Since a couple people expressed suprise at hearing about this and hijacked Alex Kaldara’s GA2 thread 
, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give it it’s own thread for discussion and such.
On Nov. 5th, Mirror Moon finally finished and released their english translation of Type-Moon’s critically acclaimed visual novel, Tsukihime. The patch can be found at their site.
With respect to Mirror Moon’s wishes, I’m simply not going to talk about how to actually acquire the game in this thread, and it’d probably be best if everyone else did the same. You can find some resources regarding purchasing the actual game on mirror moon’s site if you’re so inclined.
Tsukihime is what many would term a “visual novel”; a long, branching story with pictures and sounds to help accentuate parts of the story, and choices that can be made at various points that will affect the outcome of the game. For those who haven’t seen the anime or aren’t familiar with the world of Tsukihime at all, I’ll provide a brief summary of the main characters here:
This is Shiki Tohno, the main character from who’s viewpoint you will experience the story. The only son of the rich and affluent Tohno family, he got in a terrible accident as a child. After this accident, he was plagued with the ability to see special “lines” all over things. These lines represented the “death” of that object, and he could cut along them just as easily as a knife goes through butter. Luckily, he was given a pair of glasses by a mysterious woman which allowed him to hide the lines from his vision and prevent him from going insane. After the accident, he was sent to live with the Arima family by his father, where he stayed for a number of years. But recently, just after his father’s death, he has been called back to the Tohno mansion…
Arcueid Brunestud. A vampire princess. Her reasons for walking the earth at the beginning of the story are unknown, but Shiki happens to come across her one day while walking home. For reasons he does not understand, he does something terrible, and as a result of that, becomes involved in a darker part of the world he has never seen before.
Ciel, Shiki’s senpai at school. An energetic, cheerful girl with an insatiable love for all things curry, she happens to meet Shiki one day. On the outside, she seems like a normal high school girl, but Shiki begins to notice some very strange things about her. Is there something he doesn’t know about?
Akiha Tohno, Shiki’s little sister. After their father’s death and Shiki being sent off, she became the heir to the Tohno family. Though they used to play together constantly as children, Shiki was seperated from Akiha when he was sent to live with the Arimas. When Shiki returns to the Tohno mansion, he finds Akiha has changed drastically from the shy, affectionate girl he knew as a child. Now she has become a strict, noble and cold young lady. Though she mostly regards her brother coldly now, one can occasionally see a hint of concern for him. What happened to her in those years that Shiki was gone?
Hisui, one of the twin maids that works at the Tohno mansion. When Shiki returns, Hisui is assigned to him as his personal maid. She is emotionless and stoic, and spends her days dutifully cleaning the mansion or attending to Shiki’s needs. Shiki tries to coerce some kind of emotion out of her but it doesn’t ever seem to work. Her face brings back some of Shiki’s childhood memories: A cheerful red haired girl that used to play with them, and her twin, always staring out from the window in the mansion, never coming out…
Kohaku, Hisui’s twin sister. She handles the cooking and is Akiha’s personal maid. Her personality is the polar opposite of Hisui’s, she is always smiling and cheerful. Like Hisui, her face brings back some memories for Shiki. However, something doesn’t feel quite right…
These 5 girls make up the main story arcs of Tsukihime. It is rather easy to follow an arc, for the most part you simply need to focus your attention as much as you can on whoever you choose. It should be noted that you must first do at least one of the Near Side of the Moon arcs (Arcueid’s or Ciel’s) before you can do the Far Side of the Moon arcs (Akiha, Hisui, and Kohaku). Additionally, Hisui’s arc must be completed before you can do Kohaku’s, and it is HIGHLY recommended that you do Akiha’s arc before you do Kohaku’s. To summarize, Type-Moon’s recommended order is Arcuied -> Ciel -> Akiha -> Hisui -> Kohaku. All of the girls except one have both a “True” ending and a “Good” ending. If you screw up and get a bad end, Ciel-sensei and friends will show up to give you some tips!
There IS some erotic content, however, it only makes up a very small part of the story. Additionally, if you wish to skip it all together, Mirror Moon has provided a non-ero version that removes the ero scenes without screwing up the story too much.
In my opinion Tsukihime is a VERY interesting and well written mystery/suspense/horror game, and Mirror Moon has done an absolutely fantastic job on the translation. The art is a little subpar but that’s totally forgivable considering it was released back in Dec 2000 when Type-Moon was very young. The story more than makes up for it. I’ve only gotten 2 of the 5 arcs done so far but I’ve been completely engrossed in it lately. It should be noted that there is a LOT, and I mean a LOT of text, and you will have to sink quite a few hours in to get through an arc, so don’t let yourself get too engrossed in it and lose track of time 
I’m sure a lot of us have been waiting for this for quite awhile and I have to say, it doesn’t dissapoint at all. I can only hope that more translation teams can manage to get more visual novels translated in the future, because it’s been a great experience for me with Tsukihime.
