Otomate seemingly has an obsession with exploring all of Japan’s history through the medium of romance games, as going through their lineup has included the 12th and 17th through 21st centuries. One of their latest adventures, Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo, sets itself in the prime of the shogunate but gives it enough of a twist that it’s not just a historical piece. While it’s a solid read, it doesn’t really break any new ground in the genre.

The protagonist is a young girl who lives in a remote village and is shunned as a witch due to her ability to see the emotions of people in the form of colored “threads”; this ability comes to the attention of the shogun of Edo (aka Tokyo) who drafts her into the Oniwaban intelligence agency as it combats demonic “blightfall” and various other youkai. What makes this world even more fantastical is that objects treated with love can actually develop a soul known as a Formfolk, though these Formfolk can be (and often are) a source of demonic possession. It can be a slightly silly concept to see a wooden plank, sword, or other inanimate object come to life, but it works.

Winter’s Wish has six suitors–all of whom are a part of the Oniwaban, and are evenly divided into three sections of the city (“Castle Town”, “Samurai Town”, and the entertainment district)–which forces in a lot of environmental variety. Most of the suitors are “Vessels”, or emotionless beings who are threatened with death if their heart opens–so of course, the protagonist ends up doing it to all of them–which can lead to a little bit of repetition if you’re going through storylines back to back. Still, the personalities do stand out, even among the serious samurai who technically shouldn’t know what love is.

The editing was mostly good, but it seemed like every other route was clean while the other ones had the odd duplicated word or typo. It wasn’t bad enough to be notable, though. The biggest graphical complaint I had was more of a sin of omission; I never actually got a chance to see the threads that represent the emotions of the characters, only the black ones that signaled impending blightfall. It was called out in the text, but it’d be better if it was shown instead of told. The soundtrack is standard background music that I really had to turn up to get it noticeable.

The two localizers of Otomate adventures are teaming up to test my speed-reading skills this month; another Aksys one (that mixes in rhythm game elements?) will be out by the time this review is live and Idea Factory International is dropping one at the end of the month. Maybe that’s why Winter’s Wish didn’t exactly break the strings of my heart.