Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia

Title: Edelweiss (エーデルワイス 詠伝ファンタジア)
Release date: 2008-08-29 (2010-03-20 in English)
Developer: Overdrive
English publisher: MangaGamer

Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia is a fandisc to the parent game Edelweiss, released almost two years after the latter. As you have probably already read, I found the original game to be quite a funny little time waster, that wasn't particularly great, but kept me entertained nonetheless. However, there was a big oversight made during the production of Edelweiss (or an ingenious business decision) - two charming girls, Sakura and Rin, didn't have their individual routes. This fandisc fixes that and provides us with more of the shenanigans courtesy of Haruma Kazushi. Let's see how it fares in comparison to the original story.

Eiden Fantasia consists of prologue (that confirms my previous prediction that the game will follow Edelweiss' "no romance" ending) and three stories that you can choose to play.

Sakura Rumble

The first of the stories I chose to proceed with installs Takase Sakura as the main heroine. Sakura is incredibly cute and I have already mentioned in my review of Edelweiss, that I adore her. She is just the girl any guy would want: she loves porn, checks out girls together with boys and even sexually molests them. Of course every male in the game is dumb as a log and fails to realize that she is a catch of a century. Instead everyone considers her a lesbian and Kazushi - our dear protagonist returning from the previous game - lets it slip that he doesn't consider her at all womanly and that she doesn't have any charms anyone would find adorable.

I challenge you to a game of poker... er, I meant to say love!

Bad move! Sakura presents herself a goal to make Kazushi fall for her and goes about it with a vigor that puts the old adage "All is fair in love and war" to the test. Everything goes here: from love letters written by none other but her best friend Rin, to eyedrops to simulate crying. Sakura and Kazushi put all their efforts to this task and inadvertently start falling in love (something, that Haruma-baka, being the idiot that he is, fails to realize until it's too late).

Kazushi's idiocy is what propels the dramatic events in the second half of the scenario. Frankly I don't like him very much, but I found this scenario to be very well executed, both comedy and drama, and the resolution felt very satisfying. The story also reinforced my love for Sakura as only a saint would put up with someone like our protagonist without bursting a vein.

Must have been a hurricane.

Graphically the game is mostly the same, but one particular change is immediately noticeable. For some reason Rin's sprite was redrawn, with the biggest change happening to her hairstyle. There is one sex scene (actually one for every scenario) and it's probably the best of the three. I make this claim due to the realism of the aforementioned scene. It's quite awkward and fittingly portrays the atmosphere when two inexperienced virgins are trying to have sex with not much knowledge on the matter. Still, it was not a very arousing scene just like all Overdrive scenes, because, frankly, this company doesn't know how to create good H-content.

My one complaint, or just an observation, is that there are two choices in the whole fandisc. One of the is in the prologue and only serves there to help you decide if you want to hear a story about Appo's anal adventures (yes, please, that was fucking hilarious). Another choice is in this - Sakura Rumble - scenario and has absolutely no point to be there. It doesn't change anything, except for a few lines, so why put it there at all. It's misleading and serves no purpose.

Rin and Kazushi and OOOO

Yes, that is indeed the title of the second scenario and obviously it centers on a shy girl Fujisaki Rin, that gets easily flustered. And flustered she will be in this story.

This scenario is the pinnacle of silliness and idiocy and, despite huge potential for a good slapstick comedy, it's not really funny. It goes like this: Kazushi and Fujisaki are elected the President and vice-President of the class respectively. One day they are trying to lift and carry some heavy instruments by Mei-sensei's request, the instruments fall on them and break Kazushi's joystick... Just go with me here... So, at the moment of impact a homunculus slash guardian deity of the island possesses his hurt sausage and saves both Kazushi and Rin. Apparently, homunculus will stay on his magic wand as long as it is needed to heal it completely and Rin, out of obligation and budding love decides to secretly stay in his room too.

Kazushi proudly displays his baseball bat...

In the meantime some unimportant shit happens, some semi-important shit happens (like a Discipline style baseball match) and some serious shit happens (like the Principal deciding that the quickest and most sound solution to all Haruma's problems is to cut of his dick)... Anyway, you know that everything will end well, our heroes will prevail and biggu dikku will ascend to a higher place of existence.

Don't get me wrong, Rin is cute as a button, but I think that Sakura is a better match for Kazushi. The positive aspect is that the story provides a certain insight into Mei's route from the original game.

True End??

The third part is indeed called "True End??" and is a secret unlockable harem end that becomes available only after beating the previous scenarios. It's very short and not that important or rather not important at all.

Yeah, Sakura, you are right. These are good mushrooms.

Kazushi and the two ladies from previous stories are having a picnic here. After a pot of magic mushrooms and a bottle of shouchuu the secret desires flare up and our characters go down for some quality rabbit business. Yes, this scenario is just an extended sex scene and panders to nukige lover crowd. As I have already mentioned, Overdrive is not very good about bringing H-scenes to life and that can be clearly seen.

There is little reason to play this supposed true route. There is no character development, interesting plot or funny comedy.

Conclusion

All in all, this was a mixed bag of a fandisc with some good and some bad. It's definitely worth playing if you want to finally romance the elusive duo that teased you in Edelweiss and it might deliver to some extent, but at least one story is not really good and another one will test your patience for silly humour.

Links of Interest

Visual Novel Database
Official Japanese site
Buy a digital version of the game at MangaGamer
Buy a digital bundle containing the original game and "Eiden Fantasia"
Buy a Deluxe Set package edition that also includes the original game at: MangaGamer, J-list, Anime Corner Store, Rightstuf, Archonia.

Final Verdict: 63%