I would say this is 3.5 - 4 ✰. I think I would have rated it at 4 outright when I finished it a few days ago, but after some thought I dropped it a bit.
This is longer than I intended, but, anyway...
Completion: 100% (All CG, endings, movies, music, memorabilia, and archives collected; all extra stories completed.)
Time to complete: TBA because it's been less than 10 days since I started it, so my Switch won't tell me yet. I really hate that feature. But... I played from 6/26/2022 - 6/30/2022. I will say that it's on the shorter side of the VNs/otome games that I've played.
Our MC is a young journalist named Teuta who has been writing a column focusing on different aspects of life in her city, New Sieg, for about a year. Her best friends are a cop named Luka and a newscaster/idol named Adam. Teuta has the ability to go back in time, but has limited control over it. She always goes back into someone else's body, and she's never gone back more than a few hours. Through some events in which she makes use of this ability, she ends up joining the team composed of all of the LIs (love interests).
I played the LI routes in the following order:
Limbo → Shu → Helvetica → Scarecrow → Mozu
From playing through Limbo's (technically the "true" LI, even though it's not as clearly defined in this game as none of the LIs are locked from the start like in some other VNs), I really liked Shu and Mozu, and didn't care much for Helvetica. I decided to do Shu's route assuming I'd like it, then get Helvetica out of the way, then do Scarecrow's because I didn't really care about his one way or the other, and save Mozu for last.
I'd have to say my enjoyment of the routes, from most to least would be:
Shu → Mozu → Limbo/Helvetica → Scarecrow
The Route Outline:
In regards to the routes themselves, without being spoilery... The common route is four chapters. We're introduced to a "big bad" that the group is working together to stop. While reading through that and making choices, you're determining your LI route, of course. There are three scenes that have a couple of different dialogue lines with whichever LI throughout the common route. (Ex. naming the cat they take in; it's different in each route based on the LI) Otherwise, the common route is mostly skippable after playing through it once.
After the common route, you enter into whichever LI's route you've determined through your choices. These routes delve into the backstories of each LI as Teuta gets to know them more deeply, and are all three relatively short chapters. However, basically the entire plot that you spent four chapters reading before this point goes entirely out the window in favor of this new plot focusing on Teuta and the LI. There is no resolution to that original plot whatsoever in any of the LI routes.
Once you have completed all five LI routes, you unlock the ending that wraps up all of those plot lines from the common route. It doesn't tie into any specific LI's route in any way, but it does explain the "big bad" that we were working to stop before love just derailed everything. After reading THAT "ending," you unlock the true ending, which is WILD and kind of out of left field. Also not sure of what exactly happens at the very end of it. There's a lot of speculation one way or the other and most fans assume a sequel is gonna go into it further.
I'm really only writing this much about how the routes work because it's the biggest reason that I knocked stars off. While it was refreshing to go through a shorter VN, I can't help but compare every single one that I play to Hakuoki (or even Code: Realize). The fact that this common route all leads up to something just to get a wrap-up AFTER all of the LI routes is just not effective. Hakuoki is insanely long, but the common route branches off depending on your choices, so you get many different scenes each playthrough even before entering the LI route. You also still go through basically all of the same MAJOR events but from different perspectives, and the overarching plot has an ending within each LI's route. I like that not every VN functions the same way, but it's hard not to compare when I would finish a route in this game, and then just set it to skip through the entire common route and go clean my house, only coming back to click on choices every so often.
A bit about the LIs and why I liked their particular routes:
Shu: Bounty hunter, hitman of sorts. They could easily have made him the stoic, closed off, stereotypical brooding type, but he's generally pretty mellow and actually made a lot of scenes more humorous with his deadpan responses and exasperation over other personalities. His story and emotions had some good depth and I felt like his actual connection with Teuta was one of the strongest portrayals in the game. Also, the cat likes him a lot.
Mozu: Chief coroner, definitely neurodivergent in some way. Again, they could have made him strictly cold and emotionless and do the whole "finding emotions!!!" thing, but his portrayal was actually kind of fascinating. He understands emotions just fine, and there was one scene in another route where he clearly expressed displeasure if whichever LI made Teuta upset because she was his friend. He is, however, very direct in his speech and in how he approaches things, so he can come across as cold, though not cruel. He doesn't express himself very well, but he's very considerate of others. And, the cat likes him a lot, haha. His route was heartbreaking in a lot of ways, which was unexpected. It wasn't the strongest, but it got me the most emotional.
Limbo: Lawyer, cheerful defender of justice. His route has a solid enough story, and Limbo as a character is also solid. He's dependable and friendly. Very much a typical good male lead.
Helvetica: Plastic surgeon, bully. Disregarding my or your personal thoughts on plastic surgery, Helvetica is the fuckboy character, and basically his first meeting with Teuta is him giving her a "score" of 62 points. That left an immediate bad taste in my mouth. His route, however, had a lot of depth to it. He had a really interesting past and the different topics that were addressed were done so pretty tastefully. Still not the guy for me.
Scarecrow: The team's techy, goofy shut-in. He's the youngest of the guys and is into Teuta immediately, always getting flustered over everything. He's a sweety, but I feel like the sweet, goofy character has just been done better. His story wasn't bad--it was actually pretty heartfelt in some ways--but it left the smallest impression on me.
Other thoughts:
There are a number of trigger warnings for this game -- drug addiction/recovery, mental health, suicide, SA (kind of implied in one of the extras, NOT from one of the LIs). I think it was actually handled REALLY well for the most part. They were not just glossed over or thrown out haphazardly; they were issues that were deeply addressed within the plot and also approached as "this is something that will require time and recovery," not just the MC announcing she'd fix them or make it all better with a proclamation of love.
Teuta herself. I think she's one of the best MCs in a VN that I've played. She's fully voiced and depicted, which is a move in more recent VNs that I am super grateful for. (I know the original intent was for the player to kind of immerse themselves into the MC's place, but I prefer them to have their own voice and face like the protagonists of other media.) She's independent, gives shit right back to the dudes, banters really well with them, and thinks critically. It's not a lot of "oh, what should I do" every five seconds, and I breathed so many sighs of relief when she realized something about another person's intentions that in most other games/manga/whatever would lead to three hours/volumes of misunderstandings. Her time travel ability is kind of gimmicky and it's never explained how she figured out she had it. I'm kind of whatever about that, though; it's not really a downside in the experience for me.
None of the music was really memorable. It wasn't bad, just...nothing stood out. The backgrounds were nice, but again, nothing spectacular. I felt like there could have been more. One in particular was used for whenever someone entered the house, for someone outside Teuta's room, outside like two other people's rooms, and there's literally a hall and one door. It made it hard to visualize the layout.
I think this is everything. I honestly enjoyed my time with this game and was pleasantly surprised with their treatment of some sensitive topics, and very happy with Teuta as an MC. I just really struggle with the choice to design the routes the way that they did, as each LI route was practically a separate entity from the rest of the story.
Edit to add one thing: There's a lot of dialogue with no subtitles during scene changes. You can pull up the log to see them, which is nice. There are also times when characters in the background or multiple relevant characters will say something at the same time, and you can pull up the log to see all of that. It makes things feel a little more real. The only time this was an issue was with the final/true ending, which has like two minutes with no subtitles, and then ends and takes you to the menu, so there's no log to access. I had to look up translations.
