Hey, we’re almost there! Really? Really! comes out really, really soon! (Yes, I know, you’re all sick of that pun. Too bad, it’s not going anywhere! …Okay, I’ll behave.) Now, for our last post before the release, time to preview the new characters! (As with all the other posts, this may contain Shuffle! or Tick! Tack! spoilers. You have nobody to blame but yourself!)
Sakura
Sakura, the second girl in the header image, is the childhood friend of Rin and Kaede. Although she was with them for a very long time (and now occasionally sees them), she conveniently never came up in the original Shuffle! because she decided to go to a different school in order to pursue her dream of becoming a plushie designer, the Strelitzia Girl’s Institute. How adorable can you get?
Pretty damn adorable. Yup.
As the only other person in the group aside from Rin to know Kaede since early childhood, she will be instrumental in helping save Kaede, but surely, some memory mishaps will make having her around all the more interesting…
You know this is what you were waiting for!
Sakura Yae is voiced by Mai Goto, who also voiced Mizuki Hayama in ef – the first tale and ef – the latter tale, Ryuubi in Shin Koihime Musou, and Sakuno Uryuu in Mashiroiro Symphony.
Momiji
Moving along, we have Momiji, Kaede’s mother. She certainly seems to be a sweet character, unless you ask her for cooking lessons. If you do that, expect her to put you right in your place… even if you’re a very young Kaede.
You never want to be on a Fuyou woman’s bad side. We all learned that well enough in Shuffle…
Despite that shot, once you see how she generally acts, it’s easy to see where Kaede get’s her sweeter elements from, and cuter to see her pretending to be Momiji in the World of Memories scenes!
Mikio
Kaede’s father. He seems to be an overall nice guy, and deeply laments that Kaede hates Rin for a period after certain life events that anyone who played Shuffle! should know about. (Once again, you’ve been warned, spoilers impending.)
And to create a space buffer, may as well put in a pic of him!
Where Mikio really shines is his realization that Rin is likely the sole reason Kaede pulls through after Momiji’s death due to his selfless sacrifice to convince Kaede that he was to blame for her death. Mikio does everything he can to make Rin’s life easier, and of course took Rin in after his parent’s died in the same accident that took Momiji’s life. In a series where the parents are typically (hilarious) comic relief or sexy, unbelievably young looking women (not that I’m putting Ama down!) he’s definitely one of the more realistically portrayed parents of the series.
And, for Really? Really!, that’s it from me! Expect testers corners and such on the forefront, and enjoy the game!
Yay Sakura! I liked what I saw in the demo, can’t wait to see it all.
Happy the game will be out soon. Even happier that the “really, really” jokes will finally end.
But they are really, really good! 🙂
The staff has too much fun making everyone groan every time we make a “really, really” pun; you’re never getting away from them!
How convenient…an childhood friend that never appeard in Shuffle and no one even mentioned her, well but she looks really, really cute, I probably will read again Kaede path in Shuffle before trying this one.
You will have to wait for Essence+ to get the Sakura route with the original SHUFFLE! Story although she will appear here in Kaede’s memories. ＾＿＾
As a developer myself, this is really interesting! I have just one question, do you have any play to release the engine as an opensource project? Aside from satisfying my own curiosity, a unity-based visual novel engine would be a tremendous contributing to the community!
… I think this Sakura character was really, really unnecessary.
I love Sakura’s big boobs *¬*