Review Akash: Path of the Five (Switch)

Game: Akash: Path of the Five
Genre: Otome, Visual Novel
System: Nintendo Switch
Developer|Publisher: Truant Pixel, LLC
Age Rating:EU 16+| US M
Price: $29.99USD |$37.99CAD |£24.19 |€26,90
Release Date: 26 September 2019

Review code used, with many thanks to Truant Pixel!

Entering A New Era

I simply must gush, and say that I IMMENSELY enjoyed Akash: Path of the Five, and I will go into more detail in a moment. I want to have a wee bit of a rant (as I am wont to do).

BEGINNING RANT

First, I need to say that I believe we are FINALLY beginning to enter into an era where games aren’t always showing female characters being helpless, wearing barely anything, and always having enormous breasts. 

I think Metroid was a rare game back then with a woman kicking butt, and back at that time it surprised everyone playing it when we found out at the end of the game, and Samus took her helmet off, that she was a woman in the first place.

Us ladies haven’t had very many good role models in the world of video games. We are usually relegated to weak princesses who need a man to save them, or are an over-sexualized character who may kick butt but paints a completely unrealistic portrait of the female body (Soulcalibur anyone? Heck, even today: League of Legends, I’m looking at you). 

My point: I feel most games aren’t made with women in mind. Not only by not representing women realistically, but realizing that women also really enjoy playing video games. Thank the goddess this seems to be slowly changing; that’s why I joined, and really respect, Ladiesgamers as well! Ladies love to game!

The Neverending Search Has Ended…?

As a big softie hopeless romantic, I absolutely LOVE otome games. Up until now, I have had a HECK of a time trying to find them. There was this perceived notion that they don’t – or wouldn’t – sell well in North America. Japan has had these games for many many moons, and the best I was able to get up until now – the Switch era – was Hakuoki: Memories of the Shinsengumi on my 2DS (incidentally, a most enjoyable game). I don’t game much on Steam (PC), nor on Vita, as I don’t own either, but I know there is a bunch of stuff on those as well – BUT that doesn’t excuse the gaming industry for ignoring this genre in North America my whole youth!

With the release of Dream Daddy, and now Akash: Path of the Five, and an upcoming game set to release next February called Best Friend Forever, it looks like North American indie creators are finally writing the stories and entering into my most beloved genre with style! I can only hope these games sell well so that developers finally realize that these games are viable, and that PEOPLE want to play them! 

I couldn’t be more excited for the stories and characters our side of the pond can create. As much as I love Japanese otome games, it IS a different culture after all, and there are some tropes in those games that turn me off a little bit (the ‘little boy’ character for one); so I’m ecstatic to see my side of the pond finally starting to REP-RE-ZENT! 

TLDR – Now Tell Me About Akash Instead

Wow. Wow wow wow. I am blown away. Okay, so the only thing I knew about this game – as I am an adamant never-watch-trailers kind of human… 

Trailers are always full of so many spoilers! I hate it!

… so the only thing I knew about this game is that a popular YouTuber called ProZD (SungWon Cho is his real name) is the voice for one of the characters in this game. Several of my friends enjoy him, and were quick to tell me about this North American otome game that he was going to be in; my friends, of course, knowing how much I LUUUURVE otome.

For those of you wondering: ProZD does the voice of Caspian. 

But thank GOODNESS I didn’t know anything else about it beforehand, because I was so pleasantly surprised by everything in the game. 

A Summary of Superb Story Surprises, Slight Story Spoilers

The story takes place at, and around, the Akash Academy. This is a school for elementals, a race of magical beings who can control the elements.

I fell in love with this game’s premise: elemental children are gender neutral when they are born. Then at around the age of ten they go through ‘the change’ where they either become male or female. Male elementals, when they change, also become their sole element: earth, fire, water, wind, or light (path of the five, get it?!), and therefore begin to train in the use of their particular elemental magic.

Now some of you may be saying: “Well, seems to me it’s still just supporting the standard gender binary.” And perhaps it is, but the game’s creator went the extra mile, and if you make your way into the game’s extras you can read a lovely note from the creator about this exact issue. They aren’t trying to ignore it, or prop up the male/female gender binary as the ONLY way the world should be. So the fact that that note was added into the game really gave me the warm fuzzies, and I appreciated it a lot.

To continue!

Female elementals are different. They have command of all of the elements until they come of age when they then choose an element to specialize in.

The entire race of elementals is, sadly, slowly dying out, as it has become exceedingly rare for female elementals to appear. The elemental race has survived by interbreeding with human women, and this has caused a lot of tension between the elemental and human villages. 

BOOM! What an AWESOME premise, amirite?! Ever since I was a little kid, I have wanted the superpower to control the elements (either that, or the ability to turn into animals at will). I felt an instant connection with the story, and found it easy to immerse myself in the characters and story.

Akash puts you in the shoes of Aurora: an elemental female on the brink of her twentieth birthday and Coming of Age ceremony when she will be expected to choose her element. Aurora isn’t just any elemental female however, she is the first female to come of age in two hundred years! So naturally, there is a LOT of excitement and fuss about this year’s particular Coming of Age ceremony.

To be more specific story wise, elemental coming-of-age means they have reached sexual maturity. They have a ceremony every year, as male elementals come of age at 18. 

Today is THE Day

*Yawn* You wake up in your comfy school dormitory bed, your father – a travelling merchant and water elemental – has arrived from his travels for your upcoming ceremony taking place in only fourteen days. 

You’re excited to see him, and you have a brief chat, but you really have to get to class. Don’t want to be late!

Akash is a very prestigious elemental training academy. They only take about six students every year. They try to balance the elemental representation, but it doesn’t always happen that way. Lucky for you, your class has one male of each element… oh, and you of course. 

The moment you walk into the classroom today there seems to be something different about you. Suddenly these men whom you’ve studied and trained with all your young life are noticing something different about you and blushing all over the place. 

“Quiet down!” the professor shouts, and immediately launches into a descriptive lesson about female elementals and how their bodies change when they come of age.

Now, we have all been there. Awkward sex-ed classes in high school, perhaps awkward conversations with parents. This shared connection really cemented my commitment to the story, and to my character Aurora. I wanted to help guide her through this transitory time in her life; especially after the old elemental fogies say stuff like this:

Matchmaker Matchmaker Make Me A Match!

Ladies and gentlemen! Preeeeeeeeesenting! The men! 

Lux – Light elemental and absolute cutie pie best friend boy-next-door type. (My favourite, I like to call cute things my lil’ boop-boop, and Lux was my lil’ boop boop!)

Ignatious – Fire elemental, keeps to himself, loves drawing, gets teased a lot and hates it.

Sirocco (AKA Rocco) – Wind elemental, extreme flirt and ladies man.

Rowan – Earth elemental, Rocco’s best friend, the sporty jock-type who’s always cheerful.

Caspian – Water elemental, the ‘elemental royalty’ snobbish and aloof type.

Now some otome games will present you with all the eligible men and you simply choose who’s story-line you want to play through and do it. 

That is ONE way to do it, but I like the way Akash does it: you play through the story, and once you reach a certain point you naturally slide into the story-line of one particular male, depending on who has the highest ‘romance score’ with you at the time.

Kind of the ‘point’ or ‘reward’ of an otome game is gallery photos; lovely artwork of various important scenes in each of the storylines. You unlock these photos by playing through the game, choosing the right responses that put you into the right situations. Once you’ve played the game a few times, it is almost about going back and making the other choices in order to ‘catch them all’ as it were, and fill up your gallery collection.

Now, this might not be enough for some gamers, but for me it is plenty motivation, and therefore this game has tonnes of replay value in my opinion.

This game’s gallery can get pretty spicy. It’s not all just innocent photos of accidentally falling on each other while running away from determined merchants; there are also plenty of spicy shirtless man-candy photos. Don’t worry, there are always very strategically placed leaves, flames, or beams of light to keep this game in PEGI16 territory. 

All in all, the writing is superb; and the characters are all fun and excellent.

Awwww, papa! We should all be so lucky to have such an awesome dad.

The Sound of Love

All the music in this game was composed by Fat Bard; if you go on their website and look under the Akash project, you will see them describe their work in this game as: “Ghibli-inspired orchestral/piano music”. 

This is pretty much the music to a T. I was blown away by how amazing the music was in this game. It always had a slight Japanese feel (and me just finding out right now that it was “Ghibli-inspired” makes me feel smart and clever for kinda hearing it in there.

It gives a definite feel of being in a mystical and magical world. Atmospheric and a delight to my eardrums, the music created the mood in every situation of this game, whether it was tense, romantic, sarcastic, or spicy. If I ever bust into the realm of creating my own game, I think I would definitely hit up Fat Bard for the musical element! 

Artistic Talent: Impressive and Valliant!

The artwork is AMAZING! I loved each and every character design. The subtle movement of their eyebrows in various emotional states is something you really don’t see as pronounced in Japanese otome games. 

Look at that hilarious sarcastic face on SweetWilliam!

The artwork for Aurora was actually my favourite. In most Japanese otome games – I think in an effort to make the main character kind of a blank slate so that you can instead put yourself into the lead position – the main character is always obscured and hidden, and sometimes they don’t even draw the eyes, they always hide them behind hair. 

I think this game (and Dream Daddy) are proof that that is a tired trope of otome that’s unnecessary; and that having a main character that’s beautifully drawn and lovingly created works!

Then the adorable-ness of making each of the men blush. 

The shadows and shading details on every rippling muscle…

What was I talking about…?

Now I can’t leave this review without talking about the amazing voice acting. Every voice actor in this game is top tier. Again, I think the star of the show was the actress who played Aurora: Morgan Berry. 

As a little bit of a trickster myself, I found myself choosing the trickster options a lot, and she really knows how to put a bit of spunk into her voice. She was sassy, but also real, romantic but also able to stand up for what she believed in and wanted. And hey, the male voice actors did an excellent job as well. 

There is so much talent in this game – artists, writing, music, acting – it all comes together to create an outstanding and glorious otome experience.

The Little Niggles

I only had one very tiny little niggle; sometimes the game will crash! Thankfully I save often. So make sure when you play this game that you save often. That’s literally it, the only problem I had.

Final Verdict

As you can see, I really like to rant and ramble when it comes to otome games. It’s because when otome is good, it will blow your mind. 

Good otome will make you feel all the emotions, especially those nice “Ahhhhh” ones that make your heart feel warm and fuzzy.

Now for those of you who are practicing responsible parenting, please note that this game does have a sprinkling of swear words, as well as when the game gets spicy there is some language that describes the intimate scene that is happening between you and your chosen partner. So, watch out for that if that is something that makes you uncomfortable. 

However it is also a game full of good messages for women and girls, or anyone really, and all of the interactions – and thoughts Aurora has about her wants, needs, and boundaries – are good portrayals of how a healthy relationship should function; where we are able to express our concerns and feelings.

 

All in all… I like it a lot!

I couldn’t be more impressed with this game, and I would recommend it to everyone who likes feeling, reading, and appreciating art in it’s many forms (visual, musical, acting, writing).