Operating System: PC
Website: Amaranth page
Rating: 1.5/5
Comments: Ok, to be honest, I just wanted to play this because it has such beautiful graphics! The main characters: Jun the samurai and Akira the princess look so pretty I couldn't resist. It's not just them either! All the characters in the game were drawn so nicely that I had to keep playing just to see what the rest looked like.
The tileset is one that I haven't seen before and leads me to believe it must be custom-made. It's not like a lot of customs where you can tell it's not part of the original due to way too epic graphics, its just got a Japanese feel to the tiles.
The plot, while interesting, kinda got on my nerves with how much bullsh*t Jun would spout about "honour" and the "Bushido code". He may look like a total bishie but I would prefer him as a mute. The man really know how to rant, that's for sure!
The fight screens were fairly typical with a few new enemies to face off again. I didn't really like the
main screen simply because the options of "fight" or "flight" are just too similar to notice. It could be quite easy to hit the wrong one. I found the battle screens from both games a little hard to read as they were on strange coloured backgrounds but it never really mattered as the fights were pretty easy and never really said much anyway.
Shining Plume 2
Operating System: PC
Website: Amaranth page
Rating: 2/5
Comments: This one is actually a little improved from the last game, but only slightly. I find that the maps in this one tend to go on forever. It's not that they're large, there is just too many of them. I mean, a forest more than 5 maps? I find that a bit excessive. And it's not like the enemies were hard to defeat, it just gets annoying considering that they respawn when you go off the screen... meaning you have to pretty much defeat them all over again which just tends to be time consuming more than anything else.
The plot must have followed on from the last one, which I never got to finish because of an unexplained puzzle that had no clues as to how to solve it. There was a lot more swearing (albeit censored) in this one which bothered me, because most of the characters just didn't seem like they actually would swear. I found it more irritating than anything because as we all know, when you run out of good dialogue, you add cuss words.
I think that by the end of the last one I had my own theories on who the bad guy was so I was prepared for it. It wasn't a surprise like it should have been which just made me sad in the end. I mean, who actually likes when they figure out the plot twist before it happens?
Worst ending in the world. He marries Akira?! What. The. Hell! She's only 14 and he said he was 34. He got some crazy loli fetish or something? I thought he was going to marry Mimiko! Where the hell did THAT come from?! Ugh this game just doesn't make sense! There's supposedly 3 endings but who the hell would bother playing to get the others? Screw that.
