And so we arrive at the second part of Degica’s Muv Luv release – Muv Luv Unlimited.
But before we delve deeper into the game, let’s revisit a question from part 1: Should you play all of Muv Luv Extra before venturing into Unlimited? In my opinion: yes. While Meiya and Sumika routes are definitely the most important and worthwhile ones to have seen, there are brief references to things from all routes and endings, and these will make your playthrough of Unlimited all the more enjoyable. I can imagine this is the case in Alternative as well.
As expected, Unlimited is a very different kind of story than Extra. Without getting into how this has come to be, Takeru finds himself in vastly different circumstances, in a world where humanity faces possible extinction at the hands of an alien race known as BETA.
The beginning of the story takes a few steps back, to the part in Extra where Takeru and his friends are at the hot springs, just after the night where Takeru overhears Meiya and Sumika speak of their true feelings for him. With this in mind he is forced to move into a reality where, rather than just wondering how not to hurt to girls closest to him, the more imminent issue is whether he or any of them will even survive. On top of that, someone appears to noticeably missing, with no obvious clue as to what happened.
I enjoyed every bit of Unlimited and how it turns the world and characters of Muv Luv upside down, putting new perspective and pressure on everyone. Especially the main character, Takeru. In Extra he is an annoying, rude kid, that is eventually forced to realise that he has to move on from his carefree attitude and make a choice to stop hurting those around him. In Unlimited he is a fish out of water struggling with his fear of dying, his desire to regain what was lost, and going through a lot of growth because of this. On top of that there is the whole mystery around the world of Unlimited and the strange little girl Kasumi, a mystery whose answer is hinted at, but never directly answered.
With that in mind had Unlimited stood on its own and ended there, it would have been a terribly unfulfilling experience. The “Alternative Project” is vaguely hinted at at first, then brought up again just as the game ends, letting you know that there is so much going on that you never come to learn of. It gives you a feeling of knowing what was going on, and then again, not really. In that regard the end of the game feels abrupt, and very harsh, leaving the reader on a cliffhanger. All in all Unlimited mostly comes off like a prologue to Muv Luv Alternative, teasing of greater things to come. And it does so really well.
Graphics and presentation are very similar to Extra, with added military suits and robots of course. The game continues using the very anime-like style of animated sprites and text shown as coloured subtitles, and I found that this is one of the few VNs I could easily enjoy on auto-read. In most VNs my fast reading and general impatience doesn’t allow me to read at anything but my own pace, but perhaps because this felt so much like watching an anime, I did not mind letting it run on its own while listening to the voice actors and watching the sprites move around and perform their hijinks.
I could do without the mostly-naked combat suits, though.
The game even has a few animated sequences, apart from its opening movie. These are brief and used sparingly at particularly tense scenes with moments of action, but are a very nice touch that I hope to see more of in the future.
And so we wait for Alternative’s official English release, for hopefully more mysterious revelations and twists, and of course, giant robots.
It’s time for Muv Luv Extra! The infamous rom-com that precedes the very famous Muv Luv Unlimited and (especially) Alternative.
Whenever someone is tempted to look into the Muv Luv games, one question always pops up – do I need to read Extra before moving on to the sequels? Most places the response is a resounding “yes”, with the added incentive that all you really have to read is the two routes for the main girls Meiya and Sumika to get the necessary context. I’ve even seen someone go as far as to comparing Alternative without Extra to only reading the last book of Lord of The Rings trilogy without starting at the beginning, though how accurate that comparison is, is debatable, I’m sure!
Still, keeping this in mind I decided I might as well give the whole thing a spin before heading into the lands of robots and aliens – reading all five girls and the silly two dead ends that are achievable as well. So, what was it like?
The story of Muv Luv Extra follows high school kid Takeru Shirogane who lives next door to his childhood friend Sumika, an energetic girl that stops by every morning to wake him up and take him to school in true old-school anime fashion, complete with wacky punches to the face. The game has barely begun before our next harem trope is introduced as well: Meiya, the daughter of a very rich and powerful family, who has decided that Takeru is her fated future husband. She promptly moves in and takes over the neighbourhood, using her family’s wealth and influence to secure the area for them alone, as well as to try and win Takeru over. Hijinks ensue as the two girls fight for his heart! Save in the name of love! (I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean either.)
(I’m sure anyone can agree on Mikoto as best “girl”.)
Muv Luv Extra is basically everything any jaded anime fan would expect from a rom-com harem story heralding from the early 00’s. Everything is pretty straightforward, with some crazy humour sprinkled in that sometimes manages to be genuinely funny, helped along by the lively animated sprites and camera. The routes for the two main girls are mostly similar with no real surprises, though there are a few touching moments as well. Meiya is fun and a real charmer in her innocent naiveté about the world of commoners, and Sumika is sweet and caring enough in her calmer moments that you might feel genuinely bad for leaving her at the wayside.
What about the three other girls then? Are they worth playing through?
The other three classmates are: Kei Ayanami, the carefree truant who constantly is at odds with the authorities, Sakaki Chizuru, the class rep captain of the school’s lacrosse team who is often fighting with Kei, and Miki Tamase, the tiny, pink friend of Kei who is also part of the archery club.
Each of these routes introduce new side characters into the story, characters who may appear or be referenced in future Muv Luv titles. I hear that especially the ones in Kei’s route will be of interest, and how fortunate that is, because Kei’s story is by far the most interesting of the three! Not that it is mindblowing in any way, and it does manage to run in circles at times, but Kei is a fun character with an unexpected story and, I’d say, worth a playthrough if you are not entirely put off by the style and atmosphere of the rest of the game.
Class Rep’s story is a story about bullying and family issues that has been pulled off much better elsewhere, and with an added dramatic turn at the end that goes on for longer than it should have. Chizuru herself isn’t awful per se, but there were plenty of times where her constant defensiveness just made me want to throw my hands in the air and tell Takeru that it really wasn’t worth the bother.
Then there is Miki, the little catgirl that obviously has had a crush on Takeru for a while and now finally gets a shot at the competing against the other girls. Her route is less serious than the other two and more on the light-hearted comedy side, as it has you helping her train to fight for her family dojo’s honour, and to overcome her massive stage fright. This route veers off entirely from the general continuity of Takeru’s class competition at the sports festival, something that might please those that are tired of the constant lacrosse matches by now. Or maybe if you’re just a fan of tiny catgirls.
Someone give this girl a box to stand on!
On its own, Muv Luv Extra stands as a cute but generally forgettable and dated experience with content that you can find elsewhere in much higher quality. The music is pretty generic for its genre, and the art passable, but nothing special, though the frequent use of animations and effects works really well, especially in the funnier moments. How much you’ll enjoy it depends highly on your fondness for this type of story/game, and if it’s not entirely your cup of tea, you’ll be pleased to know that a lot of the scenes are easily skimmed through - and later skipped - as Meiya and Sumika both share large parts of their routes.
I have played a fair number of otome games, but so far Code:Realize definitely stands as my favourite of them all. Of course I have a certain fondness for the period and aesthetic of the game (Victorian era steampunk in London), but it all stands as a framework for an extensive plot with characters that are more than just an excuse for eye candy and sweet words, as they often are in games of this genre.
The story of Code:Realize revolves around the main character, a girl called Cardia, who only remembers the last two years of her life. She has spent these in isolation in a remote mansion in Wales. Cardia is a monster, or so she is made to believe – a girl with a blue crystal imbedded in her chest, and with a body that melts anything she comes into contact with. All she knows is that her father left her a note telling her to wait there for him, and that she can never seek out companionship or love due to her circumstances.
Her isolation soon ends as the game begins. Soldiers of the Royal Guard seek out her home to capture the “monster” that resides within. Just as they are about to take her away, the hunt is interrupted by a stranger – Lupin the gentlemen thief – who declares that he has come to steal away their treasure. Thus Cardia is swept away from her home and everything she knows, and with Lupin and other partners in crime she begins to search for the truth behind her own existence, and the disappearance of her mysterious and famous father, Isaac Beckford.
The game consists of a large and mostly shared common route that eventually leads into individual stories and endings for each of the five characters that Cardia can grow close to. Those characters consist of the famous names Van Helsing, Impey Barbicane, Victor Frankenstein, Saint Germain and Arsène Lupin himself – although the famed gentleman thief’s story is locked away until the previous four have been cleared.
Each of the characters have stakes in the grand plot that revolves around Isaac Beckford, though for different and very personal reasons. They all reveal different parts of the mystery surrounding Cardia and the plotting of the villains in London, plot threads that are all visited once more in Lupin’s final ending, as everything is wrapped up and the complete picture revealed.
If I would have to rank the routes, it would likely be Lupin > Van Helsing > Saint Germain > Victor Frankenstein > Impey. Lupin first, as his was the route that was the most complete, and felt like the more correct of the five (and likely meant as such). While Impey was a good character as well, his route failed to leave much of an impact, especially compared to other personal stories such as Van Helsing and Saint-Germain’s. Considering how the others like to joke about Impey being superfluous, I can’t help but feel sorry for him when it seems true – but there were things about his character I wished they had explored more, instead of what they chose to focus on.
Sorry Impey. Maybe one day you will get your chance to shine.
As you can probably tell, the art in the game is stunning – each piece of character art and event CG is detailed and atmospheric, perfectly fitting the scenes where they are used. Even for minor characters, who were shown lots of love as well. The soundtrack is also good, and while it is not necessarily one I would pick up to listen to on its own as I would with Rewrite’s, it works perfectly at setting the scenes and has no tracks that noticeably bothered me at any point in the game.
And can I just point out how I love the idea that Queen Victoria’s design appears to be centered around the idea of her being the queen bee (with quite a sting), and her soldiers following the theme with yellow colours and honeycomb-shaped symbols?
In general I very much enjoyed Code:Realize, from characters, to art, to the writing itself, which managed to tug at my heart strings on several occasions (though with an unfortunate but increasing number of typos towards the end of the game), and it is definitely the one otome title I’d recommend to both those into otome and not. Only on rare occasions would there be moments that felt a bit weak, and most of those were easy to look over in comparison to what else it had to offer. Unfortunately it is so far trapped on PsVita only, though there should be a ps4 version coming up soon, at least. I can only hope that it will one day be made available to a larger audience.
(And can we perhaps hope for a good anime adaption when that comes around?)
Time to do one of these again, this time for the daring sequel, Stein's;Gate 0! A VN I was glad to see have an official english release swiftly announced, and one I even came across on physical store shelves, much to my pleasant surprise.
First, a warning: Don't be mislead by the title – S;G0 is not a prequel. To enjoy this story, and not spoil the original Stein's;Gate entirely, you need to have played the original first. While I will not entirely spoil the S;G0 story here, it is probably a good idea to stay clear if you are yet to experience Stein's Gate, either in game or anime format. Go ahead and do it – it's worth it!
For those who want to enter S;G0 as blindly as possible, but just want to know whether it's worth giving it a try, I'll say this for starters: if you loved the characters and atmosphere of the original, then this is definitely worth it. There are things S;G0 do really well, and things that made me wonder if it would have been better to leave well enough alone, but in my opinion the good moments outweigh the bad, and make it worth a shot.
And now to the nitty-gritty.
This VN begins the very moment one of the original Stein's Gate routes end, showing us how that particular timeline progresses, leading into the events that puts Okabe Rintaro on the path to save the world and his friends. This means that in contrast to it's predecessor, this game skips the long start and build-up entirely. We already know who we are dealing with, what has happened, and how serious the situation is, and with that the story wastes no time getting to where it needs to be.
Stein's Gate 0 has 6 endings, one of which only unlocks once you have seen a particular other ending. Like in S;G the choices to enter these routes are not done in traditional VN manner where you pick between conversations or actions on the screen, but through interactions with your phone. There are only 2-3 places in the game where these choices matter, mainly in whether you choose to pick up your phone or not, but these are effectively and seamlessly used to bring the reader into vastly different routes and perspectives on what goes on. Inbetween those major choices you will still receive messages from Okabe's friends that you can choose to ignore or respond to in different ways, choices that have no real consequence, but let you interact with everyone in sweet and funny ways.
The game's many routes and timelines tend to converge around two important plot points that effect everything. One is the whole deal with the timemachine concept: the paper Kurisu wrote to prove such a thing was possible, as well as the knowledge the protagonists have of how to practically create one. In my opinion, this was definitely the stronger one, showing how dismantling the Phonewave isn't necessarily the end-all of their troubles, but also the struggle of how Okabe has to protect what he knows, all on his own.
The other plot point is centered around the research that Kurisu was originally working on in America, which gave her the ability to create the Phonewave in the first place: the science of memory data, and how to possibly upload and work with such. This results in the creation of Amadeus, an AI that makes use of the memories of a real person to behave and speak as close to a real human as possible. This plot point is what brings in a lot of the new characters into the story, such as Amadeus "Kurisu" herself, Kurisu's old friend Maho, and the mysterious girl known as Kagari. While Kurisu's memories in Amadeus only go as far as to the point where she left America for Japan, the clues buried in there also end up having a major impact on the world lines.
Sounds and visuals are still strong as well. The music is great, bringing both new and old to the table, and the voice acting is stellar. It's games like these that make me sad when I return to other VNs with unvoiced protagonists, as it adds so much more character.
Most of the character art is new, though it works well. There are times where the old character art makes a reappearance, mostly when Okabe remembers the past. One thing I loved was a brief but impactful return to the old timeline, where old sprites and artstyle return, giving you a vivid impression of being "back". I found this very effective, though later on this is sadly diminished when, in some routes, the story continues into summer and brings the rest of the old character sprites back with their summer wear. I found the use of the old art to bring back the feeling of where you came from incredibly effective, and would have loved if they had kept using it that way only.
As for the story itself, these are definitely among it's strengths:
Character writing. The game does a great job at portraying its characters as people who feel real, with emotions and interactions that are meaningful and go beyond being the stereotypes that vns often resort to. The center of this story is definitely Okabe himself, and the journey he makes after having been turned into a broken mess by the events that have come before. There are moments that pitch him and the others against each other in ways that keep you on the edge of your seat, or even form a tear on their behalf, as well as funny/sweet situations you never knew you wished you could see them in. One difference in S;G0 is that the game sometimes switches viewpoints, letting us see events happen through the eyes of its other characters. This especially gives an occasional interesting outside view of Okabe himself.
The timemachine plot. In my opinion, this is the stronger of the two plot points in the game, continuing the threads of what we already know might happen after S;G ended.
Weaknesses:
The memory data plot. While this definitely adds some interesting points to the story, and my general enjoyment of the concept of Amadeus "Kurisu" and her interactions/effects on Okabe, it also added a whole other of unnecessary problems, mainly the complications and additions to the things foreshadowed in S;G in ways that felt like cheap excuses to add new mysteries. In major part, the character known as Kagari.
Kagari appears as a young girl/grown woman with an uncanny resemblance to Kurisu, another time traveller who can go from being an ally to an antagonist depending on what timeline you end up on. Not only did I never manage to really care for this character, but her unexplained likeness to Kurisu felt like a cheap excuse to elicit emotion, and make you feel there was something more to it that never got resolved in any way you'd think it would. There is one point where her lost memories brings Okabe into a moral dilemma that in itself is very interesting, but in the end feels like something he would never even do in the first place, and therefore doesn't manage to be entirely convincing.
In general, I would still say the good outweighs the bad, and I am glad I got to experience many of the moments in Steins;Gate 0. If you are a fan of the original, then you should definitely give it a shot just for those moments alone.
I have a general tendency with unplanned sequels like these, to feel like I need to keep them and the original apart in my mind to fully enjoy both. There are bits that work really well together, and bits I prefer to see as interesting "what ifs". Stein's Gate itself still stands perfectly fine on its own, telling you everything you need to know, without needing the extra complications and additions to its resolution that S;G0 somehow needed to bring up.
In the end all I can say is that I have now run out of Stein's Gate things to read, and that makes me sad.
As Solstice gains traction on Steam, user reviews are popping up and I couldn’t help but brag a little. Those feel really awesome, especially after so much hard work! :D
That said, we could really use a few more. They help us both as promotion as well as a source valuable feedback, so please consider leaving a paragraph or two if you finished the game. :)
Since I decided to take a break from a much longer VN, and try some new things, I unearthed an old game I bought years ago, during Mangagamer's early days. That game is Koihime Musou.
I first played this game before the voice patch came out, but never finished it. Instead of going for more prominent and urgent titles in my backlog, I decided on a whim to go back to this instead and give it another shot, determined to actually finish – so here are some thoughts on Koihime Musou!
This time I'll do things a little different from the other impressions on the blog. Rather than brief overviews and thoughts on characters and routes, I'll focus more on how the story was written and presented. Variety is the spice of life, right?
It's a bit messy, so bear with me. And long.
First, a bit of history:
Koihime was one of Mangagamer's early "big" titles and had quite a bit of buzz around it. Their funds and sales were low, and Koihime was long and expensive. Because of this it was first released without voices, with a future voice patch promised for when Koihime reached a certain number of sales. Some fans even set up posts with guesstimates about the game's sales as it went along.
This was way back before Kickstarter – nowadays something like that would likely have been a stretch goal in a funding campaign. Interesting how things change, eh?
Later on the japanese developer Baseson released newer versions of the game called Shin Koihime Musou, with many more characters and routes, but at this time it doesn't have an english release, and as such nothing in this post will relate to that.
Now, to the game itself:
Koihime is a spinoff from Harukoi Otome, later also localised by Mangagamer, where a guy named Kazuto Hongou gets transported to ancient China during the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era. Here he ends up taking the place of Liu Bei and commands soldiers into war. Many known heroes from that time are also there though in this world they are all women. Nor do most of them look remotely chinese.
Although there are many characters, most of who get recruited into Kazuto's army, there are only 3 heroines with endings: a young woman, a loli, and a super-loli.
The story of the game is generally the same at all times, with different scenes and endings achieved by choosing who to spend free time with at certain intervals. Because of this I won't focus too much on each individual route. (Also, I didn't play all of them. Sorry super-loli, it's just not my kind of thing.)
The translation doesn't appear awful, but once in a while you'll run into some pretty confusing sentences, as well as some minor typing/naming errors.
Kazuto:
Let's start with talking about the main character for a bit.
Kazuto is your typical "high-schooler-sent-to-another-world" guy, landing in the arms of attractive girls who proceed to idolize him for his knowledge and oh-so-kind heart. He then decides to become their ruler and help them save their homes.
One thing I appreciate in the story is the fact that while Kazuto is set up as a talented kendo student who reads a lot of books on strategy(!?), he is not made into a superhero warrior when he arrives in ancient China. Instead he fumbles against a group of bandits, and then goes on to have his experienced warriors fight his battles for him, taking up the post as their figurehead.
Other than that, there is not much to say about him. Kazuto is very generic. The moment he gets over his first confusion about being in ancient china, he almost never spends a moment thinking about his home, his family, his friends, or whether he will ever return. Not until the end, anyway. After being briefly overwhelmed by the request to govern a city, he soon accepts his role and spends what must be years campaigning in the Three Kingdoms war without these things crossing his mind. Maybe I'd understand his attitude if there had been established a past of no close connections or things he cherished in the present, but this is not the case.
This not only made Kazuto bland, but also turned him into a premise that very much broke suspension of belief and made him difficult to care for. (Yes, in a world of blonde, chinese pre-schoolers leading armies, I know.)
Also, can I just mention that in a world with very few males with actual faces, one of the few we get is this one?
I guess they wanted to make sure Kazuto had no real competition, huh?
The plot:
The basic premise of the story is pretty simple and standard as laid out above: highschooler gets transported to another world after running into a mysterious boy stealing a mirror. He then becomes the ruler of one of the Three Kingdoms, and fights to unite China, in order to bring peace. Along the way there are more hints towards the boy with the mirror and what his secret faction are plotting in the shadows.
Koihime often moves into scenes with high dramatic potential, showing the deep relationships between some of the many characters and the difficult situations they are put in. But all in all I feel like only one scene really succeeds in its drama, one of the few instances where a character actually ends up losing her life.
Sadly the rest of the scenes rarely ever live up to their potential. After setting everything up they end up squandering it with ill-placed humour, or just bad dialogue, that fails to get to the core of the issue and properly show the emotions of the heroines. It gives them a generally superficial feel, skirting along the edge of interesting topics, with that nagging thought in the back of your mind that this moment could actually have been good, dammit.
Not to mention that this is a game keeping a generally happy/upbeat and colourful atmosphere, while being about young girls literally chopping each other's heads off. It's like it constantly wants to tell us that war is a terrible and dangerous thing, while immediately after pulling back, having one of them say something funny, and then everyone laughs.
The writing sure also doesn't waste time on details. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there are times where it feels like important events are quickly delivered in passing, or solved in the easiest way possible, all for the sake of moving along the plot to where the writer wanted it to be. This leads to some pretty hard to believe situations, and can make it difficult to get immersed in the grander scale of things.
A couple of examples: Early on "the enemy" devises a plan to lure Kazuto to Luoyang to kill him, which is the dumbest plan ever, since it involves him allying himself with the other two powerful rulers in China. At this point it was already established that he had a poor and weak army, so why deliberately put him together with the two strongest armies around when trying to kill him??
At another point in the story, one leading character is being manipulated to fight. Her allies ascertain this fact from watching her from a distance for just a few short moments, then decide to betray their country to save her, based on this assumption alone. Also, while their discussion with Hongou takes place, apparently their entire former army changed clothes to look extra sinister.
The enemy sure doesn't waste any time trying to be subtle either, eh?
I see why both things had to happen to move the plot along, but the way they happened just felt so haphazard and lazy that they didn't work for me at all. While the first one just made the enemies appear dumb rather than the scheming masterminds they are supposed to be, the latter just threw me out of the story entirely.
And then there is the final plot reveal, the thing that explains the whole premise of Kazuto being spirited off to this place, and why everything is so different from the history we know. This isn't revealed until just before the very end, and honestly? I thought the twist was kinda fun. It wasn't a bad idea, in its strangely fourth wall breaking way. On the other hand it was revealed so late, explained in an unnatural and unnecessarily convoluted way, and then never really expanded on or taken advantage of apart from leading into a brief character ending of choice.
Guess there is a lot of excuses for sequels and fandiscs in that reveal though. Ka-ching!
The action!
But hey, this is an action-filled story, right? So let's move on to that.
Action scenes are written – or rather not written – in an interesting way. Most of the time when characters are not shouting dramatic lines at each other, or preparing for charges, the fights consist of images symbolising the swooshing of weapons, clashing sounds, and characters exclaiming "ngh!" and "huyah!", leaving your imagination to fill in the gaps and picture how they are jumping around and swinging at each other.
On one hand this actually works rather well – you've likely seen enough fight scenes, animated or otherwise, to visualise the warriors swinging and dodging around. There are a few times where it feels a bit odd, especially coming right after passages where the text is more than willing to detail a character's movements and actions, but in general I suppose it blends in well with the overall lightweight narration.
On a more negative note, the fight scenes suffer from their outcomes often being predictable and inconsequential, with a few exceptions. While at first they can still be entertaining in spite of this, they end up being very samey and uninteresting after a while, with the duelling generals yelling their usual challenges and insults/compliments at each other, then swinging their weapons around for a bit. It ends up lacking the impact it could have in a game about legendary warriors.
Home Base scenes:
Once in a while, between main story scenes and battles, you'll get to the Home Ba(s)e screen. Here you have a limited number of turns to choose which of the characters in your army that you want to spend some time with. This is how you experience the side stories of both the three main girls as well as the many supporting characters who all have stories of their own. (And there are lots!)
To begin with, I quite enjoyed some of these – especially this game's version of a Team Rocket trio: Enshou and her friends. These three are beaten early on in the main plot, and then continue to travel across the country, having silly and random encounters with the other characters along the way. As mentioned, I quite enjoyed this detour of theirs, almost more than any of the other side stories, until the point where plot flew out the window and it all turned into a pointless sex romp towards the end.
The latter part of the game has a ton of these in its Home Base scenes, by the way. At this point it seems the writer eventually gave up on the story and threw out his brain to just go with whatever came to mind. I skipped pretty much all of these since it's not really my thing, so apologies to those who expected a review of that!
But this is an ero-game... (also, gameplay):
"But this is an ero game!" I hear you cry. "You're trying to give it too much credit in all the wrong places!"
Well yes. You might argue that the main attraction of Koihime is likely the ability to score and get steamy with many kinds of warrior girls, and that because of this, the quality of the writing or the protagonist isn't all that important. And you'd probably be right.
But then again, this game isn't particularly short, and it takes some time and effort to get there. (Okay, so more time than effort, but still...) Which means one of two things: A) People are also in it for the rest of the story. B) They really like the strategic combat parts.
I'm not going to believe anyone would answer B to that question.
The gameplay during battles is a quite dull and forgettable rock-paper-scissors game, and I imagine it was included mostly to give the impression of you being the commander of an army in an epic war. (And, very possibly, to avoid having to actually write battle scenes in the first place.)
Besides, beat the game once, and you can skip all the battles, anyway.
Visuals:
Colourful and shiny like a candy wrapper, and with a few interesting designs. Artwork is decent, but otherwise nothing special. A few of the sprites seem terribly unbalanced and skewed in proportions, especially when placed next to other sprites. (I'm looking at you, Aisha).
CG quality varies – most of them stay on the same generic level, with a few standing out with an extra layer of polish in colouring and style. Extra money spent on more important CGs? I can imagine the team having saved the best artist for just a few images, for the sake of impact and budget.
Backgrounds are quite limited and simple, which means most locations look exactly the same. Not a huge problem, but can sometimes be odd when the graphics place the characters on top of a wall that they are merely standing next to. And when the location of your epic showdown looks like your home.
Music:
Not bad, but also nothing special.
TL;DR:
The good:
The MC isn't a superhero
A few fun character interactions and personalities in there
The final plot reveal was kinda fun in theory
The bad:
The MC isn't very fun or believable either
Often falls flat on promising elements
A lot of boring characters were there as well
Many plot points broke suspension of disbelief
Pointless battle system
I think there is definitely a place for these kinds of light "let's just go with it" stories, and that they can be very enjoyable. I also think it can be done much better than this, without having to step into srs literature territory.
Also, the game's lesson: MEN ARE EVIL. Apart from Kazuto of course. Even when he rapes his friends and is constantly unfaithful.
Disclaimer: These are just opinions and musings/ideas by me. Don't take it too seriously if you disagree.
Thinking of making a visual novel? Want to throw some interactivity in there? Hold on tight then, because with a little carelessness it can quickly turn into a tangle you can't see your way out of.
Many people make their VNs linear, and this is a very valid option depending on the story you want to tell – in some cases more so than including branching – but at the same time it is true that the appeal many people see in this medium is in its potential for interactivity and player influence.
And there are many ways to do this.
One of the simplest and most known methods is through conversation choices and character routes. These are often for very character-centric stories: depending on who you choose to pursue in a roster of romance-able characters, you get to see a different spin on the events of things. Or maybe entirely unrelated things, all serving to bring you together and reach your desired ending.
Through interaction you will raise the right "flags", or get the required amount of points, and you can reach good, bad or even "true" endings with your target depending on what the author has prepared.
It's clear why this is often the preferred way to go: interactivity and player influence on a written script can quickly turn into a mess. When should the player be allowed to choose? How big an influence should it have? And most importantly, how many results does that require you to write to satisfy the reader? A simple storyline can turn into a monster very quickly depending on the severity of the choices.
(Yes, the fact that the player gets to date cute girls and pretty boys is of course also a big factor in why it's so popular to base your story on romance, but let's focus on a more topic-relevant argument this time around, focusing on mechanics:)
Planning an interactive story is always a challenge, but focusing on character routes gives each path a simple and clearcut goal and direction when you write it. You want to be with this character – maybe to help or love it, maybe just to survive. Each character has their own story that you end up following independently of each other, and then reach their inevitable end. Keeping track of "success" can be done so through measuring the player's relationship with the character in question, whose reactions are guided by their personality, story, etc. Romance is a perfect parameter for this.
Even on the player's side, this method quickly and easily transmits the game's possibilities, goals and mechanics, making it clear what the "win" parameters are going to be, and why they might have failed. “Here is your gallery of pursue-able characters – now get on the hunt, crack the code, win their heart.”
It's great for exploring characters too, if that is the kind of story you prefer to create. If Girl B had been the heroine instead of Girl A, how would the story have turned out instead? What would have changed?
It's all up to you to find out.
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Examples of games using this method:
Clannad
Kira Kira
Yo-Jin-Bo
Ever17
(Note: In lists like these I will strive towards referencing visual novels that are available in english. Whether this is true for a long-out-of-print title like Ever17 is debate-able, but at least it exists in english somewhere, somehow, in a galaxy far, far away.)
First of all, we’d like to offer our thanks to all who participated in the survey. We managed to collect information and requests from over 8,000 different people, but now the results are in, so it’s time to share some of the information from our survey! […]
We announced this on Twitter a couple days ago, but in honor of Women’s History Month in March, we’re conducting a series of interviews with Japanese women eroge/visual novel creators, and we want your input! We’ll be interviewing Hamashima Shigeo from ClockUp (she’s done art for Eroge!, No, Thank You!!!, Euphoria and others!), Kayura Yuka from Circus (one of the artist for Suika, Da Capo II and many more), and MILK singer of Imouto Paradise's opening theme. We’ve been taking questions on Twitter, but we’d like to open it up to Tumblr as well! If you have a question you’d like to ask any of these brilliant women, just send us an ask! We’ll be taking questions through Friday.
Here's a few of the interesting new releases lately - it is Valentine's Day after all!
Eden* They Were Only Two, On The Planet
Eden* is out after a succesful fundraising project, in an all-ages version on steam and 18+ version from Mangagamer.
Like Planetarian, Eden* is a short linear VN, which means there is only one ending. The game teases following a style where the traditional "sprites" are almost non-existant, and instead it uses many event illustrations with animations, to make the experience close to a mix between a book and a movie.
Minori have made very beautiful games before, and I'm definitely interested in this one, if nothing else then to see how they carry out the presentation of the game.
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Invisible Apartment Zero
Invisible Apartment Zero has been released for Windows, Linux and Android apart from its previous iTunes release.
It is the prequel to Invisible Apartment, and makes a series about hacking, artificial intelligence and everyday life, made by Milan Kazarka.
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Kana Okaeri (?)
This remake of Kana Imouto is set to be released by JastUSA today, but still stands as a preorder at this time of writing. Possibly a Valentine's treat for fans? Maybe?
I've never played this old classic myself as what I knew about the subject admittedly put me off, but I keep hearing others mention it as an old favourite from their early VN reading days. If you're into stories that make you cry as well as cute little sisters, then this might be something for you, with all the updated graphics, and other additions that this remake brings.
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Tokyo School Life
A stealth release from E-mote maker M2 Co., Ltd, Tokyo School Life is likely an attempt to move in on the steam vn market after the success with Nekopara, as well as to promote their E-mote program, as they now plan to release it in english.
The game is developed specifically for the english market, and centers around an exchange student who goes to study in Japan, and ends up living together with three girls. It is described as romantic comedy.
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MangaGamer Valentines Sale
MangaGamer is holding a big Valentines sale with a lot of their titles on discount, as well as a contest for their two upcoming titles Evangile and NTY. Go here to take a look at the titles on sale, as well as how to take part in the contest:
MangaGamer VNtines Day Sale!
Of all the titles I'd mostly recommend Kira Kira as my favourite, one of the early MangaGamer releases that also exists both as an All Ages and 18+ version.
Princess Evangile Now Available for Preorder + Demo!
Princess Evangile is now available for Pre-Order! Get 10% off if you pre-order the adult or the all-ages version from us now, and both come with a free Steam Key! The full version will be available on March 27th, 2015, but you can check out the demo on our website and Steam now!
I recently finished the latest Key visual novel Rewrite, so thought I’d do a post of my impressions of the game like I did with Little Busters. This is not a review, but a general collection of thoughts I had while playing through it, something which will hopefully make sense. I will also try to refrain from posting serious spoilers or how the game ends. Also, like last time, this is likely to turn into quite a big post!
So, Rewrite! The title alone gives great opportunities for jokes, should one feel like it. It would be so easy… but I shall try and avoid it.
For those into learning about the writers behind the visual novels you read, that would be one indicator that Rewrite is a very different VN from what Key has previously released. It is an ambitious project with contributions from Ryukishi07 (Higurashi, Umineko) and Romeo Tanaka (Cross Channel) among others. I won’t claim to be an expert on how the story was organised between the three or so writers, because honestly I don’t know much about it, but apparently Romeo was the one who worked on the general scenario, as well as writing the last two parts of the story: Moon and Terra. He is seen as a big name in the VN business, so of course that set expectations for this game quite high.
Premise: You play as Kotarou Tennouji, yet another high schooler who attends an expensive school in the eco-friendly town of Kazamatsuri. The setting already sets the basics of the theme of this story, which is basically about the earth, and how humanity is pushing it to its limit by draining it of all its natural resources. We are almost at the point of no return – one way or another, the world is coming to an end.
The game is largely arranged the same way as the previous couple of Key games, as it begins with a “common route” that makes up a large chunk of the game, which is then followed by the route of the girl you chose to pursue. And when all normal routes are completed, the last part of the game opens up – the actual meat of the story. Except in Rewrite there are two parts to open up: first Moon, then Terra.
This is the first sign that Rewrite is a huge game, with tons of text. And you have to go through the good ending of every route in the game to see the actual, true ending. How this pans out is something I will get back to later.
Kotarou opens the game with his predicament and view of life – he is lonely and feels like he is watching the world pass him by, missing out on what should be enjoyable. So he decides to work his hardest, to get away from this loneliness, and enjoy life. He acts like a general class clown, being cheery and generally approachable, but he feels no connection to anyone around him. He only considers two other people in his class close to being actual friends: Kotori and Yoshino.
Yoshino is one of the stars in this game. Despite Kotarou’s approaches and constant insisting that the two are friends, Yoshino prefers to be a “lone wolf” and generally does his best to get Kotarou to leave him alone, something that is a cause of much of the humour and best scenes in the common route. With this guy as one of the examples, I must say that Key does really well in making likeable and great male characters in their visual novels, balancing out the gender ratio.
Kotori is Kotarou’s childhood friend, and another loner. Kotarou often sees himself as the only link between her and the rest of the world, trying to make sure that she doesn’t end up all on her own. She too is a nice character once you get to learn of all her quirks, and the injokes the two of them share are great, though I am afraid to say that her route is terribly underwhelming. And that is in spite of her personal story actually being interesting, and doing a lot of the groundwork in explaining what goes on in the world of Rewrite.
As the story progresses strange things begin to happen to Kotarou, and it is through this that he ends up befriending the people that make out the school’s Occult Club. The other members of the club are also the rest of the pursuable characters in the game:
Chihaya is the token redhead and the club’s clumsy but kindhearted idiot. She turned out to be one of my favourite characters, and her ‘butler’ Sakuya succesfully went from having me hate his guts to loving him to bits.
Lucia is the class rep who at first seems to hate anything dirty, and men(Kotarou) in particular. Though first managing to upset her time and time again, he finally befriends her and learns more of the story behind why she always wears her white gloves. Her route starts out very differently than any of the others in the game, and revolves around a ghost story/mystery that is really intriguing. Unfortunately this route later ends up running into the same problems as the others.
Shizuru is Lucia and Kotarou’s mutual friend, a quiet girl with an eyepatch. From the promo art I immediately expected her to be the type of character I would dislike, but in the end her personality and route made me think of her as one of the best characters in the game. Of all the girls, this was the one with the ending that actually made me want to shed a tear. (Though it, along with Lucia, is also one of the routes that make you realise that Kotarou is brainless idiot at times.)
Akane, the club president and resident ‘witch’. Akane was my top favourite from the moment she first appeared. She is a confident recluse who would rather play computer games than have to go outside and mingle, and she always has a quick retort to anything Kotarou has to say to her. I was looking forward to finally play her route after I cleared the four others. The end result had me divided.
Each of these routes seem to follow a clear pattern. You go through the common route, which in most cases diverts into character routes at the same certain point where a pivotal piece of plot development happens. Thereafter Kotarou has to reunite with the girl of choice, and her personal story begins. This part feels mostly like a usual Key story, up until the girl’s main issue has been resolved – and then the game continues into the route’s latter half, dealing with the grander scheme of humans vs earth.
The shift between the two is very obvious in every route, maybe apart from Akane’s, and almost every time it feels like the latter half is not handled quite as well as it could have been. Some of these endings I wanted to like much more than I did, but couldn’t help but feel like they were all lacking in some way or other. As mentioned, I believe Shizuru’s story and ending was handled the best, even if not perfect either.
Especially Kotori has some themes in her story that I felt could have been handled so much better, with especially one quite important plot reveal was danced over so lightly that it fell quite flat in the end.
And then arrives what I believe is the biggest issue with Rewrite. Moon and Terra.
This is not because Moon and Terra are bad, not at all – but because the two are pretty much an entirely different game.
Back with Little Busters one of my main grievances with the game was the fact that it seemed to drag along in so many of its routes until the actual good part of the story arrived in Refrain. I thought this was something that made a lot the first part of the game feel kind of superfluous. This issue is even greater in Rewrite, especially when you get to Terra. A friend of mine even ended up dropping the game entirely when he reached Terra, simply because of the great sense of disconnect between the two parts.
But what are they like?
They are actually quite good. I especially enjoyed Moon, which gives the story a surreal and very interesting turn, and with a twist at the ending I didn’t see coming, before the game turns back to the final resolution of the conflict in Terra.
In Terra I must admit that turning to depictions of desert guerilla warfare and the like generally puts me off, but as the story went back to the root of things it was also quite interesting, though in a very different way than the rest of the game was. Apart from one particular turn of events I did like Terra, though it didn’t blow me away in any way. The ending to it was great and pulled off well.
I feel a lot of the issues with Rewrite would have been greatly lessened if the game wasn’t as big and bloated as it is. The common route of the game is very entertaining – I love the humour to bits, and the mystery lying beneath everything that happens in it is very exciting, and makes you want to learn more. I appreciate Key trying to make something different, and they chose to go in an interesting direction with this story.
But bloated is the word that keeps coming to mind for me when playing through it in general, and like with Little Busters I often got the feeling that having so many writers just made it worse, as none of them could really decide on what story they wanted to tell. A great many things felt disjointed, and there were cases of contradictions and suspension of disbelief in many, many places. Maybe some of these could be related to some of the meaning getting lost in translation to english, but I am sure that most of the ones relating to plot were there in the original as well.
The art is generally alright, especially when it comes to colouring, but it is nothing special. Especially some scenes seem to lack a sense of proportions and general anatomy, and there are often times where the text and the illustrations just don’t match at all, which is a shame. Not to speak of the many times where important characters and happenings end up having no graphics at all.
(Hold book how?)
However, if anyone followed me on twitter while I played through this, they will know that I couldn’t shut up about the music. Like in previous Key games, the soundtrack is great and helped set the atmosphere everywhere. This is likely one that I will continue listening to for a good while to come.
I could keep going and going if I were to start pointing out areas in the game that stuck out to me, and in general I find it very hard to decide what I think about Rewrite. I don’t regret reading it, though the mere size of it will likely mean that I will never, ever do it again. In that case it would likely be to just go through individual parts of the story, like some bits of the common route or Moon.
Would I recommend it? Yes, if you have a lot of time and patience, don’t mind the great ups and downs in quality, and if you don’t mind the two halves of the game being so very different in every way. I did quite like all the characters in the main cast (which is far from the case in most VNs), but it won’t rank among my favourites. If nothing else, play the common route, there are many golden moments in there.
There is still no anime of Rewrite. While reading certain parts of it, I felt like the story could benefit from some animation – probably due to the fact that it felt like there were a lot of scenes that amounted to a black screen with added text. But then again, the amazing shift between the main game and Terra makes me think that an adaption would be difficult, and could just confuse and put off a lot of viewers. Maybe time will tell?
Late as always, but I finally got to play through all of Little Busters, and I thought I’d write some of my impressions of the game here. Note that I played the original version of the game, so the added scenes and route from Ecstasy and Perfect Edition were not included.
The game has several character routes with a suggested play order, in order for you to get the most content available from them all, so I’ll list them and my thoughts in said order. I won’t spoil too much (apart from one route), but if you haven’t read Little Busters yet, and don’t want your experience to be too sullied by information, you should probably not read this yet!
Also, this is going to be a long read….
Here is the premise of the game:
You play as Naoe Riki, an orphaned kid who lost his parents when he was very young, and was cast into deep depression and solitude. One day he meets a group of children that call themselves the “Little Busters”, self-proclaimed warriors of justice, who bring him along in their silly games and dangerous antics. Through them he finds a new light in his life, and the gang stays together for years to come, until the time where the actual game takes place. The gang’s leader, Natsume Kyousuke, one day decides that they will take up baseball in their free time and win a game. And so the story begins.
The music and art in the game is very nice. Especially the music – there are many of the tunes that I really like, and very few that annoy me (VN’s often have plenty of the latter). The art might take a certain taste, I know a lot of people who don’t like the style in Key’s game very much. There are certainly CG’s that look a little odd or lazy, but most of them do their job well, and they all have nice and vibrant colours.
First:
The intro movie. I have to mention this – 10/10 and would watch again. And again. And again. I love the intro movie for this game, and have done so since years ago when it was first released. The song and the imagery is lovely, and works so well in conveying the initial theme of the game – childhood and having to let it go.
Common Route:
This is what you have to play through every time before the story diverges into the different routes of the characters. Small variations happen every time you play, adding more scenes and crazy activities that the Little Busters do to pass their time. The plot stays light-hearted and funny throughout, and I must say I really enjoyed it – from the cute little baseball and fighting minigames, to the silly things that Kyousuke manages to get his friends to do. You get to know the characters and how they work together as a group, and it’s very amusing to see. Kyousuke is always awesome.
I must say I adore the sprites used in the baseball minigame. They are very nicely made, and portray each character so well – I love seeing them run around and be cute on the field. (No Komari, I’m not looking at you. Go space out somewhere else.)
The fighting minigame isn’t interactive at all, sadly – you can see the characters get random crazy weapons from a slot machine, then duke it out according to their stats and items. It’s still strangely amusing to watch when you get used to it though, kinda like a race where you root for your horse to cross the finish line first. And all the silly weapons do entertain.
Komari:
Had to start with this one, huh…? I must admit I’m not a big fan of Komari. Every time I play through this game, apart from when I had to get her route, I choose to stay faar away from the rooftop and her bothersome “I’m cute and missing half a brain” voice. She spends most her time eating sweets on the rooftop, and during baseball practice she will run around with no particular purpose, other than occasionally getting in the way of the ball. (I find those moments very amusing. Sorry.)
As the baseball match has come and gone you progress into her route, and the other characters start to slowly fade away as the story centers on Komari. This begins with her being a terribly good-willed person, who talks Riki (the protagonist) into helping her with charity work at an old folks home. As is always the case with these kinds of stories, you will soon learn that all is not sunshine and rainbows with Komari in spite of her usual demeanour, though she’s not even aware of this herself. Slowly the plot unravels, and happy-go-lucky Komari will be faced with the severity of life and go through a terrible breakdown – which you can save her from!
As mentioned I’m not a big fan of Komari. She annoys me a great deal, and as such the ending didn’t have a great impact on me. The story was decent though, even if suffering some bad attempts at explaining the issue from time to time. But this will get much worse in other routes! OH TRUST ME, this is nothing.
And then of course there are the Komari panties. If you’re one of those people who like to have a shiny “100%” mark in your CG collection, you will have to play through the game 3 times with different choices of doughnuts (huh?), and in that manner get to see Komari wear a different pair of undies when she later falls over and shows them off to the protagonist. I guess this is something… if you really like doughnuts.
Kurugaya:
Kurugaya Yuiko attends Riki’s class, although she acts much older than most of his classmates. She is the tough big sister who will defeat anyone opposing her, all the while giving sage advice to Riki (or so she thinks), and tease the more shy girls at every opportunity. I really liked this char. While she obviously takes a liking to Riki straight away, and becomes a member of Little Busters and their baseball game, it soon becomes apparent that she is very inattentive to the fact that Riki also becomes more and more attached to her. Rather than being dense to the fact, it’s clear that this is something she just doesn’t see as a possibility from the beginning, and as such doesn’t consider any of his approaches to be of a romantic kind.
Going from Komari and Rin1, Kurugaya’s route takes a much more supernatural turn as it progresses. The concept is interesting, but it always feels like something is missing. There are many details left out of the story – why do these things happen? What are the things hinted about her past, do they even matter or were they just added as an afterthought? Kurugaya herself keeps mentioning that she functions as a robot, unable to feel any proper emotion in regards to what goes on around her. I don’t feel this was played on properly in the story though, as it also in the end just feels like an excuse of hers as to why she doesn’t return Riki’s approaches straight away, rather than being the reason for what goes on to start with. All of the information given always feels like it is supposed to lead to something more, so when the story ends, you can’t help but feel there is something missing which could have been interesting.
Kurugaya’s story is a bit special though, in that you get a little more in her true ending, which can only be unlocked after you finish “Refrain”.
Haruka:
Haruka is another one of my favourites. While her voice does get annoying at times (sorry, Haruka), she is a nice character with a complex story. Sometimes more complex than it needs to be. Like with Komari you will soon find out that everything isn’t as peachy with Haruka as she pretends for it to be, except in Haruka’s case she herself is painfully aware of this fact. As the story progresses you see how all her happy antics are just an attempt for her to act more human, as well as rebel against her unfair origins and upbringing. The bullying that escalates throughout the route was severe enough to make me want to kick in the face of a certain other character at times.
I find it refreshing that Haruka herself isn’t spotless either. Due to her circumstances she will at points be driven to hateful actions and opinions herself, and I almost expected to see some blood spilled at one point. (Sadly it didn’t happen. Aww.)
As for the past that caused all these things to happen… it felt very contrived at parts, and too complicated. It felt like it tried to be something taken out of Higurashi, which is detrimental to both the story and Haruka. I’m sure the same circumstances could have been brought about in much simpler terms, which would have been much easier to relate to and follow. Especially when the characters in the story are expected to explain these circumstances – they will almost always choose to do so in the most long-winded and confusing manner possible, maybe to try and drown out the possible hard-to-believe parts, or just to make it sound more interesting and mysterious than it really is. This gets quite annoying in the long run though, and only gets worse in other parts of the game. I’ll get back to that later…
Kud:
Or: Kudryavka Noumi. This character ranks very high among fans of visual novel heroines, and she even got her own expansion. I cannot for the life of me see why. I wonder if it’s the character design. Though, look at those eyes! Look at those alien eyes staring into your soul!
I won’t be able to hide that Kud is my all-time most disliked character in this game. And it’s not just because of her terribly annoying personality and voice – her story is awful as well, and the ending almost made me regret reading it in the first place.
Some spoilers ahead.
You spend some time with Kud, helping her find a room-mate and preparing for her school tests, as she is terribly bad in english and wants to improve. Soon the story moves in a direction where you will get the impression that this is all about her twin-nationality, as well as her sad feelings about not belonging among the people of either country. Classmates will make fun of her bad english and foreign looks, and for a moment I also considered if we were going to have another bullying story, like with Haruka. This is wrong however, as that is only one of her insecurities, along with a soon surfacing fear of not being able to live up to her famous mother’s legacy. Through bits of news in the cafeteria TV you will soon be able to see what is going to happen a mile away though, as the media speaks about an upcoming rocket-launch in Kud’s home country, one which is lead by her mother.
Then things take a strange turn. After a disaster strikes you get the option of supporting Kud’s idea of going “home” to see her mother, or stay and be safe with Riki in Japan. The choice for the good ending is to send her off. Into a death trap. Both Riki and Kud are obviously aware that doing so will most certainly spell a tragic end for Kud and her family, and the two will never see each other again. Yet she takes off, for some reason only contacted and aided by her country’s embassy – menacing people in suits who gives her the plane ticket – rather than her grandfather who is her supposed close family and guardian in Japan. Where did he suddenly go!?
And of course going “home” really is the death-trap they expected. The whole explanation for the situation in her country is confusing and vague in itself, but you’re obviously just supposed to not bother with details too much, and go with the flow anyway for the sake of plot. Kud’s fate seems sealed, and in a quite tragic and gruesome way too. But wait!!! Just as all seems dark and hopeless, something happens….
MAGIC!
That’s right. Magic literally happens, for no apparent reason, as you read the text. And with this deus ex machina, Kud somehow comes home, gets reunited with Riki, and all ends well(?). This all happens after a terribly pointless speech about being a cog in the world’s grand mechanism, which keeps repeating itself without making any more sense than it did the first time. But we’re being sentimental here, people! Just go along with it!
If you choose to have Kud stay in Japan, she is forever tormented by guilt by not having ventured into certain death to meet her mother one last time, but her mother’s fate seems to be the same no matter what you do, and in the end she is saved from what must be a terribly traumatizing experience.
Like in Kurugaya’s route, a few things are also mentioned in this story that give you the impression that they were supposed to be important, yet are never touched upon in detail ever again.
But I digress. Sorry, Kud fans, but her route makes no sense to start with, not to me. One can argue that maybe “Refrain” explains how this could be done (and then again it doesn’t), but even so the story should still feel somewhat believable while you are reading it. This does not.
Mio:
It’s time for the book girl. Mio is the usual quiet, bookish type, who will always sit outside beneath her tree and read, while the Little Busters mess around. In the end she catches Riki’s eye, and he manages to convince her to come watch them play baseball. After a while she becomes their manager. Which means just sitting around and watching them play, while she has tea with the teams other two utterly useless members, Komari and Kud.
(By the way, try and hit their lunch with your ball while you practice. It’s funny.)
Most of Mio’s story is terribly uneventful. You go eat and read with her under her tree, and after a while she starts lending you books. You get constantly reminded of this poem about a seagull that is very important to her – you won’t miss out on it, it will be mentioned and recited again and again. The closer you get to the end, the slower things seem to go. Line after line of text that I couldn't help but feel was terribly unnecessary, and in the end just made any emotion evoked by the tale feel forced and drawn out for far too long. This is a general issue with many visual novels, I know, but it doesn’t make it less tiresome.
Soon the supernatural background for Mio’s problem presents itself – and after ploughing through more walls of empty text, you finally get closer to unlocking the plot. Mio isn’t the worst character in the game. She’s terribly dull and uninteresting, but the further you get, at least some sort of personality emerges, and you can somewhat relate to her being the “invisible” girl in class that no one really pays any mind to. But the writing destroyed any chances of my really caring about what happens to her – it just goes on for too long, once again constantly repeating itself throughout the climax, talking about seagulls and colours and whether you can blend with other people or not. Like with most of the other endings, it just struggles too hard with trying to sound deep and emotional, and I just wanted to yell “get on with it!!” at the screen.
This time I didn’t bother with the bad ending as I could pretty much figure out what would happen in it anyway, and I felt like I’d die if I had to read through more of those endless lines of nothing. Sorry Mio, you join the trio of useless routes who feel terribly unnecessary and forced in this game.
Rin 1+2:
Rin! She is the “main” girl of Little Busters, the same way Ayu, Misuzu and Nagisa were in Key’s previous novels, Kanon, Air and Clannad. Her route is split in two – one which you can play at any time, and the other that unlocks when all other girls are cleared. I’ve decided to write about both of them together, which is why I saved her for last.
The writing in this route doesn’t waste half as much of its breath as it did in some of the others, and the story flows much better, as it did in the common route up until now, which is nice.
Rin is lovely and cute and all kinds of adorable – I guess the Natsume family has some good genes. Rin loves cats, and spends almost all of her breaks playing with cats in the courtyard. She is also terribly shy and bad at dealing with people, and only really feels comfortable around the Little Busters – Riki especially, as the two of them have shared a special bond since they met years ago. In the beginning someone will suddenly send her strange messages by attaching them to the tail of one of her stray cats, and in this manner she is presented with several tasks that she has to fulfil. If she does, the “secret of the world” will be revealed to her, or so they promise. Riki decides to help her out, even if he is sceptic about the perpetrator's intentions with these messages.
Rin sticks to Riki like glue, and watching their relationship move from childhood friends and onto something more is very sweet and awkward, as I imagine it very well could be. Of course everything takes an undesirable turn as the route progresses into Rin2 – something doesn’t quite go as it did the first time around, and Rin and Riki’s peaceful days start to fall apart. Riki tries hard to fix the issue, but you can tell from a mile away that his solution is not going to hold, and you can just wait for things to go horribly wrong. And then comes Refrain.
Refrain and final impressions:
Refrain is where the overall plot reaches its climax and comes to a close. Looking at all the previous paths, common route and Rin2 makes up the first half of the actual story, where Refrain is the latter half.
This can be felt on the writing. As mentioned with Rin, there is far from the same useless repeating of facts and meaningless fluff, giving it much more impact, and making it a more enjoyable read overall. At least for me it really managed to hit home when it was supposed to – from peaceful to downright creepy, and heartbreakingly sad.
A cause of this is possibly having several writers. That, or they became terribly sloppy when it was time to write the other routes, who are not really that important to the main plot of things. To add insult to injury Kud gets a comment in the epilogue that I felt just cemented her “good” ending as being utterly pointless.
I’m not going to say much about what happens in Refrain itself, as it’s not possible to do so without giving out a lot of spoilers, but I’m definitely going to recommend it. If you can get past the shortcomings in the routes you have to clear before getting here, you’re in for a real treat.
After you finish Refrain you get the chance to enter another segment that lets you change the ending even further. I personally found this segment very clever, as you have to choose the right way to carry out some tasks to be successful – and the clues on how to do it have been hinted at throughout the main story all along, if you paid attention. This really lets it all come together, and illustrates that all that the characters had to work through mattered in the end, much more than they had hoped for.
And then of course there is the final ending credits roll – I don’t remember enjoying watching credits roll by that much in recent times. For once I feel sad that there is no shiny “Credits” button to be found in the game menu.
All in all Little Busters is a great visual novel. The concept is told much better when it finally gets down to it, and the main characters of the Little Busters are amazing. It’s great to finally see characters like Kengo and Masato, who feel like actual people belonging to the plot, rather than just filling the role of “idiot friend” – something much too common in this genre. Unfortunately the routes for other characters than Rin just feel too forced and empty, and especially some of them are like an exercise in filler. They feel like they are made to be dramatic for the sake of drama, filled with forced and poorly described plot-tools, and therefore fall flat more often than not. They are there because they “have” to be: a visual novel of this kind needs several routes with a colourful cast of girls for the readers to fall in love with – sometimes more than actually telling an engaging story.
That’s not to say all the characters are bad – while I do have my gripes with some of them, they all do serve a purpose in the story, and they should definitely be there. Routes might not have been necessary though, apart from making us aware of one particular plot hook, giving us chills whenever that voice would remind us of what is happening in the background. At any rate, they could have been much shorter.
Last but not least! Time for me to rank the characters from most to least favourite:
Kyosuke
Rin
Kurugaya
Haruka
Komari
Mio
Kud
Yes I had to sneak Kyosuke in there. If Kengo and Masato was on the list, I’d put them somewhere in the top as well.
Now excuse me, I’m going to watch that final credits roll again.
