Review: Hakuoki: Chronicles of Wind and Blossom Stands Tall

With two otome visual novels to read and a veritable army of potential boyfriends to romance, Hakuoki: Chronicles of Wind and Flowers feels worth every penny. Despite its age, Otomate’s consistent art style (for better or worse) and relatively sharp visuals help bring this historical tale to life.

When I was a child, I knew about Hakuoki when I passed by. My friend played it and came to school crying about Okita. Another friend watched the show and said afterwards that Okita was pretty cool. So that’s all I know about Hakuouki Before playing this game on Switch it was clear that Okita was very popular (hard One surprise).So you can imagine my surprise when I learned that not only Hijikata real love in the story, but the story has vampires?! For me, it was a big shock, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I spent sixteen years of my life thoughts Hakuoki is a normal historical novel, but is actually a historical fantasy otome.

Hakuoki It follows the story of Chizuru Yukimura, who is searching for her father, a missing doctor. (Note, you can change her name if you want, but I recommend keeping it the same so the voiceover lines don’t get cut off.) Chizuru is a normal girl, except that she can heal wounds abnormally quickly. She visits Kyoto while disguised as a man. However, she ends up getting into trouble with the infamous Shinsengumi when she sees something she shouldn’t: Shinsengumi warriors lose control at the sight of blood and go berserk. To make sure she doesn’t reveal this to everyone, they force her to live with them. Over time, they accept her as one of their own.

If you’re familiar with 18th to 19th century Japan and its politics, you’ll be able to pick up on a lot of the story beats as it focuses on the social and political atmosphere surrounding the Shinsengumi. At times, the sheer level of detail the game provides about the group’s history can clash with the more fantastical elements. The priorities just feel out of balance. It starts to get better later on, but in the early chapters of the first game, it almost feels like they’re two separate stories that have become one over the course of development even at first. Some of the characters are new additions that have been added Kyoto Wind And Edo Flowers released. Not everyone gets along well at first. It’s easy to tell who’s new and who’s not, as new characters seem to just pop in randomly before disappearing for the majority of the story.

Overall, the localization is good. But when there are errors, they’re usually really glaring. For example, Iba’s introduction scene really stuck with me for reasons other than Mamoru Miyano. I had to reread the lines several times to make sure my eyes and brain were working properly, especially since playing the game was the first thing I did that morning. When explaining the Water of Life (the serum that turns people into Furies), the doctor notes that the Chinese call it “xindn”. There’s no such word. Most likely, they meant “xiandan”, if we’re using the Mandarin pronunciation.

I know there’s a lot of text to read. I can’t even count how many times I’ve told myself I don’t envy the localizers for the amount of work and the amount of historical jargon. But it’s precisely because the rest of the game is so well-read that these errors become that much more annoying.

The prevalence of specific Japanese historical terms can be confusing if you’re not paying attention or if you’re not familiar with the subject. I found myself having to go back to the glossary several times because I couldn’t remember some of the allegiances. The story goes through Shinsengumi history pretty quickly, so it can be hard to follow at times. Otomate is definitely aimed at Japanese people who learned all this in school.

Something about Hakuoki What I like is that the plot and characters take center stage in this otome game, rather than the romance. I find it hard to put myself into the main character a lot of the time in these otome games. I can’t connect with Chizuru at all, and because she’s such a self-involved person, she’s not always the most interesting character to watch from an outsider’s perspective. Perhaps at the time the original game was released, she was a breath of fresh air. Despite her overly caring personality and her attempts to help even in situations where she can’t help at all, she do has an active stance in the story. However, you could say the same about tons of other otome game protagonists. As I translate Winter’s Wish: Soul of EdoI have a positive impression of Suzuno precisely because of this personality type.

While Chizuru is more of a blueprint than an outlier, I still enjoyed the plot and characters. I really wanted characters like Harada, Heisuke, and Iba to get happy endings. With a large cast of boys, the writing did a good job of giving them more personality and development beyond their basic stereotypes or tropes. Honestly, I haven’t completed all the routes in the game yet, but I’m excited to go back and see what other interesting stories I still have to explore.

For both positive and negative reasons, Hakuoki: Chronicles of Wind and Flowers is an otome classic. The quality of the story and characters are really good, and I can see why people love it. But playing it in 2024 after so many other otome games (and from Otomate onwards), it’s hard for me to see what made it Hakuoki At the time, it was a particularly great machine. Was it any good? Oh yes, if you like otome games or historical fantasy games. It’s great that you get both the Edo and Kyoto arcs in one convenient package without having to pay for two games like in some releases. It’s a game that stands on its own very well. But for those curious about the legendary reputation of Hakuoki may have to scratch your head.

Hakuoki: Chronicles of Wind and Flowers To be available on Nintendo Switch.

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