How to replay routes in Hoshizora no Memoria?

[voidpointer]

So I'm still playing through for the first time, I'm not even through the common route yet. However, I want to make sure when I do the replay through that I do it properly.

So far I've been doing a hard save when I reach a choice. When I complete a route, can I go back to the first choice that's different and start from there, from a load of a previous save? I noticed some games keep track of overall progress and unlocked routes regardless of which save you load, but this seems risky. Alternatively, should I just start a new game and skip through? Can anyone confirm the best approach?

Basically I want to make sure that by using previous saves I am not losing my unlocked routes.

[Nosebleed]

When I complete a route, can I go back to the first choice that's different and start from there, from a load of a previous save?

Yes, you can. Pretty much all visual novels let you save and load during the choices so you can continue from there next time.

Hoshimemo actually makes the route finding process even easier for you by telling you which choice gives you what character whenever you complete their route.
So for example, if you finish Asuho's route, when you replay the game again, it'll tell you which choices lead you to Asuho's route (there's a little character icon on the choice), so you can pick different choices instead.

[Yuuko]

You can just load it and continue. 

Edited November 27, 2015 by Kiriririri
Too slow : (

[voidpointer]

When I complete a route, can I go back to the first choice that's different and start from there, from a load of a previous save?

Yes, you can.

Hoshimemo actually makes the route finding process even easier for you by telling you which choice gives you what character whenever you complete their route.
So for example, if you finish Asuho's route, when you replay the game again, it'll tell you which choices lead you to Asuho's route (there's a little character icon on the choice), so you can pick different choices instead.

Thanks. So does this mean there are no bad / useless choices? In other words, every choice is important and will ultimately lead to 1 route?

[Zakamutt]

It shouldn't be too hard to find the right flags for each route in hoshimemo. New ones should appear once new routes are unlocked... or at least, that's how I remember it. There are some small extra events in the common route each time you finish a route, so might as well start again from the first choice each time.

[voidpointer]

So I just finished Asuho's route and I did a fresh game start to do Komomo's route. I noticed that skipping only read text doesn't work (I guess this still isn't fixed?), so I enabled skipping all text. This scares me, even in the common route, because I'm not sure which scenes are new. Is there a best-practice for handling skips safely as to avoid skipping stuff I haven't seen?

Secondly, I do not see an icon next to choices (I just arrived at the first choice at the school gates during bag checks) as @Nosebleed suggested. Is this a bug as well or am I not doing something correctly?

[Nosebleed]

The first choice won't have any icons, it's only the specific choices that trigger a girl's flag that have the icon.

Regarding the text skipping, the common route is always the same regardless of the choices you pick during it, it will only change when you actually enter a girl's route, so that's why all the text is being skipped.

The only times the skipping will stop during the common route (if you have "skip only read text" enabled) is when you pick a new choice you never picked before or when Yume shows up for the first time, other than that everything will be skipped until you finally enter a route.

There used to be a bug where the text would continue skipping when you entered the route, but I believe that's been fixed. Even if it hasn't, just remember the common route ends after the main conflict at the observatory and stop skipping the text there.

[voidpointer]

Thanks @Nosebleed. That makes it more clear now. I saw icons on the choices afterwards. Also skip as read is working, but it apparently doesn't work on the very first scene after game start.

[Zakamutt]

I'm pretty sure the bug where text is considered already read for skipping purposes in all character routes regardless of your actual progress has never been fixed. I don't think I ever tested it out, though.

[voidpointer]

For reference, I'm using "Complete Patch 1.2", not sure if that's the latest or at least the version that fixes the skip bug. Regardless, as @Nosebleed has cautioned, safest bet is to just quickly turn off skip mode at the end of the common route.