alexandros050: Nice releases... I have been interested in the Hakuoki visual novels. Anyone who has played them before that can give us his/her impressions?
joveian: These are also the ones I'm interested in and I'd also be interested in hearing from anyone who played them.
I've played these before when they were released on PlayStation Portable as one game Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom. While I have not played the Kyoto Winds / Edo Blossoms versions, I have enough familiarity with Hakuoki from playing every romance route in the PSP version, that I can give you a general assessment of it.
TL;DR: To properly play Hakuoki, you're going to need Kyoto Winds, Edo Blossoms, the Winds Treasure Box DLC, and the Edo Treasure Box DLC.
Explanation -
As already cited by joveian, this was originally released as one game and has been split into two. I've read a few reviews that cite that Kyoto Winds covers the first five chapters of Demon of the Fleeting Blossom and Edo Blossom continues the game. While I don't remember exactly where the end of chapter 5 would end, this means that Kyoto Winds is going to end at a point that really is not an ending.
The second is that the first time I played through Hakuoki, I got Soji Okita (who is in the Edo Blossoms Treasure Box DLC) as my love interest while I hooked up with Hajime Saito (who is in the Kyoto Winds Treasure Box DLC) during my second playthrough. This means that without the DLCs, you can start Soji Okita's route but not finish it while you can finish Hajime Saito's route but not start it.
My assumption is that if you meet the requirements to start or continue a specific route but have not bought the DLC, you'll get Kazama's route instead. In Demon of the Fleeting Blossom, you could only get Kazama's route by not hooking up with anyone which actually made him the hardest to get in that version.)
If you're going to buy these, I would buy both games as the versions that include the Treasure Box DLC or standard versions plus Treasure Box DLC separately. The only thing I would consider optional is any soundtracks and wallpaper. I seriously wish they just released it as one game for $30-$40 instead of chopping it up like they did.
Unfortunately my own backlog is sitting at 600+ games and I've already done my November game shopping, so I'm wish listing this one for now as Hakuoki might have otherwise been a day one purchase. I will pick them up eventually even if for no reason that my PSP really isn't holding a charge anymore.
According to some reviews that I have looked at, there are improvements over prior versions despite the game being chopped into two:
- additional character routes
- Kazama's route is longer
- more CG art
- completely new soundtrack, which some like and some don't
- character animations were redone & better than PS3 Hakuoki. I don't remember there being any in the PSP version.