didn't. I thought that I would've gotten a platinum after completing it, but it seems that I'm missing one dictionary entry, and the final bonus CG...
This post is already so long, and I haven't even mentioned the plot yet! If you didn't know, Kyoto Winds is basically Common Route: The Game. I thought that I was going to get bored with this, but surprisingly, I wasn't. Hakuoki has a really great common route (in my opinion), because there are so many different story branches and extra scenes, making every playthrough different. Some of the scenes from Zuisouroku (the Japan-exclusive fandisc I own) were added, which was nice because I could actually understand them this time. It's really easy to miss scenes and CGs though, one time I unlocked one of Kazama's scenes and Chizuru got a flashback to a CG of him that I had never even seen!
Some of the Zuisouroku scenes are really cute, especially the winter-themed ones. There were also a few scenes that I missed from that game that I managed to read here too.
Even though I knew what was going to happen most of the time, I still found myself super invested in the plot, probably more than I was during my original playthrough. I had fun with every single route, even if they were only two chapters long.
I do have one thing I really want to say though: Why is it that whenever the demons show up and have a battle with someone, they have this really intense fight and then suddenly they're just like "We're going to retreat right now, but we'll be back for you, Chizuru!!" It happens with literally every demon fight scene!
I suppose I'll talk about the character routes/common route scenes now, starting with the original lot who you could date in the PSP game. They were all the same as how I remember them from before, with the exception of the Zuisouroku scenes and the final chapter with the scenes on the ship to Edo. Okita's route used to be my favourite, but it wasn't here because it wasn't the full plot. Hijikata's route was so good though, mainly because of the battle scene he had with Kazama. It was so good and really exciting, probably more than it was when I first played it. Surprisingly, I wasn't bored with playing these routes again, probably because it's been more than a year.
If you see my original post on Kazama's route from Demon of the Fleeting Blossing, I wrote about how disappointed I was with it. It was so short and most of its plot was shared with the normal ending. Kazama was my favourite character and I wanted to romance him properly. Luckily, Zuisouroku gave his route some extra scenes, but these new remakes are even better because this time he has a full route! It actually plays out slightly differently to the original one, but there was one part (the part with the CG that's down below) that's the same.
The new routes were all really good, too.
Sanan's route I played first. I didn't really care about him that much before, and I didn't understand how some people liked him. He was just a bit creepy, in my opinion, especially in Heisuke's route! But after playing, I sort of developed an interest in him, and that's why I played his route first. There was a scene in it that I was surprised to find out was from Zuisouroku, because I didn't even know you could even unlock them. I'm excited to see what his route in Edo Blossoms has in store, mainly because I want to see if he does to Chizuru what he did to Sen (I can't remember exactly what he did, but it was strange), and also because I heard he might have a shirtless scene.
Yamazaki was one I also didn't care for much in Demon of the Fleeting Blossom, but I will admit that he was pretty cool in this one Zuisouroku scene. However, this route changed my opinion of him. I played it before the holidays so I can't remember everything that went on, but it was rather exciting. He still got shafted in the CG department though, because of how little he got. Kazama was horrible in this one though. I mean, he's horrible in some of the other ones, too, but this time he just felt quite mean. Yamazaki does seem like a good match for Chizuru, and I bet there'll be some decent romance between them in the next game.
Nagakura I liked as a character before, but I always considered him just comic relief. His route was fine, but I don't really have much to say about it. I suppose it's harder to discuss the plot when I played most of this game before Christmas.
I really really wish that Shiranui could've had a route though. Otomate designed new love interests when they had plenty of perfectly serviceable characters right in front of them! I suppose I'll have to wait until the third Hakuoki remake or some Japan-only spin-off for that to happen.
Now, let's discuss the new characters and their routes! (Of course, I liked them all because I'm easily pleased by otome.)
I was quite excited to date (or rather, get Chizuru to date) Souma, because he's voiced by Yuki Kaji. He's quite a sweet character, and I believe the only love interest who's actually younger than Chizuru. It was nice hearing him call her "Yukimura-senpai" all the time.
He got this pinky-promise scene with Chizuru that felt so similar to Okazaki's scene in Collar X Malice. I suppose it didn't help that both characters are voiced by the same person.
The main reason I liked his route, however, was because of the villain. During the common route, I developed this massive crush on Miki, even though he's not exactly the nicest person. Probably the main reason I liked him was because he shares a voice actor with Subaru from DiaLovers, but also because he had really nice hair. He, unfortunately, had no romantic scenes with Chizuru whatsoever, but he did have this one scene where he almost went in the bath with her and then threatened to strip her down to check her gender. Is it bad that I actually really enjoyed that part?
Miki is Itou's brother, and is obviously very annoyed when the Shinsengumi murders him. I can't remember exactly, but he wanted to get revenge and then he attacked Souma and Chizuru and ended up drinking the Water of Life/Ochimizu. Hopefully Edo Blossoms has a bad ending where you can run off with him or something.
I just really don't know how Miki became my favourite character, yes my favourite character in the whole franchise, when he's hardly had any screentime!
Sakamoto's route was quite different because he's not actually part of the Shinsengumi. I'm pretty sure he gets assassinated unless you trigger his first scene in the common route. He was quite flirtatious and he had a nice voice, so I liked him. I've never actually played an otome game with Daisuke Ono in it, so I suppose that's cool. I've known about him since my anime phase I went through years ago, in fact he was the first seiyuu whose name I actually remembered. I never really expected him to turn up in one of my other obsessions a few years later.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to the next part of Sakamoto's route because I expect it'll be a lot different to the routes of the Shinsengumi members. Also, he just seems like an interesting person in general who I want to see more of.
Finally, it's time to talk about the route I literally just finished: Iba's. I absolutely loved Iba. He is an angel and exactly my type of character. Actually, I might actually like him more than Miki. Iba's route was wayyyyy more romantic than the other ones, due to him being Chizuru's childhood friend who has probably had a crush on her for years. I just really don't get how he was such a good friend of our heroine's, but it took a lot of prodding for her to remember their time together! I can understand her not recognising him after many years, but if he was really that important to her, why would she forget about him?
Some of the things Iba said in his route makes me think that he's going to turn into a secret yandere character. That makes me very excited, of course.
The villain in Iba's route, Takeda, he was absolutely horrible and deserved getting his arm chopped off. Even in the common route where he technically isn't a villain yet, he was still an absolute loser. I liked his design though, with his red hair, but I wouldn't want Chizuru to date him.
The thing in Iba's route with the demon arms was interesting. I also liked that we got to visit Sen's village, somewhere I don't think Chizuru has been to before in the game. At the end I didn't expect Iba to leave Chizuru. I know he had to go to Edo separate from the Shinsengumi, but I thought Sen said wasn't allowed to partake in human affairs or whatever. Or maybe she just said that he wasn't allowed to use his Fury/Demon powers in human conflicts. I don't know. Still I didn't expect him to leave Chizuru, since he was obsessed with keeping her safe and all that.
I don't really have much else to say about the plot, because I'm going to discuss that more when I've played Edo Blossoms. Oh yes, I forgot to say that it's depressing that Inoue has to die in the same part of every single route. He really deserves to live in at least one of them!
That was pretty much all I have to say about Kyoto Winds. I'm sure I'll remember some more things after finishing this post, however. I feel like a lot of this review is just me saying "I'm excited to see their route in the next game!" I wish that Otomate had never split this into two separate games, because it takes up a lot more space on my Vita's memory card to store both of them!
My Edo Blossoms review is not going to be just individual posts for each route, because that'll clog the blog up. I'm going to split it into two parts where I talk about six routes in each, but I really can't be bothered to do big plot summaries because Hakuoki is quite long and complex.
This concludes my post for today, then. See you all in the next one!
No comments:
Post a Comment