Hello guys,
Let's start today with the first "serious" post of this blog. Let's review the erogè "Fortune Arterial" (I won't be covering in detail the anime, as there are already tons of website that do that job and focus on the visual novel).Fortune Arterial is an erogè from the company August (famous for Yoake Mae yori Ruriiro na) released on 2008 followed right away by a manga and covered by an anime in 2010.
Story
The game's story revolves around the protagonist, Kohei Hasekura, who transfers into a prestigious public school that space from junior high-school to high school. The school, named Shuchikan Academy, is on an island named Tamatsu Island off-shore from mainland Japan, and the only way to get there is by boat. Immediately after transferring the protagonist got "greeted" by one of the heroines (the vice-president of the student council), and the story begin to unfold when he discover she actually is a vampire and she is not the only one on the island.
While the setting of the story is pretty much clichè, it is very well managed by the director. It stays fresh and interesting excluding from some particular route (I'm looking at you two, Kanade, Yuki!!!).
The story is divided into 5 routes, one for each heroine. Each route reveal more and more of the history of the characters and all the link between them. When all are completed the "true" route unlock and you can see the canon ending of the game.
Among all the routes, I suggest to follow this order while exploring them to get the best of them :
1) Kanade (the MOST disconnected from the main plot and the most boring)2) Haruna 3) Shiro4) Kiriha (this is by far the best route after the true route)5) Erika6) True route (well this is forced)
Characters
As with all the erogè around, the character list varies around many stereotypes. Here we find the childhood friend with no memory of the past (Haruna), the onee-san that want to take care of everything (Kanade), the cool girl who want to be leaved alone (Kiriha), the imouto type (Shiro (yes, I hear you Micchi)), the tsundere with the typical emo attitute (Erika).
All of them does not have big character development in the story, but remains in their own behaviour while fighting the odds to be together. (maybe only a little Erika in the true route shows some change...)
There are also apart from the main heroines some sub character worth mentioning. The student council president (Iori) that is the brother of Erika and also a very old vampire, its assistant (Seichiro) that is the brother of Shiro and is quite protective of her, and the classic friend of the protagonist (Tsukasa).
Sound
This is most likely the important part of every August game.
All the voice acting is done by professional seiyū, and most of them has also done many anime roles. The quality is exceptional for each one of the various characters, their acting makes the character takes life and reflect perfectly the situations they found themselves into.
The game is full voiced except for the protagonist (unfortunately as I like to hear the protagonist voice too )
Interface
The interface is a generic one with little things of note, but is well done on the software side. It is stable, responsive and allow the user to read without annoyment. (many games lack of a decent UI really... )
H Scenes
The H scenes are quite well done, quite realistic and express nicely the feeling and the odds they faced to get together. There are 2-3 scene for each heroine and they are well placed in the plot and will not pop from nowhere (I'm looking at you Yosuga no Sora).
The quality of the CGs of the scenes? Well...its quite good.
Conclusion
Overall, it's a game I suggest to ANYONE. It's a game with nice story, nice cg, nice H-scenes, fantastic dub, hey what you want more?
Story : 85%Characters : 80%Artwork : 85%Sound : 95%Interface : 70%H Scenes : 85%Overall : 83%
The game's OP :
<video class="mep" controls="controls" src="http://www.emptyblue.it/data/media/Fortune_Arterial_Op.mp4"></video>
See you next time for another review,
feal87
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