Ancient Japanese Demon Vampires And The Women Who Love Them - Let's Play Hakuoki!

One like is not enough to show how I agree with this post.

I spoiled myself about nearly every path. I was interested in this fandom before it was announced that the game would be translated to English, I though I would never get the chance to play it so I read all I could about it...

(I'll wrote the rest in a spoiler tag because it concern the different endings)

I'm glad I bought this game, totally worth my money (only the art book disappointed me, there was too much art we see in the game versus original stuff)

Oh man, I should have seen this coming, but... I totally forgot about the consumption.

Okita, dammit, you're an asshole in this game, don't make me feel bad for you. :C

Another hour and change in last night, more tonight, writing tomorrow and Thursday! This would be easier if my screenshot grabber wouldn't hard-lock my PSP every half hour or so.

\o\ /o/ I knew I was missing my quota of beautiful men starings~

Good news everyone! Matt promises more updates this weekend! To tide you over, please enjoy the following quotes: these are actual statement spoken aloud by Matt while he was playing the game.

"I would LOVE to drink the blood of the living! Can we do it in the morning?"

"I don't play this game to be educated!"

"Action Sweeping Soundtrack!"

"Goddammit game, you cannot go from vampire futures to potato roasting in the space of 20 screens! I'm not ready for that kind of nonsense!"

"I give zero shits about the dinner menu."

"We've got brow-furrowing! Uh-oh."

'Yes! Kill the weirdo!"

"WHOA her eyes do open all the way..."

"Ahh, that's his murderin' face."

"You should be grateful I'm so stupid."

"Just wring the carpet out, I don't know..."

"Now is not the time or the place for high spirits! There is no happiness in Kyoto! There is only impending death! ... ... And beautiful men."

We'll always have Beautiful Men.

Can't wait for the next update.

What more could you ask for when you have impending death and beautiful men?

An uneventful morning does not remain uneventful for long. Itou about runs me over in his panic to get away from the main room.


What the hell is wrong with you?


WHAT WHERE

There is a doctor in the house! What is the doctor doing, Itou?


sound DUNDUNDUN.mp3

It’s physical day to make sure we’re not all afflicted with lupus. (Spoiler: It’s never lupus.) Turns out we’re just doing all these in one room to make sure no one has anything to hide. Hakuchi gets to sit this one out thanks to her having something to hide -- a few things! -- but what’s Itou’s deal?


That is one handsy doctor.

Itou mentions the doctor is Dr. Ryojun Matsumoto, and that’s who I was here trying to find like a year ago! He may be able to find my dad! So with that, and only that I assure you DO NOT JUDGE ME, I make a decision!


There is no time to waste!

I run to the main room as quickly as I can, leaving a thoroughly offended and sputtering Itou in my wake, and throw open the doors to behold the doctor’s work in all its glory.


Oh?


OHHHHHH.

“He’s drawn it like a sword!”


“...is he lifting weights?!”


“He snapped that board clean in two!”


“He just KNOCKED OUT the horse with one swing!”


“There is NO WAY he can deflect arrows in mid-flight with it, that’s just not--”


“IT’S BULLETPROOF????”

Dr. Clean comes out to see me after the firing line has finished, and says that Kondou got him to come here to see me and tell me that he has no idea where my father is. So I’m glad Dr. Clean is still alive, but who the hell knows where my dad is. He does tell me a little more about what the hell Daddy Kodo was doing.


Our vampires have names! They are called “furies,” and they become Furies by drinking the Water of Life. The Water of Life restores health, heals injuries, and grants immortality, which really clinches that whole “vampire” thing, people. Dr. Clean says that Kodo never wanted to hurt people, so maybe that’s why he left. Kondou says that this was a present from the shogun, to help the Shinsengumi. Dr. Clean respectfully disagrees.


ANGRY FACES

Cooler heads prevail, though, especially when Dr. Clean gives us the rest of the bad news. Nearly a third of the Shinsengumi’s men are sick, injured, or both. Kondou is shocked by this.


I do not want to know who has all four of those symptoms, and why.

We are ordered to immediately clean the entire compound. Which everyone does!


Nagakura’s ass fixation continues.


Heisuke mimics Nagakura in a desperate attempt to belong. The game doesn’t show him spending the next twenty minutes trying to look at the butts of his friends without being seen.


It’s that bathrobe that does it. I’d expect him to be making everyone coffee at 4:30 AM if not for the fact that he has me do it instead.

However, in the friendly banter/sexual awakening, no one notices Okita sneak out (clearly, his robe hides his posterior). Off I go after that man!


Or I could lose them inside of fifteen seconds. Goddamnit!


They went around the building. HOW DO I CHASE THEM DOWN? (What happens if I gues wrong here?)

I manage to sneak up on them, which makes this the only time my lady Detective Ninja Wolverine Abilities have succeeded thus far in the game. Okita and Dr. Clean are talking. What are they talking about?


Oh NO.

I have another 400 screenshots to go through, but blame Saints Row: The Third and The Last Story for why I haven't gotten anything done this weekend, and training a new employee at work for why nothing got done this week. More hopefully tomorrow!

I keep reading "furies" as "furries". :\

The real life Okita had tuberculosis too. But this fact keeps being labeled as a spoiler, which is part of why I am both amused and appalled by the Hakuoki fandom.

...D:

Okay, fess up, who voted for that guy knowing he had tuberculosis in real life? WHO SET US ON THIS DEPRESSING PATH?

I had no idea about the tuberculosis part, honest! Mainly because I know next to nothing about what these people were like in real life. I'm just as surprised as you by the sudden depressing turn of events here; Okita's beginning to resemble Ryouta more than Fat Bird, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. D:

Do you really think Okita's the kinda guy to let a little TB keep him down?

He'll walk it off, it's fine.

*crashes through window*

... which may help explain why he doesn't have his own route here.

I would read that so hard, you don't even know.

Gratuitous naked skin scene is much appreciated, even if I was laughing my fool head off at the commentary.

And maybe I've been watching too much of Whose Line but mmm mmmm, that bald head~
Also, m'thinking that that Itou just got loads more suspicious. XD

I think it's the expression on Toudou's face that makes this absolutely ridiculous.

Don’t let the casual demeanor fool you; Okita lets on immediately that he is scared shitless about this. Okita is going to die, and he is not ready for it. He is not ready at all. Dr. Matsumoto is almost apologetic, giving this death sentence to Okita, and Okita tells him not to worry about it; not like it’s his fault, after all.

Facing death -- a pretty awful death, wasting away from disease versus going down in glory in battle -- with his head held high so no one has to worry that he’s suffering. Damn, Okita.

But wait, there’s something else that Dr. Matsumoto hasn’t been able to bring himself to tell me. What ELSE could go wrong today?


DADDY NOOOOOOooooowaitasecond Kodo is the one who started the FURIES PROJECT OHSHITWEAREALLSODEADHMPHNGHFF--


aieeeeeeeeeee

On the other hand, I’ve seen Saito for all of five minutes over the last YEAR. I am more intimately acquainted with Harada than Saito, and there aren’t enough tears in the world for me to deal with that fact.


I am afraid for my life thanks to Saito, which I think means I’m cheating on Okita.

Finally, they leave. I quickly apologize to Saito for freaking out and trying to gnaw through his hand in my panic (and also for nearly alerting Okita, I suppose).


“Normally I at least buy the girl flowers before suffocating her.”


OH GOD

(in writing this up, I seriously did not realize the next picture was the romance animation.)


Yes, I can certainly do that. I am a perfect actress. I mean actor. I mean shit.


Hello, Bathrobe Ninja.

The Shinsengumi will handle Okita’s illness; it is nothing I need concern myself with, Saito says. I reluctantly agree; I mean, Okita’s going to die, there’s nothing I can do about it, and I certainly don’t want to give him another reason to try and take me with him.


...goddamnit.

STUPID GAME WHY YOU MAKE ME FEEL SAD

So while I was freaking out about Okita’s case of the snifflies, Lord Iemochi Tokogawa, the 14th Shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, bites the big one. This kills (sorry) our chances to wipe about the Choshu, and pretty much shoots dead (sorry!) the dream of the Shinsengumi making the big time.

260 years of the shogunate, going straight downhill now.

This is probably my fault.

I’m on patrol! This is awesome. Not only am I walking around outside of the compound, but I have a SWORD and am totally going to gut the first guy who looks at me funny. Step off, you asshole ronin! You want a diet of cold, hard steel? Yeah, I didn’t THINK so! Sisters are doin’ it for themselves!


meep

The ronin swagger through the town, throwing their shoulders at anyone who looks at them funny, generally being gigantic assholes right up until--


Step off!

The ronin takes this pretty well, which is to say he decides to redirect his violence from small children to small women.


OH NO YOU DI-INT!


OH YES YOU DI-ID!


Ah shit.

But before the death happens, Rokuro the Ronin is interrupted with a little bit of EL KABONG.


“...eventually. After I went through the rest of him with the front of it.”

Well I didn’t exactly have time to--


Wait it’s not like I--


Well, I guess I--


It wasn’t really--


I have no idea if--


I suppose we--wait, I’m in disguise as--how did--


It’s okay, I don’t know who I am anymore and--


Okay, well, this is--


Hakuchi.

YES I MANAGED TO--


Thank you, Miss Sen, it--


Can we slow down and maybe--


or you can just leave.

What the hell just happened to me?


‘Cause I worked HARD at doing nothing at all. I mean, I look at LEAST as manly as you, and you are a foxy lady.


...hey, wait! What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Dawwww it's so cute when the protagonist tries to be useful.

I still have 250 screenshots to work through and write updates for. I am working through the backlog, worry not!

You people and picking sad paths! *fist-shake*

Also, I once again regret that Yamazaki is not romancable, because... well, aside from liking ninjas, he's a pretty, pretty man. Not that there's anything wrong with any of the others, but... *fans self*

vvvvvv WHAT? NO! NO! BAD! NO!

Kondou’s got some news for me, back at the temple a few days later. Dr. Matsumoto is back in the area treating injuries, scanning for lice, and dodging Nagakura’s aggressive fitness. He’s also checking on Souji Okita, who is sick with something gosh is he sick I had no idea I certainly wasn’t lurking in the bushes watching him sleep at night he’s such an angel with his eyes closed.


WHO DARES APPROACH MY THRONE


SISTER! Hoooo that was close. Don’t worry your macho little head about it, Kondou. Tell me about Mitsu.


I find it hard to believe that anybody could be a cattier bitch than Hijikata, I mean oh hi when did you get here



I have to meet this girl.

Okay, not that I don’t like the idea of cowering in the corner hiding from scary people -- it IS the top skill I list on my resume, after all -- but is there anything actually going on?


This is where I get generic side quests! Actually, it says that the Choshu are a bunch of dicks and we should hate them, and apparently they toss this notice board into the river fairly often. This act of passive-aggressive rebellion is angering the shogunate, so sooner or later the Shinsengumi are going to get called in to deal with it, presumably by asking for their hall passes and threatening to call their mothers.


Or we could send the zombie vampire butcher force! I don’t know, Kondou, that seems like a bad idea. I really hope that Kondou is a needless skeptic of this whole thing. “Sanan’s not a vampire, he just gets sunburns easily! He’s not drinking blood, he’s treating snake bites!”

Hijikata kindly points out that this is a bad idea since the Fury Corps has a tendency to kill everyone they see, then dismember the corpses, hacking them up long after they’re dead, like they got the Hammer in Smash Brothers and can’t drop it until the music finishes playing.

Hijikata decides to send the main team over to take care of this instead of unleashing the Kyoto Bloodchuggers, and soon the shogunate does request the Shinsengumi’s help.


How the hell does it take eight people to throw a single sign into the river?!

Harada was the leader of the Shogunate’s Sign Saving Shinsengumi (a popular tongue twister in Kyoto that fall), and took everyone else out to party with the foxy ladies in Shimabara. I, of course, sit back here in the temple alone, eating my dinner like a girl in a terrible disguise. I suppose it would be bad form for me to go not ogle the pretty geisha girls, plus I think I’ve done enough to Toudou already. Still, a nice, relaxing evening is exactly what I could use.


Which is exactly what I am not going to get. Hello, Sanan. You’re seeming rather unlike yourself tonight.


Sanan, that’s uncomfortably close to something mad scientists say. You’re just our Hot Librarian! I think you need to step back a little and calm down versus this whole crazy man bit. What do you say?


Ah.

Someone get Ozzy, it’s all aboard the crazy train now.


Oh this is going from bad to worse really goddamn fast now.


“Horrible twitching madness” is a wonderful phrase. I didn’t catch how perfect this was when I was playing, because I was too busy screaming in terror to notice the quality of the writing, in the same way that when you’re on a sinking ship in the middle of the ocean you don’t pay attention to the molding around the doorframes because FUCK!


DON’T GIVE HIM POINTERS YOU SON OF A BITCH

(I have the Dynasty Warriors series’ English voice actor for Cao Pi, Doug Erholtz, in my head now saying “Let me show you how it’s done.” This fact presented solely for the fact that my wife has an enormous crush on Doug Erholtz’s voice. I don't know how she feels about the rest of him.)


Fortunately, Saito and Toudou are here as well, and prevent Sanan and Okita from becoming the Misogynist Corps and challenging Kondou and Kuma for the NJPW Tag Team Championship. Instead, Sanan backs down before ripping my arm out of its socket and planting it in the ground like a flag. Which is good, don’t get me wrong, but I’m a little sad I don’t get to see what their tag finisher would have been.

Harada and Hijikata are still down in the red light district, with Hijikata getting all the attention from a high-class lady named Kimigiku. Toudou is worried that Harada won’t have enough money to pay for her, but I can’t hear him.


I’m too busy trying to summon demons of pure self-loathing and jealousy into existence so they can go stab her eyes out.


Saito interrupts me, and the spell fizzles. I hate you so much right now. Everyone out!

Okita directs Sanan to walk with him as they all file out.


NOOOOOOOO

There is one thing I'm curious about, there's voice acting in this game, right? Do they say Hakuchi? Or is it just in the text?

The protagonist name you chose is not said. They only say the last name, Yukimura, when it's written.

Games where the main character's name is set by the player never actually speak the name you input in the voice acting. There'd be no way to do it except using a goofy voice synthesizer, which would sound weird unless every other voice in the game was also synthesized. Usually they say generic pronouns out loud where the text says the name, or else they just have awkward pauses in the speech where the name would be.

Something I forgot to mention in the last update:


I KNOW WHO THAT WAS

Later in winter, I attempt to get updates on how things are going from Kondou.


I give zero shits about the dinner menu! I need details on our agents in the field! I need to know the enemy's weaknesses and strengths, and how to turn the latter into the former! I need to know if you take butter or pepper on your potatoes!


...Stupid Sexy Kondou!


“A man like that didn’t have time for roasting potatoes.”

GIT IN THE KITCHEN GIRL

Kondou doesn’t have much else to say. Oh, the new emperor is sworn in, but he hasn’t tried to drink my blood so I don’t think it’s important. Not as important as ROASTING SOME GODDAMN POTATOES.

I’m on patrol! I’m on patrol, I’m on patrol, I’m not locked up, I’m not locked up, I’m free to roooooooam...


Fuck you I’m happy.


Now is not the time or place for high spirits! There is no happiness in Kyoto! There is only impending death!


And Beautiful Men.


And potatoes.

Apparently the blue coats of the Shinsengumi are building up a good reputation, but not everyone likes them. Itou, for example, feels very strongly that the uniform should be changed because it’s not fashionable. We go live to Souji Okita outside of Kyoto for his thoughts. Okita?


Souji Okita! Back to you in the studio, Hakuchi.


Wrong Hakuchi!

Wait a second.

SEIZE HER!

Okita tells me to hold up, but I can’t hear him, I have to go choke out my mirror match.


I’ve tried, Okita, but that is a lot of death to consider.

Kaoru remembers me, but I’m not here to talk about myself (the least interesting subject I know), I’m here to get an answer to a pressing question that has never stopped bouncing around my mind since I met her.

“What the FUCK?”

Oh, wait, that’s not it. The question is, was she at the Sanjo Ohashi Bridge a while back, aiding the Choshu against the Shinsengumi? Kaoru’s response is a very coy “I go there quite often, is that a problem?”



Okita is threatening to kill someone that isn’t me, but LOOKS like me. I think technically this is a threesome for him.

Tight body... supple bowstrings... ready to “draw” his “blade”... I feel so dirty right now.

Kaoru says that she has no idea what he would be talking about, she never goes by there at night, and why would he suspect her just because her face looks like someone else’s? She doesn’t know anything!


Yeah! Girls are worthless! Sisters are doin’ nothin’ for themselves!

Okita calls bullshit on my logic, and the game actually confirms that I assumed Kaoru couldn’t have done anything because she’s a girl. Goddamnit, Hakuchi. You’ve been a fake boy for two years and you’re already setting up the glass ceiling! I am a disgrace to both of my genders!


While I am trying to figure out if I should burn a bra or a jockstrap, Okita attempts to eject all of his insides through the intake port.

He reins it in pretty quickly, though, and tells me that I am worthless without him, so I might as well embrace that worthlessness and rely on he and the other Beautiful Men to bail my ass out when I do something stupid like breathe.


For a game where everyone wears loose robes, there is a lot of ass fixation. What’s under these robes must be epic. And not just Nagakura’s Hidden Blade.

Welp, there goes my promise to be productive. *le sits in front of screen cackling like a banshee*

My apologies for the slow update schedule -- I turned 30 earlier this week, so this week has been lost inside a haze of new gadgetry and being dragged into my fourth decade kicking and screaming and with a 3DS and Playstation Vita. I still have more updates to come, hopefully this weekend!

Never a rush, just means it's great whenever you do update!