The fandisk of Kenka Bancho Otome... well it must've done pretty well to warrant one!
Since the previous installment was a last minute digital purchase, this suffered the same fate.
I didn't really pay attention to prerelease info or the anime shorts.
Said anime just turned out to be an advertisement with mash ups from the original game.
When I looked at the official site I honestly found it rather lacklustre...
From what I did gather this FD contains side stories(summer themed) and after stories...
which was honestly all a fan needed to know, Whether this was word it or not... saa let's find out. I expected them to be fun and/or sweet but alas most were not as it seemed.
Also they have the first anime ep in the game itself.... dunno if just a preview
for the bluray release but it seems like a waste of space.
Pro's
- Still the same old boys we all know and love.
- Comedy.
- A fun and to the point side story on da beech.
Con's
- Long loading, slow text skip which is bothersome in side scenario.
- Rintarou's after story is downright terrible.
- The writer still uses the same template for everything maybe its his/her thing.
The game is divided into two sections, first of is the after stories set after the love ends
in the original game, nothing else to it really. Secondly there's a summer camp scenario
which is sort of an AU friend scenario. Characters are grouped together such as
Totomaru&Konparu, Kirarin&Yuuta or Hikaru&Sakaguchi etc.
Your choices in that scenario determines who you're grouped with at the end of that dunno
the whole thing was maybe 4 hours at most, not including repeat play for other pair up.
The comedy is still golden and almost never a dull moment one could say its a pointless
scenario with nothing to gain but why would you have a problem with camaraderie? I don't.
I already started snickering less that 10 minutes in, compared to the last vn I played this is g r e a t
but I didn't have much fun doing everything in there for completion's sake
and you have to fight everyone once including minor chara for a trophy and it is here
I realized the loading time is sinfully slow... probably cuz Unity but it ain't rear pheles bad.
In short its an enjoyable FD to fans of the original but I thought the original wrapped most
stuff up nicely, I already said this but it must've done well enough for it to happen!
I guess if you hated the whole now that they know she's a girl and the guy trying to protect her
or stop her from fighting then it will be a partial miss cuz some of the after stories continue
that line of thinking but they do try to make them come to terms on it that Hinako can hold her own.
The summer camp scenario is like an AU friend route for everyone... so there's that too
and you already know I liked it for what it was no need to go into it.
All in all its not bad its just that some after stories are either a hit or a miss my favs were Konparu
and Totomaru... the rest just followed with Rintarou dead last honestly even Houou was better.
The FD is decent but also a little short despite each story having some length
to it but still has that stupid template which in some was more noticeable than others.
When I look back only Totomaru and Konparu's after stories were really
enjoyable to me and the content they had is what I expect of fandisks.
I want to see the characters under relaxed circumstance not
drama about yakuza gangs or a brother yearning for attention. -_-
There's not much else left to say... without being more detailed is there?
8.2/10
Ramblings and possible spoiler and/or CG's after the jump.
Since I already played the demo I skipped to the point where demo ended, no point
in sitting through the prologue again which only was relevant for the sake of explaining how/why to begin with.
I think the way I wrote my review really reflects how this game tried to tell its story... lmao. My general opinion of tsumikui is mostly the same as others... meaning its a mediocre long winded game that has the potential to be so much better but it has too many short comings. Look I played/read many vn's this year but this probably takes the cake for being long winded to the point I often took breaks 4~ hours a day may have been all I could take! add that some routes took 5/6 days and sub routes 2 at most, been stuck on this for two weeks or so, 4 hours is a fair amount of time but sometimes when I wanted to progress further i lost the energy.
This in general was so difficult to write a review of... I feel like I spend more time
writing my dislikes than being positive, there may not have been much I liked cept Shiou or Ren.
Maybe its cuz its Operetta or maybe its me... but its probably me lol buut could be the developers.
Despite the demo hitting my interest I shot myself in the foot by purchasing the full thing
because I knew about the monologues and TL;DR , I knew...
Story is about some stuff happening 1000 years ago and a curse been running till now.
The same people from back then get reincarnated, they have to deal with remembering the past
which wasn't pretty, Kaoru was lucky to have lived a fairly normal life for 15/16 years though. Thanks Tsukasa...
Kaoru has to kill 1000 criminals to undo the curse or else she'll die, at first some parts may not be
easy to
understand but the further you get the more you'll know but honestly it tends to drag itself
out with wordy narration that goes on and on.. then suddenly I find myself looking away
after I pressed auto mode since its way longer than it should've been, poor execution? maybe.
Its the writers job to keep it interesting not bore people with unnecessary junk text. That aside
there's a lot of talk about past self, morality and also angst, how can Kaoru find love while
having
to deal with all this? don't forget the teenage hormones that run amock!
Well atleast the first route I did aka Shiou's handled this surprisingly well
but honestly Touji's was better in certain aspects even tho he's an oyaji. >_>;
Complaints aside the story is good but yeah... I just didn't enjoy sitting through TL;DR monologues.
Pro's
- Interesting story that makes you want to finish it all the way even tho its meh at times.
- Art, obviously looks great- CG's move and multiple sprites.
- Voiced heroine, if you don't like it you can turn it off.
Con's
- Long and draggy.
- Music, fitting bgm in most scenes but others are average, also tracks wouldn't loop
and certain sub character voice(such as man A) are loud...
- TL;DR, they love being detailed and narration should've been toned down as it too wordy.
- The slice of life scenes made this to much like a shoujo manga...
- The battle scenes are boring due to text dumps ruining suspense of it all.
If you hadn't guessed this is a story centered otome game if you're looking for short, fun or to the
point otomege look elsewhere, I only ended up getting this because certain aspects intrigued me
look its not bad it just gets a tad draggy and I don't got problem with monologues but I do when it is
used to further delay the story at hand that's just poor execution if you the reader
get bored and just space out from it all and/or close the game as a result.
The heroine is a bit too accepting of certain matters but yeah what would you do if you are
told you'd die if you don't consume a 1000 criminals other than that she's mostly great?
Kaoru will speak her mind and wouldn't mind rushing the opposite way to save a friend.
Sadly she's inconsistent re:romance she says she's not interested then later she's uh I may like him also she's not exactly ''strong'' just willing but she can't do much either. So just a typical girl! I guess feelings can change but in some routes it was irritating imo.
Scenes are still long and ruin otherwise excellent action scenes with monologues
basically they love to *record scratch* *freeze frame* while shit is happening
delaying the actual action and ruining the scene with pointless narration/monologue. x_x I guess you can go figure why I dropped quinrose after two games.
Uh so let's mention that while I liked that Kaoru had a female classmate to talk too
but some part just weren't interesting, in most SOL scenes I was like move on please?
They have this grand plotline but deal with it so casually half the time I am just like lol ok.
Take that as you will but I am done mentioning this, I think early on Tsumikui
has a typical shoujo manga feel where not much happens except they made it into an otome
in which you can go after another guy that isn't the main interest which is obviously Ren.
System's easy enough and not worth mentioning except you can rewind read text making
backlog jump useless, there's skip to the next unread too so yay this is surprisingly comfy!
Sadly they don't turn affection meter off for locked routes... just don't try to go for Souta
Kagerou or Ren when you can't or you'll be disappointed if you hit a roadblock.
In short... *non spoiler*
Me trying to write out my thoughts on this game.
From the demo I figured this would be a mixed bag of all things and it sorta was but not
particularly bad also I wouldn't say it was a kusoge even though at times it gets awfully close.
Tsumikui is a somewhat enjoyable otome with a decent story at the core, its fun to find out its story
which is carefully told to you in an enforced play order which was recommended by the creators.
The themes it covers made me a little uncomfortable at times, angst, hate, morality and more
like I said there's little time for fluff but that doesn't mean there is no sweet romance scenes
its just poorly paced. Honestly speaking it doesn't really stand out that much in what it tried to do
but that doesn't matter it still managed to be decent just a lot of things just could be done better
Tsumikui is an example of being too story-driven and not being able to make it all interesting
or better put make the most of its themes. Fun character interaction? BARELY, boring internal monologues? YEP.
I partly liked how sometimes they make you think this character
isn't important and then a route
later he gets his spotlight... outside of that chara such asTsukasa despite them being great
are just there, like he's interesting but they just never use his character properly. 😢
I am also surprised this wasn't an R18 in the PC ver because then things could get randy...
also a little scary but its fine the way it is I don't need them to put disgusting shit in badends.
Also while the CG's were beautiful they're spread out poorly in some part I wish there was one
yet nothing then suddenly near the end of the route a nice spread of them in a row. 😮
Not everyone gets the same amount either, my bae Shiou got the most.
Either way with each route I played I wanted to press on as each one I did hinted something
that's covered in the next thus somehow making it enjoyable to unravel each characters mysteries
there was almost no route that was wasteful each character played did play a part but whether or not
it was worth it in the end... saa some routes just weren't well rounded enough. coughmorihitocough
If you want a meaty otomege I'd sooner recommend Ken ga Kimi than this game atleast
its more carefully crafted and the common route actually had a point.
Here? only a few route felt truly well rounded such as Shiou not to mention, Morihito gets screwed
over in more ways than one and honestly had the worst route of all. I never liked him because
he was annoying and only truly stops his Sera obsession in his own in predicable manner no less. -_-
Well that ends my non-spoiler section, I honestly can't give it any higher than a 6/10
and I agree with a lot of other reviews on certain facts and that Tsumikui isn't that great.
Definitely do not recommend unless you love Operetta's works or something and can stand
huge chunks of text monologues... going on forever and ever detailing stuff
purely to make it drag out which makes an otherwise short vn much longer than need be.
So now you ask is the vita port worth it if I played the PC ver? Well did you really like the original and the characters, especially Kagerou. Personally I do not think its worth 6000 yen for the exact same thing with just a bunch of after stories that aren't that long to begin with and a semi-new route unless you really like any sort of new content for a particular vn you liked. If you haven't played PC ver and have a vitathen yes go for it if you like longer otome games I can't gaurantee you will like it but who knows! your opinion could differ but if you never cared for Kagerou or didn't like it that much give it a definite pass.
Playorder: (This order was recommended by the writer and makes sense, Ren is locked till last so no choice). Shiou > Touji > Kagerou > Morihito > Souta > Ren. Kagerou finishes off the Kuga arc and Ren the concludes the whole past arc. This probably the one and only order you can even take there's really not much room to order it the way you want.
Character rambles after the jump...
There be spoilers, minor or major below so tread carefully but there won't be any summaries
as this game is too wordy I doubt anyone will ever do it... its just too much really.
I know that this is like the umpteenth Alice otome game but I was motivated it to get it and I was mostly interested in Luna's side but that doesn't mean I won't give Airi a chance. I also figured Shiro to Kuro is otomates biggest entry this year? I mean compared to other titles they don't have much this year except a bunch of FD's and this looks the most interesting to me. Its also funny otomate came up with this after quinrose's demise and got former staff like Hisano to sing the opening theme and the mangaka who did the Alice no kuni manga's adaptation to make a web comic from this, btw I haven't bothered with that so I am going in blind.
Pro's
- Interesting world.
- Decent volume, not too short nor too long.
- Characters are likeable but depends on taste.
- Art is amazing, music fits the scene.
- A skip to the next choice feature (God Bless).
Cons
- The overall story is scattered, one mistake in playorder ruins it even more.
- Too many interesting tidbits are shoved into unvoiced bonus stories/letters
most likely to prevent routes from getting even longer.
- It would be better if the heroines were voiced, since at times they meet they'd have
normal conversations which is just odd when others around them speak.
- Landmines... Airi's side is full of them.
Airi left and Luna right, look similair? they're twins duh...
System wise its typical VN stuff but there's two heroines Airi and Luna who like at norn9 have three romanceable interests so let's go over them real quick to avoid confusion. After the prologue and common part of each girl you'll be able to select a route which is of fairly decent length it never felt that rushed it really takes its time but honestly there might be a couple of boring moments here and there. Since otomate is stupid this time and didn't give us a recommended play order I went in blind and uncovered a whole plot behind the scenes on my first play.😅💦💦💦 Oh good joy otomate you even delayed this game but it was too hard to give us a recommended order or put an enforced playorder?oh well...
Okay each route still has its own fair share of spoilers for you to find out which
is totally normal but its mostly selfcontained character stuff, one thing is for sure
you won't find out everything just doing one route nor is there a real true path its just Snow
having the best story conclusion so it should be done last if you care about that.
Minette's route is most disconnected from overall plot so best to do first and well Rain was pretty painful early on but made more sense at the end of the route so best to not do him too late in your play order. Nello ahaha he's fine midway but watch out for landmines! definitely not last.
Jack route was super enjoyable so that's why I recommend it for last even if
Snow's black happy end is arguable the best in terms of story completeness. Feel free to decide your own order but I think this works? I recommend this order:
Airi: Minette > Rain > Luna: Kanon > Airi: Nello > Luna: Snow / Jack.
White side: Airi - Rain, Minette, Nello.
Black side: Luna - Snow, Jack, Kanon.
Airi is the heroine of white world who is a candidate for the next queen because her blood will save the country of black, Luna the current queen and heroine of black world suffered a coup'de etat after sentencing someone which was seen as too cruel so for her own safety (and sanity)Luna was forced to flee to the white world while Airi is forced to take her place in black world note that despite Airi following Rain on that rainy day at that point she doesn't want to have anything to do with the queen stuff and will actively ask people how to get out, of course Luna wants nothing more but to go back to black world but goes along with Snow turns out they throw some magic and Luna seems to fit right into Airi's place... Well they do look alike since they're twins after all. The two do need time to adjust to their new environment and Luna is really clueless about seemingly normal stuff, OK you get the basic picture now lol. There's also some caste system and blood sucking mechanic like the guys from white side get a boost if they suck Airi's blood and on the other side Luna needs to suck the guys blood.😓 Of course Luna also gets her blood sucked since ... because uh plot? Also since the guys are no vampires how do they actually bite? since you know lack of fangs... Before playing I thought otomate is grasping for straws here 😥 but whatever let me explain its definitely not just fanservice dialover style like for example when Rain got injured Airi cut her own finger so he nibbled at it so Rain could regain his strength. See its important to the story so stop complaining its just fanservice... here come the blood donation jokes by me making my way through the routes. (just kidding) Sadly I don't like the idea of biting a guy... let alone bitten by them... so its a miss for me.
Minor spoiler in the next bit so feel free to glance over this. However there was one bit in Snow's route that irked me, anyone sensitive to self harm of cutting themselves may want to need this warning but Snow's so sweet of stopping a selfish Luna wanting attention or basically forcing him to drink her blood even if he said no. The negative bit there might be easy to over look, still I had to mention it because sensitive topic. end spoiler.
Like with all otome games you don't have to like everyone it all depends on personal taste really.
Minette, the mysterious flirty guy who showers you with affection and definitely not shady(he is).
Rain, the mysterious cold and distant but definitely doesn't mean to be...
Kanon, the sharp-tongued tsunderella.
Snow, the caringly sweet and gentle type.
Jack, the shy yet cute type of guy who obviously is interested in the protag.
Nello, the two faced guy but totally a good boy atleast you'd think.
The only thing otomate seems to have recycled is some aesthetic from code:realize do note that I am mainly talking about the text box here so don't misunderstand me.
Other than that everything looks nice and art in general like backgrounds are all pretty.
It seems they had a lot of budget, plenty of side characters and routes do not overlap
with others so all is good! but the mouths do not move, honestly speaking this is no big deal.
It also has its own save/load screen and I do not remember many VN on ps vita
that actually have a unique save/load screen except maybe Karin or some of Rejet's games.
Its nice to see otomate break the mold from the old see-through save screen
but to me it seems a possible english release with pc port is inevitable now. (I hope it happens... along with Tierblade of course.)
The gorgeous save/load screen.
Well here is the opening movie...certainly has its charm.
The game is relatively short paced, most of the time there's ALMOST no boring moment
except the court and some school scenes but yeah the reason for that is obvious really.
Sometimes it does get longer than I thought it would be, some ends are short yet others are longer..
This only really got on my nerves when I was on Minette's because I wanted to be done, lol.
It is of decent volume routes should be around 6-7 hours or more, I guess
if you count the other ends its a little longer in the route but I never change the speed
of automode since if its any faster I can never read it before it moves on to next line -_- I think Nello's route was definitely the longest out of all? maybe cuz prologue.
All this depends on reading speed but this should be the average either way nothing felt rushed except
some endings, this visual novel was deceptively long or longer than I had thought it would be.😅
In short...
For those wondering if Airi will be disappointing or dumb as a heroine the answer is I can't truly answer in the common route she has a surprising proactive personality of wanting to go back
but she's a little meek, too pure and too accepting of the guys flaws in the white routes.
One could say she has the worst love interests and she's the average good girl etc. Some may find Airi generic though... and I guess she is compared to Luna.
Luna on the other hand turned out to be really cute since she doesn't know a lot of normal things
but she's still an oujou-sama and won't hesitate to speak her mind most of the time
but she could be a little selfish or bitchy I guess but its miles better.
There's a fair amount of mystery, just do not do Nello's route first! nor last
or else you'll be left with a bad after taste that probably will ruin it for you.
Each route is fairly self contained but Nello has a good chunk of a sub plot that runs in the background but who the bad guy is slightly changes depending on route.
Some parts are slow at first but there's enough going on that shows the heroine
and the boy of your choice get closer which all in all was enjoyable considering length.
The time the two spend together was charming even tho there's not much else going on untill
x character comes in to remind you of stuff, which in some routes ruined the mood but yeah story.
In the end it balances out, for the most part the scenes never really drag still there are a few where I was like oh come on get on with it, I guess each vn may have a couple of boring moments and shirotokuro is no exception. Atleast we get to choose the guys right after the prologues which is a
blessing really, said prologues are there to help decide who you go for but I still think
this game would have benefitted from some sort of restriction for available love interests.
Its also nice Luna has girls to talk to about stuff like guys and more since she
is totally clueless about most stuff which leads to some hilarious scenes.
Sadly with Airi that's not so much the case but she used to do that all the time...
honestly its sad Airi literally gets the worst boys.
People who like alice related things may even enjoy it more, there's more than one
outcome to the routes and variations on some endings depending on choice
either way I can recommend Shiro to Kuro no Alice, its interesting in its own way but no replacement for Heart no Kuni no Alice., this is probably otomate's biggest release
this year next to chouchou jiken & not counting sequel/FD, they really don't have much new title. But if I had to be really honest only black side was worth it for me...
Well time for another demo because its still a while before the games I am interested actually come out and me is bored... so let's try this and well it wasn't so bad at all.
The theme of Tsumikui is sin and reincarnation... and naturally
I was more interested in the past than the present.
Kaoru is a cute heroine but her past self way back in the heian-like period did something
terrible and its come to haunt her in 20XX aka present time.
Kaoru is quite like a typical shoujo manga heroine... the daily life parts are nice
but honestly they are surprisingly draggy and TL;DR as the game did not pick up untill like an hour of highschool chitchat that barely had any importance to the plot except some moment halfway through when bad people get brought up and Kaoru almost has a heart attack. Atleast Souta was cute and I get they did it to show that Kaoru's life is not going to be the same but it could've been shorter?
It seems that this game mixed some things I like and things I do not like
and executes it in such a way that early on I was basically meh half of the time but I admit when things picked up it did get better, even if Ren was a little abrupt in that one scene, he did eventually explain what was going on and eventually Kaoru is like please help me get out of this mess and well Ren is more than happy to help her cannabalize the souls of 1000 criminals to undo a curse thats been running for generations, if she doesn't do this she'll die.
Of course its not going to go smoothly but that is expected, Kaoru's normal life is shattered after finding out she's the reincarnation of Sera-hime and she's now being led on a cursed path she may or may not find happiness on. Even then Kaoru needs a little time... because killing people even if they did bad things doesn't feel right to an average highschool girl like herself but Kaoru is no doormat she just needed some time to take it all in and is willing to fight for her life. Either way the demo is of fairly decent length, you'll get to see all of the main guys but early on you're only spending time with Ren plus they have the nerf to cockblock Ren's route behind SIX other guys! sweet mother of Operetta why you do this?!
Pro's
- Interesting story.
- Voiced heroine, her voice is ok, if you don't like it you can turn it off.
- Art, there's moving CG's too. - Music, fits most of the scenes.
Con's. - Pacing, TL;DR.
- Two main characters are completely ignored and treated like side characters. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No one cares about this... but whatever since there is no otome game that's on my list to import
till june I decided to pick up Opera house's other otomege in english and well I mostly
expected another so-so experience since it used to be a mobage afterall and I wasn't far off.
This was originally called Campus Nightlife but they changed the title back to the original and I agree
its much better but if they wanted a proper english title Academy Club would've been enough.
Pro's
- Characters, do it for them as most stories are worth it.
- Art, Melo's art is as beautiful as always.
Con's
- Overall plot is bland but it works I guess.
- Music's meh, definitely not a selling point.
- Copy Pasta.
- Not many choices and they don't matter much.
While I find Gakuen Club to be much better than Charming Empire because the characters
atleast exist outside of their own route and get properly introduced in the prologue
which overall made a much better introduction but other than that it wasn't much better.
The heroine Akane Koizumi is a goody two shoes, she enrolls at a school
after her father got a
promotion and somehow has to be that woman to
stay in the kitched after finding out about the secret club.
Here it comes... all the guys are in this secret after school club to get to first place for their personal
wish granted, they need to be popular and cuz they so handsome all the girls squee at them.
If you were expected fun stuff like ouran highschool host club you'd be disappointed, there's
really not much comedy but I liked a scene in Renji's route were Wataru scolds him
and the heroine, either way from the first route I did I figured all the guys have a dark secret
of why they're doing this, which you'll only find out in their own route and that is perfectly fine.
Either way I found myself slogging myself through the first route I did in this game(Sakai)
to the point it took me 3 days when its really not that long maybe its because
I don't like school settings or maybe it was the annoying setting and screaming fangirls
but I am glad said fangirls are relatively tame in all of the routes.
Overall I think Charming Empire was still more enjoyable to me, Gakuen Club did some things
better as all characters actually exist outside of their own route but that's where it end.
Charming Empire had choices every chapter... Gakuen Club only had a few
and well they don't matter much story wise they only determine the end as it works
on some kind of point system, not getting enough will get you a normal end
but it not hard to get them right, so its a comfy system nothing rage worthy.
It took me two routes before I found one I could fully enjoy... maybe its
good that I got the bad ones out of the way without realizing, lol.
TL;DR
I only recommend Gakuen Club if you're dying for another otome game with a decent translation.
Granted I saw a few errors but I didn't find any issues and compared to the dumpster fire
that was taiali's so called localization atleast Charming Empire and Gakuen Club are definitely
more worth your money!(on a sale) also you really shouldn't think about buying taiali in english
not even as a joke, the whole thing was a scam from the start so many warning flags
yet that company took advantage of the one chance we gave them.
Either way the route I liked the most here was Saku's. it was also imo the most well rounded.
