8 Games Full of Cherry Blossoms
As I was composing the list of flower-laden springtime games that Paste published just last month, it quickly became apparent that one particularly recognizable spring plant deserved a list all to itself: The cherry tree. More specifically, the brilliant pink flowers whose significance in Japan has made them an exceptionally familiar sight in game landscapes today. We may be just past the peak of cherry blossom viewing season, but it’s never too late to acknowledge the widespread and often breathtaking use of these iconic pink blooms in videogames.
1. Okami
Mr. Flower is far from the most important character in the Wii classic Okami, but his quest line is among the more charming ones that the player can complete. This colorful man helps the celestial wolf (and main character) Amaterasu restore the flowers to the corrupted cherry trees scattered around his city… Or rather, Amaterasu helps him by casting a spell that can revive plants while Mr. Flower performs his special dance, “The Gura Shuffle.” This then feeds into another quest where a sickly old man is returned to health only upon seeing the cherry blossoms returned to their full glory. This isn’t the only time cherry blossoms appear in the game, and they are also used to great effect in some of Okami’s promotional art, providing softness in stark contrast to Amaterasu’s bold, fiery design.
2. Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom
Perfect Cherry Blossom is the seventh game in the cult favorite bullet hell shooter series, Touhou Project. Its story revolves around an endless winter, as the energy of spring is being used to feed a demonic cherry tree, coaxing it towards a full and “perfect” state of blooming. There’s also an ancient (and obviously incredibly powerful) corpse sealed beneath said tree and, well, you can probably guess how things work out with that. The plot itself aside, it’s pretty darn clever to invoke the image of cherry petals swirling in the wind for a bullet hell game that has players both dodging and delivering projectiles in increasingly elaborate patterns.
3. Tengami
Tengami is something like a digital, playable pop-up book. You explore environments, solve basic puzzles, and interact with the papercraft world on your screen as you might interact with it if it was sitting on a table in front of you. Cherry trees play a big part in Tengami, not only as an aspect of its rich watercolor environments but also as the central point around which the game itself unfolds. It’s a short and relatively simple game, however, so I’ll avoid spoiling the experience in too much detail.
4. Pokémon