Hana Awase New Moon -Himeutsugi Volume- is the Nintendo Switch rerelease of the second game in the Hana Awase tetralogy, which originally debuted as a series of Windows PC games back in 2012. The Switch port from dramatic create (HuneX) comes with an extra short story as a bonus with each volume, as well as multilingual translations (text only) and an upgraded card battle system.
I played the previous game (Hana Awase New Moon -Mizuchi Volume-) back when it was first released on the Nintendo Switch in English in late 2023, and really liked its blend of unhinged plot twists, menacing love interests and hanafuda tournaments, so it was only a matter of time before I got to the second game in the series: Himeutsugi Volume. Each of the four games is based around a specific love interest (or love interests) from the 'Five Brights', the star pupils of the card-battling school the main character attends.
This post will be continuously updated with gameplay information and minor translations for Sengoku Basara: Sanada Yukimura-den, serving as a general reference guide. More detailed explanations of everything in the list can be found on the main blog.
Please note that this is a work in progress; if anything seems to be missing it might be because it was already mentioned in my old Sengoku Basara 4 reference guide or the one for Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi.
This post will be continuously updated with gameplay information and minor translations for Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi, serving as a general reference guide. More detailed explanations of everything in the list can be found on the main blog.
Please note that this is a work in progress; if anything seems to be missing it might be because it was already mentioned in my old Sengoku Basara 4reference guide.
I wasn't originally planning on reviewing Sengoku Basara 4 since I'm not really qualified to describe the technical achievements or provide impartial commentary about the intricacies of its design. Most game reviews seem to focus on mechanics and high level play, whereas I'm nothing more than a weird fanatic who loves the series a little too much.
However, it seems that a few crazy people wanted to know what I thought about it after all the months of hype. I decided to gather my impressions some time ago and the imminent anniversary of the game's release seemed like a good excuse to finally post them. As usual, I haven't structured this post as a review so much as a jumbled stream of consciousness.
One other thing that I should mention is that I mostly play in two-player co-op mode for the first few months of a Sengoku Basara game release; my partner's interest tends to wane more quickly than mine and it's fun to experience the new stories together for the first time. In that respect my opinions on some gameplay decisions might be unusual since two-player mode makes some parts of the game much easier, and others rather more challenging.
This weekend, the Animate Girls Festival 2014 (AGF)event was held in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City entertainment complex. AGF is a gaming convention solely targeted towards female fans - in other words, it's a feast of otome games and bishounen-filled anime which don't have to share billing with the big-budget mainstream games aimed at a male audience.
There are a few big brands in the otome gaming world which tend to dominate (e.g. Uta No Prince-sama, Hakuouki, Diabolik Lovers and Starry Sky) but one of the best things about female-orientated gaming is that it tends to be full of obscure titles which don't need huge budgets to generate a loyal fan base. To an outsider, the booths were probably full of similar-looking male hosts sporting colourful hair, ridiculous costumes and sexy poses, but to a fan this was as diverse a concentration of female-orientated content as you could possibly get.
The festival was split into two separate events on the 8th and 9th November 2014, each of which had a staggering amount of special merchandise, stage events and light hearted attractions on offer. With this being the event's fifth year everything was run in a professional way without too much queueing once the early morning crowd began to clear.
I was very surprised to learn that veteran Japanese game company D3 Publisher had recently released an official English (and Chinese) edition for their smartphone visual novel Gyakuten Yoshiwara. The unusual setting caught my eye and it wasn't long before I was downloading the free trial to see what it was like.
The plot of Gyakuten Yoshiwara (since retitled Forbidden Romance: The Men of Yoshiwara) is straightforward; you're a young woman living on an island where there's a huge gender imbalance. The men are so rare that the majority of them live and work in the Yoshiwara pleasure district, selling their nights to lonely girls who are looking for male company or yearning for a child. It's a simple reversal of the many stories of forbidden love between a man and his favourite courtesan which have been staples of the historical fiction genre for years.
The Yoshiwara district of the game has its own distinct culture which blends the Edo period red light district with the more masculine atmosphere of a modern host club. Everyone there wears gorgeous costumes loosely inspired by historical attire. Although the theme of the game is rather adult in nature, the game's content doesn't contain anything naughtier than you'd find in an everyday drama or soap opera. The dialogue very generously refers to the men as 'gentlemen of the night' rather than anything vulgar.
These two shameless flirts are my favourites
Since the game had only just been released when I checked it out, there were only two characters available for selection. I chose the gaudily-dressed Takao as my young lady's first partner because his flashiness was appealing. If the manager of a brothel was offering my character a night with a courtesan of her choice, why not go all the way and choose their top oiran? I dutifully paid the fee to play the main storyline once the free introduction was over and ended up paying for two bonus chapters afterwards, so I guess that shows I enjoyed it.
The character artwork is lovely and bursting with the flamboyant colours of the pleasure district. There are only five characters in total though there are six routes - one guy has a second storyline which hasn't yet been released. Despite the small selection I think most gamers will be able to find a partner they're reasonably happy with, whether it's the audacious Takao, highly-strung Tokiwa, elegant Kaguya, inexperienced Kagerou or the ruthlessly efficient manager, Iroha. It doesn't hurt that they're all exceptionally handsome.
This is what someone 'past his prime' looks like...
One of the unusual features of Gyakuten Yoshiwara is that it employs the 'E-mote' system, which means that the character artwork will gently move as you play to make it seem more 'alive'. It's a little like the motion in games such as Dragon's Crown except when I first played the characters' facial features would sometimes twitch weirdly along with their swaying hair. The first thing I did after encountering this phenomenon was look for a way to disable the system; sadly, this wasn't possible. Some character artwork tolerated the distortion better than others; watching Takao's eyes and nose wildly contorting made me feel more disturbed than impressed. The effect looks pretty good on the rest of the characters and you can see it in action in this promotional video.
Thankfully, the glitchy animation was fixed shortly after the game's release with a free update. It's a shame this wasn't until after I had played through Takao's entire story as I'd got into the habit of dreading his attempts to kiss the main character! The new animations are a big improvement and much closer to the original designs.
While it's not unusual for a smartphone title, perhaps the biggest potential disappointment of the game is the lack of voice acting. There's none at all, which means you're entirely dependent on the translated English script for immersion. I'm so used to seeing and hearing the original speech patterns in this kind of game that it feels as though something's missing. Instead of voices the player is treated to a selection of delightful instrumental music to set the scene. Over in Japan there are three situation CDs voiced by what seems to be a fantastic seiyuu cast (along with a spin-off manga) so perhaps a fully-voiced sequel might be possible one day if the series becomes more popular?
Where the lack of voicing hurts most is that the mostly-serviceable English translation is riddled with typos; in some cases these are quite severe, such as the two occasions during Takao's route where the wrong character's name was attributed to an important line of dialogue. The characters' names were mixed up again in Iroha's route, so I felt that the translator might have been working from a script without being able to see who was speaking on-screen. Another reason for my suspicion was that the tone of the dialogue didn't always match what was happening (no doubt exacerbated by the vagueness of written Japanese). If D3 Publisher could try to have a second native English speaker proofread their scripts in future to check for mistakes it could greatly improve the quality of their adaptations.
The script is decent - just in need of polish
Despite a few teething problems, Gyakuten Yoshiwara is a fascinating experiment and for its low price it's a no-brainer if you like sultry guys and historical settings. There are two endings for each story and attractive CG illustrations to collect. It's absolutely wonderful to see more quirky visual novels getting official English-language releases. Fans with access to an iOS device should definitely check it out to help support this niche genre in the west.
The English edition of Gyakuten Yoshiwara can be downloaded for free from iTunes in the UK, USA, Japan and in many other local stores. The introduction and first chapter of each character's story is free; after that you have to pay to find out what happens - in the UK it costs £2.49 per story, with a extra stories available for 69p each if you can't get enough of these 'gentlemen of the night'. The price seems very reasonable, especially as you can pick and choose your favourite guys in any order.
Since the game's initial release the updates have been thick and fast and most of the main characters now have their stories available for purchase. Since I like his exotic looks, flawless dress-sense and surly personality, I'm going to buy Tokiwa's story next as soon as it's released - and then I'm going to think about ordering the situation CDs for more immersion!
Update 13th July 2014: The game has recently been retitled Forbidden Romance: The Men of Yoshiwara so I've updated the review to reflect this!
Just in case anyone reading this decides to give the game a try, I'll be cheeky and leave my invitation code here (it will give us both points towards unlocking bonus illustrations): PhJyJuPZ
Edit: Wow! Thank you! I never expected to be able to unlock the pictures but I've already received the maximum number of points from people using the code! Please enjoy the game, everyone.
After some annoying problems getting the game to actually run in the first place, I passed a few idle hours playing through the silly Dot Kareshi -We're 8bit Lovers!- I ~Densetsu No Otome~. It's a Japanese otome game from Rejet which came out last year for Windows PCs.
The premise of the 'Dot Kare' series is that you are a typical female gamer who has spent many hours playing a traditional console-style roleplaying game. Unfortunately, your careless treatment has turned your party members into twisted parodies of the usual RPG staples with major personality flaws.
One day, you find yourself trapped inside the game, where you have to complete a quest with your disgruntled (and rather flirtatious) party in order to find your way back to the real world.
Dot Kareshi's release format is unusual; it's a series of three drama CDs packed with individual visual novels. Each CD/game set includes four different characters - the party in this first volume is composed of Hero (Yuusha), Mage (Mahoutsukai), Priest (Souryo) and Thief. I'm going to use simple English renderings of their names for this mini-review instead of the literal Japanese titles to make it easier to understand. Outside of a single joke the guys don't have names of their own and are referred to exclusively by their job titles.
This post refers back to my previous mini-review of the first title in the 'bee game' series, Jooubachi No Oubou: Menou-hen. There will be spoilers for both games as well as remarks about the games' adult content. Please don't read any further if you're uncomfortable with that.
Jooubachi No Oubou: Kaguya-hen is the second half of the Jooubachi No Oubou story. While Menou was raised in her hive as a princess, her sister Kaguya was cast out and left for dead by those she trusted most. This is the story of Kaguya's struggle to reclaim her birthright no matter how many setbacks she has to face along the way.
First and foremost, I should warn that the game is full of adult content and a considerable number of distressing situations. Sensitive gamers are advised to avoid the series entirely; Kaguya's game is noticeably worse than Menou's and there's a great deal of gore on top of the usual abusive undertones. I can't even begin to list the unpleasant themes which crop up this time around. The official website has demos and sample artwork to give gamers an idea of what to expect.
For those unfamiliar with Jooubachi No Oubou: Menou-hen, it's an adult PC game aimed at women about a female bee's journey to becoming the new queen of her hive. I know that I have a lot of male readers so if that description makes you uncomfortable please don't read my mini-review. I haven't included anything explicit in my summary but I'm going to be talking about the content of the game nonetheless.
There are spoilers below for all of the content in the game, including the endings.
This is the second part of my collection of translated Sengoku Basara 4 reference materials after the first grew too large for a single post. You can see the other part here; it contains menu translations, a stage list and weapon enhancement information.
If I have time, I'll gather my Sengoku Basara 4 information here as a reference guide. News and article translations will remain on my main blog; this summary is just for the main menus and system details for the game itself. More detailed explanations of everything in the list can be found on the main blog.
This is currently a work in progress. Unlike my usual posts this one will be updated periodically. Please note that as this blog entry became too long for Blogger I have moved the later chapters to a second post.
The Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi additions are in a separate guide here.
One of the many interesting things about the Sengoku Basara series is how much care the creators put into each character's dialogue. Every character consistently addresses the others (and themselves) in a particular way, which means you can often tell who spoke and who they were speaking to from written text without any context at all. This makes it quite challenging to translate; it's almost impossible to replicate the variety in the original script without resorting to obscure English expressions which sound very strange in a Japanese setting - such as Sasuke addressing Yukimura as 'Guv' rather than his usual 'Danna' in the English adaptation of the manga.
As a result of this careful attention to character interactions, many of the warriors in the games have attracted a number of nicknames over the last eight years. Some of these are based on names (and titles) used by the real-life historical figures; others are inventions used only in Sengoku Basara. And some are nothing more than in-jokes between fans.
In the west, new fans often seem to comment that it's very difficult to learn who all of the characters are. The nicknames don't help and there don't seem to be many resources in English to help people decipher them. I decided to try to put together a list of the most common ones - partly to be helpful, and partly because I was curious to see how many I could remember all by myself. The answer turned out to be 'a lot', though this list is far from complete, and doesn't even touch on honourifics or the multitude of personal pronouns the series employs.
Firstly, a list of nicknames for individual characters. It's hopefully obvious which of these are official in-game nicknames and which are jokes.
103-year-old 103歳 Motonari. A joke based on the age he would actually have been if he were at the Battle of Sekigahara. Anaguma 穴熊 Kanbee. 'Badger'. Aniki アニキ Motochika. 'Older brother', but used more like the slang expression 'bro'. Benmaru 弁丸 Yukimura. His real-life childhood name. Bishamonten No Keshin 毘沙門天の化身 Kenshin. Literally 'Bishamonten incarnate'.
"I can't wait until it comes out in English!" "I hope this comes out in the US!" "I'm gonna get this game as soon as it comes out here!"
Comments like these seem to crop up wherever the new Sengoku Basara 4 trailer is shown. Every time, someone has to break it to the eager fan that the game probably won't be coming to the west, and every time there's surprise and disappointment in their response. It's heartbreaking.
It often feels as though the English-speaking Sengoku Basara community is its own worst enemy. It's necessary to click the following link to read the rest of this post since it's not something everyone wants to hear.
I thought it might be fun to record my personal hopes for Sengoku Basara 4 before we have more information about what the game will include. This way I can look back on it later and laugh at how optimistic I was during the early days.
Here's some wild speculation based on the little we know so far.
Prediction 1: Every character with a full move set and story from Sengoku Basara 3 or Sengoku Basara 3 Utage will be a playable character in Sengoku Basara 4.
It's no secret that I adore Sengoku Basara. It's the reason I visited the Sengoku Basara karaoke room in Akihabara and the official Capcom shop in Odaiba, and it's a contributing factor to several of the pilgrimages I've made to historical sites in Japan before.
As part of this obsession, one of the locations I made sure to visit on my 2012 trip to Japan was the Capcom Bar, an 'entertainment bar' situated in Shinjuku, Tokyo. This post is mostly going to cover the crazy food my friends and I ordered during our visit, but I'll start by describing the bar itself in case anyone needs help planning a visit one day.
Capcom Bar is located in Shinjuku and might be difficult to find. The easiest way to get there is to navigate to Shinjuku Sanchoume station then take exit B9; it's a long underground walk but hard to get lost that way. A map and list of opening times is kept up to date on the bar's official website.
The first thing which needs to be understood when planning a visit is that the Capcom Bar is very popular. It's so popular that on the day we dined there, a queue had formed which stretched down the road even though the bar wasn't scheduled to open for another hour and a half. If you are a fan of the Biohazard series (Resident Evil), it might be worth trying the separate Biohazard Cafe and Grill S.T.A.R.S. in nearby Shibuya instead.
Everyone in the line ahead was female
Because of the high demand, the bar requires that every visitor reserves a time slot in advance (that's why we were queued up outside to begin with). At the time it was only possible to book in person - slightly annoying, as even though we'd arrived early the queue was so long we had to pick the second time slot of the day, leaving us with a long wait before our meal. Since then, the staff have introduced telephone bookings and Lawson convenience store reservations which should streamline the process.
I'm not sure whether it's still done this way, but we had to complete an order form for our food in advance as well to avoid delays; each time slot is only two hours long so you don't want to waste any time. The names of the menu items are all in Japanese, so if you don't speak the language it's a good idea to check the website before you visit and make a list of all of the dishes you want to order. It will make completing the reservation form much easier. If you can read Japanese, there are detailed menus outside the bar which give much more information about the food than the website. It's quite fun to wait in the lobby area leafing through the menus, making use of the free shaved ice machine and gazing longingly at the merchandise on display.
When our reserved time slot was due to begin the staff rounded everyone up and gave a rousing introduction ("Let's party!") to get all of the guests in the mood for some fun. We were then led inside the Capcom Bar and given time to look around at the decorations bathed in blue neon lighting. Small screens were set up next to the tables to show trailers from various Capcom games and merchandise from Monster Hunter and Sengoku Basara covers all of the available wall space. There were some consoles available too for people who had time to play (nobody did when we were there; the food was too interesting!).
The most prominent Capcom games represented on the menu are Monster Hunter, Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney), Sengoku Basara and Biohazard, with Street Fighter and Devil May Cry appearing too. Since my visit a few items from Dragon's Dogma have also been added to the list and there are occasionally special events for other games.
As soon as everyone had settled in, it was time to dine!
These acquisitions posts are slowing down recently since my anime purchasing has gone on hold for a couple of months (aside from an odd preorder slipping through here and there).
I got some good stuff today. First of all, my preorder for the US version of Hakuoki: Warriors Of The Shinsengumi (Hakuouki Musouroku) arrived. Because I'd purchased it from Amazon, it came with a bandana as a bonus. Aksys are probably my favourite US game company these days with their recent forays into otome titles.
I put the game box on top of Sannan's face for the picture because I don't like him much.
While checking the link for Hakuouki, I noticed that Sweet Fuse: At Your Side (Bakudan Handan) - the next of Aksys' otome games - is already up for preorder on Amazon, so I've added it to my list as well. It looks as though it's going to include some kind of bonus item too. Keep them coming, Aksys!
Hakuouki wasn't the only game-related item to come recently. Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires (Shin Sangoku Musou 6: Empires) also made an appearance along with its GAME-exlusive preorder DLC. Accompanying it are two Sengoku Basara doujinshi, one stunning Someya Rui art book loaded with full colour illustrations and the Haru Comic City 18 event catalogue.
It was unintentional, but I just noticed that I covered up Hisahide's face with the game in this picture. Perhaps I can make a habit of this if I buy enough games.
The Sengoku Basara Fan Kanshasai ~BSR48 Kaihyou No Utage~ DVD was finally released for fan club members on 20th December 2012 at ¥3,900. It's still on sale at the Basara-ya now so the next wave of members should be able to pick it up when they join.
Sengoku Basara Fan Kanshasai ~BSR48 Kaihyou No Utage~ was a special 'fan appreciation' event held at Tokyo Mielparque Hall on Saturday 26th January 2012. There were two separate ceremonies held on the same day to accommodate the crowds; one in the afternoon and the other in the evening.
The purpose of the event was to reveal the results of the BSR48 election, a comedic campaign that Capcom ran alongside the release of Sengoku Basara 3 Utage. Buyers of the game were allowed to vote for their favourite warlord, with the winning character receiving three rewards: a starring role in a new drama CD, an internet commercial, and a special 'image video'. The drama CD would also include the characters ranked in second through to seventh place, and there'd be one wildcard participant drawn at random from the characters who ranked either 10th, 20th, 30th or 40th. 45,541 votes were tallied in total and in the end few were surprised to find that Date Masamune won by a comfortable margin. He was joined on the drama CD by Mitsunari, Yukimura, Kojuurou, Sasuke, Motonari, Motochika and Nobunaga. I've listed the full results right at the end of this post for posterity.
This post is entirely made up of rumours because actual news has been rather rare lately.
There was a burst of excitement on Twitter the other day when it was discovered that there's a survey on the Ichiban Kuji website which hints at a future Sengoku Basara tie-in. Ichiban Kuji is a national prize lottery which runs in Japan; it's not unlike a raffle. Participants must visit a shop (usually, but not always, one of a particular chain of convenience stores) and purchase a ticket. They're then allowed to draw a prize token from a box. In most cases, you get to take it home with you immediately. Obviously, the more expensive prizes are quite rare and most people will just win something small and cheap. Some of the rare prizes can go for outrageous prices later on, especially if it's a popular series and the tickets sell out quickly.
There are some exceptions, as you can receive serial numbers to enter draws for extra, extremely rare prizes as well once you've participated. It's surprisingly complicated. The instant gratification and ability to see the prizes on the shelves before you buy helps make it a fun way to spend a spare ¥500.
Anyway, one of the gimmicks of Ichiban Kuji is that they regularly cycle through different themes for their draws; one month it might be Fate/Zero, and another it might be Ika Musume. I can't see the survey myself as a Japanese mobile phone email address is required to sign up to the Ichiban Kuji Club so I just have to trust the Japanese rumours. If they're asking fans for feedback on Sengoku Basara items it seems a safe bet that the series will make an appearance in a lottery soon!
It's a shame that participation overseas isn't possible. I'll be relying on the used goods market to grab any of the prizes which catch my eye...
The other piece of major news at the moment is, of course, tonight's Sony press event. It's rumoured to be announcing the Playstation 4 (at last), and one of the many conspiracy theories about the lack of a new Sengoku Basara game announcement has been that Capcom is waiting for Sony to break their silence first. I noticed that series producer KobaP flew to the US yesterday, though given the setting it's probably much more likely he's either there to watch or support a different Capcom title with more western appeal than spring a new Sengoku Basara on a pack of bemused American journalists. Still, I'll be following the live news from the event tonight closely just in case.
I'm quite curious about the PS4 as well, of course. It's just that all of my console purchases are driven by wanting to buy a new game rather than the hardware on its own, so knowing the price and specification isn't anywhere near as exciting as stalking Capcom staff for clues about new titles!
While Browser Sengoku Basara sadly closed down late last year, the other recent Sengoku Basara mobile game, Mobage's Sengoku Basara Card Heroes, still seems to be going strong. Today, Capcom announced the details of a huge overhaul for the game. To reflect the major changes in today's update, it will now be going by the name Sengoku Basara Card Heroes Matsuri (Festival).
Card Heroes wasn't my favourite of the pair, but it seems to have a reasonably devoted following and it's good to see at least one of the Sengoku Basara mobile games continuing, especially as they're an excellent source of official illustrations in the absence of a new console game.
The relaunch will include new features, such as a twice-daily 'alliance battle', as well as new character abilities and attack modes. Existing game data will be carried across to the new version automatically. Sengoku Basara Card Heroes Matsuri is compatible with smartphones running iOS 4.0+ or Android OS 2.2+, and most featurephones from docomo, au or SoftBank compatible with Flash Lite 1.1. It's free to play (you just need to create a Mobage account), however, there are in-game purchases required for some items. The software is only available in Japanese.
The Card Heroes advertisement from back in 31st July 2012 gives an overview of how to play:
Additional details are available at the 4Gamer website.
