Disappointment, thy name is Kinema Mosaic. But in retrospect I shouldn’t be surprised. The original Hanayaka Nari Waga Ichizoku was all kinds of fun not because it has the best graphics or the greatest story but because it had a great cast and very strong comedic writing. That kind of feat is hard to repeat, as many a failed comedy sequel can attest to. And when the developer repeating the feat is Idea Factory then, then well, the phrase “asking for too much” comes to mind. I’m not even sure what I was expecting from Kinema Mosaic any more. Anything but this, I guess.
But first a few positives. To IF/Otomate’s credit they did fix a few things system-wise. First they added a map of the mansion and of Ginza so you can easily check for quests without opening all the doors and enduring those tedious loading times. There’s also a bulletin board in town that tells you which quests are available and where to find the asker. Very useful addition, saves a lot of time and almost makes the quests enjoyable.
On top of that, they also added other stuff that doesn’t make a lot of difference either way. I can take or leave the weather effects, for example. If anything rainy days are annoying because quest-givers who would have shown up outdoors don’t appear. Another addition: all the briefcases in the game are locked now, almost as if they suspect a certain maid of having sticky fingers. There’s also new laundry mini-game that raises the new exercise stat that seems to do exactly nothing.
The most important gameplay change is that now if you skip out on helping out before mansion events you will be fired at the next staff evaluation. In the first game your only punishment was missing out on an event and some CGs, but now you get an outright Game Over for not doing the job you were hired to do. Whaa–?! That… that’s unheard of!
That was my downfall, actually. That one little change was about 50% responsible for my losing interest in Kinema Mosaic. I got game over’d like 5 times in Tadashi’s route, and in the worst case I had to go back two months in game time and redo the whole thing, Beyond tedious, even with fast-forward. I managed to pass all the staff evaluations, but in the end I got Tadashi’s bad end (or rather good end because I hated him by then) because I was too busy doing my job to suck up to him. Worthless man. And worthless gameplay change.
I’m gonna take out my stress on these bedsheets. You don’t wanna know how.
Uh, story. Tch. See, now I’m all cranky. Anyway, last time the story was about this rich old man with 6 sons. He pit them against each other to see who would inherit his fortune. Depending on which route Haru took in that game, one of them could become the new head, but Hanayaka Nari Waga Ichizoku Kinema Mosaic takes the ‘nobody won’ route so all 6 sons are still single, still living in the mansion and Genichiro is still the head.
To shake things up, Genichiro brings in a 7th son nobody knew about, then he gives the original 6 the then-astronomical sum of 1,000 yen each to entertain him with. If they don’t manage to do it in the next year then the 7th son inherits the full fortune. Then there’s some other stuff going on in the background about the Miyanomoris buying a railroad company in a partnership with a corrupt Prime Minister, etc etc. Really boring stuff. On Tadashi’s route all 7 brothers combine their monies and wits to foil both Genichiro and the evil PM and Tadashi becomes the head of a new bank. Blah. Blahhhhhhhh.
Blah.
As for his relationship with Haru, it’s even deader in the water than it was last time. Tadashi is determined not to see her as anything more than a maid and equally determined to prevent her from getting any funny ideas. So all their scenes together are depressing because he always feels the need to put her in her place at the end. You’re just a servant, you’re just a servant, you’re just a servant. Even when Haru confesses her love for him he’s like “Thanks, that’s nice, but you’re still just a servant to me.”Rrgggh!
“Cry all you want Haru, I still won’t marry you.”
Of course he’s lying, but it’s clear that he’s not prepared to do anything about these feelings he has for her. Which is the natural right of every human being/game character aping a human being. Not every urge must be acted upon, certainly. If you don’t want to marry a maid, you don’t have to marry a maid. But then what are you doing in my otome game?! Do you really think I’m going to be happy with a Tadashi ending after he has rejected me about 10 times throughout the game? Even an otome gamer has more pride than that.
“Ooh, you almost got me with that one. Try again?”
So as I said above, it’s just as well I failed to get Tadashi’s good end. I didn’t want to marry you anyway, nyaaah! After that fiasco I’ve kind of lost the will to do the other routes, but I still have a tiny glimmer of hope that Isami and Masashi won’t disappoint me as much. Also I have a bunch of other complaints about the rest of the story, so I’ll deal with all those after I’ve played Kinema Mosaic at least one more time. See you then.
