Review of Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo YU-NO
| Subject | Kono Yo no Hate de Koi o Utau Shoujo YU-NO YU-NO - The Girl that Chants Love at the Edge of the World |
| By | Helpfulness: 2 Vote: 8.5adamstan on 2020-09-21 |
| Review | [originally published on Fuwanovel forum on 2018-09-04] I found this game to be totally amazing. The plot was great. Mind you, it's first "multiple route mystery" game that I've played, but I really enjoyed the story. I was going in order suggested in walkthrough (Mitsuki & Eriko -> Ayumi -> Mio -> Kaori -> Kanna) - which is actually the only one possible without horrendous amount of backtracking. It's awesome how the small pieces of information slowly form big picture. But then, it still all gets turned upside down in epilogue, with its many twists. Also, the idea of integrating the route system itself into the story was brilliant. From main game, I think my favourite routes were Mio and Kanna, followed by Mitsuki/Eriko route. Then there's epilogue. Actually, calling it epilogue is understatement - it is longer than some routes. Maybe "True route" would be better word choice. It presents new settings, new characters, and - at least for me - it was great. I don't know if it was the source, or if writers had same inspirations, but first part of True Route, that is Takuya's new family life had very Clannad'ish vibe to me. Whole game also reminded me story-wise of some great western point&click adventures like Gabriel Knight, Beneath A Steel Sky or Broken Sword series. Now onto the presentation. I absolutely loved the looks of this game. I'm fan of art style used here (and in some other old VNs, like "Season of Sakura" or "Nocturnal Illusion" - basically, mid '90s anime style drawing), and it looks great - especially considering, that it was made using 16 color pallette. Both sprites and backgrounds are incredibly detailed, characters have blinking animations, they are nicely shaded - simply beautiful. I'd dare to say that it's one of the best looking VNs I played, despite its technical limitations. Music is brilliant - unless you absolutely cannot stand FM synthesizer sounds. But I love it. I think that it gets even better in epilogue, which sports some of the best tunes in game. And then - voice acting. Brilliant too - and that shouldn't surprise, as there are some great actors at work here. Included among that cast are my two favourite voice actresses - Aya Hisakawa (probably best known as Sailor Mercury, or - for VN players - Haruko from AIR) and Kikuko Inoue (Belldandy from Oh! My Goddess anime and Sanae from Clannad). It's a pity that remake by 5pb doesn't have those voices - the cast is entirely new. English edition by TLWiki does great job. It's like "definitive edition" of the game, with added voice acting and additional (after-h) scenes from Sega Saturn port and HQ music from original PC-98 version. And it worked like a charm on my Win 7 laptop. Translation itself is also very good - it rivals many good commercial releases. It reads very smoothly, and there were some pretty good attempts at translating some word-play jokes. I spotted only one obvious mistranslation - at one point, Takuya has to meet with one of the characters, and they agree on 22:00 (10PM), which for some reason got translated as "22 hours". Other than that - great job, it was really good to read. The game has one serious flaw - it's literally littered with blatant fanservice. Almost every CG features pantyshot, exquisite cleavage or both - even in most serious situations, and sometimes it creates unwanted mood dissonance. On the other hand, h-scenes themselves aren't bad. There is one scene per heroine, they're rather short, and writers cared enough to give them some in-story justification ;) Also, the after-scenes (AFAIK taken from console version, where they served as h-scenes replacements) are very good, with some nice dialogues showing connection and affection between characters - even though this isn't romance game. Point'n'click gameplay can sometimes get little tedious, but it's not a dealbreaker - especially with walkthrough ;). So final score - 8.5/10, totally recommended. (if aforementioned fanservice-induced-mood-dissonance doesn't bother you, you can even raise it to 9) PS Kaori was a bitch :P Kanna best girl <3 (from main part, as epilogue turns everything on its head) That CG from Kanna's bonus happy end (unlocked after beating true route) is soooo sweet <3 Screenshot It's my personal canon True End ;) |
| 2 points |
