Tsukihime ~A piece of blue glass moon~

An interesting redo of the original game, if just the common route and the two near side routes. I will say now SPOILERS AHEAD.



Gotta admit the new graphics, voices and music are a real improvement but I just can't get over the way it's still in NVL format instead of the more modern ADV. I know this is Type-Moon and that's just how it's always been, but for some reason it was such a pain to try and read on a large TV so I had to use PS4 Remote Play on PC to compactify it a bit. Other screw you things from Type-Moon involve making it a CERO Z rated game, which means that you can't buy it digitally outside of Japan without a Japanese credit card (which only Japanese people can get), and how they set the PS4 "You can't take a screenshot here" flag the moment you turn on the game, meaning the only screenshot you can take in the entire game is the loading splash screen before the warning screen pops up. They also had a bizzare bug that meant no text appears on screen if your system language was set to not Japanese (this has been patched as of a few days ago... which was a couple days after I finished the game) so I'm lucky I chanced on the solution while troubleshooting.


Putting aside those problems, other problems this game has includes the inconsistent tachi-e and CG quality. This is more of a problem for Ciel than Arcueid but it sure is kinda jarring how her entire aura changes depending on what expression they're putting on for that line. There's also how the new characters (bar one) are all pretty much or completely irrelevant for and do nothing in this game, which was kinda a letdown. That being said, the new characters are interesting in personality which gives good hope for the second game.



What kinda sets this apart from the original game is how parts of the game are rewritten. While the Arcueid route is pretty much untouched from the original, only having a few new scenes and a little tinkering here and there; the Ciel route appears to be mostly rewritten. I read Tsukihime only 2 years ago but I really don't remember much of what happened in Ciel's route, and there were only a few points where I thought "ah yes I remmeber this bit" throughout the game. The big big change in both of them is everyone's favourite Dead Apostle (I think that's what they called 死徒 in the English version but not sure because I've only played them in Japanese) Nero has been replaced with a new DA, who pretty much serves the same overall role, even though his abilities and the exact flow of the battle changes. He's okay I guess, just an alternate possibility. Overall, I thought the changes were neither bad nor good, just another potential path they could have taken.


This is usually where you'd wrap up the review with a score but I'm not going to do that as I simply don't see any point. If you have not played Tsukihime, then now is not the time to start, as the second game which will cover the three Far Side routes and more is not out yet. If you have played Tsukihime, you will probably play this anyway (assuming you can read Japanese) for nostalgia reasons or to see how it's changed.