Hakuouki: Warriors of the Shinsengumi licensed!

[Blane Doyle]

Hakuouki: Warriors of the Shinsengumi Headed To North America

Last year, we reported on a game titled Hakuouki: Bakumatsu Musou Roku, which is a Dynasty Warriors-esque take on the Hakuouki series for PSP. In case you missed it, here’s an old trailer that shows what that looks like:

Aksys Games have announced that they’re bringing this game to North America as Hakuouki: Warriors of the Shinsengumi. The game will let you play through two storylines—that of Hakuouki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom (“Shinsengumi Memorial”) and another called “Shinsengumi Chronicle” where you play an alternate universe as the Shinsengumi.

When a character’s life is depleted in Warriors of the Shinsengumi, he enters Fury Mode, which makes him more powerful. However, entering Fury too many times can “unlock a particularly bad ending”.

You can access the official website for Hakuouki: Warriors of the Shinsengumi here.

Apparently translated visual novels sell well on the PSP and DS.

Now where's my wallet? I have another game to buy.

[CeruleanMermaid]

I had a few friends play the Japanese version, and heard that the system was pretty bad. Otomate's strength has never lied in their gameplay systems....

But who knows? Maybe it's not that bad. And I'm not against more VNs being licensed in English.

But part of me can't help but feel that this is Aksys's way to appease the male gamers who were upset that Hakuouki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom was a "girly game", whose point wasn't to slash samurais but romance characters. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but why would they license a game that didn't have much of a "otome" element as much as an action one? If they wanted a game with gameplay there's always the Yugiroku games.

I could be mistaken, but that was my initial thought. Well, either way I'm interested to see how this works out.

[Blane Doyle]

I've never played Dynasty Warriors, but I liked the characters in the original game enough to buy and play this even if it IS bad.

I think it is more that this is one of the newer games, possibly. There are multiple Hakuoki games (8, not counting the English releases) and I know other games have gameplay in the series (besides, I don't mind a hack and slash take on otome myself~). I think they just chose the last PSP game that had good sales that had a connection to the original visual novel.

I think they're going to stick to PSP releases instead of delving into the PS3 only games as well. Which sucks if they do, but it makes sense. I'd rather all the games be for one system myself anyway, and with PSN downloads you could play on both PSP and Vita potentially.

[gekiganwing]

Unexpected, this is. But not unfortunate.

...So, aside from rewriting Yoda quotes, I am surprised to see a Playstation Portable game getting licensed in 2012. Used PSP systems currently sell for bargain prices, and it's getting rare to see retailers selling new UMDs.

This is a less niche product than the original Hakuouki VN. Even so, I wonder if it will be available on UMD at all. For the game to work on Vita, it will have to be sold through the Playstation store.

[CeruleanMermaid]

I've never played Dynasty Warriors, but I liked the characters in the original game enough to buy and play this even if it IS bad.

I think it is more that this is one of the newer games, possibly. There are multiple Hakuoki games (8, not counting the English releases) and I know other games have gameplay in the series (besides, I don't mind a hack and slash take on otome myself~). I think they just chose the last PSP game that had good sales that had a connection to the original visual novel.

I think they're going to stick to PSP releases instead of delving into the PS3 only games as well. Which sucks if they do, but it makes sense. I'd rather all the games be for one system myself anyway, and with PSN downloads you could play on both PSP and Vita potentially.

It is one of the newer games (released earlier this year) but another one has come out just last month. But I'm not sure if this one had good sales, seeing as even the Japanese fans complained about the awful controls. The only other games in the series that have gameplay are the Yugiroku series, like I mentioned before, which seems to be a lot more popular than this one. The only explination I came come up with is that they're targeting the male gamers, which I find lame, because there's plenty of games out there aimed at males already. And with the controls, I don't think this game will be popular with them either. Besides, otome games aren't meant to target males anyway (hence the name "otome")

As for an hack and slash take on otome, that's just it. This isn't an otome game in the sense that there's no dating sim aspect. It's purely an action game. And the artwork is different too, since Kazuki Yone is no longer drawing for this series.

I don't think they'll bother with the PS3 games because 1) they're not original titles, just ports 2) I don't think Sony will let them because they're not actually "games". There's a reason why there's no visual novels on the PS3, in English anyway.

I don't mean to be a downer, but a lot of the fans of the Japanese series are confused why Aksys picked this title out of all of them, as they view it as the weakest title. I personally don't think it was a great choice, but I'll wait to see if I'm proven wrong.

[Blane Doyle]

Junsouroku and Reimeiroku Nagorigusa aren't PS3 original titles? I thought they were... Huh.

[CeruleanMermaid]

Junsouroku and Reimeiroku Nagorigusa aren't PS3 original titles? I thought they were... Huh.

No, they're ports of the original PS2 games. Junsouroku being the port of the original Hakuouki, and Reimeiroku of this

[Hijiri]

It is one of the newer games (released earlier this year) but another one has come out just last month. But I'm not sure if this one had good sales, seeing as even the Japanese fans complained about the awful controls. The only other games in the series that have gameplay are the Yugiroku series, like I mentioned before, which seems to be a lot more popular than this one. The only explination I came come up with is that they're targeting the male gamers, which I find lame, because there's plenty of games out there aimed at males already. And with the controls, I don't think this game will be popular with them either. Besides, otome games aren't meant to target males anyway (hence the name "otome")

As for an hack and slash take on otome, that's just it. This isn't an otome game in the sense that there's no dating sim aspect. It's purely an action game. And the artwork is different too, since Kazuki Yone is no longer drawing for this series.

1-There's nothing wrong with with trying to draw in a wider audience. While otome games are usually aimed at girls, that dosen't mean guys won't play them. They just need an incentive to do so. In fact, it's a smart move to try and aim for a wide audience instead of just aiming for X and Y. If people become interesting in the characters of a series, they're more bound to check out any other installments. (An example would be Corpse Party: a lot of people liked the first release, so now the risks of bringing Book of Shadows over is reduced since people now love/are intrigued by these characters, even those outside the VN reading fans)

2-An otome game doesn't need dating sim elements, just so long as the game aims at girls and features a relationship between the female protagonist and a male. The same goes for bishoujo games, which are aimed at men.

[CeruleanMermaid]

1-There's nothing wrong with with trying to draw in a wider audience. While otome games are usually aimed at girls, that dosen't mean guys won't play them. They just need an incentive to do so. In fact, it's a smart move to try and aim for a wide audience instead of just aiming for X and Y. If people become interesting in the characters of a series, they're more bound to check out any other installments. (An example would be Corpse Party: a lot of people liked the first release, so now the risks of bringing Book of Shadows over is reduced since people now love/are intrigued by these characters, even those outside the VN reading fans)

True, there's nothing wrong but I don't see it working. If any guys do become interested in the Hakuouki series because of this game, do you really think they'd be interested in the other games? To go from a hack and slash where they play as the male characters, to playing as a girl and romancing said male characters in a straight VN? I'm not too sure. Many males reacted very negatively to the original game (leaving some pretty dumb angry reviews on Amazon) because it wasn't an action game, and they had no interest in romancing males.

2-An otome game doesn't need dating sim elements, just so long as the game aims at girls and features a relationship between the female protagonist and a male. The same goes for bishoujo games, which are aimed at men.

Yes, I realize I worded that wrongly |D But I'm not sure if this game even features Chizuru? I'm pretty sure this was purely an action game. I haven't played this game myself, just heard the reactions from several of my friends who had. But maybe I'll hunt around the official site to see...

[Myra]

This game was okay. I have an import of it and while the controls aren't amazing it's not completely awful. My biggest complaint would be the lack of having multiple sound clips when characters attack. As fun as it is to chop people apart while Kazama tells them 'die' it gets old after a hundred times...

Far as I could tell from what I've played through (I haven't finished it yet) Chizuru isn't in the game and there isn't really romance. Though there are a few cool pictures you can unlock. I plan to pick it up in English just to help promote more of this series and hopefully otome translations in general.

[15385bic]

I wouldn't mind a rpg style take on hakuouki~~~
gimme another limited edition box set and artbook please =P