Toki no Kizuna Hanayui Tsuzuri - Review

PSP box art cuz its gongeous I mean gorgeous.

Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Otomate

Platform: PSP,switch.
Official Site: https://www.otomate.jp/toki/switch/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v12141

Release date: 19-6-2025

 

Once upon a time otomate released an otome game called Toki no Kizuna

but then realized it didn't nearly have enough romance which was lost in the sauce

that was the overall story so they released a FD; Hanayui Tsuzuri.

 

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Pro's

- After stories were a much needed epilogue to the original routes.

- Most other side content brought a smile to my face.

- After's are of decent length and didn't really overstay their welcome. 

 

Con's 

- New routes and flower chapter rely on Senkimaru's sad end so you could

feel lost in terms of continuity if you happened to only do the good ends in OG.

- Yachiyo's route is really aimed at a special audience so its not for everyone.

 ---

 

I thought the OP was pretty fire this time around and actually wanted

to listen to it most of the time I booted it up. The original game's OP

was a good jam too but it just didn't hit as good as the FD one. 

 

As for the heroine she mostly has dropped the act of pretending to be a man and she

was much more accepting of herself. Yukina let her feminine side shine through in this FD.

Maybe for some its disappointing but I didn't mind this. The extended epilogue

really did show her at her most badass which was really good IMO. 

 

---  

After stories.

All after stories start with a brief summary of the route but it felt a bit rushed

I suppose it might be good if you need a quick refresher, other than that they were in generally

pretty good as an extended epilogue but that's about it. Doing your fav LI first is recommended. 

There are choices in the after stories but it doesn't affect the outcome.

The only thing it affects is the CG variation so there's not much to worry about

and you can play at your leasure without fear of bad ends which the original had a lot of. 

 

New routes.

As you know there are new routes for Shiyuu and Yachiyo but honestly they're a hit or miss.

I didn't like Yachiyo's because it is really aimed at a specific audience that is not for me.

Shiyuu's route was a lot better and more well rounded, I actually cared about him.

Before I played this FD I wasn't sure when these took place but it made sense

for it to happen after Senkimaru's sad end as she doesn't end up with anyone

and certain characters are alive except someone and Yukina basically is the head honcho.

The new routes didn't have any choices so it was like reading a novel. 

 ---

 

There's a Inbetween chapter that takes place sometime during the original game

with some choices that may give extra CG with the chosen LI.

Honestly I don't really like this sort of content that's supposed to make up for

the lack of fun times in the original. Its hard to get into it so i'd rather prefer a scenario

after endings of the original game and that did exist in this game this just wasn't it.

In terms of length it was maybe about 30 mins to an hour the first time through.

You will pretty much skip half of it when doing another character in this section. 

I only bothered with Kazuya for this and vibed through some of the others

but it was kinda funny how he was constantly so listless, it actually was a problem.😂

 Other than that there's the flower chapter that takes place after Senkimaru's sad ending

 which acts as an extended epilogue but without any romance. After doing both Inbetween

and flower chapter you unlock something called twelve tales which is pretty much the

conclusion of the story as it wrap up the series well enough. I did this last. There's also some

unlockable bonus side stories that you get by finishing every guy's after story/new route.

Plenty of content all around but some of it can be skipped if you had your fill. 

  ---

 

Overall its a solid FD with plenty of content value.

Its okay to play it back to back because most routes needed the extended epilogues

but had the switch port not included this then i'd be disappointed so I am glad it is.

It was nice there's still a scenario that explores one sad end of the original game

but the only thing it was good at was formally closing off the Toki no Kizuna saga. 

The other extra bonus content was nice, it even reminded me of ken ga kimi's FD

but I don't think it was as loaded which was a good thing imo.

If you liked a character in the original its definitely worth to check out their after story

in this FD but its okay to skip the ones for characters you didn't really like.

Personally for me only Kazuya and Senkimaru's afters were worth it as well as Shiyuu's route

others just weren't as engaging or interesting to me. Maybe its cuz I didn't like all LI equally. 

I'll admit I feel like I forced myself through some of these afters and new routes

but I can see this isn't a bad FD, in fact its pretty good addition

since the original left much to be desired.

8/10 

This FD has just the right amount of content that there is not a lack of volume or too much of it.

A lot FD's just tend to stop at afters or new routes. Its rare to get a bunch of

chibi side stories along with an extended epilogue of a less than ideal ending.

This was 20 hours of good stuff which may stretch to 25+ish if you do everything. 

Route babbles after the jump as well as my fav CG's, its not really a digest but commentary.

Also disclaimer i'm sorry if I didn't like every LI we can't all like the same things!

if you don't like what you're reading then just stop and close the browser.

 

Toki no Kizuna Sekigahara Kitan - Review

Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Otomate

Platform: PSP,switch.
Official Site: https://www.otomate.jp/toki/switch/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v9885

Release date: 19-6-2025

 

I don't even know why I got this game  but I wanted something meaty to sink my time into

and this ended up the right type of game for it. Was it worth it? it depends.

Toki no Kizuna also hasn't received any ports since it came out on PSP, it was localized

as demon's bond on mobile but solmare has long pulled the plug on that. Anyway this game 

shares the same setting as Hakuouki but it is mostly stand alone outside of a few references.

 

 

Pro's

- Overall plot is pretty decent but not outstanding.

- The heroine kicked butt and spoke her mind. 

- Gorgeous CG and sprites.

- Most BGM's suit the setting.

- What romance there is present is pretty adorable to see.

 

Grey Area

- High amount of bad endings. Can't decide if good or bad so here it goes.

 

Con's

- Doing all routes can be repetitive and make it feel same-ish.

- Feels more like a non-romance VN for the majority of its runtime.

- Despite trying to create intrigue it made certain stuff easy to put 2+2 together.

- No heroine sprite in the corner, this game may've benefit from that. 

 

 

This switch port also includes the FD which I am glad it did as the base game

really needed it and without it i'd have no motivation to finish all routes. 

As it is just a port of both games there is nothing added other than touching up

the art, I liked that the font was big which is great when it has losts of kanji. 

 

Story: this is set in old japan around the time of the end of the sengoku period. 

The subtitle should be pretty obvious about that, they've given it a slight fantasy spin.

Yukina an oni and head of her clan is tasked with finding a cure for the yasehime who was put 

into a deep slumber. Yasehime also wanted her clan to not deal with humans as she

wished to sever ties between oni and humans or create some kind of non-interference.

Oni's were once referred to as gods but the clans have since lived reclusively away from

humans, some shady people are apparently against this and are generally a nuisance. 

 

Yukina was one of the more capable heroines, while headstrong she could be sort of bitchy too. 

Key point is Yukina doesn't see herself as a woman cuz they tend to be looked

down upon in this era. I think its also kind of sad but she does what she has to do.

Despite that she could still show signs of weakness or indecisiveness but that made her human.

Seeing her repress herself wasn't fun, a big part of Yukina's character is accepting herself for

who she is and that is not trying to pretend to be a man. Some routes do this better than others.

What was amusing was that she would frequently would go i'm a chieftain before i'm a woman

 or get real feisty if the guys would treat her as a woman which she did not want.

At times she would also interject when they were butting heads so she wasn't just

standing there, she really does try to act independently for better or worse.

I wish she had a sprite in the bottom left corner or something or her sprite would appear

next to the guys instead, with her playing such a key role it feels like missed opportunity. 

 

The art was by Miko which was pretty good, the sprites looked damn good

and the guys looked attractive. There's not much to complain about honestly

except maybe some of Senkimaru's CG's looking a bit off.

Music well it was okay, not the best OST i've heard but it served its purpose?

I liked how energetic the battle theme was which wasn't bad

but there one track could be rather sleep inducing.. 

 

 The game had a stellar seiyuu cast and I recognized a lot of names

as well as oh my god Okamoto you're everywhere?!

 

Toki no Kizuna is a pretty long game, it took me around 1- 2 hours to clear

the first chapter, its a very slow and detailed historical fantasy otome game.

Though the length may vary depending on your profiency of japanese language

and sadly Toki no Kizuna is definitely not for beginners. I was fairly slow.

 

Its plot oriented and there is not much time for romance

but the heroine Yukina does grow closer to the LI over time.

I liked that there's a decent amount of suspense like who are the villains?

what is their goal?  their were a lot of characters, they all had a role to play but at times

I was more interested in the shady hooded guy CV:Tachibana Shinnosuke than our heroes

but that changed over the course of the game and I am not looking forward to his route in the FD.💀

There's a bunch of Jiji's/granpas and they always livened up the scene. I found it funny

how all the oni's would be beautiful people but the humans would be normal looking... 

The character interactions were pretty good but comedy wasn't the focus of this game

and for the most part it was pretty dry with only a funny scene here or there

with some romance crumbs too. Due to this Toki no Kizuna can feel like its not

an otome game at all and more like a non-romance VN.

The story was also fairly slow and at times it was testing my patience especially on 

subsequent routes since there was a clear pattern of things that would happen.

Some later chapters did feel shorter so that was a blessing rather than a curse as

the game had eight chapters in total. I think a route was 8-10 hours in terms of length.

Depending on choices a lot of scenes in the common route would change because it would focus

on the LI related to those choices before settling into the character route which starts from ch5.

And that is why even on subsequent plays it can still be a bit long. 

 

It was still interesting to see what character was involved with but overall it was kinda boring

to pursue multiple characters since some things still felt the same just with slightly different flavor.

Its also kind of easy to guess certain characters identities due to who voices them

its unfortunate because this kind of kills whatever mystery the story had.

The masked villains felt like they were team rocket, I couldn't take them serious by route 2.

At times it could make it seem like they didn't really take their own story and setting seriously

and if you look at the official site you can already see their appearance but the game

was generally slow at unveiling it which makes no sense to me. 

Oh well I played my sengoku musous and basaras so I already know who won the war... whatever.

 

TL;DR 

I thought Chitose's route was pretty good but its just too repetitive, there's very little

that would set each route apart from eachother, I know the setting is limited so it can't be that

different but after two routes it all just felt the same in the end. They also focused too much

on the setting or war stuff and not enough on the otome part.  I remember playing stuff like utawarerumono which also had war stuff but it wasn't as dry or boring as this. Even Birushana

had more fun to it. I remember making tomohorny jokes but here all I did was complain what

a psycho Yachiyo is.💀 Anything that was fun in this game was far and between. I'd probably

not recommend this game unless you like story heavy otome games that're slowburn or

are a giant Hakuoki nerd who wants to experience every content related to it.

There's not much sweetness but what's there is adorable, there's also a big emphasis on bonds.

Seeing Yukina develop a bond with the LI and accepting herself is what saved it.

6/10 

If you love historic fantasies as well then it might still be worth looking into but yea just

keep in mind the first game is not very otome-like and go in with low expecations.

 

My play order was: Kazuya > Chitose > Kazutake > Shin > Senkimaru.

Senkimaru's route is locked till you complete one route but his route has the real plot of the game

so its best to do him last. I recommend Kazuya's route first because there's

less reveals  and it following Sekigahara in the traditional sense.

 

Side note: This already came over once on mobile as demon's bond but Solmare

as I already mentioned pulled the plug.  I don't see a lot of people talk about it or

acknowledge it within the Hakuoki series so I think its popularity is up in the air.

It remains to be seen if it will ever get localized again but I think

it deserves better than being an ported to english like that.

 

As per usual character babbles after the jump as well as some of my fav CG's.