A very very fun journey from start to end. 428 handles the constant switching between the main characters excellently and it makes for a very dynamic and enjoyable story with frequent tone shifts and twists. The story doesn't end up being particularly impactful or anything but it's a ton of fun with a lot of likable characters and surprisingly good presentation. Osawa's sympathetic parental plights, Tama's scam hi-jinks with Yanagishi and Chiri, Kano's buddy-cop action with Stanley, and Minorikawa's overflowing charisma mesh better than I could've hoped and made for a large variety of quality scenes. At first I was perplexed by the lack of proper mouse support and manual saves but I quickly realized it doesn't really hurt the experience at all. The lack of text speed options did get pretty grating though and honestly the game probably would've been about 2 or 3 hours shorter if I could properly skip through text I've finished reading or scenes I've already viewed. The music is pretty good, particularly when it's bombastic like in Tama's scenes with Yanagishita though the somber tunes in Osawa's story fit very well too. Each story brought something to the table and was enjoyable in its own right, though Achi's could be pretty weak at times with his shonen-ish personality and typical romance scenes. I was very happy with how each character played a significant role in ultimately saving Shibuya, including best boy Minorikawa. I also appreciate how the Keep Outs and bad ends forced me to go through each story together instead of just going through one story at a time in its entirety which helped me get engrossed in the bigger picture and how everyone's actions tied together.

Reviewed on Sep 04, 2021


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