Oh geez, where do I begin?
I think the best way to put it is such: this is a game I wish I could hate. Unfortunately, its highs are too high, even if there are so many lows. The climax to the common route is compelling and thematically interesting, while Nono's route is legitimately heartwarming. For all I'm going to complain about writing and characters below, when they're trying to make an actually good person, I couldn't help but get attached.
However, the other character routes vary from a complete swerve in the game's focus, to "what the fuck am I looking at?". I'm not sure if the true ending connected with me, I'm still sitting on it, but it's certainly doesn't have the immediately obvious quality of my favourite routes.
The game is full to the brim with all the worst associations of the anime aesthetics. Even outside of the extremely offputting "positive delusions", there are constant eye-rolling jokes, general creepiness, and just a sense of "why did this need to be included". Need I remind you that this game is largely set at a school.
While I'm aware it's intentional, characters like Takuru and Itou are intolerable to put up with, especially early-game, and between Takuru's magazines and the online forums, the writers seem to have a great insight to the minds of the worst kinds of people. Some of the stuff I read made me feel sicker than any of the gore the game is known for.
On that note, the delusion system is kind of weak. Besides all of the content just being offputting, speeding through the entire game to redo a handful of choices, without a chapter skip or anything, is very tedious, and for all but one route it boils down to "positive delusion on the focus character". Only a handful of negative delusions are ever required, for one route in particular, so outside of that I just... never opted into one? And never felt like I was missing out. So it felt disjointed. Not to repeat myself, but I wish I could have skipped out on more positive delusions... It doesn't help that your reward for all of this is the largely-weak character routes.
There are some games I get anxious to recommend, because while I love them, they're flawed, and they contain offputting content, and mostly I love these games despite that, having to overlook them for what they do best. In this case, the offputting content is so overwhelming, the best parts so buried underneath it, that I could not imagine telling my friends to play this game. But I can't just discard it, I can't hate it like I wish I could, because damn it I'm glad Nono Kurusu's story exists. Still, I've always been wary of the Sci;ADV series and this does not give me the courage to take another chance on it.
I think the best way to put it is such: this is a game I wish I could hate. Unfortunately, its highs are too high, even if there are so many lows. The climax to the common route is compelling and thematically interesting, while Nono's route is legitimately heartwarming. For all I'm going to complain about writing and characters below, when they're trying to make an actually good person, I couldn't help but get attached.
However, the other character routes vary from a complete swerve in the game's focus, to "what the fuck am I looking at?". I'm not sure if the true ending connected with me, I'm still sitting on it, but it's certainly doesn't have the immediately obvious quality of my favourite routes.
The game is full to the brim with all the worst associations of the anime aesthetics. Even outside of the extremely offputting "positive delusions", there are constant eye-rolling jokes, general creepiness, and just a sense of "why did this need to be included". Need I remind you that this game is largely set at a school.
While I'm aware it's intentional, characters like Takuru and Itou are intolerable to put up with, especially early-game, and between Takuru's magazines and the online forums, the writers seem to have a great insight to the minds of the worst kinds of people. Some of the stuff I read made me feel sicker than any of the gore the game is known for.
On that note, the delusion system is kind of weak. Besides all of the content just being offputting, speeding through the entire game to redo a handful of choices, without a chapter skip or anything, is very tedious, and for all but one route it boils down to "positive delusion on the focus character". Only a handful of negative delusions are ever required, for one route in particular, so outside of that I just... never opted into one? And never felt like I was missing out. So it felt disjointed. Not to repeat myself, but I wish I could have skipped out on more positive delusions... It doesn't help that your reward for all of this is the largely-weak character routes.
There are some games I get anxious to recommend, because while I love them, they're flawed, and they contain offputting content, and mostly I love these games despite that, having to overlook them for what they do best. In this case, the offputting content is so overwhelming, the best parts so buried underneath it, that I could not imagine telling my friends to play this game. But I can't just discard it, I can't hate it like I wish I could, because damn it I'm glad Nono Kurusu's story exists. Still, I've always been wary of the Sci;ADV series and this does not give me the courage to take another chance on it.
cappuccihoe
11 months ago
There was a time in my life where I considered myself a huge fan of the Sci;ADV series in my teens. I started playing almost all of them from Steins;Gate Elite onward and lost myself in the genuinely good mystery stories and atmosphere the devs could come up with.
With time, I matured tho and the more distance I got to the franchise, the more did the positive image I had of them crumble. I wasn't as knowledgable of the anti-semitic themes and imagery, realized how blatantly transphobic Steins;Gate was and decided to question my liking of the games in general. That's when I played Chaos;Head, when it wasn't officially translated yet and then went on to play the two Robotics;Notes. Horrible, all three of them.
I came out as nb myself since then and have already read the transphobic opening jokes of Anonymous;Code and yet I will probably still play it. I'm over 7 VN's in into the series but since I still feel the need to sit through another one of those, I'm currently working on a video essay about the flaws of the entire series. Yours is a very good review, that sums up a lot of my issues with the game quite well!