Review of Shin Koihime † Musou ~Otome Ryouran ☆ Sangokushi Engi~
| Subject | Shin Koihime † Musou ~Otome Ryouran ☆ Sangokushi Engi~ |
| By | Helpfulness: 6 Vote: 7.5casualreader on 2021-07-23 |
| Review | If this is your first time playing the Koihime series, here is a small intro. This game is a remake of the original Koihime Musou, with an entirely different story. But, this game was also remade, into what is known as the Kakumei series (Souten no Haou, Son Go no Ketsumyaku and Ryuuki no Taimou). While in this game, you have four routes (three initial and one unlockable), each Kakumei game is about one of the three initial routes, and the unlockable route is spread as extra stories between all three Kakumei games. Is this game worth playing? This depends on if you have played the Kakumei games yet or not. If you haven't played the Kakumei games: Unfortunately, it's hard to recommend Shin Koihime over the Kakumei games. There are several reasons for this: - The game has an outdated resolution of 800x600, in comparison to the Kakumei's 1280x720 - The game's voice acting quality is perceptibly worse. This is not only about the VAs performance, but also how the recording sounds (Moeshouden, for example, sounds much better) - The game's art is outdated and has far less amount of character sprites than in Kakumei, which makes representing the characters emotion harder - The battles quickly get boring as they are too simple, and you can't skip them until you beat them. Kakumei allows you to skip them and the battle system improved a lot - Shin Koihime's story is incredibly shortened in comparison to Kakumei and some routes, such as Gi's, have some very unnatural passages of time and scenario transitions. This, strangely, isn't as much of an issue on the other two routes - The use of "manas" is very weird and inconsistent throughout the routes and plot. It's a lot more consistent in Kakumei. - Kakumei games have extra "if" scenarios for some key points of the game in Go and Shoku's routes, which Shin Koihime doesn't have This doesn't mean at all that Shin Koihime is a bad game. It is entertaining, has some good characters and each route is long enough for enjoyment. It just means that Kakumei is an improvement in almost every aspect. If you have played the Kakumei games: Now, you must be thinking, why play it if it is the same story, but shorter? Actually, there are some difference which does make it interesting to read again: + Kazuto in both Shoku and Go's route of Shin Koihime is a lot more proactive and quick-witted in comparison to his Kakumei counterpart. In Go, you will often see him giving valuable opinions and tactical advice, while in Shoku he is often the one giving orders instead of Touka. If you played Sengoku Koihime, I'd say Go's Kazuto is basically a less capable version of Kensuke. + In Go's route, without Yenren, Kazuto's starting point is actually after Yenren's death. This leads to a completely different development on how he retains his status at Go and how his relationship with the Go family-line is. Until at least the latter portions of the game, it is completely different from Kakumei and feels like reading another storyline. + In Shoku's route, the lack of all the new characters makes for several changes in how things happen throughout the game. Think about it: how does the lack of Fuurin affect Toutaku's rebellion's scenario? What about Paitai and Kuutan, which are not main characters here? It might be the case that Kazuto is also more proactive since there are less generals around. - Unfortunately, Gi's route is mostly unchanged, which makes it the most boring out of them if you played Kakumei. In fact, you should probably skip it, as everything in Kakumei's Gi version is better than in Shin Koihime - The fourth route has the same, but with diminished content, as the extra routes from Kakumei. In Kakumei, this is told through Kazuto's perspective, while in Shin Koihime, there is no narrative, just dialogues. |
| 6 points |