Review of Astraythem
| Subject | Astraythem |
| By | Helpfulness: 0 Vote: 5funnerific on 2020-09-10 |
| Review | (Originally posted on Fuwanovel, this was my first big untranslated VN) The MLA vibe is strong with this one. It's not nearly as serious though. Also Tsukumo = Takeru, Hakase = Yuuko. First, the rant. The H-scenes ruin this game. Aside from mature Natsuki's second one, all of them feel unnatural. The most disturbing part is that the protagonist does it with whoever and doesn't remember his beloved sister even once while doing it. I know VNDB says this game has 5 writers, but what in the world is this inconsistency? It just got worse and worse. First the optional (and veeery painful to watch) H-scene with Mimi, then the forced H-scene with Kuurin (don't even get me started on her "route"), then child abuse of the poor and innocent 14/15 year old Natsuki (blow + anal). And after that at the age of 27/28 she says she's scared and it's her first time even though she's just a technical virgin? Please, I'm fucking done. Another major problem I have with the game is the protagonist. Just like Muv-Luv's Takeru, he's a total hetare except when it comes to fights. It's convenient that he starts with feelings towards the heroine and I didn't have to bear through generic donkanship, but that's the only good thing about it. In 95% cases he only thinks about the thing right in front of him and forgets everything else, creating the gap between the reader and the protagonist. Despite all the experience and foreshadowing he never changes and hurts the poor Natsuki over and over. Chapter 2, what did he come there to do? Save his sister. What he ends up doing is being Kuurin's pet, causing reverse NTR, a bunch of other random drama, and create yet another thing that ties Natsuki to the past. If you think about it, his goal was extremely easy so long as he succeeded in time traveling. Chapter 3, is there a single reason he shouldn't tell her he only has a few days left to live? If he only did that, everything would've been so much simpler. In the end, the bandana saving the protagonist was a massive coincidence he never planned for. Also, isn't it an asspull that Natsuki showed no symptoms for 10 years after poisoning and then all of a sudden died within less than a week? I didn't really hate that part of the plot, it just felt off. \Rant over Now for the good stuff. Love the art, except for the pig nose at close range and the over-censorship in HCGs. Having 2 "different angle" CGs for H-scenes was pretty interesting, however since most of the scenes themselves sucked it didn't really matter. Love the music, I was surprised to find myself crying at the ending of chapter 3 even though I thought it actually sucked, although there's a lot of generic and annoying SoL in chapters 1&2 and I got pretty tired of the repetitive music. Above all, I love the idea of building a long story centered on a single heroine. Games like G-senjou no Maou tagged with "Central heroine" on VNDB can't even compare in that regard. Now if only I got to play a VN built on the same concept that took itself more seriously, I'd probably love it to death. |
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