Hakuouki routes

[waterscroll]

scytale asked which are my favorite Hakuouki routes. The shorter answer: every single one that I've done has been worth doing. The Harada route is my least favorite, but even in that route once I step back from self-inserting on to Chizuru and ask what Harada-route Chizuru wants I can see that he's good for her. And in a game which lets love and a happy ending look like many different things it's maybe OK that *one* of the things is kind of conventional. Also Shiranui is great in the Harada route and makes it worthwhile.

The Okita, Saito and Heisuke routes I thought were the best developed as romances. The Hijikata route was also long and elaborate but for most of it Chizuru is Hijikata's page rather than his girlfriend. It's a nicely done and very close samurai/page relationship but it doesn't turn romantic until close to the very end.

The newer routes (including Kazama, who had a very short route in the original) are shorter and less developed so I found that they required more headcanons and spacklefic. But that's not bad. I love Sanan so much that I can't be rational about him, but I did need to write some fanfic to make his route work for me. Similarly with Nagakura. Sakamoto is *great* but his route is very different from all the others. There's an untranslated sequel that has extra scenes for the new routes, and hopefully it will be translated one day, because the new routes do feel a little unfinished.

If you want more details on the routes I recommend alias_sqbr's excellent reaction posts.