This review will contain both minor and major spoilers for Tsukihime, I will do my best to not go too deep into major spoilers unless they absolutely need to be talked about.

Content Warning: I’m going to be discussing the following topics: Sex, Rape, Incest, Pornography, and other forms of violence.

I’ll be completely honest… I have no idea how to truthfully go about reviewing this game in its entirety.

It is something with ideas that are vastly engaging and filled with symbolic and philosophical value to me, but also has some of the worst writing decisions I’ve ever seen in a form of media that I’ve ever seen.

It’s a game where when it’s good, it’s excellent. It’s a game where when it’s bad, it’s fucking terrible.

I guess the first thing I’ll tackle is why I wanted to play this game. I’ll start off with the obvious reason. I saw the huge explosion in Neco Arc memes throughout last year and I found myself thoroughly entertained with the strange and zany situations “La Creatura” would find herself in. I had no idea where she came from, and initially I didn’t really care much.

I just thought that she was funny, from videos of her interacting with people on Omeagle to that one video of a Neco Arc nodding its head while the vine boom sound effect would blare loudly.

What got me curious however was my friend, Simon, going through the game. His reactions were so insane, and the dialogue he would share with me was so goofy that I couldn’t help but be interested. I also eventually joined the Discord server which introduced him to the game, Tokyo Millennium, and ultimately found myself beginning my warrior’s journey into the rabbit hole known as the Nasuverse.

I was surprised to find that Tsukihime was made by the same people who made Fate, a franchise I was at least familiar with, despite not having consumed any of the media related to it. It’s such a popular franchise that it was always on my peripheral. So I felt like I was finally getting my true introduction to the work of Type Moon.

Upon playing and finishing Tsukihime, I am left with a feeling of utter confusion and maybe a bit of insanity seeping in.

From here I’m going to separate the review into sections delving into the individual routes.

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Arcueid:
This is definitely one of my two favorite routes in the game, simply because the writing for the growing relationship between the two is so well done. I genuinely felt like these two were meant to be together by the second half of the route given their natural chemistry, they feel like they’ve known each other forever despite having only known each other for like a week.

The lore for this route in particular, while a bit heavy on the exposition, still caught my interest due to how the game’s version of vampires function. Nrvnqsr Chaos in particular was a great antagonist in The Heavy regard. He was written to be such a hateable and disgusting force of violence and terror, and I love how utterly imposing he was. His ability was also incredibly intriguing to me, but going more into that would be veering way more into spoiler territory then I want to go.

I think the weakest aspect of Arcueid’s Route in particular is the actual primary antagonist, Michael Roa Valdamjong. While his lore is very significant, he is an antagonist that has very little presence. While I recognize he also isn’t the primary focus of the route, I still think that his minimal role as well as lack of screen time caused him to lose my interest, and comparing him to Chaos is like night and day. I think he functions better in another route, but we’ll get back to that.

However, the real issue I have with the Arc Route has to do with its portrayal of sexual assault. At a certain point later in the route, there is a moment where the protagonist Shiki attempts to rape Arcueid. This moment comes almost completely out of nowhere, has a visual CG showing Shiki committing the sexual assault (which in turn is an attempt to entice the reader), and gives the player the choice to actually rape her, which while that is the incorrect choice, should never have been an option in the first place.

The scene then ends with Arcueid blaming herself for the sexual assault. It is easily the most upsetting H-Scene in the entire game, and my reaction to it was to rant very angrily to my friends about how absolutely livid I was with that entire moment.

It doesn’t help that within only the span of another chapter, there is another H-scene where Arc and Shiki consensually have sex, which just feels so poorly paced because I cannot actually fathom someone wanting to having consensual sex with the person who tried to rape them the day before.

It’s definitely the most disgusting use of rape in this entire game, and it’s only the second H-scene you will witness period.

We’ll touch on my overall thoughts on the sex scenes at the very end however.

While still on the subject though, I would be remiss to not bring up a scene near the end of the game where Ciel tries to stop Shiki from going to fight Roa, and in his desperation he threatens to rape her. It’s like, so excessive in my mind and even for such a desperate moment, it still feels like they forced the line to be centered on rape when it could easily be that he could threaten to kill her instead and it wouldn’t lessen the impact of the scene.

I do still think that Arc’s Route has probably the best pacing throughout the entire game, and it was where I was the most engaged.

I think Arc’s True Ending is one of the best in the game and really hits on a poignant emotional level for me. I like the Good Ending as well, but mostly because it makes me happy.

Overall, Arc’s Route is mostly solid, but the negatives that permeate the entire game can be at their utter worse here.

I would rate the route itself as 4 stars.

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Ciel:

Ciel’s Route is usually slept on from what I’ve been told, and I can sort of see the reason why. A good chunk of the route is mostly a repeat of Arcueid’s for the first half of it. There’s also a lot of focus on how much of a missed opportunity it is that Shiki and Arc aren’t together, which is a little further accentuated in that Ciel and Shiki don’t have nearly as good chemistry with each other as Shiki has with Arc.

However, I think the second half of Ciel’s route is excellent and actually makes Roa into more of a sincere threat, despite actually no longer having a physical presence. It was definitely the best usage of his character in the game, and it makes the stakes for Shiki himself incredibly high.

I think Ciel herself is a very interesting character, and the story surrounding who she is and her complicated feelings of what she truly desires in this route creates a unique conflict for the friendship between her and Shiki.

Ciel’s Route also has one of the most introspective True Endings in the entire game which had me on my toes from beginning to end, and genuinely caught me off guard. It was borderline like watching the final two episodes of Evangelion for me, and had me thinking a lot about the meaning of one's own consciousness and desires.

Of course, not all things come out unscathed. There is yet again another moment of sexual assault, fortunately it is not visualized through a CG, but there is a point where Shiki (who is currently in a state of losing his sanity) forces himself onto Kohaku. While the situation is handled far better in comparison to the Arcueid one, since there are genuine consequences for the action taken, and Shiki does not receive forgiveness for the act he committed, it still feels like an excessive use of sexual violence for the sake of shock value. The scene could have easily just had him try to kill her rather than ejaculating on her on top of that. It’s definitely one of the less upsetting examples, but it still feels forced despite it all.

There’s also the topic of the “Roa Boner” or the Broaner as I call it. Basically, in one of the game’s many excuses to have a sex scene, Shiki’s body (currently being possessed by Roa) needs to have a “release” in order to slow down the takeover. Cue the Ciel H-Scene. It’s just one of the really dumb moments that will make you laugh and question who thought it was a good idea to include. It also is part of what makes the Shiki/Ciel relationship feel a little hollow in comparison to Arc’s, in that they need a roundabout excuse to have sex in comparison to just… being in love with one another.

Ciel’s Route also has the worst Good Ending in the game, being almost a borderline parody of itself and it’s very dumb. If it makes you happy, more power to you, but honestly Sun reminds me of some of the stupidest shit I used to watch as a teenager. It’s like watching the like, scene in Evangelion where it’s a typical school day scenario, which in Eva is meant to be this subversive moment that’s self aware. It’s like that but without that self awareness.

I would rate the Ciel Route as 3 stars.

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Akiha:

Ugh.

So, this is the route I honestly don’t want to talk about. Before I played Tsukihime I was told that this route is considered “the best” in the server that introduced me to the game. However, when I brought this up in the Backloggd server, everyone was taken aback questioning how such a viewpoint could exist.

I already had reservations about this route for one obvious reason: It’s the incest route.

Now in reality the characters are not actually related, but the perspective is that Shiki has believed Akiha to be his sister for the past 8 years of his life, and it just makes the whole thing very uncomfortable.

Shiki and Akiha have almost zero chemistry romantically, and while I understand Akiha’s reasoning, in that she knows that Shiki isn’t her actual brother, and that she’s been abused by her father and has to deal with the other SHIKI, she is merely trying to get comfort in the one person she truly cares about, I still can’t help but think that it just doesn’t justify it enough.

Something a friend of mine has said is that the characters of Tsukihime are meant to be subversive, which is true. For example Arcueid. She’s this affable genki girl who you think would get along with anyone, but in reality she’s only acting like that because she has flat out never had friends for her entire life and is still very innocent and naive because of her duty.

Akiha feels like the least subversive of the entire cast, fitting squarely in the tsundere incest sister trope that has been around in Japanese Media for a long time. While again there are reasons for why she acts the way she does, those reasons have also been used in the past in Japanese Media as well for this trope as well as other similar ones i.e. Shinmai Maō no Tesutamento.

The route is also host to both the longest H-scene in the game, and the worst non-sexual assault related one as well. It is such a cringe inducing and painful scene to witness… that you can’t skip the whole way through because there is plot relevant information within the scene. If there’s something I haven’t brought up, it is how amateur the artstyle is. For the most part it isn’t a problem, and I honestly think that it looks pretty good most of the time, but it is at its absolute worst with the H-Scenes and combined with the awkwardness of Akiha’s H-Scene in general just brings nothing but pain.

I’ll be completely honest, the Akiha H-Scene broke me completely for the rest of the game. After that scene I could not feel anything for the H-Scenes that came after because Akiha’s is so inherently awful in my eyes that nothing else could offend me more outside of the sexual assault scenes.

The thing is, the Akiha Route still has good ideas despite it all, and that’s honestly what makes the bad parts of it hit worse for me.

I love the early part of the route involving Shiki’s classmate Satsuki turning into a vampire and trying to turn Shiki as well, and how it leads to a long lasting guilt for him when he ultimately kills her. I like how that moment is mirrored in the endings of this route as well. But then there’s also the part in that moment where he decides to kill Satsuki not for his own sake or for realizing that she can’t be helped, but because ”who would Akiha have to protect her”, it just felt like such a forced and awkward moment for me (made especially more clear given how the next two routes handle this exact same moment) given how early in the route it occurs and how unrelated to the current situation it felt.

SHIKI is also a pretty good antagonist in this route, showing exactly how creepy it is to want to bone your sibling (in this case, his actual blood sibling), and is a very hateable and personal enemy. He does a better job than Roa personally in having presence and actually bringing stakes to the plot.

I also think the endings for this route are pretty good as well, as there isn’t a Good Ending but a Normal Ending. Both are tragic, but the True Ending at least has a light at the end of the tunnel that shows that things will be alright. I personally prefer the Normal Ending as it shows the ultimate consequences of the route and paints the incestual love as what it is: inherently toxic.

I also actually like when the route shows the sibling dynamic Akiha and Shiki have rather than the romantic aspect of their relationship, as they actually work well as siblings and they’re written as being understanding and caring of one another while also having that typical conflict.

It’s just a shame this game is an eroge from the year 2000.

This is the one route I hope gets some major changes to it in the remake because I really think that the incest is what ultimately harms this route the most (y’know, outside of the porn). Definitely the weakest route in the game for me.

I’d rate the Akiha Route as 1 star.

Also Akiha has a long ass neck.


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Hisui:

This is the second of my two favorite routes. It essentially takes the best aspects of the Akiha Route, and removes the incestual plot, while also showing a well written and developing relationship between Shiki and Hisui. They are probably my second favorite relationship in the game behind Shiki and Arcueid as their growth feels incredibly natural and results in incredibly heart wrenching moments in the second half.

I really don’t want to spoil much of this route because I think those emotional gut punches need to be experienced blind for the true experience, but trust me, they hit hard.

There’s only two parts of this route I have a major problem with, that being the use of a CG to show one of the characters after they had been raped, which feels like an unnecessary visualization of something that would have been better off not visualized.

The bigger problem is like with Arcueid’s Route, there is a scene where Shiki has the option to sexually assault and rape Hisui. Regardless of what the guide says, I heavily recommend not going with the option to sexually assault, the scene is disgusting and is nothing but pure excess on the part of the writers. It’s incredibly unnecessary and only appeals to people with a very sickening mindset and is absolutely harmful.

There’s also the part where Shiki winds up having consensual sex with Hisui which is another one of those “we made up an excuse so the characters can have sex” moments the game is fond of. It’s a dumb moment but makes sense lore wise, but still feels really awkward.

The endings for Hisui though are spectacular and among the best in the game, in fact Hisui’s Good Ending is easily the best Good Ending in the entire game in my personal opinion.

Outside of that, I don’t want to go further in spoiling the Hisui Route, but just trust me that outside of those negatives I’ve listed, this route is truly an emotional ride from start to finish and absolutely worth it.

I’d rate the Hisui Route 4 stars.

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Kohaku:

As the finale to this lengthy experience, the Kohaku route mostly focuses on tying up the loose ends of all the other routes. While it is a good overall experience, it definitely has a bit of a pacing issue, and Kohaku herself isn’t really much of a focus of it.

However, I still think that the overall relationship between Shiki and Kohaku and how he tries to help her is a very good emotional core, and I think that makes the second half of the route have one of the better payoffs in the whole game.

I do like Akiha as the primary antagonist as her brocon tendencies are accentuated as being unhealthy, and it shows how someone like her could become just as bad as SHIKI if they give in to their obsessions. I think it’s a natural extension of the character we were shown in her route, but fits better here due to being an antagonist.

I do think the ending is a little weak though, mostly in that it doesn’t feel like there are enough consequences for the acts of the characters within the route, but it’s still something that makes me happy overall and didn’t leave me completely unsatisfied.

I’d rate the Kohaku Route 3 stars.

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Discussing the Sexual Content:

As you can probably gather so far, I found that the sexual content in this game was inherently harmful to the story that was trying to be told by Nasu.

A good chunk of it feels extremely indulgent in what I find are the worst aspects of the eroge genre, creating stupid excuses just so characters can fuck, giving the player the choice in scenarios involving sexual assault to appeal to people with a very unhealthy fetish, and ultimately feeling completely unnecessary in the grand scheme of the greater narrative.

This isn’t to say that I don’t want writers to be able to bring up and discuss subjects and themes like sex and the impacts of sexual assault and rape but more in that writers have to be careful when utilizing such concepts because even the smallest misuse can be extremely harmful in the conveyance of them.

I believe Nasu does a mostly poor job at how he conveys these themes, and because of that it results in an experience that will leave most readers extremely uncomfortable and drop the material.

The H-Scenes in general are written is such a blunt and comical way at points that the game literally feels like one of those bootleg porn parodies you would find on Pornhub, it’s so degrading and ultimately meaningless that it almost makes you laugh until it gets specifically awkward and uncomfortable.

This is the part I’m glad to see be gone from the remakes, and I genuinely hope Type-Moon never does sexual content like this ever again in the future, I simply don’t believe they are competent enough at it.

My recommendation for people who plan to play Tsukihime is to hold the Control button when you get to an H-Scene, it fast forwards through the whole thing and is ultimately better than sitting through them like I did. I sat through them so nobody else has to, so please do me a favor and skip the H-Scenes in this game, I’m fucking begging you. Do not let my efforts be in vain.

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Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

I am Shiki Tohno fr fr, as I can see between the lines that fill this entire visual novel. If I were able to cut the bad (pornographic) parts out of this entire experience to make something that feels less over indulgent in its perversion, I would.

Because, underneath all the schlocky porn, the incest, the dialogue where Shiki talks about ejaculating, underneath all of that there is a story here about the meaning of life and how important our choices are and the consequences of our actions.

It is a narrative that speaks to the inherent humanity within me that aspires to be free from depressive and negative thoughts, and all I want is to be able to experience it in the way it was truly meant to be.

That is why I cannot easily recommend Tsukihime as it stands to you, because as it stands its excess involving sex and sexual depravity is just something I cannot wholeheartedly condone.

If you want to give Tsukihime a shot, here is a link to the English Translation website, run by none other than kohakudoori who I would like to thank for giving us all the chance to get the experience of Tsukihime.

I definitely see myself coming back to reread the Arc and Hisui routes in the future because they’re just so damn good, and I genuinely can’t wait until the remakes are fully translated to English, though how long that will be I do not know.

I would like to say thanks to Tokyo Millennium for giving me the brainworms required for this, and my buddy Simon for sharing his experience with me which inspired me to try the game out.

And last but not least, I want to thank you Backloggd, for keeping me sane during this duration of my life, I love you folks.

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P.S:
Fun fact, but you can easily change the music in this game.

If you are going to commit the act of actually sitting through the H-Scenes (I do not recommend nor condone this for the record), I recommend changing Track 5 to any song you choose. Here’s the steps.

1.“Procure” a music track of your liking (I picked a variety, my last one was It Has To Be This Way for that epic final battle against sex.)

2. Change it to a .ogg file. You can do this here.

3. Download the file and rename it to “track05”.

4. Open the “CD” folder in your Tsukihime folder, and put the new “track05” in there.

5. Replace the file.

Then voila, it will play the respective track in place of Track 5. This should help anyone who thinks they have “the balls” to stand up to the terrible H-Scenes.

Anyways, I need to start working on my “How Close Is This Media To Tsukihime” Tier List, so until next time.

Burennya~~