All I can say is, I was very disappointed when playing the game.
Maybe its because I had very high expectations for this game, as I had absolutely loved the demo. The art, the horror, and the stories surrounding the characters had me excited for this game, specifically to play Kazuki's route.
From what the Demo had suggested, the game was going to explore a story surrounding cultists and Yokai, in a horror game that explores the MC trying to find the truth about her husband's suspicious death, whilst potentially romancing other male leads if she desired. That was the plot the Demo provided, and thus, what I was so so excited for, for like literally a year. I am not kidding. With the lack of horror otome games, I thought that this would become one of my favourite games ever once released, because it fit into concepts that I found so interesting whilst also being an otome. And most of all, I was extremely excited to play Kazuki's route.
However, when I finally bought and started playing this game, I was really confused when the first thing that happened was a flashback to people dying and burning, suggesting the story was taking place in some kind of historical past. I was literally like; Wtf? Am I reading a historical revenge otome? But I joked, surely not. None of the Demo or advertisements suggested anything like that, so they wouldn't change the plot midway, right?
Anyway, I looked past that, hoping that it will return to the psychological, cult, and yokai horror that I loved about the Demo. Luckily, the first half of the game was very similar to the Demo, and therefore followed the tropes I had expected and wanted. The only thing that annoyed me was that no matter how much I tried to follow Kazuki's route, trying to improve my affection with him in any way, and not choosing any of the other choices with the other love interests, I kept on dying on the night where the MC's mother gave her cake.
So, I went to read one of the guides, and come to find out, that well, there is NO KAZUKI ROUTE.
Instead, he was part of the secret route, and to achieve it, I have to romance any other guy and attain a good ending with him.
...
I was genuinely gobsmacked. My excitement since I first played the demo, down the drain. Like, in the first video advertisement, the first 'love interest' shown was Kazuki himself. And in the demo, you could already 'increase affection' with him, further suggesting that when the full game comes out, you can romance Kazuki just like any of the other love interesets. For the record, I bought this game having absolutely ZERO intention to play any other route besides Kazuki. Nevertheless, I went back to the my save on night 4, and chose to call Ryota, locking him in as my substitude love interest, whilst I grinded through his route to get to Kazuki's ending.
What came after was the most boring experience ever.
The second half of my gameplay, after the 'cake night,' was so, so different from the core themes the game advertised. It had a completely different vibe, and not in a good way. Like for example, the whole 'calamity in the past' plotpoint felt so unneccessary.
And then, we get to the train scene. Oh, how absolutely lovely it was! Haha.
Yeah no.
The story from here began to follow -1000 gradient, y=mx+c line. And that math description might be more interesting to imagine than the whole 'time loop' and 'past lives' plot points that were shoved at my face as soon as I entered that whole 'lets save ourselves from the time loop' situation that began to exist out of nowhere. I sincerely apologise to the marketing and storyboarding team of this game, but what the heck gave you the idea to market this game as a Yokai/Psychological Horror Otome where we have to find the truth and save our husband from an evil cult (as they whole 'your affection with Kazuki increased' stuff + police saying no body was found suggested that Kazuki was still alive, or if not, a ghost we could romance). Instead I was thrown some bodies are vessels, transmigration loops, repeating lives etc. plotpoints? And the whole 'love you in my previous life' stuff... personally, it is 1 of my most hated tropes.
There were so many better and more interesting ways for you to explain and develop the whole cult story, yet the chosen choice was to resort to a stereotypical, rage-inducing, 'everything happened because the MC was stupid in their past life' kind of story. Great. Like the whole plot twist was 'oh the MC rejected this guy who happened to be the brother of her husband in the past, leading him to take revenge to try to get her to choose him in every timeline, and thus he killed her husband to take over his body and hopefully woo her in the process and oh also, apparently Ren killed Kazuki and Ryota was also someone from MC's past life, and her mum was really not her mum'. So basically, all of the new plot points that were supposed to explain everything were thrown at me in a horribly confusing and badly explained manner, thus becoming the epitome of succesful ragebait. Guess thats an achievement.
Then the gameplay. All it included was clicking through the MC's yapping sesh that seemed endless, which I guess is what a visual novel basically is. However, paired with the horrendous story, it took way too long. Like I genuinely spent half of my gameplay time for Ryota's route clicking through the boring dialogue sequences in the train.
Then, the whole metafictive and 'breaking the fourth wall' aspects. Yeah, well, what was the point of that again? To force me to play through a continuous loop of Ryota flirting with me whilst the background cycled from his bedroom to a random grass hill, as a way to get my gametime up? Yeah, I nearly ragequit right there, however luckily I went back to the guide, which said that EVENTUALLY I will get through the loop. How entertaining.
Then, after hours of boredom and near rage-quitting, I got to the Kazuki's secret ending. YAYYYY. Well I hoped. Instead, again, I was bombarded with metafictive questioning and back again to the whole time loop plot, and blah blah blah Omukade blah blah. That Kazuki was only a catalyst, and nothing I can do can ever work. And yeah, calling me 'MC' directly was such an interesting point in the script, definitely made me love how metafictive the story was. No but seriously, it is one thing having one or two metafictive moments to entice or scare the audience. It is another to completely overwhelm the original storyline with it in every fking moment. And then, I give up, so I just stab myself, leading me to getting reincarnated as Ryota, the apparent true, 'THE END' ending. Guess thats one way to make a cyclical narrative.
Maybe, the whole point of this game was to be a nihilistic view on love; that you can never get a truly happy ending, that there is no purpose in it. Otherwise, I have no idea why there was any purpose in making the second half of the story so anticlimatic, unninteresting, and so so deviating from the plot that was advertised.
Well, the whole 'unhappy endings can happen' moral of the story has already been taught to me by Lalaland, unfortunately for the storywriter.
I came here to go down a potentially angsty romance path with my dead husband who got killed by a cult and get scared by a few yokai, nothing more.
God, if I ever die and get the opportunity to be reincarnated, please reincarnate me into this novel so I can strangle that damn Omukade and spray insect repellent on her.
Overall, I am still kind of hoping that this game is all a bad dream, and tomorrow I will wake up and be able to play the game that I had anticipated for so long, instead of being forced to follow a route I was uninterested in, with an equally dissapointing overarching story and 'endings.' So, I can easily say I will not be playing any other routes.
Best wishes for the development team, and hope that they have success with this and subsequent games, however it was most definitely not for me.
