While this is all very obviously fantastic, the research into the era is clear and it comes across as authentic. So, at the start of the story, they come and fetch the protagonist from her secluded life in rural Japan and press her into service for the good of all. They are spiritual manifestations of objects that take the form of humans, and are tasked with tracking down and slaying these monsters.
Meanwhile, the Oniwaban are not actually people. This is important because when that happens, a monster is unleashed on the world. That means she can also see when a critical mass of threads (negative emotions) comes together in an area. The protagonist has a rare gift: She can see the “threads” that are attached to each and every person and that change colour with their moods.
In addition to the uncertain amount of real history, the magical, fantastic elements come thick and fast in Winter’s Wish. I’m not even sure the characters in this game are modelled after real people, though the organisation at the centre of the drama, the shogun’s Oniwaban information network, was a real thing. But it’s actually very different.Īlthough Hakuouki and Birushana are fictional stories, they were rooted in real history far more than Winter’s Wish. It has the same breathtaking art and the same utterly gorgeous samurai men.
Initially, Winter’s Wish looks like it should be similar to those two, just from a different time period again. Birushana, localised last year, was set many years before this time, during the Genpei war. It was set during the Tokugawa Shogunate’s dying years. Hakuouki was the first commercially localised otome and remains a classic to this day. This is another Otomate/Idea Factory visual novel, and we’ve seen in the past that this team knows how to work with historical settings. With no wars and political stability, what can a game developer even do with the era? A fantasy otome visual novel, as it turns out. So both developers and localisers have a challenge in bringing these stories to the West. As it was almost completely shut off from the world during this time, very little is known about the era outside of Japan. Additionally, it’s a harder time for people to understand. Check out our review.Ī major part of the reason for this is that those years were essentially peaceful, and game developers tend to struggle with peace as a concept. Related reading: Also released on Nintendo Switch – Norn9. The 250 years in the middle, however, are largely blank (at least, they are in gaming). There are thousands of games about the Sengoku wars that came immediately before, and there are plenty made about the end of the Shogunate as well. Very, very rarely does a game get made about the Tokugawa Shogunate.
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