Ariard~少年アリス~ Walkthrough: Prologue

Loveless here.

The first game I am going to present is Ariard~少年アリス~ since it is my most recently played game. Just looking at the title is enough to know that it is a retelling of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, though here the protagonist is male and they rarely mention it is a wonderland (instead they often call it The Underland or the Land Under - 地下の国), but of course there is a reason for that.

The story goes as this: Wonderland is in decline and in need of a new Queen before it is too late. The Queen is the only person who has a connection to the very core of the world, The World Tree. Through this connection the chosen King gains immeasurable power that enables him to shape the very world the way he wants. But when the current Queen falls ill to the corruption of her King, the sky turns red and the Underland becomes unstable.

When he was a young child Arisumi falls through one of the holes and finds himself in Wonderland, where he signs a contract to become the next Queen. Soon after that he returned to the World Above and forgets all about his experience. Now as he is in high school (which means 17 or 18 years old) he has to return once again and set the world right with the one he chooses to be his King.

Instead of an Introduction

「そして十、皆仲良くプレイしましょう」―――　テト、ノーゲーム・ノーライフ

As I felt a bit awkward starting this blog-thing without any introduction, I’ll take the liberty of writing one.

So, basically, this is made in accordance with all those pitiful people who don’t know and don’t intend on learning Japanese, but still want to enjoy the story and plot of a good BL game.  Me and my sister will provide full walkthroughs, so that those components are carefully explained, because what is a game if you have no idea what is going on around you? We’re not five years old to just watch the pretty pictures and listen to the voices that speak in a language we do not understand. Plus, clicking randomly on different choices doesn’t do us any good if are not sure exactly why we chose those.

The idea of this blog-thingie was brought up due to the lack of solid walkthrough base for people who do not understand Japanese but still want to play those games, because… FEELS. Even though I personally cannot imagine myself playing without knowing anything else beside “kawaii”, I am almost sure at least half the fanbase is made up of such individuals. I know not everyone is capable of confronting a language as difficult as Japanese, since many people I know just couldn’t keep up and quit in the end. But with perseverance, new horizons will open upon thee.  And that translation programme or what was it that most of the people use can’t grasp the essence of Japanese and thus is not able to translate everything right. Plus that copy/paste stuff for every single line must be exhausting enough by itself.

Now I’ll explain how I see the procedure from now on.

First, as I mentioned above, this blog will be operated by me and my sister and due to some circumstances we will be only using this account, so to differentiate between one another, we’ll start every walkthrough with who is actually the one doing it. I one-sidedly decided on nicknames without asking first – mine will be Loveless, while my sister’s is going to be Beloved. And that is also in order to commemorate the first ever anime we both watched and got hooked up on the genre.

Second, each of us will write a walkthroughs on different games, that meaning I will pick a game and write from start to finish only about it and my sister will get a different game and do the same. One person, one game. Though, there might be a case where we split a game in two, but I believe this will be a rare event. Of course, if either of us has some deep thoughts and emotions she wants to share, but the other is currently working on that game, maybe a short (or not so short) game review might be added.

Third, all walkthroughs will be split into two main parts – prologue and main content. Basically we’ll have separate posts about the prologue and each character’s route. That means we’ll drop the extremely long posts because as I mentioned before we’re planning on detailed walkthroughs.

Fourth, I’ll try keeping the spoilers to the bare minimum, but I’m not exactly good at that, so if you see the name Loveless in the beginning, tread carefully. Because MAIN SPOILERS and FEELS (of course).

For now that is all I can come up with, but I am sure more will pop up in the future, so I guess these things will be dealt with as time passes.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this will all come together. ☆～（ゝ。∂）