Kagetsu Tohya: Tsukihime Part Deux

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Kagetsu Tohya is the essential sequel-ish thing to popular Type-Moon visual novel Tsukihime, and the English patch was just released for it recently. Here's a download link.

Well, that's all I need to write, as you have already stopped reading because 1) you don't care or 2) you have just dashed off at light speed to download that patch and get your Hisui moe fix on again.

But in all seriousness, if you're not familiar with the Tsukihime universe, the original visual novel was a doujin work that achieved quite a large fanbase. It dealt with a high school student named Shiki Tohno, who had a mysterious power which allows him to see the 'death lines/points' on things (forgive me for inaccuracies, it's been half a year), and his encounters with many strange personalities, such as the friendly vampire with a strange past, the unkillable contract killer, the twin maids that are twin maids and very moe (but also have very deep stories), and a tsundere sister (with a deep story).

Oh, and Satsuki, aka Isn't It Sad Sacchin. Wai for Sacchin~


Tsukihime is quite a novel grounded in fantasy, as there are large magical aspects to it, whether dealing with vampires, man/beast combinations, fantasy weapons, or, for those familiar with Fate/Stay Night, 'mana transfer'.

It's ero in nature, as most visual novels back then, but there's not a huge focus on it - the English patch has an included option to disable all ero scenes. Instead, Tsukihime can be related to Kanon-type stories, in that they have quite moe characters, and are, in the end, tearjerkers.

Tsukihime differs from Kanon, largely, though, because it is a bit gory, there are huge conflicts (there is technically a Big Bad), and the main character has quite some issues himself (not of the bad kind, to the audience). Still, if you like gripping stories and have a week to burn, give Tsukihime a shot. I don't think you'll regret it.

As for Kagetsu Tohya, more info about that after the jump. The explanation will assume you have a familiarity with Tsukihime.

I'm only very little in KT, but I believe I have enough of a grasp to talk about it, especially since I've read summaries of the plot before.

KT, which comes a year after Tsukihime, appears to follow something most similar to Arcueid's Good Ending, where all characters remain intact, but in visual novel fashion, there is no one girl that Shiki is ultimately committed too. Shiki is placed in a very Groundhog Day situation after - presumably - getting pwned by a truck. He repeats one day over and over, always trying to remember something he forgot - yesterday. To say any more would be spoilerish.

Even though the whole game does essentially consist of doing the same game over and over, this doesn't mean it's low on content. The day has seemingly endless possibility. One path for a day results in 8 choices for the 'morning' period and 6 in the 'afternoon' period. That's a lot. And even if presumably the end of the story is reached a few days of gameplay down the line, there are still 10 entertaining side stories to read, of which I know very little to be honest.

KT seems to be a bit more light-hearted than Tsukihime, at least in the early stages, although some of the comedy stems from the odd seriousness of the characters in some situations. Among other things in my 11 Game Days of gameplay, Shiki has:
- Witnessed an Epic Faceoff between Ciel and Akiha
- Witnessed an Epic Faceoff (II: Electric Boogaloo) between Ciel and Arcueid
- Gotten juiced injected to death by Magical Amber (yes, THAT Magical Amber). Twice.
- Run foolhardishly into fanservicey situations with Akiha and the maids at least twice.
- Experienced the epic moe-ness of Cooking With Hisui.
- Gamed with Kohaku!
- Invented the "this chair" meme, part deux.
- Gone on a panty raid in Ciel's apartment. (Hint: bad idea. BAD idea. But very quotable.)
- Gotten a CG event with Arihiko. Yeah, CG, with a guy. It's awesome like that.
- And in plot matters, fell into the hell-like End of the World, stabbed and/or got stabbed by "Shiki Nanaya", and saw Len a bunch of times.

The focus of KT appears to be on Ren, the loli-like quiet...thing...that played a bit role in Tsukihime by giving Shiki wet dreams. I think her focus may be a bit different this time around, but who am I to tell? KT looks to deliver in both amusement and plot, so if you liked Tsukihime, you'll probably love Kagetsu Tohya as well.

Only problem...doesn't appear to be any Satsuki?! (Which makes sense with the canon storyline, I suppose, but, c'mon...)

-CCY