Ultimately, I decided to uninstall the game completely when a review confirmed my suspicions about the "twist" in Haru's route - that it would use the crossdressing trope, likely without addressing anything about real life trans issues (And given Haru's conservative clothing choices and her attitude towards sex, this was probably where the sexual abuse warning would come in.) For a character who is so secretive, his willingness to open up about all of his private family matters to Aya, who he didn't even seem to be particularly close with, didn't feel realistic to me. I did not like him enough to finish reading his route. Not that there's anything wrong with buying porn, but his utter calm in that moment was chilling. This is the guy who openly lied to Aya with a straight face after she found him buying porn at the bookstore. Instead, the story wraps up with a wish-fulfillment ending where he is allowed to stay at Aya's house like family, no questions asked from Aya's parents, and then he gives a grand marriage proposal to her before leaving for pastry school.Īs for Yuta's character, his questionable otaku tastes and his brief flashes of outright hostility were off-putting and I found myself distrustful of his character after his secret was revealed. Toshio never goes to any therapy for his codependency issues and intimacy issues, and his suicide attempts are never fully addressed later down the line. I couldn't understand why Aya fell in love with him and their entire "love story" felt like the tired old "fix the broken love interest" trope.
Even if Toshio were rich, it made no sense to me why he would so popular amongst the girls of his school especially with his vile misogynistic attitude, and the art didn't really sell me on his attractiveness relative to the other characters in the cast. Toshio and Yuta, however, felt like incongruous mishmashes of character ideas that the developers thought might offer the most shock value to readers. I was able to maintain some suspension of disbelief for Ikki's route (probably the most down-to-earth character out of the cast) and his story was consequently my favorite. They especially felt cheapened, just there for drama and "story flavor," when sandwiched between common shoujo tropes played straight (see Toshio and Yuta's jealous groupies, the random "romantic" scenes like Aya suddenly being locked in a closet/cabinet with Toshio, Yuta reaching over Aya to grab a book, etc.) I do not think these subject matters were treated with the appropriate level of care and consideration. I was unable to fully immerse myself in the story, especially when serious subject matters like attempted suicide and abuse were brought up. All of the unexpected "twists" in the character routes fell into the realm of melodrama and hyperrealism, which did not match the atmosphere of the game. Moreover, the art style and music choices clashed horribly with the writing. As a result, Yuta's character change felt jarring and not very believable to me. See Yuta's route: I felt Aya's suspicions about Yuta putting up a facade came out of nowhere and she came off as rude and paranoid rather than perceptive BECAUSE the soft dreamy shoujo-esque art style allowed me to believe in Yuta's initial prince-like character. However, a caveat to this is that the style and atmosphere of the game conflicted with the sense of tension and mystery that the game was trying to convey in certain routes. Together with the music, it creates a warm and comfortable visual-auditory experience. (Note: I stopped playing midway through Yuta's route while going in the recommended order, so I don't know if my review will apply to the other story routes of the game.)ĪLSO, SPOILERS GALORE SO PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.įirst, some general positives: the art is really cute and pleasant to look at. To be honest, I don't know if there's any use in posting my thoughts in General Discussion where no potential players will be able to see them, but my frustration needed an outlet, so here we are. Unfortunately, this means that Steam did not log my hours and I was unable to write a review in the review section.
The macOS version of this game did not open properly via Steam (got a missing executable file error message), but it was possible to get the game to work by directly going to the local files and opening it there.
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