Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei Review

Game: Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei
Genre: Adventure game, Visual Novel
System: Nintendo Switch
Developers | Publishers: Idea Factory | Reef Entertainment
Age Rating: EU 12+ | US Teen
Price: UK £44.99 | EU €49,99 | US $49.99
Release Date: US June 28th, Europe July 1st, 2022

Review code used, with many thanks to Reef Entertainment.

Shanao Harbours a Secret

( Already bought the game? Here’s our walkthrough! )The story of Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei follows Shanao, who is living deep within the mountains of Kurama. Shanao is the youngest surviving male heir of the Genji name. The reason Shanao is to remain hidden, out of sight, is because of the Heiji Rebellion fifteen years prior. The Heike and Genji clan had been at odds and at the end of the rebellion, the Heike clan were victorious.

Even though Shanao is trying to live a life of peace, Shanao harbours a secret: the secret of not actually being a man.

Torn between warring factions and a desire for a peaceful life, can Shanao forge her own path – and find someone worthy of her journey in this visual novel?

Let’s Look at the Guys

At the start, every route is available to play, but I went with the recommended route order suggestion which was: Noritsune Taira -> Shungen -> Benkei Musashibo -> Yoritomo Minamoto -> Tomomori Taira. When it comes to spoilers, this was the best order to play in.

The description of the routes may have some spoilers in them.

Noritsune Taira

Noritsune is the nephew of the leader of the Heike clan. He has often lived in the shadows of his more popular cousins and fought hard to be recognized by his family. Upon meeting Shanao, all he wants to do is beat her in a fight. This also becomes their main arc in the story.

At first, Noritsune is not a very complex character, honor and fighting for the Heike name are the most important things to him. As the story progressed, I have grown to love Noritsune and the character development he went through. He did his best to better himself as a person and to change his old ways.

Shungen

Shungen and Shanao have been with each other their entire lives. They were sent to Kurama around the same time and were raised there. He is very protective over Shanao and in other routes, it can be a bit overbearing. But in Shungen’s route, he can be endearing at times, he allows Shanao to figure out her feelings and lets her feel them.

This route focuses more on Shanao’s past, her relationship with Shungen and the ties to her family. Shanao did take a more background role in this route, and I think that was a little disappointing because she is an awesome warrior.

Benkei Musashibo

Benkei was a monk at Mount Hiei ever since he was abandoned by his parents. When the story of Shanao starts he has been expelled from being a monk, due to an incident with a couple of Heike soldiers. As a result, he decided to steal all the swords of the Heike. His storyline starts when Shanao beats him in a fight.

Benkei is definitely a gentle giant if there ever was one. He has a good heart and gives Shanao, throughout the story, a lot of confidence and always stands by her choices. Benkei and Shanao mainly bond over their similar pasts and about growing up in a temple.

Yoritomo Minamoto

He is the youngest son of Yoshitomo Minamoto, who used to be the head of the Genji clan. During the Heiji rebellion, his father and older brothers were killed, and he was forced to live his life in exile. Yoritomo is very cold and difficult to read at the start of the story. He also comes across as intimidating. His one goal in life is to restore the Genji clan. But further, down the route, we find out not everything is as it appears to be.

This route is all about the downfall of the Genji clan and what Shanao’s and Yoshitomo’s reasons are for fighting the Heike. We learn more about Shanao and about her family life.

Tomomori Taira

He is the eldest son of the head of the Heike family. He and his younger brother Shigehira are always looking for fun ways to pass the time, mostly by drinking and being entertained by women. At a first glance he does not seem very skilled in battle, but every time in battle he proves himself to be a great warrior and is also known as the Wise general. This is the reason his father, Kiyomori, trusts him the most for advice.

Overall, he is a very mysterious character, he seems neither on the good side nor the bad side. Tomomori surprises people in a lot of different ways and is a very interesting character to watch.

Visuals and Sound

Something I noticed early on about the visuals in Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei was that the colours of the characters were all aesthetically pleasing. The colour palettes complemented each other well and often the colours were more on the warm side. The background also helped to put the shine on the characters. The background was a little simple, but it did help the characters to shine.

The theming of the text areas and the menus were very on the theme, which is Japan during the Heiji rebellion in the year 1160. Another fun fact about the visuals is that if you look closely at the clothing of the characters, you can see a lot of different fabric patterns. It adds a fun little element to the game while looking at the characters.
I also liked how a lot of characters in the story were fully fleshed out, a lot of the time in Otome games, not every character is visible, you just hear their voice.

The music fitted Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei but served more as background music. The ending songs for the routes I really enjoyed, especially with the graphics that were paired with it. As soon as the songs come out on YouTube I will definitely add them to my Video Game music list.

Steering You Along the Routes

The system of this game has some functions I have not seen before, and are interesting to note before starting Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei.

Love Catch

First, the Love Catch. At the shared route in the beginning the system tries to guide and show you the impact your choices have on the game. Every male character has their own color and this will show you if your relationship with this character changes. The color on the edge of the frame shows which character’s ability has increased (Strength, Knowledge and Kindness).

Note that this system can be turned off if you want.

Information screen

On this screen, players can check their relationship compatibility with each character, and the character abilities of the main character. Both of these things will impact the story.

Flowchart

With this handy chart, players can view their progress throughout all the storylines. Previous chapters can also be replayed. This flowchart gives the players a good overview of all the endings, and it can give hints on the choices you made.

Endings

In this game, every storyline has a Happy Love ending and a Tragic Love ending. As an extra for completing a route, an “if” ending becomes available. This shows Shanao in an ending with a sub-character. And like in every game, there are a lot of bad endings along the way.

Overall thoughts

Playing this game, the story reminded me a little of a combination between Mulan and the anime Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the dawn). Birushana really shows the comradery between Shanao and her companions.

The game did have an important message that it’s about being yourself and abilities. Shanao is revealed to be female, but she herself mentions that she just wants to live as Shanao and fight for the things that she thinks are important.
I enjoyed the main storyline of the game, especially after finding out that it is based on the real history of the Heiji rebellion and later the Genpei war. I even did a little research on this history and found out that even the names had remained the same. For me this added a whole new layer to the game.

Overall, the game doesn’t have a lot of romance in it. I would say it’s not as romantic as Piofiore, but mainly at the ends of the routes it did have some romantic parts. The routes that were a bit more romantic were Tomomori, Shungen and even Yoritomo. They had the most romantic CG’s (Computer Graphics) and Tomomori and Shungen also had lots of romantic dialogs.

Speaking of CG’s, one thing I thought was a missed opportunity was the low number of CG’s in all the routes. Each character had about eight CG’s, in other games I have played the routes each had about 15 to 20. In a lot of situations, I expected to see a CG but nothing came. But having said that, the CG’s we did get are really beautiful and have a fantasy feeling about them.

Conclusion

I enjoyed playing Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei and seeing different sides of the story and the war. Every character offered a different perspective on the war, and they had to fight a different battle each time. Each route also had a lot of interesting plot points to discover, which kept things interesting. And of course, I loved Shanao. She is a strong character who above all listens to her duty and her heart. Plus, she is a great warrior on the battlefield and a hard worker.

In terms of finding the routes, I found the Love Catch and the flowchart very useful to navigate through the game and the routes.

It is definitely a well-written plot with different perspectives and a lot of interesting characters. Although the routes have the same structures and certain events, they have done a good job of making changes to every route to make it interesting every time.

Final verdict: I like it a lot