Blast Damage Days was not made for me, but I enjoyed it well enough.

This project is yet another one with a good emotional core that suffers with its execution. Its most noticeable issue in that regard comes in the form of it coming off as the “poor adaptation” into an interactive medium. Speech tags make an appearance and they look very awkward in textboxes; not to mention, the info contained in many of them is made redundant by the fact this game has voice acting. Something similar happens with visual descriptions of characters readers can already see thanks to the sprites. And finally, long blocks of text that would perhaps come off inconspicuous in regular story, just looking awkward and bulky here, an effect strengthened by the use of NVL.

Other minor issues plague this VN. The writing includes some repetition that makes the prose a little tiring. How the project uses NVL and ADV formats makes for a disorienting experience. And an overuse of namedrops that serve to take the reader away from the story.

Now, there’s another matter here that curbed my enjoyment of BDD. This project was clearly made by and for a specific parcel of the internet, for someone who isn’t there, the experience really soured. This VN uses an abundance of “terminally online” lingo that probably sounds normal to the aforementioned in-group, but made me cringe and uncomfortable. As for those aforementioned namedrops, again, they probably make for this in-group, they alienated me more than anything. I tried not let these reactions colour too much of my review, however, it is a pretty big part of BDD’s identity and must be mentioned.

Even so, this project has a lot to enjoy. The emotional core and the journey the characters go through are grounded, relatable and feel natural. The VAs, especially Kritine’s and Ada’s, did and excellent job on matching these characters’ vibes and everyone aced their deliveries.

Blast Damage Days gave me more to think about then I thought it would. I stand by my opinions while assuring you this project is worth your time. But, do I think it would be better if it “cast a larger net?” I cannot say. I speak of my experience and when it comes to this project, I had a good time.

Blast Damage Days won me over with its humor and the fantastic audio design featuring a killer soundtrack (the credits song!) and full voice acting. Something can also be said for the incredible specificity of the story; the characters basically jump out of the screen thanks to how much care the dynamics between them are sketched out with, and the visual novel's depiction of a time and place, of a social circle, is convincing. It's above everything else fiercely efficient as a shortform work, making every scene and every line count.

That being said, the presentation is quite rough in some ways, and not every aspect comes off as a purposeful extension of the game's enjoyable lo-fi aesthetics. The good: the sprites are incredibly expressive, and I think basically every visual choice made with the designs works. For instance, the eyes alone communicate a lot about the characters – Jane's piercing glare is so good – and the colors feel cohesive. I also think the style just meshes well with the classic VN background filter the game has elected to use, and though the UI design of the menus is pretty messy, the vibes suit what the story is going for.

The less good: though sound is undeniably one of the game's strongest suits, I think things could have been pushed just a little further in a couple of scenes. While the music is super good, I think having voice acting underlines the lack of background ambience in some scenes, the concert in particular. It just sounds kind of weird when a person is speaking but you can't hear other prominent sounds that would diegetically be there, you know?

The writing makes some interesting decisions, like the narrator addressing the reader directly in a couple of places, but I'd describe it as somewhat distant on the whole. There's a lot of explaining what characters are feeling rather than that being conveyed directly through the prose – it's not quite as raw and immediate as what the striking aesthetics demand. Also, I'm not a big fan of the decision to put NVL mode text directly on top of the scene without any kind of overlay, since it's kind of difficult to read. The dialogue-heavy sections could have been reworked to ADV mode anyway, as going back and forth constantly is pretty distracting.

Ultimately a victory for the "je ne sais quoi" conception of what makes art good: despite having numerous nitpicks with the execution, I found the reading experience thrilling in a lot of ways. Good stuff.