Okay, I gotta apologise for my recent absence. In my head, I knew that August was gonna be a busy month for the industry, so I read and made notes waiting for more of the hotbutton releases to come out and for me to publish them first to ride the popularity. As many of you would know, however, August was a month of delays, so I’ll be putting out 3 reviews fairly quickly to compensate. Those will be, in order of release, Fureraba, Sanoba Witch and Dracu-Riot. So, lets get into Fureraba

Synopsis:
Aoba Kyousuke wants a girlfriend!!! Yeah, join the club brother, we have jackets. He wants to find that special someone to spend his Summer break with. Only problem is, he’s childish, perverted and obnoxious. How will he overcome the glaring issues in his personality? By calming the fuck down and holding regular conversations with people. So, he sets his gazes on any woman with a pulse to start with but finds himself drawn to 4 particular women. So, who will he confess to before the Summer Holidays start?

The Art:
The art in this game is… unique. And not an a wholly good way either. The art has this crude feeling that works with the sprites themselves, but some CG’s, in particular the HCG’s, are weird. Also, one more comment on the HCG’s, guys, stop drawing penises. I mean, seriously, just stop. This might be a hot take, but I prefer the mosaics on h-scenes as many studios don’t draw penises well, at all. So, if you look at a HCG and go, “This is great, but what’s this worm thing in the bottom left hand corner, what’s that all about?” and your artist looks back at you and goes “What do you mean? That’s his penis.” Just slap mosaics over it and never look back. Overall, the art is good, but is one of the weaker parts of the game.

The Story:
If you haven’t noticed the theme already, I very rarely review anything with a coherent plot, it’s all just written so you get to see as much of the girl you like as you feasibly can. So, Smee skipped the whole fucking around and made a dating sim style route selection system, where during school breaks you pick the girl you want to talk to and make conversation to build a stronger bond with them, culminating in a confession scene after a date. There will be small scenes as you progress with a certain girl that shows more tailored encounters between Kyousuke and your chosen girl. Overall, it’s a nice and organic way of making it happen, and I liked this approach. Walkthrough highly recommended though.

The Characters:
Aoba Kyousuke: The protagonist. As I previously mentioned, he’s childish, obnoxious at times and perverted. He shapes up fairly well throughout the routes, but in common he’s something of a nightmare. It’s a good thing you can control just about everything that comes out of his mouth during common.

Hiiragi Yuzuyu: The short tempered, feisty classmate of Kyousuke, who he endlessly teases, provoking violent reactions from Yuzuyu. She claims to hate men, but she actually just doesn’t understand them. She has a hard time trusting people because of some dickheads in her past. An avid swimmer, she spends her club time setting records among the swim team in the lanes of the school pool. She becomes very sweet during her route, showering Kyousuke in affection and love.

Minahara Himari: The childhood friend of Kyousuke who lost contact with him when he and his Mother moved into a new apartment and they went to different middle schools. She tells Kyousuke that she once had a crush on him and it confuses him as to why she never said anything. Himari and Kyousuke reconnect and as Kyousuke tries to deepen his relationship with her, Himari realises that her feelings of love for him are coming back, but she’s ready to accept them this time. She’s a big movie buff and loves to stay at home and watch movies in her spare time. She spends a lot of the route learning about Kyousuke’s new habits and interests.

Mochizuki Rina: A friend of Kyousuke who’s been with him since middle school. She loves video games, fashion, arcades and sports. She’s viewed as some sort of paragon of femininity amongst her classmates, but Kyousuke only sees her as an annoying friend at first. Slowly, through talking with her, he realises that he loves her and that his way of thinking before was skewed by unfounded biases he held. During the route, Rina craves nothing but affection from Kyousuke, which he is more than happy to give her. She is quite skilled in matters of the house and lives alone, and Kyousuke finds himself spending more and more time with her at her apartment, basically living with her.

Sawatari Misaki: The super popular upperclassman to Kyousuke. She’s quite a shy girl and struggles to converse with people due to her shyness. While she might be popular, she lacks any real friends and Kyousuke tries his hardest to give her someone she can talk to about everything, which leads to love blossoming. The school has the false notion that she is from some super rich family, but her family actually own a small greengrocer and sell cheap fruits and vegetables. A lot of her classmates hate Kyousuke for constantly talking to her and have convinced themselves that he is deceiving her into being his girlfriend. She is quite devoted to Kyousuke in the route, and they share many more scenes with Kyousuke’s group of friends as his way of trying to give her a friendship circle.

Other Stuff:
The mini fandisk: the scenes are pretty good, even if they are short. It’s a bit of setup, followed by a h-scene. It’s nice to have a little bit more, but I paid $10AUD for it, and I dunno if it was fully worth it.
The Common Route: it was done well for this style of writing. With no conflict in the routes, having them become attracted by talking with one another was a fairly nice way of handling it.

Conclusion:
Because the routes are just scenes with the girl you like, there’s no reason to really rank the routes separately, so I’ll just give you one ranking
Ranking:
Yuzuyu>Rina>Himari>Misaki

Overall, Fureraba is a nice read, it was fluffy and nice, but didn’t do anything special that invoked any sort of special feeling within me, that being said, I really do enjoy fluffy romance stuff, so it still ranks fairly highly at a 8/10.
Well, until next time, which should be in a few days, if not a week
Shitler Out.

Alright, Hoshi Ori review. To those of you who read this review, you probably met me through the Discord server that Triplicate set up to discuss the vn while he was translating it. To you, I welcome you and think I must preface this with a little disclaimer as to a bias I have that may or may not influence the rating. I feel a very deep connection with this game that I don’t feel is entirely due to the game. The community in Tripland has been amazing, and I’ve had a fantastic time interacting with just about all of the people there during the course of the translation and after the fact. So when I start gushing about how much I love this game, just keep in mind I had a very different experience with this game than most will. That being said, I’ll try to keep my opinions as neutral as possible. Here we go.

Synopsis: Hino Ryousuke moves back to Shionagi after moving away with his parents a few years ago. He moves into his parents newly built house to live by himself for some time while they finish of their business elsewhere. Ryousuke is excited to move back into his hometown. Before long, he reunites with two of his old friends and makes some new ones along the way. Now in the throes of working against time to try and convince two clubs to join in the Tanabata festival, Ryousuke finds himself getting closer to this new group of friends. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll get even closer with one of them.

The Art:
I said how much I loved Under One Wing’s art style, and while Hoshi Ori doesn’t do it in the style department, it does in the design department. All the sprites and CG’s look great because they have a tone that works (pun intended) and it makes the game feel warm and homey, which works for how the routes play. It doesn’t look stunning like Under One Wing, but it really works for the game and I love it.

The Story:
The plotline changes in events depending on the route, yet they all fit into the same theme, getting the Naturalist and Astronomy club’s Tanabata displays ready. Typically, the preparations for the festival will change so that as much of your selected girl is involved, and if they happen to be members of one of the previously mentioned clubs, then there’s a lot of depth into the setup for that club’s display. Where this game really breaks the mould is with its after content. Each girl has two separate arcs, one during high school, with focus around the Tanabata festival and the arc typically ending just after the school’s festival is done. The second arc is them after High School, continuing life as a happy couple going on with their lives. This arc will end in a marriage (ceremony, not just a proposal) or parenthood, with Ryousuke having varying degrees of success as an architect.

The Characters:
Hino Ryousuke (or whatever you called him): He’s so much fucking better than the previous Tone Work’s protagonist, where it was a lucky dip as to how brain dead he was at any one given time. Ryousuke has this can-do attitude and refuses to give up in the face of adversity and through sheer stubbornness manages to move the story along nicely. Overall, pretty good protagonist, nothing to really complain about.

Narusawa Rikka: A stand-offish person in Ryousuke’s new class. She plays piano by herself in one of the music rooms during her breaks and doesn’t really interact with anyone, despite attempts from Segawa Natsuki. Ryousuke manages to convince her to come on a camping trip with the other characters in an attempt to convince the non-participating clubs to join in the festival. On her route, she plays into the classic coodere, becoming very love-struck with Ryousuke, to extreme degrees. Her after is tied into her route’s plot, so I won’t spoil much but I will say that the relationship between her and Ryousuke doesn’t let up in its sweetness in the after arc.

Okihara Misa: A bubbly and over excitable senpai to Ryousuke who is the sole member of the Naturalist Club. She loves the ocean, having grown up around fish with her father being the director of a now closed aquarium, Marinpia Shionagi, Misa dreams of one day re-opening the aquarium and showing others how wonderful sea life is. She’s very passionate about the ocean and its critters and loves telling people about sea life. During her route, there’s a lot of fluff, like, a lot. Her after’s start might make you think that the saccharine tone of the first arc might not carry over, but after about 20 minutes, it returns. Both arcs are very comfy and enjoyable.

Ousaka Sora: a blunt and non-talkative kouhai of Ryousuke who is the only member of the Astronomy Club. She is often found peering at the sky through a telescope on the roof of the school after classes. She answers in short sentences, often only using head gestures and single words to respond, but this doesn’t mean she dislikes taking to people. She has a wish to re-unite with a boy who helped her when she got lost at the cities Tanabata festival as a little girl (Once again, I wonder who that could fucking be). Her school arc has a lot of focus on her realising what she wants to do after school and overcoming some personal boundaries that are stopping that (don’t worry too much about it, it’s nothing major). Her after is top fucking notch. You know it’s serious because I punctuated it with a swear word. Seriously, some of the best developments to come from a heroine and Ryousuke. Great stuff.

Segawa Natsuki: a highly energetic and persistent member of Ryousuke’s class and one of the members of the Grad Alb Club which take moments of school life and collate them into year books for those that graduate from the school. She’s an absolute nut for photography and takes photo’s every spare second she gets. She’s more than willing to help Ryousuke in his efforts to get the Naturalist and Astronomy clubs to participate and helps him out along every step of the way. In her route, Shuuichi (An old friend of Ryousuke’s and the head of the Event Management Committee, which Ryousuke joins) makes Ryousuke tag along with Natsuki during her Grad Alb work as repayment for the time she spent helping him. She’s quite reserved with her affections for Ryousuke after they start dating as a juxtaposition of her regular personality. The route itself is good, with a nice mix of sugary sweetness and serious stuff. Both arcs are like that, but her route is shorter than all the others, which is a shame as I quite liked her as a character and would have loved to have had more time with her route.

Shinozaki Marika: the easily embarrassed and overly sweet childhood friend of Ryousuke who joins the Event Management Committee with him when he moves back to Shionagi. She’s fairly obviously in love with our boy Ryousuke from the start, yet the route takes a decent amount of time to set up Ryousuke’s feelings so that it feels less rushed. Her route has the best Tanabata festival display by far and is heavily focused on bringing both club’s efforts together into one amazing display. Her route is very homey, with a pretty large focus on Markia’s family dynamic as she suffered from extreme asthma as a child. Her after arc is considerably better than her school arc in my opinion, and her wedding scene is one of the better ones in the game.

Yukimura Touko: Trash.
Not enough? Fine.
She embodies the phrase ‘cat-like’. She’d rather spend her day sleeping in a warm place by herself than having any real involvement with anything as she is driven extremely by her whims. She’s badgered by the sports clubs as she’s exceptionally good at physical activity despite being very lazy. She moves around constantly due to her parent’s work and has come to terms with not making friends and spending time by herself. Her school arc focuses on Ryousuke very carefully dismantling these walls she put up around herself in an effort to get closer to her and her after is about her finding a place for herself at Ryousuke’s side. As you can probably gather from my opening statement, I didn’t like her. At all. The lazy, whim driven character irks me to no end, and while she was written to be #relatable, she ended up being #iwanttofuckingneck. Her school arc is easily the worst in the game, but her after is begrudgingly okay. Her CG’s are also above the game’s average.

Length:
The vn is long if you want to read each route, but if you’re only in it for one or two of them, then you won’t have to spend long with it. To read all the routes it took me around 55-60 hours, so there’s quite a bit here for you to enjoy.

Other stuff:
Music: Hoshi Ori accomplished something I never thought would happen. It compelled me to listen to one of the final music tracks. The music is actually amazing, which is something I’d never really say about a vn.
After Arcs: After reading Hoshi Ori, I wonder why more vn’s don’t do the whole expanded after thing. It adds so much more to the experience of actually being invested in the relationship between MC and the girl.

Conclusion:
I’ll do it a bit differently here, I’ll rank the school arc, after arc and girls in descending order.
Girls:
Rikka>Sora>Misa>Natsuki>Marika>>Touko
School Arc:
Rikka>Sora>Misa>Natsuki>Marika>>Touko
After Arc:
Sora>Rikka>Misa>Marika>Natsuki>Touko
Final ranking:
I think some of the magic died on this full re-read, but it’s still really up there in my eyes. 8.5/10 for me on this one.

Alright, that does it. Until next time, Shitler out.

So, this isn’t exactly what you came here for, but as I’m going back over Dracu-Riot and Noble Works, I felt that I had a lot to say about Yuzusoft as visual novel developers and their particular style of writing. I promise I’ll have an actual review out by the end of the weekend, probably on Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai as I’ve been steadily re-reading routes in that game for the past few months. Now, just for a random collection of thoughts on Yuzusoft.

First I’ll come out with a positive for Yuzusoft and say that I have never disliked a game that they have put out (and is in English, which would be Dracu-Riot, Noble Works and Sabbat of the Witch, of which I have read all.) and I like their approach to characters and the story in general. There’s just enough common route to get a feel for the characters but not enough to feel like it drags out, the routes have a decent balance of drama and fluff and most of their characters I really like. Most of the routes are different enough to make you want to read more without diverting too heavily from whatever premise they’ve set up for the plot. This leads me into the massive negative I have with them.

Their visual novels are so fucking cookie cutter it’s ridiculous. By cookie cutter I mean that all their vn’s in particular are basically the same framework copy pasted over and over again. Let me show you what I mean. Go down this list and if you can spot one of the 3 games in English that doesn’t have one of these, then write me an angry comment about how I’m misguided.

The main heroine will be very sensible, often diffusing ridiculous scenarios with common sense but will become overwhelmingly lovestruck with the MC

There will be a character with massive boobs that will be the subject of a few jokes

There will be a character who acts perverted and will make dirty jokes

There will be one heroine who is left out of getting a main route but will receive side-route treatment (sometimes it’s not even someone you see for most of the fucking game, looking at you Noble Works)

There will be a loli (not a massive gripe, gotta pander to everyone but it still furthers my point)

There will be an adult character who serves the greater plot, typically by imparting knowledge or by giving orders

See? They’re all strikingly similar in their structure. Now, you might say “Well Shitler, point me to a visual novel that doesn’t have some of these factors.” And, yeah, you’re correct, all visual novels I can think of have one or two of these points at least. But considering how vastly different each game’s setting is, going from vampire high school with government conspiracies to witches are real and there’s a bunch of stuff revolving around emotions, to it’s a high school but for really wealthy families, you’d think that they could mix up the formula a bit and try something new.

That being said, I don’t think this style is a bad thing. It goes to show that once a studio finds their groove, they can produce some really good products. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke, I guess. I just find that when I’m going into a Yuzusoft title, I feel a sense of déjà vu and I can almost predict what character will act which way, how they will conform to the tropes set out by previous Yuzusoft vn’s. It’s not an inherently negative thing, but nor is change. I’ll bring up Tone Work’s as an example for this. Hatsukoi 1/1 was, in every aspect of the word, mediocre. It had some good writing, but also some really garbage writing. Some good characters, and some characters I didn’t care for. Then, enter stage right, Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai. Great writing, great characters (minus one, but I’ll cover that later) and all round, one of the best vn experiences I’ve had in a while.

My final thoughts on the matter are simply this:
There will come a time where this formula no longer works, and they will have to change it, its simply a matter of time. While Tone Work’s was more or less forced in the direction of change, Yuzusoft has been able to maintain the same parabolic arc of success over their past titles. Now it’s simply a matter of time before they start to drop. But then again, Senren Banka comes out within the next year (don’t make me eat those words NekoNyan) so we’ll see if this criticism holds up then. It won’t be long before the next review is out, I just have to finish Rikka route again before I start writing the Hoshi Ori review. Until then, Shitler out.

I feel like I owe you all an apology for taking this long to put out this review. Sankaku Renai was fun, and I would like to preface this entire review with a massive disclaimer. I think that Sankaku Renai is a good game, yet to me, I feel as though the game was never really going to appeal to me on a level like some other games. I didn’t think it was gonna be bad, and it isn’t, but the game is hitting a demographic that I’m not part of, and if someone outside of the demographic can still look at the game and admit that it’s good, I think that should speak for its quality. So, just remember that when I give my score, its subjective. Alright, same structure as before, let’s go.

Synopsis: Komorie Sousuke is living in a house with his Father, Stepmum and Stepsister. His father and mother split back when he was young, and his old family was split apart with him going with his father, and his biological sister going with their mum. He has a strong bond with his new family and loves his stepsister, Komorie Nanaru, like he loved his real sister Suzu. But surprise! Suzu is coming back to live with them. Now, having her position as favourite sister compromised, Nanaru becomes jealous and our first love triangle is formed. The other love triangle is between Sousuke’s long-time childhood friend Narutaki Maho and perverted senpai who loves eroge (get used to the meta game, she’s Deadpool levels of 4^th wall fuckery) Kisu Shiina. What triangle will Sousuke fall into, who’s hearts will he break?

The Art:
It’s nothing special, but not bad either. Most of the sprites are well drawn with a decent level of stylistic depth. They all feel like they belong to the game, is what I’m trying to get at, like, the world and characters all look and feel similar which helps build a world. But here is where I have my first complaint. Whoever drew Shiina was trying to hamstring the horse out of the gate. She looks the worst of any of the heroines because of this massive fucking forehead that makes her look like she’s gained a few more chromosomes over the years.

The Story:

Is non-existent. This game is a comedy, there is no real plot to cover in any level of detail, but given that the game commits to this, I feel as though its fine. From the very start of the game you can see that the game is taking the piss and, for the most part, it does this really well. But I do have a problem with how the routes work with this level of humour. The common route has the humour and that works well, we’re still trying to get invested in characters. But when on the routes, it feels as though the only significant thing that happens on them is the sex, and even then, its riddled with jokes. It felt like there should have been some character development, but the routes didn’t provide that in any serious capacity. Yet, that’s what the game is marketed as, and for those who are looking for a non-stop joke barrage, the game offers that.

The Characters:

Sousuke: As far as protagonists go, he’s pretty mediocre. He’s slightly perverted and favours dirty jokes to the meme references. He acts like a comedy protagonist, so don’t expect him to be a paragon of society or anything.

Shiina: A senpai who loves eroge and who fell in love with Sousuke at first sight. She doesn’t hesitate to bring up the fact she likes Sousuke and is very invasive into people’s personal space and continually tries to get Sousuke to go on a date with her, although is easily embarrassed when on the receiving end. She says how she doesn’t have many friends and that she feels happier now with Sousuke and his club friends than she has during any other summer.

Nanaru: The stepsister. She loves teasing Sousuke, and while they share a lot of interests and joke around with each other a lot, Nanaru has a bit of a jealous streak when Sousuke and Suzu spend time bonding together. She is into an anime about idols and fantasises about them while watching. She is also quite perverted and makes dirty jokes with Sousuke a lot.

Suzu: The actual sister. After their parent’s divorce, Suzu was forced to split from her brother who she loved very much. Keeping the vow in her heart to be reunited with Sousuke, she jumped at the chance to live with him again, only to find he has a new sister. Shocked to see his interests so heavily aligned with Nanaru’s, she is quite reserved around him and tried to respect the bond the two of them have, although feels jealous of Nanaru.

Maho: The childhood friend. Maho has been friends with Sousuke for quite some time and has always been there for him when he needed it after his Father’s remarriage. Addicted to fighting games, she spends all her time in the club playing them and challenging Sousuke to games. She becomes quite peeved when Shiina makes advances on Sousuke under the guise that “it disrupts the club” but even a brain-dead troglodyte can see she actually just likes Sousuke and is jealous. The game alludes to something having happened in the past between Sousuke and Maho about Sousuke confessing to her but her turning him down.

Length:

The game is around 13 hours or so in length, with the common route being the majority of the length, but this time it actually works in the game’s favour.

My feelings:

Instead of doing a whole miscellaneous thing, I feel like I need to talk about my stance on the game. I, in no way, hate this game. I think the memey comedy and non-serious tone works well and is as the game is marketed as. However, I knew going into this that I wasn’t gonna have a strong opinion of the game, as half the game is sister routes. I have an inherent bias against sister routes, as the immorality of it isn’t a turn on for me, and is, in most cases, a turn off. That being said, I still do have the capacity to like sister routes if the game makes me invested in the bond between the brother and sister pairing, such as in Chrono Clock. That being said, this game doesn’t really do serious character development beyond the whole confession stuff. And I think that’s a shame. In both triangles, the build up to the confession was superb, it felt like there was an actual story happening and it breathed fresh life into the game, yet after that, the game just fucking drops all the tension that could have been used for actual meaningful character development and focuses on the h-scenes for basically the entirety of the route. Even then the game still makes constant jokes during the sex itself. And this, dear readers, is the crux of the issue. This game is a comedy. It makes no attempt at branding itself as a serious game in any way, shape or form, and maybe that’s just not what I wanted. I have no faults with the game as a whole, in fact I think its quite good, but as an experience, it really isn’t what I was looking for from the game, and that entirely lies with me. If you’re looking for a comedy experience that uses memey humour to get a laugh and has some romance aspects, I think you’ll find yourself really enjoying this game. But, at the end of the day, the rating for this game is subjective and is based in my opinion. I think it’s a shame Asa Project relegated this game to being just a comedy, as they clearly have the writing talent to create a semi-serious game as the confession build up, which some games completely fail at, was actually really good. Yet, the final product we got was by no means bad but feels like a waste of potential.

Conclusion:

Girl rankings,

Maho > Nanaru > Suzu > Shiina

Route rankings,

Maho > Nanaru > Suzu > Shiina

Overall rating.
It pains me to give something like this such a low score, but it just really wasn’t what I wanted out of it, but that is entirely me. The game accurately marketed what it was, yet I expected more than that. My fault entirely, and if you’re just here for the comedy and romance, then the game could easily be an 8/10 for sure. Yet, if you find memey humor and a lack of cohesive plot a massive turn off, it could easily be a 2/10. My final rating for Sankaku Renai is a 6.5/10. It had something and the common route was funny and made me laugh, but it was a flash in the pan and I found that the entire experience was pretty lacking in substance. Until next time, Shitler out.

So, now that Under One Wing is done, I’m considering waiting for Sankaku Renai to come out Friday and then blasting through it on the weekend to have the review out on Monday or late Sunday, or going back and re-reading Dracu-Riot. Either way, both of these will be coming out at some point, so stay tuned for those.

Okay, so I blasted through Under One Wing in 2 days, partially due to the length of the vn but also because I really enjoyed it. I have a lot of good to say about this one, but it isn’t without flaws. Before I jump into the review, I wanted to just go over what I’m going to address in all the reviews. I will talk about the art, the story, the characters and the length as a base line, and then I’ll just have a miscellaneous section where I talk about other stuff I enjoyed. I’ll finish of the review with a ranking system of the girls and their routes and then a final rating out of 10. Without further ado, onto the review.

Synopsis: Sasaki Junichi has transferred into Tsubasa Dorms to start anew. Being the grandson of a legendary Fairy Fighter, there’s a lot of expectation from those who don’t know him to be a great pilot. His Grandmother gave him her plane, a rare model World War 2 plane, a Shinden. At Tsubasa Dorms, which his Grandmother also runs, Junichi meets the heroines of the story as he gets used to living with women his age for the first time. Naturally, this process isn’t smooth at first, but as it is with all these visual novels, he has the chance to grow close to one of these females. Question is, who does he want to fly beside?

The Art:

Holy shit this game is gorgeous. The art in this game is so uniquely stylised and looks amazing. All the sprites and CG’s are amazing. They all have this sheen to them that makes it almost feel metallic, yet when put next to the planes, they feel natural and full of life. Honestly, I have no complaints about the art and I’ve never seen a game that’s made me want to hunt CG’s. Yet, surprisingly, this leads me onto a problem with the game that I’ll cover later. However, as far as art direction goes, Under One Wing is one of the most beautiful games I’ve played.

The Story:

The story is well set up in the common route, and each route feels like it could be the intended ending, which is always a positive. The story centres around the Tsubasa Dorm members banding together to form a Fairy Fight team. Lead by Jinno Nahoko, the Student Council President and Residential Assistant of the dorms, she convinces Junichi and the others to help her in her endeavour. You are introduced to all the girls fairly early on, with Junichi meeting Hikari and Nahoko first, followed by Kazusa shortly after and then Mimari a bit later. I guess now is the time to address a few issues I have with the game. Okay, first off, the Fairy Fights themselves, for how centric they are to the plot, fuck they’re boring to read. Now, I get that action is hard to convey as epically as you could with film, but you do have the power of pictures. So when half of the fights is just Junichi talking to himself in his cockpit, it kills it. Secondly, the game suffers in the pacing department. Under One Wing is already pretty short, but its even more of an insult to the player when it feels like common route drags on for years and then the routes are over in what feels like a microsecond. Less common route, more heroine route. Okay? Okay. Glad we got that straight.

The Characters:

Okay, I’ll go over them individually and give you a brief rundown of their character and if I liked them in their route or not. I will also do a bit on Junichi because a good protagonist can carry shitty heroines.

Sasaki Junichi: The protagonist. He’s very selfless and quite caring. He acts like quite the gentleman but its also clumsy in his approach at times. As with nearly all protagonists, he’d rather deal with a problem himself than just go to someone for help. Thankfully, the heroines are very supportive of him and he does open up and go to them for help after some common route drama. He carries responsibility and doesn’t rush into things without having thought about how it will affect others. Overall, he’s a pretty good protagonist and I haven’t got any major complaints, but I haven’t got much to praise him for. He won’t make you pop a blood vessel at the very least.

Hirosawa Hikari: The cute airhead. You all know the trope, cute and bubbly, always with a smile and jumps around like a child. Hikari has an ungodly amount of plane knowledge stored in her brain and loves planes the most. She works hard and has only had her plane, an A6M5 Type 0 Model 52, for a short time before Junichi got to the dorms. She fell in love with the zero because of a boy who gave her a toy Zero when she was young. I fucking wonder who that could be. Her route is easily the worst one in the game, but it’s not bad by any means. The ending was a little unsatisfying but the scenes between Hikari and Junichi were still really good.

Jinno Nahoko: The mischievous but reliable Student Council President. She has a habit of manipulating people into giving out information unwillingly. She has this cold demeanour and carries herself with confidence but is actually quite fragile. She has a unique route, in the fact that it takes a bit of time for her and Junichi to actually get together. It’s an interesting dynamic so I won’t spoil much more, but I do wish that it was a bit shorter and we got more cute Nahoko scenes. The Fairy Fight was good and is up there in terms of the fight scenes, although as I stated before, it still wasn’t that exciting. The fight was unique, and it wasn’t that bad, so I see this as an absolute win.

Matsumoto Mimari: The quiet and cold one. She is quite a unique member of the Dorm crew and she arrives at the dorm under sketchy circumstances that Nahoko can’t divulge to the others. She has a unique fascination with Junichi’s Shinden and flying with it in her Spitfire. This is all revealed in her route and since I want you people to actually read it, I won’t spoil why. As far as her route goes, it is quite enjoyable and the entire drama around the route is solved in a satisfying way and was quite humorous. The scenes between Junichi and Mimari are very cute and I think my blood sugar level increased just from reading them.

Sakaki Kazusa: The classic tsundere. She has a harsh way of speaking but cares deeply about everyone at the dorm. She’s got a jealous side that is really explored in her route. There isn’t much else to say, she’s the most straight forward character. Her route is great, all of it is. The scenes between her and Junichi are some of the best in the game, her drama is portrayed well and has a satisfying and well-paced solution and the Fairy Fight is satisfying as far as they go. The route really focuses on the relationship between Junichi and her more than the others, but thankfully they didn’t waste it on a trash girl.

Length:
The game took me around 12 hours of sustained reading to finish, but I read faster than most, so your mileage may vary with that time estimate. I will say I stalled out a bit on Hikari’s route as it wasn’t doing it for me this time.

The Other Stuff:
Okay, now for other stuff I enjoyed or disliked about the game.

The Planes. Holy shit, they looked great and as a World War 2 history buff, it was great seeing some of these planes in this setting.

The Common Route. I felt it dragged itself out for too long, there were some scenes that could have been cut out to make the routes longer, but it wasn’t unenjoyable, I just feel like the resources could have been spent elsewhere.

Saiko. WHERE IS MY MOTHERFUCKING SAIKO ROUTE.

Conclusion:

Okay, so for best to worst girl, my ranking is gonna have to be

Nahoko > Kazusa > Mimari > Hikari

I still like all the girls, but Nahoko is the superior girl in my eyes. To be honest, all of them are acceptable choices.

For favourite route, my ranking is

Kazuza > Nahoko > Mimari > Hikari

As much as I like Nahoko the most, Kazusa has the superior route.

And finally, my overall rating for Under One Wing. It’s a solid 7/10 game. A bit too short, but the art, the girls and the setting makes it an above average experience. Would recommend this one if you’re into the ‘moege’ market.

Alright, for those of you that don’t know me, I’m Space Shitler, an Australian man who reads visual novels. Because I have an abundance of free time these days, I decided to re-read some visual novels I had read in the past, but I felt as though it would be pointless if all I was doing was re-reading them. So, I decided to make reviews for them so i could justify it to myself as not a complete waste of time. So, if you care enough to be actually reading this in the first place, then i first plan on doing a review of Under One Wing which was published by Sol Press (for the English market at least) earlier this year in February. I don’t expect it will take me that long to re-read, but i have no idea when i’ll get around to finishing the review, though i’ll have it out by the end of this week. See you then.