Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms

The tiniest of oddities and issues keep me from loving Edo Blossoms quite as much as I love Kyoto Winds. But then, the latter is a game I would have played a half dozen times by now, if not more. Being a slightly weaker sequel to that by the tiniest of margins still means that Edo Blossoms is one of the best visual novels out there. And you can’t really play one without the other, anyway. Just as you can’t really read Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien and not also read The Two Towers and Return of the King, so too do you need to play Edo Blossoms if you’ve played Kyoto Winds at some poin…

Push SquareJenny Jones

8/10

Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms is a visual novel otome game and a direct sequel to last year’s Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds. The main character Chizuru Yukimura is still trying to find her missing father and is still hanging out with the Shinsengumi, a military police unit made up of hunky ronin. The game tells of a time between the waning fragments of the old Shogunate and the rising tide of Imperial Nationalism.

Gamer EscapeJosh McGrath

8/10

While the heavier focus on Hakuoki’s supernatural elements wasn’t my cup of tea, the presentation of the changing status quo in Japan as well as better development of Chizuru helped balance it out. I truly have no idea why Idea Factory decided to split this remake into two releases, and I would have greatly preferred having this full story contained in a single release. Regardless, if you enjoyed the story of Kyoto Winds, Edo Blossoms is pretty much essential playing. As such, I believe t...

ShackNewsBrittany Vincent

7/10

Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms is a great cap to Kyoto Winds, even though the two games being released so far apart and as two packages does tend to cheapen things. It's a little on the short side too, but it's got everything a great visual novel needs and then some. If you're interested in wooing samurai vampire boys or just in the mood for something a little less on the nose than other current visual novels, this should make for a great weekend play. Just make sure you enjoy those vampirism scenes in private, you hear?

Playstation LifestyleTyler Treese

6/10

Check out our Hakuoki Edo Blossoms review to find out if this historical-based visual novel is worth playing on PlayStation Vita, or if it is skippable.