AOISHIRO HD REMASTER

basically machine translated,has parts that obviously no human that knows english ever went over and many parts with things like words smushed together or the translation treating descriptions and such as names. (for example treating kenki as a name when it is a description (the sword demon) so you have a line like "do you think i am kenki?" when a non machine translation would at minimum be "do you think i am the sword demon?" or more likely find a less clunky term to use in english since kenki is used very often) there are also things like dictionary entries that are simply empty presumably because the automatic translation tool didnt parse them correctly. while the story itself is fine i cant recommend it as most people will not enjoy trying to decipher it through the "translation".

I want to preface this review by saying that I'll primarily be focusing on how this particular port fares compared to the "r3227" English fan translation of the original Windows release that I've played a few years back (I never played the PS2 original since that was never released overseas, and I've got a level of comprehension of the Japanese language that's likely worse than a toddler's so playing the game in its original Japanese script was obviously out of the question for me). I also think I've seen enough of this port's in-game assets to compare how they look/sound to the original Windows release despite the short play-time I currently have on record as of this writing. I'll start by talking about the positives first: First, it's nice to have ALL the UI fully translated into English. Navigating the fan translation was often a pain in the bum because most of the UI was still written in Japanese Kanji, but with this remaster finding workarounds for the old UI is now a thing of the past. Audio quality across the board sounds okay, pretty comparable to the original PC version. Controller support has been added, which I imagine was probably added so you could probably play thi…

First of all, make sure to download the fan TL patch for a much better experience than the official TL. Second of all, this is an amazing visual novel with excellent music, art, characters and world building. The world really needs more yuri action content, and this certainly delivers - even more than it's predecessor Akai Ito. It has 56 endings, many of which have stories and CGs associated with them, and that breadth is very impressive. It is light on the yuri, though, so don't go into this expecting romance to be the focus. Mostly, it's a story of lots of sword fights and oni slaying, with yuri on the side.

I played the original PC release way back when. This is an easy pick if you want a yuri game that feels more like an Otome game. All the characters are very charming and each route reveals a part of the whole tale that is then revealed on the final golden route. Only downside is that the golden route is far more interested in the mystery and is thus not very romantic. The real win here is that this also has a traditional and simplified Chinese translation allowing a lot more people to read this and the HD remaster means that everything looks clear on a modern display compared to the original release.

There is good and there is bad. Sadly the translation is not very well done and it gets worse the further you go down a route (at least the one I played up to this moment). This does not completely ruin the good game underneath. The story is interesting there are twists and turns, and the japanese mythology is fascinating and there are lots of explanations. I will play the other routes and make an edit if something substantial changes. Atm I would lean toward a recommendation but I would have hoped that for a "Remaster" they would have the common decency to simply read through their own text. It would at least have helped with a few nonsensical misplaced pronouns and sentences that are apparent at first sight. This is something which I found jarring and detracted from my enjoyment. There is a fan patch and the possibility of taking that translation over the "official" one. So perhaps that could do in a pinch.

Amazing remaster