Lijakaca's Otome Gaming Blog » harutoki 3

Update on Harutoki 3 figures

lijakaca — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:31:59 +0000

A few months ago, I found these made-to-order figures of most of the hachiyou from Harutoki 3. And recently they finally came out with the last pair, Atsumori, and RizVaan.

They are very nice, but I think if I was getting one, I’d get either Atsumori or Hinoe. I lurve RizVaan, but like Kurou, his hair is kind of too big for his face. Plus his face…doesn’t quite look like him. I am being very picky though.

There’s a pre-order period for these but also an ‘on sale’ date, so I’m not sure if you *have to* pre-order to get them or not.
It’s times like these when I actually wish I lived in a bigger place!

Izayoiki and Comic Garden

lijakaca — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:42:28 +0000

So I got Comic Garden a couple days ago, yay! I’m playing it at the same time as trying to finish Izayoiki, since I’ve played Harutoki 3 so often before So far it’s fun, and I love the cute artstyle that’s very cartoony. The comic parts (minigames) are fun, though not that difficult, my only pet peeve so far is the lack of options – you can only save at certain points, and it seems like there’s no auto feature. The game is going fairly fast though, so maybe it won’t be too bad. I’m not using a guide, and apparently I’m on course to finish Totonoki-sensei’s route (CV: Midorikawa Hikaru).

And I’ve now finished Saku’s route and am trying to get Tomomori!!! It’s tough because other than right after you finish Shirogane, the hint section doesn’t give you any help, and you can’t see how you’re doing. You also have to try and avoid a lot of events – right now I’m most worried about that, as I’m supposedly about halfway through but I’m not sure if I mistakenly went off course somewhere…I’ll find out soon I guess!

Geekout! Otome game figures

lijakaca — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:28:18 +0000

ZOMG! I finally found the figures, and they’re pretty awesome. They’re being released 2 at a time, and right now the first 6 can be seen here. The details are really nice, the only thing I didn’t love was that their heads often seemed a little too small (I mean, Kurou’s bangs are big, but not bigger than his face). They’re each 6930Y, not cheap, but if I had more room I’d definitely be tempted – heck, I’m tempted now!

Harutoki 3 Hachiyou Figures

Release dates:
End of December: Kurou and Masaomi
February: Benkei and Hinoe
April: Yuzuru and Kagetoki
They don’t have Liz Vaan and Atsumori up yet, but I’ll post again when they are.

Hiiro no Kakera figures:

I also found the Hiiro no Kakera figures, they’re SD and very cute. They come in a pack of 9 for around 5200Y.

Looking all this otome fanstuff, I came across a bunch of Harutoki (anime) trading cards and Harutoki 3+ Izayoiki-based cards…I can feel myself reverting to my college days as we speak, when I used to work for merchandise in lieu of payment from an anime store (would I have bought it with real money? I don’t know…). I think I still have Kenshin cards hidden somewhere in my parents’ house, I should really get rid of that stuff on ebay or something.

Between these and playing Ukihashi, I think I’m in an Izayoiki mood tonight – I’m off to attempt Shirogane once more!

Great Otome Games – Harutoki 3

lijakaca — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:36:10 +0000

I’m working on a Garnet Cradle post, but for tonight I thought I’d take a step back and look at what I think is one of the best female-targeted games ever – Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 3 (From Far Away 3) from Koei, for the Playstation 2.

For anyone who’s not familiar with the series, the premise is that the heroine, Nozomi, is a regular high school senior in Japan. One day while moving to the next class, she and her two childhood friends are transported to a faraway world that resembles historical Japan. In this world, there is magic, and she has been chosen by the Dragon God to be his priestess and protect the capital city of Kyou with the Minamoto clan. To help her, she has eight Guardians, called hachiyou (who all just happen to be young handsome men ^_^), but she doesn’t simply wait and let them protect her. She learns how to use a sword, and is the only person who can exorcise the ‘onryou’, or vengeful spirits, that the attackers of Kyou use.

In addition to the RPG gameplay, where Nozomi and her hachiyou fight onryou, gain allies and abilities, and battle the enemy (the other side here is the Heike clan), there’s the romance aspect. By fighting with them and winning, Nozomi’s bonds with her hachiyou get stronger. There are also story events for each hachiyou that illustrate the growing relationship between him and Nozomi.

Depending on whether you get all the ‘events’ for a hachiyou, you can get a love ending with them as well as saving Kyou. There’s also the ‘normal’ ending, where Nozomi doesn’t get together with anyone but saves Kyou and goes back to her world.

The gameplay is fun RPG and adventure, without being too heavy on either. The voice actors are great (if you can understand Japanese!) and the story is also strong. I really wish Koei would bring it overseas, they’re definitely big enough!

Tomorrow’s my day off, so I’ll be back on Saturday with a Garnet Cradle extravaganza!