Otome Game Review: Soukoku no Kusabi – Hiiro no Kakera 3 Ashita no Tobira he

Alternative Titles:  蒼黒の楔 緋色の欠片3 明日への扉

Company: Otomate

Release Date: 31.05.12

Official Site:otomate.jp/soukoku_fd_psp

Platform: PSP

Genre: AVG, Otome, romance, fantasy, FD

Plot Summary: More HnK cuz Otomate STILL isn’t done with milking the shit outta this series and i just found out that there’s gonna be a HnK FOUR lol.  This is a fd that takes place after the events of HnK3 So the routes are split into two parts: Tamaki, Ryou and Takuma graduating from HS in a universe where Tamaki doesn’t hook up with anyone after HNK3; and the other part of the route is a continuation of the routes from HNK3

Onizaki Takuma

Remember how Takuma used to be this aloof badass in the first game?  Well now he’s become this blushing, flustered giant hetare who’s just head over heels in love with an oblivious Tamaki and spends all his time trying to get it through that thick skull of our heroine’s, that HE REALLY REALLY REALLY LIKES HER ;)

So graduation day’s drawing closer and Tamaki’s dreading the day of leaving this village for uni.  She heads to skl, tryna get the most outta the place before she leaves and there she meets Takuma, Ryou and Shinji.  The 4 of em mess around a bit before Tamaki wonders about what these 3 boys think about love and when she asks Takuma what he’d do for his gf, he tells her that he’d think of 100 ways to go on a date….

…OVER THE COURSE OF 10 YEARS LOLOLOL

Cue in Ryou’s reaction

Takuma then goes on to make a bigger fool outta himself by pulling out a notebook and reciting dating tips from Seventeen mags and is all like

when Tamaki cuts in and goes “Bet yous got those tips from Teen Vogue or sth…”

Shinji and Ryou facepalm.

Anyway Tamaki gets bored one day and invites Takuma over.  Mitsuru leaves the house but tells em she left cookies and tea on the kitchen but when these two eat em, they realise that they’re spiked with LOVE POTION.  The two of em start freaking the shit out like “OH NOEZ WAT WEH DUU”

…but it’s too late cuz Takuma suddenly gets all horny and rambles on about how adorable Tamaki is

 

and then he goes onto moaning on about how “I WANT TO TOUCHY TOUCHY YOU <3”.

 

Tamaki tries to run but damn this just feels so right so she agrees to let Takuma touch her but he only gets to feel up her face before Mitsuru comes back.

Tamaki asks why the hell she’d give em love potion cookies and Mitsuru apologises and tells em she forgot that Ashiya (that damegane uncle from gov corps) gave em to her but…the cookies Takuma and Tamaki ate were just normal cookies *points to the batch of REAL love potion cookies still on the kitchen counter*.  So whatever happened while she was gone was ALL THEM HURHUR ;)

Graduation day comes along and the three graduate fine, with Takuma shitting his pants the entire time lol.  Everyone gets a happy group picture before Takuma pulls Tamaki away to walk home alone with her.

Now for what would have happened as a continuation from Takuma’s route from HnK3.  Half a year has passed since the HnK3 events and graduation day is almost ere.  Tamaki and Takuma have been going steady ever since and are super lovey dovey as usual, to the extent that everyone in class is jealous and wishes they had someone like Tamaki/Takuma.  Tamaki’s girlfriends one day, get onto the topic of Tamaki and Takuma living together in uni which results in a super embarrassed couple but it gets em thinking about their future.

Takuma then catches Tamaki reading Seventeen about a pretty pair of couple rings.  Soon after, Takuma gets super busy everyday, being unable to walk Tamaki to school or back home and being unable to hang.  Takuma won’t tell Tamaki what he’s doing but neither does Tamaki pry cuz she figures it’s something big he can’t tell her.  Later on though, with some hinting from Kiyono (the 23 year old who’s in love with Ashiya), she realises that Takuma’s been working  part-time to get money…money for the couple rings :D  She’s super happy and decides to get sth for Takuma too and depending on what you want, she can give Takuma taiyaki, HER LOOOVE and some other shiet.

Graduation day comes and after the ceremony, Takuma takes Tamaki up to the roof where he tells her he has something to give to her.  Tamaki thinks it’s the ring and sure enough, Takuma pulls out a little box but inside…THERE’S A RUBY ENGAGEMENT RING WAAAAHHHHTTTT :O.  He then proposes to her there and then and swears to make her happy lol and course Tamaki says yes.  Course they ain’t gna get married NOW or anything but cuz this is giant dorky Takuma, he’s already all about marriage (I swear if this was irl, this would be horribly creepy and clingy).  Tamaki pulls out her uh, TAIYAKI for the guy rofl which really seems to pale in comparison to thah purty ring he gave her but its k cuz taiyaki is all Takuma thinks about anyway haha.

We then get an epilogue of 5 years past, where Takuma and Tamaki have graduated from uni and head home together to the village as newly weds :D

Atori Mahiro

Still the same pintsized brawler who gets waaay too excited over everything

The first part of Mahiro’s route is pretty boring: just has Tamaki being nervous about grad and stuff so Mahiro decides to take her out to his “special” place to just stare at the skies and forget about everything.

 I laughed pretty hard at a scene where Tamaki walks in on Mahiro hanging off a tree to do stretching exercises in order to grow taller lol where Mahiro starts rambling on about how “A MAN ISN’T ALL ABOUT HEIGHT; IT’S THE HAAAATO THAT’S IMPORTANT! Besides, being a little short makes a guy cooler dunnit?”.  Tamaki plays along and pats the poor guy on the head.

So same as in Takuma’s route, the second part of Mahiro’s route has him and Tamaki being a lovey dovey couple for the past half year.  Mitsuru though, is mad at Mahiro for not furthering their relationship and this is true: Tamaki admits that all they do is HANGOUT and that’s about it; they haven’t done anything horribly couple-like or even romantic really and now that Mitsuru’s brought this up, Tamaki’s actually feeling a tad unsatisfied.  Not that she’s not happy with Mahiro (cuz she loves him to bits mmm), just that she wishes they could act like more of a couple

Leave this all to Mitsuru though, and sure enough, Mitsuru announces the day after that she’s gna be away from the house for two days so she brings in Mahiro to uh “take care” of Tamaki ;)  She tells Tamaki to make good use of this time period to grow closer with Mahiro.  Tamaki does exactly that and first goes out of her way to make a nice curry dinner for Mahiro and decides to toy with him a tad by calling him ‘ANATAAAA <3″.  Mahiro totally creams his pants at this rofl and Tamaki takes it another step further by feeding him some food, then by asking whether he wants her to scrub his back.  By then, all this stimulation is too much for Mahiro’s cherry boy dong and head and cuz he’s run out of juice from jizzing his pants too much, he hastily retreats back to his room to recharge for the night OKAY SRSLY WTF AM I WRITING NOW but anyway, Mahiro’s so freaked out that at night, he can’t even sleep cuz he keeps thinking Tamaki’s gna sneak into his room in some 夜這い act and demand sex from him

Next day, Mahiro greets Tamaki with severe apprehension and realising that she’s fucked arnd too much with the little boy, she stops with the “ANATATATATATA <3” stuff and just talks to him normally.  However, Ryou suddenly drops by and to their wtf, when Mahiro asks wtf he’s doing ere, the first thing Ryou says when he opens his mouth is

LOOOOOOOL I SRSLY SHAT MY PANTS SO HARD WHEN I HEARD HIM SAY IT and I’m sure Tamaki and Mahiro did too, judging by them going “YOOOOO NIGGA WHAT U JUS SAY” but Ryou only replies:

and then he tells his daddy Mahiro to stop being so rowdy at the dinner table HAHAHA OH FK MY NUTS ARE BUST IM INFERTILE NOW.

While Mahiro’s busy hollering at the top of his lungs in his usual freakout fashion, Tamaki’s cottoned on that Mitsuru’s the one behind this and decides to join in on the family fun rofl and when Ryou and Mahiro begin a father son brawl like such:

she goes:

“OKAASAN, KANASHIIIIII!!!”

Mahiro is not amused.

Anyway, Ryou leaves and Mahiro finally has the balls to confront Tamaki abt wtf is going on ere.  Tamaki then confesses that this was a ploy by Mitsuru and she and Ryou were both in on it too but it’s only because she really wanted to get closer with Mahiro :( Mahiro tells her that nothing’s changed; his vow from before of promising to make her happy still stands and screw what Mitsuru or what anyone else says – this is THEIR relationship and how they do things is no concern of anyone else’s.  Tamaki agrees that she’s good as long as she’s with Mahiro and all ends well.

Komura Yuuichi

The pretty tennen who’s taken several levels in being horribly mushy and direct lol tbh, I found his route kind of…boring.

First part just has him writing a special uh THING (idk what those japanese things are called) – a plaque? – for Tamaki wishing her luck in uni.

Now onto the second part.  Since Yuuichi is a year older, he’s been at uni for the past half year but comes back to see Tamaki graduate.  First thing he says to her when he gets off the bus is that she’s become more beautiful and that he’s missed her so so much ;) That night, he tells her that he wants Tamaki to live with him when she goes to his uni.  Tamaki spends the night agonising over it but in the end, tells Yuuichi that she wants to live with him too.

…and thats basically it LOL.  Yuuichi uses his boss genjitsu skills at the end to create shooting stars at night to make Tamaki happy.  Um yeah…

Oh wait.  There’s also a part where Yuuichi gets horny after having not seen Tamaki for an entire year so he pushes her down onto the ground and proceeds on to making out with her hurhur but yeah thats it.

Inukai Shinji

The pussy weakling who I’ve actually gotten to like a tad more after this game lol.

First part of the route has Shinji writing and speaking the graduation speech for Tamaki’s graduation.  After that, he pulls Tamaki aside to read a special speech for her that he wrote just for her ;)

As for the second part, same thang, Shinji has been going out with Tamaki for the past 6 months.  However, he’s the kouhai so when Tamaki grads and goes to uni, he won’t be able to see her for an entire year :(  The two of em say its k though cuz ultimately it’s only one year then they can see each other errday when Shinji goes to her uni but Tamaki can’t help but feel sad about it especially when Shinji makes this nice gourmet french dinner for her and she realises that she won’t be able to see him everyday after she grads.

Shit hits the fan when she catches Shinji talking to Oomi and overhears that Shinji doesn’t even PLAN on going to uni with her; he plans on staying put in this village.  With Yuuichi already in uni and with Tamaki, Takuma, Ryou and Mahiro following in a few days, Oomi’s gonna be the only one left to defend the village and honestly, Oomi ain’t sure he’ll be fine just by himself so Shinji has decided to stay after he grads.  The two realise Tamaki is there but she makes a run for it. Shinji chases after her and has this grand speech abt how he’s doing this to help Tamaki’s dream of peaceful coexistence with the KAMI but Tamaki’s just mad he tried to do all this without telling her and that he’s giving up his own personal dreams to conform to hers.  She says that if he’s gna pull that lil shit stunt on her, she’s gna pull one back and stay in the village too cuz no way she be standing not seeing her bb Inukai for 4 years. Things don’t end on a good note but the two promise to cool their heads and think things over.

 Next day, Shinji takes Tamaki to school where he shows her his classroom and tels her how much he loved learning and how much he then loved to teach.  His dream is to teach but he decides to stay anyway cuz still, Tamaki yo but Tamaki tells him to stfu blabalbalbalabal and finally the two see eye to eye and Shinji decides to go to uni with Tamaki.  Cue in a kiss scene :3

So, Tamaki graduates and a year later, comes back for Shinji who’s grown a little taller and the two live happily ever after

Oomi Suguru

Oh god it’s Oomi.  Weirdo long haired pedo hippie, let’s just get this over with.

First part of Oomi’s route is boring, has him taking a pic with Tamaki for grad blablabla.

Second part, he’s dating Tamaki now btu Tamaki can’t help but get all lame and nervous around him.  I don’t know about you guys but I really think Oomi gives off super strong pedo vibes…i know Tamaki is a legal adult and all but these two just look so weird and awk together especially cuz Tamaki acts so bloody virginal about everything and cuz Oomi always has thiscreepy smile on his face lol

He invites her over one day to teach her about a new TM ritual that’ll strengthen the protective barriers around thsi village.  Tamaki’s eager to learn it but finds out that she’ll have to stay at Oomi’s for a couple of nights cuz it requires a super strong bonding thingy as proof or sth.  She does it though and has some happy time with Oomi, sleeping on the same bed etc

Couple days later, she returns home with Oomi and Mitsuru suddenly brings up the topic of marrying Oomi.  Tamaki’s liek WTFBBQ but Oomi confesses that the TM ritual was just an excuse and truth is, he just wanted to get closer to Tamaki lol and yeah, he’s planning on marrying her.  Tamaki ends up protesting and shit which makes Oomi all sad so in the end, she admits that she liked living with him, just that she can’t be straight with anyone to save her life.

After grad, Tamaki gets sad cuz she’s gna have to leave Oomi for uni.  She tearfully tells Oomi to take good care of the village while she’s gone but to that, he cheerfully replies that he can’t cuz…HE’S FOLLOWING HER TO THE CITY >:D

Kutani Ryou

Our resident sexy badass  RYOUUU <3 Still a pervert but now his pervy antics are mostly limited to cuddling and nuzzling instead of his previous horny shit lol.

As usual, Ryou spends his days fighting with Takuma over everything and anything, especially over Tamaki.  Unlike Takuma however, Ryou’s super direct and honest, telling Tamaki straight up multiple times that she’s his master and that he likes her big time.  All this is to no avail though cuz Tamaki never takes him seriously and figures that he’s just being a nasty lech trying to dig his way into her pants. One day, she invites him out for a picnic, soemthing that Ryou says is a bad idea cuz his super doggy nose tells him that it’s going to rain that day.  Tamaki doesn’t listen though but as Ryou predicted, it pours like a beyetch and the two end up taking shelter in a cave.  Tamaki’s sopping wet and seeing her frozen, Ryou grabs her to warm her but Tamaki freaks and after some teasing from Ryou and some struggling from her, she somehow ends up pushing Ryou onto the ground and ends up looking like the rapist lolol

As gradation day nears, Tamaki finds herself getting uneasy about stuff so to clear her head, Ryou takes her to his “special place” in his usual gruff manner and the two watch the sun set at the top of a hill.

In the second part, Tamaki and Ryou have been going steady for half a year but Tamaki still can’t get used to Ryou’s level of skinship (which admittedly isn’t exactly high from my pov – i think it’s normal for a couple who’s been going out for half a year to cuddle and nuzzle whenever and wherever really) and honestly, it’s starting to piss the poor guy off.  He doesn’t get why Tamaki can’t even bear a HUG from him, considering that he’s not even trying to grab her boobs or grope her bum or anything ==****

Well Tamaki dodges this ofc and instead, gets all annoyed at how bloody antisocial Ryou is.

Case 1: she’s talking to a FEMALE classmate of hers and Ryou just barges in and tells the poor girl to gtfo.

Case 2: Ryou bunks school errday and refuses to make friends with anyonne.

Case 3: BLABLABLA and it goes on and on but Ryou just tells Tamaki that the only person that matters to him is HER and that he just cares about spending time with her so why shud he pretend to care about all these other irrelevant people around him?

 

Tamaki tells him to stop being a knobhead and that being a social retard won’t get him anywhere in life.  Besides, she WANTS him to make people that matter to him and she wants him to enjoy the company of other people The kids in her class invite her to their afterparty after grad.  Course Tamaki’s going but the kids also want Ryou to come but Tamaki knows Ryou hates places with a lotta ppl.  So, she strikes up a deal with Ryou that he’ll go to the afterparty if she does whatever he says afterwards…so starts his “special training” to prepare him for the afterparty.

Tamaki tries to make Ryou smile but only this results:

Attempt 1 fails.

Tamaki then gets Mahiro and Yuuichi over to make him more sociable but that fails too.

Attempt 3 has Tamaki getting Ryou to try on Oomi’s clothes to see if it’ll make him seem more approachable but Ryou only tears off the clothes in jealousy when Tamaki tells him that he looks good in Oomi’s clothing.

The afterparty finally comes and Tamaki dreads the worst but lo and behold, Ryou’s actually sociable and not threatening to tear the teats off anyone who comes within 5 metres of Tamaki :o NOOOO how is this possible?  He even tells Takuma to stfu and to stop goading him into fights!  So, the whole night goes smoothly and happy Tamaki is happy. Afterwards, Tamaki congratulates Ryou on his hard work, only to have Ryou look at her with a “R U SRS” face and tell her that OF COURSE he’s able to do this; he’s not fucking retarded, he can act like a sane person, just that he’s normally not assed enough to but for he’ll do anything.  So pretty much, all Tamaki’s training was for naught.

 Well onto Ryou’s prize now and Tamaki immediately gets scared that he’s gna tell her to strip or sth lol which onnly hurts Ryou cuz she knows he’s never gna force her to do sth like that.  Instead, he just requests that she stay with him the entire day tomorrow d’aaaaaw <3 So the next day, the two of em spend the day together and at night, Ryou has his fill of simply cuddling with her :3

Rin

I thought Oomi was bad…but Rin ain’t any better; it just felt so awk seeing Tamaki so infatuated with whom looks like a 12 year old child, complete with the girly voice and hair…

I skipped most of Rin’s route like I did with Oomi’s route; Rin just spends much of his route kissing Tamaki’s ass and the first part is just him praising her etcetc

So after the two hook up, all the boys around Tamaki just wtf cuz Tamaki could have had ANYONE, anyone at all but she decides to reveal herself as a giant shotacon and get hitched with some little boy and it doesn’t help that she spends all her time ranting and raving about how “KAKKOOIIIIIIII <3<3<3” Rin is…anyway, Rin learns to be useful around the house and turns out to be a great cook so that’s his saving grace i guess lol.

Anyway, Tamaki notices that Rin’s been creeping around lately all shifty and after some prodding, Rin confesses that he’s been undergoing rituals and training to get rid of his Kami features.  Being a kami means that he doesn’t age or die and he hates not being able to grow old with Tamaki so he’s getting rid of that.  He won’t become human but at least he’ll age like one.  He undergoes the ordeal in some cave, with Tamaki thinking that he died but he wakes up and they kiss um yeah…

So since his age thingy is gone, i was hoping that we’d get an epilogue showing Rin all grown up but instead, we only get this lame scene where Tamaki finds Rin sleeping cuz he’s worked himself real hard or sth.  boring.

Kether

Down to the last guy :D

Now that Kether is one of Tamaki’s nakama, he’s been working hard ever since to seem more human.  One of the things he doesn’t get about being human is love so he asks Tamaki out on a date in hopes of understanding love.  At the end of the date, he tries to kiss Tamaki lol cuz Vier taught him dating tech and though Tamaki doesn’t let him, he tells that he’s had a lotta fun with her.  This cluelessness of his shows again when Tamaki’s feeling worried about the future and Kether then hugs her cuz he’s seenVier do the same to Aria

Now, Kether’s been gone for some months cuz he’s had to go back and tie up loose ends with all the Logos shit.  Tamaki’s all sad but speak of the devil, Kether comes home but only for 4 days cuz he still needs to do his Logos thang.  Cuz he’s only here for 4 days, Tamaki moves in with him at Aria’s mansion so they can spend as much time together as possible.

So the two of em do their couply shit, go on dates, eat together and sleep together blabla

The 4 days draw to an end and Tamaki’s sad all over that Kether is leaving but she doesn’t say anything to stop Kether till Aria tells her to man up and be straight with the guy.  So, she runs to Kether to tell him not to leave but no need cuz he tells her that he’s decided to go to uni with her :D Aria and Vier are now taking over for the Logos shit so it’s okay, the two of em can head to uni together and be together :)

Afterthoughts and Conclusion

Ugh what’s with the underwhelming FDs I been playing?  First Scared Riders Shit, now HnK3.  C’mon ppl you guys can do better.

As with Scared, this FD wasn’t BAD per se, just horribly disappointing.  The only routes that felt like there was closure was Takuma’s route and maybe Shinji’s route.  In the other routes, there wasn’t really a “conflict” so there wasn’t anything that needed “solving”- it was just Tamaki being insecure over nothing and then she finally finds her lost marbles and stops being a pussy…somewhat.  I really wanted to see an epilogue in everyone’s routes like with Takuma’s one but I guess since he’s the main guy, he’s the only one who gets a special ending.  The sense of disappointment I felt was only amplified exponentially cuz I actually like the HnK series, no matter how long and draggy the games get; HnK was pretty much the first Otoge I ever played before I got around to blogging and shiet.

Cuz seriously, my major gripe with thisFD lies with Tamaki.  She used to be so bitchy, hilarious as fuck and just said whatever the fuck she wanted in her usual jerkass way but since HnK3, she’s mellowed out into some bland cookiecutter otoge heroine and now…dear god wtf. Like I said, Tamaki acted so virginal about everything it was just grating how many times i had to read her “OH NOEZ HOLDING HANDS CANT BREATHE” shit; in fact, about HALF of her lines started out with stuttering…like jesus christ girl, you guys been going out for half a year already get used to it already; you guys are just HOLDING HANDS, it’s not as though you’re giving public blowjobs to your bf or sth…== Or mb it’s just me and it’s totally normal for couples these days to act like that lol I wouldn’t know cuz I’m done with relationships; I always attract the weirdos rofl.  The only route in which I liked her in was Mahiro’s route cuz she was actually funny as hell

Aside from that, I really liked Takuma and this FD renewed my love for RYOU <3  Art was nice too, Ike’s improved a fair bit and I can’t wait to play HnK 4 (I’m so confused; if the new HnK is HnK 4, then what was the Shin Tamayorihime one?) cuz it seems really interesting and has some nice art.  I’m tired of Tamaki bruh so I’m happy HnK4 is gna be set way back in time.  That and I liked the omake drawings that showed all the guys in RPG garb and defs the mommy daddy scene in Mahiro’s route.  But disappointing all the same.