Review of Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki
| Subject | Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki Saku Saku: Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossoms - Download Edition |
| By | Helpfulness: 1 Vote: 8.5Tenshi812 on 2024-11-02 |
| Review | I was pleasantly surprised by this visual novel. I came in with the knowledge that Konami's route was very highly regarded, but with little information on the other routes. What I found was an absolutely charming cast of heroines and supporting characters, and a protagonist with just enough flair to distinguish himself from the crowd. I particularly appreciated how each route, despite having the same general premise and arc (protagonist and heroine fall in love, face a challenge, and then overcome it to live happily ever after), felt very distinct from one another in terms of tone and type of conflict. Yuri's pure-love centric route filled me with warmth and contentment. Konami's exceptionally memorable route refuses to downplay or laugh off the unique challenges of an incestual relationship, creating a tense atmosphere that really stands out. Ann's route has a fantastic hook that pulls you straight into a route that is equal parts suspenseful and adorable. Tina's route is easily the most YMMV given that Tina is for all intents and purposes a child, but I personally found it to be cute and even a little tearjerking. My biggest negative, outside of the translation feeling a little clunky at times, is that Mio's route is genuinely terrible compared to the rest. The beginning of the route revolves around her androphobia, but the reason given for why she devolved it is absurd, and it's not resolved in a way that is particularly satisfying. More importantly, the mid-act conflict is one of the dumbest, most out-of-character overreactions to a minor offense that I have ever seen in a work of media. It feels so incredibly forced that it still pisses me off weeks after having read it. This entire paragraph exists because of how utterly let down I felt after reading it, which paradoxically likely improved my opinion of the other 4 routes that I played after on account of how staggeringly better they are than this complete flop. In summary, I would definitely recommend this route to anyone who's looking for a VN focused primarily on romance, and especially to those looking for a well-written incest route. Just skip the Mio route unless you really love childhood friend heroines. |
| 1 point |