Recent reviews by AnakinSkywalker

First of all, I'd like to address for anyone checking: Mike is not a suitor in this game, despite the apparently unintentional parts in some of the promotional material that implies otherwise. This is attempt 2 at this review, as Steam crashed and I lost my last one. This is in-depth, very major spoilers ahead.

----Part 1: THE ART----
Going against the grain of a lot of people writing reviews for this game, I was a fan of the art. It isn’t like enough to say “BEST ART EVER” obviously, but it was fine for what the game was trying to be. I like how each of the characters have several outfits, as many VNs do not include this. Sadly however, the characters do not have many expressions, and because of this many scenes suffer. (Like the scene where everyone hates you but they’re still smiling.) Also, every time they get closer to the screen I feel like they’re about to jumpscare me. Finally, the clouds moving in outdoor scenes are a really good touch.

----Part 2: THE MUSIC----
It’s stock, and it does the job. It fits each scene pretty well. Not much else to say.

----Part 3: THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS----
Since this game is a parody of VN tropes, it has a very expected story. High School with new friends, you meet two girls, one upbeat and another moody and mysterious. There is a sort of wingman character, and random school scenarios like having to tutor another character and going on a field trip.

Jake - Typical Anime Protagonist. This is even brought up by the plot. Imagine Kirito from Sword Art Online or something. That level of generic, doesn’t have much depth or anything redeemable/interesting about him.

Emma - She was clearly the developer's favorite of the two girls. She has about double the unique sprite assets as Alice. Yes, I did datamine the game to confirm this. I wanted to also check how many lines she had in comparison to Alice, but the developer obscured the source Ren’py script files, which is fair enough. She also provides a lot of the game’s fourth wall breaking jokes. Emma loves Anime and Visual Novels, and references tropes from both constantly. She is aware, to some capacity, that she is in a visual novel, and even makes jabs at the developers as well.

Alice - Typical moody vaguely tsundere girl. Her secret is that she has to wear glasses and plays guitar, both of which she hides from others and you discover by accident. I got her ending and even in that there isn’t much more to her. She’s basically a trope and nothing else.

And the last character, but certainly not least...

----Part 4: MIKE----
Now this is the point where I reveal the entire review up to now was just a lead in to this point. Mike is the type of character that Monika in DDLC deconstructed, a non-dateable character who exists mostly to move the plot along when it would be strange for the girls who can be dated to do so. However, that isn’t really what’s interesting to me about Mike. Mike is shown in the trailer on almost an equal footing to the girls, has his own page in the gallery but the gallery is mostly empty, and he has a scene which is pretty unambiguously as an aborted love confession.

This would be the part where I move on but actually we’re going into this scene some more.
Here is an exact transcript of the scene.
Jake: “So, what do you want to talk about?”
Mike: “You see.. That prom thing.”
Jake: “What about it?”
Mike: “Could you…Maybe…If you decline, it’s alright… I was just thinking that...”
-literal record scratch sound effect that’s double the volume of the rest of the game audio-
Jake: “Whoa! Wait, wait, wait! I didn’t know you were… You are not going to say you want to go with me, right?”
Mike: “WHAT? NO WAY! It was just stupid that I felt embarrassed, that’s all.”
Mike then goes onto claim that he was actually asking you to ask one of the girls to go to prom with him, which reads like one of the most boldface lies I’ve heard in my entire life. It sounds like something I would say if I was backing out of asking out my crush if he said what Jake did. Jake’s reaction to this event isn’t a great look, and muddles the intent of the scene even further.

And now it’s time for me to pull plot twist #2, because the reason I attempted to datamine the game in the first place was to see if there were any suggestions of Mike being a cut suitor or something, because it really seems that way in game. He has his own page in the CG gallery despite the fact that he isn’t a character that you can date, and 2/3 of his CGs are just you and him. Finally and most weirdly, the ending CGs follow a pattern of the person you got with being on the right side, and the two remaining characters being together on the left. In ending 9, this is the case and Mike is on the right, but it’s actually a bad ending where both girls hate you for deceiving them.

----THE FINALE----
I’m kind of sad that the source scripts aren’t included, as I wanted to make a meme about the scene where Emma pops up from the bottom of the screen in front of Alice to use the Miss Monomi’s Practice Lesson music from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. It really fits that scene tbh.

I am not sure what the developer was trying to say with everything about Mike, or if they meant to say anything at all. I really want to believe it was just a mistake/coincidence, because if it was on purpose it wouldn’t be a very good look. Because of this, I cannot personally in good faith give this game a thumbs up, sorry.

I'm in love with Nagito Komaeda.

Someone please remind me to write an actual review later still processing my thoughts but this is a real good game.

Episode 1: Really interesting and refreshing in comparison to LiS 1 (as in it does its own things and doesn't live in its shadow)
Episode 2: A bit less exciting, but still plenty of good moments.
Episode 3: Finally returning to that good gay ship content that the first game had. The characters are great and a blast to speak, even if some have some very glaring shortcomings. (Looking at you Finn, but I don't regret picking you over Cassidy.)
Episode 4/5: ? [Not out as of the initial version of this post.]

If you haven't played the first game but this one looks more interesting to you, go for it. It only has very tangential relations to the first one so far.