Posts Tagged ‘　八葉抄’

Harutoki 1 and 2 – the beginning

With Harukanaru Toki no Naka de Ukihashi showcasing Harutoki 1-3, you may be interested in the original games. Though I have both Harukanaru Toki no Naka de Hachiyousho (the PS2 version of the first game) and Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 2, I always thought they were just okay compared to Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 3, which is one of my favourite otome games. I played #3 first, and I think it spoiled me a bit, because Hachiyousho and #2 weren’t set up the same way, and I found them a little too restrictive. But going back now and playing them, I appreciate that they’re actually more strategic than #3, as well as doing a great job establishing the story of the Ryuujin no Miko and the hachiyou.

For anyone who doesn’t have the games yet, or if you’ve tried one but were kind of confused about the setup, I thought I’d post about the basic storyline, timeline, and how gameplay works.

Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 1 and 2 have a lot in common with each other, so most of this will cover both games.

Story: A high school student from Japan (Akane in #1, Karin in #2) is leading a normal life when one day, she’s transported to another world which resembles historical Heian Japan (around 900-1100AD). She’s dumped in Kyou (Kyoto), and is declared to be the Dragon God Priestess, or Ryuujin no Miko, by a young girl from the Star Family, or Hoshi no Ichizoku. The Hoshi no Ichizoku are an aristocratic family who are the keepers of eight dragon globes (gyoku), and who use their psychic ability to help the Ryuujin no Miko.

Kyou has a legend that in times of crisis, a girl from another world will appear as the Ryuujin no Miko. Her job is to summon the Dragon God who watches over Kyou, and save it from whatever is endangering Kyou. She has eight hachiyou, or guardians, to protect her and help her do this, and the gyoku give the hachiyou special powers.

Game Timeline: Both #1 and #2 follow the same basic timeline. First the heroine is transported to Kyou, where she has to meet all the hachiyou. Each hachiyou has a certain element (fire, water, earth, tree, or crystal), as do all the monsters you have to fight and the locations you can visit. Each element is strong against one element and weak against another, so if you know what kind of monster you’re fighting, you can pick the hachiyou with the element that’s strong against it. The heroine also has an element, but that doesn’t affect fights so much as minigames.

Once you’ve met all the hachiyou, you choose what to do each day. You have three slots of time in each day, and each morning you pick one or two hachiyou to travel and fight with. Then you pick where to go, and if there’s a monster there, you fight it. If not, sometimes an event will happen, otherwise you’ll get a mini-game to get items. Sometimes not all the hachiyou are available in the morning, and sometimes locations in the east, west, north, or south are unavailable because of the flow of ki. When you beat monsters of a certain element, you gain that element’s power, which you can then use in special attacks of the hachiyou. For example, Yasuaki in #1 is an earth element, so if you have some earth element power, you can use his special attacks.

Your first assignment is to obtain the help of the four sacred beasts (seijuu) that are under the control of the Dragon God – Seiryuu, Byakko, Genbu, and Suzaku. Each seijuu has two hachiyou, so for example Yorihisa and Tenma in #1 are the two Seiryuu hachiyou. This usually means that you travel with these hachiyou to a certain location, listen to the seijuu, and do what it tells you to prove your worth. You only have a few days to obtain the help of each seijuu, and of course there’s always a bad guy who tries to stop you from getting it.

Once you have all four seijuu, you gain the ability to seal monsters, instead of just temporarily beating them. When you seal a monster, you gain that seal (a fuda) which you can then equip to improve the heroine’s or a hachiyou’s stats.

After getting all four seiyuu, you need to get special attacks for each pair of hachiyou. These attacks come from spirits called ‘myouou’, and the process of obtaining them is similar to the seijuu.

Once you have all the myouou (though I think you can fail in this and still continue the game), you are strong enough to fight the final boss.

Does this sound complicated? It isn’t bad once you’re used to the whole element system and how to seal and everything, but it can take a while to figure out. Also, because your time is limited, it’s easy to fool around and not get things done on time if you’re not sure where to go or what to do. And I haven’t even gotten into character events or love routes yet!

In #1, each hachiyou has had an important memory stolen from them. In #2, it’s only the four hachiyou on ‘your’ side when you start (emperor or retired emperor). To go through the ‘true love’ route for each hachiyou, you must find all four pieces of their heart (kokoro no kakera) and get through the accompanying events successfully. Besides the true love route, there’s also the ‘rush’ route (in #1) or the ‘obstacled’ (shougai no aru) route (in #2), where you don’t have to gather kokoro no kakera, and it depends on raising the hachiyou’s affection and belief levels only.

Belief (the green stars in the character pane) can be built by beating monsters, healing the hachiyou, winning minigames, and acting like a strong miko. Affection (orange/red stars) is harder to gain – it’s also built by beating monsters and winning minigames, but much more slowly than belief. You can also gain affection by successfully navigating character events, and a couple other methods involving the ‘monoomi no hi’ and incense.

Finally, once all this is done, you choose who to go with to fight the final boss, and if you’re successful, you get an epilogue. I believe in Hachiyousho there are 3 endings for each character (staying in Kyou, going to your world, and a ‘hachiyousho’-added ending), and in #2 there are two (staying or going back).

Yikes! Explaining this took up so much space, and I don’t even have any pics to go with it! Well, hopefully it will be useful to somebody.