EDIT: After finishing Alternative, I don't agree with a lot of my points anymore but I'm going to keep them in cause it might reflect how someone feels from Extra and Unlimited alone

Review for Unlimited due to there not being a seperate page even though there should be. Includes Spoilers.

I want to talk about one thing specifically which frustrates me a lot after finishing Unlimited. Though before that I should get some of the other aspects out of the way first.

The soundtrack is good despite being mostly the same as Extra, though it may have resonated more with me due to Unlimited being a fictional story I can appreciate more. Not that there's anything wrong with liking Extra.

Visually it looks good for it's time, I don't have much to complain about here.

Story wise it's a step up from Extra as there's an actual goal now. Extra had it's goals too but those felt negligeable, because from my perspective even if in theory Takaru did fail those in Extra it's not like he would lose everything. I however did feel like there were some things left unanswered, though those will probably be answered by Alternative or The Day After. But i'll talk about my main complaint about it in a minute.

Character wise they're mostly the same or based off of their counterparts in Extra. The biggest difference is the "exclusion" of Suminka and the fact Mikoto is now a thing. I felt overall that characters got a lot more time to develop in Unlimited compared to Extra which is nice. Also the fact I don't have to have the maids talk down every ingame day is a major improvement.

Overall solid title, I enjoyed the story for the most part except the part with the granny which felt like lacross cause it was dragging on for a while.



I'm going to rant a bit about an alternative decision made near the end of the story, so for anyone not wanting to be spoiled there you go.


SPOILERS
First to establish what I know, I've went through all the "important endings" which is Meiya A & B (Could have been anyone though) and Yuuko. My problem storywise with the game or atleast it's not explained here is that Alternative V sounds like a really dumb plan. So they didn't explain in great detail what it is but here's what I got after rewatching some scenes. I cannot comment on some specific things since Alternative IV was never fully explained in Unlimited though I can make some assumptions.

"Incase Alternative IV failed they would. Evacuate Earth with about 100.000+ people, to go to a different solar system to escape the BETA which is 5.9 lightyears away. Afterwards they would bomb the planet to 'exterminate' the BETA."

I swear heard about the bombing thing but I can't find it back so maybe i'm delusional but that's besides the point i'll make. So with that context let me summarize from my perspective why this plan sounds "retarded".


1.
Assuming it's 100.000+ people they can evacuate but let's say the max limit is 200.000 for a second. We know that there's about 1B people left on earth after the BETA attacked. This means they are willing to abandon 99,99% of people.

2.
There's no guarantee this plan will actually work at all, as far as I can tell the BETA can move around in space and were originally found on another planet. This means that the BETA could eventually find them. Which seeing as they're choosing to abandon most of their resources and the are working with 0,01% of population instead of probably about 50+% before as they were on Earth would give them a severe disadvantage.

3.
It was established earlier on that or atleast it can be assumed that the vast majority of children get put in the military to fight off this threat. Men were send earlier than women. The situation is in fact so bad that they have to even get children and women involved so there's almost no exclusion. As even seen with characters like Kyozuka, though that may be a bit of a stretch they still work in the military department in some way.

Is it truly impossible to fight off the BETA overtime? I feel like Alternative V just sounds like an extremely desperate solution and it's not even guaranteed to solve anything. Whilst it may not be said directly what Alternative IV was in unlimited, we know Yuuko was atleast close to coming up with a working solution. Seeing as Takeru was "proof" of her theory. If she was the leader behind Alternative IV couldn't they have given her more time? Time is clearly of the essence and humanity would want to end this "war" sooner than anything but couldn't Yuuko just show fruits of her labor in someway? Again I can't for certain say what Alternative IV was but if Takeru was proof for it in theory couldn't she have proven that he was from a different world by simply showing him and the Game Guy, or are they going to argue he developed it in his spare time when every character in a route that did interact with it was taken back by this technology.

4.
Short point but, they could have been attacked while they were on their voyage. Did they never consider this posibillity? Granted if this did happen the vast majority of humanity would still be left alive on Earth.

5.
What was the entire point behind cancelling Alternative IV on Christmas if they needed an additional 2 years to get everything ready? Maybe they said a deadline for Yuuko with Alternative IV but again couldn't she have shown some of her "proof" of her theory and still develop it in secret during those 2 years? She clearly has a high position but does anything actually stop her from doing this? She was clearly looking into it around the week after Takeru got free of detention which only required Kasumi and that room. However after the 2 year timeskip Kasumi is still found in that room, why didn't she just continue her research and upon finding solid proof propose an alternative to continue Alternative IV or put Alternative V on hold.

6.
What would they do in the scenario that they were attacked by the BETA or another alien species. Seeing as with all their evacuation ships they can only carry 100.000+ does that include TSF's and if so would there even be enough to fight anything off? I'm sure they would atleast bring materials with them to construct them but that would probably still not be fast enough.


Sorry if some things sound similar but I do not understand the entire reason for Alternative V to be so rushed, I know the evacuation ships were in development for atleast 3-5 years but regardless it feels too quick. My issues will for the most part probably be solved once I finish Alternative or the day after but up till then I'll still be bummed out about this.