Vol 4 ended up being one of... the better ones in the series? I was surprised that they actually decided to develop Kashou past some guy ready to fuck his pet catgirls while cooking some sweets. It lead to some interesting and wholesome scenes. Having more of the family consistently involved was nice. Fraise does seem like a potential nice future catgirl to join in. I think it's funny how much they're teasing the hell out of Shigure as a legit love interest now. If they dont do the deed with her in Vol 5 I'll be very surprised.

Outside that it was funny petting your mom, dad, and mentor.

For better or worse it was basically more of the same as Vol 1. Focuses on two girls, has some amusing moe catgirl stuff with a little bit of character development.

Shigure had some pretty amazing moments this time around and I thought she was already pretty funny. My opinion of Azuki went up a bit, when I thought she was fairly forgettable in Vol 0 and 1. Her having the most cat-like personality made for some fun interactions.

Coconut was kinda the same, maybe a bit better. Chocola and Vanilla were still entertaining as always. The MC is still bland as hell.

I’ll say the emote engine is quite the… interesting thing. Everything is super animated and there’s a ridiculous amount of detail in terms of overall presentation of the graphics. Mashing the P button is entertaining.

As for the VN itself.. I guess it wasn’t bad? Chocola and Vanilla weren't bad characters and in fact were likable. The MC was super forgettable.

I feel like the VN was basically preaching CATGIRLS ARE MOE YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT the whole time. I don't mind moe stuff but I guess I don't particularly dislike or like catgirls so I couldn't get into it as much. Still I guess it was short and there was some funny scenes and it kinda sorta built a world based on catgirls being the norm in a fun enough way.

Overall I quite enjoyed it! I went in expecting something unique with the slice of life adult age romance stories and got that in spades. I guess SMEE likes their structure since every route had the same amount of chapters but didnt mind.

Kazuma was a fun protag. Felt like the Fureraba protag but a little sillier. The humor was consistently quite good in every route. Having voiced good side characters helped. I guess the romance was predictable and slightly shallow but it worked for the most part. Fun music.

Saki's route/character was nice and chill. Perfect for a first route. Having a character close to my IRL age helped. Kazuma felt most openly degnerate but Saki kept him in line. Felt like Kazuma had more development than Saki. Pre-epilogue ending felt a little rushed?

Not usually into tsunderes but can't deny Karen character and route were quality and developed. Her route started and ended with a bang. She was pretty honest, willing to compromise and mess around which helped. Some of her angry yelling was still annoying though.

Reina character/route was kinda... meh? Her personality seems like something I'd like, but it kinda felt contradictory or wishy washy. And more annoying than I thought. Maybe I was too bias againt the age gap romance. Both her and Kazuma's goals werent covered well enough.

Ako is unfortunate. I like her personality. There were some legit feels that made sense in the context of their relationship. Sadly the (fake) incest and age gap romance brought down the route to just decent for me. Not into those. She'd work better as an adult childhood friend.

Mashiro I purposefully saved for last and I'm glad I did. I was looking for an adult age energetic but nice weirdo like Kotori (Rewrite). She definitely delivered. Her constants puns and out there jokes were definitely weird but charming and funny. There was never a dull moment for sure. The gamer girl thing was nice but wasnt used much? Her romance rules was slightly annoying. A few jokes went a little too much like Her throwing her ring in the ocean in her last Chapter, either to do a romantic shit test, or cuz she was apparently so insecure to consider breaking up which pissed me off. Thankfully she apologized. Kazuma felt a little bland in her route. Still liked route since Mashiro was good and had slight development.

Girl Rankings: Mashiro > Ako > Saki = Karen >> Reina

Route Rankings: Karen >= Mashiro > Saki > Ako > Reina

Overall definitely recommend this VN if you want funny and simple, sweet slice of life romance with adult age characters and/or good comedy.

I would say for the most part I quite liked this visual novel. I'm always down for a good mystery story and I'm glad this mostly delivered.

The mysteries themselves were consistently interesting and the pacing was surprisingly solid. If only other mystery writers like Uchikoshi, Nakazawa, and especially Ryuukishi07 can learn pacing better like this game.

Even though I'm generally not into dark gory stuff, I actually thought the way it was handled in the story was quite good. Having just enough shock value to get the point across but doing it in a psychological horror way like Silent Hill 2, which is one of my favorite horror games.

While none of the characters are close to being one of my favorites , they definitely fit their roles well and were for the most part decently likable. Plus points to the protagonist Reiji being proactive, chill and in this version actually has full voice acting.

While I only had a few major issues with this game, they were quite notable.

As many people have stated, the H scenes are... Handled weirdly. Half of them are lead ins into bad endings for some reason. The other half are just weirdly placed fan service. The age gap ones in particular were quite uncomfortable due to how easily they got into it.

The absolute worst thing about this game is definitely the choice system and the general structure of the endings. On one hand, I do like the idea of multiple bad ends being used for foreshadowing for the good ends. There are a few major choices and endings that makes the way the plot progress and branch interesting.

However everything else about this choice route and ending system just sucks. I get that this is an older visual novel, which generally has a lot of choices. However, when you combined that with additional map travel system. That's a combination of a weird affection system, but more importantly which ones you go to can affect which ending you get is quite annoying due to how frequent they are at impeding plot progress.

Combine the above two things with a minor issue with a ghetto version of the Ace Attorney's investigation and deduction systems and you just have a visual novel trying to implement way too many systems at once.

It wants to be a mystery game, but also just a utsuge-ish psychological horror, but also have the typical eroge affection and H scenes. Take out at least one of these systems and things could have flown way better. Especially if they wanted to commit to many bad ends that actually contribute to the story.

That said, I still definitely enjoy the story enough to look forward to part 2. I will likely wait for THE SHELL Part 2 just to have a steam release and a prologue with a good translation.

Final Score: 8/10

A-4 generally was better than I thought it would be. Pretty fun all-around though I think these routes having slightly rushed romance just kinda shows how obviously fandisc-y they are. Despite Majikoi being my favorite VN series, at this point the milking needs to be stopped.

I didn't really have high hopes for Lin route, mostly cuz the China girls had very little screen time up to this point. But I ended up liking it. Lin and the other girls were fun. The yandere part was kinda weird, but overall the build up to the romance was fun, and I'm always happy to see more Kazama Family scenes.

Homura's route was very chill. It was nice to have the Kazama Family + Gen get along with different Warriors of the West. Homura herself was generally nice.

Overall, probably my favorite MajiKoi A to date.

I liked both of Tsubame's routes. Her Lead route was more about interesting drama with her parents while Yamato Lead had more of the fun slice of life that a lot of the A series was missing.

Lee's route had a lot of cool and interesting character building around her and the possum games and her backstory made for consistently interesting stuff.

Stacy's route having all the main characters being adults from the geto was a nice change of pace. In addition the Kuki level fights was a unique concept were all fun fights. Stacy herself had some interesting things about her. Kind of a Momoyo-light in a way?

All routes had the comedy be top notch as usual.

I just wish Yamato didn't go overboard on half-raping girls for H-scenes sometimes..

Seiso route was decent. I liked the development her other side gets.

Aeiss was a little annoying sometimes but her route had some fun moments. Had the most Kazama Family which is always nice. Robot fucking was stupid, easily one of my least favorites "fetishes" that Majikoi has used so far.

Mon-sama had a pretty short, comfy, happy route. I probably liked it most.

It was more fanservice-y than the original but I just love the characters and the atmosphere and the slice of everything and everything that I can't help but still give Majikoi S a very very high score.

Route opinions:

Koyuki's was great but not in the way I was expecting

Agave After should have been longer but still makes it one of my favs

Common routes (2nd Year 1st Semester + Future without Relationship) were also really good though shorter than I was expecting

Original 5 Heroine routes were fine. Favorites were Yukie friendship and Miyako because Miyako

Tsubame and Monshiro routes were good

Kokoro's was fun if a bit short

Iyo/Hermit Crab/Yumiko/Kosugi were short fun distractions

Margit's was.. weird

Takae's existed

Most Dead Ends were good, especially Miyako ones

I read both the Steam translation (for Akari's route, and the story) and the original Japanese (for Himegi 3some, and H-scenes).

I overall really liked it and it solid amount of actual content besides just typical fandisc stuff.

The Kotori prologue was fine but I didn't consider it particularly necessary. Nice to consider another PoV I suppose

Amane's route was great for the simple/cute romance and friendship related to . Flashbacks were great. Might be favorite for the stuff alone and almost considered this VN a 9/10 for this route alone.

Hotaru and Kanako had alright/decent routes for cute but kinda weird romance. Them having less of a focus on the Soaring Club was nice but I dont think it went quite the distance it could have for both.

The Kazato twins route was fine as 1 day short slice of life route. Woulda been nice to have more but I like slice of life thankfully.

The JP-only Ageha route... well I can see why it was removed in MoeNovel's release lol. It was just a weird Himegi sister 3some mini route but at least it was quite short.

Akari's route was great and had content that felt like it belonged in the original. It had cute romance, a cute Akari, and nice ties to the student council. Cool that MoeNovel actually went out of their way to translate Cruise Sign only content.

* Kotori's sequel route ended up being pretty great. I didn't really like the 'fight' that happened, but everything else was fantastic. Its the only route to cover what Aoi/Kotori/Ageha will do in the year theyd graduate, and generally gave closure to a lot of characters as well as introducing some likable new ones. The romance stuff was great. The final flight towards the end was great, especially without having to rely on . Everything from the flight onward was very emotional. If people wanna just read Flight Diary for this route, I'd recommend it since it involves everyone and as said above give closure to almost everyone.

If the non Amane/Kotori routes were just a tad higher in quality I'd consider this on par with the original. Otherwise still a great 9/10 read.

NOTE: this review will be based on the 18 plus re translation especially since I took apart in QC / testing the project.

I'd been really excited for this VN ever since I heard the concept and that it would get a real full translation. I ended up liking it even more than I expected to. Right now it's my top 3 visual novels of all time.

Despite my reputation as "H-scene guy", what you may not know about me is that I'm a HUGE sucker for super feel-good fun inspiring slice of life stories. That's why stuff like MajiKoi is my favorite VN, Aria the Origination and My Love Story are two of my favorite anime ever, etc. This visual novel definitely filled that gap I've been waiting for in a visual novel again for a long time (the only other one that has really done that was Hoshizora no Memoria which I also like a lot)

Despite it being an obvious feel-good story where everything will be alright in the end and cheesiness and blablabla I think what makes the VN even better is how real and relatable all the characters are (even the quirkier ones like Amane). In addition, it's not like everything is always convenient, there are definite struggles, both in what needs to be learned and just stuff about their personalities that I enjoyed seeing being developed.

Obviously one of the appeals is the main heroine being disabled and on a wheelchair. I'm kinda glad they didn't get too melodramatic with this, kinda similar to show Katawa Shoujo didn't get melodramatic with the disabilities themselves. It was cool to see how it was worked around and even utilized in interesting enough ways in the story.

It was nice to see a more futuristic-looking school for once. And of course, I learned a lot more about gliders than I would've in my entire lifetime if I didn't read this VN and they were pretty interesting. All the stuff seemed pretty well-researched and stuff.

One of the absolute best things I don't think many people should (hopefully) complain about is the overall presentation of the VN. The graphics are amazing, easily some of the most detailed and bright in the medium and really fits the setting and whatnot. I think the occasional use of 3D CG movies are nice. The backgrounds are super detailed, the CGs looks nice and the sprites are well-done. The voice acting (from what I can tell) are good. The music is overall solid, albeit maybe a bunch being just remixes of the main/ED themes. There's a few themes I REALLY like though, they usually play towards the end of the route or IN the end. The rest are fitting and nice enough.

I legitimately liked just abut all the characters in the game, minus the one that was purposefully written to be unlikable even that one had a reason to be. There's a good variety of personality and development among a lot of them, though more good supporting male characters would've been nice. Yeah this is a harem romance moe charage and blablabla but if MajiKoi can at least try to have cool male supporting characters I dont see why others can't...

While I didn't mind since it meant more good content, keep in mind this VN is pretty dang long. Currently on vndb, the voting average is about 45 hours to read all routes which sounds about right.

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Sweet Love review

If you haven't heard of it they're basically REALLY short epilogues of the 4 main routes (the twins share the same route) along with H-scenes.

They were nice and feel good and kinda relate to the main route but they felt like setup to Flight Diary. The H-scenes themselves were fine, clearly more for cosplay fanservice.

This patch is NOT really required reading but since I really like the original and eat up any kind of fandisc-ish slice of life stuff for VNs I like, I liked this well enough.

As far as moe charage VNs go.. I won’t lie. It’s quite generic and nothing special compared to other VN routes that focus on character (melo)drama. Has lots of the usual pitfalls like Sex/H scenes basically immediately after romantic confession, females liking the MC because he's NICE and conveniently the only male around their age in their lives and the solutions to the drama more often than not are super idealistic and not fleshed out as much as they should be.

But you know what.. I still enjoyed the VN despite that.

It's been a while since I've a read a VN that was first released in Japan after 2010 and I have to admit that graphics are damn good/moe and were a big reason for me to check out the VN. It's nice that the characters are around college age which is nice for once though the actual college life is barely glossed over which is unforunate.

Of course a bunch of the setting was related to resort setting and the obvious fanservice nature of the outfits (which were nice to me at least).

As for the characters and routes themselves, here's my opinions in order I read the routes.

Sango+Konami
Even though it was technically the Sango route is was basically both their routes. Both characters' personalities as a whole were fine (energetic and shy girl) albeit nothing special. I liked the route focused on the relationship between the two. And how good it clearly isn't made to seem.

Nagisa
Not many serious routes with an older heroine which was nice to see. She was pretty chill and hardworking which was cool I guess. I guess her route as a whole was.. ok? There was kinda interesting development I guess, but nothing that memorable.

Riho
Openly perverted girls are always a plus in Ange's eyes. I was hoping her clumsiness wouldn't be a major factor in her route and thank god in wasn't. I feel lik the relationship of Soutaou and her was most interesting, had the most ups and downs after getting together.

Shiori
Probably the best overall character personality-wise since she's pretty chill, has some funny lines and apparently is a pervert/agressive which is nice. Her route had an interesting idea but felt the most rushed.

Umi
Oh man.. I'd probably like her a lot more if every 5-10 minutes she didn't say SOUTAROU IS A PERVERT. SOUTARU IS A BEAST. God damn that joke got annoying really old and got other characters to occassionally take part of it which sucks because they're not as bad as her otherwise. Thankfully in her route she toned that 'joke' a lot but outside that she didn't really have too much her character. Her route was by far the least eventful/least development oriented. There's not even anything to spoil since the main thing to develop is something really small and resolved in like 5-10 minutes. I guess since it's basically the canon route and they already had lots of interaction in the common route they didn't feel like there was too much to put?

3P
For an obvious fanservice threesomes route I guess it was good but I personally liked the one in Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia more. I thought it was funny that

Overall
As I said in the first paragraph it's far from anything special but I knew what I was getting into and I still decently enjoyed it. Would have been nice if the characters were a bit more memorable but they were mostly likable enough.

Pros:

All 3 main heroines were fairly likable

Both Kirari/True routes were a step above everything else, both had some cool route twists and ideas

There were some decent comedy and character development

Cons:

I thought the whole MC having to crossdress for half the VN was a bit silly for me especially with how drawn out it was

Outside the above moments mentioned about Kirari routes I feel like a lot of the VN was fairly forgettable/generic or just done better in other VNs

Above includes Sarina/Chie routes, and all the characters in general.
Some parts of the common route and a few other routes were kinda boring / a drag

All those silly typos/grammar errors (somewhat forgiven since it's one of MangaGamer's first TLd VNs but still)

I definitely do see where people say it and DDLC are similar but they both clearly had their own goals that just happen to look similar on the surface in some ways.

I actually quite liked the slice of life towards the beginning since it involved two very different girls having to interact, wanting to be friends, and even the romance stuff was done in an interesting way. And I thought Aoi in general was pretty funny.

The music was nice and atmospheric. Fit the parts it played in pretty well.

I basically can't talk about the rest without spoilers so...