LostPomegranate

I originally read Crescendo nearly 20 years ago at the time of writing this review, and I decided to reread it. The only thing I could clearly remember going into the reread was that I got emotional during the first read. Well...it's still got it. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys a well written pretty believable emotional story. There are some topics touched on that will upset some people. If you're sensitive to the following you may want avoid this VN: moderate to heavy spoilers
very heavy spoiler
 
Systems are about as standard as you'd expect from a VN that was released in the early 00's. The OST is actually really good and uses many Scott Joplin classical songs. Voice acting was also pretty good, especially given the age of the VN. Only frustrations really come from it being 640x480 so it's either in a small window or a weird full screen unless you upscale it yourself - which I would recommend doing using something like magpie if you have a larger monitor.
 
The writing here is good with no real lulls in the story, so even though it's a 10 or so hour read, there's not really any wasted fluff reading. A lot of the story is told through flashbacks as the characters recall their time in high school as they (MC and some heroines) are graduating in a few days. I personally appreciated this storytelling method as it also helped give a sense of time passing through the various stories rather than everything just being done in a whirlwind 4 days. Characters are believeable in their motivations and actions, which brings weight to the story. I personally enjoyed every heroine, but they each had their flaws as well, which just made them feel more human. I'm not going to go into the routes themselves in detail as they would be difficult to discuss completely spoiler free. I don't really think there's any obvious outlier routes in regards to writing quality present in Crescendo, all of the routes are well written and have their arguments.
 
For those of you wondering how sad it gets on the nakige / utsuge front to help you decide whether you want to read it:
I'd recommend this VN to anyone who likes well written emotional stories.

What started off as an offhand joke about how fast I read visual novels - after I read 22 between June and July - became a bit of a self-imposed challenge to see if I really tried how many I could get through in a month without sacrificing reading comprehension or time with my wife. To ensure I was having reading comprehension I made myself write at least a short review on VNDB for every VN completed. I also tracked exact times for each one played. I decided whatever VNDB decided was a separate visual novel would be what I'd use, so fandiscs and separate volumes if separate pages on VNDB existed would count as separate visual novels. I also would completely finish any VN, so all endings had to be seen - ended up with one exception due to technical limitations though. When I made up my rules I set the goal number at 31, or one per day, since that seemed reasonable, but I wasn't allowed to give up until the month was over. Apparently the number I could reach was 50. I wouldn't recommend to anyone to try to replicate this or beat it, and I'll go into details below. Some facts, figures, and interesting things I'll note below as well as some quick recommendations from what I read this month.
 
Logistical Setup / thoughts:
First the setup time I did on the first few days of the month was a lot more than I realized since there wasn't a good way to narrow my backlog by reported VNDB times. I literally just went by the series that came to mind that I knew were in installments, took some recommendations, and branched out from my normal reading genres some. There was also quite a bit of setup time between finding what store may have the visual novel I was looking for, if there are R18 patches or just general patches that need to be installed, etc. I wish I had tracked the setup time to include with this, but I did not. Across the entire month it would not be ridiculous to say I probably spent close to 10 hours doing these logistical tasks. This was also an expensive outing to say the least, which is another thing in hindsight I wish I had tracked, but a good portion of the visual novels - especially in the first half of the month - I had already picked up on various sales.
 
General thoughts / realizations:
Reading this many short visual novels in a row is surprisingly exhausting, far more exhausting than it would have been to read even 3-4 long to very long visual novels that added up to more time in total. All the rapid changes in story made it a bit hard to keep my head straight and in similar stories keep what characters were in what story clear after it had been a day or two. This got worse as the month went on, especially after I started playing more unrelated visual novels rather than series. The other thing I noticed early on was that emotional stories really slowed me down quite a bit as they're naturally harder to recover from, so they ended up getting largely removed from the playlist where I was aware of them. I also realized from this month that I am not a fan of pure nukige. From that - and one other incident this month with Yume Creations's works - I realized I shouldn't buy visual novels in bulk when I'm unsure of their quality. On the positive side I realized I am completely okay with and enjoy yuri stories, which I would not have tried otherwise. I also only realized near the end of the month that I rate short visual novels pretty harshly as a lot of them have some issues of developing their premises or presenting problems that they cannot solve or elaborate on in such a short runtime. Yume Creations (developer) visual novels suffer from this more than any other single developer I read this month.
 
Time / VN numbers breakdown:
Reading time: 97:37 (3:09 rounded per day on average)
Average VN completion time: 1:57
Average VN / day: 1.61
Longest VN read: Figures of Happiness at 7:35
Shortest VN read: My Ex-Sister in Law at 0:28
Most VN's completed in one day: 4 on both 8/16 and 8/22
Least VN's completed in one day: 0 on both 8/2 and 8/5
Average VN rating from me: 5.1/10
Highest Rated VN from me: Tie at 7.5/10: Neko Para vol. 4 and Dreamlike Love with Seira
Lowest rated VN from me: Tie at 1/10: Imolicious and Figures of Happiness (due to bug preventing multiple endings in current download version from JAST)
VN with the funniest name: Invisible Cock: They never saw it cumming!
 
Visual novels:
I'll provide a whole list of visual novels completed in order afterwards, but some special callouts for quality that I'd recommend people read - if you want more detailed reviews, all of them are up on VNDB, usually as short or medium length reviews:
Chihiro Himukai Always Walks Away: Pretty cute single route visual novel if you like a straightforward rom-com with a bit of a fussy heroine. 
Uchikano series: All three are cute single route visual novels with heroines that are interesting in their own rights, depending on the individual title it can be pure fluff (girlfriend), a bit more comedy (sister), or a bit more serious at points (lovers). 
Neko Para series: Pure fluff, but it made me smile throughout the entirety of it, it's just so cute.
Stay. -Fragments of Memories -: Doujin work done by the people that eventually became ALcot. Done based off the endings in the visual novel ONE. so if you haven't read it, don't read this, but if you have and enjoyed ONE. you should really read Stay. It's incredibly well done for a doujin work and provided some feels. It also has surprisingly high production levels, especially for a doujin work, as there are even multiple voiced songs in it.
OshiRabu: Very cute yuri work that helped settle into my brain that I can really like yuri work. There's nothing incredibly special here, but it's so cute it had me smiling throughout.
Megasuki: Best nukige series I read all month by a decent margin.
Dreamlike Love with Seira: Despite dropping a plot point in the middle, this was still a really comforting and entertaining read. I'm hoping the next game in the series gets localized as well in hopes that the dropped plot point gets picked back up. Like a few other visual novels read this month, it just made me smile.
Sonohana series: Yuri works that varies depending on how much you like each individual heroine set, but most I read this month were decent to good, with only one heroine set I didn't like (Runa / Takako in 7 & 9)
 
Full list in order:
Chihiro Himukai Always Walks Away
Figures of Happiness - bugged so only 5/10 endings could be seen as a choice was locked in current download version preventing progression
planetarian
planetarian: Snow Globe
Uchikano: Living With My Girlfriend
Uchikano: Living With My Sister
Uchikano: Living With My Lovers
Neko Para Extra, Volumes 0-4
Slobbish Dragon Princess 1, Fandisc, 2, 3
Invisible Cock: They never saw it cumming!
Stay. -Fragments of Memories-
Imolicious
My Ex Sister in Law
The Invisible Man's Stealth NTR: Convincing and Inseminating the New Announcer with an Invisible Boner
My Yandere Sister loves me too much!
Breeding Village
Yozora Rhapsody
Yandere Goddess: A Snatch Made in Heaven
Games & Girls
Daitoshokan no Hitsujukai -Houkago Shippo Days-
LipTrip -My Boss Is My Heat Suppressant?!-
Suteki na Kanojo no Tsukurikata
OshiRabu: Waifus over Husbandos & Fandisc
Megasuki: Love Through Lenses trio (Yuuki Hoshino, Ayumu Sakura, Otoha Inami)
Dreamlike Love with Seira
Animal Trail ☆ Girlish Square 1, Fandisc, 2
Amayakase - Spoiling My Silver-Haired Girlfriend
Do you believe in Santa?
Sonohana 1, 6, 2, 4, 3, 5, 7, 9, 8 (order read in couples, so Nanami / Yuuna's story, then Kaede / Sara, Mai / Reo, Runa / Takako and lastly Eris / Shizuku)
 
Closing Thoughts:
I'm never going to do this again. Not unless someone pays me. I wouldn't recommend anyone do this. With that said, a small part of me thinks 60-80 is completely doable, and someone who has more free time could hit 100 in a month if they were really trying with the right setup / organization. I started thinking of the first longer VN I was going to read once this month is over since probably the second week in. After I finish Sonohana 10, I think I settled on Senren Banka cause my brain is a bit overloaded and some relatively straightforward moege is needed I think.

Hapymaher is an interesting read. It's a multi-route mystery with some really entertaining comedy bits throughout. Many people have called it a nakige, and I can definitely see where it could make a lot of people emotional, but it didn't really make me emotional almost at all. I think personally I may have just been distracted by trying to figure out what was going on at any given point in time to get emotional, so YMMV. Some parts are stronger than others, but overall it tells an entertaining story that manages to draw the reader in at various points, even if the major parts are foreshadowed well in advance. Overall I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys a multi-route mystery or just a well told story.
Systems in this VN are pretty standard. I do like to call out that they do let you do custom mapping of buttons, which is incredibly useful for me as I prefer using space bar over enter to advance text. BGM is pretty unique in that it doesn't just blend in and felt like it was actually adding something to the story rather than simply being there, as well as being memorable. I do feel that the BGM is probably in my top 5 or so and I feel like I will actually remember it for quite a while, which can't be said for most VN BGM's for me.
The story is pretty obviously influenced by Alice in Wonderland, right down to the character designs. Characters are pretty straightforward but cute and memorable. Character designs are pretty good, my favorite among the Purple Software games at least. There's Yayoi, the upperclassman who acts as a sort-of advisor to the MC, Saki, the childhood friend / sister who enjoys tormenting the MC, Keiko, the underclassman who is stubborn and standoffish. Alice, the naive, energetic, sort of mysterious girl, and Maia the sadistic younger sister. There's also some support cast that are entertaining in their own ways. I personally found all the characters entertaining to different levels. I found Saki to be particularly adorable throughout the story. Yayoi was also fun - and is voiced by my favorite VA Kazane. Keiko I found to be a bit of a one note character personally.
I won't go into details regarding the routes as they would be full of spoilers, but they were interesting and shared quite a bit of story between them with entirely different last chapters (8 chapters in the VN in total with a few intermissions). I found all the routes to be entertaining in their own ways, there were some emotional high - and low - points in the stories that are designed fairly well to get you involved in each heroine's individual history and story moving forward. I particularly enjoyed Yayoi's route personally, as it was the most relatable to myself, but I feel most people would probably enjoy Saki's route (among the three main heroines) the most. I liked Keiko's route less than the others, but that's probably partially because I was less of a fan of her character as she felt somewhat one note at times. In total there were 8 endings if you include the bad end, normal end, each heroine's route, and 1 true end at the very end of everything. Because of the shared scenes, each route you play through takes less time than the route before it (in most cases).
Due to the nature of the mystery and shared scenes, if you're a completionist like I am, I think it's best to follow a recommended route order of Bad End > Yayoi > Keiko > Saki > Maia > Normal End > Alice > True End - although both the bad end and normal end are completely skippable and Yayoi/Saki/Keiko can technically be done in any order. I do think the normal end adds to the story, while the bad end won't be missed except by completionists like myself. My argument for the order of Yayoi > Keiko > Saki is so that you slowly find out more information without seeing it in a weird order and possibly getting confused, as I feel Saki's route has the most useful information in it (at least in my opinion). The order I followed was actually Yayoi / Saki / Keiko and I feel that Keiko's route then dragged a bit as I felt I already had most of the information necessary to keep moving forward.
Ultimately I'd recommend Hapymaher to most readers, especially those who enjoy a well told story, multi-route mysteries, or a subdued nakige, especially if you're a fan of a mix of them. The BGM and systems were particularly strong suits in my opinion. Characters and routes themselves were solid without any obvious weaknesses or anything to complain about.

I originally read Crescendo nearly 20 years ago at the time of writing this review, and I decided to reread it. The only thing I could clearly remember going into the reread was that I got emotional during the first read. Well...it's still got it. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys a well written pretty believable emotional story. There are some topics touched on that will upset some people. If you're sensitive to the following you may want avoid this VN: moderate to heavy spoilers
very heavy spoiler
 
Systems are about as standard as you'd expect from a VN that was released in the early 00's. The OST is actually really good and uses many Scott Joplin classical songs. Voice acting was also pretty good, especially given the age of the VN. Only frustrations really come from it being 640x480 so it's either in a small window or a weird full screen unless you upscale it yourself - which I would recommend doing using something like magpie if you have a larger monitor.
 
The writing here is good with no real lulls in the story, so even though it's a 10 or so hour read, there's not really any wasted fluff reading. A lot of the story is told through flashbacks as the characters recall their time in high school as they (MC and some heroines) are graduating in a few days. I personally appreciated this storytelling method as it also helped give a sense of time passing through the various stories rather than everything just being done in a whirlwind 4 days. Characters are believeable in their motivations and actions, which brings weight to the story. I personally enjoyed every heroine, but they each had their flaws as well, which just made them feel more human. I'm not going to go into the routes themselves in detail as they would be difficult to discuss completely spoiler free. I don't really think there's any obvious outlier routes in regards to writing quality present in Crescendo, all of the routes are well written and have their arguments.
 
For those of you wondering how sad it gets on the nakige / utsuge front to help you decide whether you want to read it:
I'd recommend this VN to anyone who likes well written emotional stories.