The journey of an obsession that spun a decade, for both readers and the characters, ends here. This has an absolutely gorgeous watercolor-and-pencil art style, the best music in the trilogy and incredible payoffs. Actually more emotional than most of the first two games, with crazy parallels and thematic elements for the entire series. One of the most satisfying endings in the medium. For me, this is definitely the best KnS entry, despite some irrelevant investigations in the middle 40-50% and some odd follow-ups to some previous subplots (some things, like Masaki's and Yukari's storylines just get dropped and the Cartagra connections sort of become pointless??).

I also like how "pornless", for the lack of a better word, it is despite occasional sex scenes. They're more movie-like though. It is basically a "non-H eroge". There's no sign of how "porny" KnS2 or especially Cartagra and KnS1 felt.

It feels insane to be done with the main content of the final entry of this story, and with KnS3 as my first lengthy plotge VN in Japanese. I read for hours a day for nearly two months, but it was all worth it.

I gasped and started crying when the true end happened.

That aside though... I will be taking a break because for some reason, they decided to put additional side endings not before, but after the true endings. What an odd structure.

Innocent Gray is known for their amazing character writing, and KnS 3 shows an ascendant, confident Innocent Gray at the zenith of their ability, unsurpassed by anything they’ve done before or after. The prose is concentrated to a lethal potency, so sharp in its polemic critiques and so furious in its assassination of the familiar and the familial that every moment, every line, from the mundanity of nothing-talk to the most principal actions show the writers fully in control to the most granular level of their own creation. It’s literary theatre: the words are the actors, and us the audience.

Indeed, Innocent Gray knew they were cooking up a masterpiece, and that newly found self-confidence so dearly missing from their previous works is imbued and etched into the tapestry of this literary fabric to the point where the seams are beginning to burst. This is a title that defies structure, that defies form. It takes so many creative risks in an otherwise-stagnant genre that had this game been any worse, it likely would have been a disaster.

Luckily, this is Innocent Gray we are talking about. My only regret is the cliff of content warnings any in-depth conversation about this game entails, which prevents me from fully articulating my appreciation for some of the game’s most special moments. While for some, the liberal illustration of horrific events ||from WW2 Japanese war crimes to gore to rape|| borders on the voyeuristic, unlike other games in this genre that depict similarly horrific events ||cough cough Euphoria and Subahibi||, Kara no Shojo 3 treats these situations with such severity that they weigh down over the words — and your subconsciousness — dragging the rest of the narrative with it. These are serious events, not a shallow fix for poor characterization or an underexplained plot-point driver in the absence of a reasonable motivator or a dramatical set piece designed for a moment’s fleeting attention or a perverted and grotesque sex scene.

The writing is considerably more dense than before, and gives up a significant amount of the in-your-face shock for brutal, disquietting yet dazzling prose
there's nowhere near as many disturbing scenes as the first two. There's almost no ero/h-scenes at all. And yet, the game is far more emotionally sharp than any other in the series. This goes to speak of the quality of the characters Innocent Gray has built up for over a decade and the brilliance of their plot.

It's utterly horrifying, and yet, I am unable to let go.

Now, excuse me if I must. I have to get back to crying.

An amazing conclusion to a story that overall took over ten years to be fully told. As an individual game, I think it's weaker than 2. But I still cannot believe how well the final ending tied up everything together in such an elegant way. I had my doubts that Innocent Grey could do it, and they proved me wrong. I can only kneel.

I imagine for some, the artstyle may feel a little off-putting, it's very different from 1 and 2's. However, I started playing this company's games with the Flowers franchise, so this is actually closer to what I'm familiar with. I may be biased, but I do think the artstyle works very well for what the story wants to achieve. Even if the girls may look a little different from before, I think the way Reiji is drawn in this game alone makes the artstyle shift more than worth it.

From Cartagra to the Kara no Shoujo games to the Flowers games and then to this, I feel very rewarded with this final game. I only wish I had played Caucasus as well, and I may find time to do that one day. But for now I'm still satisfied with this game, even a full year after I've played it.