Welcome to the second installment of my review of Brothers Conflict: Passion Pink! Part one goes into the game system and background of the games along with the first route I played through. Be sure to check it out if you missed it! This time, I’m jumping right into the three routes I’ve recently completed and how my opinions of the game are shifting as I play through it. I was finally able to transfer my screenshots from my Vita to my computer with the help of my fiancé, so I can finally use screenshots with the in-game text!
Here are the routes I’m covering in this article:
One thing I forgot to mention in part one is that there’s a few moments in the game where you can “check” which route you’re currently on/ending you’re headed towards. The first is during Ema’s dad and her brother’s mom’s wedding. Ema’s step mom tells her to marry one of her sons, and one of the brothers pops into her mind. The second is a minor spoiler. I say minor because you go over it in Every. Single. Route.
Spoilers for Ema’s backstory
Turns out Ema is adopted. Her dad is actually her adoptive dad. Her real parents died shortly after she was born. She’s rightfully upset about this and runs away from home, only to be chased by whichever brother you have the highest affinity with. Whichever brother is present in these two events gives you a good idea of where you’re headed!
Subaru
First up is Subaru! He is the 9th son of the family and a second year university student. Coming in at 19 years old he’s not super far out of the age range for Ema to date, so we’re still playing it a bit safe. He is the athletic type and dedicated his life to basketball! He is also terrified of women, which I guess happens when you have only brothers and your mom doesn’t live in the same house as you. He’s awkward but nice, and has no idea how to handle himself now that there’s a girl in the house.
His scenes bounce from funny and awkward moments of him and Ema getting into suggestive situations together to showcasing his athletic ability. While he’s not a traditional tsundere like Yusuke, he does do a lot of sputtering and blushing. I kind of regretted doing his route second, as the nervous schtick got kind of boring. It’s not really Subaru’s fault, though.
Spoilers for Subaru’s Route
There was another interesting dynamic as the route progressed where Subaru basically tried to scare Ema away from him. During the sleepover segments, he goes as far as mentioning that even though they’re siblings, that they’re not blood related and he could do something to her. This doesn’t last long though, because while Ema is surprised she basically tells him that he wouldn’t do that. And she’s right, Subaru is far too gentle a soul. I guess this could be seen as a red flag or creepy but I honestly found it a bit funny. Every time they mentioned the sibling stuff in this game I kinda snort-laughed.
As he opens up to Ema, she learns he is in a bit of a slump when it comes to basketball where he’s unable to perform well on the court. Having built his whole life on basketball, Subaru is extremely stressed out about this and dedicates more time to practice than ever before. Ema decides to watch him play and miraculously, he’s able to shoot on goal properly again. Turns out all he needed was the power of love and Ema cheering him on. Personally, having the person I like watching me do something makes me more nervous, but good for him. He confesses in the extra story. Ema is super surprised because she thought they were already dating (lol).
Subaru is fine! He’s nice! Definitely not really my type, though. This is when I got really annoyed with the schedule system and realized how repetitive the game is, unfortunately. The main story events are always the same so there’s a lot of skipping content you’ve already read. It’s also impossible to avoid ALL of the other brother’s events throughout the game. I always got kinda sad when I triggered an event for another route while not actively trying to play that route. It felt like a spoiler? For example, I triggered a few of Fuuto’s events in this playthrough even though I was aiming for Subaru’s ending. I played through Fuuto’s route next so it felt like I had less content to look forward to.
Fuuto
Fuuto is next, as mentioned above. He’s actually one of the two brothers who are YOUNGER (gasp) than Ema. He’s described as cheeky and sharp-tongued, two adjectives he definitely lives up to. He’s 15 years old, the 12th son in the family, and quite a popular idol. He won’t let you forget it, either. This kid is a brat, to put it bluntly. He flaunts his status whenever he can and loves to tease Ema with innuendos. I wanted to call his mom or manager or someone during the route and tell her that her son is acting up and harassing his new sister.
Spoilers for Fuuto’s Route
The worst part is that this little brat grew on me a lot. Even through calling Ema names and teasing her relentlessly, his more serious side began to show. Fuuto is actually very serious about becoming an actor and is quite vulnerable with Ema at times about his shortcomings and difficulties with this transition. Of course he deflects this immediately afterwards. There’s even a great scene during his Christmas Concert where he admits in song that he can’t be honest with his feelings. He also had some tsundere tendencies where he told her afterwards that obviously it wasn’t about her. His softer side was endearing, once you peel back layers of bratty-ness.
Ema encourages Fuuto’s dream of being an actor, of course. Additionally, this route had quite a bit of crossover with Yusuke’s route. Towards the end, Fuuto joins the high school Yusuke and Ema are attending. Having Yusuke hanging around and knowing he’s been in love with Ema for 2 years kind of made me feel terrible for him. As the year progressed in the game, I noticed that Fuuto’s CG subtly changed as well. His face seemed to become more mature and he definitely got taller. It was a nice touch!
Fuuto and Ema take a late night romantic stroll to view the cherry blossoms, and Fuuto says he’ll tell her something important soon. This, of course, is a romantic confession in the school library. His confidence (and arrogance) was actually attractive here. One of the final scenes is Ema watching a movie that Fuuto stars in. Fuuto sneaks into the theater and gives her a kiss.
He definitely grew on me! He has charisma befitting an idol and his sincere moments were well put together. I still wanted to ground him sometimes, though. One thing to mention is that some brothers have a “sibling” ending where you just kinda tell them “wow I had a lot of fun this year. I’m glad we’re family!” which is somehow more awkward than starting a relationship with them. While I got this ending for Fuuto, I couldn’t trigger one of the family CG events where Fuuto and Yusuke fight over Ema. I think I’ll have to replay the entire route to try and get it, which is such a daunting task I don’t even want to think about it. The fact that I can’t just skip through everything, but manually input the schedule each week to make sure all of the parameters are reached for this ONE CG… ugh. Maybe I’ll try and do that once I’ve finished all of the Passion Pink Routes.
Tsubaki
Tsubaki is one of the pair of twins that I’d consider to be the posterboys of Brothers Conflict. They’re in the middle of all the promotional material, and you get one twin in each game. In Passion Pink we have Tsubaki, the 5th son in the family. He is 24 years old and works as a voice actor with his identical twin Azusa. Now we’re getting a little bit problematic with the age gap! He’s a huge otaku who thinks little sisters are super moe so he’s pumped to finally have a little sister to adore. He’s very friendly and affectionate which was such a nice change from the last three routes I played. He also loved playing up the siblings angle, which I found hilarious. It was just so nice how open and honest he was with his affections even if they’ve over-the-top and a little pushy. He also has the most CGs out of everyone in his game, cementing him as the posterboy in my mind!
Tsubaki loves having Ema around from the start, inviting her to his voice acting events and trying to re-enact weird Sister-Complex tropes that used to be very common in anime. He also has an Oreimo poster in his room, which again, I found hilarious, but in real life if someone liked that anime I’d stay far away from him. I’d say that Ema was in danger around him, but we’re trying to date him here so maybe he’s the one in danger.
Spoilers for Tsubaki’s Route
There’s also a scene where Ema overhears Tsubaki confessing his love to Azusa that she brushes off as voice acting practice and is never mentioned again. Just completely brushed off. This route just goes really hard on some otaku tropes and it was delightful.
I really liked the plotline in this route the most. It felt like it started earlier than in previous routes where the “plot” felt kind of tacked on. Pretty early on into Tsubaki’s route you learn that while he always wanted to be a voice actor, he kind of dragged Azusa into it. Azusa ended up being more popular, giving Tsubaki a bit of a complex. He loves his brother and wants to support him, but also can’t help but feel inferior. This culminates with Azusa being cast in Tsubaki’s dream role, a huge blow to his confidence. To Azusa’s credit, he doesn’t accept the role at first out of love for Tsubaki. Okay, I’m making it sound like they’re the ones getting together. This isn’t a BL game, sorry! Poor Azusa ends up collapsing and is hospitalized for an entire month, and the role is given then to Tsubaki. Ema and Tsubaki share some really raw emotional moments together as they comfort each other about Azusa’s condition.
At first, Tsubaki is trying to be an exact copy of Azusa in the role to no avail. Ema tells him that she loves his voice, because it’s uniquely part of himself and no one else.She encourages him to make the character his own because while they are twins, he and Azusa are different people. Azusa is discharged from the hospital and the pair go to pick him up. Tsubaki admits his inferiority complex to Azusa but resolves to grow and improve as a voice actor in his own right. One little surprise in this scene was a quick confession from Azusa to Ema! He mentioned he fell for her too, but can tell that Tsubaki already has her heart. Don’t worry buddy, you’ll have your chance Brilliant Blue!
I think Tsubaki’s confession scene is my favorite so far. He’s very explicit that he loves her romantically far more than he loves her as a sister, and wants her by his side forever. He also mentions that his bedroom is completely soundproof so no one else will hear the noises she makes~. We get three different kiss CGs and even multiple sneak kisses throughout the route!
This is definitely my favorite route so far. I loved his friendly and sometimes overbearing personality, and as an otaku myself I appreciated his dedication not only to his craft but his messy room filled with figures and posters. The conflict was well paced and realistic and definitely had the best kissing CGs yet! His hair covering one of his eyes completely didn’t even bother me. The end.
But wait, there’s a secret ending hidden in Tsubaki’s route!
Spoilers for Tsubaki’s Route Secret Ending
The twins ending! That’s right, play your cards right and raise the affection of both Azusa and Tsubaki carefully you can have both! Except I can’t fucking get this ending! At all! No matter what guide I use, no matter who’s advice I take, I cannot get this ending. I genuinely think it might be a bug with the fan translation patch that locks you out of this route. I’m going to keep trying, but I got so frustrated after 2 hours of trying to get this ending I just watched it on YouTube.
Azusa and Tsubaki are cast in a new project playing twin brothers, and want Ema to listen to them more than anything. Tsubaki admits that he never thought someone could understand him like Azusa until Ema came along, and says that he feels like he can do anything with both Azusa and Ema by his side. Azusa agrees and says that he’s never felt so passionate about anything before, and wants to do his best for Tsubaki and Ema. Suddenly the twins ask Ema how she feels about them and she freezes, thinking she has to choose. Don’t worry girl, they can’t choose either. So, it’s all three of them together from now on, as all three of them love each other. Maybe that confession scene with Azusa from earlier in Tsubaki’s route was real, eh? Tsubaki says that she belongs to them, and Azusa says that they belong to her. There’s a very steamy fade to black here where Ema doesn’t know who’s touching and kissing her as they embrace her at the same time and I’m so UNBELIEVABLY pissed off that I can’t get this ending for myself. Ugh. I might die mad about it.
It’s already a miracle that I have a patched version of this game so I should really chill out, though. Despite how frustrating it is trying to fill out the CG gallery and how tedious I find the schedule system, I am really liking the scenes you get throughout the year. There’s a lot of smaller events you can trigger based on various factors that are always a nice surprise, like if you play certain games or watch certain movies on specific days. Even without CGs, it’s nice seeing all of the characters interact. But I really think it could use more of these, or consolidate the scheduling somehow. Or like, a cheat mode after you get enough endings where you can just play some of the goddamn scenes you can’t manage to trigger. If I ever manage to get the events I missed I’ll come back and edit this article.
Stay tuned for when we get wild and seduce the much older brothers Hikaru, Kaname, and Masaomi! Let’s see if any of the older, more mature step brothers have any issues dating their new step sister. Probably not! If I have trouble with any of their events or endings I might pull my hair out! Bye now!
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