Kisaragi no Hougyoku Demo

Visual novels can have a tremendous impact on players, especially if they manage to tell a great story and they feature memorable characters with intriguing background stories. Granted, RPGs are much better suited for this, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be bad RPGs and good visual novels. Hence, an open mind is needed to sort through all the options at your disposal.

Kisaragi no Hougyoku is more of a remake than an actual new game, because the whole thing is actually a reimagining of an older visual novel released on iOS a couple of years back. However, the purpose of this remake is to translate the said novel into English and improve the artwork, which is a lot of work, and it can have tremendous effects on the game.

In case you are not familiar with the original game either, everything revolves around a guy by the name of Fujiwara Toru, who enrolls in a new academy, which means that he’s a transfer student. The place he enrolls in is called Sangu Academy, and it features a weird tradition that requires students to choose a different grade partner and work together for a prize called The Gemma Februarii.

Although there’s nothing of the sort in the demo, it would appear that the finished version might feature choices and different story paths. Hence, it should be fun to replay the experience and try new things, even if it doesn’t seem like it at the moment. In fact, the developers promise multiple, separate visual novels as well, just in case you want to hear every side story in great detail.

As for the graphics, they haven’t changed too much in the meantime, but that’s why the developers are raising money to continue their work. Hence, everything is still in black and white at the moment, but everything should be fully colored if the artists are financed. Even so, the drawings look pretty nice even now, although it’s quite clear that they need more oomph.

When it’s all said and done, Kisaragi no Hougyoku should be able to satisfy most fans if it keeps evolving in this manner. On the other hand, those who are unaware of the roots of the franchise might be disappointed with the artwork, which is kind of a bummer. Thus, you can support the developers by participating in the game's Kickstarter campaign.