Midweek vids
Because I’m tired! And I’ve been meaning to post PVs for the last couple weeks and I keep forgetting…
Brothers Conflict is finally out, I might get it next week.
Toki no Kizuna!! Not a PV just the opening, but it’s the first vid I’ve seen for it. It’s SO PRETTY. And the heroine has a hawk! Can’t wait.
A gameplay vid of Black Wolves Saga. Rejet has a bunch up. I’m afraid to play this…
Hana Awase!! It says near the end that there will be three volumes at only 1470Y each, for Mizuchi (the eyepatch guy), Himeutsugi, and Karekurenagi/Utsutsu. Does this mean that Iroha (guy with the blue background) doesn’t have a route??
And a very well-drawn fanvid for TMGS3 (Seiji), no words:
Man, there are so many Tokimemo videos, I could do a whole post on them. Good time-wasting.
Jyuzaengi. The first 45 seconds are just announcing the seiyuu, so skip over that to get to the real PV (although honestly it seems like they’re mostly making really sure we see that the CGs have flowing hair and blinking eyes). I dunno about Ishida Akira’s character, his little kid voice here sounds pretty annoying.
And finally, Bakudan Handan:
Which I’m definitely getting, although I have a feeling I’ll end up only doing about half the routes.
Elkrone
I still haven’t finished even one route in Elkrone, though I swear I’ve been playing it quite a bit. I’m sure now that there is no gathering of materials except in the most visual novel way – you go to places during a scene and are told that you gather materials. No actual choice involved.
The alchemy is also foolproof – whenever you make something it’s for a specific purpose, and the ‘correct’ combination is the only one that you can do.
I’m disappointed that the alchemy is so shallow, but as a visual novel it’s not bad. You do get to choose what tasks to do each day and it’s impossible to do them all. Right now I’m just doing the ones involving my target (Ralph) and then after that, either random tasks or I choose to skip out on them altogether and just mind the store. The tasks are separated into four sections; one for the three major festivals that occur during spring, and then one for Other (which seems to be related to the fairy Popotte maybe, or possibly a past Alchemist?).
C’est tout for today, I should finish Ralph tomorrow.
Yandere Heaven
I’ve heard of this but didn’t pay much attention – there are lots of drama CD series around. But Yandere Heaven is coming to the PC this year, so we can all get stalked and potentially killed by the guys who love us just.that.much.
But hey, since I haven’t read up on it, I could be wrong – it could be an exaggeration. So let’s take a look – there’s still only a teaser for the game (which the pic is from), but there are some drama CDs.
So I went to the site, and did some sample listening. The first one features your little stepbrother Kakeru, and your sempai Atsushi.
When you listen to the samples, they seem to be more about getting rid of the other guy rather than blowing up at you.
Because this was the first edition, released two years ago, I thought I should check out a more recent one.
This one is about a girl, her fiancé, and her butler. This one also seems to focus more on the rivalry, although they do sound kinda crazy when insisting that she only care about them.
Although the characters definitely go into creep mode, in a fictional setting it doesn’t seem so bad.
However, the teaser pic for the game…suggests even more serious craziness. I’ll have to see more about the plot before deciding whether to get this or not.
R-18 otome games are bad
I just finished reading hinano’s post on R18 otome games, and I agree so hard with about 90% of it. I’m going to talk about sex and some pretty unpleasant things, so please be warned.
Read the rest of this entry »
Atelier Elkrone First Play
I got a bunch of games last night:
- Vampire Sweetie (PC)
- Black Wolves Saga Bloody Nightmare (PC)
- Scarred Rider Xechs + FD (PSP)
- Harutoki 5 FD (PSP)
- and Atelier Elkrone(PSP)
After not too much debate, I started up Elkrone first. One, I really want to see if there’s a good alchemy minigame, because I love collecting and making things in-game (yeah I am that annoying crafter in MMORPGs that wants all the recipes). And Otomate has done it before – Kanuchi had a crafting system that I really liked. And two, I’ve played Xechs and Harutoki 5 so the FDs can wait, and Bloody Nightmare…I need to work myself up to it, I hear it’s really dark. If it’s anything like Gekka Ryouran it’s gonna be intense. Vampire Sweetie I’ll probably play in fits and starts.
So far in Elkrone, I’ve only made one thing, but it seems really simple. You need three ingredients, and from my understanding you already have one or two of them (they’re more like catalysts and they don’t get used up) that you get from your fairy friend Popotto. Doesn’t seem very complicated, as you can tell when you have a match. I haven’t gone collecting yet though, so maybe that is more involved.
As for l’amour, I’m pretty sure I’ll go for Ralph (the main guy) first. I’m not even out of the intro, I’ve only met him, Johanne the adventurer, and the old weapon shop guy (voiced by none other than Madao! Gintama’s ruined me for this guy’s voice, good thing he’s not catchable). Ralph is a former classmate and classic tsundere, really obvious and pretty cute.
That’s it for now! Once I have more idea of the story (no idea if there’s an overarching plot but there are some hints) I’ll post again. And tomorrow or Sunday will be video time!
More May News! – Girl’s Style
I knew there was more!
Issho ni Gohan, the cooking-centric drama cd series, is being made into a game by Otomate for the PSP – for release in September. The heroine becomes the landlady at a boarding house for a nearby cooking school which she attends (which all the guys go to/have graduated from). In addition to the affection meter which changes with your dialogue choices, it will have a cooking skill meter which also affects your endings, raised by cooking minigames and quizzes.
Characters:
Yoneda Hikari (CV: Kaji Yuuki) – the second-year student who’s able to become friends easily with anyone
Karasawa Rei (CV: Ono Daisuke) – the graduate with a harsh personality who’s running a nearby curry restaurant
Toriyama Yousuke (CV: Shimono Hiro) – the first-year who looks up to Hikari and is the house’s moodmaker
Daitou Natsu (CV: Tsuda Kenjirou) – a fourth-year in the Japanese food program, he grew up in a traditional Japanese house and knows archery and ikebana. He’s strict about people following the rules and has a hard time blending into groups.
Unoha Nao (CV: Fukuyama Jun) – the weak-bodied fourth year who’s a bit of an airhead, who’s also artistic
Umino Riki (CV: Suzumura Kenichi) – the popular second-year who DJs at a club to make money and wants to ‘produce’ a restaurant
Ther’s also a teaser pic about a new game about ‘glass heart syndrome’, and not being ‘allowed’ to get ‘tokimeki’(I think you’re not supposed to get romantic feelings in the game) from Otomate. More details next month.
And finally, a diagram showing all the different ways you can customize your guy in Custom Drive, resulting in (supposedly) over 1,000,000 variations: hats (5), glasses (5), personality (5), hairstyle (10), clothes (10), accessories (10), over 3 different characters. Now if I remember high school math, the law of permutations would mean that there are…hm, I only get 375,000 permutations. Either I’m wrong (impossible!), or D3 has some explaining to do! We won’t be satisfied with only 375,000, am I right?? …OK, I’ll give them a pass this time.
News – B’s Log May
Here are the new game announcements from B’s Log this month:
Looks like Quinrose is really getting into paired games! First there was 12ji no Cinderella and 24ji no Cinderella, and now there’s Ouma ga toki and Hyakki Yakou! The heroine, Tatsuta Ui, is a dragon god princess, who’s #1 in the school and uses fire. She’s half god and half youkai, and tries to live up to her royal lineage at school, but secretly feels hemmed in. I think the artist is getting better, the characters look more polished (although they still look pretty stiff – I think that’s a Quinrose thing). Other than the school setting, I don’t think there’s any connection – perhaps this is set before or after Ouma Ga Toki.
New game from Otomate, Genroh – by the same artist who worked on Nise no Chigiri (kya!), this is set during the Genpei Gassen, or the war between the Minamoto and Taira clans in late 1100′s (the same time period as Harutoki 3). The heroine, Saya, can see people’s feelings. The main characters include Minamoto no Yoshitsune and Musashibou Benkei (who is a totally gorgeous silver-haired bishounen here).
Double Score is a new PC games series from BlueMoon where all the romanceable characters are significantly older than the heorine – the youngest is eight years older, the oldest is 29 years older! There will be six games, each with two character routes, and there are also drama CDs coming out starting in June. The heroine has a part-time job as a miko at a famous love shrine, and through her work there, meets the other characters. The games will be Y2500 each, which seems kind of expensive for only two routes each (although I say this having spent $4 each on Pirates in Love routes, where there are no voices and the story is pretty short, so…)
And finally, the seiyuu for 24ji no Cinderella were announced!
Louis Reed (CV: Suzumura Kenichi) – A childhood friend who’s in training to become a knight
Linus Randol (CV: Yusa Kouji) – Your fiancee, who’s in the nobility
Oswell Savaret (CV: Tsuda Kenjirou) – A magician tutor
Damian (CV: Morita Masakazu) – A mouse monster
Feather (CV: Shimono Hiro) – the pigeon (goose? I can’t remember) monsters from 12ji
Spencer Hendrick (CV: Nakata Jouji) – maybe not romanceable? The prince’s servant
Sirius Bradley (CV: Takahashi Hiroki) – probably also not romanceable, a magician
I feel like there was more news than that, so I’ll go check Girl’s Style again. Sorry I didn’t post this earlier, I have no excuse – I bought some doujinishi anthologies along with the mags (you know those large tankoubon size ones for popular anime?) and was distracted. And yes, they were Bleach, and they only had about 15 pages of Ulquihime in all 400 pages, boo.
Kamigami no Asobi
Got all the mags in tonight! There’s a bunch on Kamigami no Asobi so that’s tonight’s post – tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll do a news summary.
- It’s set in a world where gods who have forgotten their love for humanity are re-educated by one young girl. The two characters shown so far are Apollon, and Tsukito, from Greek and Japanese mythology respectively. One thing the producer mentions is that the catchphrase is “Love is Pain”, and that they are trying out something rare in otome games, tragic love. It sounds like they want to try to have some very angsty routes, but they say they’re also putting in happy routes.
- The setting is a school, created by the gods, so it’s not a normal school at all – it looks like a European castle, and it has different sections for the different mythologies. For example, the Japanese part is mountainous, and the Greek part is a beautiful garden. The creators wanted to do a fantasy game, but one that had familiar rules, so they settled on a school life/fantasy mix.
- Besides the two characters presented already, Odin and Loki will be the Norse representatives, and there will also be Egyptian mythology figures (I hope they do Horus and Anubis, I’d love to see hawk (falcon?) and jackal-headed characters!)
- Bleach, on the whole, is a waste of time to read, let alone watch(which I haven’t done but I hear there are filler arcs in addition to the overly long canon arcs);
- Kubo Tite is great at writing and drawing characters;
- Kubo Tite has some really interesting plot ideas; and
- Kubo Tite sucks at continuity and resolving plot arcs.
Tokimemo GS3 PSP!
I got it a couple days ago and am going for Ruka first. I never finished his route on the DS even though I like him quite a bit – I always seemed to get pulled into love triangles and then go for Kou 
Skinship is pretty different here – all the guesswork is taken out, but instead there’s a timing challenge to get more hearts, which I actually find kind of harder than the DS version. I haven’t gotten to the point where I can choose koakuma or angel yet, but I can’t wait – I hear the angel side is similar to the DS so I’ll probably do mostly koakuma (like I wasn’t going to anyways).
The animation does make it feel much more interactive – character expressions match what they’re saying really well (I think better than the DS version…) and of course the better picture and sound of the PSP helps a lot as well. The CGs are so smooth!
I haven’t seen the new guy, Hasumi, yet – I think he might only transfer in for the last year.
Oh, and one last thing I’ve noticed – the birthday presents are different! Not too hard to guess though.
I’m not even done my first year, so still lots of playing time to get through and see what’s different.
Bleach Fanart / Fanfic and some recs
Sorry for the long break! Things have been busy, but I should get B’s Log soon so lots of news coming. For now, a non-otome game post.
Recently, I did something very bad. I got into Bleach. After reading the whole manga in a very short time period, I came to a few conclusions:
I can see how people reading little by little might not see it, but when you read everything at once the plot holes and such are pretty obvious.
What does this mean? Apart from the mess that is Bleach canon, which I may still read in bursts just to keep up, but will never defend, it means opportunity for fantastic fandom. Why? Because along with the enormous base of interesting characters that Kubo Tite made and gives only hints of interesting backstory for, there is also a ton of foreshadowing and plot points that are never dealt with, or dealt with in such a cursory/stupid way that they beg for a better treatment from fan artists/writers.
Anyways, I don’t usually go against canon in my shipping, because it’s just frustrating rooting for a couple that will never get their canon ending. However, in Bleach relationships are so vague that you can pretty much pick whatever couple you like. For me, I always was kind of annoyed by Ichigo – I liked him and Orihime, but in the last half or more of the series that doesn’t seem likely (and even if it ends up that way, I don’t think it should), and his personality is underdeveloped in romance, so it almost feels weird to ship him with anyone. And anyways, there are much more interesting pairings to explore – my favourite are (don’t laugh) Orihime and Ulquiorra, and Orihime and Grimmjow. Two pairings that are almost totally impossible, yet I love them because before Tito Kube wrote the horrible (IMO) endings of their character arcs, I could totally see them developing a relationship with her in various shoujo/otome plotastic ways. So I’ve been having some fun exploring fanfic and fanart of these pairings, and can I just say, I’m so happy to live in a time when fandom is so big that almost everything has a niche fandom?
Anyways, for anyone strange enough to also enjoy Ulquihime, here are some good links:
Fanart:
http://tricktrap.sakura.ne.jp/top/index.htm
Fanvid （fans of Utena will probably enjoy this too):
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm8967981
Hilarious vid if you can read Japanese:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm4996194
Bittersweet fanvid, Japanese not needed but spoilers for the end of the arc
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm14731692
Cute fanart
http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=manga&illust_id=25580223
Gorgeous fanart (was missing this link before):
And yay, a picture that I would totally love to read/watch more of!
http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=21369043
This artist does a bunch of great Ulquihime (ウル織) art.
Some fun 4-coma manga:
http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=20015057
Sorry for the non-otome post, this pairing has just sucked me in recently. When I’m not playing FFVI (finally!) or Renai Banchou 2, I’m checking out pixiv and nicovideo and AO3 way too much. I think I’ve seen most of what’s out there – online at least, there is TONS of doujinshi.
Tokyo Demons
Diabolik Lover
Renai Banchou 2
Atelier Elkrone
Juuzaengi
Brothers Conflict
Shinigami to Shoujo