Kanata saves this game.
i went from a hard thumbs down to a soft thumbs up after playing her route. Kanata is a fascinating character, her dynamic with the main character is great, and her role is elevated by an exceptional voice acting performance. TLDR = this game is navigating lazy writing in search of Kanata.
i would only recommend this to fans of the Memories Off series who have played and enjoyed both 1 and 2. brace yourself, however, as the story writing, characters, dialogue, and ideas presented in this game are generally unmemorable. there are a few good moments here and there, but this is ultimately a self-indulgent slog. i genuinely think Kanata's route is the only part of the game that is fundamentally solid, but that is ONLY thanks to the dynamic between her and the protagonist as once again the story there is sub par. finally, i'll just note that the Japanese isn't all that difficult, standard intermediate level stuff and good for studying.
other gripes include:
[spoiler]
generally feels like it was written by a woman. this isn't to say women cant write, i'm saying the writer was trying to do something but failed. reading made me somehow feel like i wasn't the target audience.
the writer would rather devote time to showing off superficial connections to Memories Off 1 and 2 and/or waste your time with side character nonsense instead of using that play time to build interesting stories with the main girls. case in point, the game flanderises Koyomi and Shizuru, and maguro and toby should have been completely cut from the game. Yue is handled ok. Shin has waaaay too many scenes.
the game is 90% common route, then a handful of scenes rushed in at the very end to jam the individual heroine's 'story' in last minute. side characters still get in the way.
decisions aren't meaningful, they just alter 1 line of text 90% of the time. there are too many.
skip mode doesnt skip sounds = you have to listen to the same 10 second bug noise and 5 second ambiguous quiet rattling sound over and over, a few other sounds are short with 8 seconds of nothing, you have to wait. character walking out of the room? listen to what sounds like children pitter pattering across a wide open gymnasium for 6 seconds. walking down the street? listen to the wind for 4 seconds, the wind for 6 seconds, a car for 12 seconds, or perhaps more bug sounds that range from ~8 to ~14 seconds. skip also doesnt skip some scenes even though nothing is new, the dialogue is EXACTLY the same
every character knows every other character. they don't just know each other, they all just HAPPEN TO HAVE INTIMATE CONNECTIONS FROM YEARS AGO. do you think im stupid?
nearly every character has the same over the top sense of humour. annoying.
routes are pair stories = forced drama, you are forced to hurt at least 2 girls per route because common route requires being horrible to Hibiki no matter what you choose to do.
Hibiki route has one of the only memorable moments in the whole game, then they ruin it by doing the exact same thing again with the exact same CG. her conflict is obvious from her first scene but isn't addressed until her final scenes. disappointing.
Neo/Mifu route is reading forums and talking to Shin, then solving problems with Yue and Shin. Mifu falls off her chair like 5 times (wtf?) and multiple occasions where you have to just straight up read 20+ posts on a message board from newest to oldest (WHY!?)
Neo doesnt deserve her part in the true route. nothing that happens with Neo feels genuine, which i guess is the point, but all that means is that Kanata's ending (because of course the true ending is shared too) just means you have to hurt Neo, which she deserves even less. it sucks.
Isako route is talking to Nayu, Nayu route steals from Kanata route and makes absolutely 0 sense in hindsight (seriously, am i missing something? think about it, it makes no sense)
Tamaki route is talking to Hibiki and maguro (I HATE MAGURO). i was looking forward to doing this very interesting character's route and then boom she only has like 25% of the dialogue in her route, and 50% of that comes in two scenes. it was really cute when she shows the protagonist her necklace on the train though.... disappointing.
finally get to Kanata route and it is another pair route with the most melodrama yet. im okay with the tenchou stuff, but man could it have been handled better. it basically only matters inside the protagonists head and only serves the purpose of delaying things. it isnt even properly addressed until the VERY END of the epilogue. its stupid. i cant help but feel bad for neo as well, she is too sweet to deserve just being written out of the story immediately like that. i guess the motivations SORT OF work, but the issue is that they should have never wound up together in the first place. interesting how all of that is just ellipsis'd through, hmm..? i think the writer agrees with me. anyway, the Neo stuff just sours the whole true ending. it's sad, frankly, and i dont like it. it feels unnecessary. stupid ass pair routes, whose idea was that?
[/spoiler]
.....Kanata is so good though man.. i think she is worth trudging through all of that
