This was so much fun because a friend who enjoys the game watched me play it. This is my first visual novel, so I was confused at the beginning, but I became obsessed with clicking on everything that had a window. It was very annoying to my friend. "This is a drawer," of course it is one, I just wanted to see the window anyway...
The somnium minigames were engaging and sometimes confusing, and everybody was so well written and naturally 2019. The ending almost brought me to tears, but I couldn't in front of my friend. The quick time events were so easy, what was the point with them? Date does things all the time...

i really really loved this game. well, at least most of it.

i thoroughly enjoyed the plot and the relationships between these characters. i appreciate how the game feeds you information in a way so that you can actually figure out what's going on before the end. a lot of it is really quite beautiful, emotionally intelligent, and incredibly funny. i'm already pretty emotional when it comes to media, but man, i lost count of how many different moments in this game made me cry. and,,,, then there's the excessive horniness.

i wouldn't necessarily say im a prude or anything like that, but the amount of times that Date gets bricked up over nothing got kinda old eventually. some other characters get really fucking horny too and it's like-- why?? i get that Uchikoshi is just kinda like this, but i can only take so many mentions of "porno mags" before i'm praying at my screen for the section to pleaaaase just end already. the game is usually pretty good at knowing when to hit the brakes on the jokes down in its emotional moments, which is a boon of the writing. buuuut then i will still sometimes get a piece of internal monologue that can sour the mood a little bit. if the horny jokes were at least reduced by 50%, i think that i would say this game would be pretty close to 5 stars for me. definitely my biggest critique of the game by far.

yet despite that, i still love a lot of these characters. i really truly do love Date when you look past his perverted nature. Mizuki is awesome. Aiba rules. Iris is great. it's really quite a great cast when you look at it as a whole, and i think most of them compliment each other well. backstories are thorough and significant to the plot and motivations.

after just finishing Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma (2016), getting to experience character models and animations and environments that do not look like petrified burnt toast is a real treat. there's a whole lot of visual flair and style here. excellent english voice acting! everyone is so expressive and the fact that the models appear next to their textbox with the facial expressions is a really great touch, especially given that it lets us see our main character way more than we would have otherwise. even when they're not the person talking or appearing next to a textbox, characters look around and react to the things others are saying. it's a really really nice touch.

the "puzzles" are generally neat and inventive, but actually 'solving' them is sometimes annoying. it wasn't so hard that i needed to use a guide or anything, but sometimes it feels less like you logic'd out the solution and more like you just so happened to pick the correct option. the best somniums are the ones that truly lean into the wacky or emotional side of a character. they added a lot to the experience for me, especially with the branching paths.

in short: great game. loved it and most of the characters. excited to play the second one eventually! please less porno mags.