It was released in Japan in February 2013 and was launched in English in March 2014. It can be played for free in English here
. An iOS port of the game exists, but only for the Japanese version of the game.
Shikihime Garden provides examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Dojigiri. The Flavor Text on the main site call her a heavy drinker and a lot of her dialogue has her talk about drinking.
- Character Class System: Himes are divided into six different types, (Sword, Spear, Axe, Bow, Magic, Recovery) each with their own specializations.
- Character Filibuster: Otsuno. In Tengu's story scroll, she absolutely won't stop talking.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience:
- The different attributes are divided into red, green, and blue.
- "Greentext" is when a player gets a hime of Extremely Rare tier or higher, whether it was via summon, gift, or unity. The same applies for their +1 versions, though it is only possible through unity. The name comes from the green-colored text that appears in world chat.
- Cute Little Fangs: Several. Aside from Vampire and Barahime, several Spear himes sport this due to their being a Little Bit Beastly. Also, Sphinx and Chibi Akki.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Higekiri refuses to be treated like a child.
- Flavor Text: Though the text found in the main site and the in-game catalog slightly differ from each other.
- Fragile Speedster: Bow-type himes have the highest speed among all the hime types though they're often considered as endgame cards because in later dungeons higher agility becomes more beneficial than defense, allowing them to strike down enemies before they can take damage. Players can fix this by using stat-enhancing items such as brushes, medicine and weapons.
- Glass Cannon: Magic-type himes' attack and speed are second only to Axe-types and Bow-types respectively, but have rather low defensive stats and HP, making them Squishy Wizards. Again, this can also be remedied by the stat-enhancing items.
- Improbable Weapon User: The main Magic hime line, except Karura, all use fans as their weapons, with everyone using hand fans and Taroubou using a giant folding fan. Karura uses a flute while the Foreign hime Tensen and Nata use a giant brush (which they also use to fly around).
- Item Farming: A lot. It may take a while depending how benevolent the RNG is to you.
- Extremely Rare and Superior Extremely Rare hime unity require the player to gather 20 weapon pieces in one of the daily dungeons. Which weapon pieces these are depend on the type of hime to be used in unity.
- Some of the weekly events consist of farming a number of the event item(s) from the event dungeon(s) to be exchanged for various rewards.
- Also found in the daily/weekly trials that ask you to collect a certain number of ornaments or monster cards.
- A literal example occurs in the Farm feature where items come from planting seeds, the quality of the item depending on the amount of manure used.
- Jack of All Stats: Sword himes have the most balanced stats among all the hime types.
- Lesbian Vampire: Barahime really has a thing for Kayanohime, and her garden dialogues at low, medium and high impression levels are all about Kayanohime. Her Special Halloween version even carries around a Kayanohime doll.
- Lethal Chef: Yamaten, in more ways than one. She is the second highest tier Axe hime after Cho Suzukagozen, and is absolutely terrible at cooking.
- Level Grinding: The game is quite grindy. Earning experience for your himes, especially at higher levels, can take a long time without the help of travelling and experience brushes. Comes hand-in-hand with Item Farming.
- Little Bit Beastly: The Spear-type himes, excluding Foreigns, all have features of either cats or foxes. Most Bow-type himes also have animal features such as ears and tails.
- Meaningful Name: Possible via certain hime and secondary name combinations. For example, a Higekiri named Higanbana or a Furutsubaki named Tsubaki.
- The Medic: Recovery-type himes are the only ones with the ability to heal the rest of your team. They have lower overall stats than the other types and make for terrible frontliners, but can turn into powerful and competent Combat Medics through the use of stat-boosting items, effectively making them mages that can heal.
- Mighty Glacier: Axe-type himes have the slowest agility, but possess the highest attacking power. Can also be fixed by stat-enhancing items.
- One-Hit Kill: Dojigiri's special skill Slash of Doom has a chance of killing an enemy in one attack.
- Palette Swap:
- Variant Basics and Variant Elites are these to Basics and Elites, respectively.
- The Extremely Rare tier have sprites based on the Elite sprites, with a few trinkets added in, making them somewhat of a variation, except for Amenohabakiri whose sprite does not get any add-ons and ends up looking like a regular palette swap.
- Permadeath: Monster cards, like himes, may be brought to dungeons for use in battle, but unlike himes, when the monster falls in battle, the card is lost. This does not apply to the Special Monsters that do not die permanently even after falling in battle.
- Player Versus Player: In Training players fight against each other with teams of five or less himes. It is one of the main methods of earning Gold, one of the many currencies in the game.
- Random Encounters: After clearing certain dungeons there is a chance for the player to encounter a guild boss, which gives items as rewards.
- Random Number God: There's a consensus among the players that the game is ruled by one (or several). Since majority of the game is based on the Random Number Generator, from the dungeon loot, who attacks who, when your healer heals and summoning cards, when something doesn't go as the player planned the blame almost always falls on the RNGods.
- Really 700 Years Old: Senri is described to have a youthful appearance despite having lived for a thousand years.
- Relationship Values: IMP, or impression. Higher levels affect what the himes say while in the garden, and improves their chances of eating stat-boosting medicine. It can go down with successful use of the stat medicines but can be easily gained back when the hime is used in battle enough.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie:
- Tennyo is more than willing to help Akki care for an injured bird, and Isuzuhime loves forming new friendships.
- Subverted with Ririmuhime, who calls the player's garden ugly and tells the player to go away.
- Shoot the Mage First: When triggered, the skill Mage Target makes the user attack a Magic or Recovery type. Since some monsters also possess this skill, it can become quite annoying if it continuously triggers and targets your healers.
- Stripperiffic:
- Most Axe and several Recovery himes dress in very skimpy clothing.
- Yukionna insists on wearing thin clothes regardless of whether it's hot or cold.
- Super-Speed:
- While Bow-type himes already have high agility, a skill exclusive to their type called Lightning Speed allows them to boost their speed even further.
- Yatagarasu's special skill God Speed allows her to strike first and strike the enemy twice in a single attack ('double tap').
- Super-Deformed: The chibi versions found when viewing stories. So far the Basics, Variant Basics and Elites are available as cards, though they're only available for a limited time and are difficult to acquire.
- Signature Headgear: Several. All non-Foreign Sword himes have flowers in their hair, and non-Foreign Magic hime have their own exclusive hair accessory.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Colour-Coded for Your Convenience. 'Reds' (Sword, Axe) are strong against 'Greens' (Spear, Bow) which are effective against 'Blues' (Magic, Recovery, and monster-exclusive Sprite) which then have an advantage over 'Reds'.
- Theme Naming: Players' himes are named after plants that can be found in a garden, including trees, flowers, fruits and vegetables.
- Tower Defense: While not exactly tower defense, the game has a similar feature called Pandemonium where the player defends his farm (which is different from the main garden) from waves of monsters. Successfully driving away the monster waves earns the player a set amount of Killing Stones which can be exchanged for skills, items and cards, along with some manure for the farm, but failing to defend the farm will result in the special plot in the farm being trampled on, rendering it unusable for some time.
- Valkyries: Valkyrie and Ikusahime.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Kuzunoha is a sadist who "likes watching painful faces".
- Winged Humanoid: All of the Magic-type himes except for the Foreigns. Also, Phoenix, Fallen Angel and Ririmuhime.
