[PS Vita] Ken ga Kimi for V – Review

Title: 剣が君 for V
Developer:  rejet
Release Date: 26th March 2015
Length: 30+ Hours
Links: Official Site, VNDB

This game takes place in the Edo era of Japan, in a world where youkai, oni & humans live “harmoniously” together. The heroine Kayo helps her father run their tea house in Edo but they ended up in debt due to rising food costs. In order to help her father Kayo agrees to stand in for the Princess Hisahime in her marriage procession to the far off town of Sunpu. On this trip she is to be protected by 6 samurai, whom all have their own reasons for joining the procession. Will they complete the procession safely & just what will happen after?

Characters

Kayo

Since the death of her mother, Kayo and her father have been working hard to keep their small tea house afloat. Kayo is a very polite and kind young lady with a great work ethic and sense of justice. She can also weild a naginata – something that she took up to help her feel closer to her mother.

Tsuzuramaru (CV Ono Yuuki)

Tsuzuramaru is a polite and cheerful young man whom aspires to compete in the swordfighting tournament in Edo and recieve one of the divine swords. He has a really poor sense of direction and gets lost easily. He’s also forever hungry. Tsuzuramaru has a pet crow called Hayato.

Kei (CV Kenn)

Kei is a swordsman that lives and works in Edo as a warden. He also intends to enter the swordfighting competition to get his wish granted and is quite competitive, often sparring with Tsuzuramaru. Kei can initially come across as quite cold, even rude but is actually just a huge tsundere and is a sweet guy deep down.

Sagihara Sakyou (CV Hoshi Souichirou)

Sakyou was born into a high-ranking family whom were decended from legendary blacksmiths. However, after his family were killed, he threw away his title and went on a journey to get revenge. The only thing he kept was his family’s sacred sword – Hotarumaru. He is fairly quiet and tries to stay out of the group’s antics.

Kuroba Saneaki (CV Maeno Tomoaki)

Saneaki is a skilled swordsman who claims that this will be the last job he partakes in – he wishes to abandon the life of the sword and decided to live in a forest near to Edo. He’s very quiet and thoughtful, keeping himself at a distance from others. His sword is possessed by a youkai called Habakitsuki that only he can see.

Enishi (CV Okiayu Ryoutarou)

Enishi is a massive flirt whom immediately takes an interest in Kayo. He also spends most of the journey completely drunk. He’s a swordsman whom is also trained in martial arts but prefers not to fight. He’s the most talkative of the group but also tends to cause arguments with his carefree, irresponsible nature.

Suzukake (CV Oosaka Ryouta)

Suzukake was actually abandoned on Mt. Takao as a child and ended up being raised by youkai. However, he decided to leave the mountain to explore and develop his sword skills. Suzukake has a very kind and cheerful personality who tries to get along with everyone. However, he doesn’t really understand some of the rules of the “human” world which occasionally get him into trouble. He’s also a skilled healer, with a great knowledge of medicinal herbs.

Artwork

Character design & artwork for this game was Yomi, whom has also worked with rejet on the Lip on My Prince drama CD series.

Sound

Opening: Kodou – Ono Yuuki & Kenn
Ending 1: Yuki Toketara – Lasah
Ending 2: Eien ni, Hitotsu – Lasah

The game’s music was composed by Procyon Studio, whom have also worked on the games Bad Apple Wars & Moshikami.

System

The system was pretty standard but each character technically has two routes – “ken” & “kimi” which each have two endings. The vita port added in epilogues to these four endings as well as a little fortune telling mini-game(?) when you first load up the main game:

My Thoughts

Wow, it’s been a while since I finished this so I’m really sorry for the delay in getting this review posted! I’ve actually had this game for a *long* time (since some point in 2016) but was put off playing by my dislike of historical settings and the fact that the game is known for having quite flowery language. However, after playing BWS and seeing just what rejet can deliver when they put their minds to it, I figured that it was finally time for me to pick this up…

As I mentioned above, I had a tendency to avoid historical games due to the fact that the language used is more difficult & my general lack of knowledge of ancient Japan. Therefore, I normally prefer games to be Taisho era onwards. I find that the heroines of these games are more on the meek side too. However, I must admit that I was really shocked by KgK – I found myself being drawn into the setting with the delicate balance between the humans, youkai & oni which added an interesting twist. The language, whilst occasionally archaic, also wasn’t too troubling (although I did have to pull out the dictionary for some words ^_^; ) so I definitely wouldn’t consider that to be a reason not to play the game!

Probably my favourite thing about the game was the fact that every single route really delivered. From looking at the promo art, one could be forgiven for thinking that Tsuzuramaru would have the game’s “true” route – while his route does clear up some things, I would say this isn’t exactly the case and every single route is equally “valid” if that makes sense? I really enjoyed how self-contained all of the routes were and it definitely didn’t feel like some other games where you’re reading the same thing many times over. The pacing was also pretty good & I found myself really engrossed in the story – even though this game took me just over 30 hours to play, I finished it in like a week!

Despite this being a rejet game, a company known for their (sometime excessive) inclusion of violence, KgK is pretty tame by rejet’s standards. There is violence/bloodshed & (mild) reference to sexual assualt/rape but nothing as graphic as they often have. The game does include darker themes such as revenge & prejudice but nothing that should put most people off playing (it is only Cero C after all~). The game is more sad than anything else to be honest – I was doing well not crying at the bad endings but then they had to go and give us epilogues for them!

The characters were all incredibly likable & I’m having such a hard time picking favourites (which is unusual for me!). I mentioned earlier that there’s a perception that historical games tend to have weak heroines but I found that Kayo was quite an admirable girl whom often showed a braver side to her – she does have a tendency to put others before herself but that’s not necessarily a negative trait. I thought the fact that she could actually weild a weapon was an interesting addition to her character too.

Tsuzuramaru (who’s name I just know I’m going to spell wrong throughout this whole post!) was such a cutie pie – I just loved how cheerful he was, in contrast to the super polite side he showed towards Kayo. His route was enjoyable & definitely cleared up a couple of things I was curious about throughout the game. A good boy.

Kei was the character I was most interested in before playing the game (no, not just because of Kenn’s voice acting!) and I was not disappointed. He’s a top-teir tsundere but Kayo can definitely stand up to his sharp tongue, leading to some really enjoyable scenes. The “twist” in his route was relatively easy to guess but I found the whole theme of his route to be pretty interesting. Can I just mention that his grandma is both the wisest and most adorable character in the game.

Sakyou falls into the category of characters too damn beautiful for their own good. Given his predisposition for revenge, I was worried about what his route would be like but the first half+ is so fluffy that it was one of my favourite parts of the whole game. I really wasn’t expecting to like him as much as I did & he gets one of the cutest darn epilogues in the entire game.

He’s just too pretty goddamn it!

Saneaki is another character whom cannot be described as anything but beautiful. He gives off the most ~mysterious~ vibes in the common route so I wasn’t sure what to expect from him but he’s just a sweet boy with a tragic backstory who’s too darn hard on himself. His interactions with Habakitsuki are absolutely hilarious at times!

Enishi is another character that I wasn’t expecting to like – flirtatious characters are really hard to do in a way that’s not annoying and/or creepy. Enishi manages to avoid this by being comedic more than anything else; that one scene where he’s drunk and falls off stage was honestly downright hilarious. His more serious side (if you can even call it that) was also pretty great and I liked his route, even if I think one of the endings was a bit random.

Finally we have Suzukake, whom is the most sweet & precious boy in the game. He’s literally just such an angel! He can come across as naive but he really does have everyone’s best interests at heart!

By typical Otome Game standards, this game has a LOT of sub-characters, many of whom are specific to certain routes. Most of these character were fairly likable or, at the very least, added something to the story which I definitely appreciated.

This game really had a lot of artwork with each character having over 20 CGs + common route CGs + a plethora of bonus CGs. I was truly impressed with not just the quantity but also the quality of the event images. I’m familiar with Yomi’s artwork through the LipOn drama CDs but it really took a step up here, with the character designs, promo art & in-game artwork all being detailed and beautiful. The softer, more muted colouring style used was also fitting.

The game’s BGM was overall very fitting but the vocal songs are where the game’s soundtrack really shines. Lasah’s vocals are gorgeous as ever in the endings songs. I do like the new opening song but the original one was so pretty that I am slightly sad it wasn’t kept in there somewhere (not like it really matters since the full version was on one of the ID best CDs I bought a while ago).

As expected from a rejet game, the voice cast are all pretty well known – although this is actually my first otoge with Okiayu Ryoutaruou as a main character so that was nice. The voice acting for all character was of a high standard but I clearly wasn’t paying much attention to the game before playing because I totally wasn’t expecting Maeno to be voicing Saneaki! For some reason I was expecting him to have a softer voice but Maeno did do a very good job.

Final Thoughts

Both proper bonus images had spoilers so you get this instead…

My score: 10/10

I know most people probably don’t pay attention to the scoring section since games are so subjective but I do want to say that I’m not the type to happily hand out “perfect” scores – in four years of this site this is only the second game to ever get this accolade from me (the last one was back in 2016 too) so that should indicate just how highly I think of Ken ga Kimi.

There’s just geniunely nothing that I would change about the game – the characters were great, the story was well-paced, the character interactions were enjoyable, the routes all made sense & there were no weird plot-holes. Normally I finish a game & think “well if *insert aspect here* was slightly different then I would’ve preferred it” but this wasn’t the case here. Literally everything was so well done, from the writing, to the artwork, the system & even the BGM all worked in harmony to present a memorable experience – it’s really an example of how a good game should be done!

If you’re a fan of Otome games and can read Japanese then this is a game that you should immediately add to your list – please don’t be like me and be put off by the thought of old-fashioned language because it really isn’t that bad & you’ll probably learn a new word or two! Even if you’re not a fan of historical games then still check this out as it may be able to change your mind like it did with mine.

Despite my love of BWS, I have to conceed that this is indeed rejet’s best game & I genuinely don’t think they’ll ever manage to top this (although I’d love to see them try!). I finally managed to find & buy the fandisc (regular edition only, eww) when I was in Japan so I look forward to playing that soon-ish. Maybe I’ll finally be able to pick a favourite character after playing that!

Thanks for reading!