Phew. I’ve been playing too much La Corda d’Oro 2ff. I wanted to get both Tsukimori’s true end and Fudou’s ending on one playthrough, but it was harder than I’d thought. First I managed to trigger Tsukimori’s Love Chain 3 but lost Fudou because I didn’t befriend the other guys in time. I reloaded and got all the guys successfully but lost Tsukimori’s LC3 because his affection rose too high (?). Luckily I hadn’t deleted earlier save. Thus I did Fudou’s route together with Tsukimori’s regular love route, then reloaded and got Tsukimori’s true ending. PHEW!

Tsukimori Len true ending

I misrepresented his regular ending a bit last time. It wasn’t quite as cold as I’d remembered it. Yes he did violinist-zone me, but it was said in a very warm and affectionate tone. Like we were almost friends. Yes, almost friends after twenty dates and a love meter of 1000. Talk about working for your happy ending.

So work I did. I got through all his chain events from applying to study abroad to getting accepted and planning to go but feeling torn because he would miss Kahoko. A lot of reading and some nice CGs later, I made it to his true ending under the tree. Finally he said it right out, “I love you.” <3 <3 But then he went on…
“But I love music more.”
… …. …Eh?
“If I had to choose between you and music, I would choose music every time.”
WAIT WAIT WAIT. What? This is the romantic ending?!

To be fair, he does ask if you’re cool with that. The game gives you the choice to say yes or no, with different responses for each answer. Either way you get a truly gorgeous CG and more sweet words about how you two will always be bound together by music and will meet again as long as you play the violin etc etc, plus some random German phrases because he’s going to Vienna Durch Leiden Freude Arbeit und Brot macht frei, the end.

When it was all over, I wasn’t mad at all. In fact I thought it was great. It fits Tsukimori’s established character to a T. He’s the kind of guy who would put music before everything. He’s also blunt and tactless enough to say so at a romantic moment. Heck, that’s his definition of romantic. So it really is his “true” ending in the sense that it’s most representative of Tsukimori and everything he stands for. The lovely CGs don’t hurt either. But I’m definitely taking Kahoko’s “You go do your thing, just don’t expect me to stick around” answer as canon.

Fudou Shouma end

A new character carried over from the Kin’iro no Corda smartphone game. Fudou is a 3rd year in the regular high school department who doesn’t think much of classical music. Instead he started a rock band and wants to start a popular music club before he graduates. It also turns out he was your childhood friend and you guys played together all the time as kids but forgot. Every time I see this kind of twist, I think “FF8 did nothing wrong!”

Getting Fudou’s route requires serious planning and dedication early on because all of the main guys’ must be willing to form an ensemble with you before the end of the 2nd concert. Not only must they be willing but you must actually create ensembles featuring everyone – I made that mistake once and had to reload. That means you have to work overtime to meet all their rivalry requirements or stalk them with presents and music until they like you. It also means it’s easiest to get Fudou on the route where your initial ensemble includes Tsukimori, since he’s the toughest nut to crack.

Once you do all that, Fudou’s route is hard to mess up. As long as you go along with him wherever he goes and don’t forget to watch him perform at the school festival (boooo, no custom CG, boooo) you’re all set. You can also meet him in town after practicing alone for some impromptu dates. In one of the events he even comes to your room, the first guy to do so. The Power of the Japanese Childhood Friend is so sugoi.

After many scenes where Fudou treats you as just a childhood friend and misunderstands his friends’ attempts to set us up, he finally realizes Kahoko is a girl… (how did he get this far without knowing the birds and the bees)… and that he has feelings for her… I guess. The lack of proper dates on this route makes it a bit sudden. They just hang out a few times by chance and boom, true love. Ah, youth.

Fudou is a nice enough guy, probably the friendliest character in the game after Hihara-sempai. I don’t mind his looks either, and his ending CG was nice. But his route was kind of shallow and Koei didn’t do as much with the classical vs. popular music angle as I would have liked. Especially since you have to go to so much trouble to form a rival band. Still there’s only so much you can expect from an add-on character with very little interaction with the main cast so I guess it was good enough.

What next?

Heh, you think I’m done? I still have to get Kaji Aoi’s true ending and Fuyumi’s friendship ending. And since Kaji and Yunoki are a set, maybe I’ll work on Yunoki’s ending at the same time. No tears will be shed if I lose him, though. THEN I’ll be done with La Corda d’Oro 2ff… for a while. After all that I think I’ll finally be ready to move on to La Corda d’Oro 3.

As for Demon Gaze, I killed the last boss a while ago. Now I’m half-heartedly exploring the bonus dungeon. Part of me wants to kill more mobs and collect more treasure, a bigger part of me wants to move on. I’ll see how far I can get by the weekend and do a wrap-up early next week. Good game, though. And that’s all for today!

Related posts:

La Corda d’oro – Yunoki true ending and Hihara date ending GET! La Corda d’Oro 2 – Tsuchiura & Hihara GET! La Corda d’Oro 2 – Hihara true end, Shimizu, Tsukimori and Yunoki GET! La Corda d’Oro 2ff – Tsuchiura true end, Kanazawa, Kira & Etou GET!