Girl’s Style lays the game path out using the first chapter as an example. In all there are 13 chapters, and they’re presented like an anime, with a little song and ‘preview’ of the next chapter at the end.

In the beginning there’s an adventure part, where you enjoy the noncombat life on the LAG base, develop relationships with the Xechs guys, and perhaps even see them play live as Odd I’s. Depending on what you choose, you raise either their ‘love’ gauge or their ‘death’ gauge (focusing on battle). After the adventure part is done Commander mode starts, and the guys ‘resonate’ with their Substance. Their Resonance personalities become more like their Substances the higher the death gauge is (their voices also change!), but apparently depending too much on the death gauge can lead to negative consequences…

Looking closer at the Commander mode, it starts when a red alert comes up during the adventure mode. A Vox (some type of vehicle?) brings all of you from wherever you are on campus to where the alert is.

Once there, you get a briefing on the situation, and choose which Rider to use in battle. The Rider resonates with his Substance, and the mission begins.

After the battle you see what the result is, and depending on your choices, the story will branch off.

The website has lots of videos, mostly just snippets of character dialogue, but they just put up a game intro video that’s pretty good at showing how it works.

I must say though, it looks great on the PSP – very clean and crisp. I also got Dear Girl Stories ~Hibiki~ at the same time, so I’m kind of comparing it to the DS as well. By the way, apparently DGS doesn’t really have any romance in it – d’oh! It’s just a stat-raising game with some almost-romantic-but-not-quite moments in it.

I also got some new magazines, and ooh good stuff in them! Girl’s Style came with an 8-page book about Kazukiyone and Hakuouki, as well as Hakuouki bookmarks and Starry Sky stickers! It’s probably because there’s no CD or DVD-ROM.

I didn’t even realize that Starry Sky got animated, but um yeah, it is! Haha. Girl’s Style also had info on the PSP versions, which will have several additional scenes, backgrounds, and other changes (one is that you can choose to show the heroine’s face, which is good, but sounds creepy that she didn’t have one before )

Storm Lover had some info as well, it will not only have routes leading up to a relationship, but will be about maintaining the romance or breaking up if you fail, and maybe even getting back together later! Interesting.

There’s also an article on the game system and some of the scenes in Xechs, it seems kinda complicated so I think I’ll post on that later.

Oh, and Mahoutsukai to Goshujin-sama has a release date! It’s set for July 31.