Ayakashibito review

Hmm… I really don’t click with titles that involve so many guns… Either that, or there’s something about propeller that just doesn’t click with me. Anyway, Ayakashibito is one of Propeller’s earliest works, being released in 2005. I decided to play the Chinese localization (despite it being a Taiwan company) because it was really well rated all around, and is within the top 100 at erogamescape. This kind of showed me how individual tastes can vary though. Like Kanon and Symphonic rain, even with so many people praising it, I just can’t bring myself to say that I feel the same.

Premise:

This is an alternate world where certain people are “gifted” with powers, which range from being able to control countless guns to being able to distribute scents. They are called “ayakashibito” or demon people. Our protagonist is one of those people. After escaping a research facility with his one and only friend, a fox demon, they try to find a world in which they can exist and belong.

Meh

I just finished all of Touko’s endings in Ayakashibito. This is one of those stories that end badly, I guess? It’s not that the ending’s awful or badly written, but for some reason or another the feeling I get at the end is little more beyond “mediocre” and “how come I liked this so much at the beginning?”

I heard the true ending is really good though.. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that propeller’s games don’t agree with me. I finished Kitto, sumiwataru asairo yori mo, but it’s proving to be a really hard game to review…

My bromance senses were tingling…

This is the sparkly guy, AKA the zombie. He has nothing to do with my bromance senses, I just wanted to bring up that I haven’t seen roses that sparkly since Otoboku. The guy on the right is the reason for my bromance senses. He’s a quiet guy and the student council president who’s really good at sword fighting and had a hotblooded duel with the protagonist. Any you KNOW that most bromances start from hot blooded duels. Sadly, my senses has failed me. He can transform into a girl (the one on the right), therefore disqualifying from from being able to form a true bromantic relationship… How unfortunate. I mean, it’s cute that the guy will bring a bento to the protag, but then the girl’s voice pops out of thin air and the whole thing feels off.

Anyway, Ayakashibito’s pretty interesting, though I do get bored here and there. The fact that the changes in atmosphere comes jarringly doesn’t help. Well, that, and the fact that the uniform shows the girl’s bellybuttons. I am firmly set against cropped tops when there’s no shirt underneath. And this time it’s especially bad because I can’t decide on whether I like the art or not.

Also, this eye catch is as annoying as hell.  Every time it shows up, I want to kill something.

This isn’t right

I started on Ayakashibito (because someone asked for it, and I’m running out of hard drive space). The game starts out pretty interesting, with two people (well, I’m not sure if they’re human or not) escaping from a facility on an island (there’s always one, isn’t it?) in the middle of the storm (SO cliched). They actually have a decent mood going, but then we have this.

Having a moeblob on the screen pretty much kills the tension. See, our protag jumps into the middle of the road to stop a car (they need food and clothing), because he’s seen people do this in movies and manga all the time (I know, I know, facepalm). The person he manages to stop is a shady doctor who’s barely worried about having a shotgun to the face, and the comedy just feels…off.

The art isn’t that great. I mean, this is from the guy that did Angelos Armas and Saya no Uta, so the base for the art is good, and there’s a lot of it too. However, the colors, the backgrounds, the clothes, the lighting…they’re a big step backwards from when the guy was drawing for Nitro+. Well, this was Propeller’s debut work, so I guess it’s reasonable (the art for evolimit is much nicer, though never reaching Nitro+ levels…).

The music is nice. There isn’t that immediate haunting quality to it, but there’s definitely SOMETHING. It kinds of reminds me of Air, though they’re nothing alike. Hmm, I wonder why. The voice acting is really nice though. The way that Suzu’s tone changes is ear candy, yup.

I’m still cringing at that dress though…