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Review of Sugar * Style

SubjectSugar * Style
ByHelpfulness: 0
Vote: 4.9
gerhakiki on 2021-05-14
ReviewSummary:

Sugar * Style is a plotless moege (moe game) made by Smee in a similar vein as their prior VN (visual novel), Making * Lovers. You’re better off staying away from this VN, especially if you don't really like plotless moege or moege in general. It isn’t offensively bad by any means, it is just boring and unremarkable; there are better VNs to read using your limited time on Earth.


The premise and a bit about the story:

The premise of Sugar * Style is that the main character, in the course of attending a vocational university, ends up living in a dorm where all the other residents are female. Hijinks and romance ensue (yes, the protag falls headfirst into a woman’s breasts, among other trite occurrences). In the university, the protagonist is enrolled in the so called 'creator's field'; we primarily see him studying the digital music course related to that field.


Characters:

The characters are definitely the strongest aspect of Sugar * Style, relatively speaking. While they’re mostly one dimensional, they do have some depth to them sometimes, and more importantly, they’re entertaining. Though the protagonist is unremarkable and the other characters found him annoying, I didn’t mind him since he often was funny or his actions led to comedic situations. He was also relatively self aware, a welcome attribute.

A very common issue in VNs in general is annoying characters that are supposed to just be annoying for the characters in the visual novel, but end up grating on the reader as well; this VN did not have this issue. I did not like that the protagonist's male friends were relegated to being joke characters of no import, but that is common for this genre.

The four heroines seem to have clear aims in mind as they attend the academy to study something in particular. Kaname studies the piano, Hare studies tennis, Mao studies childcare and child education, and Ichika studies baking. Personally, I thought Kaname was the funniest heroine so I liked her the most, but the other heroines were not bad either, even though the quality of their routes differed quite a bit.


Main issues and heroine routes:

The main problem with Sugar * Style is that it, intentionally or unintentionally, sets so many things up, things that have the potential to make for interesting if not particularly novel stories, but it doesn’t even try to follow through on them. It feels like the creators of this VN were just relying on the waifu factor and escapism that this product would provide to a target audience and did not even try to write a good story as a result. There are few things more boring than just a successful love story.

On top of that the visual novel just doesn't do enough with the university setting. I don't recall reading about any of the characters doing homework or studying at home, Kaname does not own a keyboard for practicing at the dorm, etc. The VN had time to detail inane scenes such as one about installing a bidet, but it apparently did not have time for scenes that would have fleshed out the setting and made it more believable.

One of the major issues with the routes is as follows:
Each heroine has a clear goal in mind that they’re attending the university to achieve, while the protagonist does not. The protagonist is very aware of how malleable he is and mentions that in an inner monologue early on, so you would expect that the protagonist would align or adjust his goals to match those of whichever heroine’s route he is on for all routes but no, that doesn’t happen. I’ll be exploring some of these instances route by route and how potentially things could have been easily done better for each of them. I'll evaluate the routes in order of worst to best.


In Hare’s route, they don’t really address her main hang up of pitying her opponent to her own detriment and throwing her matches as a result, and while that might be considered more realistic, they didn’t approach it from a realistic angle and it felt very unsatisfying to read, especially after setting up what seemed like an obstacle for her to surmount. In the end of this route, the protagonist becomes a clerk at a tennis club and while there is nothing wrong with that, he does it for the stupid reason of wanting to see her play. He could have easily chosen another profession that would have achieved a similar result while being a more logical progression and relevant to the story and setting. This is the worst route, even though Hare isn't a bad character.

In Kaname’s route, the protagonist could have gotten into piano since he started taking piano classes due to Kaname and he could have integrated that into music production, but no, that doesn’t happen. Even though Kaname paid for her own education to be able to learn the piano better, the piano has essentially no bearing on her route. There were so many things the writers could have done here, have her struggle with her lack of talent for the piano and balancing it with her other artistic endeavor, have the protagonist learn the keyboard so he could better use a Digital Audio Workstation (software that he talks about at the start of the VN, by the way), etc. If Kaname weren’t an entertaining character her route could have easily been the worst.


Mao and Ichika’s route handle the aforementioned issues much better. Mao’s route still has the problem of the protagonist not aligning his goals with those of Mao’s even though the VN sets that up by having him attend those classes, him interacting with Mao’s siblings, and Mao saying he may be better at childcare than she is. I consider Mao’s route on par with Kaname’s.

Ichika’s route is easily the best one and the one I have the least issues with. It still doesn’t explore her low self-esteem enough, but it does not have any of the issues I raised regarding the prior routes. It seems that they spent more effort in Ichika’s route since along with having the most plot out of any of the other routes, and it has an important side character that receives a sprite. This route is similar to a certain someone's in a VN by Smee. If all of the other routes were of the same level as Ichika's, this could have easily been a VN worth a score of 5-6.


Production quality (art, music, and voice acting):

The voice acting is good. The delivery really makes the dialogue more believable, and the jokes a lot funnier. This isn't a major plus point for this VN, since voice acting is rarely an issue even with badly written VNs. Good voice acting is pretty much the norm for Japanese productions.

The music is utterly unremarkable. I remember almost nothing of it despite having finished the VN very recently; it made no impact on me. This is kind of ironic since it has two main characters involved in music. It’s a shame that this VN does not leverage the one of the greatest strengths VNs have over text media.

The art is good when it's there, but I feel like Smee skimped on the CGs and sprites. A lot of situations where a CG would be warranted don’t have them. The majority of the more important side characters just don’t have sprites, which is common and normally understandable, but when you combine it with them skimping on the CGs as well, it is really noticeable.


Conclusion:
I would suggest avoiding this due to the issues I highlighted. It isn’t so outright bad that it has no redeeming qualities, but there are much better VNs out there to read. This VN is essentially Making * Lovers in a university setting with a lower production quality and less contrivances, and Making * Lovers was hardly a masterpiece itself. If you want something like this and are OK with (sometimes very silly) drama, I would suggest reading something by tone work's.
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