Since this is on a game site, I am rating this as a game. The first playthrough...actually the first few playthrus I could not even get through this. The main reason I bought this was how much fun I had with the similar looking "Long Live The Queen". But this isn't much like that at all. There just is barely any game here. I see this touted as a visual novel....well there really isn'tSince this is on a game site, I am rating this as a game. The first playthrough...actually the first few playthrus I could not even get through this. The main reason I bought this was how much fun I had with the similar looking "Long Live The Queen". But this isn't much like that at all. There just is barely any game here. I see this touted as a visual novel....well there really isn't much story either. Dialogue is so generic. It's mostly a lot of awkward pauses and people being rude to your character. Reminds me of your most people play tabletop roleplaying games and what they say to NPCs when they do.
The stats you have and build on....don't seem to do anything. You get to select what class you are taking as an elective a lot and each time that choice determines which of 3 stats go up (unlike the 18 that LLTQ has), But your stats really don't do anything. They need to DO something. THe elective choice really determines who you spend more time with. As each of the other characters in this seem to ONLY spend time in one place the entire game....thus making the world seem unrealistic.
I like that you CAN steer yourself toward relationships with certain people and that is easy enough to do. After one playthrough I got the hang of the goal...."end up with someone". But a lot of time that goal isn't actually finished. BUt at least they wrote an ending for each person and that is satisfying. And your choices DO have effects on other characters. That too is rewarding. But there really needs to be much more of a story. More weaving and intertwining of characters. Since there really is no gameplay there needs to be more goals. Other games add collection type of goals...like Batman even amidst the fighting, has riddles to solve and question marks to collect and plenty of achievements to do. This game needed more achievements and other little things to accomplish on a meta level to go along with the story and that would have easily produced more ideas for sidecontent. But as is almost all of the achievements are which endings you get...aka who you end up with at the end.
The bizarre idea of being at an all-bird school as a human is just so weird but cool and makes wyou want to just start dating birds. But that part of it is really underwhelming. The biggest problem is that almost all of the birds are white. So it's like...oh who's that bird? isn't that the other one? Haven't I met him before? Oh wait this is someone else. Is this a woman or a man? I have no idea. I thought my roommate was a girl. YOU CAN'T TELL! IT'S A BIRD. Making things more complicated is that it uses all Japanese names. Why? It had no reason to. Maybe if the whole bird idea was dropped and it was just a human dating sim story, but there really is no reason for that. Because having Japanese names mames it harder to distinguish if it is a boy or a girl (I almost typed bird or a girl). I guess that's just picky since it is FOR anime fans so I could let that slide but it does complicate matters. The other thing that completely subverts the whooole bird idea is that it provides the option of giving you a portrait of each bird AS A HUMAN. It does this when you meet each one. WHY DOES IT DO THIS? This completely ruins the immersion of being in an allbird school. Why bother with birds then? The thing is....the dating birds thing is the ONLY hook this game has and then it ruins it with that idea. And even while it is breaking the bird immersion it does it poorly because not only do most of the birds appear white but their human potraits look mostly the same too. Thin anime characters with different colored hair. I only used that feature once and never again because it was so wrong for the story and the game.
I did like the characters and their simple stories. I wanted more from ALL of them. If you are going to make a dating sim...why not allow you to go on MORE THAN ONE DATE. Why not let you date multiple people. It's like once you go on one date, then you find out a brooding secret about each person and then that's the end. And therein lies the only actual satisfaction. Trying to get each ending. And it is fast enough to play through the entire game very quickly until you get to a part you haven't seen before. And this is the best gameplay feature. With the simple click of the mouse button (or keyboard type), you can skip through the current bit of dialogue that's scrolling on the screen. That is SO IMPORTANT. Great. So just multiple click through the parts you've seen before! Hold on! there's an even BETTER button. They have a fast forward button! Click it and it zooms through whole sections until you have to make a choice or until it reaches a new chapter. That is so WONDERFUL. They need to use this format to make another much longer and more intricate story because that gameplay suits this kind of game perfectly. However, the amount that is skipped thru just to make your FIRST choice is very telling in how few choices you actually make.… Expand
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