So I finished One, it was something I wanted to read around a year ago but I heard of the remake so here we are. I’m always confusing this title with Moon which is supposedly kind of on the more fucked up side. I read some of the og One while going through this one just to see if I’m missing something and overall it’s kind of the same. Sometimes the fantl does a better job, other times this one flows better. The worst aspect is whoever handled the choices because there’s times where the answer is like, “yeah I guess” to some theoretical question. And the new one just puts “hmm”. You choose that thinking that he’s giving it some thought but then the convo is about how he’d do it. There’s also this quiz near the beginning where it was pretty comical in the og but they pretty much removed half of the humor. Basically the quiz is just doing synonyms but the og also gave you an example sentence with a blank and the shit was pretty funny. The new one removed that part and it got pretty bland and it kind of gets on your nerves because you have to this every new run.
I only went through two routes in the og, I see no differences in terms of plot. So nothing was really taken out and nothing was added when it really should’ve been but I’ll get to that later. Some of the backgrounds are more barren since they removed the Moon characters that were used as a cameo. I didn’t go into it, I’m just assuming either they don’t have the rights or rather just remove the association from that title anyway. The hscenes were rather poor in the og but honestly the routes themselves are poor in their own right anyway.
So some background knowledge is that this is some og type of thing. I think this was Maeda’s second go on writing after Moon but apparently he worked on this Chaos Queen thing that I never heard about. Anyways, don’t get your hopes up because it’s kind of bad. It felt like something a bunch of friends made when hanging out in the bar. The best way to illustrate it is that it feels like all of the important scenes were storyboarded but one came back to add the filler in between to make it all flow well. So the end product is that the routes themselves are like an hour each. And not only are they an hour or two each, a good chunk of it all is the same in every route due to the main aspects being about the main character.
I was told to leave Akane for last and I can see what they were going for. But on the other hand, I could also tell you to goof around outside of Akane’s choices and just leave the vn after that route. Which is weird because the cover image is on Nagamori and I’ll go through that in the spoilers. Really it could be any character, just Akane is the better option. It’s really weird that the routes are so rushed considering the common route has a lot going for it. You can already see what makes his titles great in there. Kouhei is the main character and just like Maeda’s classics, he’s pretty much an asshole. And it works, generally it’s a fun time because of it. Sure there’s not much going for him but he’s still not vanilla. Some prefer the faceless avatar that you control, but it’s not for me. I guess another thing I should note is that he only did half of it and Hisaya did the other half. I can’t guarantee it but almost anything you liked about Kanon also came from this guy. Maeda only started blazing once it was Air. Anyways, the characters that were handled by Hisaya and the ones handled by Maeda don’t really interact with each other outside of a few lines like introducing them to Nagamori.
There’s this option that puts out a small image of what choice affects which character. Some of them are flags, some are just points for some scenes. It feels like you can miss around 20% and still be fine as long as they weren’t the important ones. I’m not sure how it is on steam, but it was on by default on Jast. I’d say just turn it off for your first run, it kind of messes up with the magic. Like I went all over the place in my run where I was just relentlessly bullying the tsun character and out of nowhere I’m taking care of this child whose apparently only two years younger. Then out of nowhere she’s just not brought up again and I got into a route with the mute girl.
Rating this one is kind of weird because I feel like I either misunderstood it or I don’t see the point of it. What is One, is it just about the singular bond that he craves for. Is it the unifying of both places, is it just learning to enjoy the one time he gets to experience with his friends. I don’t know, I don’t think it’ll affect my score all that much but it becomes a little more empty to me than what I feel like they were going for. Kanon and Clannad technically does this too for some, but it’s more apparent with what they were going for. And I know people that aren’t a fan of Clannad and they consider most of the routes just “hang out with X girl” when there’s more to it than that. So I’m wondering if there’s something like that here too and now I’m in that “hangout with girl” group.
Overall
If you ever read the og, then I don’t see the reason to read this one. Otherwise, go with this one. The art is great, you understand when the hscenes were going to happen. The mute girl actually gets some sounds, the other characters sound like what they were going for. Maybe the largest difference is Nagamori where it feels more like a mom than a caring airhead but both work in different ways. The routes themselves are kind of crap and sometimes I’d even give them a 4 overall because a good chunk is the same and it’s resolved is basically the same. It’s one of those things where it feels like it wasn’t intended to fully complete it and just do a run or two. The common route itself is like a 7 and that’s great considering the common route is like 80% of the vn.
Spoilers
So most of the spoilers is basically around Nagamori. But before that, the child I was talking about before was Mayu. Supposedly she graduates that year and I think Kouhei was at 2nd year, so either 2 or 3 years. With her mannerisms, I thought she was a lot younger and the og route is kind of fucked up but I think that was during the time where lolis were pretty popular. Anyways, after knowing she wasn’t that much younger, honestly I thought she was severely autistic but apparently not.
There’s these monologues happening at intervals where it’s a different Kouhei talking about the other world and how he wants to leave it but he knows he’ll eventually be there once again. I think he’s supposed to be younger in these and there’s a young Nagamori talking with him. Part of me thought maybe these were conversations they had when they were young but some of them are just too weird for that to be the case. Anyways, it makes it look like Nagamori is essential to the plot. She’s the cover, she’s in the logo, she’s the main focus in the op. Technically you can say that because she’s always around Kouhei, part of her world is disintegrating once he eventually disappears. And you can see it like, oh she’s the anchor and she’s the one that tethers him to this world. But the plot always has her forgetting about him unless it’s her route. So you could say that he’s been tethered down a lot longer than he was expecting due to her but it’s finally running out. None of this happens, I don’t understand why she’s so integral.
There’s this whole thing with his dying to eventual dead sister, I assume she had cancer. I felt like maybe that was a trigger point and that’s how he first got into contact with the other world, but I think that was also around the time that he met Nagamori. My best guess is she forgot about what she told him when they first met, so the tether is weakened enough again that he’s vanishing. Why he can come back after a year, no clue. I assume hope would be strongest early on, not after a year, lol.
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