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Nightshade Review: Shinny Your Nobis, It’s Another Ninja Game

I’ve been back on an otome kick again, after a long, long hiatus. I recently finished both OZMAFIA and Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome, but I’ll come back to those later. Might review those, who knows. Not now, though.

Instead, I’ll focus on one game in particular -- my most recent: Nightshade. This one’s done by D3P Otomebu and Red Entertainment, with character design and art by Teita (the same Teita who did the art for Norn9, yes).

I’ll give you fair warning here. Usually I try to 100% a game before spitting out my thoughts on the matter. But Nightshade… Nightshade I didn’t 100%. This might sound cowardly, but I never did any of the bad ends. So in all honestly, I’ve seen only half the endings. So this isn’t the best review I think anyone can get of Nightshade, but I’ve already formed my opinion on it and I don’t really want to read anymore. More on that later, but I thought everyone should know.

To be brief, Nightshade’s a visual novel set in Japan shortly after the Sengoku period, seventeen years after the unification of Japan. Before this, the two main ninja clan factions, Iga and Kōga, warred for decades, until Iga was ultimately destroyed in the Tenshō Iga war. The last surviving Iga ninja were taken into the Kōga clan after that. You play as Ueno Enju (name changeable, but characters will only say her name if she’s named ‘Enju’), daughter of the head of the Kōga clan, the product of Kōga and Iga’s union and a symbol of peace between the two clans. Enju’s been training to be a shinobi for a while now, and the game starts to kick off with you going off on your very first mission with all your close friends. Things, of course, take a turn for the worse, kicking off a struggle for survival amidst a political fight.

While the game itself is fictional, various characters and events are based on actual history. This game also has elements of drama and  tragedy to it, and major character death at points, so if that turns you off, then get out of here. Of course, this is an otome, so even amidst the plot there’s romance. You have the choice of five bachelors to choose from, each with two ends (a happy end and a bad end). Your choices, from left to right, as follow:

Gekkamaru (cv. Wataru Hatano); your loyal bodyguard. He’s been with Enju since birth and tasked with protecting her at all costs.

Kuroyuki (cv. Hiro Shimono); the younger brother of Gekkamaru and a close friend. He’s been out on a mission for eight years. A carefree sort of guy who also grew up with Enju.

Chōjirō (cv. Kōsuke Toriumi); your teacher and cousin. Once an Iga shinobi, he now devotes himself to the Kōga, taking his work very seriously.

Hanzō Hattori (cv. Kenjiro Tsuda); a faithful ninja working under Ieyasu Tokugawa. He’s known as the strongest ninja in the land. Serious and calm.

Goemon Ishikawa (cv. Hikaru Midorikawa); a notorious thief that eludes capture wherever he goes. A playful person who likes to flirt.

Introductions aside, let’s move on to my thoughts on the game, without trying to spoil anything.

 STORY

Nightshade has a decent enough story. It’s not abysmal, it’s not full of plot holes. But on the other hand, I didn’t feel overly engaged. I didn’t think ‘oh wow, what’s going to happen next?!’ too often. It had its moments where it got me, yes (Kuroyuki’s route in the later game is one of these things), but over all, it was straightforward. Without spoiling it, there’s really only two plot lines you can follow, and once you know which plot line you’re down all sense of danger and suspense goes right out the window, because you know exactly what’s happening behind the scenes and who dies where. It makes everything past maybe the first and second routes you do feel a bit more cheap in my opinion.

If you’re looking for a wild ride on the routes, you can find a bit of that in the game, namely in just two routes – going with Goemon and Kuroyuki will give you that kind of ‘Oh shit! What’s going on?!’ feeling, which I found nice to experience.

PROTAGONIST

Another major problem I have with the game is the protagonist. I won’t try to hide it – I really loathe Chizuru from Hakuoki. She is the absolute bottom standard I can see any otome protagonist being; a person with stated special properties who never displays anything of the sort and instead is protected over and over again. I was very hopeful with Enju, who was shown to have been trained and was able to fight (and even overcome opponents in combat), as well as have a special ninjutsu she could use. Unfortunately, in the second part of the game past the common route, Enju started to take a sort of ‘cowering princess’ role at times, protected by her allies and often told to just ‘run for it’. To her merit, she did attempt to fight or block attacks at times, but not as much as I’d have hoped. As well, I’d thought her ninjutsu attack would have had more chances to shine, but sadly, it wasn’t used as often as I wanted it to.

Luckily enough for me, Enju does shine here and there, especially so on Hanzō’s route (spoiler (highlight to see): she gets trained) and a few times in Chōjirō’s route where she holds her own decently enough. There is also a moment near the (happy) end of Gekkamaru’s route where she does something wild and unexpected. Enju as a protagonist isn’t the best around, but she’s miles better than most because she has more resolve to be her own person than other otome protagonists. In short, she didn’t tick me off that much. She was highly tolerable.

ART DIRECTION

The art was the main reason I picked up this game, and it’s of high enough quality to make it a main draw. I liked the style of it, and the costume design (though a bit gaudy at parts) was decent and at least fun to look at. There was a breath of life in the game, in the way the characters “animated”, I felt. They blink and move their mouths while they talk, and the action sequences were laid out in a way that you could easily visualize what was happening while the shinobi fought. Some CG looked a bit strange at times, but I could easily overlook it.

SOUND DIRECTION

Nightshade is fully voiced (aside from Enju, who doesn’t have a voice), and the cast they chose does their job pretty well. The main five boys all have pretty top tier VA’s, too, all with a long history of roles. I even recognized a few right off the bat, which is a pretty amazing feat for me since I have a hard time recognizing voices easily. The voices fit well, and the emotion (as far as I can tell, since I’m not a native speaker) seems well acted. As for the general music of the game – I’m ashamed to say I didn’t pay much attention to it! But from what I recall, it was pleasant and didn’t feel out of place. Very traditional and thematically appropriate. And non-intrusive.

TECHNICAL

The technical side of things is 50/50 for me. There was very few spelling/grammatical errors in the script (kudo to the editing/testing teams – you aced it) or any issues with text wrapping, which I was very VERY pleased about. Nothing’s worse than having the text go out of the box when you read it. However, I did find that my game crashed numerous times over the course of playing. It would freeze and shut down. I wasn’t sure if this was just an issue on my side or not, but I felt it worth mentioning regardless. I found myself having to quicksave very often when playing, too. And I noticed that if you quicksave while a character is in the middle of talking, the game freezes until they finish their dialogue. Again, I’m not certain if this is on my side or if it’s a universal problem, but it got very irritating. Another issue was the fact that I couldn’t resize the game window. This might seem trivial, but for people like me who like that customization, it was disappointing. There is a skip mode in game, both forced and read only, but there are times when the game will make you click through a conversation you’ve already read regardless, simply because you’re on a different route (and there are little to no differences in the script during those scenes, either.)

Let’s move on to the part everyone likes to discuss: the boys.

I’m going to go ahead and say this outright: I didn’t have a best boy for this game. If I had to choose, I liked Hanzō’s route best, but I feel that’s because it made Enju useful and not because I liked the romance, per say. On the other hand, none of the boys were objectively bad, either. They had their merits, but they just weren’t overly captivating to me or appealing.

Chōjirō was the first route I went through (on accident), and it hit me like a rock as my first route. I remember thinking, “Is this how the rest will go?!” (spoiler (highlight to see): not all of them would, however). I felt weird about the ‘dating your actual cousin’ bit for a while there, but they make it kind of work. He’s not the overall cutest and if I had to pick someone to be at the bottom of the pile, it would be him, but he can stand his own in the attraction department regardless.

Gekkamaru was, in contrast, the last route I did. I instantly took a shining to him because of how often he comes through for you in other routes. There’s some turmoil near the end of his route but it really does feel forced and slightly unnecessary to me. Regardless, Gekkamaru was a cutie, though the romance in his route felt underwhelming for some reason. I might’ve gotten my hopes up too high. Oh well.

Moving onto his brother, Kuroyuki. This one was definitely a cutie, and at first I felt like he was in the same league as Gekkamaru – a bro who would pull through for you no matter what. And that’s what he appears as – he’s shaped a friend, basically. If we’re going to go a bit spoilery (highlight to see), they really got my guard down with Kuroyuki, and for that I’m impressed. The wool isn’t easily pulled over my eyes like that. Back out to non spoilerville, he’s the lonely sort that I couldn’t help but stick with. I was satisfied with his route, fortunately enough.

Onto Hanzō . I was iffy about him at first because in contrast to the other bachelors, you barely see anything of Hanzō at all in the common route unless you actively seek him out. But he’s a good option in the end, though I really felt like the romance was out of place. There were a few times where he felt more father-like than a bachelor, and for a sweet minute there I thought maybe the game would swerve and he’d adopt Enju. Of course not. It’s not a creepy romance, but it just felt kinda … out of nowhere for a bit there. Still, he’s a good choice. And a good route.

Finally, Goemon. Goemon in and of himself is a spoiler for the first few chapters of the game. If you bother to look at the relationship panel in the options, you’ll see you-know-who with ‘Goemon’ as his name, instantly allieviating any tension of “who IS Goemon??”. He’s a good boy, and like I said, a veritable flirt. His route’s also full of ‘wha—‘ moments, too, since he’s all about the trickery and outsmarting people. Definitely the ‘wild ride’ of the game.

[[[[SPOILER (highlight to see)]]]]

Basically, if you want tragedy and heartache, go Gekkamaru or Chōjirō . Gekkamaru’s for the people who like an open book, whereas Chōjirō is better for those who want to tear down a person’s walls to get to the lonely insides. These two routes will be the harder ones to swallow because they’re on the same plotline, and involve misery.

Otherwise, you’ve got Kuroyuki, Hanzō and Goemon left to play with, which are routes that are much less heavy. Goemon is a route for those who want to have a fun time with very little trauma and, like I said, a bit of a wild ride and a play on expectations. Kuroyuki’s route is less wild but surprises you with a sudden realization partway through. It also has some yandere vibes, but he’s not complete asshole yandere, so it’s not as bad. Otherwise, Hanzō’s route is the most vanilla, and has the best character growth for Enju, too. A good middle ground.

[[[[[[END SPOILER]]]]]]

 END THOUGHTS

My thoughts on the game on the whole are, without a doubt, very much neutral. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t dread reading it. I didn’t go “man I can’t wait until this route is over so I can stop for the night’ anywhere. But on the reverse side of that, I wasn’t enthralled with it, either. I didn’t have many times where I was excited to read Nightshade. There were also very few times where I went ‘I wonder what’s going to happen next?!’, either. It was a pleasant little read, but it wouldn’t make it onto my favorites list. It didn’t make a big impression on me. It was what it was. Honestly, I felt like I could only really bother to go through each guy’s route once. Any more and I might actually start to dislike it. It had that kind of balance for me. Which is why I didn’t 100% it – I couldn’t be bothered to put in the work, because I had no real interest to squeeze every little detail I could out of the game.

However, I would definitely say that as far as translated/English otome games go, Nightshade is up there on the ‘this is fine to read’ list as opposed to other options out there. I’d much rather see someone read this than one of those ported mobile games that have been coming to steam lately.

Honestly, I get a sort of Hakuoki vibe from this game, even though I probably shouldn’t. It feels like the people who enjoyed Hakuoki might enjoy Nightshade, since the themes and setting are similar enough, as well as the sadder moments.But it’s been such a long while since I played the original Hakuoki, things might’ve changed. Take it with a grain of salt.

I wouldn’t recommend this to people looking for complicated plots or enriching stories, and certainly not to people who like more comfy feel-good types of stories with lots of fluffy romance scenes.  It is what it is, and that’s a game that’s kinda mediocre but doesn’t have anything I can outright ‘hate’.  I wouldn’t recommend it as someone’s first game, but because of how straightforward it is (two ends per route, not a lot of deviations in the routes, available relationship chart you can see and track), I can easily see someone who’s read one or two games picking this up without being that intimidated.

Overall, I’d rate it a 6/10 or a 7/10.And I’d definitely wait for a price drop; $40 CAD seems a bit much for this game as it is. $30? Maybe. $20? Nominal.

But if you’re intent on getting it, here’s the Steam link. Happy playing, pals. Have a good one.

[some-otome-fan]

USO DA JO, BOYS

I’ve got a review coming along probably soon but don’t take my word for it because I’m a known liar

[some-otome-fan]

Whew lad, been away for two years.

I’ve purged the blog and given it a makeover (still a work in progress) to celebrate my return, and also signal that from today forward, SOF will be mostly just reviews instead of screenshots and out-of-context remarks.

As always I’m gonna be a big jerk about the stuff I play, so watch out, kitty’s got claws.

I’ll be replaying Sweet Fuse so I can redo the “review” properly. Please wait warmly as I fuck around.