Fragrance Tale

In a system created by Gaea, three planets exist: Flaithis, akin to the Heavens, where the angels live, Annwn, akin to Hell, where the demons live, and the Earth-like Rirudahna which lies between the two. Flaithis and Annwn have been at war for many years, and it isn't any surprise that the peaceful Rirudahna, which falls between the two, would be drug into the battle.

A young boy, Liam, who is a student on Rirudahna, is visited by Lugh, the angelic ruler of Flaithis, to find fragrances and mix a perfume with the power to bring the holy forces and demonic forces together in mediation and thus bring peace, and Liam accepts this task. He is visited by angels from Flaithis that aid him in bringing him the scents of their homeland to help his quest, but the demons of Annwn also find out about this plot, and decide to work their own strategy against it, also visiting Liam and bringing him the fragrances of Annwn.

Can Liam create the peace-bringing legendary fragrance "Naveri"? Or will he instead find himself falling for one of his angelic or demonic visitors?

Liam - Liam is a human teenager who lives in Rirudahna, and attends school there. He is chosen by the leader of the angels, Ruu, to mix a fragrance using the herbs of Flaithis, Rirudahna, and Annwn to try to bring peace between the warring Flaithis and Annwn once and for all. He is a gentle person who gets scared easily and also isn't very assertive when it comes to arguments, but he is also full of curiosity and may take rash actions because of this. Whether he ends up bright and gentle or strangely stubborn depends on the paths taken by the player.Seiyuu: Minami Omi.

Phiele - Phiele is a priest and Liam's teacher on Rirudahna. He helps Liam by giving him the holy water and beakers he will need to mix his fragrances. He will also give Liam helpful advice or Rirudahna herbs when visited.

Ruby - Ruby is a fairy that lives in the forest of Rirudahna. She helps Liam by allowing Liam to take herbs from the fairy grove and supplying fairy dust for use with his fragrances. She is associated with the branch Rirudahna herb.

Sapphy - Sapphy is a fairy that lives in the forest of Rirudahna. She helps Liam by allowing Liam to take herbs from the fairy grove and supplying fairy dust for use with his fragrances. She is associated with the flower Rirudahna herb.

Emel - Emel is a fairy that lives in the forest of Rirudahna. He helps Liam by allowing Liam to take herbs from the fairy grove and supplying fairy dust for use with his fragrances. He is associated with the leaf Rirudahna herb.

Amber - Amber is a fairy that lives in the forest of Rirudahna. He helps Liam by allowing Liam to take herbs from the fairy grove and supplying fairy dust for use with his fragrances. He is associated with the acorn Rirudahna herb.

Lugh - Lugh is the head of the angels of Flaithis, and he is the one who has asked Liam to mix herbs to create a fragrance to bring peace between Flaithis and Annwn.

Addle - Addle is a twenty-year-old angel from Flaithis, and is the leader of Lugh's imperial guards. He is a noble-minded character who puts on a very serious front and won't tolerate injustice or unreasonableness. However, on the inside he is very passionate and has a serious romantic attitude towards love. Addle's chivalrous knight-like behavior can lead to a refreshing, romantic love. Seiyuu: Chiba Susumu.

Philyth - Philyth is a twenty-two-year-old angel and part of the imperial guards of Flaithis. Philyth is very quiet and noble-minded, an angel of feminine beauty. Although he appears very graceful, soft, and delicate, he also hides a playful side and will sometimes crack a smile or laugh when least expected. He is the type that offers a gentle and affectionate romance. Seiyuu: Itou Miki.

Solude - Solude is a twenty-four-year-old angel who is part of the imperial guard of Flaithis. He is a calm and generous person, who holds individual values which are unique for an angel. Inside he has a romanticist's passionate heart, but becomes clumsy or awkward when trying to express his feelings openly. Seiyuu: Inoue Kazuhiko.

Tim - Tim is a fifteen-year-old angel, also a member of the Flaithis imperial guard. Tim is very much a young and bright yet naive person, possessing the innocence of his age. He is very much the "good honor student" type: polite, respectable, and obedient. Romantically, Tim tends to be the submissive-type, but can take on a very caring, motherly love for the person he likes. Seiyuu: Seki Tomokazu.

Cifer - Cifer is the head of the demons of Annwn, and he is the one who has sent demons to stall Liam's progress in making the Naveri peace-bringing fragrance for Lugh.

Nadhew - Nadhew is a twenty-one-year-old demon from Annwn. Being a demon, he tends to be impolite, atrocious, and spontaneous, and takes pleasure in picking on others. He likes to see how far he can push people, and is extremely mischievous. When it comes to romance, Nadhew tends to equate love with power. Since he becomes clumsy with serious romantic love, he takes a more playful approach. Seiyuu: Seki Toshihiko.

Sittra - Sittra is a twenty-five-year-old demon from Annwn who is characterized as being very intellectual and voluptuous. He is a very elegant demon and takes pleasure in things he finds beautiful. When it comes to romance, he likes a balance of play and seriousness. Seiyuu: Hayami Sho.

Claydle - Claydle is a twenty-three-year-old demon of Annwn. He is a very cold-blooded person and a sadist who enjoys blood. In addition, he also has strong destructive magic power, and because of such even other demons tend to keep their distance from him. He is not the type to take interest in romance; unless, of course, he finds himself a willing masochistic submissive... Seiyuu: Miki Shinichirou.

Roki - Roki is a sixteen-year-old demon of Annwn. He can be a violent and rough little brat, but there is something charming about him which makes him hard to dislike. He still carries the cruelty of a demon, but it is displayed in more of a child-like manner, and he finds it great fun to cause trouble. When it comes to romance, he is considered very cat-like; curious, playful, sometimes making the move, other times waiting for it. Seiyuu: Morikubo Shoutarou.

Fragrance Tale plays a little different than many boys' love games. Rather than having a straight storyline with different options that lead to different outcomes, the endings on this game are based on two different things: how you mix your fragrance, and how you build your relationship with the characters in the game, which is done by optional choices... but not in the way you are probably thinking.

The game runs for a total of 71 days, and the basic gameplay for a day is composed of the following: mixing your fragrances (by clicking the desk), chatting with the angels and demons (by clicking the table and then answering the door), and emptying your fragrances (again by clicking the desk), while every six days you visit either the school or the forest to get more herbs. You can save or load your game and check your status with the boys by clicking the cupboard, which is useful; this game requires a lot of save/load trial-and-error.

First thing in the morning you mix your fragrances in three beakers on the desk in your house, picking from a set of herbs. The first four herbs are the herbs of Rirudahna, which you collect in the forest from the fairies on your off days, the second four are herbs of Flaithis you receive from the visits of the angels, and the last four are the herbs of Annwn you receive from the visits of the demons. They can be mixed in any number of combinations, and endings are linked to how these fragrances are mixed, which can make for some lengthy game-replay.

After you have mixed your fragrances for the day, you will be systematically visited by the angels and demons, who will chat with Liam and bring him one of their herbs (two for an extended visit). You build relationships with them based on how you mix your fragrances and also the responses you give them in conversation. The interesting part is conversation is decided not by textual options (like most boys' love games), but by little colored gems, so it really is a guessing game whether you will cause a boy to smile or frown with your response. To succeed in conversation, you typically have to keep a save point right before the conversation: "Hmm, picking Pink made him frown. I'll reload and pick Purple, then." Granted, this setup isn't too much different for people who can't read Japanese and pick random options anyway, but I can only imagine the frusteration a Japanese player would have with this option system.

You will end up being visited by every angel and demon, unless you break the pattern by emptying the fragrances from your small beakers into a larger bottle at some point during the day (even emptying the fragrances at different times can affect the outcome of the game) taking a nap (by clicking the couch, which is necessary if you are expecting a visitor to come at night), or if one character chats with you for a longer period of time.

Winning a boy means the right combination of mixing your fragrance and giving them responses, and if done right, you can get a love ending in as little time as 30 days (though the game typically lasts 71 days). Along the way you will receive CG events as your relationship with a character grows. I have a capture guide available to help love ending capture, as I found this was an /extremely/ difficult game to win a boy without help; it took me three tries of frusteration before a friend on IRC who knew Japanese did a little research into what needed to be done. The sad part is there are also lots of other endings available for the game, but because of the difficulty (the length of the game plus all the different herb combinations possible), I don't know how to win them, and don't really have the time to try to figure it out. Expect this game to be a toughy for full CG capture; even the Japanese capture guides are a bit too confusing to make heads or tails out of using online translators.

As far as technical issues, I had no problems running the game using Windows XP with the language set to Japanese.

AGTH Compatibility - Fragrance Tale is compatible with Anime Games Text Hooker. You must add the /ks and /kf parameters.

Fragrance Tale Love Ending Capture Guide - A capture guide in English made by myself for getting the love endings in the game. Note that is is /not/ a complete capture guide for getting /all/ the endings and CGs, only the love endings.

Fragrance Tale Replay Gallery Save File - A save file that unlocks all the CGs in the Replay Gallery. Note that this won't get you the special ending CGs, as many of those are only viewable during the ending and are not put in the "Replay" gallery.

Fragrance Tale is, simply put, a somewhat frusterating game. While housing great character designs and a plethora of endings, these things start to be underminded by the difficulty in actually /getting/ the CGs and endings, which is a long, taxing process of trial-and-error.

Fragrance Tale features very cute art, and fans of angel and demon anime boys will certainly be pleased; I'll admit taking a look at the character designs, my love of angel and demon characters suckered me into putting this game fairly high on my "need to play" list. The CGs are very cute and sure to please shounen-ai fans, though those only interested in sex be warned; shounen-ai is all you will get in Fragrance Tale. The voice acting is also a treat, as the cast is all played by very well-known seiyuu who do a great job. However, the game isn't /full/ voice; the daily conversation options are not voiced, though everything else, including all the special events, are. Unfortunately, these things probably won't balance out the negative aspects for most boys' love gamers.

For one, the plot is very dry. Unless great plot-development is taking place in all those daily conversations with the eight characters, but it certainly doesn't appear so. Of course, for those that don't know Japanese anyway (like me), that can be easily overlooked. But there are many other let-downs to the game, the main being the game-play. It isn't exactly /difficult/ to figure out, but... it's boring. The game lasts for 71 days, and you do the same pattern of events day after day after day. Plus, there are so many combinations of factors for getting all the CGs and endings it becomes overwhelming: how to mix the potions, when to empty the beakers, how to respond to the characters. This can make that replay list /huge/ in an attempt to figure out just the secret to getting those "Special" CGs in the CG gallery.

Those that savor in extreme replay value out of one game should be delighted, but for most fans, you'll just get bored. I'm a fairly persistant gamer, and I found it pretty hard to make myself work through just the eight love endings for my capture guide. And I only got those after three attempts of not getting anywhere because I couldn't figure out how to mix the potions correctly to get a love ending. After pulling my hair out over that, the thought of doing so again to figure out how to get all those CGs in the "Special" section of the CG gallery just doesn't seem appealing. And the CG gallery itself is a bit of a let-down as well; instead of displaying still images, it replays the event where the CG occured. I guess that would be handy if you wanted to pick a different option to see if you missed a CG, but I'd prefer just a database of still pictures, myself.

If you are a fan of shounen-ai games or replay value, you'll probably want to give this game a play. My capture guide for the love endings should help a bit in the game-play frusteration department, so if you have a mild interest due to the character designs, pull out my capture guide and go ahead and follow the steps to winning a few characters that fit your fancy. But for most other gamers I'd probably recommend passing it up unless you are well prepared to face some probable frusteration and have quite a bit of patience to play this one through.

Takuyo's Official Fragrance Tale Site (Japanese) - The company's site with information on the game.

List Mania's Fragrance Tale Capture Guide (Japanese) - A complete capture guide for getting all the endings in Fragrance Tale.

Prince of Darkness (Japanese) - A great fansite with fanart and doujinshi, as well as a capture guide.

Kazuhime-Web's Girls' Game Fragrance Tale (Chinese) - Has some general game and character information, as well as a guide for getting the love endings.

PC Yaoi Games' Fragrance Tale Review (English) - Some information and character images to Fragrance Tale.

Disclaimer: All written text and capture guides © Boys' Love Games Headquarters. All pictures and downloads are copyright of their respective companies and artists and are for promotional use only. I am in no way claiming the art as my own, nor am I trying to infringe upon the company's rights. I am trying to promote these games by allowing a foreign audience to see some artwork from the game.