Kiniro no Corda: Full Voice Special deserved more attention

Ruby Party’s Kiniro no Corda series is one the developer and Koei Tecmo likes to constantly bring back up again. Many entries in this series have received ports and follow-ups with additional content. This means that some people might wonder which one is better than the others. It might even cause a few of the follow-ups to be forgotten along the way. One of these might just be the Nintendo 3DS version of Kiniro no Corda 3: Full Voice Special, which is the third version of this particular game and happened to arrive after this installment’s Another Sky fan disc.

Kiniro no Corda 3 first made its debut back in 2010. It was a rather big deal for the series. It introduced a whole new heroine, Kanade Kohinata, and 12 bachelors. It also stepped into the future of the Seiso Academy, a school known for its musical curriculum. This is in addition to an actual music game that appears during the performances. But in the years since, it reappeared with a PlayStation Portable Full Voice Special edition in 2013 and received three AnotherSky fan discs in 2014 following other schools from this installment, Amane Gakuen, Jinnan and Shiseikan. By the time the Nintendo 3DS version rolled around in 2015, the hype was largely over. This is unfortunate, because this release did a lot for this particular game.

Part of this is because of the range it offered. Kiniro no Corda has largely been a PlayStation and PC exclusive for years. Having Kiniro no Corda 3: Full Voice Special on the 3DS is a big deal. It had the possibility of introducing a whole new audience to the series and expand the system’s otome library. Because really, it was lacking otherwise. All there was before it was Hakuoki: Memories of the Shinsengumi.

Especially since Kiniro no Corda 3: Full Voice Special on the 3DS ended up being the most content-heavy when it came to the storyline. It had full voice acting, even for songs. It included all of the DLC from the original game. There was the screenshot option. People had additional images and the 20 new events that unlocked after earning all of them. Not to mention 12 new CGs exclusive to events in this game. It did the best job of telling the story, yet ended up coming in on the tail end of things.

But the most important part was Tournament Mode. As I mentioned earlier, this was the Kiniro no Corda to add a rhythm game. In the 3DS release, 34 character songs were added to the Tournament Mode. This version substantially upped the overall library and really drove home the fact that this was not only a game about music. After all, the series is known for having some lovely melodies. Seeing so many more songs in the 3DS port helps highlight that.

Kiniro no Corda 3 is one of those games that otome fans remember. It is a game that changed the formula a bit, expanding the roster of bachelors and making the music more important along the way. While this has meant multiple releases, it also means people may not know as much about the Nintendo 3DS version of Kiniro no Corda 3: Full Voice Special. If someone has a system capable of playing it, it really ends up being an enjoyable and rich entry.