Aero-ge Impression: Majikoi S

So I finished my summer school exam yesterday and finally have time to write something for real. For those who remember, my first post EVER mentioned that I would write at least one post a month. This post just fits that one month timeline, if you don’t include that mini post I did a couple of days back. By coincidence today just so happens to be my birthday ^^. What am I going to do? Basically nothing, my birthday is just a regular day for me. However, I will be attending a PS Vita preview event later today. Enough about my life, onto Majikoi S! There will have LOTS of images in this post to give you a nice idea of what the game is like.

Company: みなとそふと (Minato Soft)
Game site: 真剣で私に恋しなさい！S
Walkthrough: http://seiya-saiga.com/game/minatosoft/majikoi_s.html
Release date: January 27, 2012

The Kuki Corporation decided to hasten their ‘bushido plan’, where clones of great individuals from the past would be used to solve the shortage of talent workers as well as stimulate the competitive spirit of everyday students.

[Taken from Micchi’s blog]

There are a HUGE number of endings for Majikoi S. Sadly, atm none of the clones have routes. A few Miyako (bad?) ends are chucked in there for laughs. Reminded me of old times ^^. The 5 main heroines of Majikoi S are Tsubame, Monshiro, Margit, Tatsuko and Kokoro. Besides Tsubame route and Monshiro, the other 3 routes lacked a solid story and was mostly H. Margit’s route was especially disappointing. More than half the route was H-scenes, with basically no romantic development. Tsubame’s route was interesting…until they got into the relationship. I won’t go into details, but a certain choice basically decides whether Yamato is the S or M of the relationship. Monshiro’s route was pretty cute, but I wasn’t slightly unhappy on how Yamato still refers to her using “-sama” even when they get into the relationship. The one thing that I really liked about Majikoi S is the balance. With the expanding Majikoi universe, Momoyo is still insanely strong, but she’s no longer unbeatable.

Majikoi S offers a bit of closure for the events after the original game, with after stories for the 5 main heroines. The amount of closure is pretty minuscule and the main focus of the after stories is to chuck in more H scenes. Some nice icha icha is thrown in on the side. I found Momoyo’s and Yukie’s routes the best of the 5.

The Itagaki family plays a large part in the route following the true ending of the original game. Some VERY minor details are changed original game, but they’re SO minor that it could just be my imagination. The loose ends from the end of the true route give rise to some nice comedy here. This route is a small blessing for those into harem endings, containing a couple of 3P scenes.

The new route involving the bushido plan starts at a point after Yukie and Chris enter the Kazama family. Yoshitsune, Benkei, Yoichi and Seizo are cloned for the bushido plan. It comes to no surprise that these four are based off real individuals. The whole clone thing isn’t talked about, which I found disappointing. I like details. Along with these 4, a huge number of characters are introduced. My personal favorite of the new heroines is Benkei.

The “true” route for Majikoi S involves Yamato playing with Sakakibara Koyuki during childhood. She enters the Kazama family as a GUEST member, which makes her a lot friendlier and softens her weird personality. Nicely done I would say. Put her in, but not in such a position that screws up the overall Kazama family. This route has the most story, and I found it very good. Not as good as the true route from the original, but still pretty up there. This route follows a similar pattern to the bushido route. 3 new characters are introduced, all wearing china style clothing. I’m not particularly a fan of china dresses, but damn Rin is sexy XD.

The overall system of the game is quite similar to Majikoi, but with some nice tweaks. They completely remade the BGMs. At first I found this a bit disappointing, as the old ones were quite nice. But as I continued playing, they grew on me. There are some new character sprites. These sprites were quite nice for the major characters, but for the side characters I found it completely unnecessary. The side characters generally are only given one character sprite, which looks stupid given some of the situations they are used in. Another thing to note is that a couple of voices have changed or been added. For example, the voices for Yamato’s parents have changed, but I’d say that they changed for the better ^^. They added in a neat feature that allows you to load from the message log. The use of various angles, close ups and new special effects have made fighting scenes even better. Another awesome feature is that they’ve added a few animated cut scenes.

Majikoi S has LOTS of H-scenes, 48 at the moment. The number might increase with future patches. They were actually pretty good. What I can say is that Yamato loves his anal >__>, especially with Yukie. Side heroines from the old game have been given mini routes and an H-scene each. The route lasts about 5 mins, then H-scene T_T. LOTS of super weird storylines are used to get those side heroines in there. One route has Yamato in love with his hermit crabs and another route is initiated when you watch the tutorial enough times. I was disappointed how they didn’t follow up much on the side heroines. But I guess these heroines didn’t really have much appeal and they would rather put in the effort for more interesting heroines.

Looking past the insane amount of H in this game, it still had the Majikoi feel that I came to know and love. In some ways Majikoi S didn’t meet my expectations, but in other ways it exceeded them.The new characters were well made and the comedy was as good as always. Players who liked the original will probably love this fandisk. For those who haven’t played the original, I would highly recommend it. This is one of my favorite games of all time. Majikoi S lacked routes for Mayo, Chika and Umeko, but there will most likely have a number of patches in the future. I’m praying that there will have a route for Benkei XD.

Find someone you like? Vote for her on this Majikoi S character poll! If you have no one in particular, please put in 3 votes on Benkei for me XD.

I’ll be finishing off Angel Ring sometime today. Review for it will be up sometime next week, give or take. I’ll be playing Dousei Lover Able after that and then Little Busters! Unfortunately after that, I have no idea what to play. Recommendations are welcome!