Samurai of Hyuga Book 3

Samurai of Attunement sure is a fun cyoa... if you don't want to choose your own adventure

Yeah, it's all downhill from here. For the choices it gives you, know that nothing is changed beyond your surface personality and insertions, like or , and the initial response sentence to them. Just adds a bit of flavor. Attunement seems irrelevant, at least for the entire story so far.

Author has a story he wants to tell, usually at the expense of your ronin. That's well and good, but so far as a 'Hero's Journey' is concerned, this is the beginning of that downward inertia. Maybe it will be better in book 6, but who knows? Certainly not me. And, if the trend begun in book 3, then proceeding thru books 4 and 5, continues? well, this is a good place to cut your losses, assuming, that is, that you have an image of your ronin as anything beyond a self-flagellating loser.

It wouldn't be such a big deal if your efforts were occasionally rewarded, rather than denigrated. For every single page of 'positive' or enjoyable stuff, there's at least two chapters of deflation, like your good time is air in a balloon slowly being fart-squeaked out in that high pitch whine.

---Definitely the weakest entry. So much to do, so many ways to really mess it up. If you care about attunement, this one is a nightmare. Countless dialogue choices that seemingly fit your character's animal/personality, in actuality, do not. And you'll take a -5% to -20% hit per derp.

I'll be honest, and recommend the game(s) for their overall quality. Make no mistake, however, trying to be anything but a chump is a losing battle. First and second playthroughs I tried on my own, third and fourth i used the Steam guides. Basically the same hat, different weather.

Samurai of Hyuga Book 3 is a text-based, choose-your-own-adventure game developed and published by Hosted Games. As the name states, it is the third game in the Samurai of Hyuga series, so suffice it to say that it's best to have played the previous two in the series before reading this review, as there will be spoilers. Of course, you can also check out my reviews of Samurai of Hyuga and Samurai of Hyuga Book 2. As usual, you take on the role of a ronin, a samurai without a master, who has ended up in a mansion on an island along with your charge and trusty companions. At the end of Book 2, you won a vacation to this island and all the amenities that the host has to offer although you're secretly on a mission to hunt and kill demons, having been ordered to do so by the emperor himself. However, there's a bit of a hiccup, as the chef of the mansion has been found murdered. Thus, the first part of this story delves into you being thrust into the role of a detective and then a defense attorney, while the latter part focuses on continuing your ongoing mission of hunting and killing demons.

As for the gameplay, there are lots of choices presented throughout the story. However, before you delve into the story, you're given options as to preload a save file from Book 2 or create an entirely new character. (For review purposes, I used save files from Book 2.) Once that's done, then you can get into the actual story. Although the choices are mostly multiple-choice, there are a few times where they're more fill-in-the-blank, mainly in the first part of the story. The fill-in-the-blank aspect is entirely new, as this is my first encounter with it in any CYOA. As you play through the story, the game keeps track of your character's personality attributes, like whether they're more impulsive or calculating. Of course, there are lots of Steam/in-game achievements, and they count towards a user's global total.

Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my thoughts. It has been quite a while since I played the previous book in this series, so I was a bit concerned that I'd entirely forget what happened to my character and her companions. Fortunately, the game does a great job of summarizing the events of the previous books, so I was able to catch up on events. Now, with the first part of the story, I read a few reviews (after I finished the game, of course), and there are mixed reactions about this. I understand why this is the case, as it feels weird that the MC has to suddenly become a detective in order to exonerate their friend from being executed. Personally, I don't mind that there's an investigation and a trial afterwards, as I enjoy a good murder investigation. However, it breaks a bit of immersion in regards to the MC, as they're supposed to be a ronin, more of a fighter. Once this part of the story is over, though, then it gets back on track, with the MC and her companions off to find the next demon. I enjoyed this part of the story as well, as I got to see the characters in a rural area, so very different from the previous two books in which the characters were in cities. Especially, I liked observing the personality change in the MC, which is first noted by her ninja companion (the one who serves the emperor). This ends up making a difference since at the end of the story, due to a certain tragedy that turns the MC cold, they decide to leave the others and finally confront their past. Clearly, the cliffhanger is meant for the reader to want to read Book 4, which I will eventually get around to. XD

As for the choices, I observed that most of them affect the MC's attunement. Basically, if a choice is in harmony with the MC's personality, then attunement will increase or stay the same. As the choices I picked were almost always in harmony, I didn't notice any changes in how the MC behaved towards other characters. I assume that if many of the user's choices end up decreasing the MC's attunement too much, then their personality would markedly change. Ahh I should note that with the fill-in-the-blank segments, I have mixed feelings about this. Although I understand the writer's intent to have the reader think about the murder, figure out the clues, and whatnot, this part can be difficult if the reader isn't prepared for solving a murder. Thankfully, there is a user guide if you get stuck on this part. However, I was able to obtain all of the achievements, but it might take a couple of playthroughs (at least) in order to do so.

Since this is a text-based adventure, there isn't any accompanying art or music. This might be a turn off for those who want their games to have these aspects, but if you simply want to read and get absorbed in a story, willing to use your imagination to picture the characters, events, etc., then there won't be any issues with reading this CYOA.

Overall, would I recommend Samurai of Hyuga Book 3? If you enjoy a good CYOA and have especially followed the Samurai of Hyuga series, I think this is worth taking a look. It picks up where Book 2 left off, so you'll definitely want to know what happens next. Also, I liked the cliffhanger at the end, making me want to get around to Book 4 and find out what happens to the MC. For the asking price, I'd say it's worth getting, as it took me over 8 hours to obtain all of the achievements. (I went through two playthroughs.) Of course, you can wait to get it on sale, and it's in a couple of Steam bundles. ^^

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I have to say that I did enjoy the first book very much and rode the fond memories of the first book into the adequate second book. But this third book was a pain to play through. There were moments of good chapters, but overall, I was left confused and bored from the new sleuthing play style. The thing that bothered me the most however, was the randomness I felt that came from the choices that would rapidly decrease attunement. Half way through the book I resigned myself to this unforgiving mechanism that was punishing to play through. I forced myself to make uncertain choices for the sole purpose of finding how the plot moves forward in book 4. Disappointing to say the least.

l love this book as much i hate it. And that's a lot of love and hate. 10/10

The first half is definitely Umineko. That's what I think when I read it. Then, it kind of goes back to Rurouni Kenshin vibes. Even the ending in a way.

Not as good as the first two but hopefully served its purpose. Though only after reading the 4th will I know if it worked. I was not a fan of the main "Fallen" theme, and did not really like the deduction or observation as it made me feel like (As with most of the choices in this book) like I had to make the RIGHT choice not MY choice as the previous two did WAY better with that.

This feels like 2 books in one. The 1st part you're trying to solve a mystery. How good you are at solving the mystery will affect your 2 new stat bars, Observation and Deduction. Later these stats will give you hints in an immersive way. The 1st part is just okay and feels alot like Book 2. BUT OMG the 2nd part is amazing and brings out all the feels! You're mostly preparing a group of misfits for a competition, a fight to the death.

Pros:
-Felt alot longer than 225,000 words.
-Group conflicts and secrets make it hard to trust your companions, but also really humanizes them.
-Lots of twists and fake outs.
-Your decisions come back to haunt you, unintended consequences.
-Can get pretty dark.
-MANY duels with interesting decisions. No more games, this is life or death for you and your friends.
-Hard decisions, found myself 2nd guessing alot.

Cons:
-Some options just aren't well explained and are the complete opposite of what you intended to do.

Overall:
-You'll hate some of the choices you make, but this is what makes this story so great. You feel flawed and human. I think it's worth full price, not just for the feels. There's alot of replayability, few CYOA games are this long, and the story continues after this book.

Okay, I really liked book 1 and book 2 was okay for the most part (I wasn’t a fan of the shogi games). This game, well it was still good, however I felt that it was two different stories in a way. I personally feel that the island from book 2 and the beginning of this game should haven been one whole story and that the part after the start should have been it’s own game as they’re vastly different.
That being said I love the characters and the series takes me back to the days when I used to watch Kenshin which this kinda matches the feeling of. The story—if you minus the complaint above—is quite good and reminiscent of manga or an anime episode.
The game is long though so you may want to take breaks if you can, or you may get frustrated. (Especially since there’s no saves.) I’d buy the game on sale, but not full priced. I got frustrated too many times to recommend it at full price.

Two things confused me with this game: First was the price, which was higher than the previous two books. Second, was the detective-like elements of the first part of the game. I was genuinely concerned that I may have made a mistake by purchasing this game. That it was deviating from what I've come to expect from Samurai of Hyuga, while also punching the price up. However, I am glad to say that this was a great entry. It is both longer and more complex than the previous two games, while being just as fun to play. It is well worth the higher price.

The series has always had an issue with not making it clear what the single sentence decisions mean because more often than not depending on how you read it an option could in theory be what you'd hope to get, only for your attunement to lower.

Now you're adding a whole detective portion in the beginning, followed by an extremely long portion after that which I didn't care for. With no save points this means I slowly saw the punishing system where one mistake is worth way more than a solid choice, and my attunement kept lowering. This is too much. The other novels' shorter length was fine with this system since ultimately I could retry portions to keep my score high, but now I am not about to replay ALL of this to teach the point I am in. Particularly when what I'm reading isn't necessarily something I'm enjoying.

I read the previous two chapters of the story and have very much looked forward to the continuation of the series. To say that I'm disappointed would be an understatement. The problems come from a few 'design' decisions and narrative decisions that actually made me quit in disgust nearly 7 hours into the story.

First and foremost, is the 'Attunement' stat. This was something present in the previous chapters and although I really did not like it, was understandable a majority of the time. 'Attunement' is something that is supposed to track your decisions and determine if they align with your rigidly defined attributes that were established in the first chapter (a problem in and of itself imo). There are several issues with this system that I will explain below.

The worst issue is the fact that your choices are almost never clearly correlated with the attribute they're supposed to be representing. Meaning the choice that just got you 'Attunement Lost' makes NO SENSE whatsoever. So you'll be getting constantly punished for not choosing the 'right' choice because you can't parse out the utterly incomprehensible link that each option has to a certain attribute. It's INFURIATING!

The other issue is the fact that the ENTIRE POINT of these CYOA games is give the player the freedom to choose how to respond/what to do and guide the story how they see fit. This 'Attunement' system instead makes the entire thing feel like a multiple choice test with the most ambiguous solutions you could possibly imagine. It's so counter-intuitive to what these games are supposed to be it's actually tragic.

My primary problem with the story in general is that it doesn't even feel like you're playing the same character as the previous chapters. In this one, you are UTTERLY PATHETIC. I think the cardinal sin in CYOA games is making the player feel powerless, and this game does it worse than I have ever experienced. Your character is weak, ineffectual, and most of the time completely powerless to do anything but whine, lose fights over and over in embarrassing fashion, and watch helplessly as his friends are murdered in front of him/her.

I've bought and enjoyed all 3 previous stories from this author but this one was an awful and infuriating waste of my time. I will not be purchasing or following any more titles in this series nor from this writer. It seems harsh, but the last time I was this disgusted by a sequel to something I liked was Dragon Age 2. Unless you want to play a multiple choice quiz where you get humiliated by anyone and everyone for 6+ hours and feel powerless while doing so, SKIP this one.

Okay, I might be in the minority, but I wasn't reading this series to become a detective. I am not sure I will even finish the story and that is a shame because the first 2 books were so good.

This doesn't even feel like the same series. I am not a big fan of who dunnit stories, and I certainly wasn't expecting it here.

It sad that I can't recommend this book, despite loving the first 2 books of the series, but unless you are looking for or love detective stories stay away, because you are no longer a bad a$$ ronin, but a sad replica of Sherlock Holmes.

This book in the series, I have to say, took the most turns than the previous entries. At many moments I was left wondering what the "right" answer would have been in ways I did not find myself asking in either Book 1 or 2, which I was almost always consistent with the character I had created, Rin. In Book 3, I felt every other option I selected decreased my attunement, which I have gauged for a long time now as the metronome of how consistent my character was with her particular personality (and by that nature, her spirit as the Striped Snake). With the conclusion of Book 3, Rin is filled with many regrets she may well, never recover from.

The beginning was an interesting shake up from the usual stuff in Hyuga, but not much different than the Shogi matches in Book 2, so I was pleased with it. What I was less pleased with was how the demon met his demise... I was left very, very confused by what was happening in it, and was releaved when it moved on to the main plot of this book. It felt like too much was going on to keep track of. In fact, I found the number of items that needed to be accounted for in this book rose pretty dramatically compared to the others. It took a lot of mental gymnastics to "play optimally" and I often didn't. Rin-"sensei" was marred with failure in this book.

Which, while I am unhappy for the sake of our protagonists, is fairly realistic! In life, it will never be always smooth sailing, and you will make many choices which you regret, so I say that regret should definately be a characteristic of this on going story, of our most interesting Ronin of Hyuga.

I await patiently for Book 4

Another fantastic entry in this series. Again, I have to give this a 10/10 and I'm already beyond eager for the next installment. Hopefully it's not another year away.

God Damn I can't wait for book 4, I both love and hate how well they do cliffhangers. This is probably the most annoying cliffhanger for me. 10/10 gonna play/read again.

I waited for what seemed like a small eternity for this installment to come out, and man was I so excited when i was working my way back through all the new releases on steam and found that i had some how missed it when this came out! was in my cart immediately and within minutes I was in "That World" again.
I was doing well, I almost seemingly too easily managed to steer my way through the trap had been sprung on me at the end of the last installment. Victory was at hand and i was feeling smug, until uhm I wasnt? Something happens and suddenly Im powerless and succumb when I should have been slitting someones throat with my katana. Somehow my spirit animal frees me, but only after chastizing me for not waitting for the right timing (uhm sorry little guy but no one gave me that option, really!) And once again Im challenging the bad guy with my sword. Only somehow I end up fighting more with myself than the bad guy and apparently break something important to who I am in the process.
Then the real story of this installment starts. But Im not who I was and no matter the choices I seem to make their the wrong ones, and Im failling at everything I should be suceeding at.... all the way to the end of this book.
This is The Empire Strikes Back on steroids. It made me ask Why? It made me angry enough to rage quit at 1am in the morning, and when I decided to finish it after I got home from work today, it made me want to cry for what befell my beloved ronin.
Do I recomend this game? Yes, with the caveat that you are prepared to deal with the game not playing fair. Honestly its a good thing my character is a ronin and not a samuria, otherwise I think he would have commited seppuku.

I have been playing with the same save file since book 1 and I still was not prepared for the feels this game left me. Devon Connell you are a goshdang master of this craft

Never disappointing, this game is awesome. Choice of Games should really consider giving it more visibility!

I been following this series since first book. It has a interesting plot, character and most importantly choices with consequences. Consequences that carry over from first book to this book. It is well worth our money and time. My only disappointment is the ending. It was shoved to our face abruptly. The writing is very good with great interactions between characters and meaningful character development. The ending did nothing to reflect that. Nevertheless, if there is another book, I will be looking forward to it. Hopefully to bring a much better closure.

9/10 Baka of Hyuga Book 3

A good installment in the series. Pick it up if you liked the other two games. Shame that it feels so short and the end feels somewhat abrupt. The extra text stuff was interesting but wasn't used too much after the first few chapters. Those didn't help with replayability but at least they weren't bad.