Hikami
Member
Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines
Game, Avatars, and DLC available here (US store), EU
- Genre: Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG)
- Players: 1
- Developer: Japan Studio / Alfa System
- Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
- Platforms: Playstation Vita, Playstation TV
- Price: $19.99 / 19.99 / £15.99
- Download Size: ~2.8GB
- Availability: Digital download only in US/EU, Asian English Version getting a Retail release.
- Release date: [US]March 3rd, 2015 -- [EU]March 4th, 2015, [Asia] March 30th, 2015
- Text Languages : English, French, German
- Audio Language: Japanese
Reviews
GamingTrend - 90 / 100
Destructoid - 8.5 / 10
GameSpot - 8.0 / 10
Vandal (Spanish) - 8.0 / 10
Digitally Downlaoded - 4.0 / 5.0
Cheat Code Central - 3.8 / 5.0
Playstation LifeStyle - 4.5 / 10
Overview
Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines is a Japanese role-playing game. Set in ancient Japan, the game art is inspired by traditional brush paintings of the Heian era. You'll be exploring a beautiful, watercolor world filled with creatures based on Japanese mythology.
In Oreshika, you'll take control of a clan whose bloodlines have been struck with two terrible curses -- a Curse of Ephemerality, and a Curse of Broken Lineage.
The Curse of Ephemerality means that your clan members age rapidly with a maximum lifespan of around 2 years. As you explore labyrinths, defeat demons, and find treasures, the in-game clock is always ticking. No matter how skilled you are in battle or how strong your equipment is, your characters will face death and it's your job to make sure your clan's family tree grows new members to step up to the ranks.
The Curse of Broken Lineage means that your clan can no longer procreate. Luckily, you can turn to the gods for help. By performing the Rite of Divine Union with a god, a new clan member will be created. It's important to choose which gods you perform the Rite with as the genetic makeup will be a combination of the 'parent' clan member and the chosen god which affects stats as well as appearance. With well over 100 gods to meet in the game, there are a lot of deities to discover!
Gameplay and Features
The goal of the game is to guide your clan over multiple generations on an epic quest to lift a curse against your bloodline, battling cruel enemies and spectacular bosses.
- Planning
Oreshika advances one month at a time. You have to plan what you're going to do in that month. You can ask Kochin for help and she will come up with a plan for you, or you can ask her to make a plan with you and she will give you some options. Of course, you can just not ask for her help at all and do whatever you want. Planning can be anything from dungeon raids, training a unit, performing the Rite of Union, and so on. There are many different ways to spend a month doing things. Every year though, one specific month will have a feast. The game will tell you when that happens. The feast will happen at a random dungeon and you must go there to advance the story. Though it's not that easy, you have to find the shrine in the dungeon to take you to the feast. After that month, the shrine will disappear and you will have to wait another year to attempt it again. Which is why it's wise to try and go earlier before the feast and find the shrine ahead of time (it will be closed, but it will still be there). Don't worry if you miss it though, the game isn't over or anything. You just have to try again the next time it shows up.
- Dungeon Crawling
Oreshikas general gameplay is going through dungeons, fighting enemies, and trying to reach the boss. (Though its not just Dungeon Crawling, there are Festivals, events, and story sequences throughout the game) The camera perspective is a fixed, third person view. Enemies are on-screen and you have to run into them to initiate a battle. Dungeon layouts are random for each player. Your specific dungeon may look different from another persons. Once you have that layout though, it wont change until you do another playthrough. Time is always passing in these dungeons. After a month passes by, you can decide to continue going through the dungeon for the next month or go back home. If you decide to continue on though, your party members may be too tired or injured to go on and may die earlier than theyre supposed to.
Here's a gif example of exploration in the game. You may notice the characters going at different speeds. You start off slow in the game, but later on you get to walk/run faster. This allows you to get more things done and reach the end of dungeons faster before the month is even over.
You have 3 bars assigned to Stamina (red), Technique (blue), and Vigor (green).
Stamina is just your HP, goes down when hit. It can also go down if you press O when in dungeons though. Pressing O will make your character run but, also drain their stamina. Technique is used for skills, it functions like MP in other RPGs. The green bar is the most important though. Vigor is your fatigue. It only goes down when your Stamina is below a certain percent. If your Vigor goes down low enough, your character may get sick or tired and die earlier than intended. To avoid this, just keep your characters healed.
-Battle system
The battles in Oreshika are turn-based. There are 8 unique classes and each have their own special qualities-- meaning no class is useless, they all are viable. When you run into an enemy, a battle is initiated. At the beginning of the battle, a roulette shows the items you will (or can) get from the battle. There is usually an enemy leader; it will be located towards the very front. If you defeat the leader, the battle will end early and you will receive the loot. However, you may not receive that much experience. To maximize experience, youd want to defeat the other enemies first and the leader last.
Skills are acquired through scrolls that enemies drop. These can be learned at home automatically.
The layout of battles is as follows; there are 4 lines of units. 2 on your side, 2 on the other. You can take a maximum of 4 party members at once. They can be put in the rear guard or front line of your formation. The enemy will be similar, though they can have more than 4 units.
The character you assign as captain, you will have full control of. The other 3 will have a different system. They will suggest attacks or actions to use, if you pick these, their loyalty will go up. Though you can choose to ignore their suggestions and take control of them, but their loyalty will decrease. If their loyalty is too low, they may run away from the clan.
Each trade has their own specific normal attack, some hit a whole row of enemies, some only one. Skills are the same for everyone though. Certain skills can be Joint-casted. Your party members can join in and all cast the same skill, allowing for a powerful version of the skill to be used by everyone.
--Secret Arts
Secret arts are super-powerful skills your clan members will learn when their heart, mind, and body stats hit certain levels. Each trade has nine different secret arts, and each clan member can learn a maximum of four. Using them is costly though and will sap your Vigor. You can also do joint secret arts the same way you can with skills. Secret arts can also be inherited by children. Your characters do have a stat cap, but that cap is extended further down the family line,-- allowing your children to learn more powerful secret arts.
---Stats
Heart, Mind, and Body
The heart quality tells you what kind of personality someone has, the mind quality tells you how adept they are with skills, and the body quality gives you an idea of their basic physical attributes. These qualities are governed by the four elements, which each one is made up of.
-Reproducing
To keep your family line going, youll need to reproduce. Since the Curse of Ephemerality means your clan members will die in 2 years maximum, youll need to replace them every now and then. But wait, theres also the Curse of Broken Lineage.. meaning your clan cant actually procreate. What happens now? You ask the Gods for help. By performing the Rite of Divine Union, you can have offspring to grow your family. The offspring will inherit the appearance of the parents (Specific character and the specific God/Goddess)
You may not feel any emotion or attachment to your current character but when you think back (you dont even have to think actually! You can check your family tree, and check every single clan member and it will show their accomplishments) to their parent, and their parents, and so on.. its a really special feeling that's unique to this game. The game is made of memories spent with those characters. You may get attached to a super-strong child and theyll go accomplish great things like defeating a boss. Overtime though, they will grow weaker and die.. and you cant do anything about it.
Does this mean theres no character development? Not exactly, there are recurring characters throughout the game that you will run in tobut that would be going into spoiler territory.
Your children inherit stats from their parents and will of course, be stronger. They also can take the appearance of the parents. Some may even have rare qualities like horns or cat ears!
*I believe you may even mate with other clans but, it will not show up in your family tree.
-Online Features
Even though its a single player game, there are some online features you can experience if desired. "You can interact with your friends' in-game lands to buy exotic items and encounter rare gods to aid you in your adventure."
**These seem to broken at the moment.
***Now working how long will it last?
*These are called "Trades" in the game.
A front-line fighter who can strike a single enemy at a time, and is able to equip heavy armor. Boasts a good balance between attack and defense.
Easy to use, and capable of equipping heavy armor. Can hit both opposing rows when in front, and still strike the enemy front line from the rear.
Can attack an entire row of enemies from anywhere but with the lowest attack power of any trade. Can use powerful skills, but only light armor.
Can find the target every time, whether on the front line or in the rear. Next-best attack power after fencer. Can equip light and medium armor.
Easy to use, and capable of equipping heavy armor. Can hit the entire enemy front line at once when in front, and can also strike from the rear.
Powerful attacks, but a high miss rate and the weakest skills of any trade. Deals crushing blows when in the front line, and can equip heavy armor.
Can deal three blows at once when in front, and can also kick the rearguard hard. Only able to equip medium armor, but great at dodging.
Can fire high-impact single-target bullets or shells that inflict damage over a wide area. Only able to equip light armor, which can be a problem.
Videos
<<Launch Trailer | Opening video | Anime Trailer | Job Trailer | Gameplay Trailer>>
Screenshots
A: Oreshika is the abbreviated form of the original title; Ore no Shikabane wo Koete Yuke. Meaning something along the lines of (Go Forth) Over My Dead Body The title of this game is someone telling their offspring to walk over their corpse and continue in their footsteps.
Also, seeing as how Freedom Wars also had a demo, and we never got that either.. the chances of us getting the Oreshika demo are pretty low. But, who knows?
Seems like we're getting it after all, March 31st.
Now cost $0.99 each
Optional* DLC available here.
Items, power-ups, cosmetic changes. and such.
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Credits
Thanks to SCEJ for the resources used to make up the graphics in this OT.
Thanks to the dafont website and the font creators of said site for having a nice selection of fonts to use.
Thanks to Playstation Blog and Gematsu for information on the game.
*I have no official affiliation to any of the above.
