Irotoridori no Sekai Review: It’s great but it takes awhile

So I finished IroSekai and what I felt on it kind of reminded me of something else I wrote about but ended up shelving. Basically it was on how I score stuff and a subsection was how generally people give a more favorable score if it ends well even if the percentage of what’s good is identical to a movie with a poor second half. It’s more of a talk about people ignoring the faults for the high they’re feeling and giving something a 10 when it doesn’t deserve it kind of thing.

Anyways, the title is equal parts great and generic. The saving grace is that everything has a pointer that explains why x and y are that way. I get that just because there’s an explanation for it, crap is still crap. But it softens the blow of what was happening, what they went with makes sense with the proper context. A lot of my favorite titles kind of handle it pretty well. It’s just until you get there, those sections are generic and to me, massively boring. The school section, the beach section, the eating section.

If the current plot isn’t covering the the alternate worlds and their characters or the two main characters Yuuma and Shinku; Then I was just bored. This one will cutoff pretty early for the spoilers because most of everything I liked was in the finale. Funny enough the sections are pretty segmented this time around but I’ll go over the characters first.

There’s Kana, you meet her pretty early on when she jumps off the lighthouse. That’s not a spoiler btw, it’s in the synopsis. She’s kind of an airhead and wants to be the protagonist’s wife. She wears some maid attire and honestly she’s kind of annoying to me but I feel like a huge chunk of that is that I just don’t like her voice. Her VA was actually in a lot of titles I did like, sometimes even my favorite character in the title but Kana just doesn’t do it for me. She has a lot of good scenes but she was rarely the main focus in a huge majority of them, she’s just there.

Mio is the childhood friend, she’s the classic tsun and her route works. I feel like there’s also going to be a subset of people that disliked how it ended but I liked it a lot. Though it kind of fucks up the flow a bit but I’ll get to that in the spoilers.

Kyou’s another airhead and also a neet. She spends most of her time playing all types of games.
Tsukasa is yet another airhead that’s usually broke and is working here and there to make some money. She’s the most naive of the bunch and more like a mascot than anything else.
There’s a couple of other characters but the remaining important characters are the two leads Yuuma, Shinku and Suzu who’s basically Yuuma’s boss. It’s always apparent that she’s a cut above the rest and knows more than what she leads on but her lazy and prankster nature throws off Yuuma.

Yuuma has horrible memory and forgets anything he deems not important. So anything he deems important has to be written in his book. The book contains Shinku who can’t be perceived by anyone except Yuuma. With her help, Yuuma can heal anybody instantly in trade of some of his memories. It’s a deus ex machina but it’s kept under control considering since it can’t do anything outrageous like reviving people from the dead.

They call themselves liberators and the gist is that randomly people gets messaged by god and they vanish soon after. So they try to save those people if the victims ask them to. Unfortunately, this is kind of put to the side more often than not throughout the vn but it’s always the highlights when they get back to it. If you ever read Tokyo Babel, then it’s something like that. Where the fights are the highlights and the interim of SoL scenes were either fine or just fucked up the pacing.

Anyways with that out of the way, the routes are segmented weirdly. Kana’s route is so long that it can fit Mio,Kyou and Tsukasa inside. And that’s mainly because a good chunk of that is handling other characters that’re used as similarities for her stuff. She’s the only one that gets this treatment. But that’s not to say her route is stupidly long, it’s that Kyou and Tsukasa felt like it took around two or three hours each. Mio maybe around 5 or 6. And there’s actually an explanation on why that is but that’ll be in the spoilers.

Kana is what’s considered the first route. Mio and Kyou reflect back onto Kana’s route but you could technically do Mio’s first depending if you prefer to have some leading questions or just have references. Technically there’s a tiny bit with Tsukasa in Kyou’s route so you could technically leave Kyou for the end. But in the finale, they confirm on what the path normally is but it could be a little busters type of thing that knows what order you did and structure the lines accordingly.

Anyways, you can say that the common route took 30%, Kana took 15 and the other three took another 15. And that’s basically me saying that the final route is actually pretty fucking large. Up until this point, I was not having a favorable outlook on this vn. It had good moments, it had some bad moments but overall a lot of things feeling standard and honestly that’s worse for me than it being straight out bad. Honestly it felt like it was wasting its time with the characters when they had so many avenues available with the alternate worlds and what Yuuma is trying to do across all of these.

The finale extends every important character, anything that you thought that could be stupid is explained and honestly explained well to the point that you can just shelve the complaints away. The plot is written well, the pacing is great and I don’t think it ever stopped being engaging. It goes through the steps properly, it never felt like anything was dragging on and this is where I can see why the vn is rated highly. It just sucks that I had to wait for that long to get to it.

Overall:

Overall, the vn itself isn’t that long but you have to go through a chunk before hitting what makes the title great. But who knows, if you haven’t read a huge chunk of vns then maybe even the generic parts end up being delightful for you. The music is catchy and the art is pretty. Whilst the op isn’t as well designed as the one from Memoria, it’s still quite fun.

I’m giving the common around a 6 and that’s mostly considering the penultimate chapter and a chapter around Shinku, otherwise it’d be closer to a 5. Anytime it spent time in the alternate worlds or what Yuuma was doing, it became a 7. Kana’s route was fine and I had fun with Mio’s route but the other two were too short to really put much thought into. The finale is pretty much a 9 so as a whole I’m putting it as an 8. Maybe with time and me forgetting about the monotonous parts, it’ll feel like a 9.

Spoilers:

So I’m at the spoilers now and that’ll cover a couple of the routes and the finale. Technically you can do Kana whenever, it won’t affect the pathing all that much. The purpose of putting her first outside of it being the more fleshed out route is because it covers both what’s wrong with her, the purpose on Ayumu and a character called Renya. Renya is Kyou’s brother but also Ren’s dad.

Ayumu is someone that has around the same feel as Yuuma and technically his goal is to save Kana due to Kana taking care of him when they were younger. Except Ayumu was a cat back then. It’s brought back up in Mio’s route but just in the way that’s telling the reader not to worry about Kana because he doesn’t need Yuuma to save her. If you don’t do Kana’s route first, it just feels like something as a pointer that he’s important to Kana’s route and that’s it.

It’s almost at the same level of doing Tsukasa’s route before Kyou just because you learn that the town cares about Tsukasa. It’s surface level stuff that doesn’t really matter. So it’s more that you get more out of your time with Kana because you might be peeved with how short Tsukasa and Kyou’s routes are if you did them first.

Anyways, for awhile I kind of assumed Kana’s voice was fake and it was a way to get endear Yuuma or make him remember who she was. In the sense that it was her voice when she was young and considering what was happening to her, she was mentally kind of stuck due to her condition. And once it was remedied and she got everything she knew and learned back in one go, I thought how she acted and her voice would drop. And I guess how she acted already shifted midway, her voice sadly stayed the same.

In Mio’s route in ended up being that she wasn’t the same person Yuuma knew at the start. A lot of shit happened and this was another Mio from an alternate world. OG Mio’s parents were killed and she took this Mio’s parents. Technically it was a request for a few days and then she just got Shigure to lock down the path to that world so this Mio is screwed. The people here could go to other worlds through this clock in the basement.

The ending happened to be that she was able to go back but some things happened and the clock got screwed up and now she can’t come back. So years pass and eventually Yuuma and Mio can see each other even though they’re not in the same world. This goes back to the initial allegory of the ocean and sky always being close but never joining. It’s like their whole thing. Honestly I quite liked the route. It’s not as short as the next two. It has a couple of things going on and even the SoL stuff was pretty fun. Though I guess a huge part of that was Mio playing an otome but secretly also a kusoge.

I’m skipping what happened in the next two routes and jumping to the finale. The finale is basically a retcon of what was going on so far. It’s just like a different popular title where the sequel just tells you that the protag handled all of the issues even though it doesn’t really make sense with some of them. And that’s pretty much the case here too. It says he saved one of them each year. Starting with Kana and ending with Tsukasa. Ayumu is around in Mio’s route, he’d already be gone by that point if Kana went first. Either way, Mio’s route would fuck it all up because the clock was broken in her route. So any back and forth messaging in Kyou and Tsukasa’s routes wouldn’t work. Not to mention that Mio’s route ends with him waiting years to the point everybody already left the dorm.

It doesn’t really matter, it’s just saying that he resolved all of it. And the premise behind that is because the world is a replica, it’s the colorful world. This was set through a lot of hoops. But the gist of it is Yuuma was the current manager of the library they mention. Where every person becomes a book and then he sits down with the more downtrodden ones and help them make a new story for them. He wanted to know what love was personally, so he schemed around it and got down to earth. This fucked up the system and now people are just vanishing all over the place instead of just once per year. And even then, it was a misconception because these were people that either accomplished their dream or were one of the downtrodden ones.

Anyways, the town is pretty much dead once he gets there. He meets Shinku, who then introduces them to Kana and Mio. Tsukasa, Kyou and Ayumu were already taken. It’s the reasoning why their routes are so short. He just has less background info to fill out their stories, but I’ll get to that in a bit. So the basis is that he now understands that the library is screwy so he’s going back. This is speeding through the plot, it makes more sense in the vn. But Suzu helps him out to create this fake world where he can solve the traumas that the kids have, considering that was also one of Shinku’s wishes.

While on flipside he has to throw away his initial wish since once complete, he’ll go back to the library as a book instead of an entity that can manage it. The idea is that the library holds a lot of crap that power hungry people want. So since he left, the door is wide open. And I felt that was kind of cartoonishly evil and I don’t think that needed to be a thing. All those entities left once he got back but a more practical thing would be that the library has some level of automation to it. It’s just that it’s shit at its job and the thresholds before running an action were too low. So any little event would fire up the steps to take the humans away and that’s what was happening. What they did still works, but it does feel like something that was put there just to explain it away instead of it being integral to the plot.

And I’m finally at the last point, and it’s going back to the short routes. Or rather the idea that anything you thought was weird or dumb has a reason for it.
Why are the routes short? He only knows what Shinku told about them.
Why is Kana so much longer than the rest? Because he spent the most days with her.

Why does he forget everything everyday unless he writes it down? Because he’s been around for countless years and it’s a safety mechanism for his sanity.
Why is Suzu always messing around? It’s kind of some hazing for what Yuuma has done without realizing. She cares about him now but it’s something that she probably won’t drop even though it no longer mattered.

Why does he use his healing powers all the damn time for the most mundane injuries? Seriously, the amount of times he healed Kana was crazy. It’s because he wants to wipe his memories of Shinku, he’s always afraid that he’ll revert back to his original wish of wanting someone to love. And the more he forgets, the easier his decision will be after he resolves the rest of the issues from the rest of the cast. Because getting his own wish was something he refused to do considering how much damage he was causing just from being there. Honestly, I was assuming something alongside the lines of him going back and just taking Shinku to the library after a year.

All in all, I had a lot of fun when the plot revolved around Yuuma or Shinku. Tsukasa and Kyou’s routes could’ve been removed and just reworked to something more involved in the common route to the point it could’ve been arcs. Or just having them have more screentime inside Mio and Kana’s route. Even the cover images only consist of the Shinku, Mio and Kana, lol. I get what they were going for and having nothing for them would just then bring a different subset of people asking why they didn’t get a route.

Piofiore no Banshou Review: Great but with a lull in the middle

So I finished Piofiore and it took a lot longer than I expected. I think it’s probably around 40 hours but it felt like 60 by the time I finished. There’s a sequel to it but more so a continuation of this one. So I’ll just be calling this one 1925 and the sequel 1926(it’s part of the name). 1925 kind of has its own conclusion but it’s basically telling you that the plot isn’t over and that you should get the second one. I considered maybe reading the sequel before going over this one but I decided against it since I don’t have the right mindset or energy to continue it right now, especially considering that the sequel is just as long as this one. So I’ll be talking about just 1925 and it’ll help stick my memories to make 1926 a better experience for me.

I’ve written about a different otome before but I don’t think I ever released it and I should do that eventually. This one is mafia based and honestly there’s quite a few of them. The mc is an orphaned lady raised in the church, the church resides in a town that’s run by three mafia groups. Depending on your actions, she either get saved or abducted by the guys and you explore their territories and how they handle things. There’s an overarching plot revolving other major powers and the protag is a key piece for some factions and a bargaining piece for others.

The soundtrack is snazzy. There’s 24 tracks but some are alternates so it’s more around 19 or 20. Some tracks are massively overplayed and it sucks because that’s the ones that you’ll remember. They went crazy with the clothes but especially with the flower motif. The backgrounds didn’t interest me all that much but they’re also stupidly varied. But really the selling point is the hair. It’s kind of gotten to the point that the illustrator for all of it was really super into it, felt like they got a really good contract or wanted to keep their mind occupied.
My favorite character is probably Gilbert with Yang being a close second. But I guess the best set piece was done with Nichola. Technically I liked the main villain, but I felt that was more that I liked how he sounded than anything else he provided to the plot.

I think you can only start with Nichola or Yang depending if you’re overall nice or skeptical respectively. It’s best to start out with Nichola’s route since it covers most of the important cast outside of Yang’s group. It’s kind of weird that the emphasis on the cops are strongest in this one and then just semi forgotten for a huge chunk of the title. It does try to tie in by the end but honestly it was more like a footnote and probably just a stepping stone for the sequel. Which is kind of sad since I had a lot fun with the relationship dynamics between Nichola and Roberto.

Roberto is the angry detective that wants to drive the mafia off the land. He’s funny in a few ways, mainly that he’s the stereotypical standoffish detective like the one in persona 5 or the one from Cartagra. But the main one is unintentional, his last name means ugly in my language. So every time he gets a name card, it’s calling him ugly. There is a dry spell with Nichola around the middle and you have to power through it but it ends well enough. I guess I should say that each route has three endings excluding the bad endings of her just dying. So the best, normal and bad endings. Though really it’s put as the best being the prologues to 1926 and the bad ending being the sad endings.

Anyways after Nichola covering most of it, Yang covers the china faction. He’s interesting and overall he’s a fun character to read because he’s unabashedly a shitty person that just wants to alleviate his boredom. Basically each character has a main attribute like Dante being overly strict, Orlok being docile and Gilbert being playful. Nichola and Yang are kind of like the two sides of the same coin and just a nudge can push their stations. But Yang is also rapey so there’s going to be a sour taste to at least a portion of the fanbase. But really, if you removed it all and then had a poll of who’d the most likely to do that, it’d probably still be Yang. He probably has the more interesting sad ending too, though I guess Orlok’s bad ending was kind of funny if you have a screwed up sense of humor.

I’m not sure when the others are unlocked, but the route order is better off with Nichola>Yang>Orlok>Dante and then Gilbert. Gilbert’s common is used as the base for Finale. Honestly I think they used too much of it, you can consider it like maybe 20% changes. And overall that’s the major issue with this title. Each new route after the first two doesn’t really delve to whatever they’re about too deeply. So it’s more like 10% new context of what’s going on, and then the rest is setup and follow-through of the guy you picked. Sure it’s not my demographic but you can tell it could’ve been done better.

It’d be a different case if the title was all about the guys but they’re supposed to be sharing the spotlight with the overarching plot. I think most of the issues I had stems from the antagonists being the same. So you you’re always against some or all factions until one time where there’s an antagonist that unifies the three factions for that period. And overall that’s fine but let’s say if Dante was the antagonist, he acts relatively the same throughout the routes, this can be said for all of them. And that’s good in terms of consistency but I just got bored and you can assume what’s going to happen even more often than normal.

And the sad thing is that Orlok and Dante aren’t all that interesting to me. They’re routes cover why the main character is important but really that was already covered in Yang’s route. They just go deeper into with their own factions and fill out the remaining pieces. These two slowed down my reading pace considerably. It’s not even that they’re bad characters, they’re interesting in their own right but just got screwed over not being the first routes. Because like I said before, now you’re just getting small increments of the remaining plot. For those that really just care about going out with the guy, then most likely you wouldn’t even notice the sluggish pace of the overarching plot.

The finale was also really dull in terms of what a finale usually entails. A lot of it is already in Gilbert’s route. Even without that, it was just kind of dull, the routes themselves were more interesting. Sure the finale puts in the remaining pieces but it’s more so a way to bridge the two titles than ending with a bang with some foreshadowing to the next.

Overall

Overall, if this was only Nichola and Yang then I’d probably place it as an 8 that was closer to a 9. With all of it together, it’s more like a 7 but closer to a 6. Really it blurs the line and I can see it as a 6 that’s closer to a 7. The art kind of carries the title but the characters are interesting semi regularly but more often with Yang or Nichola. I also had fun going through Gilbert’s route but the ending felt lackluster in comparison to the first two. I felt like they could’ve added more scenes with the cops but that might just be me since I found the two interesting.

Spoilers: What I liked

So the spoilers are kind of on stuff I talked about offhandedly before. Roberto is pretty much a crazy asshole that’s different from Yang. And that’s more on that he can be fooled, he gets a lot of tunnel vision. The dude is all about justice but he goes all Kira and just starts killing off whoever is in his way. But that’s only in Nichola’s route and he’s semi gone for a huge chunk of the vn. He does come back in Gilbert and the true route and he’s pretty cool there too. He’s no longer crazy and kind of has that bro rivalry with Nichola. Basically he sees what the old detective was always talking about and sometimes you have to play along to get shit done.

Yang is pretty fun for kind of the same reasons. The dude is just bored and is basically and adrenaline junkie. If he doesn’t find you interesting, you’re dead. Hell you can be the most important piece to get business done and you’re still most likely going to die. He has a lot of action scenes and there’s times he reminds me of that Madara guy from Naruto when he’s fighting either Guy or Hashirama. He even gets a little mopey if his target just wants to do something else and this happens with him and Orlok. Because Orlok is somehow a super beast and can one hit kill most people. And that’s pretty funny considering Yang is also seen as a super soldier type guy. He can get shot throughout the whole fight and still keep going. There was one scene by the end of his route where he just throws the mc to the ground just to get an extra second of distance. His bad ending was also pretty neat, he ends up killing the mc because he found her boring. But by the end he kills off this other lady because she told him that he had someone he loved but he didn’t notice it. So the basis is that Yang is an asshole but he’s entertaining to read about.

Orlok is kind of whatever. He’s the goodboy of the group but his plot didn’t have much. He’s like a tsukihime nun. His combat stats is basically Leo from Rose Gun Days but none of the charm of Leo. His plot does key in some details of the bishop and this other guy. It’s interesting but the funniest thing about him is his bad ending. Where Orlock gets captured by Dante and Dante just cucks him whilst he’s imprisoned. And it’s understandable considering he was raised with minimal social interaction.

The main bad had a great voice actor that just shittalks the rest of the group. It’s rather short but it was entertaining while it lasted. He’s also pretty decent in his own route and I think he’ll play a larger role in the sequel but but I didn’t look into it

ONE Review: You can tell it’s an earlier work

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.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly and Ashen Hawk: Could’ve been better but still fun

Note: This was written around the time Tokyo Necro came out and I kept pushing it back.

So I don’t really read that much otome, I think it’s still in the low single digits and something I was interested in trying. For the random person that doesn’t know, the otome genre is catered to women but also the main character is female. It’s not my field so I don’t really know how these are compartmentalize. I read one or two titles catered to women by accident and the plot is generally pretty cool, but since the main character was a man it somehow doesn’t count as an otome. There’s some titles I’ve read that are closer to like all ages with a hint of bl but at that point, is it catered to bl fans or just more general feminine audience? Overall I don’t really care since I just care about the plot or the interactions between characters. I feel like they put in more effort for the background scenario but that’s probably just the popular ones that get localized. There might just be as much of an overabundance in highschool backgrounds in these generes. Honestly it’s mostly marketing, but I still find it fucking lazy.

I wrote my notes on the first Psychedelica before I got to read Bustafellows, simply because these two Psychedelica titles were like 7 dollars each, lol. Bustafellows fairs better but I had fun with these two. More so on the first one but the second one has its own merits that I’ll get to later. The 2nd one is loose sequel to the first one so it’s kind of weird on how to go about it. So I think I’m just going to right about the first, then second, then the spoilers.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly

So the protag wakes up in a mansion without her memories. There’s monsters around and she finds other people pretty fast and find their safe room. They can’t leave the mansion and it’s always raining at night. They also get assigned to hunt down these monsters to get these crystal shards, and in return they’d get their memories back alongside a way to get out of the mansion.

And that’s the gist of it, it was kind of fun for like the first half. It just turned kind of boring afterwards and it’s because the fun nature of just having shitty brats just interacting with each other eventually stops and it focuses on the route’s character. Except that half of their routes are pretty much garbage even in an objective level. Like I know a guy that hates most kinds of drama so he’d hate a specific character but the overall steps of that route is fine compared to some of these that are just outright bad and I’ll talk about it in the small spoilers sections.

So there’s a couple of characters in here and I can already see that some of these are probably overused archetypes.
You got the angry loner boy Yamato, the hardass Hikage, the dainty sophisticated Kagiha, the energetic smartass Karasuba and the weird airhead Monshiro.
There’s locked scenes that need to be seen in order to get certain endings. There’s scenes with all of them interacting with each other, some where it’s a one-on-one convo with the protag and sometimes it’s two characters bickering about some irrelevant topic but overall it’s a fun time.You unlock them by doing the shooting minigame, which you’d think it’d be a reoccurring gimmick through most chapters but they’re barely in the vn. Which is weird since that’s part of the plot, a lot of that gets handled in the background. And I’m not saying that’s a horrible idea, I can see it being rather monotonous after awhile but then you might as well skip the gimmick altogether. Where you just show an action scene and that’d be it.

Anyways, you do the minigame, get the points and unlock the scenes. The extra scenes are probably my favorite section in the vn since everybody is interacting with each other. Like I found Karasuba enjoyable when he’s around and interacting with the other characters since he’s just shit talking the others. But his solo scenes were probably the largest stains in an overall decent vn, he just doesn’t got much going on. I feel like that’s a problem with a good chunk of them, it’s just more apparent with Karasuba.

Getting an ending is kind of annoying half the time since you basically have to start from the beginning each time. Let’s say in Yamato’s case, he has two endings and you did his first ending before the good ending. And I think you need to do the normal ending before either of his endings. So you reload a chapter behind, you’re just going to get the normal ending again even though you read through the flags before. This also happened to me in Karasuba, where I did his first ending, went back a choice and got the normal ending again, so I guess it wipes out your choices after an ending, I’m not sure.

For the routes, I’d give Monshiro a low 8, Hikage a high 7. Then the normal ending and Yamato as a middle 7. And those were in my notes and I’m kind of wondering why I have Yamato lower than Hikage when I remembered having fun with that character. And I think it’s because Hikage is kind of on its own branch so it was breath of fresh air but more so that it interacted with different characters and I just had a better experience with it. It helps that I read it after Karasuba’s route too. Karasuba and Kagiha are just failures for different reasons, I’m not sure what I’d give them but I’ll talk about it in the spoilers.

All in all, the plot setting is cool but they also don’t really do much with it after awhile, it felt more like it lost steam the longer it went on. I felt the final chapters to be its weakest points and it was kind of boring. It was more like they were trying to figure out how to resolve everything. Depending on your drama tolerance you might have some trouble with a specific route, it’s really by the books but it was written well. I’m not sure if it was that one or Yamato that was my favorite.

Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk

So for the second title, it’s now in a town filled with snow. It used to be a trade town but the snow kind of ruined everything to the point it’s kind of pain to even leave for a different town at all.

The intro starts out strong but it dies out soon after. The protagonist is a girl that dresses as a guy due to his eye sometimes turning red when she’s emotional. Basically there’s a myth goes that if you see a lady with red eyes, then she’s going to fuck up the town so they have to kill her. I thought this would be more akin to that Salem game where you have to gaslight the people on what transpired but that’s not really the case.

I didn’t find the characters this time around all that charming and their interactions are more generic than in the previous title. But mainly in the sense that most of the guys are already attracted to the character, some from the beginning and some when she’s not dressing like a guy. I find it pretty boring even in a moe game so a bunch of guys isn’t going improve how I feel about it, lol. Not like that wasn’t a thing in the first title, but at least it wasn’t everybody. Personally I liked Levi the least and Ashen Hawk the most. Most of them were at least slightly interesting but Lugus was put higher than the rest. There’s actually a few characters that are from the first title and those were also fun but I’ll bring those up in the spoilers.

I think it was chapter two that goes on for way too long. And it’s because all the exposition comes from there. Most of the character interactions, parts of the setup and what the main character is about. And it’s mostly a complaint on why it couldn’t be split into two parts because chapter two is as long as like the next three chapters put together. So after that chapter, it’s for the most part a kinetic experience. The amount of options drastically diminish, it’s like a flag or two and I’m wondering if most of those are even necessary because you might just be able to get any route by the choices you make in the last chapter. I don’t think you even need any of the interaction scenes, just the mandatory story scenes. And maybe this was their way to fix how much you had to redo from the first title. And that reminds me of how Xenosaga 2’s art style changed so drastically due to feedback and I was there like, what did you do.

Honestly, it’s kind of written well but in the sense that with some slight changes this could just be a normal YA fantasy novel. It ends strong, to the point that it’s somewhat close to one of my old favorite animes from like 10 or 15 years ago when I used to watch a decent bit.

Overall, kind of a weaker experience. They both have strong starts but this one kind of meandered around for awhile and then ended strong. It retreads some old topics from the first title and did those well. Some of the happy ending stuff kind of fixed some of the kind of whatever sections in the first title’s happy ending. Basically I found the true ending to be done better than what was in the first but the actual routes are a lot weaker considering it’s much closer to a kinetic experience. It’s like 95% the same for each route except some extra routes that can be unlocked after your first ending. I’d say my favorite route ending outside of the finale is probably Lavan’s, and then the solo ending.

There’s some extra endings, I think they get unlocked after you get the finale. Overall they weren’t as good but it does cover the final open topics still going around so I think they’re a fine addition.

So for the two titles combined, I had a lot of fun. Not the greatest and honestly I probably got a few dozen titles in my backlog that I’d like more. But as a way to at least give a couple of more tries into a genre I’m not used to, I had a good time and I already got a few more titles that I’d like to go for. Though I’m also kind of worried that these two and bustafellows are more on one side of the otomes and I might randomly get one that’s just a trash heap. But who knows, maybe that’ll make a decent video. These could be some pretty decent anime titles though, especially the second one.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly Spoiler Section

So by now, you either don’t care about spoilers, already finished it or at least finished the normal ending because I’ll be going over some lategame stuff, mainly some of the characters. I liked the normal ending, everything made sense and it ended well, but the 2nd endings for Yamato and Karasuba are kind of whatever since it’s somewhat appended to the normal ending. There could’ve been some very slight alterations in the last conflict but nope. And since I’m already on the topic, I pretty much dislike Karasuba. He’s kind of a creeper. He’s funny as one of your group but he’s a bunch of red flags once you mix romance with him. He’s also a whiny bitch.

At least Yamato just has the rough exterior cliche so he’s a cool dude after he softens up. Kagiha doesn’t really even have an ending, and it makes sense since he’s actually dead. I thought they were going to do some asspull ending like he actually had amnesia in the real world since they never found his body. But they made him stay dead and they just live in the mansion. And what I meant by him not really having an ending is that it’s around 5 minutes long. I actually don’t mind what they were going for, it was just too abrupt. There is a “happy” ending where they’re all alive but that’s kind of a copout. It’s still nice and I don’t think the game itself is going with “hey this is the actual ending”, and that kind of got reinforced with the seconds title.

Hikage is kind of a funny one because he kind of acts like an old man and he’s has some outdated ways of socializing, only for him to be a guy that shot himself ages ago and was just stuck in the mansion. And that’s why I put him as a 7 because he alone isn’t the most interesting but it’s similar to the case of Sunohara and gang in Clannad. Where the route is interesting because of an amalgamation of characters instead of just one.

I liked Monsahiro’s the most, yeah it had the most soap opera drama in the whole vn but it was still pretty good. I think Yamato’s branch has to be finished before being able to unlock this one, and that makes sense since you get part of his backstory over there. I feel like it’s also where the protag’s VA performs her best. And Monshiro’s plot picks up a previous bad ending and uses that as part of it’s setting and I generally really appreciate when that happens.

Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk Spoiler Section

So the main thing on this one is that the parts I found most interesting weren’t about the main cast, but what was happening in the setting overall. And that mostly pertains to Ashen Hawk, and the two residents in the church. Lawrence is obviously Kagiha from the first title, and Elric is almost as obvious with him being Hikage. But for some reason he has blond hair this time around. Like if the rabbit wasn’t there, I thought it might’ve been a fusion of Karasuba and Hikage. Fun fact is that Elric is voiced by the guy who did Karasuba.

They actually don’t have much relevance to the plot, they’re most as plot devices to move a couple of key aspects or explain how x and y happen. But because they’re in the town, you can see that the town isn’t normal and it’s probably another dreamscape or whatever they called it. That just gets further tacked on with Hugh who from what I can tell is the original butterfly. His ending basically revolves around it and that he finally found a new butterfly to be with. But in the finale, he’s basically the story weaver and he’s finally done and finally went to meet up with his old mate all those years ago. It was really heartwarming on how it was done. The protagonist also ended up being Ai’s friend from the first vn. Elric and Lawrence show up too, but as reincarnations instead of whatever they were doing in the first title. And it also looks like they made Kagiha kind of interested in Hikage’s sister.

Ashen Hawk’s ending is almost as abrupt as Kagiha’s ending in the first title but honestly most of them are kind of abrupt here. He’s also not one of main interests in this title anyway so it’s not as bad of a feeling for me.
The anime I was alluding to before was Code Geass. It’s not as good and also nowhere as big in scale but also no weird additions like in the second season.

HiraHira Hihiru: It’s Setoguchi

So I finished Hihiru, it’s something that was written by Setoguchi and you could really tell. You probably heard of him through Swan Song more than anything else but I know him from Kira Kira. I don’t think he was ever credited in a vn that didn’t use the nvl format, and really that’s one of his strengths. I don’t think the adv format would work for him, sometimes what’s being put down is long-winded but it’s always cohesive and you know where he’s coming from. The only one that felt off so far was that fandisk for Kira Kira that I still didn’t finish, I wasn’t really feeling it and then I saw that he apparently only did the scenario draft. Anyways, generally what you get from him is a spectrum of fun, somber or stoicism on human nature.

And that’s basically what revolves around Hihiru. It’s about this disease that you can contract where you’re medically dead for a period of time and come back to life. The damage done to the person depends on how long it took for them to come back. It can’t be cured, but there’s medication to slow down the detriments it brings along. Mainly loss of brain function alongside your skin constantly degrading to the point you look like a zombie. There’s medication for it to severely slow down the process to the point they could live a normal life but the mental aspect can fuck with the routine. Because it’s basically dementia with super lupus. They have delusions, they can think something is conspiring against them or that the medication is poison and so on. So either you come back kind of ok and deal with the symptoms with medication, or you’re super fucked and become a husk of a human being.

Then comes along that some don’t want to take the medication at all, others don’t have the money to take care of these people because they’re basically outcasts and lose their jobs. And there’s others that find that the disease isn’t going to be solved with medicine and it’s more of a religious curse type thing. It used to be that the ones that were more heavily afflicted were just pushed into their own type of prison cells. Eventually there was a law made that makes it so a room has to be made inside their caretakers home and they just stay in there. And now there’s some hospitals that take care of them with the limited space that they have. It’s more like a retirement home combo’d with a psychiatric hospital. Consider it like a hospice for these people.

There’s two plots that you go back and forth. If you ever read Sorcery Jokers, it’s something like that. So there’s one plot with this doctor named Masamitsu, and the other is with Takeo who’s a student living with some of his dad’s friend and his family. Masamitsu was a lot more interesting and the time just flew by. He’s a doctor in one of those hospitals, he gets to talk with different patients. He eventually gets tasked to go around the country to take notes on these homecare cases to basically make a point that they’re insufficient to handle this disease and the government has to step it up with making more hospitals and some in-between normal life and hospital care. The whole basis is that the Hihirus aren’t really treated as humans in the public eye. And it’s understandable to them considering for the longest time, the people thought it was more of a curse and that it can even be contagious. Masamitsu is kind of a weirdo but that’s what makes him work, he has a different mindset that works for his occupation but the general populace would see him as a pretty weird guy.

Takeo does have his own plot with the Hihiru but it’s a lot more boring considering he’s just a student that’s studying law. His stuff is more spoilers so that’ll be in the spoiler section but overall his was fine. Like there’s parts that are interesting, especially when it concerns his friend and his issue with a specific Hihiru but overall you could have him removed and a lot of the context would still be around. Maybe it’s a more human approach and how all of this is affecting normal families but overall kind of whatever considering parts of his plot are just more in-depth sections of the families Masamitsu meets.

There’s a couple of choices but overall I think maybe only three mattered. There’s a specific one near the beginning where you can give this poor family some money or not because they are trying their best to support their Hihiru son but they’re all in a recession and they’re fucked. And the choice entails more if he’s impulsive with his emotions and really cares about anything infront of him, or he’s impartial and he’s all about treating his patients. This does change some dialogue in the upcoming chapters but after the next major choice, it doesn’t seem to change anything at all.

Overall:

Overall it was a pretty good time. It’s not a vn for everyone, but Setoguchi isn’t going to work for everyone anyway. This is closer to normal literature than an actual vn and I’m all for it. Then again, I have fun reading traditional books anyway. I think it’ll still work for most people that’re into vns for the plot instead of solely for the haha quirky/cute girls and hscenes. I’d give it around an 8 that’s closer to a 9. It would’ve been a 9 if it was all about Masamitsu. Most of it is pretty concise and you stay for the writing. It’s not breathtaking, there’s no impact spikes, it’s just well written throughout.

Spoilers:

There isn’t much I’ll be spoiling this time around. I mentioned choices beforehand, and I think Takeo has more choices overall. I think he has three bad endings overall but there’s one that I didn’t try so either that could lead to the same bad ending or you can salvage it to the good ending. Basically you need your friend to help you out and also not run away when shit hits the fan. Either way, Takeo’s plot hits home depending on where you are in life but the thing is Masamitsu hits the same strides. So it’s another angle of looking at the subject but it’s also not needed.

There was this whole thing about him studying law so I assumed somebody in his group was going to become a Hihiru and then this job crosses paths with Masamitsu to speed up the process of getting shit down. They do cross paths, but it was just a doctor, there’s no grandiose setup for it. And honestly that works, the plot stays realistic, this is just some random normal kid.

There’s a part where Masamitsu contracts the disease and if it wasn’t Setoguchi writing it, you’d assume he’d make some huge breakthrough to further advance the ways they’re treating their patients. But nothing happens, he just keeps on doing his job, he does appreciate the chance it gave to expand his worldview on the matter but otherwise the status quo stayed the same. And I was all for that, other vns handle these issues the same but it’s somewhat on the rare side.

The thing that made me think more often was Masamitsu’s ending. They talked about how his reports helped out his superior to get the government to actually look at what’s going around and that they made more hospitals. But the abolition of the homecare system took another 30 years. It gave me some Hamilton vibes. But it could be about two things, but it’s probably about both. At first you can say like, hey Masamitsu’s mind is still going strong 30 years later. But really it’s shitting on the government and how something that was a problem was explained and given steps to correct it still takes forever to get any traction. Or the time lapse could be hinting that Takeo had a role in getting shit done. Basically it’d take awhile for him to be of any worthwhile status and he might’ve travelled with Haruko.

Stella of the End: Quickie Review

So I finished Stella and it’s going to be a short one considering the title itself is short and it’s not like it’s inventing anything new.It’s fine, it has its strong moments but it takes a lot of leadup to make it work and it can be pretty annoying at times.

So the main cast just consists of Jude and Phia. Phia is some newtech android that wants to be human and Jude’s the guy that took the job to get her to his employer. Think of it kind of like the Transporter movie but it’s actually about transporting this time around. So it’s basically just going from place to place, she keeps developing throughout the number of crises that happen on the way. And that’s basically it, the first half was a drag and sometimes even annoying but it eventually became pretty fun at the latter half.

The best way to explain it is by comparing it to that Walking Dead game from like a decade ago. Almost everybody and their mom either played or watched a playthrough on youtube. At first my mind was comparing Phia to a fusion of Clementine and fucking Kenny Jr, or Ducky. I don’t think I ever met anyone that liked Ducky, but he’s just a naïve little kid that was also annoying because he didn’t think before doing shit. Which some kids naturally do. And that’s kind of Phia, she has no skills and her naivety keeps putting them in danger. But really, she’s more like Ben. She’s just good-hearted but fucks up more often than not. Unlike Ben, she eventually grows out of it and the story naturally becomes better because it stops being like an escort mission. Consider it like she upgraded from being an RE4 Ashley to a The Last of Us 1 Ellie where she didn’t suck yet.

I’d consider this more of a starter vn like the other two key vns: Harmonia and Planetarian. Each one kind of has their own strengths and downfalls. Harmonia’s ending makes sense but is lackluster. Planetarian needed more time to bake while Stella has a rough time in the 20% to 50% section of the run. I’m giving this a 7 but I’m pretty sure most people would put it as an 8 just due to the ending. I don’t fault them, it’s the last experience that’s ingrained to you so it makes sense. Overall the content is kind of simple in the sense that there’s not much to think about. The setting itself and the reveals are fun but the characters themselves are straightforward and there’s not much in there to second-guess yourself. What you see is kind of what you get. And that’s pretty much what I expect from the writer, Romeo. You’re either amazed on how he could pull off some of these titles or you’re just cruising along and having a fun time.

Spoilers:

There’s not much to talk about it terms of spoilers. The parts where I was talking about how when she’s annoying is when Jude keeps telling her that specific places and people are dangerous. And she doesn’t listen like a normal kid wouldn’t. So she sees this kid up above and found an entrance and ran after her. Jude caught up in time and the girl wasn’t anywhere so it was kind of close call but right after that time she gets captured. It goes through this whole sequence of Jude gunning people down and they were basically trying to break her legs so she could be another sex slave or something. So she gets saved before than happens, more people getting gunned down and she’s still trying to negotiate when clearly these are just people reverted to their primal state. Anyways, she gets yelled at, a lot of time passes and she finds an sos type call and she wants to help. And Jude is like, BRUH. And they get captured again, lol.

Not to mention that I don’t know how those initial people were actually surviving out there with the population that they had. It was mentioned that this train is going back and forth and it’s for delivering food to the lower sections. But everybody up there is dead so you could say that oh it’s the AI that’s synthesizing food but it later gets brought up that the AI no longer sees humans as human so how’re they getting food.

They did reference Tomorrow’s Eve by the end and that was kind of interesting. I never read it myself, I only knew it from something else I’ve read about Pinocchio and how it’s the inverse idea. Basically saying what if they start with the flesh and what remains to be human is their mind. It’s one of those things where it’s placed by the end to make the reader think about the whole setup retroactively. And that’s either a hit or miss, I think the concept itself was pretty clear early on and the use is stronger when things are ambiguous.

I appreciate that they didn’t delve further by the end where everything is basically resolved emotionally and it’s just them travelling and just expanding her horizons. The sections would’ve been great but you could see how it’d all work to the point it’d just be a mood piece. It was basically still well written and you understand the emotions they were going through just with the excerpt given.
And that’s pretty much it, I guess the last thing I’d mention is that the new baby crimson eye is cute and I wouldn’t mind a fandisk of just the new three interacting in a one time job.

Jack Jeanne Review: Amazing but with a caveat

So I finished Jack Jeanne and I had a great time with it. It’s made by Broccoli, where if you’re old enough you’ll either get hit by nostalgia from either Galaxy Angel or the Digi Charat show/ Party Night.
It’s just kids going through theatre with different plays. They struggle getting into character, to break through self imposed ideals and they’re just training in general. The pacing and the voice acting hard carries this vn considering some of the downsides I’ll go over later. There’s 4 classes; One that specializes in dance, another for vocals. One for geniuses and another where it feels like it’s for the rest but I assume it’s for the people that seem to have multiple talents. At first I thought maybe it was the class that’ll specialize in acting but I guess that wasn’t the case.

It’s technically an otome game but I guess I have a weird way of seeing what is and isn’t an otome vn. Outside of the rigid definition of maiden game where the mc must be a girl and there must be cute boys to choose from, I consider if the plot itself is written in a way to specifically market to women. Like pretty much all the yuri parts I’ve read felt like they were written for dudes. I’m assuming some bl titles will sell better for dudes and some for women. I technically read one a decade ago by accident and the plot was actually great there too. Tangent aside, this is more of something you can read with your friends or family and not seem weird. Consider it like you’re reading a vn based on Haikyu or something. Honestly, I’d give this a 10 if it was just a kinetic experience.

Some of the character art is kind of jank but it’s an art style that can differentiate from the rest and I’m pretty cool with that. The worst offender is probably Suzu and that’s probably your first route if you’re going for all of them. I’ll go over the routes later. The antagonist is probably the 2nd worst offender but honestly it really fits with what he’s going for.
The character traits are kind of templates, you’ve seen most of them.

You got Suzu, the sporty/charismatic loud one. Yonaga is the timid smart one that could be transferred to Amber if he wanted to after the first year. Fumi is the dancing fuckboy that has more going on. Kai is the gloomy supportive one, he generally elevates the rest of the cast. Mitsuki is the no nonsense one, he does vocals. Then there’s Neji, the weird one.
I thought Neji was going to be my favorite character considering I normally enjoy the weirdo of the group. I guess it kind of was, if you just consider the main cast but he wasn’t my favorite route. Which is also generally the case, their routes aren’t usually the best but they’re usually fine and important. Though he is my favorite to listen to and whenever he’s singing.

My favorite character ended up being this side character from the vocal class, Kiito. At first I thought maybe it would’ve been Otori who’s kind of like the asshole at the start. Honestly he deserves more screen time but it was generally a fun time when he was around. I think a lot of it is that Kiito and the people around him reminds me of myself and a couple of other friends so it was a comfort pick. I think most people would gravitate towards Kai and his route. But when it’s about acting, then Yonaga eventually steals the show. That helps a lot with his character because otherwise he’s one of the more boring ones.

The vn loops between training on the weekdays to raise your stats, hanging out with a set of options on the weekend and later enacting the play you were training for in a month or two. You generally have three rhythm like games you have to play. They’re pretty easy so I’m not actually sure how many you can fail before you fail on getting a route. But considering they give you the option to restart from the beginning of the play if you don’t get max rank in the finale, they probably do the same anytime the play is actually important. Either way you hang out with a specific character long enough to get their scenes so they can become a route you can choose whilst also levelling up the stat that represents them. The characters and the stats are in a linear line so you shouldn’t be confused on who links to what. I think you need to hit the cap of the stat to get the best ending, otherwise you’re stuck with the good ending which I assume just means you don’t get the epilogue.

But the routes themselves are really what hampers the vn. The routes themselves aren’t really special, they consist of maybe 5% each and that’s still adding that the final play itself is around 80% the same. There are enough differences that make them unique but it consists of you needing to replay the whole common route again. This includes making different training choices and doing the rhythm games every time, so if you go for 100%, you’re playing those games like 130~150 times. I got really good at them after awhile to the point I can watch youtube and get an SS score at the same time on expert, lol. This really pads up the playtime from like 40~50 hours to around 70 or 80 hours. Honestly, it’s one of the few vns where I’d say it’s just better doing one or two routes and just leaving with that. The best ones being Yonaga, Kai or the main character’s route. You get the most mileage out of those and you can come out of it with a 10 and a lot of saved time. You can’t unlock the true best ending this way but I don’t think you’ll miss a whole lot. You can probably just look it on youtube, it’s under 10 minutes long.

The routes:

So like I said before, the routes are pretty short. Each one starts during Christmas and ends in like 2 and a half months. The play itself is the same with some deviations because whoever you choose gets a lead role so some of the plot has to be changed. The antagonists and their plays also change depending on your route alongside what gets focused on.

Suzu’s route is the worst one because it’s basically just a starter route. It has more of the otome feel and I didn’t really care for it. I do feel like there’s a lot of potential in some of his scenes but they didn’t focus on him or his pov while that was happening. I think it would’ve done a lot better in a tv show. On the other hand, this route does cover the other class’s first years so you can still get something from here.

Yonaga’s route is one of the best ones. The dude is a straight method actor and you go through the benefits and how it can fuck you up at the same time. But it eventually gives focuses to everybody in the class and it was done stupidly well. It’s a more inclusive approach where it focuses on the characters you already know and how he’s proud of knowing them and amazed on what they can do.

Mitsuki’s route is also one that doesn’t really have much to write home about. But it does cover the feelings of the 2nd years and considering that covers Kiito, I can’t really bash it.

Fumi’s route is more on his feelings towards his family and the business. Basically the conflict of wanting to be free and enjoy how he wants to dance but also respecting the traditions of the family’s style. It also pays more attention to Otori, not a whole lot but I appreciated it

Kai’s route is similar to Yonaga’s route. The difference is instead of being like the child in awe of the rest of the group, Kai’s proud of what’s basically his children and how much they’ve grown. Outside of that, the route is more about himself but also gives some focus to the main character’s brother and this weasel you see around in the common story. It’s probably the best route in the bunch but he’s basically the dad of the group.

Neji’s route is interesting but also kind of shallow. It’s one of those things where he deserves more time to make the content shine considering what’s happening.
The main character’s route is probably the best case scenario if you just want to do one route. You have enough time in the weekends to hang out with all of the side characters and get all their cgs while also not losing much in the main cast in terms of team dynamic. It covers why she’s there and what’s going on underneath the base plot. It’s also where you can get a bad ending and join the antagonist. It’s not amazing but one of the effects was pretty cool.

Overall:

Overall I’m giving this a 9 but really it deserves something closer to an 8 with how much time they make you waste just to see the other routes. But it’s really not an indication of the writing but a poor hindsight of what you’d consider quality of life improvements. If you pick one of the better routes and just leave it at that, then I feel it’d be a 10. It’s kind of different than a case like giving Little Busters a 10 because of Refrain because you’re still forced to do all the routes to get there. But really, this is more like I understand why some people give it a 10 more so than me giving it one. The quality is more so on the pacing than the plot itself. There’s been titles with a good premise or has great moments all around but the pacing is somehow dreadful and I can only read bits at a time. It’s just an enjoyable time with a properly placed high impact moments just to keep you going.

Spoilers: Nitpicks/Confused on

So this isn’t really a complaint because the title itself didn’t feel like it wanted to even go through drama. It excels at common man conversations and topics but generally a lot of the drama felt either shallow or quickly fixed. Sometimes even forgotten in cases like Mitsuki, where he joined the drama school to get away from his mom. It never gets brought up again after the initial scene with them. This also happens with Neji, whereas his initial conflict is done well but how he loses all inspiration that leads him to lose all his instinctual talent and asks the rest of the team to actually teach him. Basically he’s a genius that never went through the process of gradually improving his skills, and it wasn’t really touched too much but the premise of him getting everything back like a light switch was kind of boring. The concept of why it’s back makes sense, it’s perfectly logical but it’s a boring way to read through.

I feel like I must’ve messed up somewhere and didn’t get all of Otori’s scenes because he has a lot of potential but becomes more of a background character that has a name. I get that it’s a consequence of him not asking for help a lot so it’s like his way of doing things doesn’t meld well with the class’s dynamic but there could’ve been more to him outside of Fumi’s route. And considering they handled the rest of the side characters well enough, I think this is on my end and I missed something.

The last bit is on Tsuki, the MC’s brother. You can tell he’s the weasel kind of fast but then gets more solidified in Kai’s route to being confirmed in the final ending. I’m usually a fan of implied story telling but I think I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. I’m assuming it’s a reference to old theatre considering a lot of the stuff going around are references to it already. So something like because he has the same talent that the MC has, he must’ve given to much of his own self to keep being human. Or it could be referencing the play Chui does throughout the routes and he’s the character that sacrificed it all to achieve what he wanted but I’m leaning towards the first one.

Spoilers: Stuff I liked about the plays/characters

My favorite plays were the 2nd and 3rd one but more so the 3rd. Each play has something unique to it and it’s generally getting carried by the voice actors. The themes of the plays are kind of interlinked between them all but the general one is increasing their repertoire of roles and creating rivalries.
Part of the first play is to setup the foundation for Suzu and Yonaga’s rivalry that ferments at the start of chapter 2, explodes in chapter 3 and becomes their main theme going on for the last two chapters. It’s one of those things where they’re both envious of what each other has and how if they had X then they’d have less of a hard time trying to keep up with the seniors and Kisa. It’s not written in a heavy or dark tone, it’s something they go through and it’s something they acknowledge of each other where they see each other as something to jump through before competing against Kisa who they both see as more talented and further ahead.

The 2nd play introduces the vessel and flower concept where one role is to prop up the other. But outside of that it’s to shakeup Kai’s way of thinking considering he’s imprisoning himself into the vessel role. This leads to the 4th play and also the 5th play during his route where he gets roles that either take the lead or have something that makes the play more thought provoking. Because in the end of the 4th play, he’s the last shown character wanting his own mugwort. The mugwort is part of the play, don’t worry about it, but it’s basically saying he’s also in this town and therefore he also belongs in its debauchery and wants to keep on going, he’s one of them. Basically saying he’s done staying in a passive position.

Fumi kind of has the same thing happening in chapter 3. Where it becomes a theme of freedom to do what they want to achieve on stage and how to expand what the audience can expect. This also sets up his own rivalry with Kisa, mainly considering she’s the first one to light a fire up his ass after Tsuki.
You can consider the cast on the 3rd play to represent the quartz class in general. Fumi’s enormous talent forces him to responsible on carrying the rest of the class and how that shackles him. How Kai’s Jack Ace is basically made because Fumi is around. At the same time you have Kisa and Suzu/Yonaga killing the old way of doing things. By the end of the play, Fumi still wins whilst losing the majority of his baggage and constraints, which are represented as dolls that became human that fended off the antagonists. So Fumi’s basically saying I still have the experience to keep myself at the top but I finally got someone to fight for this pedestal. So he finally has a reason to keep on improving just to fuel the competition between the class.

Kisa’s theme encompasses all of the plays but they’re more apparent in chapter 4 and 5. More so on 4 where it reaches a boiling point and it’s basically the highlight for Mitsuki as well considering he’s kind of just been there as an vocal advisor until this point. He eventually becomes the class leader and that generally Mitsuki’s thing. He never really cared to be part of the group and was fine just being in his corner even though Fumi and Neji kept pestering him to join on random crap. So it’s the point on just as how the first years and the third years reached out to Mitsuki, he also finally wants to do the same thanks to Kisa and can accept her even though he figured what she was doing.

And Neji is actually an interesting one because it’s one of those that you wouldn’t even think about until he brought it up. So in every play, he always plays the weirdo or a character that does whatever they want that brings them joy or success. He’s a weirdo so you wouldn’t really think much of it. It was already brought up that he takes lesser roles that handle the same considering he’s doing basically everything else. But then it gets revealed in his route that his dad was having an affair with a lady of a similar demeanor. He was basically traumatized to the point that he’s scared of women and the only female role he can play is one that makes fun of his dad’s mistress. And the funny thing is that the dad was no longer able to write anything and Neji believes it’s because all of their thoughts are getting funneled to thinking about their love interest. The dad eventually dies by drowning so Neji’s basically scared out of his mind about ever finding someone he loves because he considers him the same level of genius as his dad. So in his logic, he’d also lose his ability to write or get into character and he knows that will set him off to throwing himself into the same ocean as his dad. The problem is like I said before, all of this happens really quickly during his route.

Tsukihime Remake: A lot more spectacle but it has a different feel to it

So I finished the Tsukihime remake and overall I had a fun time with it but I still kind of prefer the mood of the original.
The remake only covers the first two routes and they’re generally just more polished or they cover a couple of things the reader might’ve thought about if you played the original. Though that’s also kind of an issue because it becomes kind of excessive for my taste and some people I talked to. It’s not just more, it’s a lot more. I think these two routes alone are longer than everything together from the original. And depending on the person, it’ll eventually come to a point where you’re just asking for it to wrap it up. More so on Ciel’s route than on Arcueid.

Basically Arcueid’s route has the same story beats outside of one of the main altercations. That does lead to new scenes that expand from that place. Overall they’re pretty good but one of them was kind of off but I’ll get to that in the spoilers. Overall it’s pretty much the same, just with a lot more budget and some info dumps but I might’ve just forgotten about them in the og.
Ciel’s route got a decent overhaul. And that’s fortunate because even though I liked Ciel as a character, chunks of her original route was kind of dogshit. They still use the pivotal scenes, there’s just a lot more scenes added to make it flow better. To the point that it started to be bloated. Her route is almost twice as long as Arcueid’s and honestly it should’ve been leaned down. And the worst example of that is on the new finale that I’m kind of not a fan of. The original ending is technically mostly still here in the normal ending but just done better with a different outcome.

There’s a decent chunk of new characters for the clergy faction that gets introduced in Arcueid’s route and gets fully realized in Ciel’s route. There’s two others that I’d assume are saved for Akiha’s and Kohaku’s route later down the line and another one that I have no clue why she’s even around. Like she shows up maybe twice and in one bad ending. At first I thought it was indication to one of the vampires but that ended up not being the case. And she doesn’t really have a connection to the next three routes, there’s a possible link to something else but I’ll put that in the spoilers. The clergy faction is great, I found it one of the highlights of both routes.

Overall, there’s nothing overtly wrong with the remake. The people that already read the original might enjoy the higher budget, some might enjoy the added spectacle. It just has a different feel than what it was in the original. The remake is just more of a spectacle, there’s more action setpieces. There’s more shit blowing up, the sequences are longer and it’s what you can do when you have a budget to use. The original was more in his head and that he stepped into a world that he had no control or say over. He was basically just a bug in comparison and I’ll go over a bit of that in the spoilers. The funny thing is the best scenes from the original are still here in the remake. I talked to a few guys and I mentioned that the remake felt diluted. It’s basically incorporating more of an epic fsn-like feel to the original. So it’s more that the focus is now spread between the horror aspect, the crazy action and the normal SoL it had. There’s just a lot going on and the horror aspect is just not as clear as it used to be.

As an example, both versions has the scene with this chair. That scene was memorable in the original, and I think it even became a meme for a bit. It’s the same scene in the remake, but I’m remembering how long the fights are in the next section instead of the chair. Overall, I think most people would give this a 9 or maybe even a 10 if they’re generous. I kind of want to put it at a 9 too but the last ending kind of ruined it. I’m still putting as a 9 in an objective level. But it’s more of an 8 for me personally. It both improves and fucks up Ciel’s route at different points but it’s mostly that the mood of the new Tsukihime is just different and somewhat stretched and I enjoyed how it originally was. It’s still a better score than I gave the original though.

Spoilers

So for the first bit, they pretty much removed Chaos. And I loved Chaos as a concept because whilst what he did was crazy, it’s pretty down to earth compared to the vampire that replaced him, Vlov. And it’s a good example of spectacle vs just basic horror trope. It’s no longer a dude that hosts a shitton of animal monsters and a huge pain to kill. It’s now a guy that can basically cremate everybody in the whole hotel without trying or leaving any damage. Or somehow cause an citywide ice age. Shiki in the original was freaking out when he did some rad shit and he doesn’t understand how what he did was even possible with his body. The remake with Vlov made him look like a super soldier instead. He was still surprised, but for like a moment and then it was just something to be expected. If we go by movie standards, the og was like a civilian going against the Hulk whilst Shiki in the remake felt like Hawkeye or something. The magnitudes between powers are still huge, but it wasn’t to that depressing amount. It also led well to Nanaya when he finally gets talked about. The remake felt more like that’s just how Shiki is, super prodigy that can adapt and copy moves on a dime.

A lot of this is me being petty because I really liked Chaos. The action scenes with Vlov were cool, it’s just not what I’d want in Tsukihime. And I guess a good part of that is that I can get that from a lot of places. If internal monologues and horror themes were more prominent that action, then I’d probably be super for the remake’s changes.

So quite awhile after, there’s a scene in the same place that Vlov died where Ciel tries to stop Shiki since the dude is basically frying his nerves and crap and they’re talking about how they enjoyed their time together. The funny thing is with the choices I picked, I think Shiki only interacted with her maybe three times. I feel like they did hang out more in the original and with Satsuki but that might’ve been with other routes.

So the two important characters from the Clergy is Noel and Mario, before it was just Ciel. Noel is great, she’s fun and has a couple of misdirects on what’s she about. She’s pretty close to what Taiga is if she had two personalities. How she ends up is pretty boring and is honestly not a fight that improves the title. She gets her ass beat, she crawls away but can’t go back to the clergy infirmary because she thinks she’s infected and turning into a vampire soon. So one of the other new characters show up and provide her some meds to keep levelling up her vampire rank but each shot might just kill her soul. I think she gets up to rank 6 and then there’s a long ass fight with Shiki and her right after the fight with Ciel and Shiki that came from the og. I think it would’ve been more fun that she tried taking another shot out of newfounded hubris and just dies. I feel like that’s closer to what would happen to Noel. Sure, that actually did happen by the end, but that was more out of desperation. I get what they were going for, I just don’t think it worked well.

Ciel has a new true/happy ending and the sequence is stupidly long. It’s the best example of what their spectacle is about but it’s also so grandiose that the horror aspect was mostly thrown out the window. Consider it like a random person busting through your door at night with a shotgun vs the Shagohod going through your house. Technically both would be horrifying but the 2nd one just leads to your brain shutting down to how ludicrous it is. It’s still a fine sequence and I like how it ended but it’s no longer simple and clean.

Nukitashi Review: Fun when it stops trying to be serious

So I finished Nukitashi and it’s kind of just not for me so this will be a shorter one. Also, I’m just going to spoil what I’d consider minor stuff since it’s a pain to talk around it.

I had to power through it after a few hours because it’s like that kid in school that keeps on repeating the same joke when the humor already died out. I eventually started liking it again but that was after going through Nanase’s route. And I think that’s maybe the worst part of the vn for me, because really it’s just a watered down version of the true route. The reasoning behind that is that I’m not a fan of the main protag, Jun. Really it depends on who he’s interacting with; he’s funny with his sister and a few other characters; but he’s just an insufferable twat when coupled with others like Nanase and more so with people he’s against.
You can say that there’s a genre loop going on but I kind of doubt it was super intentional or enforced because otherwise I’d have to say it was done poorly. There was a meme about this title being about plot disguised as a meme disguised as a porn game. But really, you can add a few more where it’s plot and memes keep swapping around to keep you guessing which one is the actual focal point of the title. It ends up being plot during the true route. But if you divvy it up, I’d say there’s around two to three times more attempts on joking around than actual plot. To the point that some reveals felt really ass to me because I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a punchline for new jokes. Like a good part of the revealed plot points are kind of shallow and I wasn’t sure if that was part of the joke or not.

So the plot centralizes on this island where everybody is forced to bang after they’re old enough. Jun and his sister move back to the island due to some issues and now they’re trying to dodge the guards and the student council because they don’t want anything to do with their customs. To eventually combatting them and trying to change the laws of the island.
That goes through the common route, three routes and the true route.
For some reason Hinami’s route is labelled third even though hers is better left for last because it uses points from Misaki’s route. I’m assuming the order was more based on the gradual shift of what Jun finds acceptable. So it goes from extreme straight edge, to at least acknowledging the other side and what they’re going through; to going full retard and say “fuck it I’m going to have to bang everybody to get what I want”.
The funny thing is the antagonistic characters are generally more interesting to the point that these would be the actual routes in a different vn. Mainly because they can be more dramatized than the main cast. Really, the whole cast is grouped into one focal point that they’re all considered a minority in some degree. So while Jun considers himself and his group a minority due to not wanting to be forced to bang whomever, most of the residents in the island were a repressed minority from the mainland. Others are there for financial reasons, others are there due to abuse. But either way they’re all just ideas that’re either barely touched or not at all.

I thought my favorite character would be Nanase but it ended up being Teshima but that’s mainly because I find him funny and his shittalking reminds me of a few people. I was going to say it’d be Misaki but I think it’s more just her route in general where everything becomes retarded. Other than that, the student council is what’s interesting but also they barely get any screentime outside of maybe the one in Hinami’s route. Like they would’ve fit in with the Majikoi cast without much trouble. I hear the sequel actually covers them so maybe I’ll buy it when it comes out and hopefully it’s not ass. But for now, basically anything plotwise is kind of ankle deep.
Hinami’s route is probably the most well written but that’s mainly a victory by default. Nanase’s route wasn’t great and the other two are kind of balls to wall crazy. Funny enough, those two are the high points of the vn and I’d most likely put Himani’s route as just decent/above average if it was in any other vn.

Overall

Overall I’d give Nukitashi a 7. It’s main selling point that it transforms a nukige scenario into a workable plotline. So it’s basically that the title is uncommon so it’s kind of semi-refreshing experience but more so if the title was just shorter or have a better written route for Nanase. Considering until I hit a second route, I was leaning closer to a high 5 than a 6. I think more people will give it an 8~9 solely because it ends strongly and I know people that have that as a huge part of their scores. It’s like making the final exam consist 70% of your grade type of shit.

In the end, it told its story and I got what it was going for. But I don’t know why it had to be this long and it kind of suffered for it. Repeated jokes, repeated combat and escapes. Like it was to the point that some repeated jokes became a referential joke. It just wanted to be placed in too many categories and didn’t pace them well enough to be overall enjoyable and instead have spikes of it being amazing with a lot of lulls.
But that’s just me, I would’ve preferred to either focusing more on the plot to the point it’s just the common and true route and putting the necessary info from the routes to make a few things make sense. Or make every route as stupid as Misaki’s route and just have it be a funny experience.

Spoilers:

The main issue I had with Nanase’s route was two things. There’s a reoccurring joke where Jun gives her backhanded compliments because he’s socially inept. Where it’d be some like, hey that was pretty smart for a slut. But just put anything in there and that’s like 20 encounters. Other than that, it brings up the point that he doesn’t really hate people banging but rather hates himself and the people from the island due to them just following the flow without thinking if what they’re thinking is right or not. Mainly because this is some obvious shit but then bringing this back up in true route in a better written way. Still not the best but it still devalues what her route contains.

Another thing that I didn’t put into the score too much was how much you just have to not think about it for it work. Because a lot of is jokes, which weren’t for me but also a lot of these could’ve been ignored or used as a bigger punch line. Though more people would probably be annoyed if they read that punchline. Anyways, so you’re forced to bang. But you can’t be just banging one person, you have to do anyone. But what if someone has some really weird fetish and there’s only one person that fits in there. Now you’re forcing that person to not indulge in their fetish. Also they’re all on the pill to not have kids. But also you can’t be gay and I don’t see the reasoning why when they’re all doing some really weird shit in the background. So the punchline could’ve been that all that was acceptable and the characters just didn’t read the fine print. And some readers would be mad at that but also knowing how insufferable Jun is, he’d probably still fight against it with something like they’re still forced to at least find somebody maybe they’re not even fully into just to skip the orgies. There’s a lot of these small issues or even other parts that don’t make much sense plotwise but you just don’t think about it. Because why’re you taking parts seriously when most if not all routes are saying you could just skip half the conflict if you make Jun mindcontrol everybody through his dick.
A funny callback was during the finale, where he’s screaming out he’s homo eructus and envisions his whole body as a dick. Which can be pushed back to Misaki’s route where bs rumors go around where he’s putting his feet and his whole head into their gashes.

Ars Magna Review: Trekking in crap to reach a decent ending

So I finished Mars Agna recently and it’s kind of ass more often but there’s bits here and there were I was enjoying what it was trying to do. I had a heads up this time around but I forgot who it was. The gist was that I should’ve tried any other localized title instead. The issue is that I’m not a fan of tentacles so that was basically a pass for all of them from what I can tell. So I had to settle for this one and hey, maybe I liked it a little more than I would’ve due to low expectations.
Funny enough, the worst part is the first few hours because they were dreadfully boring. So that was a clear sign for people to drop it, but I’m a dumbass that rarely drops anything. If you can get past that initial hump then you might be fine. Unless you also finish the chaos route because that section had no love and it’s like 90% backtracking and I’ll get to that in the spoilers. Otherwise the actual ending kind of made up for it. I wouldn’t say it was worth it nor would I recommend it but I came out of it with a somewhat positive outlook.

The general gist of the plot is you’re a rando in a land that’s getting screwed over by this dust crap that’s basically making the land uninhabitable a bit at a time. Some people train to become alchemists and while they can choose their own factions and studies, the basis is to figure a way for humanity to keep on going. So the cast are basically just students alongside some mentors going through their own adventure to resolve the ongoing crisis.
The main thing is I just don’t like the main character, there’s nothing really interesting about him and it wouldn’t be that hard to make it work. There’s a decent amount of characters going around and you should at least find one or two that you like. The main 3 are Aria, Celes and Enri. So the childhood friend, the princess and I guess the best way to go about it without spoiling is she’s the protag’s companion/partner. It kind of sucked that I was more interested in the side characters but maybe I’d feel the opposite if the roles were swapped. As an example, I liked Sasha who was basically Cele’s knight/bodyguard but maybe I’d be bored of her if she and Celes swapped places. I did like Aria though, her and Celes have pretty popular VAs. Outside of those, I was a fan of Fren, Johanne and Albert. Sonia had her moments but I feel like they could’ve done a lot more with her. But really, none of them are really all that developed, they all got their archetype that they fill in and that’s it.

The crafting is barebones and honestly would’ve probably been better just to put it in the trash and just made like little side quests that unlock the new tiers of weapons. There’s these crests that you get by chance when killing enemies and you apply them to your units for some extra buffs. Most of them are kind of useless and can be ignored outside of maybe playing this in the hardest difficulties where maybe the extra damage based on the nature property of the enemy. The annoying ones were mostly the boss specific ones where they may drop but probably not and some of these are like 20k hp bosses. One I gave up on and just cheated the boss hp to 0, lol. And I think I had to do that maybe 4 times to even get it and that’s with like 4 mimics to raise drop rate chances.
By the end the only character I had built up was Celes who was basically the designated tank. The others just had a mishmash of stuff and honestly just stacking some mp regen on all of them is enough to carry you throughout the game in normal mode outside of a few fights that were honestly poorly designed. And the reasoning behind that is there were maybe 2~4 bosses that can oneshot you and it was kind of funny at first until you notice that the next stage is back you stupidly easy and just auto through the boss fight. The battle system itself is kind of ass because it’s like a dungeon crawler type battle system but you can see every node so there was no need to plan how to move around. Basically it’s no Bunny Black or even Moero Chronicles in terms of combat and traversal. It’s not awful but it’s more like this could’ve been a 10 hour plot vn and I’d give it a higher rating. Like I’m not even sure how long it actually is because of how many times I just left it open while I was doing other things. It kind of feels like a 25 hour vn that expanded itself to 50, and even then I skipped the post game dungeon because from what I can tell, there’s no longer any more story content. Just challenging fights and a shit ton more crests to collect.

There’s this adventure mode that you can unlock after beating either route and that basically just skips the fights and traversing the map. Which is a nice feature to have, unfortunately I don’t think it gives you an option to switch it off. Nor does it let play any maps that you didn’t actually play yet. So technically I didn’t beat the final boss, it wouldn’t even let me since I finished the chaos route first. Part of me is irked on it, but I also didn’t want to play it anymore anyway but I’d just like the option, lol. Or maybe instead of adv mode, it’d be like oneshot so you can at least see the new monsters.

The cg spread is kind of funny too but it’s from ninetail so it’s not like I’d expected something else. There’s like 98 cg and 53 of them are hscenes. Ten are from the chaos route and I think Law has 15, the rest are in the common route. And that sounds like the remaining is a relatively healthy amount of plot cg, but 30 of the remaining 45 are just action stills, lol. Some of those hscenes take forever to finish and it’s kind of weird that the chaos route has less of them.
And while I’ll be talking about the chaos route in the spoilers, the main point is that I don’t know what they were even going for. It’s more cringey evil instead of something well thought out. The sad thing is the components needed for it to work exist; they’re just in the common route and in Law. An easy comparison is this was Jared Leto’s Joker, instead of choosing one of the great Jokers. It’s not like you even get a unique plot point in here, it’s also revealed in Law.

Overall

Overall, there’s a couple of interesting scenes where they cover the different college factions, especially the one which I think was the Grayman college. And their whole concept was trying to evolve humanity to the point that it can live with the dust instead of trying to find a miracle to clear it all out. The whole last chapter or so was pretty decent especially the latter half. It actually has a lot of similarities to a different title I really enjoyed but it’d basically spoil this title. The difference was the characters were a lot more charming in the other one whilst this one is more horny. It could’ve been like a mid 7 if they streamlined some of the plot, reduced some of the gameplay backtracking and kept it around 20 hours. Hell, all of the hscenes could’ve stuck around to for that fanbase but I’d appreciate those being shorter too. I remember Dohna Dohna had a shit ton of hscenes but they worked because the timing of all the moving pieces made the pacing not shit.
And that’s kind of a general theme, slight changes here and there would kind of make it a decent experience. It wouldn’t be an 8 or anything but it could be like a mid 7. My general outlook is something around a 4 for the beginning alongside the chaos route. A 5 in most areas except for a few interesting ones where I’d place it as a 6 or 7. And then the last chapter where I’d put it like a 7 that could’ve been an 8 if the main character was fully voiced. Overall I’m giving it a 5 that could’ve been a 7 with some changes.

Spoilers

So this is the spoilers now, for the most part this just goes through some of the issues I had with the chaos route and how it was handled alongside a few other things.
But basically I have to go through a few story beats for it to work. So Shin, the main character has this philosopher’s stone embedded into him after an event where he was fighting like a dozen ash demon wolves. The ash demons are just random crap that took too much dust and converted to it. It’s not guaranteed but by the amount of shit you fight, I wouldn’t question if you’d assume so. When they mutate, they call the phase as eclipsing. He’s in a college(which is basically a faction) and they want to harmonize with nature and the gods. The gods are just beings that have functions but there’s primordial gods which basically control water/fire/wind/earth/sun and there’s a 6th one which is basically moon/knowledge. They’re also just called origins.

Anyways, the philosopher’s stone can convert dust into extra power that also kind of fucks him up. It’s essentially corrupting little by little. These gods are eclipsing and Shin’s faction wants to revert them back to normal. It’s a whole process that takes awhile and during that time, the cast is going through each origin. They generally have a goal or some circumstance happens to meet them but you generally have to help them fend off this other group called the destroyers that want to fuck up the world even faster. So fast-forward going through the first 4 origins, and I believe the fire one at least twice but I think it was three times. Anyways, they kind of figure out how to cure the eclipse but it needs the philosopher’s stone alongside making contracts with each origin. So if you’re trying to cure a fire based god, then you need a contract with that origin. The way to make a contract is by banging them, and I forgot to mention that Shin’s body is getting corrupted and that gets alleviated by him banging the 3 main girls and sometimes the others. It’s important for the chaos route but it’s still kind of dumb because the concept is that he has to do it with someone else otherwise the corruption doesn’t spew out. But it’s not like he has to cum in them so it’d be a super easy fix even ignoring the more obvious choice of just having random people be in line to handle the corruption. While yes it’s fucked up, he is basically reverting some nature functionality back to working.

Anyways, so now they’re going back to all the origins to get the contracts and the team is generally getting tested. Fast forward to the chaos route, you’re now going back to the origins again but this time to corrupt them, lol. So at the minimum, you’re going to the same places three times, I think the volcano is 5 times. This is some skyward sword level of tracking.
And after all that backtracking the route is basically over in like two missions. You’d assume they’d bring back the Grayman faction that were basically trying to do what Shin accomplished, but nope. They could’ve put them in there just for Shin to use them as pawns but they’re just forgotten. And that’s kind of a thing with the side characters. Shin sublimates some them but just nukes his dad. He could’ve been used to develop Faust’s scene but that wasn’t the case. Honestly I wouldn’t mind most of this if these things didn’t get covered in the law route but it does, lol. Why the hell did you make the Grayman part exclusive to Law. Why is anything covered in chaos gets better explained in Law. You even get less hscenes.

So ranting aside, the law route was actually pretty fine. You don’t have the backtracking and it covers anything you might’ve wondered throughout the plot. You meet the Grayman faction again and they basically transformed. The cast refuses it but actually incorporate Grayman’s data and use it to progress their own. The dust is really phantom particles where is basically radiation. So all this corrosion disease and mutating animals make sense. The last origin was called Astarte and it’s basically turning a valve on and off to have a test environment to evolve humanity. Basically a nuclear warhead blew up the valve so Astarte had to cover the hole. These apostles that humanity thought saved them were actually the ones who fucked everything up and this would’ve been a great place to add the chaos/law split. Instead of him going cringey and just learning that like 20 minutes before the ending.
There’s a lot of other cool shit happening but it’s akin to a movie before mostly generic and have a great last twenty minutes. On the other hand, the epilogues are kind of boring. I guess I liked Enri’s the best and that’s kind of funny considering she was nowhere near my favorite character.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with the last couple of hours. There’s a decent bit I skipped because otherwise I spoiled everything. Does the ending warrant the 50 hours, no.