Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms Review

Player(s): 1
Platform(s): PS Vita

Back at it again with the Hakuoki review, and this time it's Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms! The game is also known as Hakuoki: Shinkai Hana no Shou in Japan, and storywise happens after Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds.  It's recommended to start with Kyoto Winds to have all of the character and story background, but the game does start off with a very brief summary of the events from the last game to get the player up to speed, which is really neat and a great reminder after not having played the first game in a couple months. Still, I would highly suggest checking out the first game in the series, which you can find our review for it HERE

As a fair warning, minor spoilers from the first game story are ahead!

The story starts off where we left, after the defeat of the Shinsengumi at Toba-Fushimi. The other big revelation coming into play from the last game is the fact that the main character you play as is now self-aware that she is a demon. This becomes an interesting fact, which leads to... a lot of vampire-like scenes from Fury Corps members. The fact that Chizuru heals fast as a demon makes her decide that she doesn't really care giving up her blood, as long as she can help those she cares about. Of course there's also the other option to just shove medicine in their face instead if you're not into these kind of scenes also.

Another thing from the first game that returns is the option to turn romance off if you're just into historical fiction, and not interested with dating the boys. (Crazy in my opinion, but to each their own of course!!) My favorite featured option also returns auto-read speed, which can be a deal breaker in some cases when other games don't have it. I read so fast that the normal auto read setting are way too slow, so it was nice to be able to read at a faster consistent pace without actually pressing anything.

Graphics-wise this game brings back one of my favorite small features from the previous game, moving mouths during talking cutscenes. Somehow the characters just feel more real that way, rather than staring at an unmoving jpeg image.

In certain cases, some translations felt weird to me, being someone who's picked up elementary japanese language skills from watching too much anime and playing too many games. Of course translation is very difficult and I have so much respect for translators themselves, but certain curse words were added in places where the character doesn't actually curse in Japanese. I found my immersion broke and I chuckled to myself at these parts a little bit, just because they were a little over the top and seemed to add an "edginess" factor to the character. Obviously, this isn't too much of an issue as much as just something I noticed.

There are still twelve bachelors to romance, and something different from the first game is that it gives you the route option you wish to choose as soon as you start a new game. Very nice for returning players to the series who already know what they want. 

Overall, this game has a lot of content, plenty of enjoyable characters and it's a dream come true for fans of the series. It's a wonderful continuation to the long-running Hakuoki series, and I've also become very emotionally attached to these characters also. I'm signing off for now, but the game is 100% worth buying and i'm hoping the other releases in the series get localized by Idea Factory in the future!

-Angie

Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms Is available now exclusively on the PS Vita via Idea Factory International. More information can be found below.
ideafintl.com/hakuoki-edo/

---

Art/Graphics: A
Sound/Audio: A
Gameplay/Story: A+
Value: A+

OVERALL: A

Pros:
+So many routes and content, incredible value
+Great opening/ending songs
+Interesting Story

+-Music/character sprites indistinguishable from last game, but it is consistent.

Cons:
-Edgy curse words added in translation were distracting.

---

FULL DISCLOSURE: This game was provided to A-to-J Connections free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of review