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Well at least this game was free.😅 |
Our heroine Shunlin who is a fledgling exorcist joins a fighting tournament with a bunch of childhood friends (some of who she doesn’t even know were in her childhood lmao.) Unfortunately things don’t go as planned when a bunch of kyonshi zombies attack and send the audience running for the hills. Some of her friends and acquaintances get zombified too and also the emperor is a crazy tyrant who wants to arrest and execute all exorcists blaming the incident on them. It’s up to Shunlin and her panda sidekick Mimi to save the day! ⚠️ Plot spoilers so be forewarned.
Yuhang – Yuhnang is Shunlin’s tsundere childhood friend who was aalso Rex in Crazy Chain lol. This game is template as fuck so aside his rain of betsuni’s and “omae no tame janai kara ne”s he’s also the “I’ve loved you forever” childhood friend and the mom spoils it to Shunlin when she visits them for dinner one day lol. Yuhang’s master Seisetsu is a traitor and forces him to kill Shunlin, and despite being hesitant he still goes to strangle her like come on Otomate, no need to be edgy in this game. ( ´_ゝ｀) Anyway Seisetsu wants to execute the emperor but Shunlin and co. stop him thanks to Yuhang being like “yea no I choose hoes over bros.” Also apparently Shunlin looked like Seisetsu’s wife which is why he couldn’t fully commit to killing her. WTF. His wife was killed and so he was on a revenge quest…oh wait this was exactly like Rex’s route in Crazy Chain!
In end 1, Yuhang tells Shunlin once again that he loves her and loved her all this time – yea we know lmao. However Shunlin is suddenly like “…hmm I think I love him too hehe!” ( ´_ゝ｀) Okay gurl whatever you say I guess. End 2: Shunlin confesses to Yuhang first and he’s really happy so they started dating….until grandpa finds out and he’s like AWW HELL NAW you gotta beat me first. He loses so he decides to go on a journey to train and Shunline’s like NOOO I’M GOING WITH YOU and hugs him so tight he passed out wtf lmao. 🤣
Shaowu – A fighter who’s just plays to win and has no interest in anything else. When he was younger his village was attacked and his mom got brainwashed and turned into a zombie. After she lost consciousness he was adopted by his master and learned fighting. Shaowu gets framed for trying to assassinate the emperor but Shunlin believes him while everyone else thinks she’s being taken for a ride. While he gets captured temporarily and she’s recovering from the attack by some traitor soldiers, they both realize they’re madly in love with each other. Shunlin wants to help save his village and with Shiyu, the zombie dude, and Mimi, they form a ragtag team. They get to his village, of which nothing is left but a smoking crater. They find his zombie mom tied up while she growls like a zombie. The only way for her out of this is to basically die and be freed or to live as a zombie permanently. Shaowu makes his decision and asks Shunlin to purify his mother and put her out of her misery.
Somehow though, they magically turn her back to human and she tells them the truth about the emperor and what happened to their village. Anyway Shiyu takes the mom to safety while Shunlin and Shaowu go bang in the cave on their way to defeat the emperor. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Emperor Luojin’s crimes come to light so there’s no actual fighting and he’s thrown in prison. In the epilogue he gets a job working at the palace as an officer. He then shows up after not seeing her for a while saying he was working to make money to be her husband and asks her to marry him.. In the other ending, his mother is somehow still magically alive despite having a zombie transformation like ???????? And she wants Shunlin to marry her son lol. Also Shaowu gets a 2nd kiss CG here, Matsuoka bias I tell ya.
Haoran – Haoran is the childhood friend #2 but the oniisan type rather than how Yuhang was the tsundere. When Haoran was little he was practicing his fighting with his fellow fighter Wei and accidentally destroyed Wei’s foot so he had to give up fighting permanently. He still feels guilty to this day. Just like in other routes Haoran’s master Yiming gets turned into a zombie. The route then turns into a detective story cause gramps leaves her some notes explaining he’s being framed and needs to temporarily hide. Anyway they’ve friend zoned each other to the point where when they run into Lailai, Haoran’s old fellow trainer Shunlin wants to ship them …until she realizes actually she wants Haoran to herself. 😅 She tells him she wants to be more independent and see him less as a brother and somehow that shatters him 😂. So Wei is like if you’re so lonely then just make her your gf and he’s like no I can’t she’s been muh imoutoooo. But then he has a 💡 moment and realizes that she’s no longer just like a sister to him and is an equal partner.
Anyway turns out Wei was a traitor all along and basically hated Haoran his whole life and even more after the injury. He’s working with Shiyu to get revenge and they also zombify poor Shaowu which gives Wei the opportunity to stab poor Haoran. Shunlin somehow activates some zombie powers she has and that gives them the opportunity to escape. Unfortunately Wei catches up with them and uses a talisman he stole from Shiyu to basically send Haoran and Shunlin to fall into the underworld. 😱 Haoran’s body recovers but Shunlin starts vanishing because she fell in while still alive unlike Haoran who was dead. Haoran finds a tree thanks to the doggo they buried at the start of the route. If you eat peaches from it you can basically come back from the dead but he first has to fight his master/adoptive dad to test his reflexes. Haoran defeats him and then decides to split a peach between him and Yiming while giving the full one to Shunlin.
They come back and beat up Wei for nearly killing Shunlin. I don’t understand how this got resolved so easily but I guess no point in questioning loop holes in this plot. They just kinda brush off the fact that Yiming and Haoran needed to get their bodies fully back but somehow they magically did while we weren’t looking. 🤨 In the epilogue Shiyu randomly reveals that Shunlin stole his powers when she was a baby like whut ?? 😂 What a weird time for such an important plot revelation. He also gives up being outnumbered and asks that they punish emperor Luojin for his crimes so he can move on. His son Yoki ends up taking the throne instead. The fighting tournament is back on and of course magically Haoran wins and they make out in front of the entire audience to celebrate while confessing their love lol. 🙄 This route was such a let down because there were so many important plot details that were completely brushed over or just resolved quickly that it made everything just feel trivial.
Longli – Poor Longli works for the emperor at the palace, has to constantly deal with the emperor being a douchebag in every route. Shunlin is apparently the only woman who approves of him being a fighter because all the other ladies he’s met were like “noo you’re too beautiful to fight~” lol okay then. ( ´_ゝ｀) His grandparents (cause his real parents are dead) like her a lot and want her to marry him. He’s got Elsa syndrome in which his hands are permanent popsicles and he always wears gloves so nobody can feel the ice if they touch them. One night he touches her while she’s sleeping and realizes whoaaa I can feel human warmth again and after that he just goes full horny for her for the rest of the route. I really didn’t like how he constantly kept trying to keep her locked up in his little uguu shack of love oh well sasuga surprise yandere I guess. He even has the “time to lock you up HEE HEE HA HA” line lol.
When she tries running away he gets really pissed off and she’s like no bro I ain’t gonna just be locked up like some little trophy of yours. She ends up coming outside when the zombies attack again and is like bro you need a daoshi to purify these guys and I’m your woman for the job 😎. Anyway after the gets the yandere out of his system he reveals he’s got some Elsa syndrome and his hands are icicles so he can’t feel warmth of anyone…except Shunlin. So that’s why he locked her up and she’s like aw shucks is that it I forgive you!🤦 He thinks it’s because his mom banged some gaijin sailor (idk maybe Elsa’s secret love child who knows.) Everyone then gets turned into zombies except Longli and Shunlin so they have to beat them up before bringing them back to normal. Shunlin uses her special powers and it once again flashes back to the fact that her powers really belong to Shiyu. Turns out Longli’s mom gave birth to him in the same place where baby Shunlin was abandoned before she died. Wtf is that place like some forest maternity ward 😂??
They then reveal that Longli’s mom Ailei was Shoyu’s bff since she was a kid when she ran into him in the woods while he was busy cooking up his revenge plans on the emperor. Right before she died she asked Shiyu to save her baby so he used his magical zombie powers to save Longli but as a side effect it gave him Elsa powers lol. Longli said his mother would tell him stories of his father overseas but…his mother gave birth to him and died immediately. How tf does he have memories of this when he was a fetus. 🤣😅 Shiyu then reveals how Shunlin took his powers and he needs to kill her to get them back and take his revenge. (Apparently Shunlin was a muscle baby who sucked the powers right outta him just by pulling his finger.) Shunlin manages to purify him and send him on his way and he’s like meh well if someone is taking me out I’m glad it’s you two. In the epilogue he slips a ring on that finger and asks Shunlin to marry him because magically despite being China they somehow follow weather tradition for proposals 😂. In the other ending he’s back to his yandere tendencies and already has plans to lock her up in his house again 🤦.
Uro/Yue – The secret route in this game is kinda like that one secret route in Yunohana spring where the guy doesn’t show up the entire game and then shows up as a new character😂. He starts his route by randomly kidnapping Mimi and treating her and Shunlin to lunch 😅. Apparently he’s met Mimi before but he has amnesia and they don’t speak panda to find out the details. Anyway I love how we just trust this dude and hang out with him now even though we have no idea if he could possibly be dangerous. Like with many routes, the emperor arrests all the daoshi, and plans to execute them so Shunlin, Uro and Longli decide to rescue them and stop the emperor’s evil reign. Meanwhile Uro is all jealous of Yoki knowing Shunlin in the past and it’s completely upset that the prince intends to marry her ( even though she has feelings for Uro but can’t say them cause omg what if he has a gf he forgot about!? 😂😅)
They kill the emperor so prince Yoki takes the throne but they still need to get Shunlin’s grandpa and Haoran from Shiyu’s zombie grasp. Uh but then turns out the real yandere of this game is Prince Yoki who was so jealous of Uro that he tried to throw him off a cliff 5 years ago…and after realizing he survived, he did it again after stabbing him in front of Shunlin. Not wanting to be locked up by yet another yandere Shunlin jumps off the cliff after Uro. She finds him bleeding on the ground but somehow he survived and she tended to his wounds to heal him because she so happened to carry a first aid kit somewhere in her uniform 😂. Thanks to hitting his head a second time he remembers that he’s Prince Yue, Yoki’s older twin brother who was supposed to take over the throne next. They were bffs as kids but Luojin considered Yoki the weak brother and basically exiled him in the palace as tradition had it so that the public only knew the emperor as having 1 strong heir.
Yue wanted to make Yoki feel better so he told him stories about his adventures outside the palace and his meetings with Shunlin. Yep Yue and Shunlin met as kids and apparently were each others first loves and made a promise to marry each other. (And I honestly find these promises so stupid and ridiculous ain’t nobody going to act on a marriage proposal from when they were 5.🤣) That’s why Yoki kinda took on his brother’s personality cause he was always locked up in the palace alone. Yoki began to resent Yue and even poisoned and killed their mom so he could blame it on him and have him executed. 😕 (Well the game didn’t specify it but I assume that’s what happened??) Also apparently Longli kinda figured out it was him off the bat cause they looked so similar ( tbh I figured they were probably twin bros fighting over the throne cause they looked so similar).
And then we get another revelation bomb that Shiyu was emperor Luojin’s brother and the true heir to the throne but like with Yue and Yoki, Luojin killed him 50 years earlier when he was 17. Uro then sacrifices himself to give the rest of his zombie powers to Yoki and the two brothers face off. Yue wins and becomes the new emperor. In the epilogue he sneaks out of the castle to propose to her and give us a hair kiss cg. At least the other ending was better when Shunlin got sick of waiting for him and just snuck into the palace and leapt into his arms for a real kiss 😆. Honestly the ends where she takes action were always more fun to me than the regular ones. Since Yoki was the true cray yandere in the route, they could have just let Longli be…normal. Actually Yoki didn’t even need to be a yandere either, like it feels like Otomate just wanted to throw in some “lock you up” lines to attract that audience to the game but they could just be playing Virche instead or something. 😅And finally how tf is Mimi such a tiny panda like DECADES later. If Mimi was with Shunlin when she met Yue as kids, she has to be at least 10 years old. Maybe she’s got animal dwarfism or something. Tiniest panda of all time.
I need to make a new final thoughts banner cause I technically retired Lee but eh, he can stay for now. 🤣Overall I am disappointed. I can’t say this game was like “bad” or “kusoge” but it just feels like a cheap doujin game I would have played 15 years ago but somehow has Otomate’s ridiculous overpriced price tag on it. Luckily, I won it in an online raffle so I didn’t pay anything for it but it was definitely not worth more than maybe $20 total. The best part about the game was the graphics, the UI and the music. It was very fitting for the theme and while I think some CGs were kinda awkward it still had its charm.
That said the game was just lacking a lot, especially character interactions. Many of the characters were either instantly in love with Shunlin or if they never interacted with her, it took them maybe 2 chapters before they were completely 100% affection lol. There’s like no build up at all, and even for Shunlin most of the time it was one of those “I don’t know when it happened, but I find myself in love with him now uwu”. A lot of the cheapness was felt because I had just played Crazy Chain so the sprites had no movement (no eye blinking, no mouth movement) and no heroine portrait. The biggest WTF moment for me was the manga.
The game would basically take this 1 manga page and zoom in and out from panel to panel to show a “scene” and it just felt SO CHEAP to me. I would have rather had sprites moving or maybe seeing the sprites change their expression etc. The manga just made it feel cheap and crappy. Maybe others might disagree and while I do think it’s unique, I don’t think it was appropriate. It reminded me of those shitty old youtube/tiktok videos people would post with “leaks of latest manga chapters guys!” where you could barely read or keep up with the panels and nothing made any sense until you actually just read it yourself normally.
The localization by Aksys was okay overall. I found a few typos here and there but nothing glaring. The only thing that really stuck out was Mimi’s uh..gender? In some routes it was a she, in some it was just an “it”. I had assumed Mimi was a girl from the first 2 routes I played but as I got further into the game Mimi became genderless so umm okay then. Idk overall the entire vibe I got is this:
I think Ninkoi deserved a localization way more than Otome Daoshi but seeing how the game got mediocre ratings in Japan the licensing fees on it were probably dirt cheap enough for Aksys to pick up. 😅 Hopefully they localize Ninkoi one day (I think there’s a switch port by now??) or at least Crazy Chain because that game was way better (and also a huge reason why unfortunately this game just had no chance to compete lol.) The biggest let down is Shunlin is actually a fun heroine but she just barely gets any time to shine because the game feels lacking in character interactions overall. I think if you’re new to otome games or looking for something quick and don’t want anything deep, this is probably fine. If you’re looking for a more meaningful and deep character interaction (or something that makes you きゅんきゅん) this is sadly lacking.
P.S. Otomate instead of hiring Sugita Tomokazu to narrate “preview cards” which could have been silent or narrated by your random interns, you could have used that budget to add a heroine portrait or eye blinks to the sprites.
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