Wednesday, June 24, 2026

Utawarerumono Past and Present Rediscovered - Review

Well... atleast Shunya got her closure.
Genre: VN.
Developer/publisher: Aquaplus
Platform: PS5,Switch,PC.
Official Site: https://aquaplus.jp/uta/shiro/
Release date: 28-05-2026
 
Okay I won't lie but I kinda forgot about this game but I decided
to play it since I love the utaware series! not like I had anything else
I wanted to play so this game seemed kinda nice either way. 
 
Disclaimer: This is purely my own opinion and it could be different from yours
this is not meant to be some kind of all-truth, just an opinion that came from playing this.
If you don't like what you're reading then close the tab, move on and just idk play it yourself. 
 
Pro's
- Wraps up Oshtor and Shunya's journey.
- Enjoyable turn based combat system.
 
Grey Area
- First half feels rather bland compared to the last 80% of the game.
- The OP doesn't play upon starting the game. 

Con's
- Game in general lacks polish; such as models/movement speed.
- Sidequests were uninspiring and mostly filler. 
 
 
This game is a sequel to Monochrome Mobius which takes place
after the first utawarerumono game and before mask of deception.
I always thought Mono-mobius didn't really wrap up all there was to tell
especially regarding Shunya which this game actually gets to do!
 The beginning of the game does start with a brief recap and slowly
gets things going but it did feel a bit off since everyone was at lvl99.
combat certainly was no issue during the first two hours or so but I did
wonder when/if there would be a stat squish and there was.
If you never played an utaware game before this game is a terrible place to start
 so you're better off either playing monochrome first or start from prelude of the fallen.
(I'm not one to gatekeep or anything so I like to give atleast two starter points.)
Speaking from my own experience it may be better to play Shunya's duology last. 
---
 
Combat is the same as MM tho what I really like is that after defeating
a special mob in an area you gain the ability to 1shot anything there.
 So long you attack them first, enemies also see you as a threat at that point.
 This was actually really satisfying, Halu true MVP.
This is great because it removes a lot of monotony from having to fight all enemies 
you come across to level up again, Since 1hitting them gives exp and loot.
It gets even better on the overworld since you can just bump and KO enemies on your mount!
The stat squish already felt kinda harsh but the grind being eased was a relieve
since it wasn't hard to level up at all.   Difficulty does ramp up around level 30
 and fights can get difficult the higher you get. If you use your BP wisely
and don't forget to invest some into defense or HP it'll be fine.
The whole battle system relies on buffing yourself and debuffing your enemies or else
get wrecked LMAO. Shunya's the character who got ko'd the most but what else is new?
Munechika exists to patch people up and provide some buffs or extra DPS if possible.
Oshtor's the most balanced unit and Mika's purpose is to hit things. 
We also don't have to unlock HP/MP recovery at savepoints anymore. 
However I will admit that by the end of the game the area lord loop was a tad repetitive. 
----
 
 Side quests were kinda just there though... they were nothing unusual.
I felt like I had to do them since when I got thrust into a battle after meeting
Soyankekur I got my ass beat!πŸ˜…πŸ’€ well there wasn't any dungeons before it
but when I reloaded I noticed new quests that had appeared. After I did
those I was able to handle the fight much better. So levels do matter!
The best side quest would have to be the one that unlocks Halu's final mode...
it also had me going why is this listed as a side quest?!
it was voiced & the story was strangely good.
The rest of the sidequests felt like unnecessary busywork which is such a shame!
I didn't even do a bunch in the lvl 70 range at the end of the game cuz I was burnt out of them. 
---
 
Graphics; well the environments look fine and I am not one to complain but I did
notice the models can look like they miss a coat of paint however certain scenes
still looked good depending on the lightning in them so it wasn't too bad really. 
The animations can be kinda stiff too but there were moments, especially comedic or
fighting were it was really well done so... I honestly don't see a reason to complain much.
Suppose after three years you expect more but aquaplus has never been one
to have graphics that were amazing. Except maybe the zan games although those
were by tamsoft and the graphics were on par to the neptune action games.
I find the graphics are decent but the environments were far better than the modeling
which reminded me of tears to tiara kakan no dachi. Okay enough rambling about this. 
Music; was generally good and soothing to the ears, like I know from the series
it fit the mood and tone of the scenes well enough. Both OP and ED were great
however for some reason the OP didn't play when booting up the game. 
 ----
 
I rather liked this town, even if its nothing unusual it reminds me of some edo era scene.
 The running speed also bothered me a little because if you tilt the left stick
to the max too fast you'll just zoom across the map at max speed. WeeU!
You can in fact walk and run slower but you really need to tilt carefully.
The areas are big so I didn't mind it being a turbo run that much
but the lack of polish was rather obvious here.
 ---
It took me around 50 hours to complete the game which includes most side quests
except a few endgame ones because I kinda burnt out on them and I just smacked
enemies in the final dungeon for some extra EXP. I don't think you need to be
higher than level 80 to beat the game. However I did almost forget we could
level the blacksmith but due to that I had enough materials and was able to get
some of the best weapons/armor upgrades with ease. No boss in this game really
forced me to dig into the weapon upgrade system, the weapons and armor you
can buy or find was more than enough to make it through. I thought it was overall
breezier than Monochrome Mobius which was a little tougher in my memory anyways.
Halu was around rank 70 which matches the level range I cleared with; 77-80. 
---
 
 Overall its nice they did follow up on Oshtor and Shunya's adventure!
because I remember being a little disappointed Shunya's case was unresolved
and a lot of the stuff on arva-shulan was not fully explored which this game does.
It had a strong start it did slow down and while it was nice to
have the crew back together I did get a feeling of is this really it?!
There were plenty of interesting bits it all just felt very low key and looking back
the first half of the game just felt rather bland to me and not much stood out.
I thought the majority of the game would take place in Arva-Shulan but... it didn't.
So I was kind of let down in the first half when we had to go activate a bunch of towers.
I personally was more interested in the villains and SUS twins but most of that was
reserved for the last 35% of the game and rather fast too. The villain group didn't have
that much build up that when it was time of their re-appearance I forgot about them.πŸ˜… 
Most things weren't explained very well till right at the end. It wasn't all bad though
I still think exploring the regions around Yamato is a real treat, I didn't even mind
going through the areas that much, even if the story was uninspiring at this point.
Mostly because the gameplay was excellent and if they nailed anything its that.
TL;DR
At the end of the day I think the story is OK but the first half could be better.
When the story got to the heart of the matter it was pretty good but that was 80% into it.
As for the romance... I couldn't enjoy it as much as with Rias and Slade, Shunya and Oshtor
didn't even get that many moments that they weren't on my shipping radar till someone started
talking about feelings.  I suppose they had no time/budget since there weren't a lot
of light-hearted CG's either. Having played the trilogy I could never fully get into it
since Shunya is never referenced. The way the story played out... it made sense though!
I do like the ending for the both of them, it was a rather bittersweet. 
7/10  
I did get the idea that they rushed to get this game out due to it being a little rough
around the edges but other than that if you want to continue Oshtor/Shunya's adventure
and love the utaware series I see no reason why not to get this at some point.
 If you liked the OG trilogy but disliked MM or old school rpg's then it could be a skip.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Some senile grandma rambles after the jump! I try to avoid major plot spoilers
but if you don't want anything at all then just stop reading here. 

Saturday, June 6, 2026

Tengoku Struggle Strayside - Review


Tengoku Tumbleweed Side Struggle
 Genre: VN.
Developer/publisher: otomate.
Platform: Switch.
Official Site: https://www.aksysgames.com/tengoku/
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v33150
Release date: 04-04-2024
 
I played this game inbetween others but this was one of those games
that I wish I could like more and only got good for me in the last two routes.
Due to it being what it was I wasn't in the mood to get through this but I also didn't
want to let this sit in my backlog for half a year so after Matsurika FD I continued.
Despite being aware about contents; I found it rather tame.
I mean without context they sound awful but within the narrative? oh. 
 
Disclaimer: This is purely my own opinion and it could be different from yours
this is not meant to be some kind of all-truth, just an opinion that came from playing this.
If you don't like what you're reading then close the tab, move on and just idk play it yourself. 
 
Pro's
- Strong-willed and self-concious heroine.
- All LI's are likable in their own ways.
- Great art and catchy music.
 
Grey area
- Quite long; route length is 10-12 hours on average.
- Story doesn't seem to take itself serious, weak resolutions in early route.
  
Con's
- The game can feel a bit draggy at times and has pacing issues.
- Bad CG pacing, there are droughts and moments with a lot at once. 
 
 
Art was great,When I looked at the cover for the first time I almost
didn't recognize who the artist was, tho it definitely is Satoi's style.
Music was generally good and I had no issues with it.
The OP was good but I didn't feel like watching it everything. ED was fine. 
 ---
 
[System ramblings] 
Standard visual novel stuff, nothing that stood out.
The common route was much like Olympia Soiree a long one-time introduction
without choices and it becomes entirely skippable on 2nd play.
Its also easy to see what's a good or bad choice as this is shown when you select a choice
so you can play this without a guide, there's only two endings per route; Happy&bad.
However the bad endings were IMO more like good ends.
The common route did hook me, the setting and introductions were interesting.
I liked how the heroine had a female friend with a sprite too.
There's a scene at the end of ch1 that kinda woah but what I found hilarious
is how tame the rest of the common route of seven chapters was. The early routes
such as Yona or Kiku were quite tame as well. I was actually disappointed at this, within
the narrative a lot of things did make sense but if I listed it separately it could sound awful.
Actually the game is rather tame in general... LMAO till the gloves are off in Goemon route.
Pacing was a tad slow for me but for a SoL character driven game its not bad perse.
 Though things can get heated the game was for the most part pretty laidback which lead
to some shifts in tone, if you can't handle this TengoStray is likely not for you. 
I'll add to this that TengoStray is a fairly long, especially the first time through.
Individually the routes had 12 chapters and it took around 10-12 hours to complete one.
---
 
[Heroine ramblings] 
She has a whip but...
Rin was alright but can be a bit much at times, even if she didn't remember her
past life she had a personality! I did wonder how she turned into a misandrist
but the story wrote itself in such a way I kinda got why she had enough of them.πŸ˜…
The narrative esp in early routes seemed more set on mellowing her out...
As she lived with everyone she got over that stuff pretty fast too and she tried
to approach them differently which also kind of clashed with the initial setup
but its okay people can change their mind so that's not bad per se. 
I wasn't really sure what they tried to sell me during the first few routes and 
if need be Rin can really hold her ground, its just she acts like a tiger but is in fact 
just a cat and acts like any girl could. Rin's proactive but she was also a tsundere
so getting her to be honest was a struggle in itself. Sometimes she's just hostileπŸ˜“
but also not incapable of self-reflecting on things as she is self-concious.
Rin is comparable to Olympia, not perfect by any means and it was obvious
she bit off more than she could chew, even so she regained her balance. Rin also
reminded me of Rinka from BAW; if they fleshed her out and wove her into the plot. 
Rin shined the most in the locked routes as that's where she was given the most depth
and the early routes only touched upon it on a surface level. Considering her story
it also makes sense why that is the case. Maybe I had the wrong expectations
but I expected a bit more from her even in early routes.
I didn't always vibe with Rin Enma, yet I was in-sync with her in how
her perspective changed both on herself and the guys.
My sign also isn't very compatible with Rin who is a scorpio and at times
I did not understand her but she wasn't a bad heroine at all. Just not for me.
---
The LI are criminals but there was barely need to punish them. 
I actually expected Rin to whip them more if they acted up but... this wasn't necessary! (haha)
imma be real the only one who really needs whipping is Sharaku. The times the whip was
cracked were few. The narrative pushed it yet was against doing it at the same time.
I don't know if the localization toned her down among other things but let me tell you
again Rin was at her most badass in Jack and Goemon's routes.
If you wanted to actually whip LI's then I recommend KLAP kind love and punish instead.
---
 
The seiyuu cast are mostly familiar I personally don't hear Goemon's VA a lot
but this game made me like him!  I also did love some of the seiyuu for
the side cast like Koyasu Takehito as Daddy or Nojima Kenji for Takamura.
It was a good cast with classics but none of my fav's were in it.
--- 
 
The localization was good but this game was toned down, there's less vulgarity than what
the japanese were complaining about and there's not much that soured the experience except
some of Sharaku's phrasing near the end of his route but that's just him.
I always hear people complain about this otome but it was tamer than I thought.
 ---
 
[Overall ramblings]
Despite grievances I think I am more satisfied with this than Cafe Enchante!
Tengoku Struggle is what happens when you mix aspects of bad apple wars,
varribarri and Olisoi. The setting is interesting but it can be kind of deceiving
as it ended up being much more slice of life focused than I initially expected.
The lore wasn't deep or anything but it was creative, the things I found myself
disappointed at was mostly the execution of the overall story
which felt like it was doing whatever at times.
This was a much slower paced game rather than an action packed one which lead to
pacing and tension issues. Olympia wasn't always able to meet her goals but she had
a more simple job. Rin does try but it may vary on the route and who her partner was. 
Both the enemy and the heroes had goals but ends up being rather casual about it. 
Sometimes you can't really do anything about a situation and this game was full of it.
I think I may be fine with slice of life when there's not some grand plot
going on but TengoStray certainly was an experience. 
You see this game has its routes tackle things on a case by case basis and it tends
to ignore anything not related to that character or put it very into the background.
I can forgive some things but its understandable why I feel the way I do since
there's a lot of beating around the bush. I'm fine with some truths only shown in
locked routes but... I had trouble enjoying the early routes because they were all over the place. 
In terms of romance routes ended in satisfying manner but I wasn't fully convinced
when it came to tying up all the plot threads. I found Sharaku to be a lil better
than Yona/Kiku but not by much. I thought its just because they're the early game
routes, those can be lacking and not tackle it all... then I moved on to JacK
who spiced up a lot of monotony that the starter routes had going on while being
hilarious at the same time. I thought there would be no route i'd like but I was wrong!
Goemon had a really good route as well but... the others started feeling like what if's.
--- 
 
TL;DR 
 At the very least the character interactions were always golden, due that I mostly had
a good time but it was a tad slow for me, the real struggle was the SoL along the way!
The romance is build on trust and its most enjoyed as a slowburn, early routes for me
like Kiku or Yona's was a real s t r u g g l e because while I liked them they never became fav's.
There was not much was going on and the real narrative is buried in the locked routes.
The main plot was kinda weak in early routes and very character+romance driven. 
At times there is plenty of enjoyment, yet the plot was 404 not found. 
 Goemon's the only one which handled it well but when I looked back I got
a massive headache thinking about certain side chara's.πŸ˜“
Its sad I didn't enjoy the first 3 routes and at that point I was like is there a route
in this game I really enjoy? the answer was yes.  After three routes I struck gold with Jack.πŸ˜„
So I basically suffered during the first half.😩Okay I guess I'll take the L's.
The best parts about TengoStray for me were the character interactions even when there
was nothing important going on. I didn't even dislike the LI's themselves. I just thought
some of the narrative within their routes particular the early ones could be better. 
8/10 
I would recommend TengoStray if you want an otome game about bad boys and life&death themes
with homey SoL/found family vibes. I wasn't disappointed with this game like with Enchante.
I'd probably not recommend TengoStray to those that don't like SoL, slowburn romance
or can't handle some mild forms of sexism since its just all that. 
 
My Play order:
Yona > Kikunosuke > Sharaku > Jack > Goemon.
Yona and Kikunosuke are the beginner routes and can be interchanged.
Sharaku the intermediate one which is best done before Jack.
Jack needs the player to do the three initial routes and Goemon is locked behind him. 
 
Recommended order:
Kikunosuke / Yona > Sharaku > Jack > Goemon. 
 
Character rambles and some of my fav cgs after the jump.
Probably don't read further if you want to experience it yourself since its just
senile grandma rambles beyond this point with potential spoilers. 
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