My thoughts:
shizune route stuff
Spoiler
Boring. Shizune is cute but i felt that not only was Hisao learning sign language that quickly completely unrealistic, but that the route was full of a lot of unnecessary stuff that nobody cared about. So they end up going out at the end of act 2, but they did like, nothing “boyfriend/girlfriend”-esque in chapter 3. It was mostly just the boring trip where the weird awkward tied up sex scene happened. Then the rest of the time was spent helping misha deal with her depression. While thats fine and all, when I did Shizune route, I was expecting more focus on Shizune, and I feel like I didn’t really learn much about her because there were just way too many other characters that did nothing for the story. Even after completing it, I don’t really feel like I know anything about Shizune’s character any more than I did at first. It almost felt like she was kinda just there.
Rin route
Spoiler
Hisao was a complete douchebag. He knows from the start that Rin is weird, and she even says she can’t really express herself all that well. So when hes like WAH WAH WAH and shes like “i cant really explain stuff right now cause I’m not good at that” he throws a hissy fit. He should know after hanging out with Rin a bunch that she doesnt care or think about the same things as everyone else. Yet he expects her to and acts like shes toying with him when really, shes just being herself. Everyone says Rin route is the saddest, but i don’t really think so. I think her neutral end is the best cause Hisao is a dick, and this way she can do something with her life (getting a scholarship for an art college in tokyo). Even the good end is like “meh, i guess she’s still gonna be with that douchebag”. To me, it wasn’t that it was “sad”, it was just, i unno, really unfair to Rin mostly because of Hisao imo.
Emi route
Spoiler
I like Emi the best as a character. Sure she can be spoiled, and she can be kind of a bitch, but I feel like she really does try to stay positive. Part of me agrees that she shouldnt get mad when her boyfriend is like “hey whats wrong?” “NOTHING” “bullshit, something is up” “FUCK YOU TRYING TO FIX ME, ASSHOLE!”, but at the same time, she is right in that nobody there can really understand her situation but she’s also being a little unfair of someone who just wants her to know that someone is there for her. I felt like she’s the type who needs some alone time when she gets mad/depressed, and some people are like that, and one of Hisao’s biggest issues is not understanding that. However, Emi is a great character I thought, and I enjoyed playing her route. My biggest issue was just Hisao not getting that Emi’s dad died until she literally showed him “hey heres a gravestone with my dads name on it”. There were tons of clues, and he really does a bad job of putting 2 and 2 together. I sympathize with him on feeling like he wasn’t getting closer to Emi even tho they were going out, because she didn’t really want to, but I feel like it ended well enough.
Hanako route
Spoiler
Hanako’s route was really well written imo. She has people issues, and despite that, she really did try hard to get out and fix those issues. The thing I liked about her route was that I didn’t know a lot about her thought process or her issues until everything was kind of revealed as the game goes on. I don’t feel like I learned much about the other characters just by playing, but with Hanako I felt like I learned a lot of things about her as the game progressed naturally. I disagree that her bad end was really a bad end. If anything, her getting pissed and going GO AWAY! I HATE YOU! YOU JUST THINK IM BROKEN AND NEED FIXING!!! isn’t necessarily the end of everything. If anything, that explains a lot about her, and Hanako isn’t the type who would probably stay mad and always be mad forever, if anything, you leave her alone for a bit, talk to her later and go “listen, theres a difference between being worried and trying to fix you, and theres an even bigger difference in being worried and wanting to see you cause I like you”. It would only have been a bad end if she commited suicide after that, but chances of that are low cause I think if she wanted to, she would have done so already. Anyways, good end was nice. Hanako is another one who just needs some time/space to herself, so once Hisao learned not to be too overbearing, it took a turn for the best. It was fun to play through and I found Hanako to be way more interesting than I first thought.
My biggest issue with the game tho, is the amount of cultural things that they get wrong. Granted, none of them affect the story, and a lot of the things are nitpicky but regardless, seeing all of those mistakes makes me wish someone who lives in Japan could tell them how things actually are for some stuff. The biggest one I found is when Hisao gets miso soup from Lilly’s booth at the festival. That would be like going to a carnival and ordering toast and jam. And you never get JUST miso soup on it’s own, it’s always eaten with something at a meal.
That’s just one example, but I found a bunch just playing through the game. Mostly stuff that’s common in America that isn’t done or doesn’t exist in Japan showing up in the character’s dialogue. Oh well. I still have yet to play Lilly’s route, so when I do that, I’ll post my thoughts on it. Hopefully it’s as good as people are saying, even tho I don’t really care for Lilly.
