Tag: Sweet Fuse

This is part 2 of a post describing my thoughts on some games I’ve played recently. Click here to read part 1, which is about the game Beyond: Two Souls, released by Quantic Dream.

There may be minor spoilers ahead…

This time, I’ll be talking about Sweet Fuse: At Your Side, an otome visual novel by Idea Factory and localized by Aksys Games.

I wasn’t expecting much, but it was on sale (according to some Tumblr post floating around) and I figured I needed to do my part to support the localization of otome games, so I picked it up. To my surprise, and despite the bright colors and goofy-looking villain, the story turned out to be very dark and engaging, and all the character interactions are what really make the game shine. There were definitely moments that made me laugh out loud, as well as somber moments that reminded me how short and tragic life can be.

All these characters seem pretty goofy at first, and the premise seems ridiculous beyond measure (seriously, I’m supposed to be scared of a guy in a pig costume threatening to blow up an amusement park? WTF?) but they all have their stories that unfold as you go along, and you’ll have to play multiple routes to see the tragic mystery unfold.

I don’t adore the main character, Saki, as much as I adored Jodie in Beyond, but that’s not surprising because you don’t get to spend as much time getting to know her. It’s not clear whether her parents are alive or whether they’re worried about her while she’s participating in these life-threatening games, and she never talks about herself, her family (other than her uncle), or her home life at all. Based on her dialogue (both internal and external), she feels like a pretty generic otome heroine with the kind of logical thoughts and conclusions you would expect from a typical morally good person; there’s nothing that particularly stands out about her or her personality, other than that she’s willing to put her life on the line to save her uncle (which, again, is kind of standard for game heroes).

What does make her unique, though, is that 1) her skill is reviewing information and picking up on what the others may have missed in order to solve puzzles, which saves the others’ lives in most situations; and 2) when something doesn’t sit right with her, she’s not afraid to get mad and call others out on their bullshit (usually with hilarious results). It’s so funny seeing these grown men who think they’re all that cower in fear at the wrath of this little high school girl. I also think that through her “rage moments,” she fights back against Hogstein (the villain) more than anyone else, which is pretty awesome.

Gameplay

The gameplay is really simple. It’s mostly just a standard visual novel: scroll through text and occasionally choose from different options to change the direction of the story. For the first half, a lot of the choices are just to determine who you’ll end up with. The second half is unique to the character you have the highest affection with at the end of Stage 3, and those choices are mostly to get more affection with that character so you can get the happy ending.

At certain key moments, it’ll be up to you to get some “Insight” and figure out which part of the puzzle everyone is missing. Only one word is right, but you can guess three things, and as long as one of them is the right one you can move on. If you fail, it’s game over in most cases, so make sure you save at least once per chapter.

Here is the walkthrough I used, in case you’re like me and are only interested in getting certain endings…

Romance

I’ll be honest, I didn’t look up anything about the characters or anything before I started, so based on the look of the sprites, I thought Saki was around 15 or 16 years old, Wakasa and Meoshi were about the same or a little older (17-19), Mitarashi was in his 20s, Shidou and Urabe were in their 30s, and Shirabe was in his 40s. That didn’t stop me from doing Shidou’s and Shirabe’s routes first, but I did feel a little guilty about it. As a 20-something who is attracted to older, mature men, it made a lot of sense to go after Shidou, Shirabe, or Urabe, and I really appreciated having so many older options because normally there’s only one, if that. But… it was hard to separate myself from Saki, this young high school girl who has no business flirting with these men twice her age when she’s still a minor, and so as a result, the feelings I felt while playing these two routes were a mix of “ASFJKDSL THAT’S SO FREAKING SWEET AND ADORABLE” and “OMFG, WHY AM I DOING THIS? THIS IS SO CREEPY, I’M SUCH A HORRIBLE PERSON.”

Since beginning writing this post, though, I’ve looked at Aksys’ website, which claims that Saki is 18 (I’m not sure I believe it, not when they specifically mention her being still in high school) and Shidou is actually the youngest of the adults at only 22 (I don’t think I believe that, either… I mean, how could he have already been promoted to detective? He’s barely old enough to have graduated from the police academy, right?). Shirabe is only 32, which I guess makes sense if Shidou and Urabe are only 20-something. Uh…so… my impressions may not make as much sense now that I know their “real” ages. That said…

Shidou is the cool, sexy, and intelligent police detective. I did him first for…well…obvious reasons: his awesome hair, his sexy voice, dat suit. At first, he’s kind of annoying because he pushes chivalry too far and is always talking about how Saki is a woman and so she shouldn’t be putting herself in danger, but once she calls him out on it (I thought it was hilarious that he liked getting yelled at), he reverts to more of a neutral “I just want to protect everyone” stance. He’s the natural leader of the group, and though he’s not a one-man team by any means, it’s obvious that everyone would have a hard time without his quick thinking and overall badassery to help them through the games. And I get the feeling that his route is one of the few where you actually play every game in every stage, so in retrospect, it was the perfect route to start with.

His romance was very sweet and, even though the story only lasts for 7 days, it felt very believable and not at all contrived. You could see how his general protectiveness gradually turned into “I really want to protect this person” as he learned to open up to and even rely on Saki, whose emotional strength and intelligence he recognized and admired. Still, though, I was surprised that the age difference was never mentioned (now I realize why – four years isn’t that bad), and when they started dating at the end, I kept thinking, “Gee, better not let any of your cop buddies find out what you’re up to or you’ll be in biiiiiiig trouble, bud.”

Shirabe is pretty much the typical old-man journalist trope, similar to Motomi from Togainu no Chi or Soseki from Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. He’s knowledgeable about a lot of things, though he plays his cards close to the chest at first, and respects Saki’s intelligence and insight. Unlike Shidou’s route, which was just as much about the team as it was about him and Saki, Shirabe’s route was pretty much all about his daughter, Mai, and him searching for the truth about his friend’s death, leaving the team behind for the entire second half of the game. Though it sheds some more light on the story’s mystery, you miss out on a lot of important events, so I suggest NOT doing this route first.

His romance suffers from the same thing Motomi’s does, for those who have played that game – his affection feels gentle and fatherly…until it doesn’t. In other words, it goes from “Aww, you remind me of my kid” to “I really wanna bang you” in the space of a breath. Okay, okay, it’s not quite that bad in Shirabe’s route because at least you can kind of pinpoint the scene where the shift starts, so it’s not so sudden (and he never compares you to his daughter since she’s too young). Personally, I thought his story was more interesting than Shidou’s, but because his story took precedence, the romantic chemistry wasn’t as strong (and it suffered from the usual “Aren’t I too old for you?” attempted push-away). Still, it definitely had its moments, especially since I felt that they were on pretty equal footing – sure, Shirabe protected Saki as expected, but Saki also risked her life to protect him, so it was a two-way street. I liked that a lot.

Anyway, I’ll probably play a few more routes before I put this one down, because it’s driving me crazy that I don’t know the whole story yet. >o< If I do play some more routes, I’ll probably post my impressions of those as well, assuming I don’t get too lazy.

Oh, and if anyone knows how to transfer screenshots from your PSP to the computer, tell me! Then I can replace these pictures with my personal favorite screencaps and CGs. 😀

Originally posted December 8, 2013 on Tumblr.