A LOT OF FIRE HEART

Alfa System‘s Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines isn’t exactly what it appears on the surface if you’re unfamiliar with its 1999 PlayStation predecessor, Ore no Shikabane o Koete Yuke (roughly translating to “Over My Dead Body”). Certainly, the story is fairly up-front from the start. It’s medieval Japan, and the nation’s collection of holy artifacts have mysteriously gone missing. Sorcerer Abe no Seimei convinces the emperor that the only way to appease the gods for this dire tragedy is to sacrifice the entire clan who was responsible for protecting the holy places. Many years later, things aren’t great in the absence of the artifacts, and the gods still aren’t satisfied, so they resurrect the sacrificed clan in order to finally end the chaos. As the leader of this clan, you are tasked with hunting Seimei down to reclaim the lost artifacts. Besides purely seeking vengeance and justice, you must also eliminate him in order to lift the Curse of Broken Lineage and the Curse of Ephemerality he placed on your clan. And that’s where the game takes a turn, though not necessarily for worse.

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