AI: Somnium Files - Review

  Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Spike Chunsoft.

Platform: PS4,switch, PC.
Official Site: https://www.spike-chunsoft.com/ai/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v26532

Release date: 17-9-2019

 

Honestly I wasn't sure what I was going to play next

so I picked another game I bought on a PSN sale.

I thought it might be a good pick for something different from the usual VN's

and because AI is all the rage these days. Didn't quite feel like playing Yakuza 7 yet.

Since its a mystery type of VN I decided I was going to not use a guide till I

really got stuck or something. Nothing appeared to be missable as you could go back

later for certain things but man this game got surprisingly dark despite having a lot of fluff.

 

Pro's

- Great cast of characters.

- Pretty good mystery, you won't find it out till almost the end.

- Decent graphics, the character models were pretty good.

 

Grey Area 

- Route system was interesting but early on it can feel disconnected.

- Jokes are fine and dandy but it did hurt the scenario at times.

 

Con's

- Somnium's were annoying to progress through.

- Point and click segments for the sake of having them.

- There was no need to replay mini scens of certain major events.

 

As for the story its a mystery VN so I won't be writing about the story.

You're sort of thrown into it and as you play you will get to know

the protagonist and the people in his life while trying solve a murder

which leads to other things but it was definitely a whacky ride.

Sometimes the game likes to joke around like during some investigation or dream part

which ultimately killed any tension the game had at that point.

I guess they wanted to keep it light-hearted despite touching upon deeper subjects.

It is what it is. 

Some of it made me smile/laugh and other times I was just oh...

 

By the time I finished the second day/chapter I was pretty much completely hooked

and wanted to see where it was going so this wasn't at all a bad mystery VN.

NGL the reason I kept playing was because I wanted Mizuki to get better

which lead to me wanting to find out about whatever the hell was going on. 

 

There are point and click segments and you can examine objects in the room

which sometimes lead to fun dialogue, during blue and red route I tried to select everything

but eventually stopped because it added nothing. Only very few moment I thought

they used it right which is such a shame for a mystery oriented game. 

Okay this was useful info, heheheh.

There's apparently an achievement for finding everything in Boss's room at a specific

point and I am like wew lad... never doing that without a guide.💀💀💀

New mononoke chigiri lore just dropped!

 The game is basically full of random moment if you try to select everything

but thankfully most of that is optional and sometimes it gives an achievement. 

Like Kaname tried to sniffle a shoebox at some point or staring at a stereo set

and being reminded of boobies. I did xray'd the mermaid during story

but not enough to trigger some random achievement.💀 Thankfully through

the flowchart you can easily replay any segment in the story so I got that postgame. 

 

There were a few moments were you had to interrogate a character and most of them

were fairly easy except that politics guy, idk its the way the evidence

against him was presented? very easy to make a mistake

and you get an achievement if you do it correctly.

Probably just a me problem... but that one was the hardest for me.

 

For my first route I decided to stay blind but you basically have to do all of them

to really get what's going on. I ended up on blue route first..........

not sure if that was ideal but eyy... lmao. Honestly I found the story to be whack here

and I wasn't sure wtf I was even playing anymore.💀  Red route had IMO the better narrative

as it actually felt like we were going places especially on other branches during it, so while

the first route I did seemed like hot garbo the rest was pretty good.

The only time I disliked the route system was when I did green route, thankfully I did it last

or almost last but I don't understand why that stuff wasn't locked entirely till you do

red and yellow routes since by the time it does lock it reveals way too much.

After green route locked I had to jump to pink route and then back to green... then pink again.

I suppose they wanted to create a more serious route but also a true end route

but they couldn't do it both at the same time. This just lead to it being a hassle. 

  

Aiba in a box out of context.

The somnium sequences is where the game is more trial and error as opposed to just

point and click stuff. At times it is really obvious but you can select wrong choices

which often just lead to funny moments and ultimately wasting your time.

Those somnium sequences have a six minute limit, granted there are checkpoints but they

felt the need to make the retries limited so more often not you have to restart completely. 

You can fast forward but if you can't figure it out it can still be frustrating. Also these

sequences can serve as route splits and on my second play I almost ended up on green route 

when I wanted to go to red route. Thankfully at this point I was loosely following a guide.

Loosely because I still wanted to figure stuff out on my own. 

 

I want to try to explain the somnium gameplay because hoo boy it had some mechanics?!

I can deal with having to retry during a somnium but time moves quite fast.

Every action costs time, some more than others and through random TIMIE's can help

reduce that but you can get screwed over because you can get negative TIMIE's.

I believe I didn't even understand this crap till I was at the end of my second route.

This just didn't feel right to me, some dream parts were of course easy

but some others were like LOL good luck! so if you constantly failed

trying to figure it out a more difficult dream this just gets too frustrating.

This action takes a lot of time but with that TIMIE it will only take 10 seconds.

 But yea to get those TIMIE's you have to look for them and do actions preferably

those who do not take much time, some of them are fixed and others random.

Let's not talk about negative TIMIE's though... let us not. (Traumatized.)💀 

 

I will say that the one thing I hated about this game was that they sometimes

would replay mini scenes everytime the subject came up so you see someone getting

stabbed over and over which wasn't funny. It was especially bad in the 3rd dream

(if we count prologue). Thank god for fastforward in dream sequences though

but it was just annoying if this happened in VN segments.

Even in the pink epilogue they felt the need to replay a movie of someone dying

and I was like please can we not do this? we already know this. 

 

 

In terms of characters; I liked the protagonist Kaname and Aiba wasn't that bad either

her name is actually a pun since she's literally an eyeball. Though at times it felt like Aiba

was more or less the brains of the duo not that Date was incompetent he can be a bit of a dork

 and he is constantly roasted for his antics sometimes deserved other times not.

Kaname really does have his heart in the right place and he's not a bad person

but I did think the narrative actively tried to present him as such which I disliked. 

Honestly I was perfectly in sync with Date when he said those words.

Mizuki... I sympathized with her however she was a bit of a brat but kids

are allowed to be a bit bratty and she goes through a lot so I forgave most of it

especially by the time of yellow route cuz holy shit she went through hell.

God bless Kaname for being the adult in the room and taking her in.

Mizuki doesn't seem to care and their relationship seemed really stiff

like whatever atleast she had a bed to sleep in? Ok I guess.............

but that is mostly because she is a tsunderella and for some reason Kaname is too?!

yea two tsundere's in one house is going to be a party wew lad. 

I will say that at first I didn't get why he adopted her but it all makes sense

I would too take this kid into protective custody because holy hell.

 Iris the vtuber did grew on me and wasn't too bad but her route was

and at the end of it I couldn't really say I liked her much either.

I think this game had an anti-vtuber narrative because holy shit she's loco.💀

However despite her route being seemingly random... it was still important. Pink route

was much better in completing her story and after it I honestly wish her nothing but the best. 

I neither liked or disliked Ota, i'm just really indifferent on him

to the point I don't even have many screenshots of him except where an NPC

is yelling like gordon ramsey and 1 other. I did like some developments

in red route. The family stuff made me sappy but that's about it.

Aww yea! finally a likeminded girl!

Boss; I liked her but due some story developments I was never really

sure about her. I would've liked to see more stuff with her but the story

went to other places beyond my imagination.

There were other characters like Pewter who is apparently gay or Moma

but I don't really have much of an opinion on them, like they played their part

in the narrative but that's about it really and I don't wanna go into spoilers too much.

I do gotta get this off my chest but while some it could be deserved this game was

way too focused on making Kaname look bad when he didn't even do anything.💀💀💀

Oh he talks to himself because of his AI eyeball and makes a fool of himself.

Some moments were deserved because ''gotta make a quick whiff'' was embarrassing.

Though somehow even lines like this were relevant in some way.

 That Moma guy was worse though since he even... incriminated Kaname during

some dialogue which turned me into a Kaname apologist because he did nothing wrong. 

I find myself thinking other characters are always making Kaname look worse

when he is actually a half-decent guy.  Side note; I found out Kaname is voiced

by the same guy (in JP) who voiced the priest in Trouble Magia so that was a revelation. 

Needless to say Kaname was generally a good guy with his heart in the right place!

Gotta respect him for that tbh.

 

 

TL;DR 

The main villain in this game is exactly that.

Anyway overall this was a satisfying mystery VN with great characters but there were

some caveats such as the point and click segments being just there for the sake of it.

Also while some jokes are fine I feel that there were too many dumb jokes

so it was hard to take it seriously. At first it felt more like a comedy game with a mystery. 

Despite some somniums being annoying I still enjoyed progressing through the routes so

it wasn't too bad. I believe my play order made the story actually better because blue route

 set the bar so low red route and beyond was smooth sailing for the rest of the narrative.

Also there's a theme of found family which was really beautiful, I loved yellow route.

Green route is where everything slowly started to fall into its place

and I really do think the mystery was well crafted, everything was revealed

at the right time, it was beautiful. However I didn't really enjoy psychin in the refrain

because it sucked if you made mistakes, you had to start over since there was very little time

but even then I noticed a pattern and there was definitely a way but this made me hate

the TIMie system and it showed that if you don't use it in a specific way you'll never clear.

7.5/10 

I think i'd rate the story a 9/10 but the gameplay was just kinda eh so I have to subtract some points.

Also I cannot believe that if you play with JPN VA and eng text then the ending song will be in english.

Now the song itself wasn't bad but I can't believe they never fixed that... also there was a bug

where if you saved in Psychin in the Refrain it would give an error and fail. Thankfully

I could still load an old save and overwrite the failed save but it gave me nearly a panic attack.

TBH you cannot release a game in that state! maybe its not a big deal as long

as you don't save in somniums and keep a saves before it but its not a good look

to have a bug like that in the game, this game is 5-6 years old but the lack of QA is apparent.

 

I do want to talk about the routes so there will be light spoilers after the jump

because it is impossible to talk about them without spoiling something.

 

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.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Majestic☆Majolical - review

 Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Dazkarat.

Platform: PC/Switch.

Official Site: http://dazkarat.jp/majemajo_sw/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v21895

Release date: 22/12/2022.

 

This originally was a segmented release much like taisho x alice on PC

but they have made an all in one switch port which collects them.

It took them like four years but it happened, and i'm actually kind of glad they did!

I never heard from this developer before but I was still excited to try out their game

maybe cuz it reminds me of wand of fortune if only a little! and with not much

new otome game releases I was like why not? why should I not support this game?

Also for the switch version there is a new route; Jasper Beryl so they have definitely tried

to make it worth to pick up the port if you hadn't played it before cuz there's something new.. 

The protagonist Lapis is an apprentice magician who is tasked dealing with some troublesome

humans and collect gems for science! by getting close to them. Regardless she remains optimistic

and tries her best! she also had a little spunk. She wasn't useless and could definitely hold her own!

 Though the part of collecting gems reminded me a little of Clamp's Kobato as well

but other than that the two series are not similar at all, just the bottle part.

Pro's

- A confident heroine atleast I found her to be so.

- Interesting characters in each volume that contrast each other well.

- Mostly light-hearted, doesn't shy away from bad ends.

- Amazing art and backgrounds, Music fit the mood.

Con's

- A bit on the short side...

- Playing it blind can be difficult because of not knowing how much or little gems are needed.

- NTR ends but really there were only two I consider being such.

 

The art style looked really cute and the backgrounds seemed pretty well done too.

I really loved the fantasy setting! is that the right way to describe it? hmm if I had to look

at the world design it reminded me of europe but not very modern.

The voice cast of this game had a lot of popular seiyuu that I went like OMG its Kaji Yuuki!

or Shimono Hiro as some of them I haven't heard in quite a while.

*If one of your fav seiyuu is in this game it could be worth a spin*

The pacing was alright, this vn wasn't slowpaced that it took hours for anything to happen

and I am really glad for that as otomate's VN's tired me out lately.

Nothing seemed to drag on for too long while still delivering cute moments etc.

This with some exceptions kept it light and fun! At times it did feel like it went a little fast but...

they were going to school and interacting like every day, falling in love can happen like this so its

not totally unbelievable. Honestly I found it heartwarming to see Lapis and Mitsuki grow closer...

 This game is more romance oriented, which is great if you're tired of games where

the romance is but an after thought! or get to dating right at the end.

 

System; There are four different endings and as well as a sort of petting minigame

this is how the protagonist is able to get gems; how many gems you get determine the end.

Its not annoying; especially if you use a guide telling you how much to pet the bishie

it might get a bit more difficult if you don't use a guide but hey if you're stuck they exist!

Playing it blind could be fun too! honestly after a bunch of otomate games

that only had happy and good ends, I very well prefer otome games or VN in general

that like actually make it so my choices can change what happens.

MajeMajo is one of those VN where depending on your choices things

could turn out a little different!

 

I did encounter a bug at the end of Ruu's route that caused my game to lag and crash

but with force skipping I managed to get to the ending... not sure why but it seems

that there is an extra graphical effect that just slows down the game to an extend it can

no longer function. I play on a switch lite so cannot tell if it is present on the other model...

but if it is, just force skip the text or wait out a patch? if there is any.

 

I thought it was great was how the guys of the volumes are different in contrast to each other.

MajeMajo can look a bit deceiving though like if you see the cover of the game

and think oh this looks like it'll be dark full of toxic love interests then i'm here to tell you

a flat out no its not like that at all, most of the game outside of  Shiki or Ruu's route was fairly light.

All of the characters did have their own set of problems yet this game is no diabolik lovers

but even then if you like to live dangerously those two routes exist.

I loved all the cg's! they were gorgeous. The music is like, at its best it adds to the vibe

and at its worst its just there. One may think this game is short but hmm is that a bad thing?

I think if you're tired of games that are long winded or just seem to keep going MajeMajo is

actually kind of nice because you get all the same things just that it knows to not let it drag on.

The love interests are diverse and you'd probably find someone that catches your eye or

are totally like oh hell no! despite it being short it was still fun to me.

Things to keep in mind is that MajeMajo focuses more on romance than its overall plot!

Vol1&2 are very character specific and its not untill vol.3 that it tries to focus on story and lore.

The addition of the Jasper route makes its story more well-rounded than its original PC release

you may as well ask why they didn't include it to begin with since it further

added to the picture+his character . So I think this switch port is pretty good

in value despite that 1 bug I encountered which is actually pretty game-breaking.😥

9/10

*Edit: Without the Jasper route it would be a 7/10 so I guess that shows...*

An enjoyable otome game that I will most likely remember for having extremely cute and heartwarming scenes as well as some whackos(not all of the guys are like that I swear!).

I could recommend this game if you have a good grip on your japanese!

as sadly it isn't out in english at the moment but that might change.

Since this game was segmented by volume I will be going by release order so my play order

will be like: Mitsuki > Shiki  > Shinnosuke > Shoutaro > Shell > Ruu > Jasper.

You can't do volume 3 till atleast one route is complete, Jasper unlocks after Ruu

but it is recommended to do Ruu later due to him having the most story spoilers.

So well there you have it! there's not too much choice due to how it works!

More character rambles after the jump! there will be spoilers + my fav cg's.

 

Utawarerumono Chiriyuku Mono e no Komoriuta - review

Genre: SRPG/Visual Novel.

Developer/publisher: Aquaplus.

Platform: PC, PS2,PSP, PSV, PS4(this version).

Official Site: http://aquaplus.jp/uta/chiri/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v3#main

Release date: 2018-04-25

Since I've never reviewed the original(played PSP ver ages ago) I'll try to 

to do so for this ''remaster'' it won't be that long since its an old game.

So since Utaware Itsu/futari was such a success, like it moved mountains

of copies on release (especially the latter) AP decided to release an updated version 

of the original game after the ps2/psp version BUT made the srpg part like its sequels.

It was originally an eroge but most of it has been replaced by other events

 some things are still implied though and the harem well its still there. xD

I played the PS Vita version but it felt like it was the PS4 version as outside of battles

its incredible clean, I never had a problem with itsu/futari since those're decent ports too
sure its rougher on PSV but atleast it retains its charms AND runs well.
Unfortunately this might be my last actual ps vita game outside of pure visual novels. 

 
Pros
- Story, long but worth to sit through all the way.
- Lovely cast of characters.
- SRPG part is enjoyable; more options compared to utaware 2/3; lots of stages.
- Music; can use special arrangement that give the feel of 2/3 during scenes
and if you want to get nostalgic there's the old BGM, best of both worlds.

Cons
- Its not without its flaws, some may stick out like a sore thumb.
- While the art itself is amazing... changing the hue of the sprites to fit the time of day looks odd.
- Missables; if you just go through the story first(like me) you might have to do another
playthrough since certain items from event/drop of optional stages are missable its not a problem
if you do everything as it becomes available but its more of a matter of knowing when and where.

Pictured; an optional battle, please note at this point its post game and i've grinded BP to max out some stats.

 Gameplay; upgraded to the likes of its sequels; SRPG part is like a breather between VN part

there's a hard mode for those that want a bit more challenge. Its very slice of life-ish

at first but it gets better; it just takes its time, the first battle was about a bit over an hour in.
 I found its easy to take breaks as well due to it bringing you to the camp menu often enough.
It has a slow start but when it gets serious its battle after battle and there's times of peace
like a calm before the next storm of course the further you get in the quicker the pace
and less time for shenanigans, that's the only way I can sum up the flow of the game
without mentioning spoilers. In terms of stages there's a ton and I still found it to be
much more engaging than its sequels, replaying only made that clearer for me.
The variety/goals of some of them is better too like there's a pure defensive stage later on
and they love throwing nasty status effects at you either by attack or a turret.
The finishers/dual are gotten pretty early and its funny how enemies can heal... even boss
this time you too can equip items that a give a stat boost and be able to heal themselves
in case Eruruw isn't around, you can even use offensive items. Overall its more enjoyable.
 You can still redo turns and replay old battles but i figured you'd expected this
and if you've bought Sasara and Tamaki before they'll automatically join.
 However I never had need of them; the main playables and a few guests(they have deathblow!)
are more than enough! also man Oboro is so amazing; he's fast and strong! if you only
raised his strength with BP and accesory to the point if used well nothing stands a chance really.

If I had to give the playable's class/roles it'll be: Hakuoro is average but if he dies so does
everyone's brains which means a game over. Eruruw is the healer, Aruruw a tank.
Oboro and Karula are the glass cannons. The gay twins Dorii and Gura the rangers.
Benawi is defense is best offense! and Kurou is his back up but weaker in terms of defense.
Urutorii and Kamyu are casters; not too strong but not that weak, they have their uses.
Touka and Genjimaru are offensive; if you know Yakuto-err Jachtwalt they're like him!
then we have Theoro and Derihourai.. both offensive unit but you won't get to use them much
atleast there's optional stages but like you're not starved for EXP or BP and I completed
the game without even touching one optional stage, missed opportunity? sure since if I want
that platinum I will have to do it again to get certain items. TBH I never platted futari no hakuoro
since the loot trophy was too time consuming and I just wanted to do other things. Well now you
know they are there and if the VN part drains you some action is available. It add a lot even if
amount of optional is like half the main scenario stages of which there are 32 of.

 On another note...
It is nice how these two DLC Sasara and Tamaki are shared throughout all three games
if you had bought them before they are yours forever! yay cross-game DLC.
The only thing that irks me is a season pass but its only 30$ and you'll get bonus items along
with playable Haku, Kuon, Rurutie, Ukon, Nekone and more which is nice fanservice.
 Atleast Ukon has a deathblow now which was quite cool IMO

Overall it really feels more like an SRPG with all the options available, not too difficult
but not that hard. Unfortunately I found the last few end game stages got too easy (lol Oboro)
I gotta add that as soon as you clear stage 14 it becomes extremely easy to farm BP
so no matter the difficulty you can just adjust stats to your liking on a whim.
That aside the pace of the story was literally one thing after another near the end, the plot
isn't bad its just so much at once and I am glad the story took itself seriously which makes
you like oh I actually missed those shenanigans early on but there's no time for that!
That might add to the impact of the ending itself. Now imagine it being mid 2000's-
(I'm trying not to mention actual spoilers or how's and why's so bear with me.)
-and you finish it; there's no sequel you're left with that ending. Personally
I found it nice its not completely a happy one but it isn't that awful they actually
left a lot of matters up to interpretation. Life goes on Hakuoro's friends
said lives had been changed because of him... basically his presence had a huge impact.
The relationships said friends have with each other... is great too and I feel
in a lot of rpgs these days you don't get to see it like here. Utaware might be harem-ish
but its not all about the harem even the sequels still manage to get that across.
Did I ever mention the lore? and how it just makes it that much more engrossing...

Graphic; Stills and Portrait are beautiful, world is lively and colourful

even not important character have sprites or atleast most of them but like I did not see a need
to change the hue of the sprites(the standing pictures not cg's) to whatever time it is ingame.

Music? at the start you can choose between original/sequel tracks so whatever suits you...

BGM is beautiful and fits the scenes quite well I don't even need to explain why
but if you have never played the original I recommend sticking to the original music track
unless you are like super fond of itsu/futari's OST.

Fav character:

Touka > Aruruw > Oboro > Kamyu >Yuzuha >  Eruruw > Benawi > Kuuya > Sakuya >
Urutorii > Karula > Genjimaru > Gura / Dorri > Kurou > Derihourai/Hien > Teoro >
Kamuchataru > brick wall; Nuwangi > Suonkasu > Dii > deepest pits of hell; Hauenka(fuck him).
Some of this is basically just preference; its only the ones that stood out.
 Nothing against the gay twins; but like they are pretty much
Oboro's sidekicks and didn't leave that big of an impression on me aside of comedy
and them being super duper loyal to him. Karula is like idk not my type but she's great
character and has her reasons but I found myself more attached to Urutorii. :/
 Benawi would be my husband and Kurou... well he's like a bro he won't let you down
but that's it really he adds a lot to the others if scenario allows.
Oboro's cool; a bit of a siscon but while he seems a bit hotheaded he matured a lot
over the course of the game and he totally gets the MVP award there's no contest for that.
Touka would be my absolute favorite; her personality... she's a bit dumb and she might
overlook things in the heat of the moment but she makes me smile a lot.
Kamyu is... like the ugly duckling and quite mysterious but she made friends
which helped her in the end I think its beautiful to see that.
I'd prefer Aruruw over Eruruw due to her growth and showing courage despite her age
like I know the story is very biased for Eruruw but half of the game she was like
a tea servant and at best a pillar of support yet... she gets almost no recognition
and just has to deal with stuff happening at the end but to be there for someone even though
they might look the other way like wow that's mature. So yeah she's good in her own way.
Yuzuha... despite her situation she's genuinely happy for doing what she can. ;_;
Kuuya.. oh man she... she got caught up in some shit and the end result wasn't pretty
but there's hope for her so she wasn't completely beyond help.
Uh now i'm getting emotional so let's stop.

While I still praise the anime of this work, as it stays pretty fateful to the game it still really
is a digest it was made painfully obvious what was omitted; minor spoilers warning here
Benawi and Kurou's relationship to Nuwangi's sister Kamuchataru; the arc takes place
around the same time Hakuoro and Karula deal with Suonkasu. Its nice chara development
but still felt like a side story. The only side thing I liked was the deal with
Urutorii and Fumiriru; the child she found and cared for; its something that may not
have been a big deal back then but with the itsu/futari it suddenly becomes so much more.

How to sum it up...

If you like VN's with a charming cast of characters and a meaty storyline I suggest

picking this up if you haven't and want to try getting into this ''utawarerumono''.
Playing this after uta2/3 will be nice too, you'll still pick things up like for example that
little baby that the gang finds midway through the game that will be more clear, even though
I played this before it was a nice way to refresh my memory on various facts.
The slice of life scenes are many but not too long and you can replay battles
at any time! there's optional ones too so you'd probably not be bored.

Of course I can't promise you'll like it, it has some flaws but if you like stories that take its time

with an engrossing world and lovable chara's I recommend this series along with tears to tiara.

I HOPE THEY LOCALIZE THIS VERSION, not only to complete the trilogy but why wouldn't

you want an updated version that plays like its sequels AND in high definition at that?

Atlus did a good job localizing the other two... the names look a bit weird to me in ENG but that's it.
Hmmm... its clear Aquaplus did cut corners where they could... like did Kurou
have a beard at this point? he doesn't in his sprite but does in his 3d model.
I actually didn't notice this till way later; shows how much I care about graphics.
Overall its a great game, decent story/world and a lovely cast of characters!
Its sad but I think on its own this installment may have been enough...
there's just something, something about its sequels that lacked.
That doesn't mean they're bad like they gave the much needed resolution for Eruruw
and went on to tell the tale of Kuon while going further into matters not resolved.
It might've just been that it wasn't on such a grand scale as the first game like
less generals/countries hmm yea that could be it.
Even then if you have a PS4 or Vita I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Utaware's story is far from perfect but its an enjoyable series nonetheless
I can't wait for Utaware Zan even though it seems to be like a fanservice spin off.
Well have a finisher exhibition; I also watched some of the PS4 version and well
it does have more flair, even then I am glad this was my last ps vita game(besides VN).

Utawarerumono Futari no Hakuoro - Review

Game: [Utawarerumono Futari no Hakuoro]

Genre: Visual Novel, Strategy RPG.
Developer/Publisher: Aquaplus

Platform: PS3, PS4,PS Vita.

Official Site:
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v18717

Release date: 2016-09-21

This game is a direct sequel to utawarerumono itsuwari no kamen which in turn is

a sequel to the first utawarerumono game and playing the third game without
atleast playing itsuwari is a bad idea, like they do a small recap
in the beginning  to refresh our memory it doesn't cover everything they expect
you to know the ropes. I know not everyone has the time

but atleast play itsuwari before this just trust me its worth it that much
to know who everyone is and the state of the world, I don't want to be rude
but atleast understand this much, thank you!

Pro's

- Interesting story & world.
- Art/Bgm.
- Characters, especially the main party.
- Munechika's trials are informative.
- Not enough story battles? there's mock battle! have fun if no mood to read.

Con's

- Annoying villains. 

- Slow start, can get draggy; TL;DR etc.
-

There is honestly not much to say about it without going into spoilers and such
so i'll write a little before making the obligatory more after the jump.

If you want to get into this series I recommend starting with the anime of the first game

then play itsuwari no kamen other than that I love this series very much
and want other people to enjoy it from the beginning because its more rewarding.

No time to play/read the original? don't worry!
The original anime adaptation of the first game is fine but itsuwari's adaptation is a
mess of fanservice which strays from its source material and skips out on more content
than its prequel adaptation though I have to add that after you have played itsuwari no kamen

the anime may be a nice extra but its not a replacement. 
By the end of this game you will feel rewarded for finishing it all the way. 

Since the Utaware duology is being localized the best way(IMO) to enjoy the series is:
Utawarerumono anime + OVA's > Mask of Deception> Futari no Hakuoro(Mask of Truth)

Utawarerumono Itsuwari no Kamen - Review and Impressions

うたわれるもの 偽りの仮面

Game: [Utawarerumono Mask of Deceit]

Genre: Visual Novel, Strategy RPG.
Developer/Publisher: Aquaplus

Platform: PS3, PS4,PS Vita.

Official Site: http://aquaplus.jp/uta/itsu/
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v7721

Release date: 2015-09-24

Well these are just my personal thoughts about the game and when I look back
it might have been the best game I played all year despite its cliffhanger.
Tokyo Xanadu comes close but eh... that one honestly had one too many cliches.

TL;DR
8/10
Story is a bit slow at first but it takes its time to introduce everyone and sets the stage
for its inevitable sequel because this game Utaware2: Itsuwari no Kamen is designed to
bridge the gap between the first Utawarerumono game and Utaware3: Futari no Hakuoro.
This game might have SRPG elements but don't buy the game for that because
you'll spend more time reading than in battle, sadly the SOL part is going to be an absolute
hit or miss this game much like falcom's kiseki series is very slow in getting to
the good parts, if you can stand it and have played/watched the original then go for it.


Kuon~~