I can imagine a better version of this that is much longer and far more in-depth. for a prequel story, it was pretty underwhelming because of how it only scratches the surface and gives mostly just a more firsthand account of backstory we already knew from the main story.

some of the assets for something more in-depth are definitely here. it just feels like a waste to take a story that could've been much longer and involved more characters. still, it was neat to see how some of the things in the past had played out, even if it felt a bit underdeveloped.

Root Double is sort of what i'd consider the spiritual successor to Ever17, considering it has a few similarities in concept, such as dual protagonists, a survival story with a time limit.

This VN was an awesome thrill ride from beginning to end. It has an impressively tight narrative, tying all of its major narrative elements together wonderfully. It's hard to really explain how without spoiling major story elements best left to discover for yourself, however i can say that it was able to perfectly marry its character interactions, worldbuilding and sci fi concepts to its themes, as well as to eachother. everyone and everything is connected together, in ways you'd never expect, and in ways that make the world feel so large, yet so small at the same time.

Character-wise, Root Double has a really strong cast of characters. And i grew to sympathize with pretty much every single one of them by the end, which is pretty impressive in its own right, but when you consider how that plays into the theme of the story, it becomes something more than just that.

the soundtrack is fucking awesome, maybe not the best VN OST i've heard, but certainly one of the better ones. visually, Root Double is also quite impressive, making very clever use of recurring locations. Sprites are very well illustrated and fairly dynamic. CGs have beautiful shading as well, though the artstyle itself does have a certain moe feel to it that isn't the perfect match for the tone and nature of the story.

There's certain sections of this title with decidedly slower pacing to it than others, and while it's handled very well for the most part, there's a significant number of flashback scenes that some readers may find a tad bit TOO redundant. Of course, this didn't really bother me, since the context of these scenes changes every time you revisit them, and adds additional meaning to them. If anything, it's a really interesting aspect of Root Double's storytelling and helps set it apart from many of its contemporaries.

one drawback that comes to mind is that the choice system is a bit unintuitive and you will likely need a guide to attain all the epilogue flags (which you should DEFINITELY do before finishing), so keep this mind.

Additionally, Root Double initially provides the option of starting with two routes: After and Before. After should ABSOLUTELY be read first as it serves as a stronger introduction to the story, characters, and central mystery. the Before route, in contrast, is deliberately slower and more focused on worldbuilding, as well as fleshing out certain characters not focused on as much in the After route.

Keep these things in mind when going on, and i hope you find this VN as fuckin kino as i did.