Oh man. Where to start with this.
I started this game in September, with really only one month where I didn’t touch the game (I wanted to focus on and finish Hades 2). But I think playing it over a long period of time worked in its favor, as any repetitive elements didn’t get to me for the most part. And the further in you get and the more stuff you get done (FTE, upgrades, longer routes, etc.), the quicker the game goes.
Gameplay was pretty good. I quite liked the combat system, it was relatively simple and most fights weren’t that hard, but I enjoyed the strategy behind it and the surprising amount of variety to your tactics, as well as the visuals and such. I think having the ability to skip fights you’ve done before was really smart and kept it from getting stale, it made times where you’re forced to fight a sudden jolt to the system. The exploration system was not great, but learning the ins and outs to get the most out of it was interesting.
But of course, the star of the show is the story, branching timelines, and characters. I love the concept behind this game. The base story leaves a lot of room for variation for the different routes to play with and lots of mysteries to uncover. They do not hold their punches with the decisions you have to make, often being hard to choose or bring yourself to make the tough call (which works for both the player and thematically with Takumi).
I love the variation between the routes, so many different tones, genres, and story beats to see play out, keeping you on you toes for what could be next. While routes are generally tragic, thrilling, mysterious, and dramatic, the lighter routes do a great job balancing the more serious ones tonally. The happier and comedic moments in general just do a great job balancing out the incredibly rough situations the characters find themselves in, managing to land most of its emotional, tragic, and comedic moments alike. And of course, the ways the routes interact with each other (the branching decisions and parallel leaps), and how learning something on one route usually illuminates or reframes elements from other routes, are incredibly interesting.
And finally, the characters. I love this cast. The game does a great job endearing you to this group of truly unfortunate teens. They all stand out very well, and I love their interactions with each other. Every character has at least some standout moments, they all have interesting elements to their characters, and their various arcs are great. I of course have preferences between the cast, and some characters certainly could’ve used more time to delve into their own story and arc (both in backstory/general character and on certain routes), but I don’t dislike anyone in the cast.
There are of course issues I have, some mentioned already. The game is probably longer than it needs to be, there are some inconsistencies in characters/world mechanics between the different routes (I don’t mind this too much due to different writers and most are forgivable/explainable), there are times where certain plot threads or character arcs should have been fleshed out more, I could’ve used a bit more enemy variance, the exploration mechanic is probably the least fun part of the game, and there are routes, endings, and moments that just didn’t land as well for me.
But all that being said, I adore this game. It has so much to offer. It’s so ambitious. It’s just, so special.
While it’s definitely not perfect, the pros just incredibly outweigh the cons imo, cementing it as one of my favorite games of all time.
10/10 for me.
(Also gonna put character and route tier lists in the comments).