Update Three Hundred and Twenty-Four: 14 July 2019
Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds
300 hours playtime, DON'T FREAK OUT U GUYS, 25 hrs actual, 36 of 36 achievements
--/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
I’m suspending grading for this one, because this is only one half of the game. The notion that there’s no real ‘romance’ in this game and nobody kisses (one of the achievements reference this specifically, titled “Just Kiss Already!”) seems to come from the fact that there’s a whole second half of each romance arc. I’m gonna keep this review short, then, because I don’t feel like it’s fair to judge on a lot of things when I’ve only got one half of the story.
So what’s here otherwise, then? To put it frankly: a TON of shit. There’s a staggering 11 routes, all of varying quality. There’s a lot of kissable samurai up in this binch. You play a young woman named Yukimura who arrives in Kyoto in search of her father, and she’s quickly wrapped up in the goings-on of the Shinsengumi, a kind of a police force for the shogunate. The game loosely follows the actual historical timeline of the Shinsengumi, and at first pass, the game feels VERY much like a really broad-strokes history lesson rather than a dating sim, which is a weird stance to take when the game also introduces fantastical elements. There’s demons (surprise! You’re one) and a serum called the Water of Life that can turn humans into artificial demons, making them kind of more like vampires (the sunlight hurts them, they need blood, their eyes turn red, etc).
I have to admit I was more than a little disappointed on my first playthrough, but the more I played, the more I kind of got into it. It falls into the REALLY annoying otome trap of having the protagonist be useless, and it gets to aggravating levels here with her surrounded by hyper-competent swordsmen. If you’re lookin for an otome where the protag has agency, look elsewhere.
Oh, but the dudes are PRETTY. All different types, though I wish they let some of the buffer ones truly be thicc, as one deserves. The CG and sprites are lovely, and there’s a lot of them. The writing is fine, though there’s more mistakes in the translations than I’d like. My favorite routes were Iba Hachiro and Sakamoto Ryouma.
Next up: Sighhhh…. okay…. since I HAVE the other half of this game, I’d better PLAY the other half of this game. I was worried that I was ripping through my VNs too quickly, but I’m not worried anymore.
See you soon!
Wasnt even going to look at the time but thats just great. Love seeing your idling skills at work
“The game loosely follows the actual historical timeline of the Shinsengumi”
I don’t know about loosely; not really a historical buff, but apparently a lot of it is kept very much true to history.
“It falls into the REALLY annoying otome trap of having the protagonist be useless”
And again, I can’t tell if it’s me being the dumb one or not, cause I can’t really see that. You know, on one hand I understand some of the moral conflict she goes through regarding her father, for example, but on the other hand, I think there are times she genuinely stands up for herself.
With that being said, I’m glad you’re going to play the other part right away! It’s also interesting how your favorite guys are available in those releases, as they are not in others. Wonder who you’d like best if you were to play the other releases instead.
Ha, the ‘looseness’ comes from all of the dudes turning into Furies and the other fantasy elements, but I’m sure they put a lot of work into keeping the timelines straight. I did like a lot how you got to experience different events (or different sides of different events) depending on where you went or who you followed.
Those emotional beats are true, but I was talking more about how it was hammered home that she couldn’t help at all/just did the cleaning/had to be protected. It’s not you being dumb, it’s that I have a really high bar for how much narrative agency I want my (female) protags to have. That ties in with the above, though - since she was never ACTUALLY there, and they want to keep it true to history as much as possible, their hands are tied with how much she can materially affect the world around her.
If it weren’t for those two… I think my favorites of the original then would be Harada and Saito. I’m playing through Harada’s route right now.
Oh yeah, that part. Definitely not something you’d expect when picking up a game set in the 1800s, but then again, I suppose people think it’d be boring just living in that period? There is another otome game set in the past (not localized, sadly; there is an anime though), closer than Hakuoki, but it features this hugely unrealistic spin which is the one thing that keeps it going. That being said - Hakuoki. It has entirely unique routes. Which is the reason for it being so long. Yes. Um… what was I saying again? Okay. Yeah. I also like that the love meter system is easier to work with - still slugging through Amnesia and that one’s really unintuitive and strict with its choices. Ramble.
Maybe it’s more that as a more or less mentally stable female, very much conscious of what feminism is, and yet possibly a little too appreciative of male-oriented sexual content in fiction, I feel like I’m not meeting the quota of how much I should worry about how female characters are written. Obviously Chizuru couldn’t help at all, when all she’s got is a sword a third the length of the usual sword and the guys have to worry about fighting guns with their own swords, but then again you’re right on the limitations. She is one of the few fictional characters in the story, at the end of the day.
Yay! Well… Harada isn’t my bias, but I’m digging him too. His route was probably the most refreshing, since he’s the only one who doesn’t HAVE TO BECOME A FURY TO LIVE ON and all that jazz. Not too into having babies though. As for Saito, I’ve got the game stalled now somewhere in his route. Not because I don’t want to play, but because I can’t at the moment. :/ Though he’s nowhere near close to being a favorite for now. I still wonder who I’ll like the most from the Kyoto/Edo installments. So many voice actors to choose from!
Oh right, Iba was the childhood friend, right? Yeah, I really liked him too! <3
And your second one was the guy I actually wanted to go for but then failed and instead went for the Saito. Who I really loved.
But overall a lot of the guys where nice :]
Hope you’ll enjoy the second part. I didn’t come round to playing it yet. We’ll see how long that’ll take me :D
I liked Saito a lot, too! He and Harada were my two favorites from the ‘main’ guys.
Yeah, I think the only really kind of duds were… I dunno…. Kazue Souma as kind of boring, and Sanan was pretty creepy. Yamazaki didn’t leave much of an impact, either. But still, out of 11 routes? That’s a lot.
Yeah, same for me. Harada actually really surprised me. I had no high expectations for him but with every finished route he became more interesting.
Ugh, yeah. Sanan totally didn’t work out for me. That was just… I dunno. It just didn’t work.
But honestly, I was super surprised with Yamazaki. He dies everytime you play the game, unless you go for him! Totally didn’t see that coming. I figured that everybody who dies will do so in every route. Well, apparently not o.O
So, if the actual playtime is 25 hours, then what did you do the remaining 275 hours? :D
How’s the english translation, by the way?
I’m also wondering the same thing about play time =D
I can answer that - idling. Tsuper seems to like just having VNs open at all times to read at her leisure :D
Ah, ok. Fair enough I suppose :D
Hahaha, yeah, Amitte’s right—I leave the VN open all the time.
The english translation was okay! Just a TOUCH clunky, but nowhere near bad.
Haha alright :D
Thanks for the answer :)