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Review of Cerulean Days

SubjectCerulean Days
Cerulean Days
ByHelpfulness: 0
Vote: 5
Ethman100 on 2024-10-30
ReviewA big swing and a miss is how I'd describe Cerulean Days. The people that made this had high aspirations but unfortunately, I feel that they focused on the wrong stuff. After the ending I really wanted to give it a 6 since that would be my floor for recommending VNs but, I just couldn't.

Art: Nothing really of note here. It's nice. The heroines all have multiple different sets of clothing, backgrounds are nice, CGs are okay. Not a masterpiece by any means but it's good enough, 7/10.

Music/sound effects: Yeah, I think they whiffed on the music here. I feel like half the time no music played in the first place, and while it did have a myriad of sound effects, this was a category that really needed to be up to snuff to make up for its other shortcomings. Unfortunately, it did not, and I leave it with a 5/10.

Technicals: It's basic. You get the bare minimum of settings that's just enough. There were a couple weird things I noticed (Mainly the menu music changes after a while but then reverts back to its normal theme the next time you booted it up). Not sure if that's intentional but it bugs me more than it should. Also let me just say, where the hell is the extras menu? I get this was a crowdfunding project and there's only so much capital to put into this thing but, I am highly disappointed there's no extras menu to revisit CGs and the OST (On the off chance I'm retarded and missed it, feel free to leave a comment on this review and I'll edit accordingly). Anyway, this side of things really disappointed me, 3/10.

Characters: Normally I'd have a category for H content but since it was literally just 3 scenes that didn't even last a total of 5 minutes, not even going to bother. Anyway, part of any great VN is having a good MC(s) since that's the character(s) you spend the most time with. Cerulean Days severely disappointed in that department. The MC here is basically, spineless. Basically every decision he makes is based on the influence from other heroines/characters, to the point that they almost make the decisions for him. It's like he has no control over his own life, it's all dictated by others. He has a dark backstory so I can understand it to an extent but, that's literally his personality the entire damn time.

The heroines were up and down. Rose was an absolute bore of a character, while Grace was actually cool but still somewhat boring. Severine was actually a great heroine. While Cerulean Days is unvoiced, she's the only character who I felt had a distinct personality, or a sense of self. The banter between her and the MC was actually nice to see unfold, even if it did get stale near the end of her route. MC 3/10, Rose 5/10. Grace 7/10, Severine 9/10.

Story: When you get a VN like Cerulean Days where it has a central heroine, it's still important to not leave the other heroines in the dust. Honestly, that's what I felt happened here, which I'll get into more detail momentarily. First I'll talk about the common. To put it simply, it was boring. The banter between the MC and Severine livened it up but, a lot of the interactions between characters just felt, empty, devoid of emotion. I've read few unvoiced visual novels so the lack of speaking may be part of it but, the writing just fails to keep you invested in the story, as you have to wait until Severine's route to even scratch the surface of the main plot point.

Now getting into the heroine routes, Rose and Grace just got left in the freakin dust. You read a bunch of text that has little to do with the main plot, they fall in love randomly, have a single H scene, then end. My main emotion experienced outside of Severine's route was boredom. These 2 routes were much shorter than Severine, and I think should have gotten a lot more TLC than they did (A shame cause Grace was actually a decent character). Severine's route was the one saving Grace (No pun intended) of this story. Her route was meh but it's still miles better than everything else in this VN. You actually get into the main plot point and the MC actually becomes involved for once and somewhat makes choices for himself! Then again, it was still somewhat boring. 5/10 (3/10 if not for Severine's route)

Final Thoughts: I don't regret reading this, but whoever was in charge of writing this focused on the wrong things. The main plot point of the Inre government should have been focused on a lot more than what it was, as it's pretty much in the rear view mirror until midway through Severine's route, which is near the end of the damn VN. My expectations are lower since this is the result of a small group of people relying on the kind donations of strangers to put out the fruits of their labor but, I left this work feeling disappointed. It's not downright [i[terrible[/i] but, more work and thought should have been put into Cerulean Days. 5/10, I do not recommend but, feel free to pick it up on a sale if you have absolutely nothing better to read.
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