Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk (PS Vita) Review

Finishing off Aksys' "Summer of Mystery" is the third Vita visual novel, Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk.  Like the others, it is an otome game, so you play as a female protagonist.  She is a witch, which the townspeople fear.  To avoid suspicion, she was raised as a boy alongside her two "brothers", her secret known only to a select few.  As the story progresses, she will learn to dress and act like a girl to help her locate the mysterious Kaleido-Via, all while trying to keep her secrets from being exposed.

I will definitely give the game credit for a unique premise.  I was interested to see where it would go, and what exactly they would do with it.  At first, though, I wasn't that impressed.  You quickly meet most of the characters, and most of them annoyed me instantly.  Not the best way to start a game.  However, as the story continued, the characters either changed, or the annoying elements were pushed into the background, ensuring I would enjoy it.  There are some twists that I did not see coming, and they were pulled off very well.  My opinions on at least two characters completely flipped.  That's not something I expected.  Some of the endings felt a little too random for my tastes, so it's not perfect.  While I won't spoil anything, there are some connections to the previous title, Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly.  After I started, I didn't think there would be, but fans of that game should appreciate what's in Ashen Hawk.

At a few points in the game, you will have a simplified map of the town.  From here, you can select short stories, comments from townspeople, and the next main story section.  I would have liked a quick explanation as to what the icons meant, but there isn't one.  Thankfully it isn't too hard to figure it out.  The pink eyeglass icons are comments from townspeople, which will give you a point.  These points are used to purchase special items from the antique store, which will unlock short stories, other side story scenes, and some gallery pictures.  To unlock them all, you have to talk to everybody.  It's not the most interesting way to unlock the additional scenes, but it's much less intense than Black Butterfly's shooting mini-game.

Once you have the necessary items purchased, it is very easy to go back and view any scenes you have missed.  All because of the glorious flow chart!  It was my favorite thing about Black Butterfly, and I was overjoyed to see it back in Ashen Hawk.  It allows you to see where all the scenes and branches are, so you can quickly move back to grab them.  This makes it easier to get all the endings and explore the story.  It's also much easier to actually get on to the branches than it was in the previous game.

Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk was a fun visual novel.  After a rough beginning, the story and characters got a lot better.  Factoring in all the townspeople conversations and side stories, the main game is longer than most visual novels I have played.  The flip side is the "routes" tend to just be the endings.  Thankfully the awesome flow chart is back to make jumping to the relevant scenes quick and easy.  I definitely recommend this otome game to fans of visual novels, and especially fans of Black Butterfly.


The Good:
An interesting and unique story that pulled off some difficult plot twists very well.

The Bad:
The story is largely linear.  There are branches, but they are pretty much just the endings.

The SaHD:
I'm not a fan of the "character is abysmal at cooking" cliche.  It's not funny, and doesn't make sense.  It did have some small relevance in this game, but that doesn't really make it much better.

(Review code for Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk was received from the publisher)

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly (PS Vita) Review

Aksys kicked off their "Summer of Mystery" with Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly, the first of three visual novel games on the Vita coming out this summer.  Readers of my reviews know that I like visual novels, so of course I secured a review code to check it out.  And hey, this time the female protagonist has spoken dialogue!

The story takes place in a mysterious mansion that the heroine suddenly wakes up in.  With the help of some men she meets inside, they will try to survive and ultimately escape the nightmarish house.  While there are some familiar premises to the story, like an mysterious location and lost memories, the story is otherwise unique and interesting.  It moves along at a good pace, not moving too fast nor getting boring, and has some twists that I did not guess.  Toward the end, I was very much into the story, and wanted to see it through to its conclusion.

There are some choices to make while going through the game, but not as many as you might think.  In fact, the game isn't quite structured like most visual novels I have played.  For one, the story is mostly linear, which small branching paths that tend to meet back up where they should.  Character specific routes and endings are present, but they are smaller and shorter than expected, and don't occur in the most common places (ie, near the end).  While I did purposefully pick a bad ending at one point, I was surprised to see the ending I got at the end of the game marked as the "best" ending.  While it does seem the most realistic (as much as it could be), I thought for sure there would be a super happy "best" ending, where everything comes up rainbows.

All of the story scenes are contained on a big flow chart.  It shows when scenes branch off, and even has a mark that tells you when all conversations in that scene have been seen.  It's very easy to jump around and complete the parts you missed.  I very much like that aspect of it, and am enjoying completing as much of it as I can.

However, the game also has some extra scenes called short episodes.  While good in theory, there are several times in the game where you have to view some of these short episodes to progress further in the main story.  In other genres I can be okay with that, but in a story driven game, it feels jarring.  Being forced to stop and go read side stuff really breaks up the flow (and immersion).  I do like them as optional scenes to help unlock character specific routes.  At least, I think they help with that.  Most of the side episodes are locked, and have to either be purchased with points earned from the mini-game, by completing certain other scenes, or both.  It's not explained too well, and there are plenty of stages don't mention the requirements.  You just keep playing and viewing scenes, and eventually it opens them up.

At a few points in the story, there is a shooting mini-game to play.  It partially makes sense because you have to defeat the mansion's monsters to survive.  However, you are locking on and shooting butterflies, which aren't the monster.  Regardless, the mini-game is kind of fun.  You either move the cursor or drag your finger across the butterflies as they move around the screen, then press a button (or the on-screen "shoot" button) to fire.  It's fairly simple, but fun.  It's also not the most accurate, since many times I would drag across a butterfly and it wouldn't lock-on.  Also, it is really easy to miss some of the butterflies, since they only stick around for short, random intervals.  This is the method of getting points used to unlock some of the side episodes, and it was fun to play it enough to get all the points I needed for the side episodes.

Overall, I think Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly is a good visual novel.  There are some text errors, and the side episodes can take you out of the story, but that story is really good, especially near the end.  I'm having fun trying to fill out the whole flow chart.  I'd recommend it for visual novel fans, but it's not the longest complete package.


The Good:
Interesting story with some unexpected turns, fun shooting mini-game.

The Bad:
Side episodes break the flow of the story, and there were some text issues.

The SaHD:
I didn't think they would explain the title so fully.  It was nice that they did, but I admittedly then thought "roll credits".

(Review code for Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly was received from the publisher)

Bad Apple Wars (PS Vita) Review

Bad Apple Wars is a visual novel...or maybe a cooking game?  Okay, probably not the latter.  It's a otome visual novel set in a mysterious school.  There is a brewing conflict between the people that obey the rules, and those that break them (these would be delinquents, or "bad apples").  As the new girl in class, you will quickly choose which side you are on.

And I do mean quickly.  The first major route change is at the end of the prologue, with the next big one soon after.  This second choice is fairly innocuous, as it just changes the next scene, but the following choice pretty much locks you into a character's route.  Well, it's not technically their route, since the flow chart doesn't list it as such, but you will be pretty much stuck talking to that character for the rest of the game.  I'm on the fence about if I like that or not.  On one hand, having such a major choice appear so small is not good.  On the other, it does make the narrative more consistent.  In turn, that strengthens the already interesting story.

Choose Your Destiny...

Another jarring thing is that there are no dialog options, even though there are points that feels like one would pop up.  Your choices are which side you are on, then which guy you talk to to start their route.  This sounds worse than it actually is, though.  I didn't really notice I hadn't made a dialog choice for awhile, as I was still engaged with the story.  The plot moves along pretty quickly, especially once you get to what the game considers a character's route.  There are a good and bad ending plus a special epilogue.  For awhile, it was very unclear to me what you could do to affect this.  It's all laid out in a nice flow chart, so at least you can clearly see what you have done, if not what you need to do.

One unique feature in the game is the touch system.  Several CGs of characters during the story have places that you must tap.  Most times it just gives more dialog.  However, there are two near the end that are much more important.  Normally, touching the wrong place just doesn't do anything.  In these special scenes, you can only touch the wrong place so many times.  If you don't do it correctly, the scene still moves ahead, but is slightly different.  I eventually realized that this was what affected the ending in the absence of dialog choices.  I'm still not sure what effects the epilogue.

I don't see a game clock, like most visual novels, so I have to guesstimate my time.  It seems to be near the standard 6-8 hours for the first playthrough.  It's worth going through multiple times, because just about every other scene involves whichever guy's route you will end up in.  Plus, you don't really learn much about the others during a given route, and their backstories are pretty interesting so far.  Even if you skip the parts you have already seen, the other half of the game is still new.

Bad Apple Wars has a very unique setting, many differences to each route, and a very interesting story.  Admittedly, the story seems much more natural if you become a bad apple, but not in a way that messes up the narrative if you don't.  Getting the different ending routes is pretty unclear, but it's still a fun and worthwhile visual novel.


The Good:
Good use of color, interesting story.

The Bad:
Important route choice is early and innocuous, unclear how to get the different endings.

The SaHD:
I'm surprised some voiced characters didn't have a graphic.  It's not a huge deal, but it surely is a curiosity.

(Review code for Bad Apple Wars was provided by the publisher)

Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds (PC/Steam) Review

Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds is a visual novel otome game set in, well, Kyoto at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.  It's also only the first part of the whole story.  I previously reviewed the PS Vita version, and the Steam release for PCs is largely the same.

As an Otome game, you will play as a female protagonist, with many romance options.  In fact, most of the guys you meet are romance options.  You won't interact with all of them in every scene, as that would get way too crowded.  They float in and out of each scene, which feels logical.  You are a "guest" of the Shinsengumi after all, and they wouldn't all go to every thing together.

There are several dialogue choices as you go through the game, some of which change the affection of the various guys, and some of which will change the next scene.  Once you get to the final scenes, it will be exclusive to the guy with the highest affection, and is effectively their route.  Then unfortunately, the game will go to a "to be continued" and we have to wait until the second part is released.  Other than that, I do like the story.  Having fantasy takes of real events is pretty neat, and they pull it off well.

One playthrough is about 4-6 hours, depending on reading speed, and if you reload to change a choice.  Since there are over 10 romance options, you will get a fair bit of replayability finishing the final chapter several times.  I'd also recommend playing through at least twice, since there are a few different scenes depending on dialog choices, and they are worth seeing.  They're also sprinkled in throughout the story, so it wouldn't be as easy as just replaying one chapter, which you can do for the character routes.  I'm not sure if and how the character endings will play into the second part of the story, but it might be worth doing a few, just in case.

Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds ran perfectly on my i7 with 16gb of ram.  I mostly used an Xbox controller for it, but a keyboard should work perfectly fine, since it's a visual novel.  It's a pretty good story with good replayability for the different endings.  Now to continue to wait patiently for the next part...


The Good:
Good story, lots of options for ending routes.

The Bad:
Having to wait until the second part is released to finish off the story.

The SaHD:
Maybe after the second part, we will get Sengoku Winds?

(Review code for Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds was provided by the publisher)

Collar X Malice (PS Vita) Review

If you have read some of my other reviews, you will probably know that I really enjoy visual novel games.  That definitely includes otome games.  The back drop of Collar X Malice is pretty interesting.  After a high profile kidnapping and murder, a terrorist group known as 'Adonis' seeks to punish criminals and make people lose faith in a police force that isn't as sterling as they claim.  The series of murders is a countdown to X Day.  And what X Day brings, no one yet knows.

I really enjoyed the story of the game.  You play as rookie cop Ichika Hoshino (you can of course change her first name, but I left it).  After a rude awakening into the events of the X Day countdown, you team up with a group of guys to help solve the murders, and maybe save the city.  As you go through the game, you make choices which will affect story flow and which route you go on.  I was very surprised to get a bad ending very early.  Also, you get onto each route very early.  Since there were very few choices beforehand, I'm not really sure what determined my first route (it wasn't the one I was going to try for first).  When I went through a second time, I had a slightly better idea, but still not sure what got to that point.

At first I didn't like that the route was chosen so early, but it gives the protagonist and the romantic option time to bond and develop them as characters.  Most otome games seem to have a mostly unified story, and then branch off near the end.  I really like that Collar X Malice doesn't.  It really lets the characters and relationships develop more naturally.  There are different incidents to dive into, and the ones that Ichika is involved in change depending on the route taken.  That's a really good incentive to multiple playthroughs.

Another thing that the game does that I didn't expect is shifting perspectives.  To better flesh out the story, or to give the player some other tidbits, there are times the narrative shifts to another character.  On one hand, I like stuff like this in stories, as it is for the benefit of the reader.  On the other, it can feel a bit out of place, since otome games usually just follow the protagonist around the whole time.  There's also a select few times you will poke around a crime scene picture to find info about an X Day incident.  It was nice, but there are very few of them.  Lastly, there are also a few shooting QTEs in the game.  It's a nice little addition, but again are used very rarely.  I don't think they needed more, though.

Admittedly, one route through the game felt longer than average for visual novels, but it was probably still around 8-10 hours.  There were many times I was going to play for a bit, but got caught up in the story and ended up spending 3 hours playing before forcing myself to stop.  As mentioned before, having different crimes for different routes makes me want to play through them all even more.  So I'd say replay value for the game is very good, as each route had a lot of differences.

I very much enjoyed Collar X Malice.  It's an easy recommendation for visual novel and otome fans, and a great addition to the Vita library.


The Good:
I liked the story, and there is really good replay value in the different routes.

The Bad:
I have little idea how I got onto the routes I did get.

The SaHD:
Wow, two of the romantic options are just mean to you.

(Review code for Collar X Malice was provided by the publisher)