Otome Game Review – Hakuouki Yuugiroku

Alternative Titles: 薄桜鬼 遊戯録

Release Date: 13.05.10

Maker: Otomate

Platform: PSP, DS

Genre: AVG, Fandisk, Mini-games

Artist(s): カズキヨネ – Kazuki Yone, 佐倉たくと – Sakura Takuto (SD Chara artist)

Official Site: http://www.otomate.jp/
hakuoki_yugiroku/

Plot: Chizuru (Main Character, Name change possible) notices that the members of Shinsengumi are secretly having a meeting and so Hijikata tells her to report to him if she finds out anything. She overhears Itou talking about how he lost something precious and that he has to find it before it falls in the other members hands. When Chizuru opens the box that Itou lost…

———————————————————————————————————

Hijikata Toushizou

Chizuru goes over to Hijikata’s room in order to get him to take a break from working. What she sees is Hijikata smiling at a piece of paper…Creepy. Anyway, he panics when he realizes that she saw him and tells her that they’re to do with work so she should forget about seeing them.

On her way back to her room, she finds Itou’s box and instead of what a normal person would do, she takes it with her and opens it. … And wakes up in a messed up world where everything (including herself) is chibified.

She meets up with Hijikata who is just as confused as she is and together they decide to go and find the rest of the Shinsengumi or at least Kondou. They see this metal door and when they open it they arrive in Hijikata’s room which is somehow in a mess. Sorry, the room was just too cute. Seriously Okita is adorable. （*´▽｀*）

Says 'Nya~!' on the wall

Uh, after tiding up Hijikata notices that Okita stole his haiku (poetry – Hijikata writes haiku as a hobby but is shit at it and therefore gets teased by Okita) so he drags Chizuru into searching for him.

Amazingly there is another metal door in the middle of nowhere and once they go through, they hear Okita’s voice who is mockingly reading out Hijikata’s haiku. Obviously Hijikata gets pissed and tells him to come out. … Too bad Okita was below him.

Okita sets a game to Hijikata that if he wants to get his haiku back Chizuru has to be the one who finds it. Mini game. Hijikata finds it suspicious that Okita gave the haiku back so easily but turns out Okita memorised each and every one. … So now Chizuru is confused as she thought they were supposed to be top secret Shinsengumi papers as Hijikata said they were precious. He explains that they are haiku written by some guy called Hougyaku (obviously a pen name). She’s curious about why Hijikata likes it so much which leads him to insult his own work piece in order to prevent her from seeing them… And he gets depressed.

They go through another door and find Sannan who is pissed at the fact that Sano, Shinpachi + Heisuke left to go drink sake leaving Sannan to look after the place. Chibi Sannan is just scary. Turns out Kondou isn’t back yet from a meeting so a worried Hijikata goes off to pick him up along with Chizuru. They fight some Rounin (basically bad guys) and manage to get to Kondou safely and go home together where they drink tea. … Yup, that’s it.

So um. … Hard to explain this part but everything turned out to be a dream. Nobody got chibified. Chizuru simply fell asleep.

Well, Chizuru goes out with Hijikata into town for Shinsengumi reasons and on the way home, Hijikata takes Chizuru to see some sakura. There he recites a haiku and Chizuru asks if it’s a haiku written (do you write haiku? create?) by Hougyaku. This causes Hijikata to panic and demands to know where Chizuru heard the name from asking if it was Okita. Well, she can’t really say she dreamt it so she remains quiet. At least Hijikata is happy when she says that she likes the haiku and he starts describing the life of Hougyaku.

Mini games:

1) Help Hijikata finish all his work and clean up the mess that Okita created.

2) Find out in which of the boxes Okita hid Hijikata’s crap poetry

3) Help Hijikata defeat bad guys by throwing stuff at them and getting in the way

———————————————————————————————————

Okita Souji

So basically same kinda of things happens. This time she goes over to ask Kondou about what the Shinsengumi guys are planning and finds him in Okita’s room where he is lecturing Okita on eating healthy food. Turns out Kondou mixed everything that seems to be healthy and somehow it ended up as a black mixture… Okita asks Kondou to leave the room as ‘Chizuru is here to talk to him’ so she has no other choice but to ask Okita about what the guys are doing. When she attempts to speak, he tells her to wait until he’s finished eating but she can’t stop herself from asking what the hell he is eating. … Better eat it yourself to find out so Okita gives her a bit. Not surprising that it tastes disgusting but Okita actually finishes eating and he tells her that he’s tired so won’t answer any questions leaving Chizuru nowhere.

*Chizuru opens box and wakes up chibified*

This time Chizuru falls into a manhole when she’s walking around HQ but luckily (?) for her, she gets found by Okita who jokes that it’s a shame it wasn’t Hijikata that got caught. She asks him to help her out but he offers a hand a bit too high for her to reach and teases her. Turns out he was the one who’s been setting traps around the place – open a door frogs coming dropping from the ceiling, makibishi along the corridor, make one wrong step you get hung upside down.

After walking around without meeting people, Chizuru gets worried that they are the only ones in this weird world but Okita assures her that they’re not as he receives a message from Yamazaki telling them to meet up. Chizuru asks him why he hid this so he says that if they follow the instructions, he’s most likely going to meet up with Hijikata and he doesn’t want to see his face. Yamazaki comes to meet them personally but gets pissed at Okita’s attitude so he decides to drag him along by force. … Sadly he loses.

Okita is desperate to find his beloved Kondou-san so is extremely happy when they find a door leading to Kondou. There, Kondou tells them of how Hijikata’s been getting injured from falling into traps and says that for the best of the Shinsengumi, he has to lock Okita (and Chizuru) up. … But he leaves them keys as well.

They find another door and while Okita is excited that he gets to meet Hijikata (who is in his eyes is the ‘Last Boss’) they end up in a room with a Chizuru doppelganger. Chizuru and Chizuru-? Both say that they are the real one and Okita agrees that in terms of face, they are very similar but he still successfully manages to slice the fake one who turns out to be Kaoru (Chizuru’s twin yandere brother – also the bad guy in Okita’s route). Kaoru asks Okita how he managed to see him through. … Um. I pity Chizuru for this. Face – tick, Clothing – tick. Only mistake was that Kaoru actually added things for boobs. The real Chizuru doesn’t have anything there so there was no need for Kaoru to emphasize the breasts. … Ouch. But poor Chizuru can’t disagree. (Isn’t that worse?). He says that he wants to take Chizuru away from him (the selection the game gives you here: A. Yes B. Yes C. Yes) and when she disagrees, he starts his sob story of how male demons are worthless and he faced hell because he wasn’t Chizuru. I started pitying Kaoru here. He’s an unrequited Siscon. I love sibling complexes. Kaoru says that THIS time, Chizuru will do as he tells her and forces her to drink some Demon-Special-Potion thing which makes her do and say the opposite of what she means. Kaoru asks her what she thinks of Okita to which she goes 「沖田さんなんて大嫌い!!」(I hate Okita-San!!). That part was cute and Okita teasing her about it.

Um, they get back to reality, Chizuru stalks Okita into town (as she wants to know what the guys are doing) but is easily found out by him (she even goes as far as mimicking a cat. … cute (＾▽＾) ) He then takes her to a sweets shop where he talks about how he wants to continue being useful to Kondou but is troubled because of his illness. He says he misses Edo (now they are in Kyoto) and wants to eat Edo-style sweets so tells Chizuru to make some for him. And that it better be good or he will kill her. Was that part needed?

Mini games:

1) Dodge Yamazaki who is trying to catch Okita for Hijikata’s sake

2) Get out of Kondou’s cage by choosing the right keys

3) Do the opposite that Kaoru tells you to and get to Okita’s side

———————————————————————————————————

Saitou Hajime

In my opinion, this route is more like Saitou x Ishida Sanyaku rather than Saitou x Chizuru. And Ishida Sanyaku isn’t even a living being but medicine. Shows how much Saitou loves Hijikata I guess. … I’m not making sense am I? You won’t get this route unless you know what Ishida Sanyaku is. It’s basically a medicine that Hijikata gave Saitou saying that it will heal anything. Obviously it’s fake but Saitou believes everything that Hijikata says so for some reason it works with him.

Chizuru decides to go ask Saitou about what the Shinsengumi guys planning something and finds him polishing his sword. When she asks him whether he knows anything, he says ‘of course not…’ but starts polishing his hand instead. Talk about a bad liar. =.= When Chizuru points this out, he gets embarrassed and repeats that he has no idea of what everyone is planning.

CHIBIFIED

She finds Saitou (who is trying to run away from reality). She says that something weird has happened in the world but he says that everything’s normal.

‘There’s still the tree in the garden which is blooming’

‘Saitou-san, all the flowers fell off in a few seconds.’

‘…The wind was strong.’

Or.

‘See, I can still hear the insects. Everything’s normal’

‘Saitou-san, why is that they sound like a plane lifting off (sorry, I don’t know how to translate it. Not what she said)

‘The world is wide. You never know. There may be insects like that’

… Yup, running away from reality. They receive a letter which says ‘Bring Chizuru to me, you futile dog, lower being than an insect, Go through two metal doors and you will find me. Signed Hijikata’. Oh, and in there’s a crossed out ‘Kazama’ next to Hijikata’s name but Saitou says that Hijikata must have been tired from work so he had miswritten it. Obvious that it isn’t Hijikata. Saitou doesn’t see it as it’s from his beloved Hijikata so he hurriedly pulls along Chizuru to go to Hijikata. Sigh. Shinsengumi = Okita loves Kondou, Yamazaki + Saitou loving Hijikata. Popular guys have it tough.

They find Heisuke who needs help with chores (Sano and Shinpachi left him to do everything) and he asks them to help pick chestnuts from the ‘peach-chestnut-apple-orange tree’ which causes Saitou to faint in confusion when he was trying to calculate the possibility of such a tree existing. … In comes Ishida Sanyaku. Get some sake; add Ishida Sanyaku and make Saitou drink. Then say ‘Saitou! I gave you Ishida Sanyaku!!’ and straight away he wakes up. He gets hit by one of the chestnuts from the tree and once more he faints. … Repeat. Chizuru can’t help but point out that he is still bleeding but no problem, Ishida Sanyaku heals everything. The only reason why he even helped Heisuke was because Heisuke promised to buy some packs of the medicine if he helps. … And Saitou looks like a lost puppy when Heisuke ran away. That’s what the text says.

They pass through a door and meet Sano in town and he helps him with defeating rounin. Mini Game 2. He teases them of eloping and Saitou mutters ‘it might actually be a good idea’. Aww.

They arrive at the place where the letter mentioned and only after the entire spotlight, props, does Saitou realise that he got tricked. Kazama tells Saitou to leave Chizuru and get going and starts throwing insults at him to which Saitou actually looks hurt. But all’s fine with Ishida Sanyaku when Chizuru goes ‘Don’t worry Saitou, you’re awesome’ or something like that. In the end the one who broke the fight was Senhime demanding Kazama to pay for all the spotlight equipment fees and room booking fees. … which caused Kazama to run away.

Once back at Shinsengumi HQ, Saitou meets Hijikata at last and helps him chase Okita around. … With Okita teasing him about holding hands with Chizuru.

Back to reality, Chizuru follows Saitou on patrol and there he tells her not to worry about what the Shinsengumi guys are planning (if you remember that’s the plot of this game). He pulls out petals from her hair and gets embarrassed for what he did. Sigh. Dere much

.

Mini games:

1) Collect Chestnuts

2) Find out who is the bad guy (something like where’s Wally)

3) Endure Kazama’s insults

———————————————————————————————————

Toudou Heisuke

Chizuru decides to go with Heisuke on patrol and he tells her that he won’t say what they are planning. … She still goes anyway. While on patrol, Heisuke gets assaulted （￣ー￣）by a dog. Chizuru manages to pet him until he is calm and they are both thanked by the owner, a member of a circus and they get invited to come and watch.

CHIBIFIED

Instead of panicking like in the other routes, Heisuke is forced to do chores by Gen-san as it seems like Sano and Shinpachi skived after making a mess of the kitchen. Well, Chizuru helps him and after doing the washing, she cooks. Heisuke praises her by saying that she will become a good wife and they both get embarrassed at this that for some reason they end up eating everything that they made themselves without noticing.

Knowing that they’ll get in trouble at this, Heisuke gets pissed at Sano + Shinpachi that he decides to go and get revenge using the fact that they are chibified to his advantage. They find a door but when they go through its already night but they can find another door in front of them. Problem is that they have to get past Sannan who is currently going on a bloodthirsty crave (and Heisuke broke one of his cups so he is in trouble). Even I have to say that Sannan is showing vibes of being the yan side of yandere. =.= They get to the door but it won’t open and Sannan is coming over. … Then Sannan’s phone (?) rings. And he leaves. … Why is there a phone????

They get through at last and find themselves in the middle of town. When they meet Sano + Shinpachi, they’re obviously drunk; Sano trying to tell them the tale of how he defeated the Yamato no Orochi and got his scar on his stomach, and Shinpachi who is just normally drunk. Heisuke is still pissed and strikes Shinpachi with his sword but for some reason it snapped when Shinpachi attacked. … So now Heisuke runs away with Chizuru. (Oh yeah, in this chibi world, you can mend a broken sword with the help of rice. Stick it on and it’s done. How much that would have helped Zoro. … Never mind)

Back to reality, Heisuke asks Chizuru out on a date (though she doesn’t get it) as thanks for all she’s done for him. He offers to take her anyway but she simply asks to go to the circus where the guy they met earlier is. Heisuke finds it a little sad for a couple to go but agrees while complaining at how all the acts are going to be fake – snake woman, mermaid corpse. … Isn’t this a freak show thing? Anyway, it’s time for the dog act to start but the dog runs off stage once he notices Heisuke. … Chizuru says that it must be because the dog knows how much of a good person Heisuke is as that’s what she thinks as well. … (〃∇〃) from Heisuke.

Mini games:

1) Do the washing

2) Hide from Sannan

3) Run away from a drunk Shinpachi + Sano

———————————————————————————————————

Harada Sanosuke

Chizuru decides to go and ask Sano about what they’re planning and finds him in the courtyard talking to a little girl. Seems like she got him something and he thanks her. … To which she says ‘You’re welcome, おじさん’ which basically means, old man. … Sano is in shock.

CHIBIFIED

She gets awoken by Sano and as they are walking around, they meet Shinpachi who is in trouble. The kitchen is in a mess and when Hijikata saw it, he blames Shinpachi and demands him to clean it up. Though Shinpachi says he didn’t do it. Even Sano thinks that he did but he has second thoughts when he sees that the fish was eaten raw. But he also says ‘You never know, it’s Shinpachi we’re talking about…’ Turns out the cats were the ones who messed up the food and Shinpachi begs the two to help clean up the mess. Chizuru gets scratched by a cat when it struggled to get free so Sano does first-aid. … Medical knowledge has definitely got better. After everything’s done, Sano is worried that there may be something wrong with Hijikata as he doesn’t normally go around blaming people when things aren’t definite.

They find a door (with a message saying if you want to see me pass two doors – Hijikata) and when the two open it … They see Saitou jumping up and down and making weird movements. … Sano asks what he’s doing and turns out Saitou is practicing to dance as Hijikata told him that he has to perform in front of some important guys of the government. Knowing that Sano often dances (when he gets drunk) Saitou asks him to teach him how to dance. … After teaching him, Sano advises Saitou to forget what he learnt and that he will go and persuade Hijikata to stop making Saitou dance. Oh and Saitou faints from practicing (? jumping up and down + weird movements – reminds me of Watanuki) two days straight.

Once again, there’s a door and this time they meet Hijikata at last. He’s overly stressed with work and Sano decides that the best thing to do is to get him to fall asleep with the help of sake. (and he gets some sake from Chizuru as a bonus when Hijikata is asleep).

Once back in reality, Sano drags Chizuru off to town to a sweet shop and as well as buying her sakura-mochi, he gives her two origami hina dolls (traditionally a festival for girls) that was made by the little girl from the start of the route. He tells her that he will try his best to get her back to freedom as a woman and right now the best thing he can do for her is give these ohina-sama dolls.

Mini games:

1) Catch the cats that caused trouble

2) Teach Saitou how to belly dance

3) Help calm Hijikata down with sake

———————————————————————————————————

Kazama Chikage

is adorable. *cough* never mind. Instead of waking up straight away and going to Hijikata who is calling her, Chizuru decides to sleep a little longer. For some reason she dreams of herself getting married to Kazama and we get a load of tsundere dialogue from Chizuru. Not that Kazama is any better. He’s like

‘Even if you don’t want to marry me, I do’

‘I expect you to, let’s see, give birth to at least 10 kids. You will be my eternally my slave’

Doesn’t he know how to … at least get her interested in him? This time she wakes up properly and hears from Hijikata about how the Shinsengumi are planning something, she finds box, opens it.

CHIBIFIED

She gets awoken by Kazama who came to HQ to play around Shinsengumi but there wasn’t anyone there so he decided to go find Chizuru as he was lonely. Having nothing to do, Kazama decides to take Chizuru away to get married and tells her that he’s already planned everything and that it’s a waste of time to try to struggle. Magical door #1.

They arrive in a room with Shiranui who was busy sending out invitations on Kazama and Chizuru’s wedding (and also mentions that he prepared a surprise for Kazama). Chizuru begs Shiranui to help her and that she was taken against her will (with Kazama saying that she’s just embarrassed). Even Shiranui says that dragging an unwilling girl into marriage isn’t much of a good thing to do so he agrees to help out. … By playing Stone-Paper-Scissors with winner getting his way. Shiranui wins. … Kazama just drags her through the door. … What was the point?

Magical door #2. They meet Amagiri who is starting to lose his temper with Kazama who hasn’t been taking his position as head of the Kazama clan seriously. So Amagiri starts lecturing him and for some reason his words are powerful enough to have an effect on Kazama. … What the hell!? Well, Kazama manages to get past Amagiri (sorry forgot how) and at last it’s the last magical door, #3.

… Where they meet the Shinsengumi having a party. … Seems like Shiranui invited them as well and obviously Kazama is surprised. Before they start fighting (more like only Hijikata seems to bother, the rest are too busy eating), Chizuru wakes up in reality.

It’s already night and she realises that she slept through dinner and feels a little down for skiving her chores and making someone else do it. She meets Sannan and unintentionally runs away (she chases a cat) after remembering about how he kinda assaulted her in Rasetsu-mode. She finds Kazama in the garden (how much does he love the Shinsengumi) and he takes her away into town and for some reason they end up looking at sakura together. They have a DMC over how futile and pathetic humans are but she protects Shinsengumi by saying that everyone is fighting for what they want to protect. … Shounen manga? Everyone comes to save her and Sannan thanks her for believing him. … :)

Mini games:

1) Stone Paper Scissors + Winner slap Loser (Kazama vs. Shiranui)

2) Lecture Kazama as Amagiri

3) Chizuru vs. Senhime at something like darts

(for Kazama’s minigames, I was always losing because I thought I’m using Kazama… Turns out I wasn’t)

———————————————————————————————————

Normal Route

Chizuru acts like a normal person and gives Itou the box straight away without opening. She asks what it is and Itou tells her as she was the one who had brought it to him. … Guess what!? It’s a good luck charm that is in trend right now for the girls in town. If you have a wish that you really want, this box will grant it for you and give you happiness. Itou is like ‘I need to keep up with the trend, that’s the only reason I have this! ‘Course I don’t believe in this … this charm!!’. So there goes the secret of the box.

Only pic that Itou is in. Is a 'congrats for full complete of CG' image

Now onto what the Shinsengumi were planning. … Everyone has been planning for flower-viewing as its in season and they want to give Hijikata a break from work. … ヽ(ー_ー )ノ right. I see. The reason they kept it secret was because they wanted to surprise Chizuru + Hijikata and also most likely the latter would say its ridiculous and stop them.

At the flower-viewing:

Okita: Come on Hijikata, drink sake (knowing that Hijikata is very weak against alcohol)

Hijikata: … ヽ(｀⌒´メ)ノ

Kondou: I can dance … (i made that up)

Gen-san + Shimada: （￣。￣)

Shinpachi: Come on you two, drink!! DRINK!!!

Saitou + Yamazaki: Someone get this guy off me. Shinpachi you’re drunk.

Shinpachi: Drunk! Me! Course not! Who do you think you are talking to?! Drunk!? Phfft!

Saitou + Yamazaki: … （＾－＾＿）

Sano: Listen guys! Here is proof of my manliness! Listen to the story behind this scar of mine!!

Heisuke: I’ve already heard it…

Chizuru: （*´▽｀*）

Whole image. Click to get larger size.

———————————————————————————————————

Sorry for taking so long. … Thoughts. Let’s see.

I think Otomate is using Hakuouki too much. True, it’s amazing art and story (?) but is there really a need to make a mini-game only fandisk? There was no such thing as a plot here. So don’t have much to say about the story part of this game. Oh!  it was nice to see everyone alive after the anime killed everyone off. Each route was about 20 mins long including replays of minigames so maybe you’ll understand why this post took long to write. … There wasn’t even anything to write about.

Character? Despite the fact that I wrote the most for Okita, my fav is DEFINITELY KAZAMA~! Chii-sama is awesome! More like Saitou with his reality escape and love for Hijikata was really cute but Kazama with everything bad happening to him was just … ! How can Kazama be so cute. In the real game he’s oresama I guess but not CUTE! This may end up as a rant so I’ll cut off around here.

Actually, to show how cute he is, I’m specially adding chibi Kazama pics:

they decided not to use this =.=

Zuisouroku? Coming… *glances away*

———————————————————————————————————

Celebration pic from Kazuki Yone (i have to say she isn’t that good at drawing girls compared to guys. … She’s still pro but.):

Celebration pic from chibi form artist:

(5 Mins before the 25th! NOT CHRISTMAS!!)