Feb 152021
Highway Blossoms came to me by way of a visual novel bundle, and all I knew about it was that it was a yuri road trip romance.
No one told me it was about a treasure hunt!
As you might expect from someone whose Animal Crossing island is modeled after Oak Island, I love a good treasure hunt story.
So when I got far enough into Highway Blossoms to realize the search for buried gold was actually a central part of this visual novel, I was immediately invested.
Amber is traveling to a music festival when she comes across Marina, a somewhat oblivious young woman who has left home on her own for the first time and needs a little help. When they end up traveling together, Amber gets caught up in Marina’s search for the buried treasure revealed in an old miner’s journal.
The story is a lot of fun, with a lot of funny moments (and of course the excitement of the treasure hunt). Amber and Marina’s relationship is the good old grumpy-loner-meets-sunshine-character dynamic, so if you enjoy that, you’ll probably love watching their relationship develop over the course of the story.
It has some fairly emotional moments, but overall it’s really a feel-good visual novel. I wasn’t sold on the voice acting at first, but it grew on me over time.
There are also a number of extras included, such as getting to read Marina’s thoughts on certain parts or play through a joke-filled abridged version of the story.
I enjoyed Highway Blossoms, and if it sounds interesting to you, you should give it a chance. There’s also a DLC side story that I don’t have, so I’ll consider whether or not to play that in the future since it sounds like the focus is a bit different.
What do you think of Highway Blossoms? Have you ever started a game you were ambivalent about, only to realize you’d have tried it much sooner if you knew what it was about? (The Yakuza series is another good example of that happening to me.) Share your thoughts in the comments!
Manga style + desert makes me think of Wild Arms. And that’s a good thing. It has great reviews too.
Haha, I can see that, and the treasure hunting idea fits with that to some degree too. This is set on Earth, though, so it doesn’t quite have the same sort of tone as Wild Arms.
(With that said, how long do we have to wait for Wild Arms to make a comeback?)
You reminded me there was something about a mobile game, so I looked that up and apparently it got shut down already. ;_;
The future seems pretty bleak for Wild Arms. Same with Breath of Fire. Seems like both mobile games didn’t make it outside of Japan either? Very sad. Though it seems the magic of those old JRPGs has passed on anyway. I can only think of one or two JRPG that captured the essence of the PS1 era.
Yeah, that’s unfortunate. Although at least the Wild Arms mobile game was presented as a spin-off. The Breath of Fire mobile game was the next numbered title, and it was a disaster, so I have even less hope for Breath of Fire returning.
I think I have the game from that same bundle, or at least a similar one. Maybe I should give it a try!
Go for it! It can be a smaller title between some of your longer games.