Mou Yamete!

Yeeesh. Talk about a fucking original title (see here if you don’t get it). Then again, Tenmu was mostly a rehash of Maimu with minor alterations. If you’ve played Maimu before, then there’s nothing that’ll strike you as new as you play through this one. Except, of course, with the whole Maimu going bad and stuff. I did find it funny that, this time around, the kagura’s side-effect affected the male lead and not the heroine this time around, which amounted to Naomichi getting a really, really bad case of blue balls everytime Tenmu would use the kagura’s powers in combat. If he doesn’t get relieved, he dies! Talk about a fatal case of blue balls.

There’s really not much for me to comment on because my experience playing through this one was so identical with Maimu that one could just read the Maimu entry, substitute the names, and get the exact impression that I have right now. Out of all the characters, I liked Tenmu the most, with Rinne coming in at a close second. I didn’t like Shizuka much, and I definitely did not find the two girls, Riko and Mako (I think those were their names), interesting at all. It was inevitable that I’d end up adoring Tenmu because, much like Maimu, she has her own defining quirks to set her apart from the rest, though in that regard she’s much, much quirkier than Maimu. Unlike her oneesama, her cooking causes kitchen explosions, and she’s very very afraid of gokib – G. Rinne was pretty adorable because she was the deredere idol and also the underdog in the raburabu battle between her, Shizuka and Tenmu over Naomichi – much like Tomoyo in the fight between her, Mika and Maimu over Kenta – and she’s got enough quirkiness on her own to put her in second place in my rankings.

Shizuka was just Mika v.2, with more of the tsuntsun and with little redeeming qualities to her. Unless you’re into heroines that love beating the shit out of their love interest without any deredere moment. As for Rika and Mako…ugh. Let’s just leave it at that. Their voices just irritates me to high heaven, and that was enough of a reason for me to skip most of their lines. Though in that regard, it was great to hear Aoba Ringo again – and at this point, people are probably going “wtf, he hates annoyingly shrill voices but Aoba Ringo does that too!”. Well, unlike most of the annoyingly shrill voices that I’ve heard, Aoba Ringo’s isn’t that annoying, and she does it in such a way that it actually passes off as convincing and fits with her character. Just check out her performances as Shihoudo Narika, Sol Valkyr, and Nanashiki Rin (she’s even done a male role (albeit it was a trap one, in Sakura Strasse), all of which I ended up going “uwaaa, daisuki kyuu~” over (complete with hearts and all).

To the game’s credit,it has a lot of jokes going for it, and most of them are pretty amusing. I laughed at the Geass joke, in particular, as well as the Kamen Rider one. Unfortunately, the number of jokes featured requires that you know what they’re referencing for you to actually get the humor – otherwise you might as well go to www.instantrimshot.com and treat yourself to a rimshot, because you won’t be getting them anytime soon. While I got some of the jokes, most of them just went past my head, and it reminded me of Hayate no Gotoku thanks to their overuse of jokes relying heavily on references, such that the humor became a hit-or-miss thing instead.

As for the music, if you’ve heard Maimu’s track, then you haven’t missed anything. Just add a few tracks, and you have Tenmu’s repertoire of music. Not particularly impressive, since most of the instrumentals just come off as generic and rather dull. Sometimes the tracks even come off as rather inappropriate when it comes to certain scenes,

The combat, or at least what passes off as combat, has been “downgraded”. Whereas in Maimu you had to choose five correct attack choices, in Tenmu you just had to make the right choice out of two options. The right choice will lead to Tenmu kicking the enemy’s ass, then going back home and enjoying a nice ichaicha moment with her, while the wrong one will lead to Tenmu getting the shit raped out of her. You know, customary stuff, nothing that eroges of these genres don’t particularly skimp out on. I was hoping for a Maimu x Tenmu 3P scene, but my hopes crumbled after realizing that it’d only happen when you’re leading up to a bad end.

At least you get to save Maimu and return her to normal near the end! Though I was rather perplexed at hearing Kenta voiced. I was thinking they’d go with an unvoiced Kenta, as it’d be the perfect setup for some gags regarding unvoiced protagonists. Ah well.

The voice acting was pretty okay, though it seemed to me as if the seiyuus went nuts and just decided to have fun with their performances. It wasn’t a bad thing, mind you, as hearing seiyuus having fun with their roles was rather amusing to listen to, but though it was unavoidable hearing the same seiyuu voice a different character, it was rather upsetting. Especially since they didn’t bother masking their voice when they did so.

The good ending ended on a nice note, with Tenmu and Naomichi’s marriage, while the bad ends were pretty much tailor-made for the sadist in you. Liked the bad endings in Beat Blades Haruka? Then you might like the bad endings here in Shouryusenki Tenmu (and also in Maimu)! While not on the same level as Beat Blade Haruka’s bad endings, the ones in Tenmu are still pretty guilt-ridden enough to drive one to pursue them out of morbid curiosity.

To end this entry with are some pictures showing the “availability” of the side characters, as well as what happens in some of the bad ends/losing choices in battle. Now that my henshin heroine craving is sated, it’s time to go back to Lump of Sugar’s titles!