What are you playing?

[Eclipsed]

Summer Pockets Reflection Blue

...I'll be honest, I'm like, totally a grandpa now and so if I red Summer Pockets like 10 years ago back when I red the other Key SoL funstuff like of Rewrite / Little Busters maybe I would've liked Summer Pockets a bit more and included it in my SoL Hall of Fame, but nowadays it's just not really my cup of tea anymore lol 

To be fair I didn't make it to the true route/ending to get to the good ol' KEY magic bits but mannn I ran out of steam hardcore after going through the four main heroines and not being interested in the Reflection Blue heroines. I'll check it out sometime later when I'm in the mood for SoL

^...Because I wanna do dirty things to you, Shiroha- I mean uhhh, for safety reasons!

But yeah, gorgeous visuals and whatnot, but just not in the mood for slice of life atm

 

 

 

 

~~
Okay so, Meteor World Actor. I know, wtf is that title right?

^It's a police/crime VN set in a futuristic fictional world that has superpowers and fantasy races like Elves and Segitts. I know, what a weird mix right?

 

The protagonist is (first name) Ruka Hiryu, a detective from the outcast sideliner "13th Division" of the National Police Agency (NPA). He's an antihero type with a bad attitude, slacker work ethic, and pisspoor financials but is competent enough to hold his own when it matters (sometimes) (every now and then) (maybe)

^That's Claris, Ruka's Elven kouhai rookie partner who just joined NPA but got shoved into the troublemaker 13th Division 'cuz she's an elf. Racial discrimination at its finest. Ruka likes to belittle and bully her but as you can see she can be pretty feisty herself.

The story plays episodic, which each major case-of-the-week focusing on certain characters/heroines while giving more insight into Ruka's character and his longterm motivations.

The cast is diverse and fantastic. Most of the time people are just bagging on Ruka for being a worthless good for nothing detective but there is a good sense of unspoken camaraderie between the cast

^Ruka only lies 125% of the time, nbd

 

It unfortunately ends in a cliffhanger, because eff you that's why, but don't worry, you can read the sequel Badge and Dagger, but that'll also end in a cliffhanger right when they get to the good bits with getting ready to hunt for the big baddie, because again eff you. Except this time the sequel sequel is not out yet sadface

[sarkasmus]

Currently I'm reading "Please Be Happy", finished the Juliet Endings just yesterday.

It's beautiful little story, and my favorite game from Studio Elan so far.

[adamstan]

Okay, so yesterday I finished my third route in Clover Day's - it was Anzu.

So far the VN was very uneven for me. Common route was brilliant - like I said in my previous post. All heroines are lovely, and I really liked both the humor and the more serious bits. But then the first two routes I read - Hekiru/Hikaru and Anri - were slightly disappointing. Maybe my expectations were too high?

As for the Hekiru's route, I was really looking forward to it after what I've seen in common route. But

Spoiler

I didn't like that they forced a threesome ending for Hekiru and Hikaru - it felt like a cheap cop out. But OTOH that's standard eroge fare, so perhaps I should expect it

BTW was it only me, or some parts of Hikaru/Hekiru drama were similar to the story of Kyou and Ryou from Clannad?

Anri's route was better - perhaps partially thanks to the side characters having bigger role. I really liked school election plot and the friendship with Mizuho. Gave me some Koichoco and Princess Evangile flashbacks What I didn't like about Anri's route was that it was relying too heavily on many Imouto x Oniichan tropes But all in all, it was decent - although I expected more.

And then Anzu's route hit - whoah, that was amazing It's hard to believe, that it was written by the same author as Anri's route.

On 10/22/2022 at 11:13 PM, ittaku said:

Hekiru/Hikaru->Tsubame->Izumi->Anri->Anzu, or

Hekiru/Hikaru->Anri->Anzu->Tsubame->Izumi (my preferred)

for plot reasons, depending on which is your favourite pair of girls (as they are paired routes) and whether you want to do them last.

Although I'm not sure, if it was right move to put this route in the middle, instead of the end - it had strong "true route" vibes, with it being more "Takakura family route" than "Anzu route". Nevertheless it was amazing nakigey story - no complaints here. And that plot twist with

Spoiler

Shion being Yuuto's real mother, and Nodoka being a ghost (?) of his unborn twin sister

Now, that's some KEY-worthy stuff

Now let's see what Tsubame's and Izumi's routes have in store for me

Edited November 28, 2022 by adamstan

[ittaku]

The H/H route is the weakest and adds little to the story, which is why it goes first. Izumi and Anzu score the most plot in their routes, arguably Anzu's the most, but I just prefer Izumi as a heroine which is why I leave it for last.

[adamstan]

15 minutes ago, ittaku said:

The H/H route is the weakest and adds little to the story, which is why it goes first.

Yeah, when looking from that POV, it's good to have it out of the way Luckily while weakest, it was still decent enough to keep me reading.

15 minutes ago, ittaku said:

I just prefer Izumi as a heroine which is why I leave it for last.

For the first few scenes in the common route I found Izumi rather annoying, but later she grew on me, and I'm really looking forward to her route

Edited November 28, 2022 by adamstan

[Teepa]

finished reading sakura no uta now I'm reading hamidashi creative (not tostu)

[Nemesis]

Finished Asairo.

きっと、澄みわたる朝色よりも、

Spoiler

 

Waka seems to have a peculiar focus on kindness. According to Sasamaru, kindness is something innate, people are born with, and depending on the circumstances, it can be brought out or hidden from sight. According to Hiyo and Araragi, kindness is something that's passed on from person to person. Harutsuge says that kindness is something that only comes with pain. Kindness without pain is only spoiling someone. 「だから"優しくする"って事と"甘やかす"って事は違う。似ているけど決定的に違う。」 Araragi is more of a selfless kindness that prioritizes the group over herself.

「優しさなど枯れてしえまえばいい」

 

葉が赤色に牛われるものを"紅葉"

葉が黄色に牛われるものを"黄葉"

葉が褐色に牛われるものを"褐葉"

これはそれぞれが泣いた結果。

この涙を総称して、"紅葉"と呼ぶ。

Just like how trees lose their leaves to survive, we shed tears to be able to move forward.

Everything written by Shumon Yuu is overflowing with Wa(和). I'm glad to have experienced this piece of art that represents Fall and 紅葉. It lacks the analytical thinking of Scaji, but it's pretty much saying the same thing in a more poetic point of view. Pain comes with happiness and kindness. Pain is needed for us to be able to distinguish happiness from everything else. I think I've said too much already, this is best experienced for yourself.

[mokuroh]

Finished 月姫 -A piece of blue glass moon-

Not a fan of the Nintendo Switch but after playing Pokemon Scarlet I figured it was a good time to finally pick this up. Never read the original but this one was pretty poggers. Nasu’s writing was compelling and immersive without the need for overly flowery prose or deep philosophical inquiry. There was never a dull moment and the screenplay of the game itself was very polished and beautiful as expected from an end of 2021 release. The backgrounds, sprites, and scene transitions are all woven so seamlessly that the visuals look as if they were taken from a movie. Most importantly I found myself being able to actually empathize with all of the main characters and exploring the world out of curiosity. It’s been a while since I had this much fun reading.

 Also the voiced version of 魔法使いの夜 comes out in less than 2 days. Hands up hands up. What a time to be alive
 

[Nemesis]

Read through Biman4 and playing through Rance 03.

ランス03 リーザス陥落

Rance 03 has interesting world building, but at the same time it has rather shallow and unrealistic characters.

Spoiler

You basically have a character who was being tortured and humiliated for days come out normally and resume her normal duties immediately after being rescued.

Only Shizuka and Kanami feel like actual people. That's not even considering the nameless characters. A lot of the side characters act like complete NPC's just saying as they were programmed to do. At the end of the day, it's a nukige parodying an RPG.

It also has stronger gameplay compared to the first 2 games, and a lot more fun to actually play through instead of feeling like a grind.

In terms of writing, it is good for an RPG, but rather simple and minimal compared to an actual plotge. Reading this in Japanese also made me remember how bad the translations are in the English Rance community: 魔人 as dark lord is just lol.

---

美少女万華鏡 -罪と罰の少女-

I think this one is too strong in the fetish department for me:

Spoiler

Incest, S&M, crossdressing, blackmail, etc.

It has the heaviest plot in the series so far, but that does not necessarily mean best. I'm not even sure what the theme of the game is. They reference Crime and Punishment from the title, but I don't see the thematic relevance.

Ending leaves us with some interesting development for the next game.

[adamstan]

Yesterday I finished Tsubame's route in Clover Day's

While not as rich plot-wise as Anzu's, it was very good. There was healthy balance of humor and drama, Tsubame is both hot and cute at the same time, and I really liked the whole acting club setting and parallels between the play they were doing and real life

Also, seeing Izumi in this route I couldn't help but think about

Spoiler

Sana from MashiroIro Symphony.

Now there's only Izumi's route left to read, and I'm really looking forward to it

[Nemesis]

Finished Rance 03 and started reading Hello Lady!.

Overall, Rance was a fun game with an ok story and good world-building.

 

ハロー・レディ！

First impression is the art is way too generic for me. I don't like it at all. MC on the other hand seems interesting.

Lol, so much Jojo references though. Hume is the school chairman. The students here are too sheltered for people who don't hesitate to attack people with lethal force.

Eru giving a big speech on supporting eroge industry by buying physical Limited Editions.

Tama Route - kind of meh. The writing is rather mediocre. It has some interesting concepts, but it just seems like writer is not good enough to execute them.

Sorako's route

Spoiler

DID is written very shallowly compared to some of the other better VN's with similar content. Romeo and Juliet content is ok.

Eru - She is a hilarious character. I think her and Narita have good chemistry. ボケボケコンビだね。

Spoiler

The revenge story and action is fairly interesting. 復讐は亡霊の行いだ。 It's sometimes needed to give the victim closure and move on even if it's empty.

 

[adamstan]

Yesterday I finished Clover Day's with Izumi's route.

@ittaku - you were right, this route was amazing I'd say it was on par with Anzu's route when it comes to the plot - they could be called sister routes perhaps I mean, they feature similar themes and struggles - but this time it was about Izumi's family, instead of Yuuto's.

Spoiler

And that Izumi's family's story gave me some Damekoi vibes. It also reminded me a bit about Little Buster's Haruka and Kanata, although thankfully Sayonji family wasn't nearly as fucked up as Saigusa/Futaki

And Izumi as a heroine is absolutely lovely - one of the cutest tsunderes I've encountered so far

So, if I had to rank the routes it would be Izumi >= Anzu > Tsubame > Anri >>> Hekiru/Hikaru.

So, it makes for one meh route (H/H), one decent (Anri), one very good (Tsubame) and two outstanding ones (Anzu and Izumi) - not bad

There's decent presence of side characters throughout the rotes - big plus. It was especially pronounced in Tsubame's route Art looks very good, and I really like the character designs. Music is ok - nothing outstanding, but does the job.

I played Vita version, but I actually own PC version (standard one, not the Plus). While - at least when skimming through PC version - H-scenes weren't exactly up to my taste, I'm a bit disappointed with the all-ages edition, since it features no extra content at all, except the unlockable "extra scenarios", that are just 1-2 minutes long skits, similar to those in Majkoi's menu Even some additional CGs for "normal" scenes would be welcome, but there's nothing of that, it just skips the H-scenes, and that's all. Well, thank you, I could have done it myself with Ctrl key, and wouldn't have to struggle with some emulator glitches

But that's a minor complaint, and all in all I really enjoyed this VN - strong 8/10. (Would have been 9 if the two lesser routes - Anri and Hekiru - were of the same quality as the three better ones)

I think that - after a short break - I might try Tsui no Stella as my next read (unless some other title distracts me ).

Edited December 16, 2022 by adamstan

[Keine66]

I am playing «Katawa Shoujo» now. 

 

[Guimu]

Started Subahibi. It's interesting but sometimes I can't focus, dunno why. I hope I can finish it 

[Nemesis]

Finished Hello Lady and started Tsui no Sora Remake.

ハロー・レディ！

Saku route - The main mysteries are finally answered. But the answers are a trainwreck. The story is lacking a core, like the author is not sure what he wants to tell.

There's some Gundam, Doraemon, Index, and Oreimo reference added in too.

Overall, it's a fun game. But rather lacking in the story and writing.

---

終ノ空 remake

Chapter 1: Yukito Minakami - We get introduced to our protagonist, Minakami Yukito, and his childhood friend Wakatsuki Kotomi. There are a lot of recurring characters like a teacher that looks good for a bike model, Otonashi Ayana, Takashima Zakuro etc.

When they get to school, they hear rumours of

Spoiler

Takashima Zakuro committing suicide

. Then, we get Yukito reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason before he gets interrupted by Otonashi-san quoting Tractacus' last line "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." This is pretty much Scaji giving his own lecture on philosophy and criticizing Kant for talking metaphysical nonsense.

This entire work is pretty much a lecture from Scaji-sensei. After that, he introduced a bunch of Nietzsche concepts, although he doesn't quote directly. People can't be satisfied with a boring, peaceful life when they have no goal. They need stimulation even if it leads to fear and anxiety. Mamiya's famous speech is slightly different from Subahibi in that it's filled with Nietzsche concepts about how social orders are lies filled to control us like livestock compared to speech about the concept of death in Subahibi. How the concept of good and evil were created to create social caste so that people can feel superior to others by being "good." Morals are decided by the concept of self-interest, but we like to pretend that they are some universal truth that we discovered.

Yukito wonders about the meaninglessness of life. Death comes to all equally, so what meaning is there in living when we are all fated to die? There are people who accept their fate and live quietly until they die, but there are also others who struggle against their fate and try to find meaning in their life. To do that, they have to break out of the norms of society. Then, he argues that just being alive is a blessing by itself even if we are cursed to die.

Chapter 2: Kotomi Wakatsuki - Nothing new here except we get to see things from a different perspective.

Spoiler

We find out more about Yasuko's motives about wanting to protect Kotomi and monopolize her at the same time.

Chapter 3: Zakuro Takashima -

Spoiler

We see the events that happen before her suicide. This is a tough read for obvious reason. She wanted to give meaning to her meaningless suffering even at the cost of her own life. We try to give meaning to meaningless things and do anything for that purpose. Those became psychological weakness that can lead people to lose touch with reality. This chapter also explores how society's moral can mentally torment a person leading Zakuro to reject Yasuko's helping hand due to its supposed immorality and choosing suicide instead. This is represented by Tsui no Sora that Zakuro saw being 大いなる災い - The great disaster （Jesus Christ） opening a hole in the sky.

This work just reminded me of how much of a genius Scaji is.

[Mist Ephemeral]

Slayers for the Super Famicom, and I think I'm pretty close to completing it, after over a decade beating around the bush to play it.

[majinyoru]

I'm playing Full Metal Daemon Muramasa
I'm at chapter 2, the plot is starting to get better

[j2alg]

I finished Yubikiri Konyaku Lolita, honestly coming right after the fantastic Soushisouai this is a step down. I liked Suzu better when she was this strange kid at the memorial service arranging dolls, not fitting into her surroundings. After growing up she became a bit boring (comparing her to other heroines in the series like Kotae and Mihato). Likewise the whole setup of the protagonist's past relationship doesn't really go anywhere, and then the game ends shortly after. I didn't feel anything like the profound impact of Mako's speech in the previous game. But it's still a decent short story and the H is good as always.

Suzuka and her dolls

Spoiler

[Eclipsed]

Felt in the mood to read some trapped VNs, idk why  happy holidays 

Killer Queen - it's a 2006 isolated trapped / killing game ruleset type story. Being 2006 it's one of the earlier attempts at such a genre, and boy does it really show. I totally didn't care for the characters, and the shit that happens was very yawn inducing, nothing special and just drags. Doesn't help that the protagonist is a total pacifist, geebus writers that ain't gonna work in this type of narrative rofl 5/10. There was a remake in 2008 with a bit more moeified artwork and a more fleshed out story (~2-3x the length of the original) but not translated.

 

The Sekimeiya: Spun Glass - Ok so, you want some trapped mystery sci-fi and you've already read all the Root Doubles and Ever17s and Zero Escapes, look no further. This VNs got 8 characters trapped in a gemstone exhibit museum called Ashiya Tower centered around the mysterious gemstone- the Sekimeiya itself- and they'll be in for a world of mindscrews- including you.

The blue haired gal above is Shiroya. Best girl of course.

Sekimeiya's made by amateur group Trinitite (their Twitter page says "Three people working to create plot-focused visual novels") so it unfortunately means that there's only like 10 CGs in a 25-35hr reading experience, and no voice acting, but other than that this VN is pretty well made.

The writing is... very dense, to put it lightly. This is a VN where you can and will easily lose track of wtf is going on simply due to its sci fi mystery nature and so by the end of it when it is truth seeking infodumping time and the VN starts recapping everything and asking you to fill in the blanks it can be very  but everything IS technically answered and/or can be deduced. The protagonist himself Atsuki can get very longwinded when something mindscrewy happens and it can be tiresome to listen to his self theory-crafting (which he will do ALOT):

5 minutes later something happens, and then you'll get another wall of text like this, no joke.

There is a built in chapter/scene summary where you can input your own notes, an ingame map of the building, and a backlog where you can literally Cntrl-F to search through the text to help you keep track of things, but I just powered through this VN and took the twists and turns as they came without stressing too much being on top of things. You should pretty much be able to theorize the bigger stuff going on, and it's just the little nuances where you'll just have to take the L because yeah like I'm gonna remember what X person did Y time ago after A person did this B time ago etc etc.

You only get access to the absolute disgusting mess of a flowchart when you finish the game and I guess want to spend additional time bridging the gaps of whatever you might've missed:

Spoiler

 

~~
8/10 Here's my end results lol. They had the gall to have an entire stats thing of what % questions readers got right and whatnot. Pretty interesting stuff though.

I got 41/94 (43%), putting me right in the middle of the pack of ~63% of players getting 30-49% of the ?'s right. Top 5% of readers who got 70%+ ?'s right: I call BS LOL they must've used a walkthrough or something!!

[adamstan]

52 minutes ago, Eclipsed said:

disgusting mess of a flowchart

Looks like a poor abandoned sibling of YU-NO's flowchart

[NYM]

Finally going through White Album 2, because y'know, tis the season and all. I pretty much knew I would like it since I had seen the anime adaptation many years ago and thought it was a standout in the genre thanks to its refreshingly flawed and realistic feeling characters. And yeah, I'm loving it so far. Almost done with Introductory Chapter, and I'm ready for the wild ride I'm sure closing chapter is going to be.

[Nemesis]

Finished Tsui no Sora Remake and started Baldr Force.

終ノ空 remake

Chapter 4: Yasuko Yokoyama - This is the original route that was added in the remake and the climax of the novel. Shit, WTF is this. Uggh, her past is just too disgusting. Her route represents using violence and cunning to control people and achieve happiness. Violence is also an important part of the social hierarchy. That is why the state wants to control it and makes law around it. But well, those who control through violence tend to get squashed by greater violence Muramasa style.

Spoiler

Again, here it shows how morals are used by those in power to control the masses similar to how Yasuko controls her brother through his guilt towards fucking her.

Even now, those Christian morals plague society by making us think that there is something wrong with masturbating to chicken from the supermarket.

She denies that "Happy families are similar, but unhappy families are all different". For her, unhappy families are all similar in that they acted dumb and were unable to handle the consequences, while the concept of a happy family is different from person to person. Happy family itself is an illusion as familial love is just an illusion.

Spoiler

There's also some hints to Ayana's identity：the crawling chaos Nyarlatothep. Nyarlatothep is just one of her many reincarnations. Then, we get back to Wittgenstein's "A name means an object. The object is its meaning" with 「私は音無彩名。それ以上それ以下でもない」- "I am Otonashi Ayana, nothing more than that". But her real identity is actually Spinoza's concept of God. 「全宇宙を分かち与えたる無始者の形を取る唯一なる魂」- "The one soul from where everything with form in the entire universe was split from". Then, we have some metaphysics talk about how people's beliefs can affect reality. We are all part of one and all, so if enough people believe fantasy will turn into reality or some nonsense like that.

Spoiler

The story ends with Yasuko joining Takuji's suicide to help protect Kotomi.

Love and self-sacrifice is something done to satisfy one's ego. Love is violently pushing happiness to another person.

Chapter 5: Takuji Mamiya - We finally get to our messiah's point of view. He talks to Ayana on the rooftop about the end of the world which eventually turns the topic to eternal life. He claims that he wants to live forever if he can live a happy life. Then, Ayana brings up a hypotethical scenario of the same eternally looping life, and him eventually getting bored and killing the people around him, then getting bored and eventually killing himself. And then waking up normally the next day, and starting over from the beginning: Eternal Recurrence. After that, Takuji rejected the idea of eternal life which from Nietzsche perspective means he has not learned to appreciate life yet.

Spoiler

Takuji meeting Riruru lead to him finally becoming our savior.

There is no meaning in life, so it's ok to kill a newborn child before it gets to experience life. Yukito refutes him that even if life is shit and meaningless, it is still worth living. People have an instinct to live, that's why they despair. Being alive is being alive, nothing more to it. It is both cursed and blessed.

Main theme is the same as Subahibi, since we are alive, we might as well pursue happiness with just a hint of Nietzsche. The shape of that happiness is something different for each person as there are no universal values.

Numinose I & II - Epilogue about Yukito questioning himself and who he is. It concludes that a memory defines a person.

Spoiler

In I, Ayana questions the reliability of memory and questioning about the truth of the world Nietzsche-wise. While in II, Ayana talks about Spinoza's concept of god while Yukito talks about the limit of human knowledge.

Overall, it was a good read. While it doesn't feel as grand and complete as Subahibi, it also explores other concepts that's not possible in Subahibi. While it was a fun experience learning about Spinoza and Nietzsche, at the end of the day, I lean more towards Wittgenstein's stance of silence on metaphysics.

---

BALDR FORCE

So far, it's a fun 2000ish action game. It is lacking a lot of modern functionality such as keyboard shortcuts and auto-read, but the story is good enough for me to put up with it. It doesn't have the same problem as Sky which is 50% flashbacks if you couldn't stand that, only 5% flashback now. It has less fluff and more straightforward.

In terms of combat, it took a couple games to adjust to the controls as it's different compared to sky. I guess early game the range weapons are stronger, but maybe it will change things once you are able to do 70 hits combo with an initializer. Compared to Sky, I think range weapon does twice as much damage which really makes melee combo not worth as much especially without overheat.

One of the things I like about the Baldr Series is the world building and the different factions in it. It gives different perspective on the virtual world depending on which faction you are on.

[Mago Ivo]

I just finished Sayonara o Oshiete ~Comment te Dire Adieu~ - The premise is great, but I found that the title is generally lacking in some areas.
My random number generator has decided that I should finally start reading Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.
I'm very curious if I would really really love the series.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Mago Ivo

[Nemesis]

Finished Baldr Force and Mekuiro Tsubaki Renka this week.

BALDR FORCE

The game has quite a bit of flaws with the writing being too focused on gameplay, essentially forcing the plot to go into the direction with lots of fighting most of the time. But it's not quite as bad as JRPGs hybrid. This is a pretty dark game with quite a bit of torture and rape, so I would not recommend this for the faint of heart. The game is a lot shorter than Sky, so the characters are also nowhere near as developed.

Overall, it's a fun hybrid game that combines action game with VN elements. As an older game, the controls and gameplay are a lot more clunky compared to Sky

---

絆きらめく恋いろは－椿恋歌－

I got this game on sale and didn't realize this was a fandisc until I started playing it. But rather than a fandisc, this feels more like a sequel with a full story. This makes it my 姫始め game.

This is how you make good moege, not one of those shitty moege with nothing happening. It has good balance of SoL, ichaicha action, and some plot.

The art is beautiful and the sword designs are cool. They do have some occasional sound quality issues though.

The setting is a beautiful mix of sci-fi and Japanese Youkai folklore. This game has made me put Crystallia on my map, and made me interested in checking out their other games.

[Shinyun226]

Currently making my way through Snow Portable (the PSP port of Snow)

Before saying anything about the game itself, I've gotta complaint about the issues with this particular port.
It's my own fault for not properly researching this ahead of time but... I kind of wish I had just gone with the PS2 version instead as the PSP version is really kind of a mess.

• This version is only partially voiced (DC and PS2 both were full voice) due to what later turned out to be some misguided assumptions about how much they could fit on the UMD + load time concerns. Prototypes PSP port of Kanon apparently had the same issue but somehow all the PSP ports they did after that were magically full voice....
• Save labels are bare-bones (they only list the in-game date and nothing else) 
• No proper backlog (you have to manually cycle back one textbox at a time)
• And worst of all, the skip feature can't distinguish between read and unread text. Not the first time I've had to play a game like this (the PSX version of ONE Kagayaku Kisetstu he was like that too) but.... it makes going through all the routes a huge pain.

The trade off though is this is (presently) the only all-ages version of Snow with the Nazo no Shoujo route so... I guess I would have had to play this version in the long-run anyways if I wanted to play every route.

These annoyance aside, I just finished my first route (Sumino's) and am enjoying the game overall. It definitely has elements that are very derivative of both Kanon and Air (The very inconclusive ending to Sumino's route, and the fact that you unlock something called the "Legend" route right after feels very Air-esque), so I can see where a lot of people consider it a rip-off, but so far I think it still manages to differentiate itself enough.

Either way I'm apparently only 22% through the CGs (may not be the best metric for progress but... it's something) so... still got a lot more game left before I can pass any real judgement.