Somehow, after all these years I had never played nor been privy to the narrative of this game despite it being a phenomenon when it was released. So, I finally decided to see what it was all about, opting to get the plus version for whatever else that entailed.

It's at least obvious from the several warnings you need to click through on first launch that what you see won't be what you get here. Indeed, in the main plot things proceed like I would expect an anime dating sim to for a while, and then it goes off the rails. It does so in a couple ways, some are just disturbing content which feels like it was inserted for the sole purpose of being disturbing which I didn't think really helped the overall point of the game. The "breaking the fourth wall" part is much more interesting, though.

Surprisingly, I found the side stories included in Plus to be a highlight. Admittedly, the characters have some heavily archetypal traits, but I think these stories reveal several very relatable traits as well. In contrast to the main game which leans heavily into the romance aspect, the side stories show interactions between the girls which bolster their characters and make them seem much more human.