Final roundup. Sorry to keep going on and on about Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4, I’m just so irritated by it all, and writing helps me get it out of my system. This is the last post, I promise.

The Good

1. Lovely art. The character designs, monster designs, the backgrounds, the CGs, all gorgeous. Shame about the repeated scenery though.

2. Decent music. I played for 40 hours and never muted it, that’s gotta count for something.

3. Excellent voice-acting. Everyone did an absolutely stellar job. Otome game makers seem to spend a lot of money on “star” VAs for their games, and this time they definitely got their money’s worth. However the game is not fully-voiced or even close to it, so maybe they should have spent the money on cheaper actors so they could afford to voice the whole thing?

4. Easy to replay because of the chapter-skipping and text-forwarding system. If you play your cards right the first time you won’t have to play chapters 1-3 again.

5. The story can change drastically depending on which character you pursue. The events, the people who join you and even the final boss change. It’s like Tactical Guild in that respect. And like Tactical Guild, some of the plot developments are quite nonsensical, as I explained at copious length in a previous post.

6. You can get endings for many of the side characters as well. The catch is that you have to complete a main character’s route first. E.g. if I’d really wanted Ayuki I could have gotten him after Oshihito’s ending. Since some of the main routes are so short on logic, though, maybe the effort put into minor routes should have been poured into those instead.

7. Good replay value because of the above. Getting all the cutscenes and all the CGs will keep you busy for a while. I’d estimate about 40-70 hours if you’re a fast reader with a guide.

8. I actually like the fact that Chihiro feels no compunction about killing enemy soldiers and that she adapts to her new role so quickly. It’s highly unnatural for a high school girl to take so readily to politics and mass murder (and the absence of cellphones and running water), but at least it saved us the usual whining and angsting about stuff she’s going to end up doing anyway.

The Bad

1. They wasted a perfectly good battle system. They had a nice elemental system going on there with skills and summons and combo attacks and other stuff, but there’s no one to use it on. Random battles all play out exactly the same: you belt out your strongest combo and heal up at one of many, many healing spots. Any story battle you’re supposed to win will be piss-easy. Any battle you are NOT supposed to win will ALSO be easy, but it will end after a few turns and the game will pretend you were losing anyway.

2. While the character designs and background art are nice, the 3D characters on the screen are small and awful. They move terribly as well.

3. Even with the fast-forward button at max speed, it still takes a while to go through scenes you’ve already seen. Plus you still have to do all the walking and choosing yourself, so it’s limited. I lost count of the number of times I played chapter 4 and 5, and I fought the Black Dragon at least 6 times. A “Play like I did last time unless something new happens” function would be most welcome.

4. Forget the Black Dragon: the real villain of most routes was Lady Sai, and she got away with it every single time. She plots to let Nagi kill himself, she set up the Black Dragon as the national guardian, she imprisons Chihiro, she tries to get Kazahaya killed (because he’s getting too close to Chihiro, but somehow she’s not bothered by the Futsu-Chihi romance in another route)  etc etc. Sure, things work out regardless, but the hateful old bat always gets off scot-free. No fair!

5. Lots and lots of loading, even with data install. Probably the worst I’ve seen on the PSP so far. Or maybe I was just spoiled by Phantasy Star Portable.

6. Yet another final boss that thinks humans must be destroyed because they’re cruel and destructive. It’s one thing if the boss is a human who has presumably  had a hard life, but this is a dragon god. What business is it of yours if we want to kill each other? Butt out!

7. The “protagonist in another world” and “stranger becomes rebel leader” stories” have been told before, and in much better ways. In the time it takes to play this game, you can watch Now and Then, Here and There, Twelve Kingdoms and Utawarerumono back to back and get an even better experience. The fact that the major antagonists of the game, the Tokoyos, can vanish without a trace on at least two routes without the matter even being commented on shows how little importance the writers placed on sense and consistency anyway.

8. Chihiro is hard to relate to. She’s inconsistent. Sometimes she wants to protect her country, other times she just wants to save her friends. First we’re told she has amnesia, then she’s all up in “Princess” mode of a country she can’t even remember. Sometimes she’s shaking in her boots before the enemy, at other times she’s standing up to a dragon. Then right back to the quaking. I can’t get under the skin of someone whose personality I can’t pin down.

9. The routes vary wildly in terms of romantic-ness. Tooya starts calling you his wife from the prologue and Kazahaya is constantly finding excuses to touch you (brr). At the other end of the spectrum, there’s Nagi-Chihiro’s “bickering siblings” and Oshihito-Chihiro’s “barely even friends” relationships. In the latter cases it’s really not clear how the romance came about or what she sees in them and vice-versa. They’re all friends, trying to get along, then there’s a huge jump and suddenly they’re in madly love. It’s not convincing at all.

The Ugly

1. The game works on a “flag” system, which I detest. I prefer an affection system, which basically means you just have to get a guy to like you and presto, you’ve got it made. Here you have to get all of a character’s events, at the right time, in the right order or you’ll miss their ending. In fact, if you get too many events for another guy, you’ll miss their route anyway. While there’s a star system that shows how they feel about Chihiro, it makes no difference to the outcome.

2. Problem #1 wouldn’t be so bad if not for the fact that it’s impossible to get anyone without a guide. There’s almost no way to trigger all of a certain character’s events without knowing them in advance. The only way you could do it is if a) You got very, very lucky or b) If you checked every single location on the map every single time something new happened. That can mean visiting up to 15 different spots every time you move the story forward the least little bit. That’s crazy. I tried it, and believe me, it sucked.

3. Nonsensical developments on some routes. I already went into detail about all the things wrong with Nagi’s and Futsuhiko’s routes in the last post. Major bad guys vanishing without a trace, major sources of angst being completely ignored, what happens next never being explained, etc.

4. Some questions still remain at the end. By rights they should have been answered at least in the default route, since that’s what most players are likely to get first. These are questions I had based on the routes I did (Chihiro solo, Tooya, Nagi, Futsuhiko, Oshihito), so if the answers are revealed in another route and you know them, do share.

• What’s with the white kirin at the beginning of the game? Chihiro says he’s the first god she ever spoke to, but what’s that got to do with anything? [never mind, a spoiler site just told me the kirin is Kazahaya. Bleeegghhhh]
• The white dragon. Does he even exist? None of the routes so far have told me why Chihiro can’t hear his voice.
• What’s up with the Raja and the black dragon? How did they get in touch, how did he get possessed, what was he trying to achieve, why is Chihiro such a threat to him?
• How did Kazahaya and Nagi get together before going to the modern world? i.e. why did those two end up with Chihiro and not anyone else? If they didn’t know each other before, then how did the 10-year old Nagi just happen to end up at/near the palace in time for the invasion and why did Kazahaya take him along to the other world?
• What war did Nagi’s master die in and why is he doomed to wander the road to the land of dead forever?
• What bugged me most: How are the romances going to play out after the story ends? We are told the princess is not allowed to fall in love without the dragon’s permission. So apart from Chihiro’s endings with Nagi and Ashvin, who are also royalty and can presumably work something out politically… there’s no future for any of her other relationships.  They’re going to date until it’s time for her to marry, and then they’re going to have to break up.
• “The power of true love will win out!” No it won’t. Nagi and Futsuhiko’s routes both showed that Chihiro is a helpless puppet and figurehead, controlled by Lady Sai and the rest of her officials. If she doesn’t do what they want, they’re fully capable of confining her indefinitely or finding a replacement. When you look at it that way, the romantic endings where Chihiro becomes queen are actually BAD endings. ((o_o))

5. It seems most questions relating to the actual world worldview (miko, dragons, world destruction) are only answered on Kazahaya’s route, and possibly also on Hiiragi’s. In other words, the other guys are just tasty side dishes. Maybe that’s just how the Harutoki series works, but it pains me to realize almost all the guys could be removed from the story and everything would go on as normal with only minor changes. Tooya, Sazaki and Nagi, definitely. Oshihito and Futsuhiko are slightly more important but not irreplaceable. That leaves Kazahaya, Hiiragi and Ashvin as the only revelant ones. And the ones I can’t stand the most. And you wonder why I didn’t like this game…

And so on, and so forth. Good, now I’ve finally got everything out of my system. The diverging stories were interesting enough to keep me playing for 40 hours, but I can’t say I enjoyed myself or that it was a good game. The flaws, especially the nonsensical story developments and repetitive battles, made it hard to enjoy most of the time.

However with a better thought-out story and a more relevant battle system, the series could be worth playing. If I’m lucky, the previous games were better and HTND4 just messed things up. Either that or Koei learned from their mistakes and made HTND5 even better. So I won’t toss the whole series out just yet because of one bad installment, I’ll try another one when I get the chance.

Phew!

Following the previous post, it’s time to cover the guys I did get in Harukanaru Toki no naka de 4, also in order of increasing desirability. Major route spoilers ahead, stop now if you plan to play this game.

Nagi – Chihiro’s childhood friend with the terribly-explained story. I should at least credit him for getting me interested in the game. I did his route after Tooya’s, so I had some idea of how the game was “supposed” to go. Then came the unexpected turn of events in chapter 5 which made me sit up and take a real interest in what would happen next. And what happened next was so stupid and horribly-written I came very close to quitting.

His story: Nagi was born into the royal family (meaning he’s related to Chihiro, but it’s never explained how) but was abandoned as a baby because of his magic powers. He was picked up by an old warrior who taught him everything he knew and then died. Somewhere, somehow, Nagi met up with Kazahaya and Chihiro and fled to the modern world with them. This “somewhere, somehow” should be a very important part of the story but again, no explanation.

In chapter 5, Nagi and Chihiro get themselves killed fighting the Black Dragon, but Nagi’s dragonballs magatama help them return to life. Since that magatama is a two-of-a-kind royal treasure, this clues the scheming advisor Lady Sai to the fact that he’s royalty. There’s a problem with this turn of events, however. First off, if that’s the case then Iwanagahime should have recognized it as well, way back in chapter 1. More importantly, Lady Sai should also recognize it whenever she runs into Nagi on any other route, since 1. he wears it out in plain sight and 2. the abandoned baby was also named “Nagi”. Even allowing for the fact that she’s old and possibly has bad eyesight, her officials also know about the magatama, but nobody ever mentions anything except on Nagi’s route. That makes no sense.

Back to the story, Lady Sai talks Nagi into kicking Chihiro out of the line of succession and declaring himself king. She’s hoping he and the dragon will kill themselves so Chihiro can take over later. So far, so good. Nagi doesn’t have a problem with that plan, because he, too, wants to lead the army against the Black Dragon and sacrifice himself to kill it so Chihiro can be queen of a free, safe country.

The part that gave me a headache was… Why is everyone following this upstart from nowhere? All the soldiers that pledged allegiance to her, the people she saved, those who had been in her service since chapter 1, they all kick Chihiro out on the spot and follow Nagi. The official reason is that she sucks at fighting and isn’t suited to be a leader but:

1. The whole point of the queen in Toyooshihara is not to be a war general but to be the dragon’s priestess. The entire story hinges on that fact. How can you possibly toss her out and pick a king who can’t hear the dragon’s voice?
2. Everyone knew Chihiro sucked from the start when they chose her to lead. Why is this suddenly an issue now?
3. If the problem is the battle that was lost at Izumo, Nagi was there too and he was just as useless, so demoting Chihiro because of that makes absolutely no sense.

Back to the story again. Chihiro refuses to give up. She and the gang find Nagi facing off against the Black Dragon and the Tokoyo army on the beach. This, of course, makes no sense either: in the previous battle at Izumo, the Dragon killed tons of Tokoyo soldiers including, apparently, their king. Assvin, Saty and Shani have all withdrawn and returned to Tokoyo. Which means the Tokoyos have no reason to follow the dragon into battle, which also means Nagi had no reason to get himself proclaimed king just so he could lead the entire Toyooshihara army against them, which also means… AAARGGGH, THIS WHOLE ROUTE MAKES NO SENSE!!!!

*huff huff* Okay, forget the analysis. To cut a long story short, everyone works together to defeat the dragon, Nagi realizes how important Chihiro is to him. He confesses to her on the beach and they hug. The end. …Wait, the end here? What’s going to happen next? Will Nagi abdicate? Will he remain king with Chihiro as his queen? Will she become queen and marry him? What? What? Don’t leave me hanging like this! AAAAARRRRGGHHHH! Worst. Route. Ever.

Futsuhiko – Numbskull! Cretin! Traitor! I liked him until I did his route, now I want him to die in a fire. I liked his looks, I liked his naive but passionate nature, I liked that he was a loyal, hard worker. What I failed to notice is that he is also an idiotic MORON. His route sees him angsting over a major issue which is coolly tossed aside at the end and never referred to again.

His story: The game started with Chihiro’s sister eloping with her lover, which brought ruin to the country of Toyooshihara. Turns out that “lover” was Futsuhiko’s older brother, which brought shame and disgrace on his family and got them banished from the capital. Quite naturally he is very disturbed when he finds himself falling in love with the princess and on the verge of committing the same crime his brother did.

The story in this route is that Lady Sai (yes, that same Lady Sai) spread a rumor that Chihiro had summoned Toyooshihara’s dragon god. Chihiro had done no such thing, of course, but she had been in contact with the Black Dragon and knew he was trying to destroy humanity. When the Black Dragon appears, the people rejoice thinking he’s their savior. Chihiro says nuh-huh and shoots him with a holy arrow, and Lady Sai goes berserk and has her locked away until she agrees to pull out the arrow. Lady Sai sure picked up the idiot ball on this one. She wants the dragon freed because the people will panic without a dragon but… uhh, won’t they panic even more when he starts burning and frying, you know, everyone?!?

[Btw, I wonder why no one noticed that this dragon is black while their guardian is supposed to be the white dragon…]

Well, Lady Sai is a jerk, and probably senile to boot, so we can excuse her, but… Why is Futsuhiko helping her?!?! Why is he trying to convince Chihiro to free the dragon? Why does he value his family name and his status over his loyalty to the princess? I thought you loved me, you gutless traitor! 布都彦の馬鹿！もう知らない！

In the end he has a sudden, random change of heart and helps Chihiro flee the capital and meet up with the rest of the gang. They charge back into the capital to find that Lady Sai has also had a sudden, random change of heart and is now fighting the Black Dragon. Only she knew he was dangerous from the start, so why is she only now turning on him? This makes no sense at all! (you might be seeing a pattern here, but it’s just your imagination)

So we fight the dragon and kill it. Somewhere in his pre-fight spiel the dragon casually tosses out the fact that he killed Chihiro’s sister and Futsuhiko’s brother, but no one takes him seriously because, duh, that’s totally not important. One dead dragon later, Chihiro is now queen.

Well now! Things have come full circle! What happens to the forbidden love between Futsuhiko and Chihiro? You know, the forbidden love that supposedly destroyed the country the first time around? The forbidden love that has tormented him since he met her in chapter 3? The forbidden love that everyone has been throwing in his face throughout his route? Well, whaddaya know, guess it wasn’t so forbidden after all, because they’re dating now. With everyone’s full knowledge and approval. In other words, it was a taboo when their siblings did it, but now it’s perfectly fine for the Queen and a servant boy to carry on a very public affair. But that makes no……. my head hurts.

Oshihito – Hmmmmmmmmm………. There’s something wrong with his face. His looks change slightly from angle to angle and from CG to CG, so I’m still not entirely sure what he really looks like. Personality-wise I don’t think he and Chihiro are a good match. Oshihito is so strict with himself and everyone else, she’d probably never be able to really relax and be herself around him. No fun being with someone when you always have to mind your P’s and Q’s.

Well, that’s my theory of what their relationship would be like, anyway. I have no way of proving it because Oshihito’s route is not romantic. At all. At best you have the very beginning of a romance that gets cut off before it goes anywhere.

His story: We find out that Oshihito is so strong because his twin swords are cursed and are eating away at his life. Although Chihiro gets him to promise not to use them, he does anyway and dies at the end after saving her life. At that point nothing particularly romantic has happened between them. Oshihito has gained a little respect for her as a leader (dunno why) and she’s getting along with him a little better. They make a promise to go see cherry blossoms together, but that’s all the progress they’ve made when he croaks. The end.

Well, not quite, there’s a second ending you can get using the cleared save data from this ending. This time they finally get to see the cherry blossoms, and they faintly remember promising to see them together – even though that happened on a separate timeline a la Radiant Historia. Now if people can vaguely remember things from other routes, then how come nobody takes a second look at the magatama Nagi is wearing…. No, stop. I’m just depressing myself now.

Oshihito and Chihiro have a nice time looking at the cherry blossoms (it really is a nice CG) then suddenly he starts spouting all these lovey-dovey lines about how he wants to be with her forever even though they never had anything close to that kind of relationship before. Or maybe he was thinking them to himself, even though he’s never thought such things before. It’s very bizarre. That’s one route that needed a lot more development. It could have been good, but it wasn’t.

Tooya – My baby~! The route I was most happy with, simply because I like Tooya. I just do. Even here, though, I had some problems.

His story: To summarize, Tooya and Chihiro turn out to be the reincarnations of the first-ever miko and her lover. They couldn’t be together because the miko died after sealing the Black Dragon away using the White Dragon’s power. Now they’ve been reborn, they’ve met again, and this time they manage to seal the dragon without killing Chihiro – by using the power of nature. She becomes queen and I’d like to think they live happily ever after. You know, apart from the fact that as queen she probably won’t be allowed to marry someone like him.

Anyway, it’s a very sweet and affectionate route. I wasn’t sure what to make of Tooya when he showed up and started calling Chihiro his “wife,” but he soon grew on me. I think it was sad that he became human on his route though. Now he can’t see or hear the spirits any more, his magic isn’t as effective, he doesn’t seem to have any friends, and Chihiro is so busy governing that she probably doesn’t have much time for him. But he’s content with his fate, and that’s good enough for me.

There’s just one tiny little problem though: I hate reincarnation romances! They’re so cheap! They’re like a cheat button for lazy writers who don’t know the first thing about developing a romance. I mean, things were going very well between Chihiro and Tooya before the massive, abrupt leap from “fairly close” to “our ancestors were lovers so we must be lovers too!” rather ruined things for me. However since I believe they would have developed a relationship anyway even if the writers hadn’t rushed them, I’m willing to put it behind me.

Chihiro – I did her solo route as well. It’s the most likely one you’ll get without using a guide to fulfill all the bizarre obscure event requirements for the guys. Luckily it’s also the route that makes the most sense. Chihiro ends up as queen and everyone goes their separate ways. It’s also probably the happiest ending since, as I’ve noted, there’s no guarantee she’d be allowed to marry whoever she fell in love with anyway.

The post-game “Grand Finale” chapter allows her to run around the capital after she becomes queen and talk to most of the characters. Kazahaya is just hanging around being irritating as usual. Sazaki got a boat and became a merchant. Assvin is king of Tokoyo. Hiiragi vanished into the blue. Saty probably isn’t dead. Chihiro also gets a special event for those whose routes she has completed:

Nagi uses his magic to create an illusion of the modern world for her. Dunno why he bothered, it’s not like she’s ever said she misses the place. Tooya takes her for a walk or something and tells her he loves her. Aww~ You sweetheart. Oshihito has that cherry blossom scene I mentioned earlier. Futsuhiko… That guy has mental issues. Throughout the game he’s been all stiff and formal around her. Now he takes her to a festival in his hometown where anyone can say anything they want without punishment and starts hitting on her like a 10-cent gigolo. It’s so out of character for him I have to think he’s crazy. WTH is wrong with you, Futsuhiko? You just couldn’t resist ruining the game for me one last time, huh?

You know what, I’m gonna go now. I still have enough steam in me to do a final roundup of Harukanaru Toki no naka de 4, but just… not today.