This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 11:18 pm and is filed under About Eroges, Ayyo Writings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Well I haven’t spent a weekend like that in a long time.
[Note: Contains mild spoilers to Beat Blades Haruka]
Where to start - well Beat Blades Haruka is the spiritual successor to Beat Angel Escalayer. If you have played it before then you’re one step ahead of the rest, if not oh well.
But I don’t want to talk about that, what I do want to talk about is what I think so far. In terms of progress, I finished 11 of the 13 endings not including non heroine related game overs. This means I have essentially seen about 85% if not more of what the game has to offer, high enough to know what I’m saying but not high enough for a formal write-up.
First up let me say this: this game is beautiful. The art is gorgeous, the coloring is colorful, and the CGs are detailed and good.
Pretty? Pretty damn pretty is what this is
Second, to quote one of the staff, this game is “E-roeroeroeroero!” A big thing of Beat Angel Escalayer was the sex scenes after losing to a boss and the degenerate ‘devil’ scenes. The former is back and multiplied itself to a total of 24 scenes with two levels each to a total of 58 mid boss losing scenes, not counting the game over ones. The latter shrunk to a pitiful three scenes each for the two main heroines with three levels each for a total of 18 ‘devil’ scenes but by gods what 18 scenes they are.
Haruka, one of the main heroines
But enough of that, time for some criticism; First the game is easy. Way too easy. If you know what you’re doing the game bends over for you. Of course the same could be said for any Alicesoft games but the Alice games of the past would break your balls and happily do it again without asking right after you reload. There’s that certain difficulty curve that you encounter that either you climb over or it never goes away and sticks by you like a hound. In this one, you have to put effort in to lose. Thankfully there is a lose button for you to use so you don’t have to get creative like in Beat Angel Escalayer when you just want to sit back and lose instead of winning all the time.
Minazuki, one of the mid bosses, and the lose button
It was still fun, but it could’ve been funnier still if the game wasn’t a 2 oz pushover. Next is the story and characters. As per Alicesoft standards, it is just right there. Disappointing or not, that’s your call. My call? Kind of disappointed.
Narika, the other main heroine and her transforming weapon, Pero
Back to the positives: the music is also of Alicesoft standards, which in this case is much higher. The music doesn’t get boring and certain ones are memorable, particularly the main theme, ‘旋風’. The voice actors were all around good to great, with note worthy stars including: Hitomi, one of the most talented in the industry, who played a short role as one of the mid bosses, Minazuki; and Kentarou Itou, known to some as Kurou Daijuuji and known to more as Abarai Renji, who played as one of the four bosses, Orochimaru.
Orochimaru, the first of the four bosses
The graphics and ero also deserves a second mention.
All in all, the first real Alicesoft game since their last standard setter, Sengoku Rance after a long year and two months. Unfortunately Beat Blades Haruka doesn’t raise the bar but it does a good job of swinging around it in a very stripper like manner.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:03 am
Wow. Only a few days of it coming out, and already, people have gotten this far.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:03 am
In some moments, the SFX and CGs are inappropriate. I don’t know if it’s just laziness or intentional. In some instances, the SFX used for brandishing weapons is also used right before Takamaru unzips his pants. Quite an odd one.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
“Zeroblade Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:03 am
Wow. Only a few days of it coming out, and already, people have gotten this far.”
yes, I was shocked too.
I wish I had the time to play that much!
March 4th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Good game. I wouldn’t call it too easy though. I couldn’t get to the last boss (characters too weak) so I gave up and started over. Although you are right, by alicesoft standards, this game is pretty easy.
Also, when fighting orochimaru: “Wtf, why am I fighting Renji?” I thought to myself.
March 7th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Yeah, it has nice graphics and music, but as usual the characters aren’t on the Yoru ga kuru! (IMHO the best Alicesoft has done so far in the character category - of course it’s still not on the level of, say Eien no Aselia or any great visual novel) level.
As for story… well, it did its job to provide an excuse for an excuse for the gameplay, but thats it.
And it could’ve used more Subaru endings, but I guess thats just me
BTW, afker has set up a wiki for Beat Blade Haruka: http://alicesoft.wikia.com/wiki/Beat_Blades_Haruka
“Also, when fighting orochimaru: “Wtf, why am I fighting Renji?” I thought to myself.”
I suddenly got the urge to replay Demonbane after beating this, heh.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Sennin Narika is win. Lol haven’t got around to playing it yet(stuck with ToHeart2ad for the moment =P) but found some CG rips. Real great art I would say.