Teikoku Kaleido -Banka no Kakumei- - Review

Game: [The Charming Empire]

Genre: Otome Game Visual Novel.

Developer/Publisher: Operahouse/Dogenzaka Lab.

Platform: Mobile, PC, PS Vita.

Official Site: http://store.steampowered.com/app/505090/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v16651/

Release date: 2017-2-19 (English)

I got this game on steam because it seemed interesting and to take a break 

from a more heavy VN, something lighter seemed appropiate and so I bought this even though
I usually do not bother with english games and well I also supported Nightshade.
It had good art and the translation seemed decent oh and its fully voiced!

The music is a bit eh though... and the system was so standard
I could figure out the right choices without using a guide(if there was one)
and if I guessed the wrong one i'd reload usually but I still got the happy end first
the opposite choice led me to a normal end overall it was an easy ride no guide needed.

Well sometimes a simple otome game is good...
The whole theme of this is... what if I fell in love with a rebel leader?

Pro's
- Simple but decent plot and heroine was more proactive than i'd thought she'd be.
- Enjoyable routes, atleast imho.
- Art.
- Voiced

Con's
- Decent in length but its not that long really.
- Three of the romanceable characters don't have presence outside of their own route.
- Music, its sorta average and just there.

Though I found it weird how we suddenly got an introduction of the guys in the prologue
in a fashion thats totally out of place they even show random CG's but turns out this is intended.

It probably was for the mobage part to get you to buy the individual route and was
 too much of a hassle to change it for the steam version which comes with all.
 The prologue just serves as an introduction to the general story it'll change based on route.

The heroine Amane lives and ordinairy life with her grandparents in the countryside
 till she is summoned to the capital by her older brother who's also the ruler of the country.

Overall I think the heroine's okay, she's not a blank slate and will say what's on her mind or
atleast try and knowing this was a mobage I honestly was surprised at how proactive she is.

You start the routes right away after Soushi tells you why your here and I unfortunately 

picked Sera first and they just shove him into the scenario and pretend he was sitting

 in the car the whole time, quality writing amiright but overall it got a little better.

I know mobage stories are usually meh but it turned out ok... atleast make your story 

and characters consistent don't give me a prologue and suddenly go back to it

because hey, this guy was here the whole time! (lol Sera.)

The only flaw is that except Soushi,Kagemitsu and the guy whom's route your on disappear from
the face of the earth, I learned from Sera's route Kagemitsu's apparently a childhood friend

and Soushi's advisor but Sera a bodyguard and Kei another tutor don't exist outside their own route.
I never saw Tanba outside of his own route either oh well its good to see them focus on
 the individual but don't make it look like they come crawling from under some rock, lmao.

Playorder won't matter that much, Kei's route is the most self contained
so he may be best done first so in the end  I recommend this order:
Kei > Kagemitsu > Seras > Soushi > Tanba

Wand of Fortune R2 ~Jikuu ni Shizumu Mokushiroku~ review

The R still stands for RNG.

ワンド オブ フォーチュン 2 ～時空に沈む黙示録～
Game: Wand of Fortune R2.
Alternative titles: Wand of Emofest 2.
 Genre: Otome Visual Noel

Developer/Publisher: Otomate.

Platform: PSP, PS Vita.

Official Site: http://www.otomate.jp/wandoffortune2/vita/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v4542

Release date: 2017-3-09

Sequel to Wand of Fortune, continues from the true end, the guys are friendzone and Lulu
obtained all da elements and starts to see the world in pretty colors like she's high or something
anyway Lulu continues working hard with her newly obtained magic she loves so much but
Bilal has to move back to his country so Lulu gets sad, Edgar decides to take a memorial picture...
however something weird happens they get send to the past right sometime before the great latinum war.
-Yeah that right it no longer present time otome hogwarts and casually dating boys

 while studying magic since for better or for worse they tried to give WoF actual plot...

WoF was never about story but they didn't really try to make the overall interesting

the characters are what make it a whole lot better than its premise is.

That's not to say it wasn't interesting but the past is none of the characters concern

it only created a situation for them to mature (by angst n shit)-

 

When Lulu wakes up she meets some dude called Solomon, I know they spell it out as
Salo-mon but screw their romanization so give me a break please, I don't hear an ''a'' in there.😙
She find the others rather quickly and they realize they've been send into the past
sadly Lulu's wand breaks but gets a new trinket that will help them all return and Solo will fix her
wand but she has  to go through a lot of trouble first to get with her man of choice, cue tedious system!
The system is a little less annoying not once was I like uh I'm going to do something else...
I was more than motivated to start on the next dude's route and make a little progress.
 Anyway the whole prologue made me realize how much I love the boys of Wand of Fortune and
I loved seeing them adjust to their new situation.. some of it was absolutely hilarious to the point
the prologue took me forever to go through but all fun things must come to an end
and it was also hilarious seeing the guys react to Lulu's new clothes.

Sadly unlike WoF R containing its fandisc Mirai no Prologue, WoF R2 does not include its
respective fandisc I do not know why maybe both games were too much content or otomate just
want to milk the Wand of Fortune series for a little while longer whatever the case I was disappoint
but I think they did it because they want to put some time between it just as when they first released
and the only reason WoFR came with the FD was because WoFR2 retconned the romance anyway.
Also if you're gonna play this for the love of Julius do Solomon last, it won't even make sense if
you did him first or midway not sure if there was a lock on his route since no one mention that
and imo his route was the most interesting anyway.

Pro's
- Character development.
- Art, should be obvious no?
- System is more straight-forward but sigh rng.

Con's
- Boring linear plot. To be fair, WoF never had an amazing overall story.
- Copy pasta, some common route key events are the same just with different character.
- BGM its meh and sorta grating to the point I had to lower it.
- If I have to sit through the whole dragon RNG for ~extra~ one more time...

Here's the opening, its not as charming as WoF R was but its still good.

Sadly it only plays during the prologue, we get a boring monologue when starting the game up

instead, sigh otomate  you had one job one! I do not need to hear  welcome to the world 

of 350 years ago everytime I start up the game, let me relax with a nice song FFS.

Its not like I want to help you baka.

Like the prequel for the port they made the system slightly less tedious but it still tedious
and you can now make many stones at a time instead of one by one.
You pick a partner and have to go around picking up garbage so Lulu can make element stones
from them and you need atleast 50 stone to get the best ending of each character and you need
 not worry of having to match elements, if you go for Lagi its ok to have lots of earth too
since it all add up ofc you need to make like 80 stones for the grand finale but that's really it.
For story reasons some characters are also paired up with each other like Bilal/Lagi, Noel/Julius,
Est/Solomon and well Alvaro is the only one who's solo since no one wants to deal with him.😂
Certain common events also happen if you pick a different partner like Bilal getting his spirit
or Solo removing the seal from Est so that his tattoo shows, these aren't even spoilers because it
happen around turn 7 which is really early on in the game, this also shows how linear it is.
You also collect all these items from chest after scavenging through the same area multiple times
you can combine them for new items which you need for key events, even on vita playing
this game without a guide is definitely not recommended dunno how different
it was from the PSP ver but I doubt there was much difference in some cases
 like Lily's feather you need it to gather in an area to avoid frogs and you need a mirror
to reflect the cockatrice's stare of death right back at it but that's it really.
I think the system is okay but too repettive, all I can recommend is save often
sadly you can't save on the MAP screen but you can before selecting an action for the day
and well due to certain aspects I am about to go into reloading is still a prime feature in WoF!

My sincere condolences if you played this on PSP.

  It didn't take me long to realize this game suffers from the same terrible RNG the first
game has, past turn 10 enemies keep showing up RANDOMLY and as turns out
you need to save after every turn or use backlog jump to prevent you from running
into one unneededly, its really random if one show up or not so here I sat reloading 10~ times
to avoid or get one to show up, the guide I used has you fight one dragon atleast once during route
which is more than enough, btw its not actually fight you just use one element stone and bam. ~_~
I also went off the turn order because I was like hmm lets fight enemy if one show up...
but turns out then you can't get treasure chest on the exact turn as in the guide
cuz you didn't ~search~ because some RNG monster show up to cockblock.
 Enemy encount is random and dragons are super rare...
Also you can only do 1 action every turn, so people saying fight every dragon u see and I am like
no, not if you want those treasure chest since you can't make stones AND search/take holiday.

So when you take a holiday to get the feather from Lily do Mira's events alongside it as you get a
trophy for it, the guide I used never mentioned you can visit more than one chara at a time so please do if you want.You actually get to do Mira's event later down the line in Est/Solo routes but there's
no reason aside from Lily and Mira to actually meet the other characters on holiday.
PS: One needs to waste 5 days to visit Lily before she gives you the feather, Y is she so bitchy?

TFW the 4koma's drop from a bunch of random dragon more rage on that down below.

Anyway holy shit RNG was no doubt the most annoying thing, the gathering part itself wasn't
even a problem but hey otomate had to add RNG factor to it to still make it hell! the whole
RNG give me war flashback of WoF1 when chara refusing to hang out forcing one to use
backlog or quickload and try again wand of fortune? more like wand of misfortune. -_-
Even if the wof games gets an eng release I do not want to go through this twice
nor really recommend anyone to suffer it even though the chara's and stuff make up for it.

Same Noel same..  this is how I feel about the system after doing all the routes in the game.

To complete extra section you need to get item drop, every character has a specific area
where you could get an item drop from a rare dragon luckily the guide I used has you save
at the end when you have a few day left so just reload and search the area
 that is the same as their element as say Lagi's whom's drop is at Nebula road
but here it comes you need to fight a rare dragon who is RANDOM.
 OTOMATE Y YOU DO THIS?! so here I sat after finishing their routes revisiting a certain area
wondering wtf am I even doing because RNG wasn't going in my favor and for some character
 the dragon took its sweet time to show up while for other it just popped instantly.

After u did all that u unlock 4koma honestly Julius, Lagi and Bilal's were the only funny ones...
 Solo's was ok but Est's one was stupid and Noel's tried too hard to be funny. ~_~
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite my rage above it should be obvious by now that if you haven't played WOF before these ps vita
ports are better than the originals because the system has been relaxed and also there are new CG's.
If you don't feel like suffering through part one you could start with this since it gives you a
digest, please note that you will still miss out on teases in the prequel even if individual route don't matter.
The digest won't cover everything, I agree that the system is too much work though but hearing
Edgar fill you in on the details is just not the same in fact it was boring, WoF is definitely one of
those otome games where you have to work hard to get your happy ends, you should take the
journey with Lulu from the very beginning to get the full experience not jump in half way.😗
Except if the original WoF already satisfied you but I guess you wouldn't be here
 if that was the case or would you? oh well whatever if you like gameplay in your VN's
you shouldn't pass up on the WoF series even if said gameplay is terribad.

Without spoilers WoF2 was decent and the emofest that you could call character development was
worth it despite the overall plot being meh, it was linear the war stuff they get caught up in
is only a plot device to get them to mature in some route it was good in other it was bad the
 character shine the most but it ok TBH the overall plot in the prequel wasn't any better
which was actually just hang with a guy and snatch an element magic to be able to stay at school.
The system has been relaxed a great deal and despite RNG it shouldn't be that annoying...
Anyway most of the plot just exists to go deeper into the characters, hmm how to put it?
Like the game makes clear the future and the past are connected in more ways than one!
I only really liked a few events here and there plus the ending for most character, most of
the route itself was decent except, Bilal or Noel. Julius was the most balanced/actual fun
to me and sadly during most of the routes boring/slow paced moments I kept
zoning out except Julius, Solo, Est and Alvaro.
I AM SO SAD the sequel doesn't come with the FD but perhaps it understandable it was too much
work and they want to put a little space between it but I need the happy epilogues. Q_Q
Common route could take up to 2~ hours maybe shorter depending on new events, 3/4 hour for
individual so overall that decent in length, also I wish they'd just fully voice Lulu none of this
only a line here and there like before going out adventuring or like with casting magic
its such a waste of Horie Yui's lovely voice and its just weird to suddenly hear her speak. -_-
 Anyway some parts were great other parts not so great... but overall it was decent.
Atleast otomate understands we like our memories so unlike another company doesn't
remove old cg just because they may or may not be derpy and otomate still added new ones.
I don't really care for the tragic end only Bilal's was appropiate, but usually I force skip those.
There's an imbalance of romance in some route due to some focusing more on character issues
but overall it was ok, routes like Bilal just made me drowsy and with Noel its like I like you
but they made poor Noel look so pathetic I was like what now? I almost can't bear this...
On the other hand Lagi, Est and Solo were totally fine especially the latter.
Julius had the most balanced route in the game and thats a little sad
I'd love to say it was Alvaro but he's just a troll so lol nope (Atleast Lulu owns the shit outta him)
which is probably why everyone loves Alvaro's route.
I finished this much sooner than expected since the system never tired me, ok it partly 
annoyed me but it was much better, so if you love the first game don't miss out on this.
7/10
I recommend it to fans of the original but if you already played these games before you are better off
buying the artbooks, the new cg's are great and all but not sure if worth two times the suffering.
You can brush that it aside if you are just that of a hardcore WoF fan and need to buy every port it gets though.
Now if you'll excuse me I'll go sit in a corner and play other otomege while
waiting for the eventual port of the WoF2FD, adios amigos.

More rambles after the jump if u care about that.

Harukanaru toki no naka de 3 Ultimate - Fujiwara no Yasuhira DLC review

Putting this route seperate because its DLC... also it wasn't that long so I am glad
I got it out of the way and I ended up buying after all because
even if this dude is an uptight asshole he still deserves a happy end.

Also let me be clear this is the only DLC I bought for this game.

Not like anyone cares... it must suck if you don't have a jpn psn on your vita...

Fujiwara no Yasuhira is voiced by Toriumi Kousuke.

You must atleast do Kurou's shinsenen event in chapter 2 and sit through 

the Izayoiki normal end first... to watch Yasuhira meet a pitiful end because 

some of his events require Nozomi to have prior knowledge to know what's up.

 (This CG isn't from his route... but from Shirogane's side story sometime before his ending

and well the decision of Nozomi to see Yasuhira made Shirogane very sad, kinda stupid.)

His events take place when the party after being betrayed decided to go to Hiraizumi.
Yep you have to play the game normally to access his route, which makes the
decision for it to be DLC even more questionable than ever before. 

 It basically Nozomi putting her nose where it doesn't belong like the first time she makes

food for him together with Saku he's like bitch get out I didn't ask for this did I?

Wow rude! even Nozomi is like you ungrategful bastard how dare you!

Nozomi runs into him later in the mountains near Hiraizumi and when

she doesn't go back as told he just grabs her arm and drags her back with him

because he can't have a little kitten get lost in his backyard, he's like what a cute face 

you're making, never been touched by a man like this or sth but as soon as they 

get back to town he let's go of her arm and excuses himself.

Yasuhira disappears in a flash of light and Benkei wonders why Nozomi is spacing out like that

and so he explains that she was merely looking at Yasuhira's shiki cue benkei teasing her.

They meet again later after Nozomi plays around with Kugane, who jumped into the pond.😅

Kugane is Kurou's dog  that Yasuhira is looking after because he's not that mean, he's glad

 she looked after this mendokusai dog till he came to fetch it but there's no need to thank him

and well Kugane gets all excited and even if Yasuhira tells him not to jump on him

when he's wet it lead to a hilarious scene sigh look at what you've gone and done now?

Yasuhira is wondering why she's staring so much while he's all wet...

well anyone would stare when a hot bishie is drenched, he tells her to fuck off as usual.

Shirogane comes around and wonders what's up... Yasuhira tells him not to go into it further

and they leave, Nozomi goes for a walk in the mountains she asks Kurou some stuff 

before she goes off on her own and finds some secret hideout cavern

oh and none other than Yasuhira is there telling her what a no good miko she is.

He tells her about some stuff that happen between Kanazawa and Oushu a hundred years ago

 then Nozomi's gekirin tries to send her off somewhere she doesn't want to go, Yasuhira pulls

 her back somehow and tells her if she values her life to not go near this mountain again.

When she gets back to the residence after purifying all those weird ass stones and Hinoe rejoins the

group but before going to Taisha Saku tells her Shirogane was looking for her so she goes to

Yasuhira's place who is all like the fuck you doing here i'm in the middle of a meeting!

Shirogane politely explains he's the one who asked her to come or more accurately fo Saku to pass

the message, Yasuhira is like how annoying and Shirogane immediately apologizes anyway

 he has Shirogane and Nozomi help him on a trip near Kanazawa for some banquet

 and when the day came Yasuhira cannot believe she actually showed up! 

He later just ups and grabs her and pulls her up on his horse stays her to put up with it

Nozomi tells him of the time in the mountains when he took her hand and he immediately

goes ugh don't bring that up and before you know it they've arrived at their destination.

Finally there and when the talks are over he gives her a fan...  and has her dance 

at the banquet to entertain the guests, Yasuhira compliments her.

 Oh well they fight some onryou at Taisha and Kagetoki shows up near Hiraizumi

Hidehira/Mitachi gets injured and winter comes, signaling a fight 

is about to break out between Hiraizumi and the genji.

Nozomi will act on it and the whole Taisha construction was so Yasuhira
can perform some Mahakala ritual...

Yasuhira is like its no use talking to me get out let me do what I think is correct to save Hiraizumi.

 Plot proceeds as normal and there's not much Nozomi can do... she remembers the fond moments

Yasuhira tells her this is Hiraizumi's problem ever since a 100 years ago and tells her to get lost.

 The soul devouring witch Masako shows up and the others head to Taisha

Yasuhira ends up sealing her using the Mahakala ritual and all is well that ends well?

Hakuryuu gets ready to send Nozomi back to her world and everyone sees her off however

 one person isn't coming because he got gangbanged by some goons when out in the countryside

because he ordered Shirogane to stay with the miko, those goons were out for revenge

 against Hidehira? or whoever since Yasuhira was behind that plot and used Shirogane to do it

however this time Nozomi finds him lying there half dead, he wanted her to just go back to 

her world knowing nothing since he knows all too well this is the path he has chosen.

 It sorta makes him happy that she was worried and cried for him...so now Nozomi

uses her scale of the white dragon to go back in time and change his fate.

Back when she made the bento she takes a different approach and so he wonders what is up with her.

Oh and realizing it was his shiki when he walked her back to town she couldn't but feel him up

making him ??? it wasn't as lewd as I made it sound so forgive me, she goes to the cavern that 

would surely mean her death but tells her she knows what it is he's trying  to do now with those

shiki's and also tells him of the future in which he dies because he tried to stop Masako with the

mahakala ritual,  anyway you should know by now who Masako is... she is a manipulative witch

who's also a god(荼吉尼天) who's been around for some time by eating peoples souls 

anyway this is his fight  not hers she shouldn't meddle in it, also don't come here ever again 

if you do not wish to be warped to times unknown to you, Nozomi decides help Yasuhira out 

and that she will change his fate that was decided a 100 years ago, yasuhira is like lol what

I will defeat dakiniden with the ritual there's no way for you to risk your life for mine.

Nozomi goes to the mountain cavern alone determined to change Yasuhira's fate in the distant past.

Yasuhira decides to come with her too he can't quite believe it either but yeah...

They find what appears to be Masako in a different form, that of a fox 

or more likely her original form, Nozomi decides to defeat it but Yasuhira ends up protecting 

Nozomi from one of her attacks not to worry it was just one of his shiki's but Yasuhira 

in the present ends up feeling some of its pain and says that he is living for her sake now.

Meanwhile Nozomi faces Masako aka the dakiniten alone and lives to tell the tale

after that Yasuhira shows up and seals it. (anticlimatic isn't it?)

In the ending its revealed that in the present he was able to sneak away from his duties...

oh well Yasuhira's fate has been changed and the two live happily ever after not that we get
to see that in detail, the writers didn't care so I won't either and no I didn't leave anything out.

Let's greet a new dawn together.

I'm indifferent about Yasuhira, he appeals to me but romantically IDK... the route didn't

do much to make me like him more... the story was okay I guess but a little disappointing?
Yasuhira doesn't even get a side story like all the other guys(let alone a decent epilogue)
I can see why some are just disappointed its been over a decade and this is what we get...
I'm sorry to sound ungrateful but when characters such as Hinoe, Yuzuru, Ridvan or Masaomi
get decent side story epilogues why can't the rest of the guys? the others just get some bridge the gap
or reminisce story and I just sigh deeply it can't be that hard to keep it consistent.
Not that all of that matters because Yasuhira still gets the short end of the stick.

My summary prolly isn't accurate enough but I don't care since who cares about half of the

plot of Yasuhira doing stuff because of shit that's been brewing since 100 years ago.

The romance was very subtle and the ending is only the beginning of their relationship

but that's the case with most ending in the original game so I shouldn't complain.

I just wish there was a side story like all the other characters have...

In the end even if he has a route now and has become 'romanceable' I can't help but

say its a waste because KOEI didn't put all of their effort into it.

You know its bad when the average fanfiction writer will be able to come up with something
better ever since the izayoiki game came out on ps2 including a decent epilogue.
Even otomate usually delivers on that. -_-
TL;DR its not worth it especially when KOEI already overprice this game
you can't tell me its gonna cost more just cuz u fully voice it while removing cg for new ones
all while the content people buy it for like yasuhira has to be bought seperately for 25$
if you didn't preorder had they just include it then yes it would be more passable.

Its also sad that half of his cg's are a vertical bar that doesn't even get recorded in the

gallery so lol it obv KOEI is cheapening out they even used a variation of Nozomi's dance CG 

all they did was change the color of the fan, i'm not shitposting just posting the cold hard truth.

Do I recommend this piece of DLC? only if you want to romance Yasuhira that badly, I do not think

this is worth 2500yen and firmly believe it should've been in the game in the first place.

KOEI goes and gives their vita port an ultimate subtitle well if it was the ultimate 

experience you wouldn't have to sell this route as DLC.  (눈_눈)
Okay I admit that was harsh, though they should have put this in the game to begin with.

 Romance ★★☆☆☆

Plot ★★☆☆☆

Enjoyment overall ★★☆☆☆

~

Maybe you'll see me with a post on haruka3unmei no labyrinth soon that is if they port it
but it is sure tempting to buy a psp copy for 35$... hmmm what to do?
Anyway it won't be soon give me a few months or so, also tfw blogger think it made
a duplicate of a concept post and overwrite one in the process, sigh.

Blue Reflection Sword of the girl who dances in illusions - Review

Game: [Blue Reflection: Sword of the girl who dances in illusions.]

Genre: JRPG.

Developer/Publisher: Gust and Koei Tecmo.

Platform: PS Vita, PS4.

Official Site: http://social.gust.co.jp/gakkou/

Release date: 2016-11-02

Well another JRPG game review because after Haruka 3 I felt like actually playing an actual JRPG
and not one that only has gameplay to drag out the VN parts anyway I enjoyed playing Blue
Reflection despite it being rather short and far from perfect, I see no reason to dislike it.
If you think this is another waifu simulator think again its about girls growth etc.
I'm sure most people are like wait another highschool RPG like persona but this time
its highschool girls by day and magical girls fighting evil in the moonlight? (lol)
I admit it sorta was like that too but I still played it and enjoyed it for what it is.
I am not good at writing these sorts of reviews but sometimes I just do em.

Pro's
- Likeable Heroine/Protag.
- Most if not all characters are likeable.
- Art.
- Music.
- Distinct style, this game really stands out.
- Magical girls.

Con's
- Short & no replay value, once you are done(platinum) you are really done.
- Part voiced, only main events, sub events are mute.
- Weird camera angles catering to fetishes.
- Can get a tad repetitive.
- Battles are too easy no matter the difficulty.

Hinako cosplaying as Rorona.

Blue reflection is gusts newest JRPG, the heroine Hinako injured her foot

 and thus can no longer pursue her hobby ballet with joy which depresses her.

She goes back to school after absence its already summer... she missed a whole season

but starts to notice something weird and in a surprise turn of events becomes a magical girl

thanks to Lime and Yuzu who encouraged her oh and they are also classmates?

Together they go help students at their school overcome their depression, doubt or simply put first world problems.

Everyone once in a while a giant boss pops up because it was attracted to people flipping their shit.
That's actually a good way to summarize it.