YOU and ME and HER: A Love Story

honestly? really disappointed. at best, the story is promising; i can see what they are trying to do with it. at worst, it is utterly obnoxious; the game thinks it is far smarter than it actually is, plays into the misogynistic tropes that I GUESS it is trying to criticize, and for the first half, it feels aimless and consequently really boring. [spoiler]miyuki is probably the best aspect of this game, but the way she is handled is frustrating. she essentially has her mind broken and is forced to fall in love with the protagonist, and is made aware of the fact that she is in a video game. i think miyuki's jealousy is handled fine; that is not really the problem. but her being forced to be in love with shinichi is barely touched on—it gets a passing comment and that is it. worse, her true good ending has her end up with shinichi, which is apparently something she has always wanted? i definitely did not get that vibe at the start. when she does snap, it is admittedly pretty cool, and i like the scenes where she holds the player captive. i am glad the game does not completely villainize her; even so, i cannot feel satisfied with her writing. aoi is worse. i like her character on paper; i even find some of her scenes cute, but i never feel any real connection to her. she has only one schtick, and she never grows out of it. again, i like the trope of an emotionless character learning to feel, but with aoi, it just did not land; the bond she builds with the protagonist never moved me. so when aoi cheats on shinichi, i felt nothing. her reason for doing it is because she needs to collect cgs to live, and my assumption was that shinichi was neglecting her romantically and sexually, resulting in this. but the game seems scared to make shinichi too unlikable, so it just feels out of left field and like something that could have been easily resolved. maybe i missed something; i am more than happy to admit that. my point is, however, that this plot twist fell flat. it does trigger miyuki's breaking point, but even then... could you not have had miyuki snap in any other way? no, the point of this is to cater to players with a cuckold fetish. it would have been so easy to add more depth to this, but they do not. speaking of fetishes... the sex scenes. oh my god, are the sex scenes bad. i am not the target demographic for this, clearly, but i have read a lot of sexual content and this is honestly some of the worst. porn has truly rotted men's brains; this feels so demeaning as a female reader and, honestly, ridiculous. i do not think it is a bold claim to say this was written entirely by virgins. every sex scene goes on far too long and is always out of place. it actively makes the visual novel worse, and i assumed, at first, that they existed to poke fun at garbage sex scenes in visual novels, but even after the twist, they are still like this. whatever, what can you even say? i do not think there is a single sex scene you cannot skip, but apparently the steam version cuts out enough for it to be confusing. the only sex scene that was almost effective was the final one with miyuki, but i think i had a totally different read than what was intended because i just felt a great amount of pity for her instead of being turned on by the idea of "WAOAHH, SHE'S ACTUALLY HAVING SEX WITH ME." it probably doesn't help that i don't have a penis.[/spoiler] anyway, apart from that... i also had a problem with the language this visual novel used, specifically shinichi's dialogue and inner thoughts. i thought it was a bad translation, but the consensus is that it captures the original text well. it feels... bandkid-esque? does that make sense? whatever; i cannot really put it into words other than that i found it annoying. that is all i can really say right now; the game both underwhelmed and frustrated me. i wish i had enjoyed it more. [spoiler]it is funny; after years of hearing this was a far better visual novel than ddlc, i fear ddlc tackled the idea of a self-aware love interest a lot better, which is probably sacrilegious to some people.[/spoiler] whatever...that was totono, onto something better (hopefully).

唉。被棒子敲了。

你相信永恒的爱吗？

who knew a hentai game could be so emotional 🥹

wanna get zappy? This vn is so good for its time, please play it. i do think the censorship kinda sucks since it does obscure some of the dialogue that is really important to Aoi as a character, although I would still reccomend playing it regardless.

I wish I could play it again. That's all I'll say

优秀的作品，令人真的好想大哭一场

美雪她真的，我哭死

i've never felt so impacted after finishing a game for as long as i can remember, and i'm SO happy i played through it blind, it wouldn't have hit a fraction of the same if i didn't. i've never even played a visual novel before, and i might not play another one after this because i don't know if i'll get the same beautiful satisfaction and grief this game gave me. i've never even written a steam review before, but here i am. i can't even explain what i'm feeling afterwards, like i'm sad but also hopeful but also heartbroken but also like my life was permanently changed. i only finished the game today so call it recency bias if you want, but i feel like this review would be identical 10 years down the line. buy this game, preferably with the DLC patch if possible(and legal), go in blind and DO NOT LOOK ANYTHING UP, and once you complete the game, do as it says, and then just sit there for a bit. you'll be surprised at the takeaways you can come up with in that stupid little gooner brain of yours. son i'm crine. wallahi i'm finished. 10/10

absolute cinema