In the dark and dreaded alleyway somewhere in the blackest of nights, you find a sticky and red pool seeping from a body skewered on the wall by an OVER-SIZED WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION. But wait! There is a silver-haired loli with piercing red eyes and a cold question. WHO IS THIS TINY CHIBIKO? WHY IS THERE A DEAD BODY PINNED BY A GIGANTIC SCYTHE? ARE CAPES IN FASHION?
This is 3rdeye’s second title and it is about a young man and his descent into the grim reality of his world and himself. DUM DUMM DUUUUMMMM! From what I’ve heard of 3rdeye’s first title, Bloody Rondo, there were mixed reactions but what is definitely consistent across titles are the OH SO FINE LADIES you can woo. So my brain and my penis waged battle, and needless to say my penis won.
Since when did M3rry ever not chase a loli with a scythe? That’s right, never. Familiar readers shouldn’t be surprised that your beloved blogger has decided, out of pure courage might I add, to try out a title I was quite hesitant about…and he surprised me by staying with it. Ok, I may have let my experience with Bloody Rondo run too much of a prejudice as Shinigami no Testament turned out to be alright 
. We’ll be your minesweeper and give you a mission brief for today.
So what’s the lowdown on the story? Well it seems there are a series of murders without a trace of evidence and the main character, Rui, bungled into what looks like the scene of the crime. However the plot takes more twists and turns as he meets ordinary people transforming into monsters or ’Regnauts’. All of this is related to the ‘Epistula,’ a book of unfathomable power and Rui’s life and destiny is deeply intertwined with its creation and the following conflict.
Even though the setting holds a veil of mystery, Shinigami no Testament is an action-oriented title and like the battles, the story moves at a significant pace. Every route including the common can be completed in a couple of hours. There are benchmarks for certain heroines and only by completing them can the others be accessed which leads to the true end.
By benchmarking he means Hscenes. You can measure your progress in a heroines route through Hscenes! (You can unlock the next two chapter by finishing Yua’s route and Vivi’s route respectively).
For the most part, the plot succeeds in providing the ambiance and emotional weight. The diverse and enchanting cast deserves a special mention with their appealing designs and colorful personalities. Every single character, main and sub, are or will be affected by the Epistula in one way or another. It is inevitable that there will be pivotal points where Rui will have to face difficult decisions and experience the resulting consequences. While the majority of the characters do have a school life, it is a minimal aspect and the focus is directed on the heroine backstory and the nature of the Epistula.
Note: Difficult decisions such as reading a book or hanging out with bishoujos.
Despite its strengths the game does have several flaws, namely the story which suffer in having noticeable plot holes. While the events usually follow a logical procedure, it fails to explain away why some unravel the way they do leaving the reader in the dark. Another problem is for all the Epistula’s importance in the story, there is not much explanation to the preceding and following events of its creation. A potential that is sadly not explored. A reader wishing to delve into the background lore will be disappointed. I personally want moar raburabu developments. The ero-scenes are a mixed bag. The early scenes have odd transitions which seem to suggest they were added as an afterthought. But as the plot grows dark and the relationship between the central couple deepens, the arising emotions enhance the erotica to a healthy lavishing of love and passion yet this almost always happens by the third and final scene.
If there is one thing that is undeniable about this title, it is the copious amounts of polish in its presentation. Upon installation it reaches over a whopping six gigabytes and with good reason. The beautiful artwork, captivating vocals, quality music tracks, and impressive special effects, adds up to an orgasmic buffet for the eyes and ears. This is made even more evident when the plot increases in momentum and the action and drama charges ahead in all its sensational glory.
~Main Characters~
While not completely accurate, Asayama Rui has the ability to sense a person’s lies ever since he was born. This gradually developed his resentment to lies and socially isolated him from his peers. Despite his withdrawn and taciturn appearance, he is warm to his small circle of friends and courteous to a few exceptional acquaintances. Though it might require some suspension of disbelief of the idea of a character with a strong aversion to lying, Rui can keep a secret and does not reveal more information then he believes is necessary. His parents died at an early age and has been living in his uncle’s household, the Takamiya’s.
Cheeky and independent, Ichinose Yua (CV: Kawashima Rino) is Rui’s childhood friend and used to train in kendo together before he quit. Though she already turned down his confession, the pair have maintained a close friendship and can give sound advice…whenever she chooses to be. A lighthearted senpai who seems to take life in stride, Yua loves to tease Rui and their conversations would normally take a turn to the absurd ending with a random quotation from a well-known philosopher. Underneath her nonchalant and whimsical attitude, she does care for Rui’s well-being and ensures it through ambiguous actions.
Yua’s route is essential to unlocking other characters and I would suggest taking it early. It also has a big frakkin cliffhanger. ISN’T IT SAD YUA? SO MUCH HAET FROM WARUM.
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Ok, you have a character voiced by Kawashimarino…and you proceed to make her the most annoying main heroine there can be. Good job 3rd eye! I’m not even exaggerating: Yua is an egotistic, self-loving, self-quoting (no, the philosophers be rolling in their grave if they heard how she uses their phrases; it’s blasphemy to call them quotations) unfunny character that 3rd eye tries to pass off as “whimsical and nonchalant like a cat” to try to garner moe points when ALL her interactions with the protagonist is nothing but immature argument about what they did or didn’t do during their childhood. No, she passes off as someone who couldn’t care less what others think, and what’s worse is making us readers suffer through some weird obsession Rui have with being put down by her. Where is my option to just walk away? Oh wait, there isn’t one because her route is required to unlock the later chapters.
Yua’s route explains the intricacies revolving around her becoming of a Testament, the fight to collect pages of the Epistula from Regnauts, and most importantly her reason for rejecting Rui when they were small. Turns out Rui is the index of the Epistula, and that those pages not recovered by Testament but are freed from Regnauts are returned to him. Yua has found out about this ever since she became a Testament, and decided to place distance between herself and Rui as to not excite the Epistula pages in them both. Unfortunately she couldn’t deny her feelings for Rui any longer and proceeds to crawl in his bed in the middle of the night when he was thinking about her. Hurr.
Yua essentially loses control and is consumed by the darkness of Epistula. We are introduced to a subcharacter, Nine, who seem to to have staged the whole conflict and is observing from the side. Rui fights Yua at their memory place, the Mahou Tower, and contrary to everyone’s belief Yua actually still had a little control over her mind and chose to die at the hands of Rui. She effectively transferred all the pages of Epistula she has collected to Rui, of which he makes a wish to redo all that is wrong.
As much as I despise her character, Yua’s route does give us the main crux of the Epistula conflict. The fights were not as fun as some in the other routes (mainly because how little Rui actually does) and I did feel sorry when I saw Rui pushing her body off the tower. The naive sentiments of Yua despite being a Testament does tickle me for being an idealist regarding morals. But that’s all the credits I’m willing to give her, she still irritates me to no end with her “better than you” looking down attitude, high maintenance mentality, and general biologically non-likable traits. Pretty sure only someone as saintly as M3rry can stand such a torture.
I definitely know my readers don’t believe I’m a saint but I didn’t think Yua was horrible at all. Personally, I think he’s exaggerating a BIT too much but I’ll leave the judgment to the readers.
Vivi Alhazerd (CV: Aoba Ringo) is the epitome of mystery and danger. She is completely devoted and uncompromising to her cause and her activities has helped spread the rumors of the murders around the city. Her knowledge and abilities stretches for decades and she can easily analyze her opponent and calculate the most efficient attack method during the heat of battle. Normally composed with a frigid demeanor, she is not above the occasional conversation if you don’t mind being named “human.” Her regular diet are pan-fried dry beans acorns, (THOSE ARE ACORNS?!?) believing in maintaining energy consumption over taste.
Vivi’s route also has a big frakkin cliffhanger that compounds on the previous one. She’s also freaking adorable. TOTALLY NOT SCYTHE-RELATED.
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An Aoba Ringo Golden Aquarion Darkness character? You’ve already got me drooling. Vivi is the other Testament in our story. Her regular diet, どんぐり, is actually acorn and not dried beans. I sure wouldn’t mind being called “human” at all if its by her!
Vivi’s route starts out with a rather puzzling situation: it seems that Vivi is the only one that remembers what has happened (in Yua’s route) when everyone else has forgot. Oddly enough Sachiko hasn’t been coming to school and we see Kana extremely upset (Nooo!). Vivi decided there is a need to have a closer eye on Rui and they start to work together to stop Regnauts from terrorizing the city.
One of the regnauts turned out to be biribiri, and she managed to come close to defeating the cheating Vivi with immortal cells by invoking Vivi’s old memories. Rui mans up and saves the day after moping over the loss of Tenchou (Noo tenchou!). He got to know more about Vivi, and her past wanderings for two centuries. It turns out she has lost both her parents when she was small, and met with a Testament. The Testament was the only one that would treat her like a human (since by this time she already had the immortal cells and was ostracized from society), and she fell in love with her (Yes, it was yuri). The Testament was killed in an attempt to reason with the Regnauts in front of her eyes, and succeeding the powers of the Testament, she vowed to complete her lover’s wish for the salvation of the world.
I’ll say now that Vivi’s route is not exactly a raburabu route (she does dere OCCASIONALLY at the end, and when she does it is “thank you very much I can fight for 10 more years” type of deal). She already has her eyes set on someone else and Rui more or less forces himself unto her :S. Not to mention her route is essentially the bad end where everyone dies; They even had the equivalent of a Kyuubey scene at the end. The (second) fight with Irina felt especially fun, with flaming zombies and bomb rats running everywhere and whatnot. Rui does an okay job of being proactive in this route as well. The only downside I would say is the Hscenes in this route being RANDOM, more so than usual (We are talking on the level of SUDDENLY, PHONE SEX). Uhhhhh. *clear mind with Vivi’s cosplay*.
But she is vulnerable to kisses! That part was HAWT!
Childish and doting to her oniichan, Takamiya Ayumu (CV: Tsuchiya Maki) is the only child of the Takamiya’s and resident shrine maiden. Athletic and energetic, Ayumu is unperturbed by Rui’s stoic appearance and understands his gentle nature, trusting him wholeheartedly at a level only (non-blood related) siblings can share. Despite her clumsiness and carefree personality, she trains works hard at her shrine duties. Because she is born in the Takamiya bloodline, she is obligated to uphold certain commitments. While her destiny is predetermined, it does not exclude from crossing paths with Rui’s.
Ayu’s route is more focused on Wisdom and their motivations. I’m not a fan of Ayu’s character design or traits but the interactions with her oniichan were heartwarming.
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Ayu’s route involves the political marriage of Ayu to lubricate the relations between Ushiushi Shrine and the main branch of Aldebaran. Aldebaran, while operates at a larger scale than Ushiushi Shrine, does not have the direct power like (Ayumu’s claws) to combat the Regnauts. To keep the relation between their branch, Ichirou reluctantly agreed to send away his own daughter. Of course, Rui being the analytic that he is does not see Ayumu’s true feelings even when she offered herself to him. It wasn’t until a few good punches from the best friend, Narumi, that Rui felt he needed to change.
Meanwhile, we are introduced to a mysterious character that despises the current state of the government, where they are drinking million dollar wines while commencing “self talks about classified information”. Everyone at the top are wretched pigs corrupt greedy fat guys and cares only for themselves, it is no wonder the country is in ruins. He vows to revive the country to its former glory, no matter what the cost…as he walks by cages of rampant Regnauts.
On the day of departure, Rui sees Ayumu off in a limousine, except it was all a kidnapping.
Ayu’s route has some hot-blooded action, and is arguably one of the better routes where Rui performed the role protagonist. We are introduced to a lot of the sub-characters, and mainly the two positions of the major organization/faction in this whole supernatural hunting business: Wisdom and Aldebaran.
I’ll say first off that I skipped Ayumu’s route and left to finish last as I wasn’t exactly interested in her character. However, I can say now that it’s probably better to start with Ayumu’s route as they really explain the major players on the field. And I’m not talking just about Wisdom and Aldebaran, as you get foreshadow for both Irina and Vivi which only appear on the latter half of the game. I also noticed that they are trying to keep the time-line consistent, meaning you’ll find out what happens to Kirishima even in later routes where Rui does not intervene with her plans. It’s sad that Narumi who is essentially the hero in this route bears the weight of unrequited love 
.
A fellow classmate of Rui, Mukougaoka Kana (CV: Akino Hana) returns to school from the hospital after a long period of absence. From first impressions, she is a shy, soft-spoken girl with an attachment to her cellphone, preferring to communicate via email with emoticons (≧∇≦)/ and frequent usage of the camera feature. However, she belongs to an organization named Wisdom whose purpose is to capture and study the Regnauts. Highly trained in close combat and wielding a shotgun, her code name is “Nymph’s Thigh”. Regardless of her ties to Wisdom, her greatest loyalties lie with her friends.
Kana’s route is more about her than the Epistula but it still is an important component which is okay in my book. BUT DAT SHOTGUN.
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Kana’s route boils down to one major revelation: That Mukougaoka that Rui’s been interacting with is actually not Mukougaoka Kana, but Mukougaoka AKINA, her twin sister. Turns out Kana has been hospitalized ever since last semester and Akina has instead been coming to school in her shoes. Kana’s condition has not been looking too swell lately and Akina wishes to help realize Kana’s unfinished business at school: getting the boy who she fell in love with to look at her.
Akina starts by observing this male specimen in full. Taking pictures of him during his sleep to get his attention. This person either has a very deep sleep, or is incredibly dense; a bishoujo literally leaning over him and flashing more than ten times on her cellphone shuttle and he decides it might be a good time to wake up, proceeding to shoo her off, and heads home. Luckily Narumi did all of us a favour and volunteered him to be on class librarian duty so he actually helps Kana out.
As they start establishing themselves as friendly classmates, Mukougaoka displays her lightning speed finger dial technique on her cellphone (complete with cut-in, serious eyes etc) and sends Rui text messages that contain emoticons on a frequent basis. We find out later that this difference in personality is actually due to the sender of these text messages being the original Kana, one who does have an energetic positive personality on the hospital bed, not having much longer to live.
What really surprised me in this route is not so much that Akina is pretending to be Kana, but the writers killing Kana off. They’ve gone through the trouble of rationalizing Akina’s motivation of having to jump on Rui and why she cooperates out Rui and co. when she is a Wisdom member, setting an endearing image of Akina, but in a few scenes afterwards they decided to just destroy all of it and have Akina essentially lose her mind. I guess I am mad because Akina deserves so much better 
. DAT NYMPH’S THIGH MANG, WHERE ARE MY THIGH SHO- *shot dead with a double barrel shotgun*.
Anyways the seiyuu did an amazing job with Akina, bringing out much more moe then I have expected from a quiet, shy girl who always seem to save Rui’s butt in the stickiest situations.
There is something wrong when the most moe character in the game has one of the lousiest routes.
Another associate to Wisdom and hailing from Russia, Irina E. Tolstaya (CV: Gibu Yuuko) is friendly, polite, and utterly bizarre. A gifted practitioner of foreign medicine, Irina displays mannerisms beyond the norm such as her borderline-obsessive affection to her ‘mother’, a talking doll named Rosa. But she is perfectly capable of starting a nice chat about flowers or the latest fashions when she’s not having whispering, sometimes frenetic conversations to the entity hanging on her shoulder. Be good to her mother and you will receive the keys to her heart. If not, then be very afraid.
I’M ALL FOR EYEPATCHES, DOLLIES, AND GOTHIC LOLITA DRESSES. I KNOW NO FEAR!
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M3rry was pretty spot on with Irina being the most polite of the bunch (aside from her unusual obsession). I’ll say first that while I’m not a big fan of suffix/prefix speech patterns, I find Irina’s “kushikushi” and her gothic lolita dress is really cute (probably the same sentiments found with Haganai’s Kobato). I guess all things considered, Irina is actually considered the more “normal” one of the bunch, and a route where you can finally find some solace in ichaicha’ing the heroine.
Irina’s route focuses on Irina: her background story, her motivation, and her character. Turns out that Irina has been a victim of Vivi’s hunting of Regnauts when she was small. She had an abusive father and her mother turned Regnaut in order to protect Irina and her younger brother. Her mother lost to Vivi, but was later revived and put into a doll’s body, Rosa. Ever since then Irina has been out for revenge against the “Black cloaked shinigami”.
There was a small fragment of Irina bringing Rui to her club where she was the queen where we are better acquainted with the mass murderer “Shota R” and his weird view on beauty in killing. I was hoping he would play a bigger role in the whole picture but it turned out that wasn’t the case. So the rest of the route is Irina fighting Vivi, which had to be the most action that was had throughout the entire game (was good).
What I found interesting (or confusing depending on the perspective) was Rosa’s position in all this. On one hand she mentioned to Rui that she wishes him to stop Irina in the beginning of the route (before she got interrupted), but during the later scenes it seemed like she was fine with Irina going rampant and even expresses her own desire to exact vengeance. They did end up letting the motherly side of Rosa win at the end, with her sacrificing for Irina because by some miracle all the half-page transferred to Rosa. The epilogue also felt unnatural with Irina suddenly joining up forces with Vivi.
So what’s the verdict? Shinigami no Testament certainly have its flaws (such as unexplored plot areas, some unnatural development especially around the romance part, and an ending that seemed to lack a conclusive feel), but it has interesting parts that somehow keeps you going. For me, the fun parts were in the action. There were creative abilities, and the application of said ability in many of the fights. The inclusion of Iaido for the protagonist I found to be quite rare and fascinating. The characters certainly hit the right spots (or for some the very spots that will enrage you), and 3rd eye’s ruthless killing makes it very unpredictable on what will happen. It certainly felt they were trying to make the subheroines end to be the redeeming end, and I felt the mix of romance, action, and plot were better balanced in those.
I wouldn’t say Shinigami no Testament was entirely dependent on the art/character that you would call it a chara-ge, and the action was not entirely 燃えby conventional standards. Scenario wasn’t too dull (i.e. entirely love-com school setting like in Bloody Rondo). An odd fit of an action-oriented eroge with abit of chuuni and good music/polish. If you don’t mind floating text-boxes, this might be something fun to read.’
Kudos to warum for putting the time and effort to fill the review with actual content than my usual HCG spam. Oh wait, a certain someone did want more of those. Well, here ya go. Credits to warum for his contribution.
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Enjoy your April 1st. :3
Tags: Shinigami no Testament
March 31st, 2012 at 10:27 pm
I hate you guys : (
March 31st, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Why u so trolling?
April 1st, 2012 at 2:46 am
That last image. LOL
April 1st, 2012 at 2:54 am
The whole thing was too tl;dr for me. So I cut to the last pic.
All I can say is: AHUEUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUE. (b’ヮ’)b
April 2nd, 2012 at 11:12 am
Ayumu is love. End of the story.
This is the proper review for the game.
April 2nd, 2012 at 2:35 pm
i have to admit, I was really skeptical after all the hype behind Bloody Rondo was really just empty hype.
menuet was miles better than what I’ve come to expect from 3rdeye. Though I can only really speak from Vivi’s route.
April 2nd, 2012 at 11:13 pm
” So my brain and my penis waged battle, and needless to say my penis won.”
Good sir, my day has been made.
April 3rd, 2012 at 10:21 pm
and needless to say after bloody rondo… yes I read bloody rondo… uhh… they seriously need better writers that is all…. still art is good sakakiMAKI and uhh… I forgot who…
April 9th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
@SnooSnoo, Aedes, Adam D, & Seele00: It’s my way of saying how much I care. But hey, the HatsuSaku talk is practically over! *dances around*
@feal87: I admit her appeal points went up and beyond after I played her story. It’s very rare for me to grow fond of a character before and after her route.
@klutch: The true end isn’t too long and it ties some loose ends. I never played Bloody Rondo but this is a solid and entertaining game.
@Metaler: This is how I choose all my eroges.
@Algester: The writing can definitely be better but it’s decent enough to not headdesk half the time. The other artist is 同人情報 or maki temaki(?)
April 9th, 2012 at 6:33 pm
“So my brain and my penis waged battle, and needless to say my penis won.”
This describes perfectly my current experience with Akatoki.
April 15th, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Akatoki looks pretty fapworthy. HOW EEZ ET?!