Introduction

• This document is meant to record my thoughts on visual novels I’ve played recently. I’ll write as things come to mind, so it might seem a bit disorganized.
• The games on this list are visual novels in a broad sense, including Galgames, text ADVs, and other text-based games.
• This is purely subjective scoring. I’ll only write about what I personally found to be exceptionally good/bad about a game.
• Despite being purely subjective, I’ll explain my basic principles when scoring:
  • When scoring, I try to focus on the game’s greatest “strengths,” because I believe people play games to experience things they can’t find in other works.
  • However, if a weakness is so severe that it significantly impacts the gameplay experience, I will point it out and deduct points.
  • Furthermore, some works I might say have no particular flaws, but this doesn’t mean they’re perfect. The difficulty of telling a simple story well is completely different from telling a complex story well.
• Works with an asterisk (*) left a deep impression on me in some aspect (in a positive way). This is unrelated to the score.

Main Content

White Album 2

• Personal Review: The plot structure is well-crafted, and the characters’ psychological activities are described in great detail. It’s the most classic work in its genre.
• Pros: Its greatness needs no words. A pinnacle of anime romance works. Unprecedented and unlikely to be surpassed. The characters’ dialogue and psychological descriptions are superb. One of the few Galgames where I didn’t find the daily life boring.
• Cons:
  • To advance the plot, some of the author’s chosen scenarios are too coincidental (e.g., the male lead’s interaction with Koharu being seen by Mihoko). There’s a lot of back-and-forth between the male and female characters in the story, which gives it a K-drama vibe when these situations occur.
  • Although the Chiaki route is brilliant, many people will find Chiaki’s actions illogical. Would anyone really pretend to be in a relationship for script research?
• Rating: 10*/10

Ace Attorney 1-3

• Personal Review: The progenitor of its genre and extremely polished. This is evident in the music, sound effects, visuals, and writing. The prose is concise, with no unnecessary filler, which is particularly noticeable in the description and use of evidence.
• Pros: Its greatness needs no words.
• Cons:
  • Some cases are too coincidental/difficult to achieve. For example, hanging the cloak in the circus, and swinging across the bridge with a rope in 3-5.
• Rating: 10*/10

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

• Personal Review: Honestly, I don’t think this game should be here, as it’s a highly playable puzzle game. The game is only a little over 10 hours long, and the text portion might only account for 2 hours. But with just two hours of text, Shu Takumi managed to tell a complete story.
• Pros: TBA
• Cons:
  • TBA
• Rating: 10*/10

Full Metal Daemon Muramasa

• Personal Review: The game’s story content is as sinister as the name “Muramasa.” It’s a flawlessly produced work. The music, art, and presentation are all exquisite. The author’s control over player psychology and plot tension is exceptional. Even the daily life isn’t boring.
• Pros:
  • As a text-based game, its descriptions of combat, psychology, and environment are outstanding.
  • What’s commendable is the game’s stunning art design, especially the various battle animations.
  • The author uses a wealth of details to depict a unique and convincing world.
• Cons:
  • Personally, I feel that the Heroic Arc’s discussion of good and evil is a bit too black and white. However, this is also part of the game’s charm. Every character in this game is an embodiment of their ideology. In this situation, characters represent ideologies, and their humanity is diminished. Therefore, they might act in ways that seem “single-minded” to normal people. The author uses these character actions to explore the themes of the game.
• Rating: 9*/10

Steins;Gate

• Personal Review:
• Pros:
  • As a mystery work, Steins;Gate handles emotional scenes very well. It takes a concise premise and expands it brilliantly to tell a highly engaging story.
• Cons:
  • The pacing is slow in the early stages, but it also lays many groundwork during this slow pace. It’s not entirely filler. However, there are still many insignificant parts that could be streamlined.
  • Some individual routes feel forced. For example, in the Ruka route, after the protagonist struggles mentally, repeatedly weighing Ruka’s gender against Mayuri’s life, he chooses to maintain Ruka’s gender and abandon saving Mayuri’s life. I know this is to give all capturable characters an ending, similar to most Galgames. But the psychological shift here is too rough, leading to a poor experience. More plot should have been added in this situation to explain the reason for Rintaro’s change of mind.
• Rating: 9*/10

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

• Personal Review: Similar to 428: Shibuya Scramble in its multi-line narrative approach. However, the two differ significantly in other aspects: TBA.
• Pros:
  • Excellent multi-line narration.
  • Successfully blends ideas from multiple famous sci-fi works.
  • Numerous plot twists. Concise writing with no unnecessary filler.
• Cons:
  • The story requires playing RTS sections to unlock. It’s not that the RTS isn’t fun, but this arrangement severely disrupts the pacing.
• Rating: 9*/10

You and Me and Her: A Love Story

• Personal Review: Short and sharp story. Influential for many meta-element works that followed.
• Pros:
  • The twists in the second and third playthroughs are sudden and the emotional portrayal is very well done.
• Cons:
  • The setting of Aoi as an amalgamation of Galgame heroines feels like a deus ex machina. I think there should have been more groundwork and explanation for this core setting. Generally, players can accept broad settings without much trouble (e.g., magic, mechs), but very specific settings like this require some explanation.
• Rating: 8*/10

Mahoutsukai no Yoru (Witch on the Holy Night)

• Personal Review: This is a visual novel with no choices throughout. The length is also much shorter than typical Galgames, which means the plot is concise and never boring.
• Pros:
  • The art in this work is exquisite. The CGs have many layers and rich details. For example, the movement of clouds in the sky, and the gradual brightening of the room when a light is turned on. It’s one of the best (if not the best) games I’ve played in terms of flat art.
  • The sound design is also excellent, with rich environmental sounds accompanying the rich scenes. I was particularly impressed when the game’s opening text described “at one moment, even the sound of rain seemed to stop,” and at that very moment, the background rain sound actually stopped playing. It’s fair to say this game is meticulously crafted.
• Cons:
  • The world-building isn’t very rigorous, and the author often introduces new settings abruptly, leading some scenes to feel like a deus ex machina. Considering this isn’t a mystery, this isn’t a severe flaw.
  • I don’t particularly like the author’s writing style. Sometimes the author’s message isn’t profound, but they deliberately use obscure language to tell these not-so-profound things, making you feel like it’s profound without truly understanding it. And some parts are too stream-of-consciousness, leaving you confused. Overall, the language of Mahoutsukai no Yoru is a bit pretentious.
  • Aside from the author’s stream-of-consciousness and flashy language, the story told is actually very simple. The plot and character settings in this work are already boilerplate in anime. However, the characters’ personalities, actions, and psychological activities are not convincingly portrayed, leading to very flat characterizations.
• Rating: 8/10

Rewrite+

• Personal Review: The author’s ambition is great, trying to explore many things in one story. But the writing skill isn’t enough; besides family affection, none of the themes are well-developed. It’s not impossible to explore these themes brilliantly in such a lengthy story, but a significant amount of the narrative is wasted on boring daily life and filler, lacking proper emphasis.
• Pros:
  • Rich content, with multiple individual routes that are quite long.
  • The world-building has great potential.
  • Some plot designs are very romantic, such as the male protagonist turning into a tree.
• Cons:
  • The common route is very, very long, and even more boring than Ever17.
  • In multiple routes, the heroines’ feelings for the male protagonist lack strong foundations and are poorly written.
  • The plot is not rigorous, and many details rely on player imagination. I initially thought the Moon and Terra routes would explain things properly, but they introduced even more inexplicable plot points. There are too many examples, like how did the familiars get to the moon?
  • Some settings are too forced. The incarnation of the Earth’s will is surprisingly a human-like beautiful girl who is directly in a romantic relationship with the male protagonist. Its credibility is comparable to a god incarnating as Jesus to perform miracles.
  • Overly romanticized/unconvincing plot. Too many examples; the most obvious is in the Terra route, where the male protagonist single-handedly brings down two major organizations (even though it was previously stated that these two organizations secretly controlled the world, they were defeated by one person?).
• Rating: 7.5*/10

Senren Banka

• Personal Review: A boilerplate anime romance, with no obvious flaws compared to similar works.
• Rating: 7.5/10

WHITE ALBUM: Memories like Falling Snow

• Personal Review:
• Pros:
• Cons:
• Rating: 7/10

Air

• Personal Review: I really like the overall atmosphere of this work. It also contributed classic pieces like “Tori no Uta” and “Natsukage.” Unfortunately, this work has significant writing issues (like many Key games).
• Pros:
  • The music and art perfectly convey the summer atmosphere. To this day, when I think of summer, I recall the Air game/anime.
  • The Summer arc’s shift in perspective back a thousand years is refreshing. The Summer arc’s story itself is also quite engaging and serves as a bridge, helping the entire work interpret the theme of “legacy.”
  • The Air arc in the first half re-presents the Dream arc’s story from different perspectives, explaining some plot points. I personally like this symmetrically structured writing style.
• Cons:
  • The daily life in the Dream arc is as boring as in many Galgames, with nothing very outstanding.
  • The development of the relationship between the male lead and the heroines is roughly written; it feels like they just inexplicably fell in love/became friends. This is particularly severe in the Tohno route.
  • The first half of the Air arc is overly verbose. The first half of the Air arc presenting the Dream arc’s story from a new perspective is good. However, it makes the player read almost the exact same text again. Personally, I believe the same text should only be re-read by the player if there’s a new interpretation.
  • Overuse of monologues. In some climactic moments that require emotional expression, the game has characters express their feelings at length and with great emotion, but during this process, it’s basically one character talking endlessly (and the content of their lines is highly redundant), quickly leading to aesthetic fatigue. I personally feel that being more restrained in these parts (concise dialogue, interspersing descriptions from a third-person perspective) would make the emotional scenes more impactful.
• Rating: 7*/10

Ever17

• Personal Review: A dumpling wrapped for a single vinegar (narrative trick). The filling is so thick you bite ten times before getting to the meat.
• Pros:
  • The narrative trick was quite innovative for its time.
• Cons:
  • The common route is lengthy and requires repeated playthroughs to reach the highly praised Coco route.
  • Characterizations are somewhat stereotypical.
  • The explanation of the world-building is unconvincing (how could such a massive research facility have no intervention after an incident?).
  • Some plot points are unconvincing (being trapped in the sea but acting like it’s a picnic).
  • Some unresolved plot holes (life indicators, kick the can, etc. Different interpretations even conflict. This is because the author didn’t provide enough information, so a consensus couldn’t be reached.)
• Rating: 6*/10

ATRI -My Dear Moments-

• Personal Review: A simple story about a robot gradually developing emotions during its journey, neither exceptionally good nor bad.
• Rating: 6/10

Muv-Luv Alternative

• Personal Review: The narrative pacing is quite slow. The world-building is grand, but the actual plot feels small in scope.
• Pros:
  • The world-building is quite interesting, especially the ending’s explanation of Sumika’s abilities and the protagonist’s existence in this world, which is a revelation.
• Cons:
  • The protagonist’s personality isn’t likable. More fatally, the protagonist’s character growth is minimal throughout the entire game. From the beginning to the end, the most significant change in the protagonist is merely no longer suffering from PTSD after seeing the Beta. I can accept a protagonist who can’t bring himself to kill, but I cannot accept a protagonist who constantly talks about saving the world but hesitates to fire at crucial moments. Simply put, don’t bite off more than you can chew; don’t loudly declare you’ll save the world if you don’t have the resolve to sacrifice your comrades. Your comrades entrusted their lives to you because they believed you could save the world; don’t waste their lives.
  • The combat presentation is extremely crude, which affects the reading experience. Seeing the game’s combat visuals reminded me of when I first learned Photoshop and only knew how to use the free transform tool to move and rotate graphics. The combat in this game is the same: frequent camera cuts combined with sprite scaling, rotation, and translation. It’s supposed to be a serious situation, but it’s so jarring it makes you laugh out loud.
  • Many lengthy daily conversations that serve no purpose in character development. Even from a textual standpoint, the same things are reiterated in different ways several times.
  • The scope shrinks as the story progresses. During the coup to rescue Yuuhi, the author could convincingly explain the actions, motives, and political repercussions of multiple factions. The further it goes, the more it resembles a chuunibyou shonen manga. By the end, Operation Sakura becomes a gamble on the fate of all humanity on Earth, resting solely on the protagonist.
  • The romantic elements of the game clash with the world-building. I know the game sets up that most men have died, so the protagonist is a rare man in the military. But depicting the military as having a school romance atmosphere is simply too avant-garde. Coupled with various flirtations during training/operations, the experience is extremely poor.
  • Repetitive use of a single trope. From the mid-to-late game, it’s basically battles interspersed with daily life. And each battle’s plot design is essentially based on the same template: evenly matched -> crisis appears -> comrades sacrifice themselves for victory. In the battle after, it’s daily life and discussions with comrades about what they’re fighting for. This pattern is generally fine, the real problem lies in the poor description of combat details and the battle after the wheel-spinning discussion of trauma. If these two points were done well, readers could enjoy the details and overlook the overall repetitive pattern; if not, it quickly leads to aesthetic fatigue.
• Rating: 6/10

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Others

• Currently playing/will play in the future: 428: Shibuya Scramble.