I’m wondering the same thing, everything was great until the ending it ruined my day and possibly my week
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THERE IS A GOD AFTER ALL!
My life has meaning again!
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Major congrats on the release! This is shooting up to the top of my to-play list 
Been waiting for this for so long!!
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This game has now got me weeping, so…thank you for that 
. I shall now try and get some sleep, which will probably prove Impossible because my heart is aching.
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All respect to the author who told the story they wanted to tell… But that felt like magical Japan fifty shades of grey, out of nowhere compared to the last books.
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I LOVED IT!! you’ve shattered my heart BUT I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!
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I’m… Disappointed would be the wrong word. Let down maybe.
First of all, I replayed through SoH 2 and 3 right before this one (both because I didn’t remember some details and because I didn’t have a save for the latter) and this game greatly suffers from the comparison. It is good, but compared to its predecessors? Meh. Especially compared to SoH 3, which removed some of the linearity the first two games had with the Detective chapters.
Having Junko as the deuteragonist was a great part of the problem. I’m going to be honest and say that while I don’t dislike the character, I was fed up with her halfway through the game. I could have handled having her appearing there and there or even having half the game dedicated to her development, but being forced to go through the entire game having to turn her down really killed my enjoyment. Especially when I made it very clear at the beginning of the game that I wasn’t interested. Someone mentionned Fifty Shades of Grey for the mature scenes and I have to agree with them (especially for a Female!MC and Jun) .
I know the series is one of the more “bookish” on the site, yet in this case, having a branch where the MC actually had a choice and wasn’t a puppet moving along the plot would have really been beneficial.
I completely argue with you, save for the sheer amount of “darker content” in the game. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be there, but that should have been spread out. Between the main plot, the Jun(ko)/MC relationship, the MC and Jun(ko)‘s backstories’ and a certain character’s actions… Well after some time I just stopped caring I guess.
The warning is the following:
Content Warning: This story contains mature themes along with scenes of a explicit nature. This includes references to drugs, alcohol, suicide, sexual violence, abuse, and rape. Reader discretion is advised.
When it happens on-screen and that the MC is the victim it’s not just a reference.
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What was the name of the dual wielding guy? I should have replayed the first games…
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I thought Book 2 was bad with all of the shogi junk. Turns out I was wrong. Book 4 is far worse.
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Actually, no one eats fresh rice, they usually boil it first 
and “a hot springs” is just grammatically incorrect.
Also, Japanese don’t really have “spirit animals” and a lot of these animals aren’t native to Japan.
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I once heard the phrase “if you don’t wash your rice before cooking it, you are a white person” which remains with me to this day.
I personally justify it as some kind of shiki. Not as an extension of the person’s spirit, but an individual lesser spirit attracted to the person for one reason or other. In some folktales shikigami show themselves in the form of small animals, right?
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Even so, where would he have found these animals? They aren’t native to Japan. If you’ve read the first three, would there be any reason why a ronin would be that close to the emperor? That would be like a homeless person next to the president in the White House.
And why would he name the emperor after a type of orange? That seems somewhat insulting (although not more than Langrisser naming a character “Sissy White” or that Fairy Tail commentator called “Capati Rola”).
I guess people wash rice out of tradition (because they used to be covered in talc) or maybe they didn’t like the rice weevils (which really is just added protein) but pretty much everyone boils rice before eating it
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38,000 words altogether.
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I really enjoyed this installment. Even the nonessential parts of it still let me enjoy my character interacting with and responding to the world, and I liked being rewarded for paying attention when the game posed a question. It was certainly linear, but not any more so than any of the previous books, in my opinion, and while you didn’t get a great many opportunities to choose your character’s course of action, there were still plenty of chances to choose how your character felt about and responded.
Most of all, I feel like the story did a very good job of making your character’s enemies feel relatable if not actually sympathetic. Jun has never been a character that I would say that I like, but I still find myself feeling for him throughout the book and there were even portions where I found his presence enjoyable. It would have been all too easy for the character to have either become a misunderstood victim or a mustache twirling villain, but the line was toed in a way that didn’t take away from Jun’s dangerous nature or the awful things that he’s done and would likely still do while still making him feel like a fully developed character with many layers.
The game’s villain reveal made me incredibly sad for my ronin. Again, I think it’s a testament to the quality of the characters that we get that I could be suspicious of the big bad for so many chapters and yet still find myself hoping either that my suspicions were wrong or that there was something to make their actions a little less terrible.
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It’s not anime unless we win with the sheer power of bonds and friendship! 
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Yea
So wonderfully written and so much an g st!! So much juicy angst!! Thanks for this book, kmgggg, already can’t wait for the next one.
Gotta admit tho, kinda hoping Toshio makes another return in the other books, maybe give him a happy ending… I hope… …, I loves him!! 
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You know this game is one of the kind i have never played hosted game that have peverted as a stat. Also writing is also somewhat peverted but in a good way
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If they’re kami that can take the form of animals, they can come from anywhere, right?
As far as I remember, that was the Emperor’s choice. Still scandalous.
Uh, remember that Satsuma was a province before it was a fruit, and the Japanese call that fruit mikan, not satsuma.
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