Anyways, so far it’s lots of fun! No fairies so far, but lots of exciting!drama! plus a couple appearances by Hihara and Kiriya (I avoided spoilers so have no idea if anyone else shows up). And of course the characters and their voices are totally different, especially Morita Masakazu!
Now I’m off to train for the semi-final, wish me luck!

Edit: Tags aren’t working . I’ll figure that out later!

Hozumi Shiro CV: Morita Masakazu
MIzushima Arata CV: Kishio Daisuke
Kisragi Ritsu CV: Konishi Katsuyuki
Kisaragi Kyouya CV: Fukuyama Jun
Sakaki Daiichi CV: Uchita Yuuya
Tougane Chiaki CV: Taniyama Kishou
Toki Housei CV: Ishikawa Hideo
Myouga Reiji CV: Hino Sou
Nanami Sousuke CV: Souta Yuki
Amamiya Sei CV: Miyano Mamoru
Mizushima Yuuto CV: Mizuhashi Kaori
Yagisawa Yukihiro CV: Itou Kentarou

]]> http://lijaka.com/blog/2009/11/kiniro-no-corda-3-seiyuu/feed/ 0 http://lijaka.com/blog/2009/03/harutoki-1-and-2-the-beginning/ http://lijaka.com/blog/2009/03/harutoki-1-and-2-the-beginning/#comments Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:36:46 +0000 lijakaca http://www.lijaka.com/blog/?p=238 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.

This is a great idea if you don’t have these two games already, because as most fans will tell you, you WILL want to get Tomomori after finishing #3 ^_^ And with this, you don’t have to do that annoying game disc swap every time.

The gameplay has some differences from 2 Encore, and it took me a while to figure out how to play. I’ll compare the process in getting ready for a performance in each:

1. Get music for a performance.

• Original:Each piece is split up into three or more sections, and you need to get them from Fahta (fairies) that you can only find in an area after practicing by yourself.
• Encore 2: Buy a piece of music at Lily’s store.

In both games, you need a certain skill level to play each piece, and if it’s not high enough, you need to practice other pieces to raise it first. But in the original, you also have a level for each of three styles, and these also have to be high enough for each piece. Also, harder pieces have certain skills that you require, which you get by perfecting easier pieces. You can also buy skills at the fahta stores.

2. Practice pieces alone.

• Original: It doesn’t matter where you are to practice other than being able to run around and look for Fahta afetr practicing. People don’t listen to you practice.
• Encore 2: Different places have bonuses to practicing in them, but you can also go where people are and get Bravo Points practicing in public.

3. ‘Finish’ pieces.

• Original: First you have to get the adaptations of a piece. To do this, you need to get to 20 with each section of a piece, then run around finding Fahtas with adaptation bells. When you ring these bells, you see a little skit (literally, it’s on the school stage with characters acting) about the origin of the piece and showing keywords to describe that adaptation. Sometimes you choose answers to add keywords as well. These keywords come into play when choosing what adaptation to play in a concert, because they each have keywords that you should try to match. The you need to practice an adaptation to perfect it – this is when you can get bravo points.
• Encore 2: You have to get people to play pieces in an ensemble with you. The concerts require different numbers of pieces to be ready, and you have to choose a good ‘order’ depending on the styles of the pieces. Each piece requires a certain combination of instruments, and each musician (either a major character or a music student) has a certain requirement before they’ll play with you. When you have an ensemble ready, you all need to practice together to gain expertise at a piece. Some characters (ahem, Kaji) are kind of low level when you first meet them, so you might have to practice with them (as a duet) before they’re high enough to play certain pieces.

4. Perform in concerts.

• Original: Here you compete with the other major characters. I haven’t won one yet, haha, so I don’t know exactly what it takes, but I think it’s a combo of difficulty level of the piece), perfection level both in the original and adaptation.
• Encore 2: You put on a concert and try to get a certain level of audience response. Before the concert you also have to play in earshot of enough people to get them to attend – each concert has increasing required attendance. The audience response depends on how many people are there, how perfect your ensemble is and how good the players are at the piece, and the difficulty level. You also don’t get as many points if you re-use pieces from past concerts.

5. Win.

• Original: Apparently you don’t have to win the competition to get a good ending – I didn’t, and I got Yunoki’s ending, though I’m not sure if it’s the *best* ending possible with him.
• Encore 2: You do need to ‘win’, but it’s more a question of survival – each step has its own pass requirements that you need to achieve.

Other differences:

• In Encore 2 Lily is the only fahta
• In the original you can do quizzes with Lily to get free items, as well as getting them when you’ve found certain numbers of fahta.
• No Kaji in the original! Wahhh!!
• Some different spots in the original that you can run around, like the train station.
• No dates in the original, since you’re just developing relationships.
• No ‘fights’ in the original – in Encore 2 major characters would have an argument while practicing in an ensemble and you’d have to help them make up.
• I don’t know if there’s any point in playing a duet or ensemble in the original, though you can do it. Maybe just more bravo points? Also, in the original you have to be near each person you want to play with, you don’t just call them up like in Encore 2.
• In the original time to practice and talk to people is calculated as minutes until 6pm when you go home. In Encore 2 you have a set number of practice sessions and events don’t factor into this.

Overall, I think I like Encore 2 better – it’s slightly easier, and characters have more events. But the original is definitely very good, and as the first in the series, is important to play to get background for each character.

Has anyone else played both? Which did you like better? Anything I missed that you’ve noticed?

]]> http://lijaka.com/blog/2008/10/kiniro-no-corda-psp/feed/ 1 http://lijaka.com/blog/2008/09/yume-no-ukihashi-harutoki-1-3/ http://lijaka.com/blog/2008/09/yume-no-ukihashi-harutoki-1-3/#comments Mon, 01 Sep 2008 05:57:54 +0000 lijakaca http://www.lijaka.com/blog/?p=53 I’ve had a chance to play Ukihashi now (though not much). The first thing you do is choose which miko you’ll be, and from then, which hachiyou you’ll start the story with. I chose Nozomi from #3 and Liz Vaan . The story begins in the middle of each game, so the miko are already in their own stories and need to get back to save Kyouto.

You start off being lost in a maze with your hachiyou, the one you picked and their partner. Then you come upon two other pairs from the other two games and together you try to find the exit. You unknowingly enter the North Palace and meet Hokutoseikun, the ruler of this world. He says that he brought you here because onryou have appeared here and it’s your fault. Escaping, you meet his brother Nantoseikun, who says that this world is like a dream to you, so while you’re here, your body in the real world is wasting away, so you can’t stay too long. He tells you to released the other miko to get back to your own world and timeline.

The world is divided in a circle shape, with Heaven’s Garden in the middle which includes the North and South Palace. There are a series of smaller structures in each of 12 directions, and then gates at the edge of each of those areas. The first hachiyou that I released were in one of the small structures. Outside the gates are the areas of the Four Sacred Beasts, but until you have the right hachiyou for a certain gate, you can’t pass through it. Once you’re outside the gates, you need to gain the assistance of the Beast. And then even further out, is the towers where the other miko are held.

Similar to Harutoki 3, when you’re supposed to go somewhere for the story it will glow blue. Love events are also shown, with pink dots. But unlike the other games, onryou are shown by purple clouds that move around the map as you move, so it’s harder to avoid them. However, you can blow into the DS and sometimes make them move away.
I found the battles to be a simpler version of #3’s, with each person having a couple special moves and a basic fight command, and the elements are all the same.

There are three types of endings. One is where you get through the game with only some of the hachiyou. The second is where you released all the hachiyou, and the last is a love ending. You can only get love endings with the hachiyou from your timeline though (too bad!).

That’s about it for now, I haven’t gotten any love events yet, hopefully tomorrow!

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