TL;DR, because I wrote half a book;
If you like modern settings and a bunch of humour in between the dramatic/serious plot, I think you’ll like this game!
The (main-)characters are multi-dimensional and the author makes great use of different expressions of their sprites to match whatever is going on at the time. The writing is well done and engaging.
The two love interests differ well from each other and bring an interesting and changing dynamic to the game.
Also, as a personal recommendation; Play Izumi’s route first for extra heart-break feels when you later on go pine for Souma (´v`).
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Warning: Everything below is very detailed and contains spoilers!
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Writing
Your writing really sold it! I don’t remember ever being bored while reading, even when you described their workday – just prior to Flour Hour, I read a VN that was about the MC’s workplace as well, and… yeah, it wasn’t bad, but often dragged on and didn’t really captivate me as you did.
Things like Yuki's humming when specifically frying garlic made me go "aww". It's really nice to see even small things like this or choices I made come up or being referred to again. That really feels like cohesive writing, instead of just random cute moments being strewn in between or choices I only make for the sake of getting points towards a character’s route.
Speaking of choices, it was also nice that you had the chance to pick a third/neutral option several times. It wasn’t always just a stiff choice between one or the other guy. Pretty much all choices also felt very organic to me and fitting to Yuki’s character. It felt nice to see him become bolder towards the end of the game (at least I perceived it as such) and mature along with the story, to be able to stand up for himself.
The small switches in perspective were also neat and short, just to give the reader some insight. Overall, I also think that the pacing was completely on point.
The humour despite all the drama going on was nice and felt mostly natural – and had me laughing a bunch of times. Just Mei’s birthday plans kinda came out of the blue, but I can see that just being part of her character really.
Also. Nyah! (The achievements were a nice touch)
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Art
I’m glad, that the sprites of the three main characters had the same style (and I do like the art and especially all the different, often subtle, expressions). The rest was a bit of a culture shock compared to the main cast, though especially Rei and Mei looked still rather fitting. The only one that jumped right at me, was grandma’s sprite - maybe that’s also because she was pretty huge on the screen (^^’). It was a great touch that you made use of animated emotes for the side characters, though!
The art overall was still very nice to look at, even though the backgrounds had some heavy style-differences and the CGs broke style as well – but they were cute (´v´). As a personal nit-pick though; I didn’t really like Izumi’s blush being so... extreme? He looked like he just had the heatstroke of the century or slammed face-first into a door – Yuki’s and Souma’s blushes were a lot more natural and nicer to look at.
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The Routes
I liked both, honestly. They felt quite different to me, because you wrote the characters well in my opinion – even if they might’ve initially seemed like common tropes, their personalities gained more depth the further I read. The first time I ended up on the neutral (bad) path, when I behaved naturally (aka, here and there be reasonable polite to Souma, but overall preferring Izumi) and had to figure out how to end up on the path I wanted.
I did not experiment too much with it, but it felt like you had to stick nearly 100% to one guy from the start to really get to their (good) endings respectively. That’s something I kind of dislike personally, as I want to make my own choices instead of being forced to sidle up to a character right from the start (especially since you might usually not even really know who you want to end up with when you play it for the first time … and Souma is a bit of an angry, not very likeable, furball to work with in the beginning). However, that is a minor complaint and also it was pretty easy to figure out the correct choices, honestly. So, no sweat there to actually get to the route wanted.
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Izumi
The reason why I picked Izumi’s path first actually, was because I skimmed through the comments before playing and someone mentioned that it ruined Izumi’s path somewhat for them, after seeing his nasty side in Souma’s. I gotta say, I am really glad that I played Izumi’s route first, because knowing what is actually going on in Souma’s route when Izumi keeps vaguely mentioning family problems or helps Yuki secretly was just heart-breaking.
Funnily enough, I was somewhat hoping for Izumi to go full yandere at some point (I just love fictional psychos, sorry lol) since he did have the potential to be quite manipulative, (in theory) if Yuki would stay too neutral, but still ended up on Izumi’s route somewhat – sadly, Yuki lost his marbles and just knifed the prez instead. But that was nice in its own right really. Old man had it coming.
Moving on in the end felt like Yuki maturing and letting go of someone else’s dreams to pursue his own and Izumi finally being free of his own shackles for real, so it felt really satisfying. Also, I liked as well that it wasn’t your “classical” ending, where the “heroes” succeed with the initial goal they had set, but rather evolve along with the story.
I’m not sure how to feel about Izumi’s grandfather trying to patch up things after all the quite terrible stuff that guy pulled… but since it’s been a few years, I can appreciate the sentiment, that even an old man stuck in his own negative mind would want to try and reconnect with his grandson again – eventually.
Regarding Izumi’s personality – how can one not love the guy, despite his lies (T_T)! The sheer amount of work he put in to help Yuki was just so heart-warming and admirable, I can’t even. He felt so genuine and star-struck with Yuki. While it could be a bit off-putting, that he was so incredibly defensive towards Souma… I mean, it makes sense – and Souma really didn’t make it easy, especially at the beginning.
Izumi going hysteric in the bad ends is a bit… yeah, leaves a bad taste. But I think that is intended? He only reacts like that when Yuki basically lies to him, despite the things Izumi has done for him, though, and he’s also a bit more openly emotional than a certain pink haired dude. So, I guess it’s understandable that he flips his sh*t, though it’s a complete 180 without much forewarning.
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Souma
Well, wasn’t he difficult to work with at the start! If I hadn’t tried to get on his route intentionally, I think I would’ve only ended up there initially, cause I’m too nice. I really like that he isn’t just purely a mean guy though, whom Yuki hopelessly pursues – you can sort of tell rather soon, that Souma does care about Yuki and the situation he’s in… but is utterly terrible at wording it and not letting his emotions and frustration get to him. The way he just barges into the shop and picks up the garden work though demonstrates, that he’s sort of better at showing rather than telling.
It's good that Souma comes around on his own (Well, depending on it if Yuki hears him out or not) and admits his faults, owns up to it and really does change his attitude afterwards. The little sweet gestures always made me melt too – Souma towards the end just became more and more of a complete sweet dork (´v`).
In regards to the ending; While Yuki goes to study later on, I’m not sure anymore what happens with the store? It sounded like he kept it at first. So that felt a bit off (only compared to Izumi’s Route, where they yeet the shop immediately), especially since Souma was the one so passionate about Yuki pursuing his own dream.
One thing I guess I would’ve ideally liked, is a possibility in Souma’s route to still stay in contact with Izumi though, after he had done so much to help Yuki out. Made it feel extra sad, that he just sort of faded away with Yuki never really knowing the truth. Then again, I like tragic stuff in fictions, so oh well.
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So.. uh .. I ended up writing two pages in Word for the review. I’m sorta sorry for the long wall of text like that, but I mean what I said – I really enjoyed it!
Thank you for putting in the work and making this a very enjoyable Visual Novel to play!
I think I’ll go check out some more of your stuff down the line~