In Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei, your choices will influence Shanao's growth in three categories. Here is how to maximize their potential.

Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei tracks the decisions players make with the sort of flowchart one would expect to find in many other visual novels. The flowchart doesn't reveal its hand, informing you of how every choice affected the outcome of your file, until after you have completed a given route at least once. Fair enough.

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On the other hand, Birushana touts several visible bars that will rise (terrible pun unintended) based on those very same responses. Think of it as getting a little "RPG DNA" in your visual novel. There's an Affection Meter designed to reflect on how well you're doing with your chosen partner, but we'll be covering the other three topics: Strength, Knowledge, and Kindness.

First, the easy answer: strength, knowledge, and kindness are expressions of Shanao's personality, words that summarize the degree of courage, curiosity, and compassion she possesses.

Of course, that's all rather obvious. Better to discuss what these parameters actually do within the context of Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei. For that answer, one need only consider the ultimate goal of the game. As with most otome, there are two: fulfill the heroine's ambitions whilst successfully courting a happily-ever-after with one of several eligible bachelors.

And those bachelors will each have unique personalities, right? It wouldn't be a very good love story if they were all more or less the same person. In Birushana, there are five romance interests: Yoritomo, Shungen, Benkei, Noritsune, and Tomomori. It's safe to say these are five wildly different gentlemen. (In fact, "gentleman" suits two of them at best.)

Gaining stats influences how each of these characters interpret Shanao as a woman, both early on and especially once you have locked in a route. Different suitors prioritize unique combinations of the three parameters. If you don't fulfill the minimum total for those combinations by the end of the game, you may not be rewarded with the happy ending.

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Choosing dialogue during interactive conversations is the one and only way to enhance Shanao's stats. There are a fixed number of these instances per route, and while they might seem on the slim side relative to many other otome visual novels, know that each of them proves pivotal to the ending you will receive.

Perhaps the best way to inform you of how to increase your Strength, Knowledge, and Kindness is to ask you a question: who do you intend for Shanao to pursue as a romance partner? Depending on your pick, simply think through every dialogue choice, contemplating which answers will reflect one stat the most. Sometimes, there are no gains; more often than not, however, there are multiple potential choices for stat elevation.

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Quinton's a Specialist Publisher who thinks rather highly of cats, canyons, and café con leche. Follow them @QuintonWrites.