Otome Game Review: Hakuoki Yuugiroku 2 ~Matsuribayashi to Taishitachi~

A sequel (?) to the first Yuugiroku game Otomate decided to poop out Yuugiroku 2. Unfortunately Kazuki Yone’s been gone for like 2 years so they had to get one of their copy cats to do all the CGs. Sadly this didn’t fare too well so to add salt on to the wound they decided to add a confusing as all hell system to make me flip multiple tables. (โ•ฏยฐโ–กยฐ๏ผ‰โ•ฏ๏ธต โ”ปโ”โ”ป

Because this game is so rage inducing I kinda gave up writing a summary for each route. No worries though – NOTHING actually happens. The entire story is basically Chizuru picking guy x and then going to the festival with him to make sure nothing “suspicious” is going on. After they fight off Chikage and his minions (for no reason other than the fact that they’re there), Chizuru and Guy X walk around the festival at night. They end their trip usually by the river and then it’s over. To add more “content” there’s a section called Sakuragatari where it’s Chizuru with Guy X near the cherry blossom DURING and AFTER the original game. You then pick phrases to raise the dude’s affection and once you pick 10 affection raising ones (which can be repeated – just not back to back), there’s a CG scenario.

Soooo let’s just go down the list of why this game is crap:

THE MINI GAMES ARE SHIT

The first hakuoki yugiroku game the mini games were challenging, but still doable and kinda fun. The games here for the most part are shit. The first shit minigame is the curtain tassel pulling game. Otomate should know by now curtain tassels are never a good thing! So here you are pulling a random tassel with no rhyme or reason hoping the one you pull pulls the right character. 1/15 times you will get it right the rest is wrong until the damn timer runs out.

The second shitty game is the slide puzzle. Yes this is shit because usually these things take a long time unless you’re some slider puzzle pro. This isn’t a game you can just do in 3 minutes. In the multiple times I’ve been forced to play this game, I only managed to successfully slide it into place ONCE and it magically gave me 1300 points (and I need 1000 to clear it.) Still shit though.

The other games, while challenging, were somewhat doable but the shooting one really made my wrist hurt especially on anything higher than easy mode (๏ผ›ยดะ”๏ฝ€).

THE CGS ARE HIDEOUS

There’s 2 parts to this rant. The problem here is, the CGs themselves are colored well but its the drawing underneath that’s the problem. It’s trying SO HARD to be like Kazuki Yone that even 1 thing being off ruins the entire thing. So for the most part I couldn’t recognize anyone except maybe Chikage? A lot of the guys for some reason also looked like Souji to me o___O. It’s like that character was the only one the copycat could draw well?? LOl.

Chizuru u ok?
Sano you’re scaring me.
่ชฐใ ใ‚ˆ…

The other beef I have is – in most CGs instead of seeing Guy with Chizuru its guy with “Chizuru’s body parts.” It looks like some horrid cell phone game. Either her head’s cut off or we only see her hands, or her legs or her lap omg. What is this some eroge lol.

I mean they even go as far as calling Chizuru by her name if you leave it default so at this point why are you making it so that she doesn’t even show up with the guy? Yes there are of course CGs of her with the guy but since this is a mini game I was hoping there would be more of Chizuru x Guy love love scene not some cheap cell phone game style fanservice. Next thing you’ll know they’ll start making her eyeless โˆ‘(๏พŸะ”๏พŸ)๏ฝถ๏พž๏ฝฐ๏พ.

THE GAME FEELS LIKE AN RPG MAZE

I must go on this quest to talk to certain people but if I talk to the wrong one I’ll derail into another route!

Idk when I think of an otome game I think “stalk guy to get his scenes.” Yes I know RPG otome games exist but I never associate Hakuoki with those. But here, you have to walk around talking to random people using the “michishirube” as your clues on who to talk to next. Once you talk to guy B, get item A, you return to guy C to get your “quest reward” aka Scenario. This is annoying BEFORE you get to the matsuri but once you are there, it becomes hell when the quest rewards are now mixed in with the stupid mini games. Since each MiniGame has 3 levels of difficulty its hard to tell which level you need to do to even get the next scenario. Sometimes the michishirube hints are so god damn confusing like in Chikage’s it said “you got my love letter isn’t it proper to send a response.” HOW DO I SEND A RESPONSE? Apparently thanks to a guide the answer was “talk to Souji” wut. On the topic of Souji, I was following a guide for Souji’s route but somehow I managed to derail and get Yamazaki’s ending…( ใ€€๏พŸ,_ใ‚๏พŸ). Needless to say I pretty much ragequit the game without finishing Souji’s route (not that I like him anyway so I really don’t give a fuck.)

SO PRETTY MUCH THE WHOLE GAME PLAY CAN BE SUMMARIZED LIKE THIS: WALK AROUND & TALK TO EVERYONE YOU CAN IN HOPES ONE OF THEM GETS YOU A SCENARIO โ†’ TAKE YOUR HISTORICAL BISHIE TO THE FESTIVAL โ†’ WALK AROUND IN CIRCLES SOME MORE AND PLAY SOME MINI GAMES UNTIL HOPEFULLY YOU GET MORE SCENARIO โ†’ RAGE UNTIL YOU LOOK FOR A WALK THROUGH โ†’ THE WAKTHROUGH MAKES NO SENSE SO YOU TRY USING MICHISHIRUBE โ†’ SHIT MAKES NO SENSE โ†’ WALK AROUND AND TALK TO EVERYONE AGAIN โ†’ CHECK WALKTHROUGH AGAIN AND TRY EVERY MINI GAME YOU HAVEN’T DONE YET โ†’ GET SCENARIO โ†’ 10 MINUTE ENDING AS YOUR REWARD WITH A DERPY CG OF YOUR GUY AND CHIZURU’S LEGS.

Needless to say I think it’s obvious why I don’t have a summary review for this game. IT SUCKS BALLS. And well the only reason I ended up completing (most of) it because I had like nothing else to play in between waiting for Sex School Wars to arrive at my doorstep. (I wouldn’t really be able to start/finish a game in like 3 days unless I was staying home all day.)ย  Though now that I think about it I shoulda just dumped the game and played some random free doujin PC game instead since it wasn’t worth it. The “plot” is pointless for the most part and as always I only really found Chikage to be entertaining. Chizuru felt like she was air most of the time and the overall feel didn’t really FEEL like the Hakuoki cast I knew from the first game? Also it felt like her relationship was completely reset with some of the guys. So then when you have that and the ending CG of them like cuddling together I get confused as to like when exactly does this game even take place.

Maybe it’s the art, maybe its the poor writing, maybe it’s the shitty system but either way this game is crap. I definitely recall enjoying the first Yugiroku game so I doubt it’s me having a hatred for mini games. Also in the first game they sort of created a reason why everyone suddenly turned chibi but here it was like “yea we’re chibi for no reason at all”. So yea the whole concept of the chibiness was kinda thrown out the window.

The chibs were the only saving grace.

My final thoughts for this game and Hakuoki in general are: OTOMATE STOP. YONE IS GONE. THIS SERIES NEEDS TO DIE.ย  Go back to milking Amnesia or something, at least the artist is still around. ( ยด_ใ‚๏ฝ€) Thanks to this game, Hakuoki is probably permanently ruined for me to the point that I don’t think I can even get myself to play any of the stupid doujin games people made for it. /puke

Hakuoki Yugirokuni Matsuri Bayashi to Taishitachi Regular Edition / Game

40 thoughts on “Otome Game Review: Hakuoki Yuugiroku 2 ~Matsuribayashi to Taishitachi~”

  1. Pingback: Dengeki Girl’s Style February 2013 « ใ‹ใ‚ใ„ใ„ใ˜ใ‚ƒใชใใ‚ƒใƒ€ใƒกใชใฎ๏ผ

  2. โ–ถits hard to understand everything in japanese.Im not a native speaker and i only understood half of what they were saying
    โ–ถbutthurt whine
    โ–ถpull that steel pillar out of your ass before you judge
    โ–ถbefore I dont start acting like you.

  3. i think you should grow up and make a serious review.yes otomate is milking this series i dont care.hakuouki is the game i like most.i could say toki no kizuna is shit because im playing it and it doesnt interest me with anything.if you like it heres my opinion on it.
    instead of being a brat i think you should stop whining and move on.the world can live without your review.lemme tell you why.
    first just cause its not made by Kazuki it doesnt give you the right to trash over someone that worked hard on the art, no matter it tried to copy her, and most of the way did it, i barely noticed the difference.im not as ggood as any of them but i can still tell you it requires alot of effort to do this.so unless youre the fucking best artist in the universe, i dont think you have the right to slpash mud on someone.
    second, Chizuru out of the picture.Some people hate chizuru, some dont, but love to imagine themselves instead of chizuru.Otomate kinda built the images from Chizuru’s POINT OF VIEW SO THAT BASICALLY MEANS THAT SHE WONT BE IN THE PICTURE.
    third point.its hard to understand everything in japanese.Im not a native speaker and i only understood half of what they were saying.yes they threw away the reason why they became chibis.idc.I had fun with this game more than in the first.at least shinpachi had his own little route.the first one just seems shit to me.
    yes , the system is confusing and you have to spin a bit arround to get whats happening, but its fun, at least to me.I did fuck up some answers and didnt get Sano’s cherryblossom route or whatever that image up there you put was.i dont care colors are off.The anatomy and characters are done to a decent level if you ask me and i like it.
    also games arent meant to give you everything served on a plate, because it would become boring to get everything right form the start.I like it that it has a highter level of dificulty and i can say i managed to guess alot of strings on Sano’s game, thanks, so that 1/15 tries of yours is invalid.I keep playing all the games because i didnt get all the routes finished, but nonetheless, despite not getting much from the dialogue or commands, im really enjoying the game.
    I thought this was supposed to be a review.A review is something you write about what happens in the game on each route, with some personal opinions as long as they’re constructive or not one sided.because it will ruin it for everyone else.What you did seemed more like a butthurt whine about a game some people put an effort too, even if its not perfect.This whole world is not perfect so dont start coming up with shit.Make a good objective review and pull that steel pillar out of your ass before you judge others.
    I could say more, but I’ll just stop here before I dont start acting like you.
    Have a good day honestly.

  4. yea I totally feel you on that pairing, it’s my OTP ๐Ÿ˜†
    But yea all their faces looked so bad lmao. I think what you said was actually what happened (it was as shallow as an inflatable kiddy pool) so I never bothered writing summaries for this game ๐Ÿ˜†

  5. I’m such a KazaChi fangirl that I can forgive the CGs until that one in the cherry blossom field… I was like HOLY MOTHER OF ********** WHAT IS THIS FACE?! Chizuru is crying and KazaChii looks WEIRD… I would cry too.

    My biggest issue with the Mini Games was that some of them would just be 100x better on a DS (I’m looking at that carving mini game ยฌ_ยฌ* )

    Thanks for the review! I had no idea what was going on plot-wise, sounds like I didn’t miss much. ;3; Wish I knew more about KazaChii’s route! Sounded like he had a bet going on with Chizuru and if he won he’d take her and marry her, but of course those meddling kids.. err… Samurai got in the way (again).

  6. use google? sorry i don’t remember what I used, I don’t think I even used one much since they made no sense either lol. i couldn’t even get souji’s end and gave up

  8. Pingback: Lโ€™Antre de la Fangirl » Le Bilan 2012 des Jeux Vidรฉo
  9. Pingback: 4th Anniversary Winners & Other Thoughts « ใ‹ใ‚ใ„ใ„ใ˜ใ‚ƒใชใใ‚ƒใƒ€ใƒกใชใฎ๏ผ

  10. Hello! Your review is very wonderful and funny! Thank you! Thank you for the screens, but could you put more screenshots Kazama, I searched the internet in search of them.! I would be very grateful for your help! (sorry for the terrible english, I’m from Russia)))

  11. I haven’t paid attention to anything anime related for Hakuoki because I really don’t like the anime art style. But anyway yea this game is clear “milking of the cow” and they don’t even put effort. Ever since Hakuoki Musoroku (which was shit but Aksys licensed it anyway) all their Hakuoki games are crappy shovelware.

  12. Why won’t they just let Hakuouki die in peace :(….good drawings by the way

    I guess this game was horrible. When I saw the news that it was coming out, I didn’t even give it a second thought. It sucks because Hakuouki was the first otome game I ever played ( I don’t play many games), so every time I hear they are releasing something Hakuouki I get excited. To bad this is what came out.

    Oh, and I know I’m late, but I just found out that they are releasing two movies for Hakuouki next year. I wonder what they are going to be about.

  15. I love your blog! Your review is too funny and true. I have this game and it SUCKS!!! I keep getting derailed on every route. I was on Hijikata, then got switched to Okita, was on Okita and ended with Yamazaki…I’m so done. The art makes me laugh, though.

  17. I know I did that but that didn’t explain anything. It seemed like the pattern it picked was totally random? Unless I just don’t understand how the omikudaji system works @@;

    The walkthroughs weren’t all that great and confusing most of the time too :S

  18. HAHA yeah the CGs looked weird to me too while I was playing it. And some of the characters gave me a hard time to complete. It’s like how the hell am I suppose to find these all on my own, so I had to look at walkthroughs.
    Btw, the curtain tassel thing I felt the same way at first. I was like what kind of shiz is this, but then it turns out that you have to press triangle or something (forgot which button) and the top ใŠใฟใ ใใ˜ part will show.

  19. no problem I pretty much agree with your rant as well. first one was at least kinda cute/fun and actually had Yone doing the CGs lol. Though I must say most of Quin Rose’s mini games on their new games are really really shitty, like almost as bad as the ones here. Fortunately they are optional and not required to move through the game.

  20. Wait, they made another one? I already thought the first one was shovelware crap, but this one looks like it sucks a thousand more balls.

    Otomate just let this series die. I know you wanna be like QR and have one series to milk, but at least QR tries with the Alice games. Their mini-games are quick, and they try to get better artists over time, not copycats. Yone is gone, so just give the series another style. QR has done this with Alice 3 times now, they still sell, so what’s your excuse?

    Oh, what’s that? You hate effort and can’t come up with something original on your own without collaborating with another otoge company/game company/novel writers? Then get your crap together and stop making a mess of your staff. Also, you should start treating them above dog levels. You know making people copycat is insulting right?

    But wait, you can’t even show an ounce of respect to your ex employees. Never mind, I’ll just make LH my last purchased game from you then.

    Sorry for the rant, but I’m getting so pissed with otomate. They’re not even trying anymore, and I gotta play the second game in BWS by them next month, and I’m getting so worried for it.

  25. I like Quin ROseโ€™s heroines too, I meant Otomate’s heroines. Well, I don’t like Chizuru and Haruka, there’re the most annoying ones >.<

  26. lol(เน‘^ฯ‰^ เน‘)
    your drawing is the best part of the review
    it’s a pity this game is crap, i really like the chibi
    school wars cg’s a lot better than hyakky and hot too ((โ˜ž๏พŸโˆ€๏พŸ)โ˜ž R18) hope the plot’s good,too
    looking forward to this game ‘s review(ยดโ— ฯ‰โ— `)

  27. I don’t think ALL MCs are annoying? I usually like Quin ROse’s heroines actually but I think this time around they didn’t bother putting any effort into her or the game period

  30. hahahahahahaha XDD
    I can’t stop laughing either XDDD
    Well, I like Hakuouki, but I agree with you, it needs to stop, there’re too much game already.
    I can’t stand Chizuru, omg, why is she sooo annoying?
    To say the truth, why all otome games MCs are so damn annoying?!

  31. LMAO I can’t stop laughing at your drawing. But really the CG of Chizuru and Heisuke, I dunno I feel like Chizuru is plumper orz.

  33. Wow your Final Thoughts tidily summed up my feelings about this series. It’s been played out and needs to be given the coup de grace.

    Also I can’t stop laughing at the CGs you fixed omg.

Comments are closed.