Yes, actually. Swords, samurai, ninjyas, a monk and a princess were quite worth my time :)
Maker: TWOFIVE
Platform: Win PC
Genre: Shoujo, Interactive Novel Game
Voice: Voiced, Player's character not voiced
Art: Kouji Yamashta
Scenario: Don Makkou, Ryou Mikuni, Hikaru Namiyose
Release Date: 07.29.2005
Patch: None
Official Site: http://www.twofive.co.jp/yojinbo/freude/pcside.html
Trial Version: None
Cast: Yousaburou Shiranui: Masakazu Morita, Jinnosuke Murasame: Hiroki Takahashi, Tainojyou Tsubaki: Hideo Ishikawa, Monzan Kadokura: Tetsu Ineda, Ittousai Tatsunami: Hideki Ogihara, Muneshige Tsukuba: Jyuurouta Kosugi, Hatsuhime: Nami Kurokawa, Harumoto Oono: Mitsuaki Madono, Kasumimaru Fuuma: Kishou Taniyama
Overview:
I loved playing Yo-Jin-Bo. I was a little skeptical at first, though I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it was because a lot of people liked the game or had the game or whatever. Anyhoo, I liked it a lot. I think I loved it because the characters were fun...and funny. I loved all the references and parodies There weren't many slow parts of the game. It was all pretty interesting the whole way through. Oh, I played the original Japanese version, not the Hirameki translation.
Plot:
Sayori (your character) is a high school student who's in the history club examining the ruins of an old castle when she finds a pendant that looks like jade in the mud. Sayori takes it home, fully intending to give it to the head of the club the next day, when the pendent suspends itself in midair around the neck of a ghost princess from the past. All of a sudden, Sayori is taken to the past where she watches the princess (who's not a ghost in the past) get murdered. The next thing Sayori knows is that she is now in the princess's body and things are happening just as she'd watched them happen. Will she be able to change history and save the princess?
Gameplay:
Gameplay was a little hard initially. I'd never dealt with a timed decision branch kind of game before. It was harder to make the "right" decision with the clock ticking. Otherwise I'd say it was handled really well. I like the way the chapter titles appear before the chapters. It makes keeping track of things easier if you're going for full complete. I did notice that the decisions you'd already picked were not highlighted in another color like a lot of other games now. They did have a "Fast Forward" like option that works really well, so I didn't think replaying for full complete was really tedious (unlike some other game I can think of now). Actually I didn't use Fast Forward as much as usual because I did like hearing the sometimes corny, but amusing jokes/banter between the characters.
To be honest, Yo-Jin-Bo is a little bit cookie cutter. After two full plays of the game (maybe even after one), you'll be able to tell where the new scenes will be for each character and most of the time you're playing the same scenes to get a different ending. However, since the jokes are funny (well, at least to me), it wasn't too bad going through them again.
Settings:
Most of the basic settings were there. You are not allowed to customize the volume of each specific character...and the BGM set at minimum and Voice set at maximum still allowed the BGM to overpower the Voice sometimes. I couldn't figure out how to make "window" mode the default setting so the game always opened as full screen no matter how many times I set it to "window" mode
Graphics:
The art is excellent for the most part *bishounen*. I did agree with the reviews I read online though. The art is somewhat inconsistent at times. Sometimes it's gorgeous...but in a few of the CGs...well, there are major proportioning problems. If they are face to face, like her face is inches from his, then his face should not be twice the size of hers -that kind of thing. Still, most of them are gorgeous so I have to give them good points for this one. The expressions are fun to watch, too!
Sound:
The soundtrack was really good. The SFX were pretty neat –all those sword clashes were cool sounding. …but I think sometimes voice actors shouldn't sing (the voice actors sing a lot of the music in the game…sometimes the notes sounded off to me). Most of the time the BGMs were really good. I guess this is because TWOFIVE has ties with the music industry; or so I've read.
Value:
I thought Yo-Jin-Bo was a good deal. There were plenty of endings, two for each character and then the bad end where you die somewhere (this makes at least 13 that I know of). It took me a week ~ 2 weeks of play (some full days) to get all the endings, and it was fun!
Walkthroughs:
I didn't use any walkthroughs for this game, so I have none to post.
Conclusion:
I'd buy it again! …and I did. I ordered the PS2 version so that I can play the routes for Kasumimaru and Harumoto (which are not in the PC version) I'm also looking forward to the additional CGs for the kouryaku characters in the original PC version, too!