Mecánicamente es un poco desastre, por suerte tiene las pocas herramientas necesarias para no hacerlo super tedioso -fast forward y el sistema de guardado-.
No es un juego que crea que se disfrute sin guía, ya que si fallas la ruta te encuentras solo con la posibilidad de: reírte con algún diálogo de Hanzo, encontrar alguno de los coleccionables que intentan darle vida al pueblo o encontrar un momento con otra chica que seguramente tendrás que repetir luego.

La narrativa peca de querer tener demasiados personajes con doble identidad. Y cuando creías que ya pararían, sacan otro. Y otro. Se hace algo cansino el recurso. El del protagonista suicida y por tanto poco comunicativo (hasta con el jugador) también, aunque hacen un uso medianamente correcto de él para el mensaje, no deja de ser una historia algo genérica, con demasiado contenido muy similar entre rutas y personajes planos.

Las voces y fondos le dan unos puntos de más, aunque a veces el arte de las CG me hace querer quitárselos. Otras veces está bonito, así que se le perdona.
El ASMR de Maimi lo mejor.

Lo considero buen material para investigar un poco el panorama de las visual novel.

Mild and forgettable. The calendar system was interesting but you made me play all routes before uncovering the true ending, was it really necessary?

I think H scenes would have made this game better, all the dates felt so generic that the game seemed like a shounen some times.

The characters designs are great and the twist was worth it tho.

one of the better visual novels i've played. Although there is an "anime-typical" moment here and there too, but all in all they held back with that stuff.
The characters were all interesting and not only one of them were annoying me.
The soundtrack were always on point too.
However, I have to criticize the gameplay. there are many places to visit and you always feel like you're missing out. Of course, the game also builds on the fact that you play it more than just once. I'd rather have one story than many "what if" storylines.

But like i already said.
All in all I reall enjoyed this game!

Disclaimer that this review is after two fulls runs of the game and having experienced one ending (Saya). If I do end up completing all routes, and I want to, then I will update as necessary.

This is my first true visual novel and it hooked me into the genre. I really appreciated the storytelling methods here and for someone who struggles to read anymore, this felt like I was able to scratch that old itch while having just enough "gameplay" to make it feel active. The characters are anime trope central but I loved them and getting to experience their different backstories as my relationship with them slowly evolved was nice.

What I don't like is this game's complete lack of direction. After finishing a lengthy multi-hour prologue where you do practically nothing, only to have the game give you its worst ending before setting you free to play for real, I ended up spending my next handful of hours wandering through the game's summer section only to have it result in the same worst ending. That was crushing, let me tell you, and if not for the encouragement of a friend telling me the stories were worth it, I would have quit right there. I do not like having my time wasted and that is precisely what happened. Sure, you can guess where characters may be more frequently but you have to hit certain thresholds to trigger events which ultimately allow an ending to happen - and none of this is something the game allows you to keep track of. It's an egregious system error, in my opinion. I was forced to use a spoiler-free choice guide to ensure that I would get an ending at all and that really bothered me. So, despite it being a visually pleasing novel with great relationships and a weirdly out of place feeling supernatural mystery that pops in and out here and there, my experience was very mixed because of the confusion I have in trying to figure out whether I'm progressing along a path that I want to be or not.

Ein schönes Visual Novel.
Die Story ist kein Brecher, aber die gesamte Stimmung ist einfach super.

Mal spannend, mal unbeschwert, mal Kensuke... :D

Warum der Protagonist nicht vertont ist, weiß allerdings kein Mensch.

Played with BertKnot.

The release of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (2002-2006) undoubtedly marks a cultural turning point for the visual novel genre and for Japanese animation. Far from being a confidential success, Higurashi stood out as a unique synthesis of the horror and mystery genres within video games. We could go on and explain that the title is part of the moe turn, to the point of imposing a new artistic standard for the medium, but I would be rambling. The imprint left by the series is exceptional and goes hand in hand with that of Umineko no Naku Koro ni (2007-2010); however, the latter's much more complex structure and its strong intertextuality with crime literature make it a more hermetic title. In any case, many works have followed in their wake. More than a decade later, the waves can still be felt in World End Syndrome, which hardly hides its inspiration. Multiple references punctuate the story, both by openly using the titles of Ryukishi07's series in the protagonist's monologues or by playing on familiar aesthetic details (Sacred Land/Golden Land, the cry of the kite).

World End Syndrome is in fact almost exclusively a rehash of previous ideas, which gives a very old-school feel to it. Formally, the story appears to be a very loose rewriting of Ikeru shikabane no shi (1989) by Masaya Yamaguchi: the premise is that of the dead coming back to life and interfering in the society of the living. In the game, this serves as a pretext for the legend of the Yomibito, the dead who come back every hundred years during the summer. Beyond that, the title is meant to be an otome game, whose structure it takes up in its second part. The idea is to complete each route – by dating, more or less, each girl –, in order to get the true ending. This one reveals the mysteries of the city of Mihate and the truth behind the murders. Mechanically, the otome phases seem to be a return to a very archaic past: it's all about going to this place or running into that girl, to increase our stats with her. There's an almost RNG aspect to it that makes the encounters rather limp, as the characters don't really interact with each other during the free phases. They exchange two lines of dialogue before the other character decides to leave. For a game released after the turning point that was Persona 5 (2016), the weakness of these mechanics raises questions about the validity and interest of the title to have chosen it as a core gameplay mechanic.

As I said, those mechanics are extremely minimal and rely only on very hackneyed japanimation tropes: here comes the tomboy, the aristocrat or the candid girl, among others. Of course, these are the same models as Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), but those have dominated fiction for almost three decades. Similarly, the title falls into cousin incest and the sexualisation of the teacher: World End Syndrome is much more restrained than other visual novels, but it only offers the negative sides of the genre. In fact, if the result is relatively harmless, it is still infuriating. Discursively, the game tries to offer a discussion on a certain metaphysical idea of life and death. These are not the only opposing themes, as there is a contrast between the modernity experienced by Japan – technological progress, entertainment industry and tourism – and the folklore and local traditions coming from shinto philosophy. What is perhaps more regrettable is the game's inability to form a sense of contemplation through its otherwise beautifully composed backgrounds. Yet this is an idea that Japanese fiction has captured well in works set in towns and cities far from major metropolitan centres: Boku no Natsuyasumi (2000) is a striking example, while some of the Ghilbli films openly play on it (Omoide poro poro, 1991; Umi ga kikoeru, 1993). Beyond that, World End Syndrome repeats its August structure ad nauseam over five different routes. The same places are visited for the same purposes, which brings a sharp sense of fatigue. This lack of thematic dialectic in visual novels is nothing new, but it hurts when the game openly cites Umineko, which offered an interesting take on detective writing, in relation to Christie's work.

Here, everything seems to be full of futility. No scene really hits the mark and the characters remain empty shells. The plot unfolds over twenty hours, but one hour, after the prologue, was enough to identify the culprit and to solve the major mysteries. The various twists thus suffer from a real weakness, especially as they are particularly questionable thematically and morally. For all that World End Syndrome attempts a complex metatextuality, it is notable that it lacks the means to fulfil these ambitions, no matter which aspect is examined. The title therefore remains a permanent frustration, in that the basic concept wasn't necessarily bad, but it could only be achieved with a more modern structure, which ditches the idea of a bland male protagonist, to allow for player identification. One could argue that this serves a purpose in the narrative structure, but it remains a failure. Yukino was doing the work of a detective and one can only think that she would have made a better protagonist. World End Syndrome doesn't say much, except that you should live, not lock yourself away in regret, and that you should be surrounded by your friends. Admittedly, these are candid ideas, but fiction has already exhausted these themes in a much more elegant way.

If you get through the unbearable introduction its actually kinda good.
It struggles at times with anime cliches, and the inherent misoginy associated with them, but other than that the story isn't bad.

Don't expect a full-fledged mystery as it isn't exactly the focus of the game. For the most part it is a slow-paced slice of life/dating sim kind of game, and the last two routes focus more on the mystery while keeping the other aspects as well. The game as a whole plays out in a similar fashion to Persona time management system.
Despite all that, the mystery shines at points (whether it is in the main story or in some characters backstory), and ends on a really high note with the final twist.

I have mixed feelings with the way it treats its themes. It is pretty clear that the game is mostly about the loss of loved ones and the yearning for them, and while it presents a variety of different points of view and outcomes, I felt like it wasn't explored in enough depth.

I think what I like the most is the time management system.
The game is packed with events, some of which are fixed throughout runs and depending on the route you are locked on and the locations you visit, you can affect the events in different ways, causing different outcomes and discovering new information.
It gave me a feeling of control and involvement, while also making the game feel interconnected and alive. It created a strong sense of inmersion from a choice as little as where to go.
Besides the backgrounds were totally gorgeous, and the little animations on each one reinforced that sense of liveliness.

Overall I think it has a problem with shallowness, not only with its themes but also with the characters when they are outside of their own routes, that stems from the whole anime cliche approach. It makes things look insincere and lacking depth.
However, the mystery, even if a little underdeveloped, has really clever points and the gameplay is in fact pretty entertaining and involving despite its simplicity. And in the end the game makes you care about the characters even if it's only when you get to meet them in their own routes.