#ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
"Y" Game Completed

Alright, so, I'mma just open with it. There's some stuff in this game that's extremely problematic. Of the 7 romance options, 5 of them are varying degrees of yikes. Two of them are your teachers. One is your stepmother. Two of them are your own daughters from the future.

That's going to be a deal breaker for most people, and I wish I had known about that going in.

Thing is though, because of the way this game is structured, you can't simply avoid these romances. Endings for most of the other routes require at least partially completing these romance routes to finish the game. In fact, in the route I chose, I was literally item-gated at the absolute end of the game and the game basically said, "Fuck you, gotta do the Stepmom Route!"

You know what though? I don't want to.

And it's really a shame, because this game does a lot of really cool stuff. It has time travel mechanics similar to Final Fantasy 13-2, where the timeline has a ton of branching paths and, using consumable tokens, you can save a point in time and return to it. In this remake in particular, the game has a lot of genuinely fantastic quality of life features that make the game a much more approachable experience. The routes are colour coded, and when the paths branch, you can follow the colours to proceed down whichever route you prefer (or are trying to complete for 100). There's also a timeline map (below) that you can open at any time, and given that the true ending is gated being 100% completion, it's a handy tool to have.

Mechanically, I think this game is incredibly interesting. If another VN has done this same kind of thing, I would definitely be interested in checking it out. The story here, too, is actually quite good, and the localization seems exceptionally well-written. There's all kinds of cool themes of ancient civilizations, the reckless pursuit of knowledge, man vs. nature, all pulled together with, at least in the route I chose (Mio - a rich princess stereotype who actually winds up being a strong-willed history buff eager to put truth before tradition), had a really cute romance story of two people bonding over a common goal.

The remake itself, as a remake... Eh. It has some problems. The QoL changes probably make it the better version for most people, and that's valid. I also really like that it features the option to choose the original PC-98 OST over the original, as I love the sound font of the original OST; it has more power to it than the remade OST. What I'm less keen on, though, is the remake's artwork - for a few reasons. In isolation, it's perfectly fine... But compared to the 90s pixel art of the original, it just kinda lacks personality. Some characters have received complete redesigns that don't quite convey the character the same way the story wants to, and that's definitely a shame. Not only that, but I frequently found that details from the original were missing in backgrounds and interactable objects that remain in the written text, leading to a handful of scenarios where the text alludes to a detail that is simple not there in the redrawn backgrounds. It's really sloppy, and the option to play the original version with the QoL additions would have been preferable.

In addition, at least on the Switch version, all nudity seems to be removed completely, with sex scenes completely removed. This isn't a huge loss, on my opinion, but I find it very strange that a game packed with taboo relationships finds drawings of boobies to be going too far. 🤔

And that's kinda the core issue with this game as a remake. It's seemingly ashamed of the original in a lot of ways, but isn't willing to make story changes that would have improved the experience overall. Had this game reworked these romance routes to be less creepy, the game would have been better for it - anime sex scenes or not. But instead, it makes changes that, at best, feel like a lateral move, while also keeping the unsavoury elements of the 1996 original. I haven't figured out how to otherwise bring it up, but the protagonist in this game, at least at the start, is a chauvinistic creep. You almost always have the option to grope or oggle women, and while these choices are optional, there is no penalty for doing so. He does grow as a person as the story goes on, but it doesn't stop any of this from being deeply uncomfortable, and in many cases, downright criminal. I can't speak to the cultural climate of 1990s Japan, but in 2017 when this remake dropped, this stuff was absolutely not okay in media.

I believe strongly that people ought to explore their sexuality, and that different people are into different things, and I hate to seem like I'm clutching pearls. But when you cross the line from sexual fantasy to acts of assault and incest... I can't defend it. I was really, really hoping I could choose to avoid the problematic stuff and at least complete this game just to say I did, but unfortunately, it's designed such that you can't. Lots of really interesting stuff in this game; lots of great ideas to build upon. But as a relic of the past, it should probably be left there.