Genre: Otome Visual Novel.
Developer/publisher: Matatabi.
Platform: PS Vita.
Official Site: http://matatabi.tv/utsusemi/
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v20326
Release date: 2017-07-27
-
Edo period, on a remote islands their exists two gates Higammon and Kogammon that lead to
the land of the dead, they're guarded by humans and oni respectively.
One day a phenomenon is observed and the heroine Amane a human priestess
gets send to the oni-clan's village along with her human servant Yasuomi.
The secrets of the island will be revealed as the miko interacts with the oni-clan
and renews the bonds between humans and oni.
Oh boy who thought these guys would stick around for one more project?
This time their game centers on conflict between human and oni...
fate and forbidden--- ah you guessed it romance.
The whole synopsis sounds like we've seen it before but for some reason
I was intrigued at how'd they handle it and they seem to take their world setting
serious enough to carefully explain it so it can't be that bad right?
serious enough to carefully explain it so it can't be that bad right?
This otome game is very japanese with dark themes and by no means its not an easy read.
After being sent to the village of the oni the heroine Shizumiya Amane becomes
the target of youma who are like the living dead but what are they truly?
Moving on Amane is one of those good girl types taking the words of her grandma
to heart and tries hard to perform her duties as a miko, TL;DR she does as she's told
but doesn't value her own life and basically wouldn't mind jumping in front of someone.
Amane is an okay heroine and she's cute but I don't feel attached to her at all
besides in some Kyouran/tragic route she got on my nerves.
As for length it took me maybe 10 hours till I reached my first end this includes
common route which was atleast 3-4 hours I think each route is 6 hours at least.
Said common route takes its time to introduce everyone in neutral manner and get the plot going
but the story while interesting was hard to follow maybe due to concepts I found it hard
to understand wtf was happening to the side characters or my japanese just sucked.
OP, well I like it but its a bit on the long side.
Pro's
- Interesting world view, pacing OK.
- Beautiful art.
- Decent length not too long or short.
- Character have Yin / Yan split route, one side is more happy the other is dark.
Con's
- Same-ish plot in all routes but a little different depend on guy yet only makes sense in the true route.
- Minigame could be done without like you can even skip it at the press
of the button and still get the trophies related to it. -_-
- Gamebreaking crashes among other bugs they're being worked on now but seriously...
~Art~
If you love ancient japanese aesthetics you'll love the backgrounds, seriously they're amazing.
As for CG's Puru did a great job its surprisingly consistent too but eh some angles are a bit...
strange but nothing to complain about! I made a selection of a few of my favorite scenery
How can I not share this? they're BREATHTAKINGly beautiful.
~System~
You know the usual reading and choice selecting love catch etc.
After being sent to the village of the oni the heroine Shizumiya Amane becomes
the target of youma who are like the living dead but what are they truly?
Moving on Amane is one of those good girl types taking the words of her grandma
to heart and tries hard to perform her duties as a miko, TL;DR she does as she's told
but doesn't value her own life and basically wouldn't mind jumping in front of someone.
Amane is an okay heroine and she's cute but I don't feel attached to her at all
besides in some Kyouran/tragic route she got on my nerves.
As for length it took me maybe 10 hours till I reached my first end this includes
common route which was atleast 3-4 hours I think each route is 6 hours at least.
Said common route takes its time to introduce everyone in neutral manner and get the plot going
but the story while interesting was hard to follow maybe due to concepts I found it hard
to understand wtf was happening to the side characters or my japanese just sucked.
OP, well I like it but its a bit on the long side.
Pro's
- Interesting world view, pacing OK.
- Beautiful art.
- Decent length not too long or short.
- Character have Yin / Yan split route, one side is more happy the other is dark.
Con's
- Same-ish plot in all routes but a little different depend on guy yet only makes sense in the true route.
- Minigame could be done without like you can even skip it at the press
of the button and still get the trophies related to it. -_-
- Gamebreaking crashes among other bugs they're being worked on now but seriously...
~Art~
If you love ancient japanese aesthetics you'll love the backgrounds, seriously they're amazing.
As for CG's Puru did a great job its surprisingly consistent too but eh some angles are a bit...
strange but nothing to complain about! I made a selection of a few of my favorite scenery
How can I not share this? they're BREATHTAKINGly beautiful.
~System~
The minigame this time is more simple its a purification ritual or whatever
and involves pressing buttons this may or may not save your life, or so they said.
Honestly this minigame could've done without... all it does is break the mold of only reading.
Atleast its just simply press this button in time rinse repeat untill its complete
and no rng bullcrap so it gets a pass even tho its sorta just there at the end of the day
atleast add an automatic succeed/fail after one play so that's nice.
Honestly this minigame could've done without... all it does is break the mold of only reading.
Atleast its just simply press this button in time rinse repeat untill its complete
and no rng bullcrap so it gets a pass even tho its sorta just there at the end of the day
atleast add an automatic succeed/fail after one play so that's nice.
There are four endings, not all of them are happy and some are just painful.
I think that 4eds thing is similair to say Ken ga Kimi... because the one end you'll get
depends on choice and minigame success/failure there's a small change in route
scenario as well so yeah if you ask me its pretty similair.
depends on choice and minigame success/failure there's a small change in route
scenario as well so yeah if you ask me its pretty similair.
~
Compared to rear pheles, Utsusemi no Meguri is a lot better, Matatabi seems to have
learned from mistakes and hired better devs, no more screentear in the movies
learned from mistakes and hired better devs, no more screentear in the movies
and the lips move and eyes blink, it even has its own save screen
plus the art no longer looks blurry on the ps vita screen, it is crisp now.
I also love the general setting and atmosphere early on in this game
it had a great start to introduce everyone imo and it made me interesting
even tho the plot partly sounds generic. >_>
The pacing was good too like there's no long monologues\TL;DR that makes me bored
its just that some parts of the story are a little confusing to me.
-
However Matatabi's games still come with plenty of bugs like sprites may disappear
so only the eyes and hair show that's spooky right? but reloading fixes it...
granted that didn't happen to me but i've seen screenshots that it can happen.
You know I can turn a blind eye to that but the next...
There's a FATAL bug where the game crashes when you try and save I am just sigh. -_-
plus the art no longer looks blurry on the ps vita screen, it is crisp now.
I also love the general setting and atmosphere early on in this game
it had a great start to introduce everyone imo and it made me interesting
even tho the plot partly sounds generic. >_>
The pacing was good too like there's no long monologues\TL;DR that makes me bored
its just that some parts of the story are a little confusing to me.
-
However Matatabi's games still come with plenty of bugs like sprites may disappear
so only the eyes and hair show that's spooky right? but reloading fixes it...
granted that didn't happen to me but i've seen screenshots that it can happen.
You know I can turn a blind eye to that but the next...
There's a FATAL bug where the game crashes when you try and save I am just sigh. -_-
Mind you this only happened once... in common route so dunno if it was just a bad spot.
Matatabi definitely had budget for this... but could've worked a little on debugging
but maybe they ran out of time and had to release it as is, patch it later.
-
That aside I sorta like this otomege, the characters are all intriguing which may make you
want to do their routes because common route wise it won't get far.
I think the only one who was generic as is was Yasuomi... but Hiiragi definitely did not
turn out the way I thought so yeah there's that! in fact he's my favorite character.
The story and relationship develops side by side... at times it may be stiff
but it'll get there, I found Hayate to be a slowburn but rewarding in the end.
This isn't a fun visual novel everyone seems to have a little darkness, some more than others.
Utsusemi has all the things that could make it decent but keep in mind its not for everyone
nor an easy visual novel language wise so with that in mind before you buy this...
As someone who do not like yandere... I am just happy Matatabi has most of that crap
reserved for kyouran/tragic ends much like rear pheles and their merry bad ends.
In most I prefer happiest and the only kyouran end I could stomach was Yasuomi's.
Matatabi definitely had budget for this... but could've worked a little on debugging
but maybe they ran out of time and had to release it as is, patch it later.
-
That aside I sorta like this otomege, the characters are all intriguing which may make you
want to do their routes because common route wise it won't get far.
I think the only one who was generic as is was Yasuomi... but Hiiragi definitely did not
turn out the way I thought so yeah there's that! in fact he's my favorite character.
The story and relationship develops side by side... at times it may be stiff
but it'll get there, I found Hayate to be a slowburn but rewarding in the end.
This isn't a fun visual novel everyone seems to have a little darkness, some more than others.
Utsusemi has all the things that could make it decent but keep in mind its not for everyone
nor an easy visual novel language wise so with that in mind before you buy this...
As someone who do not like yandere... I am just happy Matatabi has most of that crap
reserved for kyouran/tragic ends much like rear pheles and their merry bad ends.
In most I prefer happiest and the only kyouran end I could stomach was Yasuomi's.
In short this game was rather average to me, it has a nice setting and cast
but if there was a revelation about a character I was usually ''oh'' about it.
In most routes it just doesn't try anything new... except the last route
where it hit me right in the feels and thus I only feel really attached to Hiiragi.
''Other than that nothing specifically wowed me nor made me say
it just plain sucks, in the end its just fine.''
So I recommend this otome game to people who are:
A, Not tired of human x oni bullshit and old timey settings.
B, People who like a dark side to characters and yin/yang route split
as in one is more happy/natural yet the other is dark/sorta bad end-ish.
C, Do not have a backlog/read too many other otomege like this.
D, Like heart-wrenching true endings.
Playorder:
Hayate > Kai > Yasuomi > Yuzuru > Hiiragi.
There's no official recommendations so just go with someone that strikes your interest, for me
that turned out to be Hayate.😌 The order I went with flowed surprisingly well!
unlike the last game I played... so I can recommend it to other people as well.
Due to events in Hayate I wanted to do Kai and in Kai's Yasuomi got my interest
which lead me to Yuzuru! Yuzuru's filled in my suspicions about him and gaps in Yasuomi's route.
Hiiragi is locked till you do everyone else... so no choice with him.
I did Happiest/kindan ends... then Kyouran/tragic love ends, this is to save whatever
likeability the characters may have Kyouran/Tragic is just shit gone horrible wrong.
Unless you don't mind that but... i'll leave it up to you to decide the order of endings.
That concludes my non-spoiler thoughts, rambles/possible spoilers after the jump.
but if there was a revelation about a character I was usually ''oh'' about it.
In most routes it just doesn't try anything new... except the last route
where it hit me right in the feels and thus I only feel really attached to Hiiragi.
''Other than that nothing specifically wowed me nor made me say
it just plain sucks, in the end its just fine.''
So I recommend this otome game to people who are:
A, Not tired of human x oni bullshit and old timey settings.
B, People who like a dark side to characters and yin/yang route split
as in one is more happy/natural yet the other is dark/sorta bad end-ish.
C, Do not have a backlog/read too many other otomege like this.
D, Like heart-wrenching true endings.
Playorder:
Hayate > Kai > Yasuomi > Yuzuru > Hiiragi.
There's no official recommendations so just go with someone that strikes your interest, for me
that turned out to be Hayate.😌 The order I went with flowed surprisingly well!
unlike the last game I played... so I can recommend it to other people as well.
Due to events in Hayate I wanted to do Kai and in Kai's Yasuomi got my interest
which lead me to Yuzuru! Yuzuru's filled in my suspicions about him and gaps in Yasuomi's route.
Hiiragi is locked till you do everyone else... so no choice with him.
I did Happiest/kindan ends... then Kyouran/tragic love ends, this is to save whatever
likeability the characters may have Kyouran/Tragic is just shit gone horrible wrong.
Unless you don't mind that but... i'll leave it up to you to decide the order of endings.
That concludes my non-spoiler thoughts, rambles/possible spoilers after the jump.
