Sorceress Alive
Entry posted by Clephas
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Originally, when this game came out, I bought it, played the first part of the prologue, facepalmed over the protagonist's actions, then dropped it. I still don't think that choice was a mistake, even now. That's not to say this is not an excellent game (it is), but the fact is that Kouki being a total doofus at times is annoying as hell.
This game is split into two parts, Sorceress and Alive. The two parts have significantly different story progression and outcomes, and it would be safe to say that Sorceress is a different game from Alive in many ways. Sorceress can be called a 'combat sport charage', as it focuses primarily on the heroines, romance, SOL, and the Rave tournament. This in itself is quite an enjoyable example of the sub-genre, though the gap between Kouki in his 'strategist mode' and his 'dense doofus mode' is startling at times.
Alive is more of a plotge with chuunige elements (I've had people describe it as a chuunige, but it doesn't have most of the major qualities of one). The story there is darker and much denser, showing sides of the various characters you can't see in Sorceress. Though, tbh, it is bound pretty tightly to some tropes familiar to most otakus.
The heroines are Azuria, Akina, Yuzuriha, Miya, and Riri. Riri only has an ending in Alive, but she does play a role in both parts of the game.
Azuria is your typical mother-like oneesan character... with the classic physical features to go along with it. Of the five, I think she has the strongest personality second only to Yuzuriha, who is intense behind her calm appearance. She wields earth magic, which she uses mostly in a defensive manner at first (though she does expand her repertoire).
Akina is your typical 'fire magic tsundere'. To be honest, there really isn't any need to explain her further if you've seen any number of anime tsunderes with fire magic. They all act the same way and are equally predictable. Her relationship with Kouki ends up somewhat like that of Yuuji and Shana in Shakugan no Shana (the first half of the season) in some ways.
Yuzuriha is the quiet bullied girl of the group. She uses ice magic, and her manner seems to reflect this... However, she is probably the most passionate and loving of them all by several degrees. Her relationship with Kouki has a rather larger portion of psychological dependence than the other paths, but I still think of her as the strongest personality of the group.
Miya is the apparent 'imouto' character, constantly clinging to the protagonist, always with a mischievous smile on her face. While there are definitely hidden depths to her personality, it is somewhat hard to get at them early on. She wields wind magic, which reflects her (apparent) whimsical nature.
Riri... is your typical arrogant tsundere ojousama, with fight-loving traits blended in. To be honest, she has the least amount of character development, so I have to say I think she got gypped. That said, she is a great rival for the Sorceress part of the game, and a wielder of darkness magic.
An important character to keep in mind is Yuumi, who is the most powerful mage in the school, a wielder of light magic that dominates her opponents easily. Her personality is apparently hedonistic and driven by the whimsy of the moment. She also is extremely lazy.
Sorceress
I'll state here again that Sorceress is basically a charage with battle elements tacked on. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The 'working together to win the tournament' element provides an excellent reason for the protagonist to get close to the heroines despite his original meeting with Akina, and the actual individual story progression is quite good.
However, except for Yuzuriha's ending, the character endings were somewhat disappointing in comparison with the deeper character development of the common route and the drama of their individual routes. This is understandable in retrospect, if you've played Alive, but it was still irritating. Considering how much the romance of the paths built up the characters' dreams for the future, the lack of a 'significantly after' factor to the endings was disappointing.
The action in this game in general is about the same as a low-end chuunige (reasonable action, low on descriptions of what happened...).
Alive
Alive is a far darker story, which strips away the veil hiding the nature of the Queendom (females are dominant due to a low rate of male births), and there is a lot of death and destruction... For those who loved the characters in Sorceress, Alive can be painful at times, though the catharsis is pretty decent, especially in the middle and later parts of the story.
To be honest, due to the structure of this game, it is really, really hard not to spoil anything important. So, I'll just say that the story is good... for what it is. It is not terribly unpredictable (though I imagine some will think there is a light mindfuck in there), and the twists were rather obvious. However, for what it is, it is enjoyable.
That said, it isn't without a few severe flaws endemic to its structure. Alive is essentially a single path with seven endings (one normal, five good, and one true). As a result, there is little effort to give further life to such characters as Riri or Yuumi (until near the end), and I was immensely disappointed with how the endings were handled... in particularly the true ending.
While the five main girls all have a 'years after' ending, the lack of a harem ending (I'm not joking) after making all the girls fall in love with him (not kidding) is just ridiculous. In addition, the true ending fell flat... yes, it was nice in an abstract sense, but for someone who read through the last part of the main path on the edge of his seat, I had to wonder what the writer was thinking. While it does bring tears to the eyes somewhat, there were at least a half-dozen ways it could have been easily turned into a bawling tear-jerker final scene that would have had all the readers dribbling snot and going through whole tissue boxes. This lack of a satisfying catharsis to top off the game was a somewhat flat ending to an otherwise excellent game.
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