Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ was released on the Vita two and a half years ago. I really enjoyed it, and was eager to try out the sequel, Future Blessings, that was recently released. The PS4 version of the game, Bouquet of Rainbows, houses both games in the series. Yes, it is harder than it should be to keep the names straight. Anyway, for this release, I stuck to the Future Blessings portion of the game, but I'll still have some information from Guardian of Rebirth, mostly re-hashed from my previous review. If you are interested to dive deeper into that, here's the link for it.
Being a visual novel, all stories in Bouquet of Rainbows are heavy on the reading, but many non-protagonist lines are fully voiced. It's also an otome game, so you are playing a female, with the option to be romantic with one of a few guys. Guardian of Rebirth follows the story of Cardia. After being virtually abandoned in a mansion and little to no memories of her past, she meets the gentleman thief Lupin. Soon, she meets several other colorful characters and discovers the secrets of her deadly poison. There are a few choices the player makes throughout the game, which will influence your route and the eligible bachelor you end up with.
Future Blessings, on the other hand, has far less dialogue choices. There are the "after" stories, which take place after each guy's ending from Guardian of Rebirth. You will obviously want to do them after completing the first game, otherwise they won't make as much sense. The stories were interesting enough, and expound on some ideas touched in the previous game. There's also three side stories. The first is a non-romantic story where Cardia meets a new friend, and gets mixed up in the mafia. It's surprisingly good for how silly an extremely brief synopsis makes it sound. The other two are more what-if tales that allow Cardia to interact with Herlock Sholmes and Finis. As you complete these stories, you also unlock brief stories with Delly, another character from the first game.
Your first story in Guardians of Rebirth will last the usual VN length of about 8 hours (estimate on my part). There's good replay value in going through the different routes. Enough of the story changes that it is worth doing all the routes, even if you skip the parts you have already seen. The "after" stories in Future Blessings aren't quite as long, taking only a few hours to go through. Adding in the side stories, there are more "routes" to do. By contrast, these are a little longer than I would have initially thought. Overall, doing all the routes and stories adds up to a good amount of play time and some good reading.
The whole package on the PS4 is really nice. My only gripe is that there were some typos and broken text that I encountered. It wasn't common, and not in every story I played, but it was noticeable. While I still prefer to play visual novels on a portable system, Code: Realize ~Bouquet of Rainbows~ was fun to play on the PS4. It's still an easy recommendation for visual novel and otome fans.
The Good:
Combines both the first and second game into one convenient package, and both have several interesting stories.
The Bad:
There were a few typos in at least one of the stories I played.
The SaHD:
Avido Crudele is a pretty rockin' villain name.
(Review code for Code: Realize ~Bouquet of Rainbows~ was received from the publisher)
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