Next up is the Sougi Forces (or the Cao Wei Faction)!
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First up is the of course the powerful ruler of Sougi, Sousou (Last name: Sou, First name: Sou, True Name: Karin). She’s voiced by Nojima Kana, who has done several different roles for studios KID and BLACKRAINBOW when not voicing extras for everything from games like White Knight Chronicles and Puyo Puyo Fever to anime such as Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and Hellsing, and even to dubbing roles for sitcoms such as CSI, Cheers!, or Sex and the City.
Despite her short stature (only about 4′ 7″ tall)、this young girl is feared as a fierce general and strategist as well as her unparalleled ruthlessness towards men. She is a man-hating lesbian who sets out to conquer all of China in order to bring every last woman into her bed. She is extremely sadistic, extremely selfish, and extremely self-confident. Once she spots Kan’u and takes a liking to her, she cannot stand that Kan’u serves under Kazuto, a man, and wages war against him in order to obtain her.
Despite her proud and sadistic nature, she’s actually a rather lonely girl making her character rather complex. She enjoys being serviced by Kakouton and Kakouen, as well as toying with Jun’iku.
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Next is Kakouton (Last name: Kakou, First name: Ton, True Name: Shunran). She’s voiced by Fukai Haruka, who’s featured in over 200 different games from Men at Work 4, Midnight Sleazy Train 3, Artificial Girl 3, to Meteor’s Clover Point, as well as Black Cyc’s Yami no Koe and Mushitsukai. She also voices Yoshizawa-Sensei from Kira Kira and Kira Kira Curtain Call and dubs the voice for Frankie Foster in Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.
Kakouton is both Sousou’s cousin and lover. She has devoted her entire heart and body to Sousou, and is a very violent person who will quickly eliminate any who dare oppose Sousou.
When an arrow pierces her eye during the battle of Sishui Pass, she doesn’t think twice before yanking it out along with her eye to drive her troops onward and instill fear into her enemies.
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Next is Kakouton’s twin sister and support, Kakouen (Last name: Kakou, First name: En, True name: Shuuran). She’s voiced by Kisaragi Aoi, a voice actress who’s featured in nearly 150 different roles including both Nanaruu and Harion of Aselia the Eternal, both April and Nishimoto Yuuki in Princess Waltz, and even Kurayashiki Tae in Akatsuki no Goei, and Homura Yuuri in Koi Suru Otome to Shugo no Tate.
Whereas Kakouton tends to barrel out of control like a truck with no brakes, Kakouen retains her cool and keeps her in check. Just like her sister, Kakouen is in love with her cousin Sousou and devotes everything to her. Although she seems aloof, she suffers many worries and stress from trying to support her impulsive sister.
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Next up is Sousou’s pet and strategist, Jun’iku (Last name: Jun, First name: Iku, True name: Keifa). She’s voiced by Miru, a veteran VA who commands over 400 different roles ranging Psycho’s Miko Miko Nurse, Studio e.go!’s IZUMO2, Nito+’s Jingai Makyou, Xuse’s Saihate no Ima, to 3 different roles in Black Cyc’s Gore Screaming Show, two different roles in feng’s Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka, and even Lass’s 11 eyes, and Alcot’s My Girlfriend is the President.
Jun’iku is a perverted little masochist who takes pleasure in being toyed with by Sousou. However, her intelligence and ingenuity are on par with Koumei (Shokatsuryou), and as Kazuto and Sousou wage war her strategies are often pitted against those of Koumei. She is also know to occasionally get into arguments with the Kakou sisters over Sousou.
This is the faction I’m looking forward to the most. ^_^
ALL HAIL SOUSOU
Ah, the fan favorite. Gotta say I’m as much interested in this faction as I am in Kazuto’s.
Good to see Miru’s doing voice work in this game. Loved her as Yuka in GSS, Leonora in Before Dawn Daybreak, and Mutsuki in Devil Devel’s Concept.
Hmm~? What roles did Sousou specifically voice? Particularly for KID… and Puyo Puyo Fever.
Also, I knew Jun’iku was awesome (and seemingly underrated), but I had no clue she was on par with Shuri as a strategist, nor did I know she was voiced by Miru (<3 Natsume and Akane). I'll have to look more in-depth into her list of roles…
Seeing Kakouton’s CG at the end, I can’t help but imagine this instead of 300:
Hmm, isn’t that last CG a little spoiler-y? I imagine this CG happens somewhere at the begining. But still, it’s an impressive CG that’s better experienced within the context of the game and not on this blog.
It’s only about as much of a spoiler as telling someone “The Titanic is going to sink,” or “Troy will fall.” Kakou is historically known by the nickname of “Blind Kakou” (much to his ire) due to the loss of his eye.
Maybe not everyone’s read Romance of the Three Kingdoms here…? Not exactly required reading outside of Asia…
They would know of it if they ever played the Dynasty Warriors games since the west mainly only know of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms due to those games….but the person doesn’t sound like they did – a hack n slash is not everyone’s type of game so that may be why.
i learned my romance of the 3 kingdoms from ikkitousen/battle vixens
Does Kakou also eat her (his?) own eye in the game?
Because that would be hot!
Please do explain how ._.”
1. Tear eye out of socket, together with the arrow
2. Stick the eyeball in mouth
3. *chomp*
4. ???
5. PROFIT!
Unless you meant “How is that hot?”. Eh, everyone has their fetishes. (Or it was just sarcasm)
How many people in history have torn out their own eye and then proceeded to eat it…?
I agree with your last statement. Though the eyepatch she’s wearing on the other images kind of gives away the fact she’s going to lose her eye anyway. ^_^
@Kouryuu:
I wouldn’t say it’s so much of a spoiler because of what it is portraying. I am assuming that everyone here probably knows that she is going to lose her eye. (Reading RotTK or seeing her eye patch in-game give this away.)
However, what I’m getting at is that now that I’ve seen the CG on this blog, it won’t impress/shock me as much when I see it in the game.
If I hadn’t seen it here, and then see it in-game, I would get a reaction like “Oh wow, sick! Oh God!”.
But now I see it on the blog and think “Oh, hey. Cool. Pretty gruesome.” and when I will see it in the game, I’ll think “Oh yeah, that scene.”
There’s a clear difference in reaction. This particular scene is “spoiled”.
I’m not saying this is the worst spoiler ever (it’s far from it), but I just thought that a different CG might’ve been a bit more tactful.
Yeah. There’s a difference between knowing what’s going to happen and knowing how it’s going to happen. There can still be suspense in the former; it’s rather harder in the latter. It’s still possible; I had seen many Da Capo CGs before Mangagamer translated the game, but that didn’t detract much from the power of the stories there. But I think I’d still have avoided showing that CG in a blog post.
To be fair, though, it was one of the sample CG BaseSon used on their website for the game: see?
Also, it really is the text and lines that make that scene. ^_^ You’ll see in a few weeks.
Hm, I’ll take your word for it then. Now I can’t wait to see it in-game! ^^
every new staff blog on KM makes me want it more X3
this is the group sex/yuri faction
And one of the best factions ingame 🙂
Awww, you guys aren’t using PNG anymore for CG screenshots…and it was right after I complimented your use OF PNG!
Yeah, but this JPG is very much on the lossless side. It is possible to save images with minimal loss, while still saving a lot of space.
For example, this image: http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/1954/panchu.jpg
Saving this image in JPG saved quite a lot of space, but do you see any loss in qualtiy?
PNGs are still more fun to work with…
Well, it isn’t that hard to convert a near-lossless JPG back to a PNG. Even MS Paint can help you with that. (MS Paint, however, can’t save near-lossless JPGs)
But but… near lossless still isn’t lossless! When it comes to lossless, it’s all or nothing.
You’d rather have no images at all if they’re even a little lossy? Isn’t that a bit extreme?
I’ve always wondered about people who’d rather have FLACs instead of MP3s because they’re lossless. Yet, when they have to do an ABX test, they fail to notice a difference.
I think it’s the same for near-lossless JPGs and PNGs. In fact, I’ll prepare two images right now and see if people can see a difference…
Definitely lossless BMP (1526 kB): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5684392/bunnies.bmp
Lossless PNG (1056 kB):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5684392/bunnies.png
Near-lossless JPG (587 kB):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5684392/bunnies.jpg
Now tell me if you can actually SEE a difference.
(And look at that filesize difference!)
I actually do audio an image editing, so lossless is a MUST.
Even if I don’t plan on using a specific sound/image, having more things in lossless prevents the issue of when I DO want to use something.
Also the more lossless is used, the more it can influence other things to be lossless. Following the crowd and all, ya know?
Also you didn’t compress the PNG that much. Setting the standard compression max (9), I sot the filesize down to 803KB. For only a 73% increase in filesize, I’d gladly take the lossless for peace of mind that it’s the best you can get.
Besides, this isn’t 2000 anymore – we aren’t using dial-up.
Whoops, math/typo fail. I meant only a 27% increase.
But yeah, only 27% man! At that size, you might as well go all the way and do pure lossless. Remember, all major modern desktop and mobile web browsers have full-page zoom as well, and lossless will look better zoomed than lossy would.
You have a point. I prefer lossless too (I still save everything in PNG). But what I more mean is that for this blog, a near-lossless JPG is just fine. This is just used to show you how awesome that CG is. It’s not to provide you with the highest quality CG.
People complaining about spoiling one of Xiahou Dun’s moments of awesome? That’s like spoiling Hamlet or the Iliad…
And for the people who can’t associate the Japanese names to the Three Kingdoms’ characters, due to how moefied they are (DAT Dong Zhuo), this can help you: http://yueying.net/dw/names/japanese/
Where’s Kyocho? And doesn’t Chouryou join this faction for a time?
Holy crap. How big is this game????
Longer than Tsukihime, closer to Fate/Stay Night. Almost double the length of Edelweiss, and nearly triple that of Shuffle.
Need more comparisons?
and more heroines than any of those combined or anything else that is officially done
rance and big bang age are the only translated games that come close
22 girls compared to most h-games 3-6 girls
How long is it compared to either of the Spirit of Eternity Sword games?
143% as long as Aselia the Eternal Special Edition, which contains even more content than the release JAST has chosen to provide.
Wow, burn?
Amd how long is it compared to Majikoi?
By looking up it’s script size on TLwiki and dividing Koihime’s script size: About 3.3MB of pure text, by the size listed there, I get about 110% longer (after rounding).
Just read this on Siliconera:
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/02/12/the-legend-of-heroes-trails-in-the-sky-has-1-5-million-japanese-characters/
By how much does KM dwarf this title? because from what you’re describing, I bet the average translator would run away screaming in terror at KM.
… I really shouldn’t be laughing at how closely her “9 months” describes the constant situation for us over here.
Many of the typical eroge we work on here at MG, for example, Edewleiss or DEARDROPS, ranges to about 800,000 characters easily. Koihime is easily twice that, mayhaps more.
And just think for a moment about the fact that Shin Koihime Musou is twice that further still. =D
So the Legend of Heroes: Sora no Kiseki is only a little shorter than KM. Who’d have thought?
Wow…. OK then 1 more question. After I buy this will i ever recover from it and actualy have a life again? XD
how many heroines have specific routes in this game? (im guessing the ones whose descriptions were posted in the product page?)
Pretty much every character described in these descriptions on the blog have “routes” but only Kan’u, Shuri, and Rinrin have “endings”.
Wow, Bachou doesn’t get one? Just two lolis and the walking tits?
This certainly feels a little unfulfilling…
No Chouun ending either =/
Although I don’t think I’d call sexy time with this many participants “unfulfilling”. 😛
No but seriously, 3 endings is kinda meh.
Well every route pretty much has an ending to the route like you would expect from a normal heroine’s route, but the only “Endings” to the game as a whole are the three.
Poor Sousou..
@kouryuu
so does that mean that at the end of those routes the game does not end but continue until you reach one of the 3 main heroine endings? or does the game end “sooner”(kinda like the side routes in g-senjou no maou)
Once the character’s route ends, you can no longer select them on the base camp screen. The game continues as normal until you reach the end of the story.
hmm just noticed this but why wasnt a description for the pink haired girl in the top image posted?
Yeah, they somehow did the same for Toutaku’s Army. They didn’t post a description of the woman on the far left.
Why are you posting their sound clips/voicework if there are no voices in this game? I am confused. To tease us? You’re so mean!
It’s to show you how great the voices are. The reason is twofold.
1. It might entice you to buy the game sooner, because you want to reach the sales threshold to get the voices back.
2. It’s to reason the removal of the voices. The voices are top-notch and thus expensive.
Exactly.
Also, assuming we do get the voices back, then I can just undo the strike-through. ^_^
the sequel have more edings
So once you finish sousou you have to choose another heroine..
sigh
I only liked Sousou. But the story of them seems interesting.
Am currently playing Atelier Kaguya’s Prima Stella, and I have to say it is really funny to hear Miru in her role as Shizuka after hearing her in her role as Jun’iku in the game…though it could also be because of about 12:30 of this particular episode:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/shin-koihime-musou/episode-6-teni-is-tested-by-sousou-535180
Amazing how they’re somehow able to make her more over the top perverted (and funny) in the non-ero anime, lol
Just curious, but I just recently watched an OVA called Mahou Shoujo Sae and I’m pretty sure SouSou’s VA does the voice for Emito. Can anyone confirm this (and no ANN doesn’t have anything on it)?