My deep dive on OFAF, blabbering on about Alto, routes, and favorites

The game features as is what was stated, how Alto's life was thrown on the line because of how she was interwoven into the secrets behind the veil. Sure, it's the course of the bigger things doing their work, but the fact is it slowly dominoed its way to her as people whom she loves and will have come to cherish became and were significant pieces of the chess board. That's the main driving force of the novel, and so perhaps from the description someone might think the storyline will be politically heavy: it isn't. Politics was a mere plot device for the story and its main themes are about one's purpose in life, committing to living everyday to realize it—duty, dreams, filling in that lackluster gap, and rising above your mistakes trying to achieve it. Above all, of course, is love. 

The heart of the story is how this all started because Alto was acting for the people in her life since the start. Enter the time she meets Kisha, then, if you so choose—true to her character, devoting herself to the companionship they had shared through life and death. Or the time she reconciles with her childhood best friend, with whom after all the years they had missed together she gets a surge of this innate vibrancy from, the energy that defines who Alto was first.

The story is as bright as they come, and because of its ladden foundation, as others say, is pretty much straightforward. That's what shaped it for me and what I loved about it.

The framework for the plot was what initially drew me to the game, second its artwork. 

I had to get to the very last route in order to fully appreciate Of Frost and Flowers, and I understand better now why that is as I am leaving this comment. Each route pulsed a life of its own into the story that converges to explain the journey of our main character.

Spoilers below

Kisha's route

I had first started Kisha's route because, come on, blond locks, magenta eyes, saved her from a major fiasco, got the first character appearance, had "hidden agendas"?—he screamed majorly significant. 

I love that Kisha was kind and gentle and thoughtful and gentle and has smiling eyes full of softness. I do. I love kindness in people, above all in romance. I thought somehow, however, is this really convincing? Is this route doing a good job of convincing me of the two of them together? How will this lead from here? 

And then we got to the rising action! The big reveal.

Of course, it still ends with what had attracted Alto to Kisha: the comfort that he offers. I was only able to truly appreciate Alto's perspective of Kisha when I got to Sol's route though, even though I had already initially understood it in all its how's and why's.

Sol's route

Sol's route brings a different dynamic that lives up to the route it represents. Friends-to-lovers. A classic! Here, we see the Zethania's knight for all the she is and could be. Our ol' reliable Alto despite her clumsiness! 

Sol's route peels back her layers. If in Kisha's route we see Alto merely responding to where her choices take her, responding to her feelings for Kisha, responding to find and save her missing best friend—responding from one thing to the next, in Sol's route we see her identity, in all her essence. We see her assertiveness, we see how she had became a knight solely to achieve her goal—we see her in all her sides of different scopes and range. 

We see her capacity, full of assertion, in an environment forged where she can freely make decisions from what she knows she's got laid out on the table. After all, Sol is one of the two persons she knows like the back of her hand. All her innateness comes out. She does not have to figure out anything.

The bickering, the banters, the teasing, and how understandably she and Sol have this soft place reserved for one another whenever they share vulnerable and gentle moments. 

She goes back to being a child with him around, yet she is also Alto after the three years she spent all to save Ellys. Alto is a very capable knight who had risen in ranks because of her natural potential for craftsmanship which got put on the backend because of higher priorities. Alto would have had to learn how to carry herself through situations, Alto is her own person, Alto is of her own sound mind. Alto showed this in Sol's route, with her different childlike gleam sprouting only because it is something that Sol brings out. Alto is Alto.

Alto

Which is why I say I understood Kisha's better, after. It was an advantage to have had the backround context of Kisha's route in doing Sol's as Sol's route expounded a lot more on what went behind-the-scenes, and it also goes the other way around, only it helps us to better understand the Alto from Kisha's route. In fact, it was already stated explicitly by Alto herself: "I should be protecting him, not the other way around. But I have to admit, it does feel nice to be the one protected by someone for once, especially when that someone is Kisha..." 

In Kisha, Alto found someone she can rely on in a way wherein she naturally does not feel the need to shoulder a big responsibility, that she can share it, that she can take and just give back, that she can lean on more than she can do and provide results. After all, as a woman with a practical mind (Sol describing Alto liking method more than freedom, and as is obvious from hobbying crafts which is a practical activity), in order to embody the fortitude to apply herself in situations, she has had to learn what it is like to do it alone. And she did do it alone for three years, with Ellys missing, with Sol going off a different path, and with her supposed execution whilst no one was at her side. Then Kisha came, he saved her, and then someone was at her side taking care of her. 

Kisha was a carer-carer, and Alto was all the more an innocent woman by his side because of this. Alto was co-dependent with Sol, but with Kisha she can be just dependent. Kisha triggers her switch-off button, and I like that because I like the notion of finding someone who brings that kind of comfort for you. 

Alto is herself but softer, and not a watered down version of Alto in Sol's route despite this. It may not initially be obvious, but Alto was still inquisitive and careful, a curtain view of who she is that she has yet to show to Kisha, for after all they had just met.

Additionally, right at the very start in Kisha's route, Alto finds it in herself that she is also a woman. She starts the journey as she relearns herself. Kisha represents who she can be as a person, and this was immediately shown by that stunning painting scene by the meadows—because Alto had forsaken painting, thought it was not in line for her path, and yet it actually was and maybe she's got a chance for that life. Kisha also made it happen—the chance for that life—as he gets to know who Alto always was and who she can further be. 

Lithiel's route

Then there's Lithiel who I found gave me a mix of the previous two. Alto's playfulness and childlike wonder, Alto's assertiveness, Alto's dependency, Alto's wit, Alto's brawn. And more of who he is that we didn't get to see from previous routes. If Sol was the past and Kisha was the future, then Lithiel was the present as by the end Alto finally chose for herself without any explicit romantic notions influencing her choice, not needing to think for the future. The ending of Lithiel's route only displaying vagaries and hints of romance was perfect.

My conclusion

If I were to rank the storylines, I would perhaps say that Sol's would take the cake because of the details and development. It also feels like it is how everything was supposed to go from the start, but it is easier to set that up, having them know each other for years. Lithiel's comes a close second. The two is more dynamic than what I felt was a static turn of events in Kisha's. 

I cannot choose between Kisha and Lithiel's character design, meanwhile. But if I were asked which prospect I love on their own, I would not have an answer because each character is written with complex layers. Kindness and peace do not make Kisha simple, for example. I noticed that he has a different side/s that we didn't get to see in his route from Lithiel's. He once stated that he is a character who usually does not give a care, and it is true that he seemed more quiet than Lithiel's surprisingly loud character. I saw the maturity that he exudes that made Alto rely on him, as well, being the Ellys to Alto and Lithiel's Alto-and-Sol dynamic. 

And also goddamn it may not be apparent from my analysis but I find Kisha HOT.  

All in all, I would have loved to have seen more of these guys!