This is shaping up to be another one of “those” games. Those games I spend hours playing and then can’t write anything about because they didn’t make an impression on me at all. After 7h 40m, very few things have happened and even fewer of them have been important. I’m probably asking for too much, looking for tension and excitement in an otome game. I kind of had hopes for this one too, but oh well.
Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4 is about a girl named Chihiro who finds out one day that’s she’s the princess of a country in another world. She warps back with her guardians, finds out the place has been conquered by another state and starts a journey to take it back. In typical Neoromance fashion, nearly everyone in the series is a bishie. Even the bad guys are easy on the eyes. The game seems to share an artist with the Angelique series, so it’s got some gorgeous background and character art.
The game itself is billed as an otome game with RPG elements. You have a lot of party members (all bishies), skills, random turn-based battles, boss battles, an overworld, elements, etc. Fighting raises your characters’ affection values for you, and making certain choices in battle, e.g. killing off your enemy early and helping a guy with his, raise them even more. For an otome game it’s very well thought-out and the battles are a joy… when they let you fight. Which is almost never.
95% of the game is a standard visual novel, they just throw an easy fight or two my way every 30 minutes or so to keep me from falling asleep while they prattle on and on and on. I wasn’t surprised to hear they made an anime out of the first game in the series. If it’s anything like this one, it’s very anime-like, especially when it comes to character interactions and the story development.
Aww, look at his widdle ears~
It’s even anime-like in how chicken**** the bad guys are. RPG baddies usually don’t hold back on the terror and tyranny. Burning down villages, stabbing corporate employees at their workplaces, killing people’s girlfriends, that’s how they usually roll. Here, because there’s a gettable guy on the bad side they had to neuter all the evil. The worst the baddies have done so far is bully a few old people and throw a few dissenters in jail. What kind of weaksauce tyranny is that? It makes my job as liberator all the harder, because everyone’s actually pretty well off. The fields are green, the weather is sunny, the villagers are fat and well-fed… I should just pack up and go back to Japan.
Enough whining though, I knew what I was getting into when I picked this up. The more important thing is… which guy will I pick? I’ve got about 8 love interests so far, and I don’t like any of them. There’s a furry shota named Ayuki. I like him the most, but the game won’t let me have him. Second and third best: Tooya and Futsuhiko. Tooya was actually leading the pack until he took off his mask. He should have kept it on a little longer to build up the suspense.
Futsuhiko I don’t have a picture of right now, but his Kofun hairstyle makes him look like he has cat ears, and that’s cute. You know, maybe I just want to play a game about catboys, that’s what the problem is. I wonder if there’s one out there. Something tells me I’ll regret asking that question.
On, on we go. I really wish they’d let me fight though. I could grind on the random battles, but it’s just not the same if they don’t throw any challenging story battles my way. *sigh* Well, that’s what I have Phantasy Star Portable for. I’ll be alternating between the two until I’m done with either/both. When I need more story, I’ll come back to this one. Win/win. I hope.
There’s a Yaoi VN called Lamento in which cat-like boys appear, I think. That’s what VNDatabase says XDD.
Did you play that Otome called Hakuoki? Is it as good as they say?
Nah, the art is nice but I’m not interested. I’m not that into visual novels, I’m not that into Japanese history and I’ve got more games on my To Play list than I could possibly finish this year.
On the other hand I do recommend you buy it if you like visual novels at all. If it does well the localizing company (Aksys?) might bring more over. Of course I am not buying it for precisely that reason.