Utawarerumono: Shiro he no Michishirube
This prelude out of the way, right off the bat, while I am a huge fan of the Utawarerumono series, I can already admit that I wasn't too keen on Monochrome Mobius and feel like it's much more disappointing than anything else with it not really having the flavor of the series neither truly incorporating its strengths, more so being a strange departure that tries to be a full JRPG yet fails at fully carving its own identity for itself nor feeling like a genuine valuable part of the series. Yet even so after its ending I was still intrigued to see how they'd continue its story and with the announcement of the next Utawarerumono entry being its sequel and the last new game in the series at that, there were hopes for it to leave a positive note while still remaining rather cautious with optimism. Until then I wouldn't have expected to feel so torn apart after completing it.
Initially after a fairly engaging opening to its story, I do feel like it can end up dwindling too much in a state that feels slightly monotonous, slowing down to something without too much of note happening for a longer time, until finally picking up more again around chapter nine to emphasize more of its potential. Therefore its story focused segments that end up getting fairly long with more substance end up becoming one of its best parts with especially the novel game esque segments delivering some value with certain character moments that largely stick the landing. Shiro's story at the brink of the day ended up letting me feel quite some emotions again, almost reminiscent of what the trilogy did, which is to say it has some genuine high points. Notably chapter twelve could likely be considered the biggest standout within this title that from start to finish lends itself as an amazing experience and even features a few rather eyebrow raising moments as a Leaf fan. Paired with the rather beautiful and moving ending this title left one, hopefully and fortunately this series and its story can end for good now for the time being and lead to other new legends and worlds to be discovered.
With Monochrome Mobius there constantly lingered this feeling with me that the story felt extremely lackluster, surprisingly so coming from the grand captivating stories that transpired prior by the same people. In German there's for instance the word belanglos which, contrary to many other singular words found in the English language, describes my feeling towards it extremely well, translating to something that feels very trivial without much importance, kind of banal without much meaning or a place to belong. Therein Shiro finally added some worthwhile payoff that grants this prequel story to the latter two main Utaware games some significance while not majorly compromising or negatively impacting the impressive tale the trilogy told.
Yet Utaware Shiro still doesn't come without faults, with there still remaining quite some shortcomings in many of its other areas that all the more contribute to these rather conflicted feelings that persisted with me over the course of this playthrough and became even sharper due to how much I still ended up liking some of its other parts. Hence I continue to feel like aspects such as the different artstyle introduced in the predecessor aren't as fitting for the series, not bad and still decent for itself, but not being able to compare to what stunning art Leaf's artists such as Amazuyu Tatsuki and Mitsumi Misato did, which isn't to discredit the work mi did with the art for both of these games by any means. In the same vein the inclusion of Karulau and Touka ended up being rather shortlived too with way too little time for them to truly shine and Touka's 3D character model looking extremely rough, ending up as more of a neat cameo. There essentially constantly dwell quite some inconsistencies in Shiro's qualities and it stays far from the top of the hill from which the main titles shined.
Not gonna dive too much indepth mechanically speaking since it very much is relatively similar to its predecessor and there's not a whole lot new things of worth I could add but integrated things such as the mechanic of conquering areas via killing a certain amount of field monsters to then again be able to freely kill them with one hit on the map within the area was a neat idea however could potentially stumble with making things a tad bit too easy. Both its battle system and exploration are otherwise nothing groundbreaking and fine at their best while for the latter still retaining the drawback of making its world appear as way too small in contrast to how vast and big the land of Yamato felt in the trilogy. Perhaps they could still pull it off in a new IP and the hopes for Project Kizuna are there, yet the feeling remains that full JRPGs, as opposed to novel games and ADV hybrids, likely aren't their strong suit.
Something they on the other hand never fail with and likely one of the best parts if not even the most striking of this title like a breezing of the sun ought to be its soundtrack which arguably has loads of great tracks that provide just the right emotional undertone. Utaware Shiro truly nails its soundtrack and even with the at times far from perfect presentation underscores the important moments extremely well. Loved the whole ending song, coupled with lovely remixes and old tracks that evoke the perfect nostalgic feeling as one more venture into this world. Hearing something like the main theme or other notable tracks from the original always managed to give me goosebumps, which despite all gave this experience a pleasant feel and sense of familiarity. To cap things off, some of the lovely messages by the VAs of the characters that can be listened to from the main menu after clearing the game were just as sweet and reinforced their fondness for these roles.
On the verge of losing the capacity to write this review, one last time I'd like to express this title genuinely surprised me a lot in the way I ended up holding it in my mind after the letdown Monochrome Mobius was. While many previous critique points still hold true for this sequel, it's largely an improvement and if anything its story towards the end totally pulled it off with its important moments paired with highlights such as chapter twelve and the entire ending itself, proving once more that the writers, Suga Munemitsu the original author, still have it in them as ever to tell moving and gripping stories. Fortunately, while still feeling conflicted about it, this ended up being a somewhat worthwhile departure from the trilogy after all, whereas I initially wouldn't have thought to go out with this kind of a rather positive notion from this title.
The original Utawarerumono released in 2002 is still a game I treasure a lot, not only as my absolute favorite within the series but in a wider sense a work I came to love immensely with both its characters and world, coming to life without any boundaries in the beautiful realms of an eroge and freely illustrating its inspiring story. Therein I'm fortunate this last title, even if being far from perfect, nevertheless reinforced my love towards the series.
Thank you Suga Munemitsu for creating this life's work of yours
Farewell now, until we may meet again in a different place
Ghonf
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