Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms - A Review (Part Two)

Finally, after more than a month, I have finished Hakuoki. This post is basically a continuation of the last one, where I just ramble on about the last six routes in the game. There's not really much more to say, so let's just dive in, shall we?







Nagakura's Route

It feels like the writers either didn't have enough time to work on this route, or they just didn't care about Shinpachi enough to give him a decent romance with Chizuru. Whatever happened, this route didn't turn out to be that great. I still had fun with it, but it just wasn't written that well compared to the other new additions to this game. It's a shame, because I'm sure a lot of people were looking forward to this one.

The plot of this one is basically this: Shinpachi becomes a Fury, but he doesn't really approve of it all, Chizuru feels guilty (like always), they leave the Shinsengumi with Harada, some stuff happens and then Shinpachi gets all depressed and hides out in this shack while Chizuru does sword training so she can protect him, then she convinces him to get his life back together, they have one final fight with Kodo, and then it's over.

 For some reason, the writers completely forgot that being a Fury means that walking in sunlight is painful, so they just make Shinpachi walk around in the daytime like he did when he was still human. Maybe they mentioned something early on about that, but I can't remember.

At least Shinpachi didn't rely on his Fury powers to win all of his battles for him like most of the other love interests did. Chizuru was also decent in this route, she even tried to get better at sword fighting so that she could fight for herself instead of just standing there during every single battle.

The main problem I had with this route was the romance. It was absolutely rubbish. In fact, I think even I could've written it better myself. There was really no development with their relationship. A few times Shinpachi told Chizuru that she was basically his sister at first. I have no idea why they made him say that when he's supposed to be a romantic love interest for her! Then literally nothing happened between them for the whole route, until suddenly at the very last second, Shinpachi's like "I wanna marry you" out of nowhere! We had no hints of any romance between them whatsoever, and then suddenly they're both in love. Then after that, they have the final battle scene and then Chizuru mentions something about them already being married? How are they already married five minutes after they proposed to each other? I really hope that was a mistake in the translation.

There's not really much else I can say about this one, except that the final CG was cute.

Harada's Route

I've always loved this route. It has just the right balance of romance and plot. Also, it feels different to the others since Harada doesn't become a Fury like everybody else. That means that I don't have to worry about getting any bad endings where he goes crazy with bloodlust.

I personally think that Harada's one of the best possible partners for Chizuru. He doesn't have any issues to deal with, he doesn't drink the Water of Life, and he acts like a real gentleman to her. I know some people have problems with his "I'm a man so my job is to protect all the women" attitude, but I just think it's sort of sweet. It's also cute how his life's dream isn't to fight wars or whatever, it's just to have a nice life with his lover and live in peace.

Don't judge me, but I was quite excited for the sex scene to come up. It's not really that graphic or anything, but it's nice because it's the only proper one in the whole game. In some of the other routes I thought that Chizuru might've done it with her love interest, but it wasn't explicitly stated or directly implied so I didn't count them. I just wish that there were more scenes like this in the game, but then it make this one feel less special. 

Chizuru sometimes annoyed me a bit here, unfortunately. Sometimes her lack of confidence and self-esteem frustrates me. She kept thinking herself as a burden on Harada and the Shinsengumi, even though she was repeatedly told that nobody had a problem with her being with them. I know it's good for her to have character flaws and that it's understandable why she thinks all of that, but it does still irritate me sometimes. I have to deal with enough of that stuff in real life, so it sucks when it comes up in my otoge too. 

I suppose her lack of self-esteem is probably partly due to the fact that Sanan was being a creep towards her. Even though I like him quite a bit, he was still quite horrible in this route. He made Chizuru feel terrible and lied to her so that she would become a blood bank for his experiments. It doesn't really do a good job of endearing the reader to him before they potentially play his route. There's not really much anyone can do about that though, because it was written before anyone even considered making him into a possible love interest, and you can't really take all of his shadiness out of this route and the others.

I did admire how willing Chizuru was to kill her father, however. That's probably not really a good thing, but it takes some serious guts to actually drive a sword into someone who raised you. I'm happy that they didn't try to redeem Kodo at the very last second again by making him sacrifice himself or whatever. I think he might be one of my most hated otome characters. He's just truly a horrible person. No matter how good of a father he was to Chizuru, that doesn't excuse the fact that he's a nasty piece of work. I absolutely despise him, and I'm glad that he dies in literally every single route.

I ended up falling for Shiranui again even though Harada's supposed to be the main star. I would give anything for him to have a route, because he's so interesting, and hot of course. I know that Hakuoki shouldn't be milked anymore than it already has been (I honestly can't even count how many games there are in this series now), but I still hope that one day, they'll make one last remake where we will finally be able to romance Shiranui in it. Hopefully that game (if it ever even gets made) will be translated too. But then it'll probably have such a big file size that Otomate will probably split it into three games or something. I still don't know why he didn't get a route in this game, but maybe there was a reason. Perhaps Shiranui isn't popular enough in Japan, or maybe it was too difficult to write his romance into the game, or the writers are just refusing to do it so that they can charge us even more money for another remake. You're probably thinking, "Misty, if you want a route for him that badly, just make it yourself!", but I think that if I did, it would probably end up being pretty bad. I'd probably fill it with fan-service, questionable "romance" scenes, and tropes, plenty of tropes that I like. So... nope. I'm not going to download Ren'Py and make it myself, thank you.

One thing I do wish they could've added into this remake from Zuisouroku was the after-story of Harada's route. It was one of the only scenes in the whole game that I could properly understand with my Japanese skills. Honestly, it was a really pretty scene and probably one of my favourites from this whole franchise, and that's saying a lot considering Harada isn't even one of my top five characters. I don't want to spoil much of it for you, but it's really cute and it where Chizuru reveals that she's pregnant. That probably doesn't sound that good, but it is, trust me. I believe it might be on the localised PS3 port of the game, so if you have a PS3, play it, even if just for that scene and the other Zuisouroku ones. You can probably find it on YouTube too, if you look carefully. The combination of the pretty CG of Harada and Chizuru on the beach (I really like beaches, they make me nostalgic since I grew up near the sea), as well as the fact that I could finally understand something is probably why I really like that scene. Sorry, I know this has nothing to do with the game I'm supposed to be talking about, but I never actually wrote a blog post about Zuisouroku, so I need somewhere to discuss my thoughts on it, don't I?

Saito's Route

For some reason, I wasn't looking forward to replaying this one as much as the others. Even though I enjoyed it before, for some strange reason I was under the impression that this route was a boring one full of plot and hardly any romance. My memories deceived me, because this route was bloody awesome. Especially the final chapter.

I seemed to have forgotten how interesting of a character Saito is. He was never my favourite love interest, because he sometimes reminded me of myself, quiet and left handed. I think in real life, he'd be the sort of person I'd be super interested in, but in otome, not so much. It's weird how my tastes on video game characters are different than for real people. Anyways, I think Saito's really sweet. I can certainly see why he's so popular with other fans. Also, I feel for him and all the stuff he went through for being left handed. (It really sucks being left handed sometimes, especially when you have to use scissors, or when someone laughs at you for it.)

Is it me, or does Saito look really handsome in literally every one of his CGs? With the other boys, sometimes they have the odd image that makes them looks a bit derpy or awkward, but Saito seems to always be drawn to be flawless. I actually think he's the best looking out of the whole cast.

I will admit that his expression in this CG did make me chuckle a bit, however.

The romance in this route, while a lot slower than in some of the others, I actually enjoyed. Usually I'm just begging Chizuru and her man to start snogging in the first chapter, but in this route, I didn't really mind that it was slow. The writers developed it quite well, and really, I think it would've been out of character if they had made Saito fall for Chizuru or show feelings for her right from the beginning. 

The bit in the fourth chapter where Hijikata describes Kondou's death made me feel a bit emotional, I was almost, almost on the way to crying. (I hardly ever cry during films/games/books, except when I saw Coco, and even then I held them in because there were little kids in the cinema and I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of them)  It was just the voice acting and how sad everything was that made me almost choke up a bit. The PSP game did the same sort of thing to me, when I got my very first ending and everyone died.

The final fight with Kazama was really exciting, although I have one question. Why was Kazama working with Kodo, when in some of the other routes he absolutely can't stand him because he's producing Furies?  In this route he's just absolutely fine with the Water of Life, apart from when he insults Saito about taking it. Maybe there was an explanation for this in Kyoto Winds, I don't know.

I got super angry with Kazama in this final scene, I was literally shouting at my Vita. I also sort of laughed as well because Kazama getting angry is also hilarious. I thought that he murdered Amagiri for some reason, but then he just got back up again. When Heisuke, Shinpachi and Harada came in I was really glad, because I thought that they were going to die off screen. In fact, not too many people died here. Well, Kondou, Yamazaki, Inoue and Nomura died, but I don't think as many died as in some routes.

In conclusion, Saito's route was wonderful, even if it wasn't the most romantic. I have no idea why I'm appreciating it more now than when I played it on the PSP, however.

Sakamoto's Route

This route was good, I suppose. It wasn't anything groundbreakingly spectacular, but I enjoyed it. It seemed like it the chapters were really short, but I think that was just because I wasn't paying attention to time. 

For some reason I'm having trouble figuring out what to say about this route. It had plenty of romance, which was good, I suppose. It would've been strange if it didn't have much of that in it, because Sakamoto is one of those flirty types. At first Chizuru was resistant to his charms, but eventually she fell for him. 

I had no idea that she was falling for him at all, to be honest, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention. In one scene Sakamoto was just like "Do you love me too?" and she was like "Yes, I want to spend my entire life with you!" and it felt like it came out of nowhere for me. I knew Sakamoto had fallen for her a long time ago, but I had no idea that she had. Usually her narration states that she's beginning to fall in love, but I don't remember seeing any of that here, so it just felt like it came out of nowhere. I think the same sort of thing happened in some of the other routes though, so it's alright.

There was a lot of politics and history stuff in this route that went over my head a bit, so I can't really comment on it. The basic plot was just Sakamoto and Chizuru trying to stop Nakaoka (this route's villain) from taking over the country with Furies. 

Nakaoka, like all of the new villains made for this remake, ended up running into Kodo somehow and became in charge of his Furies. I know that Takeda, Miki and Nakaoka all had different motivations and personalities and all that, but I wish that the writers had added a bit of variety and not made all of them meet up with Kodo like that. I understand making them take the Water of Life, because otherwise they would've been way too easy to defeat, unlike the other villains who are Demons, but maybe they could've made things slightly different... I think I'm rambling a bit here. Hopefully all of what I said made sense! 

I thought Nakaoka was interesting, but I wish we would've seen more of him. In fact, I wish we could've gotten more of the new villains in general. I know they were never in Hakuoki from the beginning so it's hard to give them loads of screen time, but each one was just used for one route, disappearing in the others. Like Takeda, for example. If my memory's correct, I'm quite sure that he only leaves the Shinsengumi in Iba's route, so in all of the other routes he should still be there, right? He's nowhere to be found in everybody else's route, even though he's one of the captains of the Shinsengumi! At least a passing sentence mentioning what happened to him would be alright. I can understand Nakaoka and Miki not being present in the other routes, but Takeda I can't. Sorry, this has absolutely nothing to do with Sakamoto's route, but this has been on my mind for a while as I've been playing. Let's get back to what I'm supposed to be talking about.

Nakaoka's final battle scene felt a bit too easy, but maybe that's just because I'm used to some of the other routes where the grand swordfights at the end are really long. His death scene I liked, however, probably because it was dramatic and I liked the voice acting. I had no idea that Daisuke Hirakawa was in this game until I looked at the credits. He does a good job here as Nakaoka, it certainly sounds different to the characters he's played in some of my other otome games. 

Speaking of death scenes, Kaoru's scene almost, almost made me feel a bit teary. I know it's a bit silly, seeing as much nicer characters have had much more emotional ends, but this one just made me sad. While he was still an antagonist here, he seemed a lot kinder for some reason. He wasn't angry at Chizuru that much or resentful towards her. Sakamoto mentioned that he was trying to guilt trip Chizuru, but I didn't really see that. I honestly thought that he was going to be redeemed in this route, but Shiranui just walked in and shot him instead. 

I sort of wish for Kaoru to have a route. If Otomate have made dateable brothers in their other games, it shouldn't be hard to do so here. All they need to do is make some sort of lame excuse to validate their relationship, like "they were estranged so they might as well not even be siblings!", and then throw in some yandere spice into the mix, and you have a perfectly serviceable onii-chan route that'll probably end up being really popular.

I now realise that I haven't really mentioned Sakamoto himself much when it's his route that I'm reviewing! I do like him, he's interesting enough, and his flirty comments are nice. The age gap he has with Chizuru puts me off of their relationship a little bit though. Yes, I know people who are ten years apart in age can love, but I still see Chizuru as a young girl. I forget that Hakuoki takes place over five years and she grows up into an adult, because I read through it all really quickly. 

Chizuru had a lot of guts in this route. She jumped in front of a sword and got severely injured protecting Sakamoto. Usually she just stands back and awkwardly watches her boy fight for her, but she actually went in and did something. Yes, it got her injured, but it was still something. It's less painful than watching someone else get hurt protecting her.

I really appreciated that Shiranui got some screentime too. He wasn't an antagonist either, just a friend who added a bit of comedy by teasing Chizuru and Sakamoto. I just wish that he didn't kill Kaoru though!

Kazama was nowhere to be seen though. I believe I had this same issue with one of the other routes. He just disappeared and gave up on pursuing Chizuru for some reason. Actually, now that I think about it, he may have popped up in Sakamoto's Kyoto Winds route, but I can't really remember much from that. 

One other thing I noticed (which I also pointed out when reviewing Souma's route) was that nobody told Sakamoto about the fact that the Fury powers drain your life out of you. (Actually, they might've done, but I just forgot. It doesn't matter, I'm still going to mention it anyway.) I know that he took the newer, more improved version of the serum, but doesn't that still take years off of your life? It makes the ending a bit depressing because Chizuru has no idea that her boyfriend may die at any moment...

At least this route provided a different perspective on the historical events and main plot. I still missed the Shinsengumi boys though, because halfway through Chizuru and Sakamoto just go to live alone in Edo instead. I'm glad that Heisuke and Sanan popped up for the final battle with Kodo. The game doesn't actually tell you what happens to them afterwards, so I'm just going to assume that they died because knowing Hakuoki, they probably did. Sanan, for once doesn't act shady towards Chizuru, so that's nice. 

I just realised that I took no screenshots of this route. I actually didn't find the CGs as pretty as some of the other ones, but maybe that's because the other routes (at least the ones from the original game) had some of the old Kazuki Yone artwork whereas these newer ones are done by someone else. Most of what was illustrated here with Sakamoto's route was just him and Chizuru in various romantic positions. There weren't as many battle scene CGs, which is a shame because I love those, especially when there's lots of blood in them. (One of my favourite Hakuoki CGs is that one of Okita in Kyoto Winds covered in blood, it's a bit gruesome but I love it) At least that final image of Nakaoka's death looked decent. 

Yamazaki's Route

This route was sweet and not as depressing as some of the others. I actually forget that it existed for a while. In fact, sometimes I forget that Yamazaki's even there. It's a shame, because he's actually a decent character. The only way for him to survive into Edo Blossoms is if Chizuru romances him, which sucks. 

The Fury bloodlust seemed to affect Yamazaki more than any of the others. It made him go a bit crazy in some scenes, so crazy that he ended up violently killing people in one part. Sometimes it got so bad that I thought I was running into a bad ending somehow, despite choosing the correct dialogue choices. I have no idea why the blood cravings got to him more than anybody else. Maybe he just suppressed it more than the others.

The main plotline is the same old "let's defeat Kodo!" stuff that's in most of the other routes. In the PSP game that plotline didn't seem as common, but now that there's twelve routes, it seems to pop up even more. Since Yamazaki's route was the eleventh one I played, I was started to get a bit tired of it. Still for some reason I hadn't gotten burnt out by the game at all, which is astounding because much shorter games have managed to do this to me. 

There was also a revelation that made Kodo seem like even more of a wanker than he already was. It turns out that he used to test poisons out on Chizuru when she was a child. What a nice man he is! So now his supposedly "great" father-daughter relationship with her that was used to make him seem less bad is now ruined. 

One part that really surprised me was when Chizuru and Yamazaki went to this castle (I can't remember what the place was called, sorry) to rescue Kondou, and Okita just turned up. I did not expect that. Somehow he managed to kill loads of Furies even with his tuberculosis. I thought that it he may have drunk the Water of Life, but nope. I certainly admire his dedication to Kondou. 

The kiss scene between Yamazaki and Chizuru was so awkward and cute. They really are quite good matches for each other. They also feel like equals, unlike some of the other pairings in this game. In general, the romance was decent here. I don't think that there were as many fluffy moments as some of the other routes, but I believe Kyoto Winds had enough of them.

Again, this route had one of those endings where they never find out about that special water that can help make the Fury side effects a bit less painful. Also, you don't even get to find out whether the rest of the Shinsengumi are dead or not. I'd like to believe that at least some of them lived. The final CG was cute until Chizuru appeared in it. I don't have a problem with her usually in CGs, but her eyes in this one were terrifying. At least they were staring into Yamazaki's soul, not mine. Actually, now that I look at them more, they're not as scary as they were when I first saw them.

This route was decent, not my favourite though. I think that because I played most of the others before this one, it sort of lessened the impact of it a bit. 

Kazama's Route

This was the route I had been waiting to play for ages. It's just one big mash-up of the normal ending (which I've written about further down below), Kazama's route from the original game, his Zuisouroku route, along with a few new additions. It was slightly different to what I expected, but I still enjoyed it. This was the last route I played, a great one to end my playthrough off with.

There was a lot less violence and intense battles than the other routes, so it actually felt quite peaceful. The stuff with Kodo and Kaoru was dealt with very early on, which I was relieved about because I thought that the whole route was going to be about that. This route mainly focused on Chizuru and Kazama trying to catch up with the Shinsengumi and repeatedly failing.

A lot of the CGs from Kazama's short "route" in the original game were reused, but the situations they were used for were slightly different. There were a few new ones included too. Kazama seems to look stunning in every single one of his CGs. Every single one of them looked really quite pretty and some were even good desktop wallpaper material.

Considering the fact that Kazama was interested in marrying Chizuru from the very start, they don't actually become a couple until the after credits scene. Luckily there were enough fluffy scenes scattered throughout the route to keep me satisfied. 

Chizuru got a few more of her memories of her childhood in the Yukimura village before it was destroyed. I thought that she had only lived there as a very young toddler, but I think it got burnt down when she was five or six. I don't know how she had forgotten about it if she was there for that long! I still have clear memories from my childhood, so I don't know how she doesn't! It seems like Chizuru either has a very bad memory, or Kodo did something to make her forget.

I honestly thought that Kazama and Chizuru would run away and completely forget about the Shinsengumi, but I'm glad that they didn't. Even though in the common route he's their enemy, Kazama eventually gets a change of heart and begins to respect them a little bit. I really wish that we could've seen a bit more of the Shinsengumi men, but if I wanted to see them I could just play their routes instead.

I'm satisfied with this route, as a Kazama fan. The romance was a slow but good one, and you could tell that Kazama actually cared about Chizuru, even if their opinions were different at times. I thought we were going to see more demon stuff here, but I'm still glad with what we got. At least Shiranui and Amagiri had a decent amount of scenes. Their presence is always appreciated.

BONUS ROUND: Yukimura's "Route"

On the route selection screen, I noticed that I had the choice to select "Yukimura's Route".  It's exactly what I expected it to be, the Normal ending from the original game, the one that continues off from the ending in Kyoto Winds where Hijikata tells Chizuru to leave before things turn too chaotic.

It's a more extended version of the original ending, with more scenes of Sen and Kimigiku. They also took out most of the scenes with Kazama and put them into his route instead. There is no romance here, only depression.

The plot is that Chizuru just goes to live alone in her old house. Hijikata comes to say hello once, but he leaves really quickly. One day, Sen and Kimigiku come to visit Chizuru after receiving a letter from Hijikata. I know he told her to leave and all that, but at least he was kind enough to make sure Chizuru was well looked after.

Together, Sen, Kimigiku and Chizuru begin to track down Kodo's whereabouts. When they started discussing that I was like "Oh no, please say that I don't have to watch another dramatic battle scene where they kill him!" but luckily they just turn up to wherever he's staying and find out that Kazama already killed him for them. 

Then Chizuru goes around trying to find the Shinsengumi, but her efforts were all in vain. Eventually she finds out that they surrendered, and that Hijikata, Saito, Kondou and Okita are dead. She forgets to ask about the others, and cries like they're all gone. Surely she could at least see if at least a few of them are still around? Then we get a CG, you know the one, the one with the backs of the Shinsengumi in the clouds wearing their blue kimonos. It's not the same as the one from the PSP game though, they extended it this time to add Souma and maybe Yamazaki. I don't remember him being in it before.

Well, this was depressing. I remember this ending (the original version that was basically the same as Kazama's old route) being the first one I ever got in Hakuoki, and I was really sad. Everybody died because I couldn't settle on one person, I just flirted with all of them. At first I wanted to get Hijikata's route, but I couldn't resist being nice to everybody. I think in the end of that very first playthrough, the only affection points I had were only a few for Heisuke and Saito, that was it.

I don't actually know why this is even in this game, to be honest. They could've just put it into Kyoto Winds, but then I suppose it would've spoiled the battles in the second part of the game. Maybe they just wanted to use the CGs from the original ending because they were too good not to use. I didn't actually expect this to even be in the game. Good for them for making a fleshed out bad ending that isn't just "I turned the wrong way and now I'm dead!"

I suppose this was worth playing for the trophy and the CGs. It still made me feel depressed though. 

................................................................................................................................................................

Wow, I can't believe I'm finally done with this game. It took me forever to play, but that's probably because I took a two week break from it at Christmas. Hakuoki's been the only thing I've been playing since December, so it's going to feel weird now that it's over. I hope I don't get withdrawal symptoms from it...

I'm not really sure what my favourite route is, because there are so many that I liked! I feel that the better ones are still the ones from the original game. They felt more individual, whereas most of the new additions just all focused on the same nonsense with Kodo and Kaoru. I'm not saying that plotline is bad, but it was better in Demon of the Fleeting Blossom because I didn't have to read about it so many times! Some of the newer routes I felt didn't really add anything new to the game, other than just more potential suitors for Chizuru. I think that out of this new batch, Souma's was probably the best, however, along with Iba's and maybe Sanan's following behind. 

 The new characters I did really enjoy though, so much that they became some of my favourite Hakuoki boys. Sanan also grew on me a lot, and even though I criticised him a lot during my reviews, he still somehow became one of my favourites. 

But the question is, is this new remake version better than the original game? Well, I think that really depends on preferences. Kyoto Winds and Edo Blossoms are probably the better games to get because they have more content and better graphics, and they're often way cheaper to buy than the original game, unless you want to get physical copies. I got these two games for less than what I paid for the PSP game! (Please keep in mind that I'm just talking about Hakuoki for the Vita/PSP, I know nothing about the PC games and how cheap they are)

I still don't think that Demon of the Fleeting Blossom is entirely useless, however. I would probably still recommend it to someone who is maybe not an otome fan. They might not want to slog through twelve routes and all of the added romance scenes, so the original game is better for them because it has the main plot and story details, which is all they need really. The newer routes don't really add any new story details, they're just there so that the players can experience more romance. 

I actually think that the PS3 port, even though I've never played it, is still a good version of Hakuoki to buy. You get the main routes from the original, as well as the entirety of Zuisouroku in English, some of which never even made it to the remakes. Yes, you miss out on the new characters, but to be honest, they don't really need to be there. As much as I love them, the game is perfectly fine without them.

Really, I think that instead of adding new characters, Otomate should've just focused on giving routes to those from the original game first. They could've kept the routes with Sanan, Yamazaki and Kazama, made a better version of Nagakura's route, and then given routes to people like Shiranui and maybe even Amagiri. But instead, they put all of that effort into designing new characters and hiring new voice actors when they had some perfectly eligible bachelors right at their fingertips!

In the end, I still really enjoyed these remakes. I'm still really shocked that I never got bored with it, even though I had to read about the same plot points multiple times. I think I'll have a break from Hakuoki now, although I'm very curious about the anime and some of the musicals. I watched the musical version of Okita's route recently, and it was good. It had some catchy songs in it. Maybe I'll watch the other musicals one day when I'm bored.

This concludes my review of Edo Blossoms. I don't know if I'll write about Hakuoki again on this blog, unless I managed to pick up a copy of SSL for a good price. That game sounds fun, although I still don't know why some of the love interests are teachers whereas Chizuru is a student. I should probably not buy anymore Hakuoki games though, since I have four now and that's probably more than enough...