Following the announcement of its PlayStation Vita release date on March 16th, Idea Factory’s Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms has also been announced for PC. The game will arrive in Spring, though no specific release date has been announced yet.
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Hakuoki is a Japanese dating sim (falling under the otome genre) that puts players in the shoes of a young girl who encounters the legendary Shinsengumi while searching for her missing father. It takes historical figures from Japanese history and mixes some rather dark supernatural lore into a compelling, challenging love story with several endings. Edo Blossoms ups the available bachelor count to 12, and claims to finish the heroine Chizuru’s story, which may hint at future plans and stories within the franchise.
Additionally, the company has opened up the opportunity to beta test the game starting today, which anyone can apply to here. The beta runs until February 16th and is available to players over the age of 18 with any variety of gaming rig.
For those not familiar with the series, here’s the official summary from Idea Factory, which includes spoilers for the first half of the story:
Chizuru Yukimura travels from Edo to Kyoto in hopes of searching for her father who had mysteriously vanished. Along the way, she encountered the Shinsengumi, and spent the next four years working with them to locate her father. In 1868, the final year of the Bakumatsu Period, the Shinsengumi, with Chizuru at their side, took part in the Battle of Toba-Fushimi to decide the future of the Tokugawa Shogunate against the rising tide of Imperial Nationalism. Unfortunately, defeat for the Shinsengumi came swiftly at the hands of the Imperial Army, and they retreated back to Edo in shame.
It was a bittersweet homecoming for both Chizuru and the warriors of the Shinsengumi, as the city of Edo resembled very little of its former self, engulfed by the harrowing winds of change that were sweeping through the country. As the Shinsengumi’s survival came under threat, they were faced with a choice: discard their principles, or give up their lives. Some of them had no such choice, and they cloaked themselves in darkness to protect the Shinsengumi’s greatest secret: the Furies.
This is a story about a girl who allies with the warriors of the Shinsengumi, who are struggling to uphold their faith in an era of rapid social change in Japan, and the fate of those who sought to resist that change…
Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms releases for PlayStation Vita on March 16th.
