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Alright, I remember this game from years ago, and I decided to check on an update, only to find that the game had been canceled. I figured something would happen when a game made by a group of people with progressively more busy lives would fall apart. So I started to look around and see if someone actually decided to continue it, and lo-and-behold, I found this. And I have to say, I like what I see for the most part. Rather than just say "good job," I figured I'd give some feedback so you don't end up in the same boat as the original creators where they were just trying to "finish" the routes and there were some rather... Dubiously written parts shall we say.
I'll start with the actual good parts because I think this should be addressed first. As no one likes to hear a seemingly negative rant at the start.
Good points:
+ Rewritten routes are generally much better than the original versions of the game. Konosuke seems to be a much better character in his scenes rather than just a character that everyone seems to take a dump on-- which led me to wonder why this guy even bothers remaining friends with them in the original. It's clear that his route is going to focus more on him trying to actually win that contest with Hiroyuki being an assistant rather than just seemingly random events that are placed haphazardly with a contest in the background. So in this case, we actually get to play a game where we get to know the character better, and see them in a positive light in everyone's route. Regardless of the character. Torahiko and Kyoji actually have some scenes here. And most of them fit right in with other scenes.
+ Hiroyuki is a better character. He is a much more mundane character with no outstanding traits, which makes this a much better avatar for the player without being nearly as idiotic or intrusive as the original Hiroyuki. More pressingly, his inner monologues are far less perverted and sound more like a sane person than a creeper. This is a massive step-up, as I remember Hiroyuki being an annoying clingy character that lusted after characters constantly. It was actually incredibly disturbing, especially in Shun's route. Which leads me to my next point.
+ Most tweaks in routes are actually good: I cannot stress this enough, as most of the time character centered scenes now focus on the character's positive traits rather than their negative traits, or simply go somewhere rather than just being played for laughs. Torahiko being thrown is sort of comical, but it also has some serious undertones with Hiroyuki feeling rather uncomfortable about this-- which makes the explanation for why Juuichi does it to Torahiko so much in his route make a bit more sense. He does it because Torahiko has become more physical with recently instead of characters just shrugging it off and saying "HAHAHA! That's Juuichi!" We also had a serious scene between Hiroyuki and Tatsuki about the physical assault-- and while a huge damper on the scenes with the character at the start, I feel that it's actually good to address this considering that it *should* have been in the original (however, I'm not sure I like the way this is handled, but I'll get to that in a minute).
+ Shun's character is improved, as he actually seems like he's 16, and actually makes sure that people know it. He's also far less childish. The camp scene between Hiroyuki and Shun is hilarious, in the original, it's incredibly uncomfortable. This was a good choice with the character.
+ Juuichi's brother actually exists. I always thought that was stupid to put a character in a game and then have him not present at all. Even in his brother's route.
+ More music is always nice. I felt that the original version of the game was a bit limited in the musical selection. While it's understandable because they did not actually have a musician on the team I believe, it's still a depressingly small set in the original.
Mixed Bag
* I'm not fond of the stance you've taken with almost every route with : there's a problem, and with the help of Hiroyuki, he helps the character to solve it, and they eventually fall in love-- no, they were ALWAYS in love. The best demonstration I can think of is Tatsuki's scenes. The "stop doing alcohol" is needlessly tacked on. I'm just going to flat out say it, but it seems like a really naive thing to tell Tatsuki that he's an alcoholic because he drinks with his father. Him being out of control and a sexual deviant when he drinks is a problem, I agree, but what irritates me is the explanation you have him give when for why he drinks. "My friends don't like me when I'm not drunk." That's an incredibly lackluster excuse, as he has several scenes with people where he gets along with them perfectly fine. Shun and Torahiko for starters, and at the camping trip, he's fine there with everyone as well as the beach. And he certainly wasn't drunk there the whole time. It literally makes no sense, and serves to add nothing to the plot. All that needed to be done was simply tell him to tone that nonsense down. Of which Tatsuki's explanation could have been more along the lines of "I'm sorry, I was just so excited you came back, I know that's not an excuse, but there you have it." All this excuse given in game does, is serve to say "these characters aren't friends." Which is bad, because this really makes the game feel less "magical" you know? The only people that really felt this way in the original was Kouya, and that's largely because of the "true friends" comment, which seems to have been more of a clunky choice of words than the fact that he wasn't friends with the others-- as he DID invite everyone to the show in the end of his route. These aren't terrible necessarily, but I do feel like they are missteps in the writing.
* Not sure why Hiroyuki suddenly aged up in this version. He was a 2nd year, which effectively made him going into his junior year. He's in the 17 years old camp. Why is it his last year for high school? Torahiko is the same age as Hiroyuki, and yet, it almost seems like you've made Torahiko younger than Hiroyuki, as we know that he's younger than Juuichi. So what's going on here? This was not an issue in the original version of the game, but it is now. In the original it was really clear. 1st years: Sou and Shun. 2nd years: Hiroyuki, Torahiko, Kouya (who is apparently a drop-out), Kounosuke, and Shin. 3rd years: Juuichi, and Kyoji. The only one that had graduated was Tatsuki. If he's not supposed to be, the dialogue is kind of murky about this.
* Not sure how I feel about the usage of the choices for where you're going. It makes them incredibly random on a first playthrough "I have errands to run" well okay, that's fine, but can I at least have an indicator who I'm going to meet? I get why you did it, because in real life you can't pinpoint who you're going to meet, but the problem is that I can't even take a guess at who I'm going to meet because I have no idea where I'm even going. I'd say either have the indicators always there, or at least have a locator on the map to indicate where I'm going. That sounds like a fair compromise.
Bad
- Overuse of random capitalization. The characters have character mugs to do most of the expressing for the characters. In an actual novel, this would be done by describing the way the character looks in conjunction with descriptor words. It's by no means necessary to have a character have random words in the sentences be capitalized. That literally would mean that the character yelled only that word. "We will WIN!" If I remember correctly, that was a line, and it seems ridiculous to have someone yell win even louder than before. Utilize capitalization like that very frugally. Over usage is not only jarring, but has the uncanny effect of desensitizing the audience.
- Kouya: this character already had problems with his route. A lot of problems. Not nearly as terrible as Shun's or Kou's or even Shin's route, but still a lot of problems. For starters, having him say that everyone besides Shun and Kyoji piss him off is pretty ridiculous. If that's the case, why even bother to hang out with them? There are about 7 people there generally and he dislikes more than half of them. This makes him some kind of stupid. And it still seems like you're doing the route where Kouya has a part-time job at a music store and stupidly struggles in his life despite the fact that his dad just wants the best for him. Now that you've added more negative things about Kouya, he's shaping up to be the worst character out of the bunch by far. This wasn't just kind of bad in the original, it was horrendous. And ignores a lot of things like... Uh... Being able to get an apartment at that age and pay for things. They have to know how old he is. You can't get an apartment at his age. There's just several things that are disasters in this route, and rather than rectifying them, you've exacerbated them. Making his character astoundingly bitchy still-- "why didn't you call us these 5 years?" Well okay, let me ask this Kouya, why didn't he send a letter. What, is he illiterate? This shouldn't come up in any routes. It seemed like it was moved from Shin's, as I do remember that being there as well, but it's still there for Kouya's which makes him seem like more of a jerk now.
My final statement is that it'll probably be pretty good, and that you should keep up the good work, but it seems like Kouya's route is going to be the "avoid it like the plague" route instead of Shun. As I still found the route to be kind of lackluster with Kouya's band mates carrying the route. That's not good at all.
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