Comments (20)

By Hemisphere, 10 February, 2010 5:42 AM

Yeah that’s right, SeiTen is a prequel instead of a sequel like I initially thought, involving the Crystal girls from Seinarukana (as you all might have already figured out) and why they ended in such a state after their planet goes kaboom (as I just found out AFTER a SeiKana replay).

So the premise of the game is, treasure hunter Christopher/Clifford Tangram look I really have an issue with this douche and how Xuse wants his official name to stay as Christopher even though the whole fucking game has him called Clifford but I’ll address that later, for now FUCK YOU CHRISTOPHER OR CLIFFORD and his company ends up in the World of Crystal after following a map that points the way to the Droplet of Life. Upon arrival, their ship malfunctions, Clifford goes out to investigate and uses his Shinken, which is a rank 5 that allows him the power of flight. At that point I thought of Ikaruga Satsuki and wondered if she could fly as well, what with her HUGE FREAKING WINGS ON TOP OF HER HEAD AND ALL, but apparently it didn’t serve any purpose other than head decoration…crap, where was I.

So he bails the ship while it’s in free fall, starts flying around, and sees a village being attacked by winged demons, with five very fine and delishuz girls armed with weapons of various kinds doing their best to protect said village. At first the girls mistake him as the head honcho of the demons, because…well, he’s flying, the demons are flying, and the girls can’t fly. So yeah. They start blasting away at him, which causes Clifford AND BY GOLLY I’LL FUCKING CALL HIM CLIFFORD, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE GAME CALLS HIM to dodge said blasts, then show that he’s an ally by striking down some of the demons.

That is until blood starts spurting out his arm and he drops from the sky. He wakes up later in a room at the inn with Yuura, the lady owning the flying ship that Clifford rented in order to travel to the World of Crystal, telling him that the cause for the ship malfunctioning and Clifford being injured while flying was that their mana was incompatible with this world. So now they’re stuck for a while, as their ship has made quite a nice landmark of itself after it pancaked someone’s house.

Oh, and they’ve also taken to calling Clifford as their Yuusha-sama, viewing him as their savior after he demonstrated his fascinating flight abilities to an entire village of people who can’t fly as well as cutting down one demon. THAT’S SAVIOR MATERIAL RIGHT THERE, IT WAS FORETOLD, OR SOMETHING. After some chatter, Clifford agrees to stay and help the village out while he searches for clues regarding the treasure that landed him into this whole mess in the first place. Oh, and the five girls are apparently mikos, and can make use of Clifford’s power of flight via these simple steps.

1. Clifford gets close to one of the mikos
2. Clifford fucks one of the mikos
3. Miko gets her soul synchronized with Clifford
4. Said fucked miko can now make use of Clifford’s power
5. Fucked miko can share Clifford’s power because she’s synchronized with the other four mikos as well

Aside from being a very, very convenient method of sharing power, it also reveals Clifford’s true plans for staying in the village – HE’S HUNGERING FOR SOME LOLI POONTANGS AND THERE’S FIVE WILLING LOLIS RIGHT THERE, DAMN THE MOTHERFUCKER comes with another arrangement – each of the girls are given necklaces imbued with the ability to miniaturize Clifford and contain him, so they can keep him nearby in order to effectively use his power. The five mikos now insist on taking the fight to the demons instead of just staying holed up inside their village – with Clifford’s power, they believe that pushing forward and making the most of it is the best strategy they’ve have yet!

And that’s pretty much it for the beginning portion of SeiTen. Now while you might want to inquire as to how the story progresses, just take note of the fact that in Seinarukana, these girls are in a strange world, keeping themselves alive from mana that is incompatible with them via preserving themselves with the mana from their world in crystal form. And there is no mention, or presence, at all of Clifford in Seinarukana. Once you do the math, you’ll see that the road to the normal – and canon! – ending is one fun ride that involves their planet going KABLOOM and Clifford kicking the bucket. Oh but after the crappy canon normal end, there’s the per-character endings that are more like “What If” endings, if only to reward the player for trudging through the game a second time! Those are pretty nice and are really the only reason for warranting a second playthrough.

The STG gameplay was all right, even though standard SRPG in the fashion of Seinarukana could have sufficed. The premise of the story feels as if they forced it to accommodate the STG aspect of the game, what with the whole emphasis on flying that hardly made an impact later on – which feels like a big no-no for me. If they took out all the mention or emphasis on flying, put in the standard SRPG system that Seinarukana had, and let it go from there, the story still would have sufficed. I mean, come on; Satsuki, Narukana, Jiruoru and some other characters were flying by themselves in Seinarukana, it’s not like it was a pretty exclusive thing nor did it warrant special notice!

The one thing that really sticks out like a sore thumb for me, in line with forcing the story to conform to certain matters, is the issue of Christopher/Clifford, only this one completely doesn’t make sense. So in the trial I played, the lead called himself Clifford and was addressed as such by everyone – even Satsuki’s narration. Now in the main game, there’s this one line that mentions him as Christopher Tangram, with Clifford being his nickname and that being the name that everyone calls him as…which made me wonder how badly Xuse wanted to confuse players of SeiTen. If he was called Clifford by everyone, WHY NOT LEAVE HIS NAME AS CLIFFORD?! Hell I even remember in the getchu page, as well as on the official site, that his name was Clifford until they changed it to Christopher for some arbitrary reason. The whole thing is just sloppy, really, and the whole lack of cohesiveness in this matter is just bleh.

What I like most from SeiTen were the interactions between Clifford and the girls, particularly with the girl you decide to keep on banging. You get scenes here and there, mostly at the end of every chapter, with your chosen girl, and this is really where their characterizations make my heart go KYUN KYUN DOKI DOKI. Each of the five girls are based on particular archetypes: Rur is the logical kuudere, Mew is the gentle oneesan, Wow is the blithering airhead idiot who likes to keep everyone’s spirits up, Pow is the supportive soft spoken second oneesan who ranks just below Mew, and Zeu is the brash tsundere pessimist. I REALLY liked the interactions with Rur and Zeu a lot – have yet to go for Mew but I’m headed there – and while I suppose that the several scenes with Clifford talking with the village chief in deciphering old texts makes sense as Clifford’s a treasure hunter, it loses its charm midway through the game. Dammit, I want more scenes with the girls! More talking! More emphasis on character interaction! GIVE ME MOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEEEEEE! If you’re gonna make per-character What If endings as the sole purpose for the game’s replayability, why not add more scenes with them? It gives the player more initiative to actually replay the whole thing while still devote some attention, instead of just breezing through the battles again and skipping all the scenes just to head at the ending.

SeiTen’s CGs are VERY nice, admittedly; these are by far hitomaru’s nicest works in a Xuse game yet. The girls are nicely drawn, detail is noticeable, and aside from the whole womb-poking thing (which isn’t so much upsetting as it is a “wtf am I looking at Mahou Shoujo Ai here?” moment), it’s all very nice to look at.

Overall, I’d say that SeiTen’s an okay game. You can play this one, put in some hours, go past the canon normal end and hit up some heroine what if endings with a few hours worth of investment here and there, but that’s about it. In the long term SeiTen doesn’t have a lot to offer with replayability aside from heroine What If endings. It’s fun, especially with the heroine interactions and scenes, but it’ll leave you wanting MORE – and that’s where it will fail to deliver.