よつのは

(Yotsunoha)

Yotsunoha was a pleasant surprise in a sea of very mid visual novels I was reading at the time. You follow a guy who is attending a meetup with old school friends after their school shut down years prior and they were split up to attend different schools. I went into this one blind and it's left an impression on me. The choice system is also a forced route approach, as opposed to different choices leading to different routes the game takes a linear approach of having to complete each girls story one after the other. You may be wondering "wouldn't that just encourage you to only complete the routes to get the girl you like most and quit after that?" or "what if I have to play a girls route I don't like just to get to the one I do like?" and yes those are valid BUT in this case you WILL fall in love with all of the girls. I went into this with my own favorite (nono) and left endeared to them all EXCEPT FOR ONE. This leads me to the only huge glaring issue to this vn.... Iori... Her character is one of the most annoying ones i've ever had the displeasure of having to witness. She's overly clingy and extremely annoying. Im assuming the creators thought her going "hoooooooooehhhhhhhh?" every five seconds in a high pitched whiney tone would be endearing but it honestly made me want to kill her with a rock. luckily if you're not doing her route she barely shows up! The other girls are well written and the mechanics of the vn/art are updated and shiny new. This is a VN where you can tell lots of love and care went into it. Worth the play if you mute it every time iori comes on.

ヨスガノソラ

(Yosuga no Sora)

Yes the VN that has the option to romance your sister. Let me explain. I played yosuga no sora out of curiosity why such a weird concept could be so beloved amongst vn fans. My first thought was to just chalk it up as "well obviously the fans are perverts" and I was really wrong. The game itself has beautiful backgrounds and music tracks that I went back to listen to a couple times, can't say i've ever cared about the backing music before but this time they were too good to ignore. The writing is very well done too. The group of friends you become a part of feel like actual friends and by the end of the VN you understand why our protagonist would be hesitant to ever lose them. It's obvious they care and they grew on me until I enjoyed it every time they'd make an appearance to pick on eachother. My favorite character is sora like many others. I don't like her because I think she's the best romance option, I like her because of how much I relate to her. She's an antisocial shut in who spends most of her time online and has a fondness for cute things. She can't socialize to save her life and often comes across as rude. Multiple times in the story she's quite bold about disliking other people. A few times I was clutching my mouth laughing because of a confrontation she'd had. A girl who's antisocial is not often depicted in media being past the point of caring what other people think, in fact she's so far gone it seems like she lives in her own world where others just do not exist. I found myself not only relating to her personally but I relate to the way she loves, we truly are two leeches. I don't think I would never watch the anime, it's obvious why it was made and im sure it won't characterize sora as well as the VN does. It's not often cute girls are ever depicted as being rude or antisocial but when they are you know I will come running.

ドラマティカル マーダー

(DRAMAtical murder)