Posts Tagged ‘quinrose’

Peter of Candy Island – Peter

So, Peter! I knew he would eventually be an adult because of the CGs and the box art, but they way they handled it was pretty interesting. I won’t say what it is because it’s a spoiler. There’s still a big mystery around him at the end though – I think I know what it is but I’ll have to play the rest of the game to see if you ever find out.

At first Peter is just a mega-annoying kid who likes to run around and be loud, and is totally selfish even with his ‘lost boys’, the other kids who live with him. They’re more like his servants, who always do things for him and try to think up games to amuse him – often ones that are dangerous/uncomfortable. While getting into his route, Wendy decides that he’s more ignorant than bad, and she’ll reform him, and she goes about correcting him and pretty much treating him like her own kid. Peter doesn’t seem to mind, although he humours her only because he likes her, and he admits to doing so. He has no sympathy for anyone else, and assumes he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants.

As Wendy gets to know him, Tinker gets more and more jealous, and finally Peter tells her off directly. As you might guess, Tinker comes back later and confronts Wendy, and this is a major turning point in the story.

Another thing that happens in this route is Peter trying to get Wendy to eat his candy, and her gradually giving in. I thought this was done well because it’s related back to Wendy’s complex about her mom, who never cared about her after her father passed away no matter how hard Wendy tried to please her. It’s also slowly shown to relate to Peter’s feelings about his life before Neverland, although this part isn’t shown as much. This is where their relationship really grows, and it’s pretty believable.

During Peter’s route I did feel bad for Michael and John, especially John, but hey that just means I have to do their routes next. I’m looking forward to seeing how Wendy deals with her family issues there and if it ends up very differently.

And ending on an Angelique note, I FINALLY finished the knights route, and yes I think I will love it in the end, though I was kinda fast-clicking a lot of parts. It pretty much went down the way I thought it would, though more dramatic and awesome. And now I get to go for Gerhart, yay! (yes Gerhart! Tachibana Shinnosuke doing a dumb but nice guy that uses a huge sword, what’s not to love!)

Midnight Bells and Cinderella ~Halloween Wedding~

１２時の鐘とシンデレラ (Midnight Bells and Cinderella～Halloween Wedding～) is the newest game announced for the PSP from Quinrose, scheduled for release on Feb 23 2012.

Odette Scarlet is the heroine. She lost her mother when she was very young, and lived with her father for a long time before he remarried. She is fond of her stepmother and two stepsisters but isn’t good at showing her feelings. It also takes her a while to open up to people.

Characters:
Roy Diefenthal (CV: Okamoto Nobuhiko) An aristocrat that often visits the downtown city in disguise. When Odette finds him, she can tell he has no street smarts, and she becomes his guide. Apparently he’s pretty high up in the nobility and is used to luxury, but it hasn’t warped his personality too much.

Gilbert Crois (CV: Koyasu Takehito) A guard in a certain household. When his master goes to the city on his own, he follows in search of him. He also sometimes complains about this master that increases his work so much. He’s a very good swordsman, and is a bit quick to fight.

Glass Walker (CV: Sakurai Takahiro) A shoemaker with a store downtown, he’s highstrung but a skilled craftsman. He tends to lose himself in his work and forget about other things. He used to be popular among the nobility for his quality shoes, but fell out of favour and now sells to the common people. He tries to fit in with the commoners by using rough language, but his higher-class roots show.

Chance (CV: Yoshino Hiroyuki) A salamander type monster that works in a carriage rental shop. He’s not too swift but is very athletic. Even though he’s often reviled because he’s a monster, he wants to be friends with humans and is friendly. However, he’s scary when he gets angry.

Sirius Bradlay (CV: Takahashi Hiroki) A magician that is old friends with Odette’s mother. He had been abroad for a long time, but came back after hearing about Odette’s father. He’s good at looking after people, but once he gets despressed, it’s annoyingly hard to get him to snap out of it. He’s overprotective of Odette.

Reynald (CV: Kusao Takeshi): A mysterious man who walks the city at night. He tells Odette that she is loved by misfortune, trying to label her unlucky, but becomes interested in her when she doesn’t give in and tries to break through barriers on her own. Odette tells him of some of her worries partly because he’s a stranger, and they form a strange kind of bond.

Feather (CV: Shimono Hiro) An elegant lady with an unfamiliar atmosphere about her, she’s actually a white dove monster. She’s Odette’s next-door neighbour in their new, cheaper lodgings. She lives with other doves and is good at gathering information.

Ouma ga Toki – Supernatural school life!

Ouma ga Toki is the newest game announced from Quinrose for the PSP, and it looks like a lot of fun!　The name refers to the old word for dusk, and it was thought to be the time which it was more likely than usual to run into youkai.
It’s set in a high school at the border of the human and spirit worlds, so the students are youkai (supernatural beings). The heroine is a youkai named Suzue Shizuka. She’s a 2nd-year, and though she gets in trouble a lot(interesting!), she’s in the top 3 for marks within the school (awesome!!). She has a lot of spirit power and gets out of hand a lot, playing tricks and getting into fights at school. She’s also descended from some spirit princess, but can’t swim very well. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m very excited to play a heroine like this.

From left-Atsurou, Shizuka, and Hisoka

Other characters:

式部　密　Shikibu Hisoka (CV: Midorikawa Hikaru): A good friend of Shizuka and a fellow troublemaker, he’s really good at curses. He seems lighthearted, but has a dark side. He’s related to shinigami, and is the best at hexes in school.
遠野　篤郎 Toono Atsurou (CV: Suwabe Junichi): The leader of the school gang, he doesn’t beat up weaklings but has a rival kind of relationship with Shizuka. Apparently he’s descended from oni.

日比谷　京極 Hibiya Kyougoku (CV: Yusa Kouji): The serious leader of the school’s moral team. He used to be human, but was stolen away as a child by spirits (I dunno whether he’s still human or not). He has the top marks in school overall.

和泉　零次 Izumi Reiji (CV: Toriumi Kousuke): A descendent of kitsune, he loves playing tricks but has low spiritual power and little stamina. His kitsune is blood is strong and so he loves abura-age (deep-fried bean curd).

由良城　閨悟 Yurajou Keigo (CV: Namikawa Daisuke): A second year who helps in the infirmary. He’s the third child in a big family, and his marks are pretty good. He has a secret crush on Shizuka, who helps him out with studying, but it’s obvious to everyone what his feelings are. He’s from a line of dog spirits.

飛浦 萌葱 Tobiura Moegi (CV: Yoshino Hiroyuki): A third-year student from a family of tengu, he coolly watches everything and enjoys seeing other people’s troubles.

There’s also Hibiya Mitsugu (CV: Hino Satoshi), who I didn’t get a good pic of. I’m already looking forward to this; the setting is interesting and Shizuka sounds like a really fun character to play.

Friday videos

Well, I’m getting magazines on Saturday and will probably do a post on Sunday with all the news, but for now (and since I uh, kinda missed last week) here is a selection of some of the upcoming otome games’ promo videos!

From Quinrose, Mother Goose’s Secret House (Himitsu no Yakata):

Coming out June 23rd for the PSP!

Another from Quinrose, Iza! Shutsujin Koi Ikusa

Coming out next week!

From Otomate, Musketeer

Scheduled for July 7, I know a lot of people are waiting for this one!

And from Snapdragon, Tsubasa no Oka no Hime [R18]

Already out, but so gorgeous!

And from D3, Storm Lover

The PV for the fandisk, Natsukoi!! isn’t on Youtube, so that’s the original PV. It’s scheduled for August 8.

And finally, a Korean BL R18 game that my Korean friend was nice enough to play and translate for a group of us, Oops! My Prince　（I can’t find a link for it unfortunately)

It is hilariously weird, which you can see a bit of in the PV.

Mags and Swag

It didn’t seem right to post fluff right after the disasters in Japan, but things seem to be approaching normal now, and I got a new shipment of otome magazines.

For anyone wondering what kind of swag you get with otome mags, here’s a pic I took (the colour’s kind of off but whatever):

1 – several miniposters (one set of five or so from each B’s Log)
2 – two booklets about the Yamanote Boys series (one from each B’s Log)
3 – page of stickers from Starry Sky! very cute
4 – the mags – I got the April and May B’s Log, and the most recent Cool-B and Sweet Princess
5 – The 2011 Tokyo Otome Guide – I have to plan for my fall trip! it has listings of otome-focused stores, manga, games, cosplay, everything, as well as some hotel and restaurant listings (even some butler cafés!), with lots of pics and ideas. Lots of fun to read through!
6 – Two DVD-Roms that came with Cool-B and Sweet Princess. They have promo movies, wallpapers, game guides, and even some playable demos.

And now for the news from those magazines!
A fandisk was announced for Hiiro no Kakera 4 Shin Tamayori-hime Denshou, called Piece of Future. Scheduled for July 2011, the Suwabe Brothers will be capturable! Awesome.

Sangokuren Senki is coming to PS2!!! I’m extremely happy, I’ve heard a lot of good things about this game and darnit, I’m just a sucker for fantasy historicals!

A new Quinrose game, Mother Goose no Himitsu no Yakata (Mother Goose’s Secret House) – scheduled for the PSP on June 23. Apparently there are two parts, a quiz part and an adventure part. The story is kind of like Alice, in that the heroine falls into a different world and has to find a way out. But to do so, she has to pass quizzes based on nursery rhymes. The men she meets all know her, but she doesn’t remember them. There’s a lot of really gorgeous art for this, it seems that Quinrose has over 200 nursery rhymes (which will be shown in English and then Japanese translations) illustrated by lots of different artists. Here’s a pic!

Cute huh? From left to right, the characters are:
Cezary Fritche (CV: Morikawa Toshiyuki) – a poor scholar
Eric Burrell (CV: Toriumi Kousuke) – an odd jobs guy
Heroine
Arthur Lindgren (CV: Sakurai Takahiro) – a noble gentleman
Bacchus Moore (CV: Suwabe Junichi) – a cook
(sitting) Vincent Noble (CV: Yasumoto Hiroki) – a student of Cezary at a well-known school

The Nise no Chigiri fandisk, Omoide no Saki e, is coming July 21!

A new R18 game, Persona, is announced from Mirai, the creators of the Hoshi no Joou series and Jingi Naki Otome, It seems to be based on the Phantom of the Opera, but there was just a teaser spread this month.
More info on the new Otomate PSP game, Amnesia. The heroine wakes up with (surprise!) amnesia, and apparently has to figure out which of her (current?past?) boyfriends is the real one, or something.
Kago no Naka no Alicis, the all-ages fantasy PC game from icingCandy, is set for Apr 22.

Info on the Alice movie! It’s coming out on July 30, in 7 cities around Japan. The art is quite nice, dare I say, possibly nicer than the original game! Apparently the story is new, and they’re trying to make it accessible to people who’ve never played the game. Apparently Joker is in it, and that is a hint as to the story, and there’s lots of action.

Seiyuu announcements for Hotokensaa, the sentai otome game:
Kondou Ryuuichi, Hotokensaa　Blue: Akabane Kenji
Sumeragi Rikuto, Hotokensaa Yellow: Takagi Shun
Doujima Mitsuki, Hotokensaa Green: Kimura Ryouhei

New games and updated info!

You may have heard that Quinrose is adapting a game for the PSP, it’s called Iza Shutsujin! Koi Ikusa and the art is quite pretty! It was originally a cell phone game (you know,　I complain about not getting these games, but maybe it’s good, I’d probably get fired for playing on my cellphone at work or something), and it’s set in the Sengoku period! \(^o^)/ Banzai, more Sengoku love! Akechi Mitsuhide, Hattori Hanzo, and Oda Nobunaga are all main characters – Oda Nobunaga has never been more bishounen No release date yet but it’s supposed to be in 2011 sometime. Apparently they’ve doubled the length of the stories, and updated all the art, as well as adding character art for some sub-characters that didn’t appear before. Hopefully Quinrose will do a good job adapting it!

Brothers Conflict – a new game from Otomate based on a comic in the manga mag Sylph, which runs some otome game-based comics like Hakuouki. It seems to be a contemporary game, with at least 10 guys (though they may not all have routes).

Are You Alice? – another one from Otomate with just a pic up, cute art (what is that one guy doing with the makeup under his eyes?)
Edit: I just got the new B’s Log, and I think you’re right, Rita – it says the player plays as Alice, who is a guy, and there doesn’t seem to be any romance in it. It does say ‘otome game’, but I think this one is more of a straight adventure. Looks neat though!

And I was sleeping when they put this up, Death Connection is being released for the PSP on Feb 3 2011. Yay! I missed it on PS2.

Skip Beat! game and other news

Yup, I finally (finally!!!) got something in the mail – the newest Girl’s Style and a two latest Cool-B’s. Cool-B is a gaming mag that is slightly more focused on Boys Love games, and is also more *ahem* adult (like, if you’re underage, please don’t order it, or your parents will inevitably find it and think that you’re being corrupted by videogames ).

Himehibi 2

Anyways, three new games were announced, the first is Skip Beat! based on the comic by Nakamura Yoshiki (anyone remember Tokyo Crazy Paradise? I loved that series), that’s currently running in Hana to Yume. 5pb will be publishing that one in the spring for the Playstation 2. The second new game is Himehibi 2 from Takuyo for the PS2, which I’m quite happy about because I really liked the first one. Plus, one of the characters you can get is the class clown guy from the first one whom I really liked. And the last new game is Kram from Ribbon Magic. It’s kind of a sequel to Crep Sidra, their first all-ages game for the PC, which I haven’t played since I heard that the story wasn’t fully explained. Maybe we’ll find out all the answers in this game? It has a different protagonist though, apparently she was a side character in Crep Sidra. Kram is scheduled for a summer release for the PC.

Skip Beat

Other news:

• Quinrose is already busy making a fan disk for Crimson Empire called Crimson Royale
• Kazeiro Surf is scheduled for “Spring” (I’ll stick it on the calendar for May)
• Arco Baleno and Souten no Kanata look like a few more capturable characters have been added (no confirmation though)
• Little Anchor is scheduled for April! only 2 months to wait!

That’s about it for announcements, I also found some more info on Ore ga Omae o Mamoru and Love Loop, so I’ll make separate posts for those.

PC otome games – Quick Overview

Who doesn’t have a PC or Mac at home? If you’re reading this, you probably do, and that means – you can play otome games!

For the longest time, I thought you needed a Japanese operating system to play Japanese PC games – how sadly misguided I was! How much otome goodness I missed!

Then I discovered that Japanese games will play on normal Windows, though you might have to set your language option for Non-Unicode programs (in your Control Panel) to Japanese.

Now I’m happily playing PC otome games, and the only hitch is how ungodly expensive they are for importing from Japan. Seriously, if anyone wants to set up a competitor to Himeya, which is the only online store I know of to buy these at, feel free! Amazon Japan will not ship electronics (PC or console games) outside Japan, so we’re kind of
limited for options.

Even so, it’s worth the effort, because a lot of otome games don’t make it to consoles. Consoles have a much bigger requirement in terms of licensing and sales numbers to be profitable, so a lot of smaller games are released only on PC. Some, like Princess Nightmare, are so successful there that they go on to be released on consoles. But why wait?

Here’s a selection of all-ages tome games for the PC.

Quinrose:

Heart no Kuni no Alice/Clover no Kuni no Alice: Two games about the adventures of Alice in Wonderland (kind of). Loosely based on the Lewis Carroll classic, it’s full of fantasy, violence (not on-screen), colour, and strong characters. Very popular, and of course, Heart no Kuni no Alice is coming to PS2 in the next few months.

Mahoutsukai to Goshujin-sama: The first in Quinrose’s otome game catalogue, this game is set in a kingdom of magic where the princess main character unfortunately has no magic power at all. To protect herself, she sets about finding herself a servant who does at the world’s foremost magical school, but she only has 25 days to do it. Arabian’s Lost follows on this game; though the plots aren’t really related, it’s in the same world.

Coming Soon

Crimson Empire: The third game from Quinrose set in the world of Mahoushi to Goshijun-sama and Arabian’s Lost, Crimson Empire is set in a country based on swordsmanship and strength. The main character has been trained in combat by none other than Curtis Nile from Arabian’s Lost, and has sworn to protect her prince in the battle for the throne.

Kogado:

Coming Soon: Another princess simulation from the creators of Palais de Reine, Ayashino Miya is a story about a princess (with possibly the prettiest character design I’ve seen recently) rumoured to have special powers who has to decide how (if?) to take control of her kingdom, while dealing with the many people who also are involved in it.

Pretty!!

Karin Entertainment:

You may recognize this company as the creators of Princess Nightmare. They’re making a new gothic otome game called Exorcism of Maria, where the main character has to exorcise 100 demons before her 14th Hallowe’en or she’ll die. She has a partner demon Uriel, and meets several other paranormally-gifted boys in her travels. Each has a deeva or partner that they can summon (similar to Uriel), but not all are demons – some have angels, some have animal spirits. Due out in 2008. Oh, and they’re already planning another game after Maria called Zettai Meikyuu Grimm, using Grimm Fairy Tales as inspiration. The main character Henrietta lives happily with her 3 stepbrothers, the brothers Grimm, but one day the 2 older brothers disappear. 5 years later, when Henrietta turns 15, she and the youngest brother Ludwig find the older brothers’ research journal…in this game, Henrietta gets involved not only with the brother Grimm, but characters from the fairytales such as Little Red Riding Hood (here a boy), Hamelin, Rapunzel, and the Frog King.

The early pictures and character designs are freaking adorable, so even though I’m not a huge fan of young protagonists, I think I want this!

Mio:

Asaki Yumemishi: Coming out next week, this is a paranormal game that features three groups of potential allies – humans, spirits, and oni. The main character is trying to earn money by getting rid of harmful spirits during her summer vacation and meets lots of different characters, some who help her and some who fight her. Very nice art!

Sanctuary:

D.C.

Girl’s Symphony – the first otome game from a company with a lot of experience in the dating sim genre, this was just announced and has a regular high school setting. The 16-year-old main character has just started living with her cousin after her parents move overseas for work, and has a secret – when she gets excited, her feelings are broadcast out loud without her saying anything.

Well, I think that’s enough PC gaming goodness to last a while, don’t you think? At least till I finish some more of Alice (I just finished Blood’s route tonight! Next up..maybe the twins)