Foreword: There is a good number of English reviews on this game (1 2 3 4), but those are all kinda short and non-structured. Now I know why and mine won't be an exception. You'll know why soon enough as well.
Title: Kuon no Kizuna
Developer: FOG
Date: 1998-12-03
VNDB link: https://vndb.org/v2773
Youtube walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENAECnNmAq-CHIuWBfnU3DYzNCEcLjcV
Synopsis: This story starts out from the perspective of a high school student. One day a transfer student comes to his school, and tells him she’ll kill him. At the same time, he starts seeing weird dreams and people mysteriously gets killed in his city.
Soon he realizes that them two are incarnated personalities of a man and a goddess that fell in love 1000 years ago. Since then, they have been trapped in a cycle of reincarnation and a battle against an evil god.
Length: Took me 66 hours for all routes.
Game type: ADV with choices and couple easy battles.
Difficulty: I followed walkthrough, so not too sure on difficulty. There are some fake choices, but there are also choices that lead to game over. And there are a LOT of choices, so it must be quite difficult.
Character Design rating: 7/10
Protagonist rating: 8/10Story rating: 6/10
Game quality: 9/10
Overall rating: 7/10
Rating comments: This is one of the most ambitious projects I've ever seen. Just imagine - 66 hours. 66 hours of not raising stats, killing monsters or chasing girls over and over. 66 hours of pure text reading time. There's nothing like that in the 1990s and it won't be beaten till 2000s. You know, in many Japanese reviews of the time volume is a very important factor and there's often such criteria as cost-efficiency. Visual novels cost a lot and compared to solid books they used to lose all the time. But everything changed with Kuon no Kizuna. It became a paragon for both volume and visuals.
I liked protagonist and characters enough, but they don't become cozy. They remain transcendent beings piercing the veil of time in an epic story, not really likable characters who I could respect for their characters or decisions, that's why it's 7/10. The story is indeed epic, but it does not go smoothly. We jump from reality to three periods all the time and the shifts aren't really explained, they just happen. I also did not like it that the first half of the story is pretty much the same for all three heroines and we just have to read it three times with little variation. That makes story only 6/10. But the quality of the game is superb, especially with full voice (excluding the protagonist though). The graphics are stunning and visual effects amazing. No complaints with the quality.
Protagonist: Mikado Takeru is a strong protagonist as he constantly has to protect those who are dear to him and he's the only one who can oppose demonic forces thanks to his demonic heritage. He's a one man army and hardly ever gets any help from the side. He'd be more realistic with voice, but he's quite cool even as he is now.
Characters: There are three heroines who have their own routes.
Takahara Mayou is our mysterious transfer student who greets Takeru for the first time with words "This time I will definitely kill you".
Itsuki Shiori is a childhood friend who Takeru lives with under the same roof.
Tokiwa Saya is the class teacher.
Story: The rant part. So each heroine has her route... but it's the same route, at least for the first half of it. In the second half some periods are developed for each heroine, but still there's a very strong feeling that you're watching the same story and it irritates a lot.
There are four periods: Heian, Genroku, Bakumatsu, and the present. Present and Heian are really the same and those are the most boring parts, especially Heian. Heian focuses on a an ancient period of Japanese history where nothing really happened for dozens of years and that's why it's full of myths and legends - because there was nothing to do there. In Kuon no Kizuna Heian is when beasts invasion starts and it differentiates just a bit in the end depending on the heroine chosen throughout it. I especially liked Bakumatsu period for meeting and fighting alongside Shinsengumi (and sometimes against) and kunoichi.
But there is a great problem with these periods - they aren't really connected to each other. People can die there or love there and in next period everything starts from scratch. That creates the feeling of multiple stories and I really dislike that genre. Nothing really happens throughout those stories, then beasts arrive, the short drama and it's over. Heroines aren't really able to hold attention. But what's worse, the heroine of your choice have play very small role till the very end of each part.
But then comes the fantastic Special route №1 that arrived later with remake as an attempt to tighten the crumbling main story. Special route №1 lasts for some 7 hours, holds a totally new epic story with really great enemies and is a great ending for all the characters, so I can't praise it enough.
The Special routes №2 and №3 are there for comic relief after all that superserious narration.
So overall the story really sucks, repeats itself in routes and has poor tempo. But the great special route makes up for it.
CG: Just fantastic. See for yourself.
Sound: I really appreciated full voicing and beautiful BGM. That kept me from sleeping.
Overall comments: This game was created to surprise the imagination. It has huge length and astonishing visuals, but there still was no culture of such huge coherent stories - thus the multiple periods format with lousy links between them. Dialogues are long and not too meaningful, fights are inevitably dull and poorly written, heroines fail to catch attention and the absence of humor makes it all a real torture. The sudden jumps between periods only add to the confusion. But this game bears a huge importance for the industry as it made long story-driven visual novels without gameplay elements viable while only dating SIMs, charage and nukige governed the ball.
Developer: FOG
Date: 1998-12-03
VNDB link: https://vndb.org/v2773
Youtube walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENAECnNmAq-CHIuWBfnU3DYzNCEcLjcV
Soon he realizes that them two are incarnated personalities of a man and a goddess that fell in love 1000 years ago. Since then, they have been trapped in a cycle of reincarnation and a battle against an evil god.
Length: Took me 66 hours for all routes.
Game type: ADV with choices and couple easy battles.
Difficulty: I followed walkthrough, so not too sure on difficulty. There are some fake choices, but there are also choices that lead to game over. And there are a LOT of choices, so it must be quite difficult.
Protagonist rating: 8/10Story rating: 6/10
Game quality: 9/10
Overall rating: 7/10
I liked protagonist and characters enough, but they don't become cozy. They remain transcendent beings piercing the veil of time in an epic story, not really likable characters who I could respect for their characters or decisions, that's why it's 7/10. The story is indeed epic, but it does not go smoothly. We jump from reality to three periods all the time and the shifts aren't really explained, they just happen. I also did not like it that the first half of the story is pretty much the same for all three heroines and we just have to read it three times with little variation. That makes story only 6/10. But the quality of the game is superb, especially with full voice (excluding the protagonist though). The graphics are stunning and visual effects amazing. No complaints with the quality.
Takahara Mayou is our mysterious transfer student who greets Takeru for the first time with words "This time I will definitely kill you".
Itsuki Shiori is a childhood friend who Takeru lives with under the same roof.
Tokiwa Saya is the class teacher.
There are four periods: Heian, Genroku, Bakumatsu, and the present. Present and Heian are really the same and those are the most boring parts, especially Heian. Heian focuses on a an ancient period of Japanese history where nothing really happened for dozens of years and that's why it's full of myths and legends - because there was nothing to do there. In Kuon no Kizuna Heian is when beasts invasion starts and it differentiates just a bit in the end depending on the heroine chosen throughout it. I especially liked Bakumatsu period for meeting and fighting alongside Shinsengumi (and sometimes against) and kunoichi.
But then comes the fantastic Special route №1 that arrived later with remake as an attempt to tighten the crumbling main story. Special route №1 lasts for some 7 hours, holds a totally new epic story with really great enemies and is a great ending for all the characters, so I can't praise it enough.
The Special routes №2 and №3 are there for comic relief after all that superserious narration.
So overall the story really sucks, repeats itself in routes and has poor tempo. But the great special route makes up for it.
, but those are all kinda short and non-structured. Now ...){kind=link}
So, is there a True Route? The Special route, №1, what happens in that one? What about Mayou's route? Did she somehow come back to life? Also, who died in each of the routes? Is it only the antagonist who dies? Hope to hear from you soon.
Just 10 piercing wounds through the body aren't enough to take our legendary demon-hunter Takeshi down! That CG belongs to the Special route №1 as I call it. The whole that route has an open ending. Takeshi is half-dead and cuffed, the whole team runs in, gives inspiring cries and attacks the dragon. The rest can only be judged by ending movie where we see how Takeshi is being cast some spell on and then Takeshi is hugging Mayou. Many players actually resented such cliffhanger open ending in favor of more clean True Route ending.
The first Takahara Mayou route is actually the true route. It lasts the most time and all the special routes open up only after it, but not after any of the other two heroines routes. She revives all right in the end of her route (with hero's right choice).
Now that you mentioned it, main heroines died a lot in all of the three epochs's endings from sword, fire and beasts. Or should I say "supposedly" main heroines, since heroines looked totally different in each of epochs. That blonde heroine died a lot, but I've still no idea who she represented since there aren't really blonde heroines in the cast. I guess dead heroines are the way to bring at least some drama to each epoch and to justify reborn in the new epoch.
Oh, hell, I even thought that Itsuki Shiori and Amano Satoko were the same heroine to some point and as for their reincarnations, that's even more confusing.
Same reincarnation epochs cycle was used in Diabolique in a much more transparent way. Here it's a mess.
Have you looked at the remake "Kuon no Kizuna - The origin"? Any thoughts about it? Because I am wondering on choosing which version to play.
I only glanced at Origin about five years ago and the erotic scenes with the demons only disgusted me back then. But now I have to admit that Origin is much more appealing than the native game since ero scenes spice up the monotonous narration, there are quite a lot of new CG which look much better than the old dry style CG and because there are plot injections. I heard that the endings actually differ a lot and that's a welcome change since native ending is same boring as the whole game.
So, you only played the native game? Wonder how different is the remake from the original? Anyway, you haven't played the remake at all?
I have not played the remake properly to judge its content, only fast forwarded it a long time ago.
I see, so, you only played the original then, as shown in this review. Wonder who dies in each of the three heroine routes? What's this about main heroines dying again? We know Mayou's route is the True Route, and she is revived alive and well at the end of her route, depending on the hero's right choices. Wait, there's a choice on whether Mayou comes back to life or not? Strange.
There is no choice whether Mayou comes back to life or not - you can choose one of three mummies, but if you choose the wrong one you'll just need to choose again. In Mayou case she dies in the real world as herself and gets revived in the real world by hero. Other heroines only died in past worlds as reincarnations of other heroines. They had different appearances and roles there. For example at https://youtu.be/VuB0CnDXXjQ?t=2632 Itsuki's reincarnation Kiriko dies, then narration returns to real world where Itsuki is alive. So unlike Mayou we should not understand it as Itsuki death, but rather as that era character Kiriko death. I think it's done to bring drama to the stories since stories overall lack excitement. Can't say which heroine dies in which route, because each heroine route included four time periods which results in 12 different stories with new incarnations of heroines each time. That makes it very confusing and is only possible if rewatch properly another time.
What the hell? Now that's confusing. So, Mayou dies in the real world as herself and then gets revived in the real world by the protagonist? Either way, Mayou is brought back to life, regardless of the three mummies choice where you can just try numerous times until getting the right one?
Yes, Mayou dies in the real world as herself and is revived by protagonist. When I chose the wrong mummy, there was some more text for couple minutes, but it eventually brought me to the choice between the two remaining mummies. When I chose wrong one again, there was the same text and then the story chose the remaining right mummy for me, so it's not possible to get a game over here. So the only bad ending you can get in the game is by loosing the fighting evil spirit mini-game.
I see. I guess all that ends well, considering that everyone is alive and well. Hell, Mayou is revived by the protagonist after she died in the real world. Basically, she's okay since she was brought back to life. Right?
Yes, basically everyone is alive in the real world, and game ends on a high note upon meeting a new enemy and charging at him at full force.
Meeting a new enemy and charging at him full force, where the game then ends? Interesting, but a strange that it ends there. So I guess everyone's adventure continues or something?
Native game Special route №1 Ending is upon rushing together a new powerful enemy. Origin version seems to have a better cleaner ending, but I did not play it.
I see, okay.
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