Kanuchi First Play!

October 18th, 2008

Hm. So, I haven’t finished Kanuchi yet, but I’ve gotten a ways through it, so I thought I’d put my first impressions down.

Production is good – all the technical functions you expect in an otome game are here – already-read skip and forced skip, quick save/load, replay of dialogue (it works the same way as Hiiro no Kakera, where you actually jump back to that point in time), having a chart of where you are in the story, etc.

There’s quite a bit of dialogue to get through before you first make a choice, and so far (maybe 30-40% done?) there’s only been a handful more.

The story is pretty good so far. Aki is a normal girl who grew up with a foster grandfather who found her on a battlefield beside her dead parents. Her grandfather is a blacksmith in a small village, and when the story begins, she’s 17 and looking around for work to do her share. Her grandfather refuses to teach her blacksmithing, and she can’t seem to find anything near the village. Her friend Seki finds something in the capital city, but Aki doesn’t want to go that far.

One day a guardsman comes to the village searching for a blacksmith and has a run-in with Aki. She doesn’t tell him about her grandfather, but when he comes back, she blurts it out unintentionally. He visits her grandfather and asks him to become the smith for the castle guard, but he refuses and won’t say why. Aki gets mad because they have a promise not to keep secrets from each other, and runs outside. Her grandfather and the guardsman, Clato, search for her because a storm is coming, but her grandfather ends up getting sick. It’s pretty serious, and Aki is told that the doctor and medicine to help him recover fully are quite expensive. She decides to get work, and manages to get a shop in the capital city already set up for blacksmithing.

Unfortunately, though she’s watched her grandfather smith, she has no experience, and is getting depressed. One night she has a strange dream about a long time ago, with a woman who is getting ready to be crowned after a battle.

Aki continues to gather materials and try to smith (unsuccessfully), also meeting the other members of the castle guard.

One day suddenly another consciousness appears *in* Aki, announcing that she’s Kayana Takamahara, who Aki knows as the first monarch of the kingdom and a goddess of war. Aki doesn’t believe her, but doesn’t really know what to think of her new ‘tenant’. Kayana sometimes does things with Aki’s body, so it seems to people watching like Aki is having weird conversations with herself, and is also acting totally unlike her. However, one good thing is that Kayana is very good at smithing, and helps teach Aki so she can actually make things.

A few days after everyone has started noticing this, Aki gets summoned to the castle. The ‘star reader’, Mitoshi, who’s also a member of the castle guard, has recognized Kayana in Aki and has told the prince to call her on the night of ‘Rua’. It turns out that this is the one night where Kayana can exist outside of Aki’s body in her own form, so Kayana goes to the castle alone.

As befits an ancient monarch, one who won her place in battle, Kayana is very straightforward, confident, and expert in swordsmanship. The castle guards, expecting a humble blacksmith, try not to let Kayana through, but she easily beats them and appears before the prince, Kugami. She states that she’s Kayana Takamahara, and Mitoshi says she’s here to stop the war that’s been going on forever. Kugami takes down a royal treasure, a sword that no one can unsheath, and Kayana recognizes it as her own. She easily unsheaths it, and says it’s hers, so Kugami says she can have it (above the protests of his steward).

Kayana knows why she has beein reincarnated, but it’s not too clear right now what that is. She has to wait until a certain time where she can get her own body, so until then, she and Aki coexist in Aki’s body.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten right now in the story.

The gameplay, other than talking to people, involves taking orders and making things for people to get money. Every day you wake up and can move around in your house/shop. My usual routine is to go downstairs and straight outside, where you choose where to go gather materials. Depending on the place, you may take more than a day to get there and back. Once you’re there, you move around on a map and choose to gather materials where you can. At the beginning your bag has only 5 slots, so once they’re full, you have to either stop or choose to throw something out to make room for more. However, you can stack items of the same type, so you can keep going trying to get more of something. Each time you gather some of your energy disappears. When you’re done, you head home. Usually I go straight to the cupboard to dump out my bag, and then see if I can make anything with the materials I’ve gathered so far. After 30 in-game days, I’ve only been able to make one thing eheh.

I also go to the counter to check requests and see if I can fulfill any orders. If not, I then go upstairs and go to my kitchen to see if I can cook anything with ingredients that I’ve gathered (nothing so far). Then I take a bath to renew my energy and give something to my pet. The pet, whose name is Koro, will eat any extra material (food or smithing ingredient), and will lay an egg with something different after a day or two, so it’s good to get different things in exchange for whatever you have an excess of.

Some good, bad, and interesting points: