Sunday, July 23, 2017

Tsumikui ~Sen no Noroi, Sen no Inori~ for V - Review

罪喰い ~千の呪い、千の祈り~
 Game: [Tsumikui ~Thousand curses, thousand prayers~.]
Genre: Otome Game Visual Novel.
Developer/Publisher:Operetta, Dramatic Create.
Platform: PC, PS Vita.
Release date: 2017-06-29

Since I already played the demo I skipped to the point where demo ended, no point
in sitting through the prologue again which only was relevant 
for the sake of explaining how/why to begin with.
I think the way I wrote my review really reflects how this game tried to tell its story... lmao.
My general opinion of tsumikui is mostly the same as others... meaning its a mediocre
long winded game that has the potential to be so much better but it has too many short comings.
Look I played/read many vn's this year but this probably takes the cake for being long winded
to the point I often took breaks 4~ hours a day may have been all I could take! add that some routes
took 5/6 days and sub routes 2 at most, been stuck on this for two weeks or so, 4 hours
is a fair amount of time but sometimes when I wanted to progress further i lost the energy.
This in general was so difficult to write a review of... I feel like I spend more time
writing my dislikes than being positive, there may not have been much I liked cept Shiou or Ren.
Maybe its cuz its Operetta or maybe its me... but its probably me lol buut could be the developers.
Despite the demo hitting my interest I shot myself in the foot by purchasing the full thing
because I knew about the monologues and TL;DR , I knew...

Story is about some stuff happening 1000 years ago and a curse been running till now.
The same people from back then get reincarnated, they have to deal with remembering the past
 which wasn't pretty, Kaoru was lucky to have lived a fairly normal life for 15/16 years though.
Thanks Tsukasa...
Kaoru has to kill 1000 criminals to undo the curse or else she'll die, at first some parts may not be
easy to understand but the further you get the more you'll know but honestly it tends to drag itself
out with wordy narration that goes on and on.. then suddenly I find myself looking away
after I pressed auto mode since its way longer than it should've been, poor execution? maybe.
Its the writers job to keep it interesting not bore people with unnecessary junk text. That aside
there's a lot of  talk about past self, morality and also angst, how can Kaoru find love while
having to deal with all this? don't forget the teenage hormones that run amock!
Well atleast the first route I did aka Shiou's handled this surprisingly well
but honestly Touji's was better in certain aspects even tho he's an oyaji. >_>;
Complaints aside the story is good but yeah... I just didn't enjoy sitting through TL;DR monologues.

Pro's
- Interesting story that makes you want to finish it all the way even tho its meh at times.
- Art, obviously looks great- CG's move and multiple sprites.
- Voiced heroine, if you don't like it you can turn it off.

Con's
- Long and draggy.
- Music, fitting bgm in most scenes but others are average, also tracks wouldn't loop
and certain sub character voice(such as man A) are loud...
- TL;DR, they love being detailed and narration should've been toned down as it too wordy.
- The slice of life scenes made this to much like a shoujo manga...
- The battle scenes are boring due to text dumps ruining suspense of it all.

If you hadn't guessed this is a story centered otome game if you're looking for short, fun or to the
point otomege look elsewhere, I only ended up getting this because certain aspects intrigued me 
look its not bad it just gets a tad draggy and I don't got problem with monologues but I do when it is
used to further delay the story at hand that's just poor execution if you the reader
 get bored and just space out from it all and/or close the game as a result.
The heroine is a bit too accepting of certain matters but yeah what would you do if you are
told you'd die if you don't consume a 1000 criminals other than that she's mostly great?
Kaoru will speak her mind and wouldn't mind rushing the opposite way to save a friend.
Sadly she's inconsistent re:romance she says she's not interested then later she's uh I may like him also she's not exactly ''strong'' just willing but she can't do much either. So just a typical girl!
I guess feelings can change but in some routes it was irritating imo.
Scenes are still long and ruin otherwise excellent action scenes with monologues
basically they love to *record scratch* *freeze frame* while shit is happening
delaying the actual action and ruining the scene with pointless narration/monologue. x_x
I guess you can go figure why I dropped quinrose after two games.
Uh so let's mention that while I liked that Kaoru had a female classmate to talk too
but some part just weren't interesting, in most SOL scenes I was like move on please?
They have this grand plotline but deal with it so casually half the time I am just like lol ok.
Take that as you will but I am done mentioning this, I think early on Tsumikui
has a typical shoujo manga feel where not much happens except they made it into an otome
in which you can go after another guy that isn't the main interest which is obviously Ren.

System's easy enough and not worth mentioning except you can rewind read text making
backlog jump useless, there's skip to the next unread too so yay this is surprisingly comfy!
Sadly they don't turn affection meter off for locked routes... just don't try to go for Souta
Kagerou or Ren when you can't or you'll be disappointed if you hit a roadblock.

In short... *non spoiler*
Me trying to write out my thoughts on this game.
From the demo I figured this would be a mixed bag of all things and it sorta was but not
particularly bad also I wouldn't say it was a kusoge even though at times it gets awfully close.
Tsumikui is a somewhat enjoyable otome with a decent story at the core, its fun to find out its story
which is carefully told to you in an enforced play order which was recommended by the creators.
The themes it covers made me a little uncomfortable at times, angst, hate, morality and more
like I said there's little time for fluff but that doesn't mean there is no sweet romance scenes
its just poorly paced. Honestly speaking it doesn't really stand out that much in what it tried to do
but that doesn't matter it still managed to be decent just a lot of things just could be done better
Tsumikui is an example of being too story-driven and not being able to make it all interesting
or better put make the most of its themes.
Fun character interaction? BARELY, boring internal monologues? YEP.
I partly liked how sometimes they make you think this character isn't important and then a route
later he gets his spotlight... outside of that chara such as Tsukasa despite them being great
are just there, like he's interesting but they just never use his character properly.
😢
 I am also surprised this wasn't an R18 in the PC ver because then things could get randy...
also a little scary but its fine the way it is I don't need them to put disgusting shit in badends.
Also while the CG's were beautiful they're spread out poorly in some part I wish there was one
yet nothing then suddenly near the end of the route a nice spread of them in a row. 😮
Not everyone gets the same amount either, my bae Shiou got the most.
Either way with each route I played I wanted to press on as each one I did hinted something
that's covered in the next thus somehow making it enjoyable to unravel each characters mysteries
there was almost no route that was wasteful each character played did play a part but whether or not
it was worth it in the end... saa some routes just weren't well rounded enough. coughmorihitocough

If you want a meaty otomege I'd sooner recommend Ken ga Kimi than this game atleast
its more carefully crafted and the common route actually had a point.
Here? only a few route felt truly well rounded such as Shiou not to mention, Morihito gets screwed
over in more ways than one and honestly had the worst route of all. I never liked him because
he was annoying and only truly stops his Sera obsession in his own in predicable manner no less. -_-
Well that ends my non-spoiler section, I honestly can't give it any higher than a 6/10
and I agree with a lot of other reviews on certain facts and  that Tsumikui isn't that great.
Definitely do not recommend unless you love Operetta's works or something and can stand
huge chunks of text monologues... going on forever and ever detailing stuff
purely to make it drag out which makes an otherwise short vn much longer than need be.

So now you ask is the vita port worth it if I played the PC ver?
Well did you really like the original and the characters, especially Kagerou.
Personally I do not think its worth 6000 yen for the exact same thing with just a bunch of 
after stories  that aren't that long to begin with and a semi-new route unless 
you really like any sort of new content for a particular vn you liked.
If you haven't played PC ver and have a vita then yes go for it if you like longer otome games
I can't gaurantee you will like it but who knows! your opinion could differ
but if you never cared for Kagerou or didn't like it that much give it a definite pass. 

Playorder: 
(This order was recommended by the writer and makes sense, Ren is locked till last so no choice).
Shiou > Touji > Kagerou > Morihito > Souta > Ren.
Kagerou finishes off the Kuga arc and Ren the concludes the whole past arc.
This probably the one and only order you can even take there's really 
not much room to order it the way you want.

Character rambles after the jump...
There be spoilers, minor or major below so tread carefully but there won't be any summaries
 as this game is too wordy I doubt anyone will ever do it... its just too much really.