Rant: A [Subject] stole my Quickies
Having finished with Boy Meets Girl and Kazoku Keikaku, I can talk about my current game and what else is on my to-do list at the moment.
Hoshiuta: The third and latest game in FrontWing's unofficial -uta series of games, Hoshiuta has quite a few expectations to live up to given the elements that made Yukiuta and Sorauta worthwhile.
The protagonist is Kazuhiko, a boy that lives in the town of Mihoshi with his little sister, Nanano. Aside from the usual things with school and the people he has known for the last ten years, the story moves forward when a girl from his past moves into town.
Presentation-wise, the game has been very impressive so far, which alludes to FW spending good money on the game engine and music. Something interesting is that it also uses the backdrop of Tanabata, and will probably play off the themes surrounded with the story behind this yearly celebration. The only thing that kind of bugs me is that there's several similarities between some of the characters in this game and those from the two previous -uta games (Nanano is almost a 1:1 copy of Yukiuta's Nano, for example). Hopefully things will pick up, because so far I'm getting the feeling this game is being purposely flashier than the other two, which usually means plot and characterization may be inferior.
Do-overs: I'm not sure how my readers (all three of you) reacted to my re-do of my Rakuen review, but I was planning on taking some time to do some other games that I feel may not have been properly presented the first time around. Amongst these I want to do Yatou Hime Zankikou, possibly Seven Online Gamers ~Offline~ and Kisetsu no hanayome. Speaking of G.J. games...
Hime to BOIN: I gave in to morbid curiosity to see what G.J.'s excuse for making another BOIN game would be. I was pleasantly surprised since the game managed to turn out to be funny on its own. Admittedly, I also got a kick out of it because they made references to several of their past titles, which is always a plus when done the right way.
Anyway, the protagonist is a guy that is known as the Prince of Turn-downs, as every girl he has asked out on a date has flat out refused him. Just during his second year in high school, he already has a record of over 120 turn downs from girls in every class. His life takes a turn for the interesting when a magical door opens in his closet to another world. This world is a standard fantasy realm that is missing its crown prince.
As explained by Etsuko (a maid that serves the king of the other world), the prince found an ancient artifact that had the power to allow the bearer to travel across worlds. The downside of this is that the prince chose to abandon his duty of marrying and extending the royal bloodline and ran off to another world in search of adventure. A side-effect of this is that numerous rifts have opened, including the one to our protagonist's closet. As such, Etsuko asks that our protagonist stand in for the crown prince and attend the royal summit, where several kingdoms have sent their daughters to meet and hopefully marry the crown prince.
Much to his surprise/delight, all seem to be rather busty girls (courtesy of Sano Toshihide) that take a liking to him and don't turn him down. And the story kinda goes from there、loaded with useless yaru to boot...
Featured Character:
Name: ISF-ISAAC-0010102F R-Hinagiku
Game: R.U.R.U.R. ~Kono ko no tameni, semete kireina hoshizora wo~
Voiced by: Hinami Fuuka
Designed by: Izumi Mahiru
Character type: Tsundere
Hinagiku, or Hina for short, is introduced to us as Ichihiko's next door neighbor. She is suggested to being the same age as Ichihiko (unlike Mizubashou or Shirotsumegusa, who are "older" because of their roles as caretakers), and acts as the childhood friend that tends to pick on Ichihiko regularly.
Her role aside, Hina is actually a military-class chapekku (a chapekku being a humanoid machine composed of organic cells combined with nanomachine technology), able to interface and combine with numerous weapons, including the diverse World Toaster armaments. Hina is originally limited to Class-1 "Holdman" and Class-2 "Electriship", but in her route, she gets access to the most powerful known World Toaster, Class-6 "World Wrecker". Her original purpose was to protect her human masters, but it can be said that military-class chapekku are built to kill.
As we find out in her route, Hinagiku was opposed to awakening the last mankind and following through with the plan R-Mizubashou had proposed for him. This was for two reasons: she was convinced that humanity was reckless, irresponsible and capable of nothing but trouble (she goes so far as claiming it's the humans' fault that the robots are now wandering throughout space). At the same time, she likes being self-aware and being able to think for herself. Despite her opinion that humans were no longer necessary due to the robots having their own society, she was forced into the role of childhood friend. Her feelings for Ichihiko change over time as she got used to seeing him every day, to the point where she feels a tinge of jealousy because Mizubashou and Shirotsumegusa live under the same roof as him. Should the player nudge her towards our protagonist, her feelings continue to develop very quickly. As she grows to deeply care for Ichihiko, Hina comes to the realization that our protagonist is not being allowed to think for himself and make his own choices, instead being heavily influenced by his caretakers and the environment around them.
Something interesting to note is that Hinagiku is the only robot in the story that willingly crosses the boundary that separates robots from humans. She enjoys being her own "person" (despite HAL, Benibana and Mizubashou reminding her that there is a natural order and chain of command between the robots and humans), is "selfish" when it comes to things she really cares about (especially once she embraces the feelings she has for Ichihiko), and looks at our protagonist as an equal (unlike Mizubashou and Benibana, who believe the robots are there to serve and revere humanity). One could say that despite her being man-made, she thinks in human terms.
Food for thought: Hinagiku's translated name (Daisy) is played on several times in the story. She is associated with "The Brave Little Toaster". She is also associated with passages from The Little Prince that involve the fox. Lastly (like with all chapekku), she's associated with the nursery rhyme "What are people made of?" (where the "What are little girls made of?" section's "everything nice" is replaced with "nanomachine-filled cytoplasm").
Anyway, that's it for today.
-Moroboshi Yuumei
Looking for: Stand-ins to review Hime to BOIN on my behalf...
Hoshiuta: The third and latest game in FrontWing's unofficial -uta series of games, Hoshiuta has quite a few expectations to live up to given the elements that made Yukiuta and Sorauta worthwhile.
The protagonist is Kazuhiko, a boy that lives in the town of Mihoshi with his little sister, Nanano. Aside from the usual things with school and the people he has known for the last ten years, the story moves forward when a girl from his past moves into town.
Presentation-wise, the game has been very impressive so far, which alludes to FW spending good money on the game engine and music. Something interesting is that it also uses the backdrop of Tanabata, and will probably play off the themes surrounded with the story behind this yearly celebration. The only thing that kind of bugs me is that there's several similarities between some of the characters in this game and those from the two previous -uta games (Nanano is almost a 1:1 copy of Yukiuta's Nano, for example). Hopefully things will pick up, because so far I'm getting the feeling this game is being purposely flashier than the other two, which usually means plot and characterization may be inferior.
Do-overs: I'm not sure how my readers (all three of you) reacted to my re-do of my Rakuen review, but I was planning on taking some time to do some other games that I feel may not have been properly presented the first time around. Amongst these I want to do Yatou Hime Zankikou, possibly Seven Online Gamers ~Offline~ and Kisetsu no hanayome. Speaking of G.J. games...
Hime to BOIN: I gave in to morbid curiosity to see what G.J.'s excuse for making another BOIN game would be. I was pleasantly surprised since the game managed to turn out to be funny on its own. Admittedly, I also got a kick out of it because they made references to several of their past titles, which is always a plus when done the right way.
Anyway, the protagonist is a guy that is known as the Prince of Turn-downs, as every girl he has asked out on a date has flat out refused him. Just during his second year in high school, he already has a record of over 120 turn downs from girls in every class. His life takes a turn for the interesting when a magical door opens in his closet to another world. This world is a standard fantasy realm that is missing its crown prince.
As explained by Etsuko (a maid that serves the king of the other world), the prince found an ancient artifact that had the power to allow the bearer to travel across worlds. The downside of this is that the prince chose to abandon his duty of marrying and extending the royal bloodline and ran off to another world in search of adventure. A side-effect of this is that numerous rifts have opened, including the one to our protagonist's closet. As such, Etsuko asks that our protagonist stand in for the crown prince and attend the royal summit, where several kingdoms have sent their daughters to meet and hopefully marry the crown prince.
Much to his surprise/delight, all seem to be rather busty girls (courtesy of Sano Toshihide) that take a liking to him and don't turn him down. And the story kinda goes from there、loaded with useless yaru to boot...
Featured Character:
Name: ISF-ISAAC-0010102F R-Hinagiku
Game: R.U.R.U.R. ~Kono ko no tameni, semete kireina hoshizora wo~
Voiced by: Hinami Fuuka
Designed by: Izumi Mahiru
Character type: Tsundere
Hinagiku, or Hina for short, is introduced to us as Ichihiko's next door neighbor. She is suggested to being the same age as Ichihiko (unlike Mizubashou or Shirotsumegusa, who are "older" because of their roles as caretakers), and acts as the childhood friend that tends to pick on Ichihiko regularly.
Her role aside, Hina is actually a military-class chapekku (a chapekku being a humanoid machine composed of organic cells combined with nanomachine technology), able to interface and combine with numerous weapons, including the diverse World Toaster armaments. Hina is originally limited to Class-1 "Holdman" and Class-2 "Electriship", but in her route, she gets access to the most powerful known World Toaster, Class-6 "World Wrecker". Her original purpose was to protect her human masters, but it can be said that military-class chapekku are built to kill.
As we find out in her route, Hinagiku was opposed to awakening the last mankind and following through with the plan R-Mizubashou had proposed for him. This was for two reasons: she was convinced that humanity was reckless, irresponsible and capable of nothing but trouble (she goes so far as claiming it's the humans' fault that the robots are now wandering throughout space). At the same time, she likes being self-aware and being able to think for herself. Despite her opinion that humans were no longer necessary due to the robots having their own society, she was forced into the role of childhood friend. Her feelings for Ichihiko change over time as she got used to seeing him every day, to the point where she feels a tinge of jealousy because Mizubashou and Shirotsumegusa live under the same roof as him. Should the player nudge her towards our protagonist, her feelings continue to develop very quickly. As she grows to deeply care for Ichihiko, Hina comes to the realization that our protagonist is not being allowed to think for himself and make his own choices, instead being heavily influenced by his caretakers and the environment around them.
Something interesting to note is that Hinagiku is the only robot in the story that willingly crosses the boundary that separates robots from humans. She enjoys being her own "person" (despite HAL, Benibana and Mizubashou reminding her that there is a natural order and chain of command between the robots and humans), is "selfish" when it comes to things she really cares about (especially once she embraces the feelings she has for Ichihiko), and looks at our protagonist as an equal (unlike Mizubashou and Benibana, who believe the robots are there to serve and revere humanity). One could say that despite her being man-made, she thinks in human terms.
Food for thought: Hinagiku's translated name (Daisy) is played on several times in the story. She is associated with "The Brave Little Toaster". She is also associated with passages from The Little Prince that involve the fox. Lastly (like with all chapekku), she's associated with the nursery rhyme "What are people made of?" (where the "What are little girls made of?" section's "everything nice" is replaced with "nanomachine-filled cytoplasm").
Anyway, that's it for today.
-Moroboshi Yuumei
Looking for: Stand-ins to review Hime to BOIN on my behalf...