It took me a while, but I finally finished playing Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon.

I played the Switch version, but it’s also on PS4. There’s no Steam version yet, but Witch on the Holy Night eventually came to Steam, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Tsukihime does eventually.

While I might refer to this as the Tsukihime remake, it would be more accurate to say it’s the first part of the Tsukihime remake. Yes, to remake this visual novel, they decided to split it into two parts. A Piece of Blue Glass Moon covers the first two routes.

Now, let me tell you my Tsukihime story.

I was excited for Tsukihime because I enjoyed Witch on the Holy Night. I knew it was in the same universe and also linked to the Fate series, and that’s basically all I knew about it. I did see people say it had some spooky elements and involved vampires, so I started playing it in October (although I didn’t finish it nearly in time for our spooky celebration).

So I started playing Tsukihime not really knowing what to expect, and it seemed pretty straightforward at first, there was some humor, some mystery, some hints of supernatural things at work, and I was just settling in for a quiet slow burn when Shiki (the protagonist) passed a woman walking down the street and I quickly realized I had no idea what sort of wild ride I was in for.

Shortly afterwards I learned that Tsukihime doesn’t just involve vampires; it’s about vampires. The vampires and all the zombies, ghouls, and other monstrosities they bring with them are actually a core part of the story, so not only did it blindside me with its plot events, but it also turned to be even more my sort of thing than I thought it would be.

So, why did it take me so long to finish? I can answer in a single word: Arcueid.

Arcueid, Arcueid, my beautiful vampire princess. She’s so funny, they’re so cute together, everything about them brought such a smile to my face.

You know, I’ve heard people talk about playing a galge or otome and falling so in love with one character that they couldn’t move on, and I always thought that was silly, so it’s really ironic that it finally happened to me with a girl instead of a character I’d be personally attracted to. But it’s true! I was so invested in Shiki and Arcueid and that the thought of starting the second character’s route felt like heresy.

Anyway, I finished Arcueid’s route in early October and didn’t start Ciel’s route until January because I was still so hung up on Arcueid. To make matters worse, Ciel’s route is full of Arcueid moments that did not dampen my preference for Arcueid over Ciel one bit.

But despite my complaining, Ciel’s route is also really good and has some incredible moments that stood out to me even more.

Tsukihime has a flowchart that makes it convenient to see what scenes and branches you’ve missed (although I wish you could move forward on the flowchart to scenes you’ve already seen instead of just backward from your current save), so I went back through after getting the main endings to see all the alternate choices and branches and bad endings that I’d missed during my playthrough.

I thought maybe my feelings would have changed – but nah, every new Arcueid scene was still pure gold that left me cheering for Shiki/Arcueid as the only true answer.

Now, if you see every ending, Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon ends with a teaser for Tsukihime: The Other Side of Red Garden, the second half of the remake. It seems like it might be a long wait, since they’ve barely said anything about it so far, but I’ll be looking forward to it for sure.

You might feel wary of playing a remake that only has part of the original content, but Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon definitely has enough content for a full visual novel on its own. Its two routes might not cover everything (and there were a lot of little hints that made me curious about the other routes), but they feel like complete stories in their own right. It’s definitely worth playing, and I’m happy I gave this one a try.