Posts Tagged ‘bakumatsu’

The lowdown on Harutoki 5

Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 5 is only a month away now (only??), ok, still a month away, and since the gameplay seems to be quite different, I’m laying out what’s been explained so far in the otome mags.

The background story is that the heroine is on a plane returning to Japan after studying abroad. She’s with her cousin Miyako (CV:Saiga Mitsuki), and her adopted brotherｓ Shun (CV: Terajima Takuma) and Sou, but the plane malfunctions in the air. They brace themselves for the crash, but when they next regain consciousness, the heroine, Miyako, and Shun are in a different world.

This is the alternate world of Bakumatsu-era Japan, and the heroine has been chosen as the Priestess of the White Dragon. Miyako is the Black Dragon Priestess, and seems to fulfill a similar ‘older sister’ role to Saku from Harutoki 3. A high-ranking member of the Bakufuu government, Amami (CV: Suwabe Junichi), gives the heroine an hourglass and tells her to use it. When she does, she finds she returns to her own world.

General System
The heroine has to save the Bakumatasu world within a limited amount of time – when she is in that world, her hourglass empties constantly (top right in screenshot). To refill it, she has to return to her own world, but there’s a cost to that as well. Each time she returns to her world, one of her ‘life fragments’ is used up(top left in screenshot). If all of them are used before doing what you have to, it’s game over. And apparently some events will automatically use one, so you can’t totally control it.

Battle System
The heroine can fight with up to three party members. At the beginning of each turn you choose to do moves (including attacks) or abilities (like healing) for each member. As in previous Harutokis, you can choose to do special attacks with multiple characters that are especially effective when their element is one that the enemy is weak against.

There are a couple of new features to this system as well. A special attack seems to only hit one enemy, but if you combine special attacks in a certain order, you can do a ‘chain tactic’ (renkinjutsu), where even characters that aren’t in the battle party can join in the attack if your bond with them is strong enough . These attacks hit all enemies and can be very powerful.

There is also an experience system, but I’m not sure if it’s as detailed as before, where you can choose to get new abilities, or if your stats just increase.

Weapon System
If you beat an onryou with an element attack it’s weak against, it turns into a ‘tamashii’ (soul) and you can seal it in your weapons. This improves your weapon, and once you’ve improved it a certain amount, the weapon will change into a different weapon, eventually becoming a legendary weapon.

A couple other notes: The Four Gods show up in human form in Harutoki 5! They are all voiced by previous hachiyou, of course corresponding to their old parts – Seiryuu (Seki Tomokazu), Suzaku (Takahashi Naozumi), Byakko (Inoue Kazuhiko), and Genbu (Hoshi Souichirou). Also, the March B’s Log has pics of all the hachiyou in modern clothing, so perhaps they can come with you when you travel to your own world??

Even though the battle system and some other important parts of the game have been revealed, the overall plot is still kind of mysterious. Some of the teasers seemed pretty ominous, and Ruby Party says that the hourglass is the symbol of the whole game, so who knows what will happen to the heroine when her time runs out?

New games announced!

I don’t like having my scanner broken! But I promise, if you want to see the pretty art for the games I talk about, the links have them!

anyhoo, there are a couple new games announced this week from Otomate and D3P.

The first, Natsuzora no Monologue, is set for the PS2, seems somewhat like a light novel, in the example screens the text covers most of the space available. This makes me less interested in it, as I’m not a fan of light novels, although I guess this has voice and character pics too so it’s not like a regular light novel.

It’s based on a time loop, and set in a town near the sea. The heroine’s name is Ogawa Aoi, and she has amnesia. She joined the chemistry club at school, but it’s being cancelled.
July 29 is the day before it’s supposed to be disbanded, but on that day, she hears sound from a 30-year-old skyscraper in town called ‘Tree’ (the description says the building sings), and the time loop begins. One major decision is that you can choose to escape the time loop, or stay in it.

This setup reminds me of Sorayume’s final route, it will be interesting to see how they treat it.

D3′s new title, Ishin Renka Ryouma Gaiden seems like it might be an alternate history from its Bakumatsu Renka titles, which were great but (since they followed known history closely) could be somewhat…depressing (yes, I cried sometimes, it was sad!!). It seems the story is based on Sakamoto Ryouma. The platform and dates are still a mystery.

C’est tout for tonight! I’ve been busy with other stuff, but I have some posts in draft about the new Moujuutsukai game, and I think I should edit and re-publish what I wrote a million years ago about Mizu no Senritsu 2….