Over RequiemZ - Review

 Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Kogado/Otomate.

Platform: switch.
Official Site: https://www.otomate.jp/over_requiemz/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v47013

Release date: 17-4-2025

 

I wasn't sure if I was going to get this game and it was literally a last minute decision

but I am glad I did because I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I ever would and it

had a pretty good story more so than a bunch of recent otomate games I played recently.

Also I could probably have finished this sooner rather than later however lately I don't

like it when I burst through games in a week but it lasted almost two weeks for me

so I slowed down my pace just a little bit, the game also is better with breaks

in between due to how intense the writing can be.

 

Pro's

- Interesting setting and complex characters.

- Mostly good pacing, atleast I thought fact side was.

- Gorgeous artwork, pretty consistent art.

- Beautiful music, I found it better than most of otomate's stuff.

- Replay value is high due to scenario split.

- You can completely ignore the dark side and get to enjoy the story with proper romance.

 

Grey area

- There's only one best ending, the other three are either bad ends, a tragic end or subjective good.

 

Con's

- Dorothy's route should've been locked.

- Most choices are meaningless except a handful that decided a branch or end.

 - Dark side can feel a bit drawn out, atleast one felt forced.

- The ending theme did not fit all the endings.

 

 

Over RequiemZ is loosely based on the wizard of oz.

The heroine Yuhiru gets isekai'd to a strange land and meets a bunch of guys

who are all convicted criminals alongside herself for reasons she doesn't get. The world

isn't quite like her own but she still recognizes elements here and there from it.

Due to her black hair and eyes, she is discriminated for it but she's not

the only one as one of the LI has suffered from it as well.

Yuhiru finds solace with a bunch of guys who like herself end up being charged for

crimes they didn't commit. The question remained of whether she can trust them or not. 

This honestly feels like a breath of fresh air. Yuhiru sets out on a journey with them

which really felt like a journey btw, the characters also had good chemistry

but this was mostly the first 5 chapters before it focused more on the LI.

I loved the character interactions, there was a good dose of humor at times as well.

 Even if they were criminals it didn't feel like they were bad atleast not at first

but you could tell there was another side to them so it was exciting to see how it'll play out.

I really loved how the writing could be rather intense, it was hard to get bored

and if I did zone out then the dialogue would snap me back into it.

 

Art looks gorgeous both sprite,CG and backgrounds are very well done.

Music Some BGM's were absolutely stellar I rarely praise this much but they deserve it!

It also set the tone of the scenes well and I like the OP a lot as well.

 

System; its a standard VN however  there's a route split for each character Fact and Dark

Depending on your choices you can tip the scales to either of those and get different endings

but other than that most of the choices were meaningless, it may change a dialogue line or two.

All the endings of which there were four per route were right at the end.

Yea the split sides basically are like this, yes.

Length; A single route would be 15 chapters in total, every guy had a sort of

common route/prelude which lasted for 5 chapters and then it splits into fact or dark

of which both are 5 chapters long.  Nothing seemed to drag on, I thought individually

chapters were short, it still delivered the scenario in a well-paced manner.

My first route was about 7-8 hours in length but depending on your reading

speed it may differ.  Its important to note that both sides are different in tone

from the other so you won't get the same experience twice.

 

I wasn't sure what was up with the choice system maybe that's to decide what ending you get

or if you can make it to the fact or dark. I used a guide so... i'm not sure if selecting a less

than good choice would result in a game over ending and I didn't have the energy to experiment.

Often there would be red choices, I thought that selecting the wrong one would give me

 a bad end but the guide listed none. This game also only has four endings per route.

They were at the end so the bad ones felt more like you reap what you sowed.

Still I think some bad ends may've worked in a type of game like this since

most choices are actually pretty meaningless and add nothing of value except

the ones that decide the route split or the endings at the end of it.

 

 

I liked the general feel of the game but I had so many questions...

like why was the heroine summoned? isn't this judicial system too harsh?!

The early parts of trying to survive outside of the city reminded me of the dark dragon and

the happy hungry bunch from yona of the dawn. The first half of the game felt rather calm

but there were moments of suspense like do you tell a LI the truth of where you came from?

Anyway for the most part the game was very enjoyable, I wanted to get to know the LI

and perhaps more about the world... which was my main motivation to keep playing.

The characters were honestly pretty great, I wanted to know more

about them all, in good and bad ways. Its been a long time

an otome game got that kind of reaction from me.

They all had some sort of underlying trauma and it could seem like the heroine

is a therapist but I thought she was just trying to be a good friend

and a good friend listens to someone elses troubles and doesn't judge.

The fact route tended to resolve issues while the dark route let them fester.

In most other otome games I am like eh a yandere but this game did

not present them the usual way, more like they could become one.

Most of my questions were answered by the time of the final fact route.

 

The fact side pretty much felt like a normal otome game to me...

It focused more on the character development,backstory and current problem

as well as delivering some proper romance as Yuhiru grows closer to the LI.

The dark side reminded me of stuff rejet would come up with

and that would probably be for folks who like yanderes or something.

The main plot in dark took a different turn which... opened up other problems.

So even if you don't like rejet type stuff I could still recommend this game.

I personally thought it was a hit or miss as I could stand Claude's dark route

but Molly's... was a very oh no wtf is this shit?! momento.

I kind of wanted to skip them especially since I came to love Noil a bit too much

still I wanted to see all of his character so I bit the bullet againu. 

 

Yuhiru was pretty okay? I did think she could have been fleshed out more

like she wants to go back home but... ends up finding a handsome man instead.😂

There's only one route where she is actually given a lot more backstory

so if you don't do it she can seem a little less interesting.

That aside I liked her interactions with the love interest and she was very positive and brave

 so I don't think there was much to dislike. She goes through some shit alright

but the worst of it was mostly reserved for the dark side. Which is optional.

If Ceres crawled it was so Yuhiru could fly.

 

Over RequiemZ reminded me a little of 9rip but with more horror/suspense. I wouldn't say

it was on tsukihime/virche level but it had a good dose of violence and blood.

I think without the fact side this game would've been unsatisfying for me

and it may have even steered me away had I tried to do the darkside first.

Other than that it was character focused but most routes would never go into

the same problem twice maybe this was a double edged sword.

Unfortunately, while I was lucky enough to play the most spoilerific route last

otomate may've been better off locking it but it seems they forget

and I am blaming the guy in charge of management.😩

Locking Dorothy's route should've been a thing.

In most routes there were more bad outcomes than good ones, like one best end

a sad end and then two endings that I thought were generally leaning to the bad side

but they could be good in a subjective way.  In the case of Noil I think he had three

good outcomes and one bad but two of them  were really subjective and it would be up

to the player to determine that.  Each guy had 4 endings so two for each side, I think

there's a lot of appeal to this otome game though and I was invested quickly in whatever

was happening. The dark side of the route is probably what most are going to come here for

but I'd probably recommend to do the fact side first just for a better understanding

of the LI more so if you care about plot+romance.

 

-- 

TL;DR: Over RequeimZ was more well-rounded, it was just the right length

which was a relief since I think Fuyuzono really rushed itself.  Its just that one route

should've been locked. There was just enough time for both romance, plot/character

development but it can be really intense and can not seem very otome.

Looking at it overall the actual story/character's were really good and given a lot of depth

that I can forgive it. Whatever scenes there were with the LI were very enjoyable but don't come

here expecting only fluff. When I look at Noil's route it spends more time building trust...

however trust is the foundation for everything and without that there can be no love. 

That is why I had no issues with romance. The fact side did feel to me like any other otome game

 Its just that some characters had stuff going on in their dark route that legit made me go nope

so it certainly is not for everyone. There was a moderate amount of violence

and blood, I don't think it was as extreme as Virche. I also see comparisons

and I just don't see it?  Virche made me depressed, Over RequiemZ had me hooked and

despite the dark side being less than good I was excited to go to the next character fact route.

It has intense and suspenseful moments but it also makes room for more calmer ones.

Dark side tended to... have more extreme ends as opposed to the fact side

which just had a tragic and good end.  I thought at times the split sides also complimented

eachother, this was most obvious to me in Noil's maybe because I enjoyed the route.

Noil Bestia was one of my favorite LI along with Kaize&Claude.

I can recommend this otome, more so if you miss rejet-like games and want a story full of suspense.

If I have to be really honest, if you're just here for the story&romance just do the fact side.

I feel the dark side is there for people that like darker stuff, once again its contents is not for everyone.

9/10

Should this get localized? absolutely! there's definitely an audience for this

but even if it doesn't the language difficulty is fairly low.

Lastly, I don't recommend binging or rushing through this game.

Take your time, the scenario is carefully written and going too fast

will likely not make you be able to take it in or enjoy its finer aspects.

 ---

 

There are no route restrictions so you can choose whoever you're interested in.

For my first play I ended up choosing Claude... as I played the routes

it all was so character driven, if I had to recommend anything then you can do

Claude,Molly,Noil and Kaize in any order but Dorothy is best saved for last.

I almost by a hair chose him first and was glad I didn't.

This game is best played without spoilers and its very hard to write about the

characters without spoiling  so if you don't want that then stop reading here.

Its mostly just me doing commentary and a poor digest of whatever happened

while sharing some of my favorite CG's, not all of them of course.

Atelier Yumia the Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land - Review

Genre: RPG.

Developer/publisher: Gust/Koei.

Platform: PS4,switch.
Official Site: N/A.

Release date: 21-3-2025

 

Honestly I was kinda excited for this one because it had a new heroine and world.

I tried the demo just to tip my toes in it while suffering through Tsukihime and I kinda liked it

however i'll say that this series is starting to feel more RPG-like with every new entry.

 

 

I like the OP but near the end of the game I started skipping it...

 

Pro's

- Interesting and decent story.

- Great cast of characters & fun interactions.

- Exploring is fun, its always nice finding chests.

- Character models are gorgeous, prettier than the environments even.

Grey area

- Due to the amount of content it is easy to get overwhelmed and  as an

atelier game this might've been the one where I spend synthesizing the least.

 

Con's

- Combat is too easy as long as you make good gear and items.

- Graphics are decent but... it can feel like it lacks a layer of polish.

- Ingame lightning either works in the games favor or against it.

- Shrines of prayers are too repetitive.

- Some bugs.

 

 I liked Yumia as a character, she definitely has her wits about her but is also a little timid

 and can come across as indecisive, the key theme is trying to do the right thing

but that isn't always easy. Describing her as a character isn't easy either.

Also seems she is well aware that alchemy isn't accepted so I couldn't help but noticed

she was anxious around folks but she'd be more open with people she knew. In terms of design

she kind of reminds me of Sophie or atleast in the artwork, sadly I didn't really like the design

since Yumia looks like a classy office lady with a jacket of someone

who's gonna do some outdoor camping or that's the impression I got. 😅

 

Other main characters were all GREAT and I LOVED their interactions with each other!

Story was pretty decent, I have no complaints, I absolutely loved how we slowly

got to learn more about everyone and whatever happened in the past.

I did think the ending fell a bit flat and it felt more like a beginning to something

Once I knew more about Yumia's past I liked her a lot more than right at the beginning.

Some villains are threatening, one of them is even like a dragon just not as fleshed out.

Garurumon was a weird character, was he friend or foe? he is shown to be a villain

from the get go, unfortunately like Vesper they lack depth but its done in such a way

like what else was there to tell? Lili was the more fleshed out of the bunch.

Final boss sure had build up but I thought he was just an asshole.

Due to the story being decent and the main characters having such great chemistry

I wanted to keep playing I could care less about the clunky combat

because it was fun to explore the lands of aladiss. Sadly there were still caveats.

He's like a dragon, unfortunately he wasn't as well developed.

In terms of graphics is erm... the models look great but while Ligneus region

looked fine to me, the Sivash region is where it started to look all washed up and soapy...

Graphics literally go from good to...

 

I see what you're trying to do but did you miss a layer of polish?

Sivash did look better at night, not sure if this was intended but it seems they forgot something.

The Auruma region looked okay I guess you get used to it.

It honestly baffles me how the models look great and are animated well

but the environments looks like they missed a layer of polish. 

Music was honestly fine, I don't really have any complaints, it had a good battle theme

and the atelier/synth music makes me forget the time so yea music's good. 

 

The character models look so good they look out of place with the rest.

 

In short; I liked atelier Yumia BUT I think this game needed a bit more time in the oven

because the straw that broke the camel's back for me was the Licht quest at the end of the game.

It literally tells you where to go next but for some reason the quest doesn't progress into the next

and at that point the only other things to do is the main story of which not much is left

or plain completionism which for some may not be their cup of tea. Its just poor design

and that wasn't the worst of it, I also had the bug where a side quest NPC will disappear

if you talk to it twice before killing the monsters making it unable to be completed.

This is also one of the few games that I ended up falling through the floor......

it usually ends up other people showing off their out of bound skills. This time it was me.💀

''...''

Like holy shit did they even QA this game?! Anyways I did like the characters and the story itself

was decent, for the first time ever I completely understood the alchemy system while

in dusk/mysterious I'd barely get it. Sadly I don't think this game was that cozy because

all the ''?'' marks and completion percentages did everything in its power to make it not cozy.

Its hard to recommend Yumia, maybe if you like easy games with lovable characters & lots to do?

7/10

''It was still enjoyable in terms of story/chara's but... its simply half-baked.

For all it did right, it did some wrongs. Its not perfect it just lacks polish.''

 

More rambles after the jump, I probably rambled on too much so you can stop reading here.

Tsukihime A piece Of Blue Glass Moon - Review

More like Lunar Legend infodumpTM.

Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Typemoon.

Platform: PS4,switch.
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v17909

Release date: 27-6-2024

 

I decided Tsukihime remake would be my next game as I wanted to try it... since I liked MahoYo.

This version of tsukihime is a remake of the original, I am well aware that it is

a partial remake but nevertheless I decided to buy and play it now.

Sadly I didn't really like this game as much as I would have liked

but it is definitely not the worst urban fantasy VN i've laid my eyes upon.

Rather it feels like this game just wants you to be upset or get angry with its MC.

 

Pro's

- Interesting setting and complex characters.

- For a story that includes the supernatural, its solid.

- High production values but the quality of CG's varied.

 

Grey area

- MC is difficult to like yet by the end of the 2nd route he had a full stamp card of pity points.

 

Con's

- Strong violence and horror. Did I mention gore? (Could be a grey area but yea...)

- Comparing the scene presentation to MahoYo, same style yet Tsukihime at times felt basic.

- Some CG's never get added to the gallery, I couldn't find Ciel's umbrella CG.

 

The opening doesn't play till you land on a character route

which isn't till 5 hours depending on your reading speed.

 Both routes have their own opening but I will only link Arc's.

 

 

I wasn't as hooked to this unlike MahoYo and thus didn't enjoy it as much

but what I won't deny is that it was for the most part pretty well written

its just overstayed its welcome for me, I am really sorry! it ain't for me.

Not much of note happened till  Arqueid shows up something

happened that made me do a record scratch *freeze* frame moment.

At that point the game utterly disgusted me because of what happened.

That aside everything else was interesting enough I pressed on, I have to say

from then on I started to feel constantly on edge and didn't like Shiki as much as before.

The MC Shiki is a broken guy who just tries to live but despite the advice he got from

his master, he just barely seem to hold himself to it almost as if its a silver lining.

Sure he has regrets of something really bad he did, you're given that choice

but the rest of the game just made me nervous because he's quite unstable mentally.

Shiki gets what he deserves when he gets roped into the stuff surrounding Arqueid

and there were some bad ends where I was like yea he had it coming.

It isn't like till later on in Ciel's route that I understood why the heck Shiki did what he did

and I just started to really get as to what was going on. Honestly I didn't think the plot

was badly written and for a story about vampires its not bad just... once again not my thing.

 

Had this been any other VN it would probably be romantic but this is Tsukihime...

In terms of other characters; I didn't care much for his sister Akiha, she looked too much

like an Aoko clone but not as snarky. It wasn't untill later I saw her as her own character.

 I found Akiha to be too much like a girlboss which would make Arcueid the gatekeeper.

Arihiko was funny at times but he looked too much

like Shirou from Fate except he's like a delinquent version...

I liked Kohaku but Hisui was a bit too stoic and/or deadpan to me but she gets better

its just I could never get too invested in them in this game which like Akiha is probably intended.

Arcueid would be fine she's fun, For Ciel it felt like there was more to her than meets the eye but

she is definitely best girl. I disliked Noel though as much as most of the girls at Shiki's school.😅 

Noel also got worse as Ciel's route progressed which did not help... at all.

I loved Mario and his potty mouth though, easily the best side character. 

The rest? too much of makes an appearance thus I forgot them because of infodumps.

Honestly I kept playing mostly for Arcueid and I didn't really care for Shiki as much.

Because I didn't do any of Ciel's events in the common route on my first play

she was also sort of just there, later on she becomes a bit more interesting

but when I started her route, I couldn't help but think she's a bit too perfect...

 

Me when I think about the story in this game.

I did start to wonder why was this game even popular? because its violence? unhinged mc?

shock value? or because it was typemoon's first ever work before they got big from fate.

I mean Tsukihime started out as an unprofessional doujin, not many would probably try nowadays

unless you're super invested in nasu's works. Now what would happen if you turn that doujin

into a professional work? while fleshing out all the added lore it got via a fighting game no less. 

I think the latter is why Tsukihime got popular, its Arcueid that carries it hard. Tsukihime is

likely aimed at people who tolerate these themes, I find it hard to get into it because sure

there's a good plot here but its buried beneath layers of lore which gets dumped on you in parts.

Anyways what I really liked about Tsukihime was Arcueid as a character and Ciel.

I didn't really care as much with the protagonist but I could sympathize with him a little.

Tsukihime looked like a normal visual novel and for the most part it just loves gore&blood

about as much as Virche evermore. Maybe I should have done more

research before I started this but that wasn't the worst of it.

 

While the beginning hours gave time for the reader to settle in and get familiar

with most characters while exploring the setting in great detail. If not for that i'd

probably have dropped it. In chapter 3 it took its first nose dive. It reminded me of when

I tried to watch Elfen Lied and then suddenly things get super gory like with cut-off body parts.

I know this game warns the player about disturbing content

when booting it up but I didn't expect it to be like that.

Gonna say I can stomach some violence now, I didn't even mind what happened to Shinji

in the second heaven's feel movie but Tsukihime takes everything to another level.

Now this wasn't actually what bothered me, I can get past the violence and gore

what I didn't like was the dragged out battles and infodumps. There was almost an hour 

of vampire lore for dummies moment nvm the fight against the guy itself. 💀💀💀

Which was just so drawn out and felt like some stuff from dragon ball like it

kept going and going.  You know what's funny about the early infodumping? not even

Shiki understood all of it so I guess I could relate to his single working braincell.

Okay you beat this vampire guy but here comes shota saber and dumps his church lore

right before the chapter ends while I was already tired from everything beforehand

and that is just an example of how this game does things especially in Ciel's route.

Like in Arc's route Shiki would just sleep but in Ciel's he fucking wakes up and goes to read

which leads to a convenient infodump and thinking about it just makes me hysteric.😂

It was important later but god damn this game is so messy...

 

Despite that there was some hilarity amidst it all to be found, not on the same level as MahoYo

but I generally did like most Shiki and Arqueid scenes despite the former being a dick.

That's putting it nicely, like Shiki can be sensible but more often than not he's just an idiot.

Like he doesn't need to be a Shirou, that's not the point I have to try really hard to find

good points about Shiki and when I think he's okay the guy ruins it yet again. SIGH.

Yea fuck you Shiki.

Unfortunately due to Arqueid and/or Ciel being the way she is the writer tends to get away with a lot

because it doesn't matter how much they gets hurt. If Shiki was a LI in an otome game

he's a failure of a man. Sorry but imma roast this guy like Aoko would.

--- 

System wise it is pretty much a straight-forward VN with some choices that could

lead to a bad end of which there are 21 in total. There's a hint corner as well

so you pretty much won't need a guide if you follow the advice.

The flowchart was good but you couldn't use it to quickly get bad ends

as there would be no choices so best advice I can give is manually save a lot

especially at the start of a chapter. So if you get hit with a delayed bad end

you can easily get back to somewhere to fix that.

 

There's only has two routes Arcueid and Ciel, the latter is second play only

so basically you will have to play it twice but Ciel's route felt more like it was some

alternative route going deeper.  Also I thought I was tripping but i'm pretty sure some

early scenes ch5/6 stayed the same with some slight differences here or there because

you were with Ciel instead of Arc. There was definitely some copypasta because

there  were numerous occasions where I saw dialogue I knew I read before but couldn't

skip cuz the scene was a tad different which is nothing unusual it just got on my nerves in

Ciel's extra end since they also would love to show the same scene prior

from another perspective which changed nothing.😑

 

Also I didn't really play this game till I was sure I have atleast two hours I could

spend on it as I don't like leaving the scenario hanging in some awkward spot

like in the middle of a infodump or epic fight scene and this game had a few of those.

Chapter length was quite inconsistent, Arc's route was relatively short overall but

it got worse in Ciel's route due to being full of infodumps and just longer in general.

Ciel's ch13/14 took me three sesssions to get through it was insanely long...

Glad I took this screenshot while playing cuz this shot was not in the gallery.

 

TL;DR: Tsukihime was a solid urban fantasy with high production values

but if you can't stand strong violence,gore, vampire themes, horror and a lot of infodumping

I don't recommend it. I loved some of the characters and the setting was interesting

but it was simply too long for its own good. Plus some of the material at times

just did not make me feel good, so while I kept in mind what I liked

that honestly won't matter if the material just makes me uncomfortable.

This is also one of the few VN's where I didn't like the protagonist much which didn't help.

Half of it was due to the Roa BS but even then he only turns out OK thanks to one of the girls.

Looking back at MahoYo, this VN didn't have as good as a scene direction except for fight scenes

and the art/cg varied greatly in quality. While MahoYo would put characters to the side or use

half a sprite, Tsukihime still did this but mostly I was looking at full sprites or zoomed in sprites.

In the average scenes more often than not I thought it would be better with text boxes

than text over busy backgrounds.  Much like FF7 remake it ends up being longer than

the original some of it could be in a good way but 60 hours for only 2 routes?

while the original was 40h average with all routes? yea they padded this one out.

By the time it was over it felt like a relief... cuz at times it seemed like to never end.

Though if you like Nasu's work and don't mind the above or my complaints then sure

Tsukihime might be another cake for you to dig into! but it may not be for everyone

so don't feel bad if you cannot get into this game, there's an audience but its not for all.

To me however Tsukihime a piece of blue glass moon is a FINE dumpster fire. A solid 6.3/10

its just a classic that I personally, while I tried just couldn't enjoy as much.

More rambles after the jump but there's not much to write about honestly.

I did try to write out my thoughts about both routes, so if you don't

want spoilers just stop reading here. I probably wrote too much but this

game also had a whole lot of stuff to unpack so it kind of checks out.

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