It took me a long ass time to admit that I liked this game.
It is very hard for me to be ‘guilty’ of liking a game — if I like a game, I’m gonna play it, and I’m gonna talk about it, regardless of whether or not people share my opinion. When I say a game is a guilty pleasure, it will be the only time I ever say that about a game.
And I REALLY wanted to hate this game. I wanted to play it, and laugh about how bad it was, and make jokes about the stupid writing and the bland characters. And instead I’m making jokes about the actual jokes — the things that were supposed to be funny. Now, here I am, about to praise the writing and the surprisingly believable (mostly) characters. And that’s, frankly, embarrassing.
“But Xilirite, what’s so embarrassing about this game? Is it because it’s some weird indie game nobody’s heard of or something?”
Ha! I wish. I suppose I’ll come right out and say it — by the way, this is the game that will 100% lower public opinion of me for the rest of ever.
Katawa Shoujo is, to put it as bluntly as possible, a dating sim about cripples made by 4chan.
Oh trust me, when I figured out what it was, I abandoned ship almost immediately. I hated anime of all kinds at the time, and there was no way I was ever going to find enjoyment in a fucking anime visual novel by 4chan. About crippled people. I thought it was just going to be some freaky fetishy shit, and I wasn’t having any part of it. The game was sitting hidden in my downloads folder for months until suddenly my friend started trying to get me to play it. He told me it wasn’t as ‘tasteless’ as I thought it was and that I should give it a chance.
So, one day, with the internet down and with nothing better to do, I opened the game up. I was prepared to laugh a bit at some bad writing, or possibly laugh a lot at 4chan’s trademark anti-PC attitude. But instead, I got one of the most depressing and shockingly well-written ‘games’ I’ve seen in a while.
See, I hesitate to call this a game. It’s a book at it’s core, with a visual and audio component. It isn’t a movie, like Heavy Rain, or just a story, like Walking Dead, but a book, made entirely of dialogue. That’s why the title says game(?). As for review, I don’t really think I CAN review this game. I could certainly try to apply a number score, but I honestly can’t decide whether I hate this game or not. So, instead, I’ll go about this a bit differently.
(sidenote, this is getting hard to write because I’m sick and my hands are shaking. Now I know how Michael J. Fox feels.)
Gameplay is a category I can skip altogether. Presentation is certainly still an aspect, but it has to be judged in a completely different manner. And story is going to be difficult, because there are five stories, each with completely different themes and writers behind them. So I supposed I’ll just get started.
A fair bit of warning, this is a game made by 4chan, so there’s some adult content in the game. You can toggle it, but it isn’t 100% perfect — you’ll still probably see a boob or two by the end of the 20-40 hour game regardless of whether or not you want to.
Presentation
The art in this game is really hit or miss. I don’t honestly know why, but I’ll try to explain it as best I can… later.
This is a visual novel, so yes, the entire game has a very anime art style to it. However, it is a lot more noticable in some parts than it is in other parts — some characters look so anime it hurts, while others look like a blend between traditional western art and the anime art style.
One of the many problems with the game’s art is that some characters just don’t have enough — there’s a joke among the community right now due to one character using her ‘sexy’ face in a scene where she’s throwing you out of her house in anger. This is because she didn’t have an ‘angry’ face that wasn’t mock-anger, so they had to improvise. Look at this picture and tell me that you see any anger at all.
However, it does its job well for the most part — the basic art for characters is there only to convey movement, emotion, and who’s in a scene. The art that’s made to a higher standard is when it deviates from this.
Now, normally you’ll have all of the characters just standing in front of a backdrop during conversations, but during certain scenes you get a still image and some variations on it, mostly important story moments, but occasionally they just kind of pop up. Once again, hit or miss art — a lot of the art is really good, but with about 100+ of these pictures in the game, you are eventually going to get one or two that fall flat. The picture at the top of this section is one of these still art moments, showing one of (the best) characters, Kenji, and you getting drunk as shit. In a manly picnic.
Other than art, there is the music. Oh, dear god, the music.
I know I was being negative about the art, so I should say that it is mostly good. I just don’t want to saturate this with pictures. But I have nothing bad to say about the music in this game. Every song does it’s job perfectly — background music stays in the background, heavier hitting tracks grab your attention, but not so much that they take attention away from the dialogue, and every emotional track hits you exactly as it should.
To give you an idea of just how good this soundtrack is, here’s a picture of my iTunes right now
See that on the far right? That’s the total number of plays. That was in about 20 days. That’s 56 hours of the same damn song. It still hasn’t gotten boring.
Many characters have their own themes — of course, each of the five girls whose stories you pursue have their own songs, but there is also Kenji and the Nurse, two of the funniest characters in the game. We’ll get into Kenji and what makes him great later, but his theme fits him perfectly, and the Nurse (a man who spends the majority of one route constantly trying to get on another character’s nerves by pretending to be seducing you) has some sweet-ass saxophone for his theme.
(I swear it’s not intentional that this one chick keeps showing up)
The unanimously voted best song in the game, however, is Parity — Rin’s theme. We’ll get into Rin a bit later, but her theme is definitely the most fun to listen to.
And when the soundtrack decides it doesn’t want to be happy anymore, it can get really depressing. Don’t really want to show you any examples, so the songs hit you the way they’re meant to, but trust me when I say that the third and fourth acts of each route are emotional roller coasters.
Other than that, though, there isn’t really that much to talk about — I could mention character design, I suppose, but it would be better to discuss that alongside the characters in the next section.
Story
Okay, so before we start, let me get one thing out of the way.
IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON PLAYING THIS GAME BUT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE SPECIFICS FIRST, LEAVE NOW AND DOWNLOAD THE GAME WITHOUT READING THE REST OF THIS REVIEW. GOING IN BLIND IS GOING TO MAKE THE STORY WORK BEST, AND READING ABOUT WHAT EACH CHARACTER’S ROUTE IS LIKE IS GOING TO INFLUENCE HOW YOU VIEW THEM AND HOW YOU MAKE YOUR CHOICES THROUGHOUT THE STORY. GO HERE AND DOWNLOAD IT NOW BY MY RECOMMENDATION. I MEAN IT.
That’s important to say, because not knowing what the overall lesson of each route is, which is what I’ll be talking about, will make the choices you make less biased towards this lesson. There are people who played the game their first time through, got extremely invested, and then got the worst ending for their character and were completely crushed. This is a part of the experience, and spoiling what you’re supposed to learn from the routes will ruin this experience.
I’ll be discussing each route individually, as each story is very different. I’ll start with the protagonist, then side characters, and then the routes, with the shortest route first, and then try to go through in order of which ones took me the longest to complete. So, without further ado…
Hisao was your generic everyman. He did well in school, but not outstandingly. He played soccer, but wasn’t particularly good nor bad at it. He had a small circle of friends, and a crush on a girl way out of his league. In other words, a generic high school student with a generic life.
And then, one day, he gets a letter from said crush, Iwanako, telling him to meet her.
She arrives, and as she makes it clear that he’s being asked out on a date, his heart begins to beat faster and faster.
Erratically.
Too erratically.
Hisao has arrhythmia — he will die young, and his weakened heart will forever hold him back. He will have to take 17 different pills, twice a day, every day, for the rest of his short life. His friends have all left him — even Iwanako left him eventually. He will be sent away from his old life, to spend the rest of the school year in a school for disabled children.
He is cynical, wallowing in his own self-pity. Over the course of the five different 4-8 hour long storylines, you will see his character evolve in a variety of ways, different for each of the routes. Maybe he takes up running, healing his weakened heart bit by bit and extending his life. Maybe he tries his hand at painting, or he joins the student council. Or maybe he gets invited to a manly picnic…
One of the more subtle things this game does is how it slightly changes Hisao’s character in each route. It took me and my friends a while to figure out why Hisao acts so differently in each story, and they settled on it being ‘the girls’ influence on him changes him drastically’ until I kept thinking and we figured out what it really was.
Despite the fact that choices are presented as choices to the player, it’s important to note that Hisao had no choices to make. When you make choices, what he says was the most natural thing for him to say, and for him to come to that conclusion his personality would have to be slightly different. It’s a little thing, but it helps make it seem less like he’s a generic everyman going on a ‘gotta fuck ’em all’ adventure and more like a different character in each route, and explains things such as why he’s much more quiet, introspective, and patient in Rin’s route when compared to other routes, or why he’s much more protective of Hanako than he is of other girls.
Kenji (and his route)
Wait, what?
Yeah, Kenji has a route. Granted, it ends in the first act and it is the ‘lose condition’ of the game, but holy fuck is it hilarious. That manly picnic I was talking about before is the entirety of his route, and it’s worth playing through just because it’s so funny.
Kenji is an extremely paranoid individual. He believes that the entire world is in danger, as a vast worldwide feminist conspiracy to destroy society and enslave mankind that only he knows of is hiding beneath everyone’s noses. He is also your next door neighbour, and you’re quite possibly the only friend he has.
As you play through some of the routes, you get a better view of his character. He isn’t entirely an asshole — despite his fear of women as a whole, he does tell you at some points in the story that he doesn’t hate them. He just hates feminists and their evil plots. Once in a blue moon, you see him genuinely caring for the well-being of those around you, offering to listen to your problems at one point in the game. He also has a pretty interesting backstory, one that I won’t spoil — I’ll let you figure it out on your own.
He is, at the end of the day, comic relief. But there isn’t really anything wrong with that — with such an emotionally gripping game, you do need a good chance to laugh at the ridiculousness of Kenji’s deranged outlook on life from time to time.
The nurse is, for the most part, an extremely minor character. In almost every route, he shows up only once or twice. However, in Emi’s route (the chick who showed up constantly earlier), he takes on a larger route as he and Emi are close friends. Every day, you get a check-up and he finds some new way to fuck with Emi, oftentimes involving you. He’s also way too cool to take his hands out of his pockets.
Of course, he gets serious when it’s needed. He’ll corner you in the hall to make sure you’re taking your medications and exercising regularly, but once he’s sure that business is concluded, he’s right back to smiling. He isn’t a particularly deep character, but he’s so damn happy all the time that it tends to rub off on you. I just wish he was in the other routes a bit more — we don’t really get much out of him other than homoerotic comments said just loudly enough to be heard from outside the door to his office.
Last side character I’ll talk about, I swear — these are just the three most interesting.
Yuuko is the school librarian, who works a second job at a tea shop in the nearby town. She is incredibly overworked, and also very jumpy and overly emotional — prone to sudden mood swings, oftentimes back to back. I feel like she’s kind of forced to be a constant throughout each of the routes — every character, at some point, decided to go to the tea shop. She oftentimes ends up being the driving force in some events that occur in the game, offering advice to Hisao. She also has an interesting backstory that is pretty fun to piece together.
There are other side characters, including Mutou, Jigoro, Miki, Nomiya, and the most important, Misha. However, most of them either play extremely minor roles or only appear in one route. Let’s get started with the real meat.
The Rundown
There are five routes in the game, one for each of the five main girls in the game. There is Hanako, Lilly, Rin, Emi, and Shizune. Some routes are amazing, some routes are okay, one route is awful beyond belief. All of them have their own writers and themes, so none feel exactly the same.
In order to play this game, you need to be the kind of person who can connect with a character from a work of fiction. If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t feel much when a character dies in a movie or a book, this game will just not work for you. It’s not ‘fun’ to play, because it’s a book at it’s core. To put it super bluntly, if you’ve never cried because of a work of fiction, you won’t be able to enjoy this game — not because it will make you cry, but because it needs to make you emotionally invested for its themes and plot to work properly. So, if you’ve read this far and are still iffy about playing (also thanks for ignoring my huge bold message, asshole), seriously just go download it now if you do NOT fit that above description. This game is well written enough that if you have the capability to become attached to a character, you will be gripped by the game, and that should be enough to make you enjoy the experience.
Let’s go in order of which route I played.
WARNING SPOILERS EVERYWHERE
SERIOUSLY I MEAN IT. IF YOU’RE GOING TO PLAY THIS GAME, STOP READING NOW. I GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT EACH ROUTE AND HOW THEY PROGRESS, RIGHT UP TO THE ENDING, SO STOP RIGHT NOW.
THERE IS NO NUMBER SCORE AT THE END SO NO POINT IN SCROLLING TO THE BOTTOM EITHER. JUST LEAVE.
Hanako
Can you face your fears?
The biggest problem with Hanako’s route is how hyped up it is.
No, there wasn’t some ad campaign or something — I read nothing about the game before playing it and Hanako’s route was still hyped up because her mere existence as a character hypes itself up. Half of her body is covered in burn scars, you constantly see her out of the corner of your eye and barely hear her say a word, and what little you learn of her in the first act reveals to you that she is a completely and utterly broken person, unable to talk to anybody at all other than Lilly.
You’re playing a game about cripples and you have a character who is emotionally damaged to the point that it’s visibly noticeable. You immediately know that this is the most tragic character in the game, and this draws you in.
Or at least, that’s what happened to me. The first, maybe second time she showed up, I realized I was way too curious — I wanted to know what the fuck was with the scars, and why she was so terrified of people. So, I decided that her route would be my first.
It’s a well written route for the most part, but its biggest problem is just how hyped up it is. No matter what they did with the route, you’d expect more from it. However, I’ll try to ignore what the story might’ve been and focus on what it was.
Hanako is covered in burn scars and has crippling social anxiety — she has no friends other than Lilly, who has taken on a motherly role, remaining extremely protective of Hanako. This is all I can really say about her and her backstory without it becoming spoilers — nobody, not even Lilly, knows exactly what happened when she was burned, just that it has left her irreparably damaged, and not just physically.
Throughout her story, every time things finally start to look good for you and her, everything comes crashing down. Just when you think she’s becoming confident enough to open up to other people, she has a panic attack due to unwanted attention. Just when you think you’re starting to understand her, she suddenly locks herself away in her room and won’t come out for days.
And of course, when everything comes to a head and you fuck, it’s handled in an extremely unexpected way — the characters were not ready to take such a huge step so quickly, and this distances the characters even further than before.
The scene is uncomfortable and awkward, and intentionally so. So uncomfortable that some players actually think that the scene is rape, although if they actually paid attention, they’d see it wasn’t — Throughout the entire route, Hisao and Lilly have been trying to protect Hanako, to make sure she isn’t hurt. But she wants to be treated as an equal. not as somebody who needs to be sheltered, and to do this she felt she had to rush the relationship forward — to try and make Hisao see her differently.
However, let’s say you’ve already shown to her, in the past, that you can’t think of her as anything more than somebody to be protected, then…
Her bad ending is probably the most emotionally hard hitting in the entire game — she’s a subdued character, and for her to reach a boiling point where she blows up so suddenly is serious. She proclaims that she hates you, and Lilly, and then locks herself away, shutting out all of her friends forever and likely pressing herself into an even worse state than before.
Her good ending, on the other hand, results in Hisao and Hanako coming to the realization that both of them have built these walls between each other, and despite the fact that tearing down these walls is hard to do, as both must admit their own flaws to both themselves and to each other. But in the end, they come out of it better people.
Unfortunately, we don’t get to see Hanako’s character fully develop in this route — in fact, you have to go to Lilly’s route to see the extent of her character development due to Lilly’s route going on for almost twice as long, chronologically — probably the biggest drawback not brought on by the hype Hanako generates.
As for her character design, I found her character to be a bit… stereotypical? Her design is a very standard cutesy anime girl, with the scars on her face being the only thing to really distinguish her. It isn’t a ‘bad’ design — it’s a standard design because it works. It just wasn’t particularly unique or interesting, specifically because she didn’t have nearly enough ‘sprite’ art (which is what I’ll refer to the normal conversational drawings as from here on art to keep things simple). It was hard for her to convey emotions a lot of the time, as she basically had shocked, shy smile, and varying degrees of awkward. However, the design did at least catch my attention with the burn scars at first glance, so I suppose it worked on some small level.
Her story felt like it was moving too slowly at times — long periods where almost nothing happens. I can only really name a few key events in the story — the party, the panic attack, the birthday, the game of pool, and the ending. However, these five scenes were done extremely well — I just wish that the story was either longer (gametime wise or chronologically) or had less filler in the classroom.
I’ll be judging each character route on an out of 5 scale, with the rating being relative to the other characters and based on multiple categories — for instance, only one person can get 4 in any one category, and even if they have an amazing ending, if another person has a better ending they’ll get a lower score.
Story : 4/5
Too slow with not enough time chronologically to properly develop Hanako’s character, but Hanako is so interesting that it doesn’t even matter.
Character : 4/5
Despite being fairly stereotypical, she single-handedly carries the average storyline to keep everything engaging.
Ending : 5/5
Both ends of the spectrum deliver perfectly, with the perfect amount of emotional punch and story relevance in both. The good ending also serves to make Hanako appear more human and less a character — absolutely the best ending in the game.
Final : 4/5
My second favourite route in the game. The ending makes everything click, and her character is interesting enough to keep the story engaging even when it starts moving slowly.
Rin
Can you seize the day?
The first time Rin showed up, I didn’t really realize what was happening — until then, most characters other than Kenji had been pretty normal. But Rin is a bit… different.
I feel like rather than trying to explain Rin’s personality, I’ll just… show you her personality. Probably easier.
Rin tends to say what’s on her mind the second it comes to mind, living in her own world without anybody else. She’s also an artist — however, she has no arms, so she uses her feet and mouth to draw, drawing in the same way she talks; whatever she’s thinking of, she puts to canvas. Of course, this strange manner of speaking means that she is almost impossible to understand, despite the numerous attempts to do so by students, teachers, and herself.
I hope you’re prepared for a long read – Rin’s route is my favourite by an order of magnitude. There are no words that can properly describe it in any reasonable amount of time – perhaps it’s a personal flaw. There are so many things in this story that hit me harder than any story ever has. Although it didn’t make me cry, like some other games did, nor did it make me feel overcome by rage, like some books have, nothing has ever come close to being so strikingly… god, no wonder Rin wishes she could make up words. I can’t think of what to say that can properly describe the emotional state Rin’s route left me the first time I played it, nor can I properly describe the emotional state it is putting me through a second time as I replay it – the same state I’m in as I write this, with the emotions fresh on my mind.
Rin’s route is overflowing with recurring themes, symbolism, and metaphor, ranging from subtle details to overarching themes such as the emphasis on change in the story translating to frequent descriptions of how things change as time goes on, as well as the relentless march of time forcing people to change in order to keep up with it. Hisao checks his watch often for this reason. In the worst ending, the watch is removed, and in the end of the game we see how the passing of time has affected the field of dandelions that Rin is so fascinated with. When the characters begin to connect and understand each other a little more, their footsteps are in sync, but when they first meet and whenever things come between them their footsteps are out of sync.
Nomiya, the route’s villain, appears to be a positive force at first. He cared for Rin’s success, is passionate about art and about Rin’s art in particular, and is generally a lovable oddball. But after finishing the route, his character appears in a completely different light. Lines that you might not have even looked twice at now fill you with rage, and the second time around I wanted to smack Hisao for honestly believing that Nomiya is in the right.
This route’s 2nd act is the best 2nd act in the entire game by an order of magnitude, as it’s the only act in the game where Hisao is truly the focus of the plot. In the 1st act, Hisao is teetering on the edge of depression – he has no friends, he’s going to die young, he’s in an alien environment, and he has fucking Shizune and Misha hounding him at every turn which would ruin anybody’s day. However, in most routes, it resolves itself in time, and somebody may or may not mention how much happier he is than he was then. However, in Rin’s route this depression doesn’t go away. Instead, it starts to get worse, as he’s hit with occasional bursts of sadness. The entire act is the story of how he overcomes this depression alongside Rin, building their friendship and setting up the events of the following acts. This is the only time in the game Hisao cries because of his condition, and it’s the only time such powerful emotions are attached to him on his own, rather than to one of the girls or his relationship with them. It’s very interesting to watch Rin fulfill the role that Hisao would normally fill – instead of Hisao working to resolve the problems that arise in Rin’s life, it is Rin working to resolve Hisao’s problems.
This isn’t the only thing done differently. Rin’s route is the only one where Hisao gets shot down when he tries to make a move, and it changes the entire tone of the rest of the story. Even as it becomes abundantly clear that both of them view the other as more than friends, they feel their lack of understanding of each other makes it impossible to move past this. It goes further — after Hisao and Rin have a ‘clandestine encounter’ in the atelier, Rin tells Hisao to just ‘forget about it.’ However, she then attempts to push herself onto Hisao, and Hisao is the one who has to turn her down. There’s more to this, of course, but I’ll discuss that in a bit.
The entire route is gorgeously written – and I don’t just mean story-wise. The author of the route describes scenes in a more emotional sense, using metaphors and colour more than hard physical description. As long periods of time can pass without neither Hisao nor Rin uttering a word, there is a lot of silently conveyed emotion in many scenes. Often times it’s just Hisao thinking to himself, and as a result we get a very good idea of what Hisao’s character is in this route when compared to the slightly vaguer character he had in other routes. Don’t even ask me what his personality was in Shizune’s route, I honestly can’t tell if he had any consistent character traits other than being competitive sometimes but not always.
Replaying the route, I rediscovered how painful it is to watch Rin’s ‘self destruction’ during the third act. There were scenes where I felt myself having to take a deep breath as they ended, steadying myself before continuing. You can never tell if you are getting closer or further away from Rin – every time the two of you bond, something comes between you. When Hisao takes Rin for a walk around the nighttime city, you feel as though you’ve finally taken those first steps to closing the gap between you and her, but the scene ends with her telling you not to visit her anymore so she can focus on her art, pushing you away from her just as it looks like you’ve gotten closer. It’s a series of punches to the gut, and the entire act shows Rin gradually being broken down almost entirely by herself and her own actions. Again, it’s outright painful to watch.
Rin’s obsession with the gallery ends up harming her physically and mentally. She puts off sleep and eating in favour of art as she tries desperately to move past her artist’s block. Hisao is forced to watch helplessly as she falls further and further, and it all culminates in a final visit from Hisao where he finds Rin completely and utterly broken. After watching how she inspired Hisao to change for the better, watching as she herself changes for the worst is… hard. The word that keeps coming to mind is ‘unpleasant’ – not just from a story standpoint, in that what’s happening to her is unpleasant, but from a personal standpoint. This section of the story is distressing, and in its lowest moments causes me to feel slightly ill. I can’t explain why, but it’s something no other piece of media has ever made me feel. Oh, I’ve cried to character deaths and felt anger towards antagonists, but never has a story hit me so hard that I feel physically weak. The day after I played through Rin’s route was a blur of self-reflection as I thought back on the story. And now, playing it again, even with knowledge of exactly what will happen, I feel a strange, faint tightness in my lungs. It’s a scary thing, to have a story like this (and by like this I mean a fucking dating sim) so severely effect me.
Then the 4th act. Among the things that happen in the last hour or so of this route are Rin’s broken self being exposed to the public eye at the gallery, Hisao breaking down and letting out all of the pent-up anger he was building throughout the third act, Nomiya doing the same, Rin breaking down into tears, and the eventual ‘coming together’ of Hisao and Rin. There’s hardly a single scene in the fourth act that isn’t drenched in emotion – there’s almost nothing else to say other than elaborating on those emotions. Everything that was being built up to in the third act explodes in the fourth, with the volatility of Hisao’s feelings toward Rin leading to one of the most uncomfortable scenes in the game.
When Hisao breaks down and lets out all of his frustration with the relationship in a shouting match with Rin, the result is one of the most powerful scenes in the game, for multiple reasons. As much as Hisao is made out to be the bad guy in the scene, he makes plenty of points that are perfectly legitimate and mirror the player’s own thoughts. Watching the normally emotionally resolute Rin become visibly upset is very powerful, and watching the normally sympathetic Hisao’s anger build up to the boiling point it reaches is as well, not helped by the fact that you reluctantly feel much the same way. It’s a scene that perfectly illustrates the strained and awkward relationship the two have. The two are clearly in love, frustrated that neither of them can act on it, and Hisao feels as though Rin is using him, only selectively allowing affection when it suits her. Only when she feels the need to be comforted does she allow the romantic side of their relationship to take the lead. However, although what Hisao is saying isn’t necessarily wrong, the fact that he’s saying it is. He views Rin as the problem, not both Rin and himself, and so he feels justified in shouting at her. It doesn’t take long for him to realize he was wrong, and that it wasn’t anything he should’ve or would’ve done normally, but he can’t take back the things he said.
But despite how powerful the previous scene is, the most emotionally powerful scene (in the whole game, if you ask me, but that’s just opinion) is easily when Rin finally breaks down. Her exhibit that she destroyed herself both physically and mentally for a failure, she tries to apologize to Nomiya, who is less than pleased. He blows up on her, much in the same way Hisao did, but at this point you understand why what Hisao said was wrong, and why what Nomiya is saying and has been saying since he first appeared is wrong as well. You then try to comfort her as she finally reveals exactly why she’s never been able to explain herself to Hisao – she can’t explain herself to herself. She has no idea why she is the way she is, why she’s viewed as an eccentric or how to make people see things her way, and now everyone she knows is angry at her as a result. As she says herself, she doesn’t understand what’s wrong with her. Although this is something that is brought up from time to time – the fact that she doesn’t understand herself – hearing it from her own mouth, and hearing her refer to herself as having something wrong with her, makes it hit home. The final line of this route, just as it fades to the credits, is extremely powerful — I went to sleep with it echoing in my head over and over again.
There are two endings I want to talk about in Rin’s route — the good ending, which I just discussed, and the neutral ending. Although there is a bad ending, it’s just the fight scene moved up to act 3 instead of act 4, although I did think the final line was pretty clever. Having the watch, which was representing change, be removed after all of the change Hisao went through is viewed as ‘wasted time’ works well. However, the neutral ending, which I just played this second time around, is probably ‘worse’ than the bad ending.
Rin has decided that she’s going to go to a prestigious art school, as her art exhibit was a success in this case. This means that she’ll be gone from school the next year, and thus will never see Hisao again. But these aren’t the things that got to me. It wasn’t Hisao’s narration or his replies, or the reality that their friendship is over, but instead one single line that Rin utters. In this scene, Rin says that in order to go to this school, she’ll have to stop being Rin. This, after playing through the route twice, almost broke me on its own, as the entire idea of the route is that Rin and Hisao have to find a way to change without becoming something other than Rin and Hisao. In this ending, Rin has given up on being Rin, instead opting to devote her life to art. However, having played the route before, it’s revealed in other endings that she only paints to have some chance of somebody truly understanding her. She can’t put her feelings into words, often wishing she could invent new words, but she can put her feelings to canvas. However, nobody will ever be able to understand Rin just through small paintings — Rin herself doesn’t even understand Rin, how would anybody else? The idea of Rin throwing away her own happiness, and her friends, and her own self all because Nomiya says it’s best, and how she twists Hisao’s words to try and justify this act, very nearly broke me. I’ve never cried while playing this game, but this was the one time I almost did. After spending 4 hours the first time around, and nearly 8 hours the second time, with just this one character, this one scene hit me harder than any other. I’ve choked up due to the game, but never have I actually been worried I might actually cry. I came close, though. Closer than any other ending or route has made me.
I could honestly talk for hours about how Rin’s route is just completely on another level of writing from the other routes, and how replaying it reveals so much hidden meaning (For instance, Rin at one point says that she feels people do things just because they can, and that’s why she paints, whereas Nomiya says that people who paint do so because they MUST), but I do need to leave room for the other routes. Suffice it to say that Rin’s route is the one that has stuck with me the most – the incredibly strong emotions I associate with the route make replaying it a second time for the sake of review a difficult task, as I often feel overwhelmed, even when I’m not actively playing it. Rin’s route will grab you and play with your emotions like a kitten with a ball of yarn. But there’s of course more to the route than just this, and much more to the game that we do unfortunately have to get to. Trust me, I run this site, so if I want to subject you to another 2k word rant, I will. Make no mistake.
Presentation wise, I love Rin’s artwork. She has so many different sprites, and many of them can easily be used to show multiple emotions. Her main theme, Parity, is also one of the best tracks in the game, and many of the locations that are unique to Rin’s route are breathtaking, especially the meadow filled with dandelions. My absolute favourite thing about this route is that it’s the least pandering in the entire game – Rin isn’t described as a particularly attractive person, nor is she drawn as one – unlike her friend Emi, there isn’t an over-abundance of butts and nips to keep the 4chan people interested long enough to reach the end. Her route has the least neckbeard-bait – she isn’t obnoxiously big-breasted like Lilly and Shizune are often drawn, and she isn’t obnoxiously ‘cute’ like Hanako and Emi tend to be. It means you can really focus on the story itself – although it does occasionally slip up, with scenes like the scene where she downs a shitload of codeine and sits there half naked on the bed ranting about even less than normal. Her art design is the most curiously unique in the entire game. I don’t know why, but her character has a completely different style of shading, with much smoother shadows. Look at the picture below to see a comparison between her and three other characters, and tell me if you see what I mean.
It’s subtle, but it’s definitely there. A slightly different shading technique was used for her, and her colours seems slightly more subdued. Maybe that’s just me, but it certainly looks like the other routes were drawn differently.
Speaking of other routes, it’s about time we wrap this up. Expect a more in-depth look into Rin’s route once I’ve really had time to sit and dissect the whole thing. Also expect to see the sleep-deprived ramblings of the time I played for 4 hours at six in the morning and gave live commentary on most of the second act in an entirely not serious way. No, no pictures for context.
Story : 5/5
Perfectly written. Everything, from the pacing to the atmosphere to the progression of each character. The writing style is also beautiful, with a lot of symbolism and really well done environmental descriptions.
Character : 5/5
Rin has the best dialogue in the entire game by a long shot, and the way she helps bring Hisao out of his depression only to fall into it herself is powerful.
Ending : 4/5
A great climax, but not quite as good as Hanako’s. The final line is incredibly powerful, and the neutral ending is heartbreaking.
Final : 5/5
Rin is my favourite route in the game — funny, depressing, and introspective, with characters who grow and evolve without feeling like they’re new characters, but that they’re the same characters with newer outlooks on life.
Emi
Can you stand up for yourself?
Emi’s route is basically porn.
Seriously, as much as there is good writing in this route, it feels REALLY fan-servicey. Her ‘casual’ clothing is a pair of short shorts, and you fuck her like three times throughout the course of the game. It’s just distracting, honestly, and kind of unnecessary — I don’t think we’re learning anything about her character from the storage shed scene.
Oh and that storage shed scene though. It’s pretty great.
Emi is designed to be a likable character. “Obviously,” I hear you say, “she’s a love interest so she has to be likable.” But I mean she is made to, at first glance, appear almost flawless. Rin is hard to understand, Lilly is a bit too polite and boring, Hanako is cripplingly shy, and Shizune is a cunt, but Emi has no apparent flaws until the third act of the game. She is also made to be the character that the every 4chan user dreams of. She’s feisty, energetic, isn’t afraid to swear, jokes around a lot, and she lets you fuck her asshole.
When I say this character is fan-servicey, I mean like really, really bad. She lures you into a storage shed, locks the door, and then you have anal sex. With the gay track captain’s lemon flavoured personal lubricant. Actually.
anal intensifies
It isn’t just her artwork that’s fan-servicey – her mere existence is pandering to the target demographic of the entire game. The relationship with her is also the fastest moving in the game by a long-shot, as the route is much interested in the one plot point the storyline has.
At some point in the third act, it becomes abundantly clear that Emi isn’t just a little bit immature – she’s very immature. This immaturity is the one major character flaw that Emi has, and the second it comes to light is when everything begins to fall apart. You see, Emi isn’t interested in opening up to Hisao. She’s so protective of her past and her feelings that she won’t let Hisao know that anything is wrong. When her legs begin to hurt due to infection, she doesn’t tell anybody until it’s so bad that she needs to use a wheelchair to get around for a while, despite her obvious discomfort being oft-mentioned by Hisao. Much more damningly is when she tells Hisao that she can’t rely on him for help, and can’t let him get any closer than he is.
Hisao’s reaction to this revelation is absolutely the best part of the entire route. The world feels so much less vibrant – the wedge between you and Emi grows wider and is given a name, and every attempt to fix it just makes the gap larger and larger. You really do feel helpless – like everything you do is futile, and you know it isn’t your fault. But then the second biggest problem of the route appears — how this is revolved.
Assuming you got the good ending, act 4 of Emi’s route is three scenes long. One of them is a sex scene, one is a very short lived ending scene, and only one of them is actually important.. The resolution of this game happens so fast, and is so predictable, that there’s almost no reason to really feel emotionally attached. You KNOW what’s going to happen. It’s the fourth act, the anniversary of Emi’s accident is fast approaching, Emi’s father died at some point in the past. It was fairly apparent, to me at least, that the route was leading to a visit to her father’s gravestone where all problems will be miraculously solved at once. Unsurprisingly, that’s what happens. It makes the ending feel so weak – there are plot revelations that were either already figured out or entirely out of nowhere and irrelevant (Is it really a big deal that she had a boyfriend in the past that had the same problem you have? Big enough to be mentioned alongside the much more story-centric plot points?), and then the entire fourth act is over, just as soon as it began.
However, Emi is a fun character, and the relationship she has with Hisao is a very believable one. Despite the fan service and the abrupt ending, the fact that Emi is just an enjoyable character makes the route a lot more fun – it’s very telling when she brings a smile to my face every time she’s on screen that she wasn’t boring or, even worse, actually unlikable as the following two characters are, respectively.
I also hate her artwork. Besides the lack of proper angry faces I mentioned before, her art just seems sloppy. Awkward positioning of limbs during a lot of the larger stills, and messy lines around the face for the sprite art. I loathe the entire track meeting scene, as it’s filled with awkward, flat drawings that detract from the experience rather than add to it. She also fluctuates in size a lot – sometimes she’s only slightly smaller than Hisao, other times she’s so small it looks like she’s ten, which is just creepy. Her main theme also feels kind of wrong – there are songs that exist in the soundtrack that fit her peronality a lot better than the actual theme she was given, but that’s just my opinion. Standing Tall, other than having a disturbingly ironic name, isn’t a bad song by any means, it just isn’t nearly as fitting as the other themes in the game. It feels a bit too slow, and it sounds like just another background song. Hell, I thought Hokabi was her theme until I actually went and looked it up. Regardless, the fact that this is ‘technically’ the first route in the game (in terms of the order they want you to play them in, Emi’s is the first one and is also the easiest to get) means that the fan-servicey nature can be extremely off-putting to anybody playing the game for the first time. I accidentally got her route the first time I played, and had to quit because with the first 5 minutes of the second act it was getting unbearable to read.
I probably won’t do an in-depth look at this route – it’s only good for a select few scenes, and there are far too many scenes where I feel like they were written using the author’s left hand, if you know what I’m saying.
I’m saying his hand was on, or near, his genitals because it’s fucking hardcore anal porn at worst and softcore ‘my casual outfit covers negative skin’ porn at best.
Story : 3/5
For the entire third act, it feels like the story is just buying time between sex scenes until towards the end, and the fourth act tries to do revelations where there are none to be had.
Character : 3/5
Although kind of pandering, Emi is an enjoyable character overall, with some funny lines and a fairly realistic personality, with nothing about her being caricatured or stereotyped in any way. Other than her horniness.
Ending : 2/5
The route just kind of ends — there are revelations, but they don’t matter, and the two characters making up in the end felt like it had already happened.
Final : 3/5
Wasted potential is all I see in Emi’s route — again, it isn’t bad, but it could’ve been a lot better if there was more thought put into the story and less into the sexing.
Lilly
Can you see what I see?
Lilly is blind, half Scottish, and manages to have exactly as much sex as Emi WITHOUT it becoming a detriment to the story. Sounds like an interesting character right? What’s her problem then? Well, she somehow manages to be the most boring character in the game.
Lilly’s route manages to go through all of act 2 and most of act 3 without it feeling like anything is happening. It isn’t until the final moments of the third act that things start moving along, and I found myself becoming bored throughout the first half of the storyline, to the point that I complained about it to my friend.
The only character development we get from her is learning that she is only refined sometimes. She’ll drink alcohol whenever she can get it, and she, um…
She likes fucking.
This route made me quit for a while. Unlike the other routes, which I beat in a marathon session or two each, it was 4 days after I started playing that I ended up finishing her route. I beat all previous routes in one day, each, and this is including the underwhelming Emi route. Lilly is just so boring, and the plot so meandering, that I didn’t want to play it at all and almost forced myself to get through it.
Lilly’s route is saved by all the supporting characters, but the abundance of scenes where these characters aren’t present means you only get these brief moments of entertainment scattered throughout the plot. Kenji gets a lot more development in this route, Akira is such a fucking bro that every scene with her in it is certain to at least draw a smile out of you, and we actually get to see the full extent of Hanako’s character evolution, even if we don’t get to see how she would affect Hisao or how Hisao would affect her. Hell, even Shizune gets a scene where for a brief second you don’t hate her guts, which is impressive on many levels.
Her plot is pretty clearly split into segments. The second act is developing the friendship between Hisao and Lilly before she briefly visits Scotland. When she returns, a vacation to her summer home results in romance blooming as Hisao has serious heart problems due to him neglecting to take his medicine. Then, the two sit there and proceed to be in love for a while, before Lilly leaves forever for Scotland. Hisao, determined to fulfill at least one major romantic cliche during the course of the route, chases her down in the airport just as she’s about to leave…
…and has a heart attack.
This is the only scene in the entire route to truly grab my interest for more than five minutes. Once Hisao awakens in the hospital, you hear a slightly familiar tune. You can’t quite place it, but as it grows louder you slowly realize the significance. You gave Lilly a music box on Hanako’s birthday, one that she took with her to Scotland. The same music box is sitting next to you now, playing music for you.
As cliched as the ending is, the music box reveal was really well done, and cliches do exist for a reason – it’s an effective, tension filled way to end the story and is closest to an action scene the game ever gets.
However, Lilly is just so, so, so boring. I can’t stand her. She does occasionally express a little bit more outside of ‘I’m so fucking refined look at how proper I am when I drink my tea,’ but it feels like they kept bringing up the same character trait over and over again and called it character development rather than actually making a three-dimensional character. As is, she’s a fan of drinking despite being underage, she has a ‘healthy adolescent sex drive’ as she so gently puts it, and she rarely actually expresses emotion that isn’t behind her refined filter. When it does happen, it should hit harder than it does, but if I don’t care about the character when I’m not being explicitly told to care, why should I listen when I’m told I am?
Hisao is almost just as bad. His personality is extremely undefined in this route, and even by the end of the route the only thing I could describe Hisao as would be ‘in love with Lilly.’ When compared to Rin’s route, where an entire act is devoted to fleshing out his character whilst still fleshing out Rin herself, Hisao ends up being even more generic than he is in Shizune’s route. I can’t even remember anything he ever says or thinks, other than that time he literally said m’lady, which was magical. I can’t even really identify with him, because he’s such a blank slate that he doesn’t have enough past life experience for me to connect with.
Both protagonists are boring, but the big problem with a game like this is that it’s so subjective. Most of this is really personal preference. I get that Lilly is supposed to be this super refined hot blonde chick with a bit of a wild streak when it comes to naughtier activities like drinking or bumping butts, but I honestly don’t care about any of this. It doesn’t appeal to me. A lot of people really like this route – the friend who introduced me to the game says it’s his favourite one (UPDATE: He changed his mind and said he agrees with the points I made here, but his favourite route is still a mystery to me). However, for me, there is no point where Lilly can keep me interested by herself in a conversation. When she’s boring and refined, I can’t stand her, and when she starts acting less refined the game acts like it’s the most shocking thing despite the fact I already know this is a common occurrence and just having it happen four times doesn’t mean I’m learning about the character.
Ultimately, this lack of learning is the big problem. Once you’ve seen the birthday party scene where she drinks a lot, and once you’ve had the cabin scene where you fuck a lot, you learn nothing new about her character and nothing new about your own character. Both characters also don’t evolve or change at all. They just exist, and the only problems that arise in their relationship come from a nation on the other side of the world. The two of them have a boringly idyllic relationship where nothing bad ever happens. Despite the fact that Hisao should be angry that Lilly withholds the information that she’s leaving from him for as long as she did, he isn’t, because then there would be conflict between the two, which would mess with their perfect, flawless, boringly fantastic romance.
The one time we really learn anything about Lilly is when you discover that she was in love with her English teacher when she was younger, but this is really just kind of mentioned. It doesn’t change how you or Hisao feels about her, it just kind of makes the scene uncomfortably awkward and then it’s never brought up again. It was a good effort, but it really wasn’t enough to fix a broken character.
Her artwork is fine, but she doesn’t have any visual trademarks of any kind. Whereas most characters have at least one face that you remember long after the game is finished, Lilly just has varying levels of content. Even her most concerned face is just a furrowed brow. Her still art is fantastic though, with the occasional nature shot that’s just breathtaking to look at. Her main theme fits her perfectly – refined, slow, boring, but not bad. The word to describe it, and the whole route, is ‘harmless’ – it left no impact on me, negative or positive. At most, it serves to help flesh out other routes that weren’t given time. Throughout this route, we see the nicer side of Shizune, what Hanako did after her birthday passed, and we get some elaboration on Hisao’s academic life. But when the best part of the route is how it made other routes look better, you have to wonder what the point is of having the route at all instead of taking the 4-6 hours of this route and changing them to 1-1.5 hours in each other route.
Again, no in-depth looks here. Even if there’s a deeper meaning behind the scenes that I just didn’t see my first time through, Lilly is so boring that I don’t care enough to find them, especially as I’d have to replay the route to find these deeper meanings. It isn’t bad, but when compared to how gripping and emotionally intense the other routes are, this one just lost me and didn’t find me until it was almost over.
Story : 2/5
The first half is boring as shit, but it picks up once Lilly and Hisao become romantically involved… for a little bit. Then it’s back down to nothing again.
Character : 1/5
I find Lilly overwhelmingly boring, honestly. She almost single-handedly turned me off from the route with her blandness, and is the least engaging character in the entire game.
Ending : 3/5
Cliched, but it’s a staple for a good reason, and the added twist does make it a lot better. The epilogue also provides some nice closure.
Final : 2/5
The most boring route in the game, although certainly not bad by any means.
Shizune
Can you tell me what you think?
I HATE THIS STUPID FUCKING BITCH.
SHE’S SUCH A FUCKING BITCH.
ALL SHE DOES IS BITCH.
SHE’S SUCH A BITCH.
THE BITCH IS FUCKING REAL.
MORE LIKE CHILDLIKE BITCHINESS.
Shizune is the fucking worst piece of shit. She’s annoying, boring, one note, and a pain. The romance with her is completely and utterly loveless and passionless, the story doesn’t even focus on her OR Hisao, and she’s JUST A FUCKING BITCH.
The entire story is about Misha and her crippling depression because Shizune rejected her lesbian ass years ago so she tries to fuck you.
Oh I’m sorry, I MEANT TO SAY SHE TRIES TO BE COMFORTED.
AND YOU COMFORT HER.
WITH YOUR DICK.
BLUE BITCH’S CASUAL WEAR IS FUCKING LINGERIE.
MISHA WEARS A BUSH-CHENEY 2004 SHIRT.
Shizune gets no development at all. AT ALL. Hisao gets even less, because at least we learn how to communicate with Shizune, which lets us experienced her bitchiness without Misha as a filter. Thank FUCKING god for that one.
And queen bitch here is described in the source material as having big tits, because she has no character to speak of other than being the girl with the glasses. They needed a bespectacled character, so this was it.
When her character tries to be developed, we instead just learn that she’s not trying to be a bitch, she’s just naturally a bitch. She tries to make everybody around her happy, which is why HER BEST FRIEND IS SPIRALING INTO DEPRESSION BECAUSE OF HER STUPID BLUE ASS.
SHE EVEN HAS THAT STUPID ANIME GLINT ON HER FUCKING GLASSES BECAUSE SHE’S THE WORST.
THE WORST ONE.
Do you want to know what Hisao says to her, when he confesses his love?
“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
LITERALLY.
AND THEN SHE REPLIES WITH SURE.
LIKE “OH YEAH W/E DAWG MIGHT AS WELL LOL.”
IT’S BULLSHIT.
OH, AND THEN YOU GET TWO ENDINGS TO CHOOSE FROM — THERE’S ALSO EXACTLY ONE CHOICE YOU MAKE IN THE WHOLE PLOT LINE, TAKE A WILD GUESS WHAT THIS CHOICE DETERMINES — AND THIS IS WHAT YOU GET.
EITHER SHE GROWS INTO A TWENTY FOOT MONSTER AND GETS SHITTY ART.
LOOK AT THE HAND RAIL HER KNEES ARE LIKE TWICE AS TALL WTF.
OR YOU GET THE GOOD ENDING AND YOU GET TO POSE LIKE A BUNCH OF SUPERHEROES AND THEN IT ENDS.
Oh, but you get to hear Shizune tell you about what she wants to do with her life!
She wants to be a philanthropist.
THAT IS THE ENTIRETY OF HER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
Yeah, okay, so the route isn’t all bad. For one, Shizune has the largest amount of pictures for her conversations, partially because she can’t really convey emotions through voice so she has to use her face more.
Misha’s storyline also had a lot of really powerful moments in it that really put into perspective what the route could’ve been — there’s a scene on the rooftop where Misha remembers the day she confessed to Shizune, and how she was turned down. You can tell from the writing that it’s a powerful memory to her as she describes every tiny detail, as if she was describing what she was looking at rather than an event from years ago. It’s one of the few scenes where Misha isn’t putting on a happy face for your sake.
Some of the side characters are really fun in this route — one of them, Shizune’s dad, is… well… Interesting, to say the least. Also, any route with Akira on display gets a couple of bonus points.
However, the route falls flat when it comes to Shizune herself. The supposed relationship she and Hisao have is barely even there, with the only displays of affection happening during or leading up to sex. It makes it feel shallow, and it’s very apparent that the romantic side of this route took a backseat to Misha’s depression, which would’ve been fine if we could see said depression in full force.
In actuality, the single most important scene in both Misha’s story and Shizune’s happens off-screen. The two of them, immediately after you go to sleep, have a huge fight that tears them apart, with Misha letting out all of her pent-up anger and frustration and sadness and directing it all at Shizune. This leaves Misha even more depressed, Shizune without her friend, and is ultimately the catalyst for the fourth act’s events. And we don’t even get to fucking see it.
THE MOST IMPORTANT SCENE HAPPENS OFF-SCREEN WHERE WE CAN’T SEE IT AND WE’RE JUST TOLD WHAT HAPPENS LATER.
Shizune herself is boring. As I said, she’s a bitch, and the conflict of the route comes from how she’s such a raging bitch that the only people who associate with her are hurt because of it. However, she doesn’t change by the end of the route. All that happens is you mend the friendship she had with Misha and she gets to be a bitch without consequences.
THE ENTIRE ROUTE IS POINTLESS.
The highpoint of the route is Shizune’s art, as her sprites are incredibly expressive to make up for her lack of speech for the first half of the route. She has more poses and facial expressions than even Rin, and it does help make her just ever so slightly more tolerable than she would otherwise be. However, her main theme is basically just another background song – it doesn’t really fit her personality (I’m pretty sure static and the occasional shriek of the damned would fit well though) and it’s not musically interesting enough to really notice. It’s just another guitar + piano + other guitar + quiet strings piece, four instruments that dominate the first and second acts of the game. Her higher quality stills are also fairly impressive. There are two pictures that occur during a fishing trip with Lilly’s picture that have an incredible amount of personality stuffed into them.
Shizune’s route suffers from more problems than I can list, but the biggest one is Shizune herself. She’s a thoroughly unlikable character, who appears to go through no character growth at all. She doesn’t behave like a human being, and only evolves when the plot decides it’s convenient for her to evolve at this point – the ending of the game is, in essence, you bone and then watch Misha being tutored and this somehow makes everything in the world right and causes Shizune’s character to change… maybe?
Similarly, Hisao himself has no actual personality, and even him going down the route feels more like he was pressured into it, despite the half-assed ‘but I was actually willingly being forced’ bullshit they pull towards the end to make it seem like Hisao was in any way changed by the things that happen in this route. This is a boring relationship between two boring characters, with a very interesting character who was handled wrong and left no room for other characters to grow. Misha’s development is underwhelming past the scene on the roof at the end of the third act, but so much time was spent on it that none was left for other characters, forcing all character development into one or two scenes at the very end. Even when compared to Lilly’s route, a route with boring protagonists and interesting side characters, at the very least most characters had grown by the end or had learned more about each other. I feel like nothing was accomplished overall other than the revelation that Misha is a lesbian. In the end, Hisao destroys and then fixes the friendship between Misha and Shizune, neither character grows from the experience, and the protagonists will break up by the end of the year as Hisao stops being able to put up with Shizune’s bullshit on a daily basis. This route is the WORST.
No in-depth here, but I might look a little bit closer at exactly why this is the worst thing since vegetarianism. Just an awful, boring chore of a route with no emotion and no connection.
THE ROUTE HAS EXACTLY FIVE MINUTES IN WHICH IT IS GOOD.
Story : 1/5
MISHA SHOULD’VE HAD HER OWN ROUTE SO SHIZUNE COULD GET HER CHARACTER DEVELOPED, BUT INSTEAD THEY SHOVED TWO CHARACTERS INTO ONE ROUTE AND BOTCHED BOTH OF THEM.
Character : 2/5
SHIZUNE IS A RAGING BITCH WHO NEVER STOPS BEING A BITCH AND IS JUST A FUCKING BITCH BUT AT LEAST BITCH IS BETTER THAN BORING AND UNENGAGING.
Ending : 1/5
BOTH ENDINGS ARE UNSATISFYING, BORING, AND WEAKSAUCE.
Final : 1/5
THE WORST ROUTE BY A HUGE MARGIN. PRACTICALLY NOT THE SAME GAME.
OH AND THE WRITING SUCKS ASS TOO.
But at least we get to see a lot more of Kenji in this route!
Conclusion
If you’ve read this far, please play this game through. You’ve already had everything spoiled for you, but the fact that you read this far means that the idea of the game was interesting enough for you to keep reading on. What I expected to be a goofy, poorly written mess ended up being one of the most touching and emotionally devastating games I’ve ever played. I don’t want to apply a number score to this game, I just want to tell you that you need to play this. Trust me — this comes with my personal seal of approval.
I just can’t wait to see the backlash this one brings me — now I get to see how Bebi feels.
reviewlution 