Otome Game Review: Arcobaleno!

Sorry I couldn’t find the PS2 op on youtube ・・・(=ェ=｀;）ｼｰﾝ

So when I first heard about this game I thought it was something relating to Italian Mafia 😆 Turns out its about…Italian cooking! Our heroine Kayano Yuuna enrolls into a culinary university where she then gets to internship at a restaurant called Arcobaleno. The restaurant pasta there reminds me of this delicious pasta that she ate 10 years prior. So basically you spend the entire game raising stats (kinda like Love Revo but less hard core) by doing dishes, cooking, waiting at the restaurant along with all your sexy hot co-worker mans. (*´д｀*)ﾊｧﾊｧ Also you need to take cooking exams in this game so yea playing it without a guide is just shooting yourself in the foot ＼( ^o^)／ Spoilers ahead as usual.

Murota Kaname – Kaname is voiced by Fukuyama Jun. That automatically makes him (;ﾟ∀ﾟ)=3ﾊｧﾊｧ　right off the bat lol. His grandma is like the head of the culinary school/program (?? or something) so she also administers all the cooking exams as well. She’s a cold ass 77 year old hag who wants Kaname to be a super chef so she isn’t happy that he wants to work at Arcobaleno for more than his “internship” period. She thinks he would be better off learning at better restaurants. Kaname on the other hand first thing Acrobaleno is full of idiots because the owner..is kind of a dork 😆 Thanks to Yuuna though he’s convinced that it’s not so bad after all and he begins to like the place. Kaname’s also a sweetheart because he takes care of the ANNOYING AS HELL FUUTA. When Fuuta came to Japan to take the exam for this university, he didn’t know Japanese and of course Japanese would never talk to any dark skinner foreigner…but Kaname helped him out. What a guy ﾐｭﾐｭ（´ε｀* )☆。　So Kaname and Fuuta have been friends and room mates since.

Additionally Kaname grows a personal tomato patch behind the dorms that he’s extremely proud of and get’s pissed off when Arcobaleno guys use his precious tomatoes to make crap food 😆 During a tornado Yuuna helps him cover the tomatoes up so that they don’t get destroyed which really moves his heart d’aww lol. Anyway after they all provide catering to his stupid grandma for her birthday, she agrees to let him stay at Arcobaleno. After that he walks Yuuna to her dorm (and thankfully they pulled Fuuta away from cockblocking 😆 ) he’s like HEAR ME OUT WOMAN, I’VE BEEN MEANING TO SAY THIS LIKE FOREVER, ILIKEYOUGOOUTWITHME (〃ﾉ△ﾉ) Haha it was so cute seriously xD;; So then it’s like Christmas eve and they’re all working at Arcobaleno when Yuuna goes to take out the trash. Kaname finds her outside and then she’s like “look snow” and then he kisses her DAWWW FFUUUU SO CUTE I HAD NOBODY TO FANGIRL WITH C= C= C= C= C= C= 。・゜゜ヽ| ；∀；|ノウワァァァァァァンッ!　Gosh everytime Kaname gave me his sawayaka smile I thought I was going to faint(*´д｀*)ﾊｧﾊｧ

Nasu Haruto – I don’t know if this is a pun with his name because it sounds like Summer Spring (Natsu Haru) to me 😆 Anyway he’s voiced by Tachibana Shinnosuke and sadly I have forever associated him with Garnet Cradle OTL. Anyway Haruto seems like the official OTP of this entire game. I mean the entire reason that Yuuna wanted to become an italian food chef is because of the super amazing pasta she was given by Haruto 10 years earlier when she was a loli. He’s also studied in Italy for 5 years so he’s like super pro chef at Arcobaleno. The deal with that whole story is 3 days prior to this incident, Haruto’s father passed away. Haruto was really depressed and his father’s restaurant had closed. Even though it was closed, he let loli Yuuna come in and he made her some pasta on his own will. She loved it and well since she’s only like 8, as a “payment” she gave him a blue marble stone thing. Because Haruto is a big pedobear, he’s kept the stone for 10 years waiting for his loli to grow up 😈 (ok that’s a joke but it’s kinda true!)Haruto’s trait is he has a black hole for a stomach. It’s so bad that Saotome even uses him to enter in food eating contests and while other contestants are dying and puking their food up, Haruto is eating it like he’s grabbing animal crackers from a jar 😆

Needless to say he makes the restaurant some money and he doesn’t care that he only gets a little bit of it because to him it’s free food! ＼( ^o^)／ Haruto is also usually very cool and composed. He’s like the kind of guy you’d imagine coming to you on a white horse. Those eyes of his… (*♡д♡*)ﾊｧﾊｧ Kaya granny says that his cooking is good but it lacks…love! So yea this is where Yuuna comes in of course as his “disciple” and he eventually begins falling for her. Well actually he’s falling for her but the two of them like dorks keep telling each other that they only have a coworker relationship and nothing more. It takes Basiglio to push Yuuna a bit to move things along. At one point Haruto has a huge pot fall on his hand and he’s injured and out of commission for 2 weeks. During that time the restaurant is only open part time and Yuuna, Kaname and Fuuta all help out. Yuuna overworks herself and passes out. She wakes up in Haruto’s room and sees the marble she gave him 10 years earlier. Haruto then tells her the entire sob story and concludes saying that he’s in love with her. Yuuna of course then admits she felt the same way and he kisses her…right as Ryuunosuke walks into the room (○´ﾟωﾟ｀):;*.’:;ﾌﾞｯ　Ryuu then immediately runs out with XD face and then is like HEY EVERYONE GUESS WHAT Y⌒Y⌒Y⌒Y⌒Y⌒Y⌒(。A。)ｱﾋｬﾋｬﾋｬﾋｬ!!　So yea they both end up being raburabu and making everyone else jealous, especially poor Kaname lol. I still love you Kaname-tan!

Saotome Nikichi – What’s with Saotome being some popular last name anyway? 😆 Anyway Nikichi is my favorite OSSAN SHOTA. Shota because he gets mistaken for a middle schooler, ossan because he’s actually 28 years old. He’s the restaurant manager and is always at the front greeting and seating customers. He’s very popular amongst the ladies making Ryu jealous lol. He’s also very hard working and very strict with everyone. He makes sure to budget everything correctly and keeps a giant collection of harisen (those giant paper fans) to smack those who get out of line! :lol:The reason he even began working at Arcobaleno is he was invited to work here by Ryu. He needed a job because his older sister passed away after giving birth to his niece. Then it turned out his niece is very sick as well and because her condition worsened he needed money to help out his brother in law for her care. He then agreed to work at Arcobaleno and he basically put his heart and mind into his work in order not to think about depressing things, like the possibility of his only remaining relative, his niece, dying. So while he always seems like he’s hardworking and genki, he keeps all his sorrow inside, and of course it’s up to Yuuna to comfort shota ossan and have him open his heart to her (*´v｀*)

One time while going to work, Yuuna overhears granny Kaya asking Nikichi to quit Arcobaleno and instead go become a full time host at Basiglio’s restaurant instead. She says that everyone at Arcobaleno relies too much on him. He tells her that he has no intention of leaving Arcobaleno…until one day he and Ryu get into a fight because Ryu wants him to take a break. He saw that Nikichi was taking meds because he was getting sick from overworking and yelled at him for not resting. Nikichi yelled back saying he doesn’t understand anything and then Kaya granny came babbling about taking him away again. Ryu babbled that he should just leave and Nikichi’s like “fine I will” and so he left. The next day customers who came to Arcobaleno and didn’t see him there were disappointed and left but Yuuna tried her best to recommend customers’ favorites so that they would continue eating. She gets really lonely without Nikichi so she runs to find him. Turns out he quit Basiglio’s place and was kinda emo-wandering around the boardwalk near the beach. Yuuna found him there said she’s lonely without him and that everyone at Arcobaleno needs him. He hugs her and tells her his feelings as well as the fact that he likes her. D’awww (*´v｀*) So anyway he comes back to Arcobaleno and then to relax everyone goes on a hot springs trip. Nikichi of course takes the opportunity to grab her alone while everyone’s in the bath and give her some rabu rabu. Also during the summer festival he totally slapped everyone with paper fans for cockblocking him xDDD BUT I THINK I MISSED A KISS SCENE ALONG THE WAY *throws a table at this crappy walkthrough.* Overall I liked Nikichi. He was so cute, and when he blushed it was so adorable…but then in serious moments he had this whole sexy shota ossan thing going on (*♡д♡*)ﾊｧﾊｧ so it worked both ways.

Komatsu Ryuunosuke – I like Hino Satoshi, I like Ryuu’s character personality, but I hate his hair. I don’t know that pink hair bugged me from the star to the end. That aside though, I felt like Ryu got completed shafted. It felt like he had funnier/more interesting scenes in all the other guys’ routes than he did in his own. It didn’t help that his story basically bounced off Nikichi’s and this time they even threw in this lame plot where Aika was like “wahhh you owe lots of money because of me.” Even though Nikichi was only Ryu’s senpai in college, Ryu was ronery so he made Arcobaleno and invited Nikichi offering him money. Yea it’s sad, he only created this restaurant because he wanted to be around a bunch of people because he’s a lonely sad panda. He’s so happy when Yuuna stands up for him against Sasuke Basiglio that he ends up crying. At the end the restaurant decides to do wedding receptions/ceremonies and so Ryu and Yuuna end up being photo models. Ryu then asks her to one day wear a bride dress for real for him. Sigh…so random. It’s like I felt almost no romantic development between them because it was all overshadowed by the gags (´･ω･｀;）　Even for the final scene where she goes to sneak a kiss on him, they just show him hugging her in his lap and her looking shocked. Seriously, Ryu got shafted 😐 Even the guys at the end said “oh it’s just Komatsu, so we still have a chance!” 😆

Katsura Fuuta – Fuuta….oh Fuuta…and his stupid dog Chako. I don’t get this guy. He’s from some random island but his name is Japanese, his family all have Japanese names and they speak old fart japanese and end everything with JA instead of da or desu. So I’m just going to assume his family is from some remote island near Okinawa if not from Okinawa themselves 😆 Fuuta came to Japan to learn how to make washoku….but yet he is learning how to make Pizza instead. Does anyone see something wrong with this picture? (　´_ゝ`)　He’s so dumb that he puts food into a food processor, leaves the lid open and the food flies all over the classroom. 🙄 So needless to say once his brother and father find out he’s in japan making ITALIAN food they rage and his brother flies to Japan to take him back to “the island.” But with Yuuna’s help, Fuuta convinces his brother Takumi (see?) that the Pizza is super delicious and then he enters some pizza making contest which is broadcast on TV. He doesn’t win first place or anything but I think he qualifies for some other award. Anyway blah blah he and Yuuna are suddenly rabu rabu and in the end she goes back to his island. I was zoning out in his route because it was late and well I just don’t like Fuuta. His voice actor sounds like someone kicked him in the balls to be honest. He’s not cute, and he’s certainly not hot so it was entertainment of the equivalent of playing some dumb eroge (like nursery rhyme for example 😆 ). After you finished Fuuta’s route though, there was a nice prologue of 5 years earlier where it showed how Nikichi, Ryu and Haruto all formed Arcobaleno. This is probably the only interesting thing to come out of this entire route (；´Д｀A ｀｀｀

Basiglio Gracciani – I’m sure I butchered his name but whatever. He’s voiced by Sugiyama, aka Sasuke and like thanks to Naruto I could just not UNHEAR that voice 😆 Basiglio is a douche. He’s an italian douche bag who probably wears Axe body spray while he “courts” his “seniorinas” （ノ ﾟДﾟ）ノ　＝＝＝＝＝＝＝　┻━━┻　Whatever dude you’re on the annoyance level of Fuuta. The worst part is to even get his route you have to randomly go to random guys until he finally “shows up” on the town map. What the hell is the point 🙄 When he does show up it’s like I LOVE YOU SENIORINA. Yea like I believe that one. But I guess he was serious because when Shougo took a photo of them hugging and published it in a paper, Basiglio felt really bad about it. He was so ashamed he went back to his hometown in Italy. Yuuna said some day she’ll become a pro chef and come visit him in Italy…and so a few years later she visits him and the first thing he does is smooch her with plans to “continue” in his room (or the kitchen? 😆 ) Basiglio also hates Haruto because he rejected his younger sister many years ago (oh noes what great reason to hate someone.) His hair also has this stupid hairband in it which makes him look like wolverine from Xmen half the time. Sigh, I only did this route to get the vs route with Haruto, otherwise this is to be avoided like the plague lol.

Yagi Shougo – This is the most pointless route in the game. The entire game Shougo is this evil reporter who just works for money and will do anything, even slander people to get a few bucks. And suddenly, he has a route! He is hired to spread rumors about a mouse infestation at arcobaleno, and everyone finds out and Yuuna still forgives him. There’s hardly ANY interaction period, let alone romantic interaction between these two but yet at the end he’s hugging her then acting like “there’s nothing between them” until the other guys rage and he then asks her out on a date. What the hell really? What was the point? I feel like I spent most of this game skipping through other people’s scenes then talking to this guy. It’s a shame since I think they could have done a lot more with his route if they just stopped making him the evil antagonist the entire time.

Haruto vs Basiglio – Uh so this is where the love triangle routes come in. There’s a 2 guy end, and then an end for each guy singularly. In this case, in the 2 guy end Yuuna realizes she’s immature and then the two of them fight over her of who will take her out first. Then in Basiglio’s ending, Haruto admits defeat and says Basiglio is a nice guy and will take care of her. Then in Haruto’s end, he gets all emo like “noo don’t go to Basiglio!” “Noo don’t use his cup!” Some cup drama 😆 Then in the end Basiglio lies to Haruto saying he will go out with Yuuno in order to provoke him to admit his feelings. Sadly Yuuna has to admit her feelings first. Meh it felt so immature in comparison to his regular route I was kinda disappointed. Not only that but then Haruto was like “Basglio let’s drink together..I want to know more about you.” Uhh….yaoi end? Basiglio’s like “wtf dude do not want” especially after Haruto totally forgot that he dumped that guy’s sister (○´ﾟωﾟ｀):;*.’:;ﾌﾞｯ　At the end Haruto and Yuuna are drinking some coffee on the couch and Haruto says she should keep Basiglio’s mug in case they “expand” their family hahaha >:D. Of course Yuuna being the typical Otome Heroine doesn’t get it orz.

Ryuunosuke vs Nikichi – While the above vs route was kind of a disappointment, this one I really liked! It actually felt like it added something to the characters’ original routes rather than feeling like some kind of unnecessary extra. In this one, basically both Ryuu and Nikichi had fallen for Yuuna. Nikichi of course feeling eternally indebted to Ryuu decided to hide his feelings because he knew it would break Ryuu’s heart. Ryuu on the other hand knew that Yuuna had strong feelings for Nikichi so he decided to help her make Nikichi “admit” his feelings for her by pretending to go out with her. If you say no, then its the undecided end where they both argue for Yuuna’s attention 🙄 Whatever. Now if you say yes, Yuuna ends up coming over to Arcobaleno while Ryuu and Haruto are out, and watching some Italian food related videos with him. Ryuu then gets sleepy and falls asleep on her lap. If this makes your heart beat, you get Ryuu’s good end. If you’re like “uhh…yea..” then you get Nikichi’s. While this was going on Nikichi came back and like raged at Ryuu saying he has no feelings for Yuuna and Ryuu’s like “so why are you raging.” In Ryuu’s end it was so hot (*´д｀*)ﾊｧﾊｧ He was like “I can’t stop myself I must have you..” SO MUCH BETTER THAN HIS ORIGINAL. Nikichi’s end he saved her from some nanpa guys and then spilled out his feelings to her on the bridge where he gave her a sweet kiss. I guess he was worried about their age difference but he just stopped caring after a while when jealousy took over xD;; Anyway both were really cute so I really liked this vs route!

Fuuta vs Kaname – This was so stupid and pointless ><. I thought I’d get some really awesome CGs but other than the one of Kaname kissing Yuuna the rest was bleh. I guess the up side is that I picked up the missing Fuuta CG I was missing but since I don’t care about Fuuta that didn’t really make that happy 🙄 Similar to the previous vs route, Kaname and Fuuta both liked Yuuna but only Kaname was the mature one to hold back his feelings. In Fuuta route Kaname was all like oh yea you guys will be cute together, damn I wish I had a girlfriend! Then in his own route Kaname became this huge drama queen, smooched Yuuna then ran away babbling about his and Fuuta’s feelings. Then suddenly he’s on a plane to Italy and he’s like YUUNA WHEN I COME BACK LETS GET MARRIED AND START OUR OWN RESTAURANT. Wut. 😯 It was really strange orz. The 3p route was actually better. Both were calm and mature and said that when Yuuna is ready to make her decision, they will support the other (well at least in Kaname’s case.) Honestly this again felt like an unnecessary route for both Fuuta (whatver) and especially Kaname. Kaname always felt like the cool composed character and them making him into a drama queen was just stupid.

Haruto vs Kaname + Harem End – Haruto vs Kaname was barely even an ending. My broadcast for it was literally 5 minutes. All they do is fight over Yuuna’s homework assignment (donuts). The harem end was the same – I had to spend an hour skipping through the entire game just to get a scene of all the guys fighting over who will hang out with her first at an indoor pool. I guess Yuuna needs to learn how to play beach volleyball, catch a frisbee, put on sun oil, break a watermelon and go swimming at the same time. 😆 It was cute but definitely ANNOYING that I had to spend time skipping through the entire game. It was so bad I literally began falling asleep and had to drink tea to wake myself up. ;´Д｀);´Д｀);´Д｀);´Д｀)

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So I took a peek at 4 Shiki’s review of the PSP version game and I was shocked at how the it literally SLICED OFF the CGs. Man that sucks! You pay money because you don’t have a PS2 and instead you get shafted 😐 Anyway I absolutely loved this game. It put such a huge grin on my face at most the endings, and all the cute chibi-scenes reminded me of Love Revo.　The regular guys routes were a lot of fun and I loved the Ryu vs route but some other stuff almost felt like they forced it in to add extra playtime. Similarly like in love revo, playing the game twice is annoying because you have to constantly pick schedules, take exams (which after the first run were skippable thank god) and visit guy X in certain order or you won’t get his scene. I completely missed the scene of Nikichi drawing on Yuuna’s face but after the harem route run through I just couldn’t do it all over again. Additionally I got pissed that I received picture emails for everyone but Haruto and Kaname (my favorite characters （ノ ﾟДﾟ）ノ　＝＝＝＝＝＝＝　┻━━┻). So yea no shower Kaname and sleeping Haruto pics for me I guess! So not playing the game again just to try to get them considering them are completely random. I wish you could “skip to next choice” or skip the chibi scenes cause those took up a lot of time sigh. Overall it’s a cute game, definitely worth playing for Kaname, Haruto and Nikichi but a few gameplay features could have been improved…especially Shougo 🙄 The bonus recipies were really nice and I plan to maybe try making some of them XD